software

More and more, enterprises make use of Open Source software. Why is this a good idea for your company as well?

Many people are scared to do the move. The result is very costly. When you use proprietary software, each time you need an upgrade, you need to pay for it. And in most cases, it is not just once, but a number of times equal to the number of computers you own or the number of staff that use the software. A $200 software may sound really cheap. But if you have 1000 staff, it makes it $200,000.

This is of course very good business for the vendors. However, many small companies just ...

Made to Order Software now uses the ODBC library with its modb library (which is part of our molib product.) Unfortunately, it is not only written in C, it generates many errors. Actually, every single function has the potential of returning an error. For this reason, using the C interface is simply not a safe option.

For this reason, Alexis Wilke, our CEO, wrote an C++ wrapper called odbcpp. It encapsulates all the necessary ODBC calls to access any ODBC compatible database.

The odbcpp library ensures the proper management of all the resources for you. It allocates and frees the handles as ...

Many C++ programmers have been C programmers first. Therefore, a lot of times, you find statements written this way:

ptr = new type;

if(ptr == 0) // handle error...

This is a C programmer that does not yet know that the new operator will throw an error if the allocation cannot happen. This makes a lot of sense, but what does that mean to the C++ programmer?

Today I had a problem with one of our computers. It did not want to boot. The boot loader is called GRUB. Most Linux distributions now use GRUB which is much more advanced than LILO and some other boot loaders.

GRUB is great for several reasons:

We are proud to announce that Order Made!® now has its very own site. We have been working on it for the past two months and we are sure you will like it!

With Order Made!® patrons place their food orders Online for pre-order, pickup, or delivery. And best of all, as the restaurant owner, you do not even need to have a computer!

The new site is full of information about Order Made!® such as available features and how it works. It also includes an easy to use registration form and the restaurant owner log in screen (the one you use to manage your restaurant online.)

Please, feel ...

Made to Order Software Corporation is proud to announce the 1.3 release of Turn Watcher, an Initiative and Effects Tracker... and more!

Version 1.3 includes many bug fixes making the interface run faster especially with a large number of combatants.

Also, we added support to display a second window with the characters and monsters. Window that you can show to your users on a second monitor! The Heads Up Display or HUD is a window with limited viewing so you can show what you choose to show to your players.

Turn Watcher is supported on all of the following systems:

• Microsoft Windows ...

Made to Order Software created a new software package to support the eFax protocol using PHP.

eFax® is a strong and still growing company providing a very fast and reliable system to send faxes cheaply nearly anywhere worldwide. Their system works with the Internet and thus is accessible to your website.

PHP is a powerful language used to program Internet Websites. It has many features to handle dynamic pages as required by today's corporate world. PHP comes with very many free libraries and also many enhancements offered by companies.

Made to Order Software combined both: the eFax ...

The software engineers at m2osw have been hard at work developing and testing the next major release of Order Made!®, version 1.7 that has an incredible new feature! Order Made! is a premier turn key website for patrons of restaurants to place their orders online.

Recently, Wayne Mok of the New Rice Bowl Restaurant in Carmichael, CA told us that the best thing about Order Made! is that it keeps he and his wife off the phone. They love to cook, and talking on the phone is often difficult and time consuming. But for delivery orders, Wayne told us they were still spending time on the phone ...

This is a subject that comes back all the time in C/C++ boards.

Should you use assertions?

The answer is clearly yes. But the C/C++ assert() function is usually defined using a macro. Macros have several problems. The most common ones are: they offer no type checking, they do not warn you about weird side effects, they have a different syntax than the C/C++ language itself.

One good thing: for a fast program, the debug code used to check parameters, results, etc. is gone.

One really bad thing: if the expression in the macro has a side effect, the release program is different from ...

John Barakazian—owner of lunchtime hot-spot Café Dolce in Rancho Cordova, California—was looking for a way to make it easier for his customers to place orders for the busy lunch rush. m2osw Vice President Doug Barbieri suggested a system where busy office workers could place orders in advance using the Internet so their food could be ready and waiting for them. Made To Order Software then developed Order Made!®, and now the Café Dolce website features a new link to the fast, secure, and easy to use Order Made!® System.

With Order Made!® customers can ...