Password Agent 2.6

While discussing backup tools in my session on Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning at Southwest Fox 2009, I mentioned that I use a password management program call Password Agent from Moon Software. While probably less well known than some of its competitors, I've used this particular app for several years and have always found it to be reliable and easy to use. The only caveat was that it had not been updated in quite some time, but by coincidence a new version was just released yesterday. Among other changes this release is listed as compatible with Windows 7. If you're interested in a good password management tool, check out Password Agent 2.6 at www.moonsoftware.com/pwagent.asp.

Tags: Password Agent, Moon Software, Southwest Fox

Southwest Fox 2009 - Don't Miss It!

Hard to believe, but it's only a little over four months until Southwest Fox 2009, which will be held October 15-18, 2009 at the beautiful Arizona Golf Resort and Conference Center in Mesa, Arizona. Start making your plans now, because conference organizers Rick Schummer, Tamar Granor, and Doug Hennig have once again put together a great selection of speakers and topics for a conference that is not to be missed. I hope to see you all there!

Tags: Southwest Fox, SWFox, FoxPro

SWFox 2008 Session White Papers Published

My session white papers from Southwest Fox 2008, Hidden Treasures: The FoxPro Foundation Classes and Automating QuickBooks with QODBC, are now available for download from the FoxPro Developers page of my website.

Update [Sunday, 07-Jun-2009]: I posted the wrong links to these papers yesterday. The links are now correct.

Tags: Southwest Fox, SWFox, FoxPro

Restore Open Tabs in Internet Explorer 8

Unlike IE7, Internet Explorer 8 does not offer to remember open tabs on shutdown. But after re-launching IE8, you can restore them by going to Tools > Reopen Last Browsing Sesssion.

Tags: Internet Explorer 8, IE8

VFP Task Pane Tip

The Visual FoxPro Task Pane Environment Manager enables you to set up the environment you want to be associated with each project. Among other things, you can specify the project file, the default directory, the path, the resource file, and any environment settings that may be unique to each project.

When you click the link to a project file in the Task Pane Environment Manager, VFP applies your settings and opens the project. However, the Task Pane window remains open and visible on your screen. If you don't want the Task Pane window hanging around after your project has been opened, there's an easy way to make it disappear.

Select a project in the Environment Manager. Click on the icon to modify the environment set and select the Environment Settings page, as shown in the screenshot. Notice there are edit boxes for two scripts, one that runs before the environment is set and the other that runs after the environment is set and the project is loaded.

To automatically close the Task Pane window, simply add "_oTaskPane.Release( )" as the last or only line in the script that runs after the environment has been set and the project has been loaded. Click OK to save your changes. The next time you open the project from the Task Pane, the Task Pane window will automatically close after the Project Manager window opens and you'll have a clean screen to work with.

Tags: Visual FoxPro, VFP, Task Pane

SWFox 2007 session white papers published

In order not to diminish the value of attending the conference itself, I always wait at least six months before publishing the white papers from my presentations. I didn't really intend to wait 16 months to publish the papers from Southwest Fox 2007, though! In any case, Framework Fundamentals and So You Want to be an Independent Developer are now available for download from the FoxPro Developers page on my website.

Unless the year gets away from me again, look for the papers from my Southwest Fox 2008 sessions to be published sometime in late April.