Shedding Some Light

I returned to Michigan today from a 10-day break in the Orlando area. Yesterday I was in the 70s (F) with sunshine and a slight breeze in Florida. Today it is below freezing and we are getting 2-4 inches of snow this evening. Fabulous. At least our flight was not delayed like the many people flying on Delta today.

I accomplished a couple of firsts on my vacation. The first was attending a Detroit Tigers spring training game. My dad took me to the game for my birthday and it was a real treat, although it felt more like a typical opening day game in Detroit weather-wise (game time temps in the low 60s with wind-chills in the 50s without jackets {g}). The Tigers won it in the ninth inning 10-9. Great game as the Tigers fell behind 6-0, rallied to an 9-6 lead, Astros tied it in the top of the 9th, and Tigers pulled it out in the bottom of the inning. It has been a long time since my dad and I went to a Tigers game and the first game I attended with my nephew and brother-in-law.

The next thing I accomplished was attending the live landing of the space shuttle. I have seen the orbiter return once before to Kennedy Space Center, but on the back of a 747 as it flew back from California. I can’t say I actually saw Endeavour return because it was dark. We heard the twin sonic booms and heard the jets that escorted the orbiter to the landing. We also saw the lights from the escort jet as it descended to the well-lit landing strip on the horizon. Our view was fantastic and it would have been even more spectacular if Endeavour would have landed during the first pass at 7:05pm. Still, it was a great evening filled with fun and terrific meal with my parents as we wrapped up our spring break.

Back to work and catching up on a couple of projects, plus I have a huge announcement coming early next week. It will be good to get back to full-time work, and some positives vibes.

Today I was setting up with a developer to do some mentoring for the first time. He was looking for ideas on how I can connect to his computer so I offered several options including Co-Pilot from Fog Creek, GotoMeeting.com, VNC, Remote Desktop, and the old stand-by PcAnywhere. To do the last three we need some port forwarding set up and the developer had not previously set any of this up.

I have used PortForwarding.com for years to get the port information. It is a clear and easy to use site for the various ports used by different software. A terrific knowledgebase. Today I also found on the site a great resource I did not know existed before: step-by-step instructions on how to set up the port forwarding on different routers. I have always used LinkSys routers so even someone with my love of hardware can simply set it up. When my new client asked me how to do this on his 2Wire router I had no clue. I Googled the router and found a link to this site.

Very nice!

I returned to my office late this afternoon and in my email is the first issue of FoxRockX – all shiny and new! Open for business as the saying goes.

http://www.FoxRockX.com for all the details (make sure to include the “www” until they get this fixed).

Go get subscribed today before you forget and miss the inaugural issue. Consider it a gift to yourself, and an investment in your career. You should not be disappointed.

Earlier this week I had to tear apart the office and next week it gets put back together. The nightmare of doing this is moving some extremely heavy furniture around, and dealing with the miles of electric cords and network wires. The wires have always been a pain to me (I know, its hardware {g}) no matter how careful I try to be when I connect it all to the power source. A very timely post on LifeHacker is going to save me some of the aggravation this time around.

Today I am going to go get some of the foam pipe insulation which I think is brilliant, and I ordered some of the ID Pilot Identification Labels. I am also going to get some tie wraps for the server closet in the basement. When I built the server closet I put peg board on the inside walls to allow for better circulation, but thanks to this inspirational post I now can attach the DSL modem and switches to save on shelf space.

I know Doug Hennig has already blogged how the call for speakers deadline is coming up on Monday March 17th. You may have seen the post over on the Southwest Fox Conference Blog when we announced it.

I thought I would take this opportunity to point potential speakers to Craig Bailey’s blog “TIP: The Top Mistake of public speaking“, which has some very solid advice. Maybe Craig will submit some sessions {g}.

I am looking forward to reading the submissions from the Fox Community. I was talking with some Fox friends recently about how the selection process for last year’s Southwest Fox was for me the most difficult part of putting the conference together. I expect this year to be no different.

Please note there are details on the Southwest Fox site and we expect to select some seasoned veterans, as well as some new presenters too. Please consider topics you are passionate about, and topics you think will fit both the tracks we are looking to offer as well as the spirit of the conference – Fox Rocks!

Only 224 days until we meet in Mesa!

The Fox Community once again has two magazines devoted to VFP content! Over on the UniversalThread Martin Salias announced that Mike Yearwood is taking over as editor of the UT Magazine. This magazine will be published quarterly and targeted towards Visual FoxPro developers. Looks like they want to write about the VFP Compiler, Guineu, new versions of Web Connection, Sedna, the VFPX projects, and the upcoming VFP Studio. More details to come later.

You will find the “Universal Thread Magazine will be back!” thread in the Chatter section so those who avoid Chatter might miss this announcement.

The good news just keeps on coming!

Back in November I posted how you can get to VFP specific content on the massive Advisor site in a post titled: FoxPro Content on Advisor

Last week I got an email from Jeff Hibbs noting this link was broken so I contacted Advisor to see what happened. Looks like they moved some servers around. The new link is:

http://my.advisor.com/whome.nsf/w/MSVisualFoxProAdvisor

This is way better than trudging though pages of material on Lotus Notes, FileMaker and SharePoint when all I want to read is what Mike Lewis has to offer for tips this month, and the rest of the content the VFP authors have to share with me before my subscription expires.

Thanks Jeff for pointing out the broken link!

Looks like the first issue of FoxRockX is about to hit the streets (I first blogged about it here: Fox Rocks with FoxRockX). More details can be found here:
Visual FoxPro Wiki – FoxRockX Introduction.

I think it is very exciting how Rainer negotiated to get the past issues and source code samples of FoxTalk from Eli. These will be available to all subscribers of FoxRockX. While the demise of FoxTalk is well documented, the information in the back issues will live on, which I personally appreciate. I refer to this archive quite frequently. I have all the issues on my development machine index for optimal searching.

I will be writing regularly in FoxRockX too. My initial series of articles will focus on VFPX. It looks like you will see many of the regular authors who have been sharing with the community for years, plus some fresh faces. Bold new beginnings for our community. We live in exciting times.

I hope you take the opportunity to support FoxRockX and subscribe.