More proof that we gave you the easiest way ever to win an Asus Transformer Prime or iPad 2!

A couple of weeks ago, we wrapped up our commenting contest by picking our winner, Richard Polits. As promised, Richard received his choice of prize, the Asus Transformer Prime this past Friday.

Richard let us in on the big moment when he unwrapping his Asus, and gave us a little more background on himself and his experience with Alpha. Take a look at the un-boxing video here:



We love how Richard got into specifics when he spoke about his trial with Alpha, because that's the reason we created a contest for new developers only -- to strengthen the Alpha community with a variety of feedback. Thanks, Richard! Enjoy!

Want to hear what the rest of our entrants think are the most important features in a universal development platform? Stay tuned, because we're at work analyzing all 300 answers that we'll be breaking down here on the blog.

Jim Dusoe weighs in on Computerworld's "The New Rules for Enterprise Apps"

Computerworld recently took the opinion of our own Jim Dusoe when it comes to enterprise apps. Reporter Minda Zetlin wrote a feature piece, "The New Rules of Enterprise Apps," on what it takes for companies to generate relevant and user-friendly apps, and Jim was among the experts she interviewed for the article.

Jim speaks on the importance of real-time data and data visualization, and his opinion joins others from around the industry.

Take a look at the full article to hear the rest of the "new rules for enterprise apps."

The art of web scaling

Talk to any business person and they'll probably tell you that there's no such thing as too much web traffic -- everybody wants more. That is, until their site crashes because it can't scale.

To help developers and their clients alike understand the intricacies of web scalability, our own Martin Heller,Vice President of Education and Technology, penned a two-part series for TechNewsWorld that dives into web scalability and how to maximize it. The first part of the series ran yesterday, so we waited until the conclusion was up this morning to share it with you today.

Part 1: What It Means and How to Get There 

Part 2: The Metrics of Measuring

Thanks to TechNewsWorld for featuring Martin's thoughts. Did these articles help give you a better understanding of website scaling? Let us know in a comment!

Why a Microsoft Access shop chose Alpha for its web application development

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The feedback we get from our developers is our secret weapon. Compliments and complaints alike pave the way for the next version of Alpha.

Robin Bennett is the director of Start Software, an award-winning, U.K.-based software hosting company that trades in a variety of industries. Currently, it is the U.K.'s leading software developer in the asbestos consultancy market, and it is in the process of developing and managing projects that have a web element to them. Robin is a self-proclaimed Microsoft Access developer and supporter who started recently with Alpha Five Version 10.5, so I was really curious to see how Alpha has been working out for him. After we spoke, Robin allowed me to share his findings here.

Although Start Software is traditionally a Microsoft shop, Robin and his team found that Microsoft Access just didn't fit the bill when it came to all of their web-based projects. They were also facing a major SharePoint integration at the time, so it didn't take much to decide to look for another development platform.

"So it's the web that's really changed things, and although we've been really happy with Microsoft Access as a desktop development platform, when most of our systems that we're developing needed to be web enabled, actually it just wasn't doing it for us at all. But really when Access 2010 required the use of SharePoint for its web development work, that was when I started to look around for a better product for targeting the web," says Bennett.

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Alpha psychology: Simplifying parent-child relationships

If you've just arrived here from Google, let me give you this disclaimer: This is not about your mother. 

Master-detail relationships (also known as parent-child) are central to the majority of data-driven applications, so it was an obvious target for improvement when we started Alpha Five Version 11.

In our earlier versions, you can model master-detail relationships using multiple grids. You'd have one for the master and one for the detail, and then you'd embed the detail grid into the master. This works, but it has its drawbacks. A major one is that you would have to use multiple submit buttons -- one for each grid.

We needed to create one screen for the developer that looks exactly like your invoice (or whatever else you're looking to build) with a single submit button that allows you to enter or edit the data as a single, logical form. Now, with Alpha Five Version 11, you can create web-based screens that look exactly like the forms that you have in mind.

The new dialogue's single submit button will automatically save data to the master table and every detail table at once, all wrapped into a single transaction. And the best past is: No coding is required on your part!

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Proof that we gave you the easiest way ever to win an Asus Transformer Prime or iPad 2!

We tapped into the developer universe last month to get an answer to a question that's been on our minds since we started working on Alpha Five Version 11: What are the most important features in a universal development platform?

We wanted honest feedback that we've never heard before, so we decided to ask non-Alpha developers for their two cents by inviting them to answer our latest commenting contest. The contest drew in a whopping 300 developers! The answers were thought-provoking and gave us a lot of ideas on how to keep improving Alpha Five.

Since the contest closed, we've been compiling the data, so stay tuned here for a full analysis of the responses.

The winner, who we picked randomly in the video below, will take home his choice of one of the hottest tablets on the market today, the iPad 2 or the Asus Transformer Prime. Can't take the suspense anymore? Click the video below to see who's taking home the prize!

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Alpha Five Version 11 Feature Peek #33: Eliminate vacant values by calling a dialogue component from a grid

In this video, Selwyn talks about calling a dialogue component from a grid, and then passing that information from the dialogue back to the grid. This is a design patent that's common in Alpha Five Version 11, so we're happy to be giving it a feature peek debut.

Selwyn has constructed a simple example grid to get us started. It consists of a list of customers, showing their first and last names, as well as a customer ID number. By pressing the open dialogue button to the right of each name, you'll be able to open a dialogue in a drop-down window and enter a specified value. Then, clicking the set value in grid button will allow the value to be automatically entered into the current row of the grid.

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