Uwe Hale's Programming page

Visits since January 14, 1996:

It's more than just a job, it's fun too.

I still can't believe they actually pay me this much for something I enjoy doing.

I've been programming since I was around 15. Started with a Commodore 64 hooked up to the TV. As soon as I got past puberty, I dropped BASIC and moved on to real languages like all good programmers do. Learned all the Mainframe junk (assembler, JCL, CoBOL, CICS..) in College and havn't touched it since. I taught myself C and C++ and have never looked back. I learned Borland's OWL which makes even Windows programming fun (Really!).

I tried going back to school to get my Bachelor's but couldn't find a local school that taught anything that had been used within the last decade. Most traditional schools just cannot keep up with the pace of technology. I tend to buy lots of books and hang out on Compuserve's BCPPLIB, BCPP, CASEFORUM, and DDJFORUM forums to learn anything new.

I had worked for various defense contractors, such as Martin Marietta, Network Solutions, and PRC, for ten years. I wrote data collection and reduction programs for the U.S. Army's Test and Experimentation Command (TEXCOM) in support of tests such as M1A2 and Task Force XXI.

As of April 1996, I left the defense contracting world behind and am trying out the commercial sector. I am now working for Information Systems Integration & Services, Inc. (ISIS), the leader in Client/Server Multimedia Document Information systems. I also do work on the side (not for food, but still cheap!).

Well ISIS did not work out. Empty promises and lack of management skills forced me to leave. If you want things done right, you gotta do them yourself. So at the beginning of June, I started contract programming. I am working on real time control software for a large industrial sorting machine to be deployed by a major greeting card manufacturer. Very interesting work. I'm getting real good experience with NT, threads, and sockets.

Some of My Code:

Most of this was thrown together quickly or created as proof of concept code. Therefore, if you find problems or have suggestions, please let me know.

tsplash.zip - TSplashButton (.h, .cpp)
OWL 256 color Bitmap button. Create a button in resource workshop. Select it as owner drawn. Use it instead of TButton in your dialogs constructor, passing it an additional TResId to a bitmap or a filename and you've got yourself a sizeable,clickable picture on your dialog. Can be scanned into ClassExpert for modification.
bitbn.zip - BitmapButton (.h)
Quick and dirty OWL 16 color sizeable Bitmap button. Similar to TSplashButton but without the overhead of 256 colors. All code is inline in header.
odbutton.zip - TODButton (.h, .cpp)
OWL Owner drawn button. Good example of simple owner drawn code. Allows for different color background. Very easy to modify for different color text.
sstexcom.zip - SSTexcom (.scr, .hlp)
Texcom screen saver I accidentally wrote for my employer while trying to figure out Window DCs. Two floating, bouncing, transparent bitmaps of TEXCOM and OPTEC logos.
sssource.zip - unzip with -d to create help subdirectory
OWL source code for TEXCOM screen saver. It includes a really neat sprite class that I got from an unknown author. Compatible with App/ClassExpert.
lanid.zip - LanId (.vbx)
Visual Basic static control to retrieve the login id from NetWare 3.x, 4.x. Requires the nwcalls.dll that should be in your windows/system directory.
dbbase.zip - dbbase (.h, .cpp, +test files)
C++ wrapper for Sequiter's Codebase xBase 'C' library. Requires that you already have Codebase 5.1. Dbbase has default defines to work with dBase IV format files. This class has been tested under dos, windows, and hp-ux(Codebase portability libs). If you have questions or need help, drop me a note.
cparse.zip - cparse (.h, .cpp, +test files)
C++ class for parsing files and records by column or tokens. This class has been tested under dos, windows, and hp-ux.

Uwe Hale's Programming page

It's more than just a job, it's fun too.

Some of My Code:

Other Programming Links: