DMC has many traditions, and one is that every new employee gets their own welcome party. With eight people in my new hire group, we decided to combine some of our parties into a mega welcome party. John, Kirsten, and I thought the best way to see Chicago was on the Wendella Lake & River Tour, an architectural adventure which wraps around the Chicago River and then takes you through the lock onto Lake Michigan near Navy Pier for views of every part of downtown.  Delicious Eats ...

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When you work for an ever-growing company, it can be hard to find time to get to know everyone you work with. In an effort to bring employees closer together (and to have fun), DMC supports employee-planned activities with a monthly activity fund for each of our six offices. Chicago is a great city for planning these events. After DMC saw Cirque du Soleil's KURIOS: Cabinet of Curiosities several years ago, we decided to go back to the cirque. Each show is unique a...

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Houston was hit hard by Hurricane Harvey last month. Thousands of homes were flooded and families are struggling to clean up before they can even begin to think about rebuilding. From headline stories about Mattress Mack, JJ Watt, and the Cajun Navy, to the smaller news stories that may go unnoticed, it's been amazing to see the city band together and come to each other's aid. In my neighborhood, we received 41.25" of rain in just over three days. While I was fortu...

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Visitors to DMC may notice our ever-changing "Quote Board," documenting the best engineering jokes and employee one-liners of the moment.

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Do you remember counting down to your 21st birthday? On Friday, August 4, we headed up to DMC Chicago's rooftop to celebrate our 21st anniversary party!  I have to admit, DMC has been drinking "underage" for some time now, but that didn’t make this monumental birthday any less special. Not surprisingly, food was our top priority. We hired a grill master to help us prepare the main course, while several employees brought delicious sides. It will be a while...

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SQL Server Compact Edition is a compact relational database produced by Microsoft for applications that run on mobile devices and desktops. Embedding these databases into a Windows application in a portable file-oriented format can be very useful.  While working on a recent Windows application, DMC wanted to add an extra layer of security to our application by protecting our SQL CE database files with a password. Although the process of creati...

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DMC has earned the Microsoft Silver competency for Cloud Platform (Azure). This certification recognizes DMC for its expertise in helping customers modernize their infrastructure and migrate applications and data to the Microsoft Azure cloud. The Cloud Platform competency is awarded to an elite tier of Microsoft Partners who demonstrate technical certification, market influence, and customer satisfaction in the delivery of Azure solutions. This certification enables DMC to receive e...

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DMC routinely completes projects involving a variety of technologies including Bluetooth connected devices and web-based API’s. During a recent FedEx Day, where everyone in the company works on a project that interests them and that they think will improve DMC, we decided to combine a few of those technologies and create a system for tracking the locations of our many office dogs! Getting Started FedEx Day requires that a project is completed in the span of FedEx day. Depending on th...

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DMC invites you to join us for an Oktoberfest celebration in Chicago on Thursday, October 19, 2017! Expect an evening of food, beer, and fun on our rooftop deck.   DMC Chicago's Oktoberfest October 19, 2017 4 p.m. - 10 p.m. 2222 N. Elston Ave., Suite 200 Chicago, IL 60614 [Driving Directions] Event Details You're welcome to stop by anytime throughout the evening along with significant or insignificant others (spouses, colleagues, girlfriends, college roommate...

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If you use Inductive Automation's Ignition server software designed for total system integration, you might encounter instances when your script doesn’t run correctly the first time. Here are a few tools to help you find the bug. Tool One - Gateway Script If you're running a gateway script, the first place you should navigate to is the Status Page of the gateway. Then, locate the Gateway Scripts page. There, you will be able to see a...

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I recently fielded a question from a potential client who wanted to know if Microsoft SharePoint or Google Docs with Google Sites was a better fit for their organization's document management and collaboration needs. Although this question is pretty straightforward, the explanation can get a bit complicated. The short answer is Google Docs/Sites is a great tool if you do not have an enterprise collaboration platform at your disposal, and you need to to get a document sharing site up quick...

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Recently, I worked on a project that used a Siemens S7-300 PLC to control several Yaskawa VFD's over PROFIBUS. Although Yaskawa provides documentation to accomplish this, reading through manuals can be time-consuming. For someone only seeking basic speed control of the drives, I've prepared a step-by-step process on how to quickly setup and control any Yaskawa VFD over PROFIBUS using the Basic Data message package. Step 1: Setup Your Hardware Configuration Download the Y...

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Ignition is a modern HMI/SCADA based software platform from Inductive Automation that closes the gap between production and IT with unlimited, web-based monitoring and central control of an entire facility via a single central server. There are tons of features to use Ignition's independent modules for including Real-Time Status Control, Alarming, Reporting, Data Acquisition, Scripting, Scheduling, MES, and Mobile support. Sometimes, there are tweaks you might want to make th...

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Working with and manipulating arrays has always been one of my least favorite aspects of JavaScript development. Ever since I became a professional .NET developer and C# became my language of choice, my distaste for working with arrays in JavaScript only grew stronger due to the lack of access to one of my favorite parts of the .NET Framework: LINQ. For those unfamiliar with LINQ, it's a library in the .NET Framework that allows a programmer to perform a large variety of complex oper...

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Visitors to DMC may notice our ever-changing "Quote Board," documenting the best engineering jokes and employee one-liners of the moment.  

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DMC's Boston office recently hosted their annual Yearly Office Event, or YOE, in the mountains of New Hampshire. After last year's trip at the Cape, attendees changed it up this year with hiking, swimming, stargazing, and bonding time. The experience was a choose-your-own-adventure of sorts that started in Boston Harbor and ended at the top of Mount Washington.   Hello Boston Harbor For our first night in Boston, we made plans to explore Boston Harbor on a ...

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DMC loves a good company kickball or volleyball game, but sometimes we like a change of pace. If you're also looking for an out of the ordinary activity in Chicago, it might be try something a little edgier. For though we're in the the height of summer, we all know Winter is Coming, and there's only one reasonable course of action - it's time to learn to throw axes.  Razor Sharp Fun A group of DMCers recently visited Thunderbolt ...

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DMC's Director of Consulting Services, Rick Rietz, will lead a presentation at the Allinial Global 2017 Technology Fly-In & Roundtable. The session will be held on September 19 from 8:30-10:00 a.m. at The Westin Denver International Airport in Denver, CO. Rick's presentation will provide guidance on planning and implementing Microsoft’s cloud solutions, including Office 365, Dynamics 365, and Azure. Attendees will learn how to evaluate...

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Another school year is starting, and for DMC that means visiting campus career fairs! So far, 2017 has been a big year for DMC. We added a sixth office, hired a ton of new employees, and were once again voted one of the best places to work by Crain’s Chicago Business. DMC continually makes strides to grow and improve as a company, and we are always looking for talented individuals that can help us achieve our goals.  Why work for DMC? DMC provides M...

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DMC will participate in a free webinar panel discussing how to get started with connectivity in your manufacturing operations on August 16 at 1 p.m. CST. DMC Project Director Nick Shea will join Matteo Dariol and Tobias Conz of Bosch Software Innovations in examining what to consider when implementing connectivity. The webinar is the third in Bosch's Connected Manufacturing Webinar Series. Webinar Agenda When dealing with IIoT implementations, most companies have to choose be...

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