Letter from the President

Greetings!
As we look forward to a successful 2007, I'd like to welcome you to the January/February issue of ASNA Edge, our bimonthly newsletter. We've combined great technical information with down-to-earth stories about what companies are doing with ASNA technologies and who the people are behind those companies.
This month you'll want to be sure to read the special note we've included for you about daylight savings time.
We'll also reveal the story of Holter, a 133-year-old plumbing fixtures wholesaler in Austria, and how they've used ASNA Visual RPG to evolve their IT systems.
And this issue is jam-packed with all of the superb educational content you've come to expect, including an article about Monarch and two technical tips.
This newsletter’s primary purpose is to help you maintain your ASNA Edge. We hope you'll stay in contact with us and tell us what you’re doing and how we can help you further. If you have story ideas or would like to be featured in our “Getting to Know…” article please contact Colleen Pence at colleen.pence@asna.com.
Welcome to 2007! I wish you much prosperity, health and happiness this year.
Sincerely,

President of ASNA
A message about daylight savings time
Read this important information to ensure your computer equipment complies with recent changes to Daylight Savings Time.
Full story.
Holter Verwaltungs GesmbH
"Understanding the Possibilities" with ASNA Visual RPG

Holter Verwaltungs GesmbH, based in Wels, Austria, is a wholesaler of plumbing fixtures and materials with more than 400 employees, annual revenues of €100 million, and 133 years of history. Having successfully navigated nearly a century and a half of technological and economic changes, Holter remains a family business, now in its fifth generation, with a strong commitment to its staff and a forward-looking management approach. Today, in order to maintain its position as a leading plumbing fixture wholesaler in Austria, the company is evolving its IT systems with ASNA products. With ASNA Visual RPG for Microsoft .NET (AVR) as its development platform, Holter maintains a modern corporate image, gains enhanced internal agility, and preserves and leverages valuable IT and human resources.
Full story.
Monarch 3.0
How to customize command keys and implement custom buttons
A Display File's DDS source is migrated by Monarch to an .aspx web page, and by default command keys are rendered as buttons. This article shows how migration developers can design a richer, more attractive interactive presentation by employing various Monarch 3.0 and ASP.NET features.
Full story.
Getting to Know...

Tim and Richard Hicks
From time to time, ASNA Edge features customer profiles. The intent of these customer profiles is to show a more personal side of our customers. Let's take a minute to get to know the father and son team of Richard and Tim Hicks.
Full story.
AVR for .NET Tech Tip #1
Working with dates with AVR for .NET
AVR offers three instrinsic date/time data types:
- *Date - date only
- *Time - time only
- *TimeStamp - date and time (to the millisecond)
All three of these AVR data types resolve to the .NET Framework's System.DateTime data type. Therefore, all of the members offered by the System.DataTime data type are available for use through the AVR data type synonyms (more on these in a moment).
Full story.
AVR for .NET Tech Tip #2
Import from XML into a DataGate file with AVR for .NET
XML is starting to live up to its initial hype and truly be ubiquitious. Now that more and more vendors and business partners are passing XML around like it was a cheap bottle of wine at a campfire, the need to process XML with AVR is quickly growing.
Full story.
ASNA Education Schedule and One-day Technical Seminars
ASNA’s 2007 seminar dates have been announced. Click here for dates and details on our complete 2007 seminar schedule.
We've also planned several of our one-day technical seminars coming to a city near you in 2007. These exciting seminars show you the powerful solutions you and your team can create with ASNA's .NET technologies. Click here for dates and details on our one-day seminars.