Frequently Asked Questions

That is absolutely fine. Halare may still be of help to you. We not only carry out development work, but also help in conceptualisation and specification of technical projects. We have extensive experience in helping organisations create specifications which accurately reflect their needs and wishes.

As well as this, we have helped managed development projects carried out by internal development teams and trained staff in "best practice' methodologies and in 4D programming.

If you have an internal team which you want to ensure you get the best out of overall or for a specific project, contact us to see how our services may benefit you.

You can use the built in reporting feature in the application in question (please see the documentation).

Alternatively use your own e-mail application and e-mail your request to our Database Support .

Please include information on the version, OS details and 4D version if appropriate.

Rapid Applications Delivery is an approach to application development that aims to deliver business solutions of acceptable quality more quickly and cheaply than traditional methods.

Points often associated with RAD:

• RAD is an approach not a methodology
• Uses a combination of techniques and tools
• User-centred design
• Focuses on identifying important users

Success and quality is achieved by using small teams, ensuring effective communications and clear deadlines for each stage.

It's primary purpose is to reduce costs and reduce development time. In practice it lends itself to data processing applications but is not very suitable for OS or games development.

Halare's preference for 4D is because it is a RAD (Rapid Application Development) tool and allows database applications to be developed faster and cheaper than using tools such as C, C++ or, in our experience, some other applications classed as RAD such as VisualBasic.

4D has a strong GUI interface allowing complex forms to be designed easily and quickly, with all the requirements of modern operating systems, such as menus and buttons.

Behind all this it have a powerful and flexible language, giving greater control than using scripting or macros.

It is also a true cross-platform development environment, allowing you to code once and deploy the database on MacOS, MacOSX, Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows NT.

It is scalable and a developed application can be implemented as a stand-alone database or run as a server (using 4D Server). And as a bonus, the server can be accessed by different operating systems.

Add to this it's open architecture which allows plug-ins and components (which can give you additional facilities such as connection to ORACLE) and it's built in web server, and it makes it (we think) unbeatable as a development tool.

A web hosting provider hosts your Web site by placing it on a computer (also called a "server") which are designed specifically to host Web sites. Servers are directly connected to the Internet backbone on fast communication links (much like phone lines, only these lines are bigger, and carry digital data, instead of voices). You can purchase or hire a dedicated computer to host your site (Dedicated Hosting), but this can be very expensive.

Alternatively you can "share" a server with several other sites. This is called Virtual Web Hosting and refers to the process of running multiple "virtual" web servers on a single physical host computer. This can keep the cost of running an individual web-site down.

The more you know about what you need, the easier it will be to choose your package. Look at the list of available features for each package and see if you need them. You can always start with the lowest package and upgrade if you find your needs are greater. This way your costs are lower and you will only pay for what you use.

For a small site with not so much traffic, not so much. Your needs in this case can be met with 10 to 100 MB of disk space and 1 to 10 GB of data transfer per month. (Be aware that movie and sound files will eat up a lot of disk space and bandwidth.) If your web site is text-based, you needn't worry about this technical stuff - text takes almost no space at all - not even really big font sizes!

Web hosting accounts that host file distribution (including but not limited to music, video and software) are limited to a maximum data transfer of 25 GB per month for file distribution.