VFP: Thanks Andrew MacNeill

A big thank you to Andrew MacNeill for also jumping in to help us with our bandwidth issue hosting OzFoxRocks.
http://akselsoft.blogspot.com/2005/10/ozfoxrocks-direct-link.html

Andrew has been a great supporter and help over the last two months while we got the show organised.

Community is a wonderful thing.

VFP: Microsoft supports VFP

I've seen a few threads on UT lately where people have been questioning Microsoft's support for VFP. And I guess this isn't really a new view for some people.

However I'd like to challenge the notion. So, let me list a few of the areas where Microsoft has been supporting me personally, and the VFP community generally, in Australia.

As many of you know I helped put together the OzFox conference last year. Not only did Microsoft give it press in their MSDN Flash developer material, but they supplied the Xboxes and giant plasma screens for the Xbox room, tons of free stuff for give aways, and they donated a not insignificant amount of money to help cover costs. Additionally Ken Levy's flight was covered by Microsoft and he donated a copy of VFP9 as a prize.

In the coming week I'm going to announce a local VFP developer conference (call it OzFox Lite) to be held over a weekend at Microsoft's headquarters here in Sydney. Microsoft will effectively be providing us with a full conference venue (including pizza, drinks and coffee) for a weekend, for free.

Next, let's look at the Sydney VFP User Group. Microsoft hosts this meeting every month, providing staff, pizza and soft drink, and continual support. Earlier tonight they even threw in a great prize. And they also provide this for the Melbourne group.

Finally, consider my previous post about OzFoxRocks - Microsoft is providing a high speed site for our podcast whilst we get our server link upgraded.

There are other small things going on all the time - you don't get to see how Microsoft staff help out VFP developers all over the place.

The VFP community in Australia has had nothing but support from Microsoft over the last couple of years.

VFP as a product might not be getting the huge marketing budget other products are getting, but it is getting a definite budget for continual improvement for the next update (Sedna). And look at how much effort they are putting into ensuring it works with .Net and upcoming Windows versions. This is the real support we need, and we are getting.

This year VFP has been growing. There is a real sense of excitement about the product. All the Sedna initiatives, conferences, community projects, user groups and even online book availabilities are signs of this.

I feel supported.

VFP: OzFoxRocks! Reloaded

If you tried to download the first episode of OzFoxRocks in the last few days and gave up because it was taking so long then please try again.
Thanks to Andrew Coates and Microsoft we now have the mp3 file hosted on a nice fast site.

You can download the file directly here
http://ozfoxrocks.members.winisp.net/files/ozfoxrocks1.mp3

You can check out the full episode listing here
http://www.ozfoxrocks.com/Default.aspx?tabid=52

And we should get the (proper!) RSS feed up sometime this weekend, complete with iTunes enclosures etc.

Thanks to everyone for their kind words and patience so far.

PERSONAL: Happy 39th Anniversary

Congratulations to Reg and Pam (my parents-in-law) on their 39th Wedding anniversary today.
Next year's anniversary is gonna be big. Start the celebration plans now I say...

VFP: FoxTabs - the beta is coming

Scott and I are very thankful for all the support and feedback we've had about FoxTabs so far.
A number of bugs and some great suggestions have been highlighted.

To this end we thought it worth mentioning that we plan to release the Beta in approx 2 weeks time. If you've avoided FoxTabs so far (and that is probably wise since it is only an Alpha) then please watch this space for more details in the coming weeks.

A big thank you to Andrew MacNeill for recording a screen cast of how it works - much appreciated.

If you want to take a look, FoxTabs is available (with the usual Alpha version disclaimers) on the VFP Solution Explorer site. You can log bugs and feature requests on the forum or email them to me directly.

And yes we definately plan to put it on SednaX when it is released.

SECURITY: Hotmail + whois = beware

I thought I'd pass on this anecdote from Magic Dave (one of our techies).
We host a fair few websites for clients and sometimes clients transfer sites from other hosts to us.

Normally this goes pretty smoothly unless the client's IT manager who set up all the DNS settings has left the company. Last week we had this problem - the previous IT manager for our client had bought the domain and parked it with an ISP, then left the company. We had no way of getting into their account (on behalf of our client) and the ISP required a request in writing, and after 30 days they would re-assign the account etc -> bottom line: it was going to be a hassle.

So Magic Dave looked up the domain with a basic whois search and discovers the client's previous IT Manager had set up the account with a Hotmail address.

And Hotmail as we know has some pretty strict use requirements eg if you don't use your account for X days they delete your account.

OK, so what if we go and sign up on Hotmail with the address the previous IT Manager used. Yep, Magic was able to sign up. He went back to the ISP clicked on the 'Forgot my password' link and got the password sent to himself. Got in and reassigned the DNS and all is well.

How many sites have you registered on with a Hotmail account?

VFP: Sydney VFP User Group this Wed 26 Oct

The Sydney VFP User Group is on again this Wednesday.
This month we have David Bower and Paul Tikotin presenting.
Further details here: www.svfpug.com.au

We are back at our usual venue at Microsoft this month. See you at 6:30pm.

VFP: OzFoxRocks! - Aussie VFP podcast

Scott and I have started an Australian based Visual FoxPro podcast.
In our first episode we interview Andrew Coates.

You can check it out here: www.ozfoxrocks.com
The content listing is here: http://www.ozfoxrocks.com/Default.aspx?tabid=52

Note: this is being hosted free of charge by the company we work for (thanks Talman), so for now we are on a server with a less than ideal internet pipe - unfortunately the download will be a little slow.

Enjoy

SVFPUG: Never, ever demo beta stuff

I had a rather frustrating time at the Sydney VFP UG this week.

I had foolishly put myself down to give an overview of SQL Server 2005 based on the Beta 2 version (July CTP I think).

It has been sitting on my notebook for a few months now and all seems OK. In fact I have been doing most of my coding for an existing SQL 2000 project using the Management Studio - hey I just like the abililty to have solutions - very handy.

But on Wednesday morning (UG was that night) strange things started happening. I can't remember the exact order of things but by late afternoon I was in a position where I could hardly do anything in SQL 2005 or SQL 2000.

SQL 2005 would not allow me to create or view any SQL 2005 databases (I just couldn't connect at all) but I could see SQL 2000 databases. Which was lucky because I couldn't see them in the SQL 2000 tools. SQL profiler tools in both 2000 and 2005 refused to work, and the only thing I could do in Business Intel Studio was a new Report project (but only against a 2000 database).
You get the picture. Complete disaster, and due to present in an hour or so.

Well then another disappointment that kinda turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Due to the fact that the UG meeting had been postponed from the week before, and the venue had changed, all the apology calls started coming in. End result: hardly anyone turned up.

I presented anyway. Luckily, since the meeting was at our office Scott helped me set up connections to a VPC image he had on a server which had the entire beta 2 (something he picked up at TechEd) and I used one our dev Terminal Servers to demo the SQL 2000 stuff (for comparing to SQL 2005).

Rick talks about having policies in place, and I couldn't agree more. But, I'm a fool. I've publicly bagged out people who give demos on beta versions before. Perhaps this was poetic justice. Never, ever, again.

And no, I don't know what caused it. It is all still broken and I couldn't be bother reinstalling the beta now. Perhaps foolishness will kick in again in a few days and I'll download the latest CTP and try to get it all working again. Joy.

But now onto something really cool that happened at UG. For those who bothered reading right to the end here, check out Scott Scovell's presentation on one of the utilities going into VFP Solution Explorer.

VFP: VFP and Strings

Very interesting post from Calvin on string performance here and his follow up here.
I think this is an important read for all FoxPro programmers for the simple reason that we (arrogantly sometimes I think) can fall into the 'VFP is great at string manipulation and I don't have to worry about optimising my code' trap.
Markus and Rod's post comparing VFP to C# will quickly set you straight when it comes to performance (C# kills VFP, especially when the VFP code is not optimised).
So the lesson here is that in everything we do, even putting some strings together, we need to be on top of our game, understanding our development tool intimately and providing the very best solutions for our clients.
Calvin also points to Steven Black's very helpful article on strings.