Author Archive

Peter D. Varhol

Digital Government

Visual Basic edition opens ActiveX for all users

One of the most difficult assignments for a PC programmer is to produce working ActiveX controls. Microsoft announced ActiveX as the replacement for Object Linking and Embedding, and for months afterward hardly anyone outside the company could get an ActiveX control to work. Microsoft's Developer's Studio gave plenty of examples, but it seemed only a sharp C++ programmer could produce properly functioning controls.

  • By Peter D. Varhol, GCN
Digital Government

Internet Phone takes you from chat room typing to real chatting

Internet Phone 4.0 is one of several software packages that digitizes audio and converts it to packets for conducting conversations across the Internet. The packages can deliver online directories and electronic whiteboarding with the bonus of drastically reduced long-distance charges-but only sometimes. For this kind of telephony to work well, all the callers must be permanently connected to the Internet, which is pretty unrealistic today.

  • By Peter D. Varhol, GCN
Digital Government

Mastering PowerBuilder 5.0 is tough but worth the effort

PowerBuilder, the premier environment for rapid development of database front ends and standalone applications, has a steep learning curve for novices. But important new features in Version 5.0 for Microsoft Windows, set for release early next month, make the scholarship worthwhile. PowerBuilder 5.0's visual tools deliver power and flexibility not found anywhere else. There's a source-code control system, a rich text format editor, an object repository and comprehensive support for Object Linking and Embedding 2.0

  • By Peter D. Varhol, GCN