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.

Southwest Fox Session Evals

Today I finally found time to carefully read the evals from my sessions at Southwest Fox. Thanks to all of you who attended one of my sessions and took the time to comment. To those who had good things to say, thanks for the kind words. To those who suggested ways in which I can improve, I genuinely appreciate your suggestions.

A Speakers' Dilemma
One thing I always wrestle with is how much content to try to fit into the allotted time. Like most speakers, I try to provide maximum content and hence maximum value in all my presentations. Sometimes, however, that comes at the expense of not leaving enough time for questions. Several people commented that this was a problem with both my sessions at Southwest Fox this year, and I want to let you know that I hear you.

I generally ask that questions be held until the end of the session. The reason for this is to ensure there's enough time to cover all the material. You might be surprised at how easily taking the time to answer just a handful of questions during a session can derail a carefully timed presentation. However, I realize that if I ask for questions to be deferred until the end, I'm also making an implicit agreement with the audience to leave enough time for those questions.

So, here's my main take-away from this year's evals: I need to be sure to leave time for Q & A even if it means trimming the session content a bit. As I think about it, that's a better formula for maximizing the value of a session anyway, because all of us (speakers included) learn from each other's questions. Besides, the white paper provides a place to put relevant content that doesn't fit in the verbal presentation.

A Question
I think leaving around five minutes for Q & A at the end of a 75-minute session feels about right. Any less is almost certainly not enough, while significantly more means that much less session content. But that's just my opinion. What do you think?

An Apology
To the person who came up to me at the end of my Friday afternoon session on the FoxPro Foundation Classes: I apologize for putting you off and rushing out of the room. I had come down with some kind of 24-hour bug Thursday evening (and no, not from too much partying - really!). I was feeling pretty rocky all day Friday, and to be honest I wasn't sure I was going to make it through the entire Friday afternoon session. I came pretty close to losing it immediately after I finished speaking, and had to rush out of the room for a couple of minutes. When I got back, you had already left. If you are that person, I hope you will understand, and if you still have a question please e-mail me and I'll be happy to try to answer it.

Tags: Southwest Fox, SWFox, conferences, presentations

ZoneAlarm Pro for free

In celebration of the popular firewall's birthday, ZoneAlarm Pro is available for free, today only. http://tinyurl.com/6l3br7

Tags: ZoneAlarm

Stupid error message of the day

This is evidently all it takes to handle an error. Who said programming had to be hard?

MS Patch 951748 and Zone Alarm Issue

If you use Zone Alarm and Windows XP, don't install yesterday's MS security update #951748 'cause it breaks your Internet connection. The explanation and workaround is already posted on the ZA forum, see http://tinyurl.com/5k8zjs.

Side note: I posted this on Twitter late last night when I first ran into it and found the answer. After using Twitter for a couple of months, that seems to be where I turn first to post this kind of thing because it's easy to get the word out quickly. I'm still blogging, but some stuff now goes on Twitter first.

PowerDesk Pro 7

It looks like a new version of PowerDesk Pro is finally here.

PowerDesk has long been my favorite desktop file manager and replacement for Windows Explorer. But version 6, which was released in 2005 and last updated in 2006, has been feeling a little long in the tooth recently. Although clicking on its EasyUpdate link (on the Help menu) still says "You have the latest software version. No update is necessary.", I discovered today that the PowerDesk home page is now featuring PowerDesk Pro 7.

I haven't received any e-mail announcement of the new version yet, and I can't find any indication of upgrade pricing for licensed users of version 6 on their website, so this might be brand new. In any case, it's good to know this fine product is getting another update.

Tags: PowerDesk

Minimalist error message

"Just keep on movin', folks. Nothing to see here. Really, this is all you need to know. Anything else would only confuse you."

This is a real error dialog from a real app. Not a beta release, either. And no, I didn't capture the screenshot before the dialog was fully rendered - this is the whole thing. (I did add the caption, though.)

So we're not only left to wonder what the error was, but also what application had the error in the first place. Huh.

Beyond Compare v3 beta

Beyond Compare is one of those wonderful little utilities I use virtually every day. Version 2.x has been a terrific product for years, but it looks like it's going to get even better with Beyond Compare v3.

There's a lot of information about the new version on Scooter Software website. Check out what's coming in the screenshot gallery and the list of new features. Or if you want to you can actually download the beta and explore it for yourself.

Tags: Beyond Compare, Scooter Software

Tweeting

I've been trying out Twitter since last weekend. If you're already on Twitter you can follow rickborup. If not, you can go to http://twitter.com/ and sign up for a free account.

Tags: Twitter

Cool tool from Frank Perez

You learn something new every day. Today while reading Paul Mrozowski's blog I learned that not only does fellow VFP developer Frank Perez have a blog, he's also developed and published a very cool tool for Visual FoxPro developers.

Of all the tools in my developer's toolkit, the one I use most often (besides Visual FoxPro, of course) is probably Beyond Compare from Scooter Software. Besides its ability to compare and synchronize the contents of two different directories, Beyond Compare has a file comparison utility that lets you view two files side-by-side with their differences highlighted. This capability is extremely useful for analyzing the differences between two versions of text-based files such as Visual FoxPro PRG files.

While there are Beyond Compare plug-ins to facilitate comparisons between other, non-text based file types such as binary (hex) and image files, until now there was nothing designed to work specifically with non-text based Visual FoxPro files such as DBF, CDX, SCX, VCX, and so on.

Frank's new VFP file viewer rule and VFP2TEXT tool fill this void and enable you to use Beyond Compare's file comparison feature with Visual FoxPro's non-text based file types. Get the full story and the download link straight from the source on Frank's blog post. Nice job, Frank, and thanks for the "cool tool".

Tags: Visual Foxpro, VFP, Beyond Compare, Frank Perez, Paul Mrozowski

InstallShield Sold Again

Macrovision Corp. has announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell its Software Business Unit to private equity firm Thoma Cressey Bravo. This may be of interest to Visual FoxPro developers and others because Macrovision's Software Business Unit includes the InstallShield® line of products, which Macrovision has owned since it acquired the original Installshield Software Corporation back in July of 2004.

The deal was announced on Feb. 14, 2008, almost a month ago. I'm a little surprised that, with one exception, this hasn't generated any chatter among the developers I know or on the blogs I read regularly. The only public mention of this that I'm aware of was Stefan Krüger's post on his InstallSite Blog the day after the official annoucement was made public.

Here are the official announcements from Macrovision and from TCB.

Tags: InstallShield, Macrovision

New goodies from Sysinternals

Today on Greg's Cool Thing of the Day, Greg Duncan blogs "It's a sunny day when we get a new Sysinternals utility". Not only a brand new utility, ShellRunas, but also updates to a couple of other favorites, Process Explorer and AutoRuns. On top of that, I discover there's a Sysinternals Site Discussion feed on TechNet Blogs where this kind of news gets posted directly from the source. A sunny day indeed.

Tags: Greg's Cool Thing of the Day, Sysinternals

FeedDemon is now free

FeedDemon version 2.6 has just been released, and in a surprise move, it's now free. Also free are the rest of NewsGator's consumer RSS readers, along with online services including feed synchronization.

As a long-time fan and paying customer of FeedDemon, I was a bit skeptical at first as to why NewsGator would do this. Evidently anticipating this kind of reaction among its existing customer base, FeedDemon's creator Nick Bradbury addressed some of the reasons for the change in his blog post yesterday, as did NewsGator's Greg Reinacker in his blog post. Best to read these for yourself and get the answers straight from the source.

FeedDemon 2.6 for Windows is available for download from www.newsgator.com/Individuals/FeedDemon/.

Tags: FeedDemon NewsGator Nick Bradbury Greg Reinacker

Getting your head around LINQ

There's more to LINQ than just writing your SQL SELECT statements backwards. If you're interested in becoming familiar with LINQ (Language-Integrated Query), the series on Converting SQL to LINQ from the Visual Basic Team blog looks like a good place to start. Five articles have been published so far, with two more to follow.

Converting SQL to LINQ, Part 1: The Basics (Bill Horst)

Converting SQL to LINQ, Part 2: FROM and SELECT (Bill Horst)

Converting SQL to LINQ, Part 3: DISTINCT, WHERE, ORDER BY and Operators (Bill Horst)

Converting SQL to LINQ, Part 4: Functions (Bill Horst)

Converting SQL to LINQ, Part 5: GROUP BY and HAVING (Bill Horst)

Other LINQ links:

Language-Integrated Query (LINQ)

The LINQ Project

LINQ to SQL: .NET Language-Integrated Query for Relational Data


Tags: LINQ

Security update for Adobe Reader and Acrobat

On Monday Adobe published a security bulletin announcing the availability of updates to address "critical vulnerabilities" in Adobe Reader and Acrobat. Those using version 8.1 or earlier of these products are "strongly recommended" to upgrade to version 8.1.1. The update is available via the products' automatic update feature or by direct download from links provided in the bulletin. Version 7.0.9 and earlier of these products are evidently also affected, with an update to be available "at a later date".

Tags: Adobe, Adobe Reader, Acrobat

Southwest Fox 2007 Wrap-Up

I got back late Sunday night from Phoenix after spending four awesome days at Southwest Fox 2007. What an outstanding event this turned out to be! Rick Schummer, Tamar Granor, and Doug Hennig, who took over as conference organizers this year, did an excellent job. They deserve a ton of credit for their efforts and for the resulting success of this year's conference.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I attended as a speaker so my travel and hotel expenses were covered by the conference. However, we speakers are volunteers and are not paid for our presentations nor for the time it takes to prepare them, so my enthusiasm for this event comes from the heart, not from the wallet.

At something over 150, not counting speakers and staff, this year's attendance was more than double last year's. If I correctly remember the numbers Rick Schummer announced at the keynote session, people came from 35 states and 7 foreign countries to be there. Old friendships were renewed and new ones begun. Sessions were well attended. People were excited and continued talking with one another well past session ending times. Outside the session rooms, sidebar discussions were going on all the time. You could feel the energy level running throughout the conference.

In short, the buzz was definitely back.

With 27 separate presentations (not counting pre-conference and vendor sessions) and 14 mainline time slots, there was literally so much technical content you couldn't see it all. But of course every attendee received complete session materials and code samples on CD, so we can explore the sessions we couldn't attend along with anything we did see but couldn't fully absorb in 75 minutes. In addition, the conference organizers made the session materials available for download a few days in advance of the actual conference. Some people commented later that they took advantage of this to read the white papers and look over the slides before attending the live presentations, which really enhanced the session experience for them.

The conference venue -- The Arizona Golf Resort and Conference Center in Mesa -- was beautiful and in my opinion well suited to a conference of this size and type. We pretty well filled up the one conference center building where all the general and breakout sessions took place, although the resort has at least one other conference building as well. Breakfast and lunch were provided by the conference and served in a banquet/party room adjacent to the conference center building. There were plenty of tables and chairs so there was no waiting for somebody else to finish eating before you could sit down. The dining room had a nice open feeling with lots of windows, conducive to relaxation and conversation. Tables were also set up in the outdoor courtyard so those with a preference for sunshine (and there was plenty of that!) could eat outside. Personally, I thought the choice of foods was among the best I've seen at a conference. The Resort's catering and support staff were uniformly attentive and courteous and did a fine job of making things go smoothly without being intrusive.

Although I was primarily there as a speaker, I also took advantage of the opportunity to sit in on other speakers' sessions when I wasn't presenting one of my own. Any doubts anyone might have had about the strong future of Visual FoxPro were easily dispelled by the broad spectrum of VFP and VFP-related technical content presented at Southwest Fox. Although most of it is community-based these days, there is so much going on in so many areas that there is no doubt VFP will continue to remain vital and growing for a long time to come, despite Microsoft's decision to end further enhancement of the core product.

One side note: Near the end of my session on Framework Fundamentals, I showed a sample application whose "About" screen included the cool "Three Kokopellis" postage stamp graphic representing the Southwest Fox conference logo. Dave Aring of Visionpace is the creative talent behind that and the other graphics for the conference. I meant to acknowledge Dave, who was seated in the back of the room, but in my haste to finish the presentation on time I forgot to do so. Dave didn't ask to be mentioned for this, but he deserves to be. Thanks for the great work, Dave, and for contributing it to the conference.

Southwest Fox was definitely a highlight of the year. I came back feeling totally re-energized by the experience, with lots of good ideas to apply in my future development work. If I can leverage even a fraction of what I learned, both my clients and I will benefit greatly.

Perhaps the best news of all: Southwest Fox 2008 was announced for Oct. 16-19, 2008. Mark your calendars!

Tags: Southwest Fox, SWFox, Visual FoxPro, VFP, Visionpace

Coming up for air

Okay, where did the summer go??

I realize it's been very quiet here on fiat volpes since the end of June. I wasn't intentionally staying away. I've been heads down on several projects this summer, plus preparing two presentations for the Southwest Fox conference later this week. And all of sudden it's October.

I expect to get back to more regular posting from now on. One news item today: if you're interested, a PDF of my paper on Automating the Build from last year's Southwest Fox conference (2006) is now available for download from the FoxPro Developers page on my website. There's also an HTML version, but the PDF is much more readable so choose it if you can.

Tags: Southwest Fox

Southwest Fox 2007 Early-Bird Registration Deadline

This weekend is your last chance to take advantage of the early-bird registration for Southwest Fox 2007. Register by July 1 and save $75 off the regular registration price, plus you get a free pre-conference session (a $99 value). On top of that, early-bird registrations are eligible to win the $300 White Light Computing scholarship (see the scholarship page for official details).

Southwest Fox 2007, a premier conference for Visual FoxPro developers, will be held October 18-21, 2007 at the Arizona Golf Resort and Conference Center in Mesa, Arizona. This is a new venue for the conference, and from the photos and descriptions on the conference hotel page it looks like a beautiful place to spend a few days in October. SWFox has earned a reputation as an outstanding conference for content, value, and location, and new conference organizers Rick Schummer, Doug Hennig and Tamar Granor have done a terrific job putting this one together. Don't miss out!

Your code is suboptimal

SourceGear's Eric Sink came back from SD West 2007 with some extra T-shirts. SourceGear, in case you didn't know, makes tools for professional software developers, and founder Eric Sink is a prolific writer on the subject of software development and the business of software. His blog posts and other writings have earned him a reputation as a guy worth listening to; IMO his stuff is required reading for anyone in the software business.

Back to the T-shirts. At SD West 2007, the deal was you had to agree to wear it around the conference to get one. Rather than letting the extras sit around in a box in the back of the office, Eric's now making them available to anyone who asks and agrees to post a photo of themself wearing it (plus a couple of other requirements - read his blog post for details).

This sounded like fun, and hey, you can't have too many geek T-shirts, can you? So thanks, Eric, for the 'Evil Mastermind' shirt. Here's my photo; as you can see, I had a little fun with it, too. The full-size image is on Flickr.

(Click the shirt to make it speak).

Side note for anybody who's going to Southwest Fox 2007 in Phoenix in October: Keep your eyes open for me wearing this shirt. The first person who comes up to me there and tells me they saw this picture on my blog earns a frosty-cold beverage of their choice.

Tags: SourceGear, Eric Sink, Southwest Fox

75% Discount on ListPro

ListPro, a terrific little tool for creating and managing lists of all kinds, is featured on Bits du Jour today for only $4.95 against its regular price of $19.95.

I've used ListPro for several years and have found it to be useful for all kinds of personal and work-related lists. For example, the screenshot is a sample software deployment checklist I demo'd at a recent conference presentation. Items in a list can be arranged into groups in a hierarchy, and groups can be expanded or folded up for ease of use. List items can also be easily moved around to alter their sequence and relative position in the hierarchy. This screenshot shows only two of the several columns that can be associated with each item in a list. I also use ListPro to maintain my pre-conference packing and checklist when preparing to leave on a trip.

As with all items on Bits du Jour, this is a one-day price. ListPro is available for Windows PCs as well as for handheld and other mobile devices.

Tags: ListPro, Ilium Software, Bits du Jour