dbQwik™MySSH v 1.0 – Debut of Secure MySQL SSH connection.

This week we introduce a brand new member to the dbQwik™ family of products. dbQwik™MySSH is a SSH client, highly specialized for working with your MySQL connections. What is SSH? SSH is a secure encrypted protocol for internet communications. Using dbQwik™ MySSH, ensures that all data exchanged between your PC and your MySQL host remains private and protected from eavesdropping hackers. There is another advantage to using dbQwik™MySSH, that is being able to connect to remote MySQL servers even when these servers block the standard remote connection on port 3306. If your hosting allows SSH connections, you can use dbQwik™ SSH to connect, and dbQwik™MySSH will proxy all your MySQL traffic through its secure connection.

What makes dbQwik™MySSH different than other SSH clients? Most SSH clients are general purpose utilities that require that you learn and understand how to set it up and configure it using cryptic commands. dbQwik™MySSH is highly specialized to work with MySQL and MyODBC. It provides a beautiful graphic interface that allows you to instantly see exactly which connections are using SSH and which ones are not. dbQwik™MySSH takes care many of the settings and configuration set up, so you only have a few fields to enter to establish your SSH connection. There simply is no easier way to connect to MySQL using SSH.

dbQwik™MySSH is available for download from our software store: www.TheDevShopOnline.com. There is a free trial version. The trial has a limited connection time. You can buy the full version for only $19.95.

dbQwikReport 1.3 Vista Ready

Today we release dbQwikReport version 1.3. It is a both an important release, and a boring release. It is important in that, it is now compatible with windows Vista, and boring in that there no great new features for me to write about.

Anyone already using Windows Vista, or planning a move to Vista, can rest assured that their investment in dbQwik products is a sound one. dbQwikSite, dbQwikReport and dbQwikEdit all will run on your Vista machine. Only one left to migrate: dbQwikSync Pro and you should expect that one shortly.

There is one significant enhancement in dbQwikReport 1.3. It is a bug fix, of sorts. Actually the bug is with Microsoft ADO, it simply will not handle MySQL Timestamp data types. So, our fix is that we catch the error, and we allow you to continue designing, but without any data in your preview. When you deploy to PHP/MySQL all your data will appear. There are a couple important things to note here. It is far better to use DateTime data types in MySQL if you want your tables to be accessible by any tools that are based on MS ADO, technology (like the dbQwik Products and ASP). The resulting data storage is the same. Users of dbQwikSite should note that we have not fixed this issue yet in dbQwikSite… so best to avoid Timestamps in MySQL all together.

dbQwikReport 1.3 is a free upgrade available via live update. You access live update from the help menu of the program.

While we are on the topic of technical “stuff” and version numbers there is an important tidbit I have to share with you. I was using dbQwikEdit on my laptop lately. I could not believe how unstable it was; no matter what I did it seemed to go wrong. After firmly scolding all the developers with harsh words about quality and the likes, I was asked the question:
“What database?”
“MySQL, and we are supposed to support it! Nothing new here folks!” I retorted.
“What version of myODBC are you using?”
“I just updated maybe a couple weeks ago, 3.51.14.0” was my reply as my confidence began to fade.
“Can you try 3.51.15.0?”

I returned to my desk, and about 2 minutes, later I was both humbled and happy. It was like dbQwikEdit had magically transformed from a “clunker” to a “cool tool”. I learned two things: 1) go easy on the staff and 2) make sure that my ODBC drivers are stable. I share this with you in case anyone out there is using myODBC 3.51.14.0. and thinking: hey, the TheDevShop software doesn’t work at all. Please, please upgrade your myODBC to 3.51.15! It will make a major difference and bring serenity to your query building.