We really appreciate all the support people have shown for the conference with registrations! That said, the decision comes with a calculated risk because we are still many registrations short of covering all the conference expenses. Please continue to spread the word to your colleagues, clients, user groups and anywhere else Visual FoxPro is spoken.

If you haven’t yet registered, there’s still room for you: https://geekgatherings.com/Registration.

If you’ve already registered for the in-person conference, you’ll receive a confirmation email soon that includes a link for our discounted hotel rate.

We are pleased to announce Geekwear by Geek Gatherings. Order your Southwest Fox gear from https://geekgatherings.logosoftwear.com/. Choose from the options shown or create your own unique SWFox-wear.

Only 43 days until we gather in Scottsdale and online via Hopin.

Virtual Fox Fest is October 14, 20, and 26, 2021!

Only 134 days until we gather virtually via the Internet (provided we get session proposals ) !

Virtual Fox Fest 2021 (May) is next week on May 6, 2021! Get registered today! https://geekgatherings.com/Registration

Only 10 days until we gather virtually via the Internet! We look forward to seeing everyone soon.

Make a difference by participating in the conversation!

My days normally start out around 8:00am because most mornings I like to sleep until something naturally wakes me up. Most days it is construction noise in the neighborhood, my wife’s alarm, or the dog, but on July 16th it was a phone call from Frank Perez who is one of my team mates at White Light Computing. It was a very early 6:15am. I was waking up out of a dream where I was in a stadium of people and there was an earthquake happening (probably something in the 5.0 range, which was kind of cool). In my dream my phone was ringing too. Surprisingly, I answered it and it was Frank who started talking about the details of an investigation he was conducting based on a slew of error reports overnight from one of our customers. Normally the error reports are related to the network failing, which is reported to the customer’s IT Director. But the error reports started early and were “not a table” errors. Frank connected to the server were the data was located and tried to open up the tables in the error reports. They failed to open up. Upon further inspection he found them encrypted, and in the folder also he found two files:

1) How_to_decrypt.GIF
2) How_to_decrypt.HTML

(Note: the instructions in the two files are not the same. The HTML made me quite nervous as it could have active content. I do not advise opening up this file in the wild just to be extra safe.)

Frank suspected that someone opened up and unknowingly installed Cryptolocker or one of the variants. This is the second time in a few weeks Frank has seen this at a customer site, but at a different customer (who literally had no backups). Based on the time stamps, Frank was guessing it started between 8:00 and 8:15pm, the night before. So it has been running for 10 hours. My experience and the research I have done on Cryptolocker was that it isolated itself to the computer it was installed on. This is the first time I’ve heard it jumping from a workstation to the server. The day was going downhill quickly.

Here is an image of the How_to_decrypt.GIF:

Something you never want to see on your computer!

(I’ve blurred out a couple of things in case it will identify our customer)

This was not how I was expecting to start my Thursday. I formulated a plan to contact key people and then head into their office with Frank. I talked to the owner of the company who I learned was out of town and a couple of time zones away. I talked with the IT Director who was away on vacation to get the low down on the backups and where they were. I know that without the data people are going to be doing a lot of manual work, and most of the workers won’t even be able to do their jobs. Awesome news: a backup of the server is taken at 5:00 each day. Sounds like we might only be missing a few hours of data and the workers who are working between 5:00 and 8:00 are using the apps with SQL Server and not the DBFs so things are really sounding like it might not be as bad as I originally considered.

For those who have not been introduced, Cryptolocker (aka Cryptowall, CryptoOrbit, and Cryptolocker 3.0) is ransomware and it is not fun at all. I have seen this too many times in the past couple of years at customer sites. Although it behaves like one, this “software” is not a virus; it is a root kit that establishes itself on the computer. It installs itself via socially engineered email attachments that can fool even the savviest of computer user who know better. The software installs via a link from the Internet. It then calls home to get a key and begins to encrypt files with predefined extensions, which started out as MS Office extensions, but it has been expanded (oddly, INI and XML are not on the list). Unfortunately Visual FoxPro data files fall into the list. The process encrypts the files one folder at a time. The first variant of this software stuck to the local computer. So if someone opened the attachment and followed the link only one computer was affected. Still, for some of our customers, this can be bad enough depending on the computer that gets hit. But this latest variant now hits mapped drives so files on a server or another computer in a peer-to-peer network can join in on the fun. And the performance is very impressive as it had all the files in the data folder on the server encrypted in less than 20 minutes.

I learned Thursday from someone who recently tested six of the most common anti-virus and malware programs, not a single one found it on an infected machine. The day gets worse.

There are two ways to get your files back: restore from backup or pay the ransom and decrypt the files using the key returned from those holding them hostage. If you have good backups, it might not be too bad depending on the timing of the backups. I was thinking it would not be a problem as there are daily backups and we had the most recent a few hours before the attack.

So back to the 7:00am hour, I’ve contacted a couple of people on my team who helps support this customer, the key players at the customer site and headed into the office.

Once at the office we met with the newest member of the team who is the new hardware/networking tech for our customer. Frank explained his findings and our hypothesis. The tech has recent experience with the newest variant of Cryptolocker, confirmed Franks conclusion, and gives us the low down on what has happened, how this ransomware works, and what we need to do.

Developing the plan of attack:

1. Disconnect each computer from the network in case of propagation. Kill the wireless so no laptops and other devices could connect to the network.
2. Search each computer for ransom files starting in the room that was working around 8:00 last night to find the computer that is doing the encryption (“patient zero”) .
3. Remove the computer from the room.
4. Verify problem really is what we hypothesized.
5. Determine the damage on the workstation and the server.
6. Step back and develop the recovery plan

The approach, the collaboration, the planning, and the implementation of the plan reminded me of how firemen approach a fire. If you follow a fire truck to a fire you are likely to witness something that at first seems disturbing. The truck stops and the fireman get out. They are not running around. They are methodically executing a plan, which to the common person might seem to be working at a slower pace than is needed to get the fire out. As the fire rages in the building, the fireman get their gear, strap on an air tank, they put ladders up and get on the roof, they pull the hoses off the truck, they attach to the fire hydrant, put on their air masks, some start cutting holes in the roof and others start throwing water on the fire. Often the fire is out in short order. It is because of the planning and training, and implementation of the plan that things work so well. This is how we worked to find the troubled computer and determine how to get the customers back to work.

Finding the machine that installed Cryptolocker turned out to be simple as all we had to do is search for the file names above on the C: drive, and possibly other drives on the computer. In this office there are close to 50 computers, so the tasks took a little time with three of us unplugging and searching. We found the troubled computer pretty quick. Murphy’s Law would have dictated locating it show up on the 50th computer, but instead it was one of the first.

The fact is: we considered paying the ransom to get the server back to normal. The people cost involved to rebuild the server and restore the files was much more than the ransom. Obviously one has to understand the ramifications of giving money to the criminals. But what if it was necessary? I’ve talked to several of our customers who have been hit and several other colleagues who have customers, who have been bitten, and sometime the backups are not good enough and the money needs to be paid to stay in business. It is these kinds of moral dilemmas that can keep one up at night.

We started looking into it and really thought through the process to the point of getting a spare laptop and potentially sacrificing a MIFI device to get to the hacker’s Web site and instructions. We did not really know if something that connects would get infected and to the potential affects it can have on the hardware used. Even the thought of searching and connecting to something like the FBI site in search for keys was scary to me. Who knows what fake sites could be setup. We also have read and heard that Cryptolocker can get installed just by visiting a URL. So we did not take any chances. Before we got started, we realized that the ransom note stated a 1 to 10 day turnaround on getting the data back. We were not sure if this meant 10 days to get us the key, or 10 days for the solution to decrypt all the files it encrypted. Additionally, the ransom required bitcoin as payment, and getting bitcoin currency was new to all three of us. So we left that as the last resort option and moved forward with the better plan.

Second plan of the day:

1. Determine the ransom and steps to pay it (last resort).
2. Update the customer on the situation and explain the ransom, and what we need to do. Get permission to pay the ransom as a last resort.
3. Build a new virtual server to replace the virtual server with the encrypted files. We wanted to leave the old server intact in case something was important in the restore of the new server.
4. Restore backup from previous day to the new server
5. Reconnect the workstations to the network, and test the systems
6. Get home in time for dinner (not really in the plan, but if all went well…)

Rebuilding the server was not my thing (remember #IHATEHardware), but Frank and the networking tech don’t mind and get started. The IT Director has the Windows Server ISO and keys staged for us to use. Hyper-V and the ISO make short work of getting the server operating system installed. But low and behold the keys do not work. It turns out the server is R2 and we have keys for something else. We look for the proper ISOs and key combinations. We found a stash of DVDs with different versions. Several hours later, we download the proper ISO to match the existing virtual server and get it installed. Still enough time to get the backup restored and everyone home for dinner.

The backup is restored. We poke around and see quite a few files missing including DBFs, CDXs, FPTs, EXEs, DLLs. Some folders have all the data in the data folder, but are missing the EXEs in the application folder. Some folders have the EXEs, but are missing the runtime files. There was no obvious pattern.

The network tech dug into the backup software and came upon a revelation we restored a differential backup. Ah, perfect, so we have more work to piece the restore back together. First we have to find the last full backup and then restore the differentials after restoring the full. More work, but an easy enough plan of action. Our customer has four solid state drives rotated as the backups (fifth daily is on order to replace previous fifth one), each capable of holding 680GBs. Fortunately, earlier in the day our customer’s onsite developer requested the Controller bring the offsite drives back to the office in case they were needed. Perfect, a plan was working. Then the new networking tech delivered news that was about as devastating as Frank’s original find of Cryptolocker. The the last 16 days backups were ALL differentials. He could not find the last full backup.

I placed a call to the owner to explain the situation, and a second one to the IT Director who explained where to find the full backup. Unfortunately what he pointed us to was the differential backup we used. You could feel the room deflate. As you can ascertain, we effectively have no backup. Holy cow. My stress level just raised up a notch. Earlier in the day the IT Director told the owner there were three options:

A) Restore the backup
B) Pay the ransom
C) Pack it up and go out of business

Going back in time…

Many years ago when we needed a test data set we would ask the previous IT Director and she would give it to us a day or two later since she had to restore from tape. The restoration process was a pain in the neck and resource intensive. So to help us out I asked Frank to develop a rudimentary backup process to run nightly at midnight. This process copied key files to a folder on one of the computers that is not the server. It was never intended as a full backup or part of the disaster recovery process. From time-to-time the old IT Director would recover files we backed up because it was quicker than the restore from tape. We benefited from this by grabbing the backup for our test machine.

One of our contractors happened to be in the office on Tuesday and grabbed a copy of the data from Monday night’s backup for some testing he needed to work on. He does this every so often when he is in the office, but he is not there every day and has been known to take long vacations. Earlier in the day I asked him to secure that backup just in case it was needed, but not expecting to ever need it.

A few years ago I requested a test machine to create an isolated environment for the customer to test our application changes. The owner has so much faith in us that he prefers to test in production. We know better and never have that level of trust in ourselves. After many requests and some serious push back and flack from the current IT Director, we got a test machine, which is a different VM in Hyper-V. The last major testing we did was last August. But at that time we had refreshed the entire VM from production.

Back to solving the problem…we knew we had more options than the IT Director.

• Restore the backup
• Rebuild the backup from Tuesday, restore previous night, and leverage the test machine.
• Pay the ransom
• Start with a baseline from last August from test machine
• Absolutely no talk of going out of business, yet

Our biggest concern was that our backup from the night before was taken four hours after the encryption process started. But one thing the Cryptolocker cannot do is encrypt files that are open. It just so happens one or more people left an application or two open and had some very important files open. Mind you, corporate policy states the employees close all the apps before leaving for the day. So, because someone violated corporate policy, our backup was able to back up some really important files. Sure, these files would have been on the nightly backup from 7 hours earlier, but we had even fresher data.

We ended up implementing plan B and it worked. We restored the Tuesday backup. We restored the previous night backup and we restored our midnight backup. Still, 77 DBFs were not restored. We used Beyond Compare to help determine the missing files (thank you Scooter Software for the best file/folder comparison software around). It turns out that many of the tables were static, some temporary, and some could be rebuilt or ignored completely. We used Beyond Compare to move over the missing files from the test machine to the production server. The three of us then grabbed the remaining files like the latest EXEs and runtime files from our machines to fill in the gaps.

Sure, it is not perfect as some of the data was from August of last year, but we know that we have all the key things covered and the core data is the latest and greatest.

I texted the owner the good news and told him I would be in the office before they opened for business on Friday. We left at 10:30pm.

Friday had a few glitches here and there (mostly because we missed some of the Visual FoxPro Reporting APP files) and a couple of machines that relied on the wireless access could not be used until we checked out all the laptops that were coming in from the satallite workers. The only machines affected were patient zero and the file server.

Lessons to reinforce/learn:

1. Backup, backup, backup,
2. Full backups are better than differential
3. Differential backups rely on a full backup.
4. Test the backups
5. Have multiple generations of backups
6. Multiple kinds of backups (daily, weekly, monthly)
7. Multiple storage methods for backups (disk, mobile disks, offsite and onsite, cloud)
8. Review the processes and the disaster recovery plan periodically.
9. Refresh the test machine with production on a more regular basis.

It pays to be lucky

We absolutely lucked out this week. We lucked out because our contractor was in the office on Tuesday and grabbed a backup. He easily could have been on vacation like so many people this time of year. We lucked out because we solved a pain point years ago to create this backup in the first place. We lucked out that Frank and the new network tech had some recent experience with Cryptolocker. We lucked out the network tech is very bright and works well with the development team (IT Support and developers do not always get along in my experience). We lucked out we have a test machine that had the rest of the files. We lucked out that one or more employees violated corporate policy and had the apps open, which normally gives you fits trying to back up file. We lucked out our backup process has the intelligence to back up open files. We lucked out that our customer had faith in us. We lucked out that we could deliver a working data set. Our customer lucked out that he is back in business so quickly.

I mentioned that our customer had faith in us. He told me on Friday that his IT Director did not think we would be able to fix this. His daughter, who works in IT at a local community college, did not think we would be able to pull the Phoenix from the ashes. I explained to our customer, from time-to-time during my career we have relied on pulling off an “IT Miracle” and each of us are limited to the number of miracles we can pull off. This past week I used up another one. Yes, there were other options, but each of those options is not as good as the ones higher up on the list and each of the other ones had higher costs to the business and long-term ramifications. And one of the options meant giving money to criminals, which is a decision you cannot put a price tag.

The real sad thing about this is there is no protection from it happening again. In fact, it could have easily had more than one computer attacked. The same email could have been opened by more than one person. The same email could arrive tomorrow at the office, and is certainly being delivered each day to other people around the globe as you read this post.

Thanks for taking the time to read our story of how one company went to the brink of disaster and survived to talk about it. I hope the lessons learned and lessons reinforced trigger action on your part to review the disaster recovery plan. If there is no plan, I hope you take the time to make one. Also, take the time to discuss this with your customers. Leave no one behind.

To the entity in charge of my count of “IT Miracles”, please grant upon me double the count I have remaining today. I’m certain this won’t be the last time I need to count on one.

Thanks to everyone who helped out that day. The teamwork was amazing! I never have to be reminded of how great a team we have at White Light Computing. Last Thursday the team shined brightly. We also have a great customer and a new found friend (the networking tech) who I look forward to working with for many years to come.

We’re also happy to tell you that we’ve added Rick Borup to the speaker list (see link for his bio and sessions).

Thanks to those who have registered so far. We really appreciate it. That said, we still need your help to pull this off. Gather, share, learn, expand your knowledge in Gilbert.

Registrations still available at http://geekgatherings.com/registration. Please do not hesitate.

I am giving my usual and timely updated VFPX.Edition(“2015″) session and a brand new productivity session called Your Developer Life Improved By Thor, which I am very psyched about.

White Light Computing is a Platinum Sponsor again, our 12th straight sponsorship of Southwest Fox. White Light Computing is also doing two $150 scholarships to two lucky attendees that register before the July 1st deadline (get the Super-Saver rate for sure).

There are ways to help promote the conference, and please send any testimonials you might take time to write to: info [AT] geekgatherings.com. Please get the word out at your office, at user groups, on the various community forums, and any other place developers get together. We appreciate all the help and support you can offer.

Already looking forward to the conference this year as there are some terrific offerings and fun planned. Only 161 days until we gather in Gilbert.

Over the years I have updated the white paper to include the VFP 9 SP2 hotfixes, the Fox Community supported VFP 9 Help file on VFPX, highlight some issues with the Virtual Store when upgrading VFP 9 to the latest Service packs, and corrected some bad Web links along the way. Several people have contributed feedback and suggestions along the way.

In the past few months I have talked with several developers who are still running the original VFP 9 SP2 release, building apps, and deploying them without the VFP 9 SP2 hotfixes. I wanted to refer them to the white paper on the White Light Computing Web site, but I knew recently that the white paper became inaccurate. So I took some time this evening to update it and get it posted.

The reason for the update is that the VFP 9 SP2 hotfix downloads hosted on Microsoft’s Code Gallery Web site disappeared when Microsoft killed the Web site. All the hosted files were removed. The Fox Community jumped into action as soon as this became known and started a new project on VFPX to host this very important VFP 9 SP2 Hotfix download. Additionally, I reviewed the entire white paper, added download information for the VFP 9 Reporting Applications (also a VFPX project) to fix some user interface nits and an important hi-resolution monitor bug fix, fixed a couple bad links, and updated some figures and folder names to make it more current from the original writing in 2008. I also adding some marketing materials for the books I have written over the last 15 years.

This white paper has become more than a guide to set up different folders for the different VFP 9 versions. It also is current documentation on where to find all the core Visual FoxPro 9 download files.

I certainly hope some of you have found this white paper useful over the years (hard to believe it has been 7 years since I originally wrote it). If you have not had a chance to get the latest hotfixes for VFP 9, make sure you follow the links in this blog and go get them installed. I personally have seen the nasty reporting bug fixed in this build. With this bug fixed and all the improvements from VFPX over the years, I find VFP 9 SP2 very reliable and stable.

I’ll wait here while you listen….Done?

OK, now go read the official written word from the organizers on the same subject on Doug Hennig’s blog post “You can save Southwest Fox.”

I’ll wait here while you read….Done?

Great, thanks for taking the time to listen and read. The Fox Communitgy has done a terrific job supporting this conference for the last nine years. We really want to do it for a tenth.

We want you to hear our voices so it was loud and clear, and not misinterpreted. The conference needs your support. If you plan to come to the conference, please, please get registered. It has never been more important!

Geek Gatherings Registration Page

Only 122 days until we (hopefully) gather in Gilbert.

We are looking for nominations from the VFP community for the 2013 recipient. To nominate someone you think deserves to be selected, please email their name and a brief list of their contributions to the VFP community to ambassadorfund@swfox.net. Names must be submitted no later than May 31, 2013.

In addition, we are looking for donations to allow us to pay for the travel costs for the ambassador. We urge you to consider donating any amount you see fit, small or large, to this fund. See http://www.swfox.net/ambassador.aspx for details. 100% of donated money goes to the travel costs for the ambassador. Not a single penny is used to cover administrative costs. All time managing the fund and working through the selection process is donated. No one is paid for their time.

The Ambassador selection committee consists of Southwest Fox organizers Rick Schummer, Tamar Granor, and Doug Hennig, former Ambassadors Emerson Santon Reed, Cesar Chalom, Bernard Bout, and Borislav Borissov, and VFP community members Christof Wollenhaupt and Rick Bean.

We are looking for nominations from the VFP community for the 2012 recipient. To nominate someone you think is deserving to be selected, please email their name and a brief list of their contributions to the VFP community to ambassadorfund@swfox.net. Names must be submitted no later than April 30, 2012.

If you wish to be considered for inclusion on the committee, please email Doug Hennig (dhennig@stonefield.com) by April 30, 2012. The existing committee will select the community member and announce their selection in early May. The committee will then issue a call for nominations for the 2012 recipient and will make their selection from the nominees.

This discussion boiled out of several discussions where Andrew and Dane kept running into former FoxPro people in the .NET community. They wanted to hear more about Fox Community and later found out that the root of the Microsoft MVP program was founded in the Fox Community as well. Our discussion covers a number of topics about developer communities and is what we find common and unique among them, as well as characteristics you find in people who are actively participating in a developer community. It was a fun hour.

The interview/discussion was recorded in the Microsoft Commons in a cafeteria. In the background was lots of MVPs eating and socializing so I am really impressed with the quality of the audio. I enjoyed participating. The only wish I have is that some of the other former Fox MVPs who have turned to the “dark-side” (Rod Paddock, Rick Strahl, Jim Duffy, Julie Lerman, Kevin McNeish, Markus Egger, Cathi Gero, and Craig Berntson to name a few) and other Fox people who are now .NET MVPs (Alan Stevens, Bonnie Berent, and David Giard) were not there. Although with that many people it would have been out-of-control. The list of people here is only part of the crowd though that have helped the .NET Community actually become more of community in the sense the Fox Community has known for more than two decades.

You can listen to the podcast here:

http://www.communitymegaphonepodcast.com/Show/26/FoxPro-Reunion

Thanks to Dane and Andrew for taking the time to talk with us.

Even as I sit down to write this blog entry I find myself a bit shocked at how the closing session revealed the award. Doug let me know before the conference that Lisa Slater Nicholls was being awarded, only because he knew I would figure it out when I saw Lisa and Colin roaming the grounds at the Legado and Elegante.

So let’s first start with Lisa. Lisa is very deserving and I am happy she got the award this year. As several others have said, it was long overdue. Listening to Doug’s introduction was chilling to me especially when he talked about the moment in time when Lisa stepped up to take the position of FoxTalk Editor when Glenn Hart passed away. Doug pointed out how that one moment in time impacted so many people in our community. If Lisa had not stepped up there might not be a FoxTalk, and that means a lot of writers might not have had the chance to write about FoxPro. I was one of the people who got my start writing in FoxTalk, which lead to conference speaking, book writing, and other contributions I have made to the community. If you want to read Lisa’s first editorial in FoxTalk head here.

I really enjoyed Lisa’s short video too. Well done. You can read Lisa’s reaction on her blog here: “Legacy” is a good thing

Then I see Doug change to the “But wait…. there is more” slide. If you know me you know I like to be prepared and this slide was not covered during the “rehearsal.” You may have noticed I am a bit confused at this point. In the next few seconds I was running through the list of people I thought might be announced and wondering if they were in the room. I am barely listening to Doug as he introduces the second recipient of the afternoon. Me. Me?!?

The moment I heard my name announced the space time continuum skipped a beat. I literally had no words in my head (all the voices stopped {g}). I completely “spaced” out. And yes, it was an emotional moment. It was a good thing I did not make eye contact with Therese and I did not see my parents in the front row. I heard later that my mom was crying and that probably would have thrown me over the edge. I was, and to this day, stunned. I am also honored, and extremely grateful for the recognition.

Tamar was kind enough to point out to me that the next slide was mine and I had to pull myself together to announce that we are already planning Southwest Fox 2011. Unfortunately we do not have the dates or location to announce at this point. I had a reasonable plan of what I wanted to say, but I lost those words as well. We will have more to come in the next month on Southwest Fox 2011.

After the closing session I realized I thanked no one. You know, the academy, all the people who helped me so I could help others, etc. No music to cut me off and tell me to get off the stage. No Kayne West to jump up on stage to explain how Rick Strahl is the best Lifetime Achievement Award winner named Rick. So here it is… Thanks!

First of all there is Therese. She is the Best.Wife.Ever. She is the woman who allows me to be successful by supporting the crazy ideas I come up with. She supports me to follow my dreams, even when I am not sure they are the right dreams to follow. Without her I am unable to do all the things I do. People often ask me how I am able to do everything I do, the answer is one word: Therese. She is my rock, and my biggest supporter. I fell in love with her nearly 30 years ago, and because of it I am one of the luckiest people on the planet.

My kids think their dad is a dork. That is fine, as long as I am their dork and they are okay with me attempting to mold them into the fine adults they have become.

Next up are my parents, who coincidentally came to Phoenix this year to vacation with us after the conference. Amazing coincidence and timing they were there, and it brings me great joy they were in the room to see their son go speechless. They would not have believed it if they had not witnessed it. They gave me the foundation that helping others is something you just do. Kudos to Doug for seeing the opportunity and making it happen. Priceless.

Next up are the people who nominated me. Wow. I am so honored by your recognition. I say this without reservation: it would have been an honor just to be nominated. I think of all the people who I hope someday will get this award, and I am amazed that you feel I deserve the recognition this year. I still get chocked up thinking about this. Thanks.

The past recipients who made the selection: Whil Hentzen, Rick Strahl, Doug Hennig, Tamar Granor, Rainer Becker are all personal heroes of mine and friends. Alan Griver is another hero of mine and also a friend. I also appreciate that Naomi stepped up when no one else wanted to and participated in the selection. Thanks for selecting me for this award. And thanks for shocking me. Well done.

Doug, even though I did not comprehend your announcement and the kind words you had to say about me at the time, I really appreciate them. I am so glad I have video (BTW, thanks Kevin Cully for recording it for me). I especially appreciated the “love you as a brother” comment and feel the exact same way.

To the Fox Community: there is so much good and generosity in our community. Being part of this group and being able to share and learn from this group is such an easy thing to do. Thanks for letting me be a part of it for so many years.

Thanks to everyone who was at Southwest Fox and for all the kind words since the conference. To know I am having a positive impact on other developers, on other human beings, is more than enough for me. To be recognized this way is mind-boggling.

For the last four years White Light Computing has supported the efforts of Southwest Fox and the Fox Community with a scholarship to one person who registers for the conference. You can read all about the scholarships for the 2010 conference on the Southwest Fox Scholarships page.

The first year I did it to help Bob Kocher as an incentive to get some people to register for the conference. It is hard to measure what marketing gimmicks work and which ones are less successful, but Bob noticed an uptick in the registrations after I made the offer. During that experience I realized that it was more than getting people to register for the conference, it was about giving back to the community. I fully understand the importance of education in one’s career and good conferences are an excellent approach in the grand scheme of advancing and pushing the technology learning curve. The conversations with the winners is enjoyable because the winners are first surprised and second, appreciative that someone would help with the costs of going to the conference.

This year I mixed it up and decided to offer two US$150 scholarships, which turns out to be double the fun. The Director of Marketing at White Light Computing (my oldest daughter, and yes the title is not real because she will expect some sort of salary) picks the winners each year. This year she first picked the top 10, and then picked the final two. The winners this year are:

1. Prentiss Berry of Pensacola, Florida: last year was Prentiss’ first Southwest Fox.
2. Allan Gordon of Littleton, Colorado: this is Allan’s third year coming to Southwest Fox.

Both gentlemen are looking forward to this year’s conference and are excited by the sessions and presenters we have on the schedule.

Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN

White Light Computing also contributed a copy of Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN which retails at US$11,899. Now I see myself as a generous person, but even a company as successful as White Light Computing is not going to plop down close to twelve thousand dollars to give away to someone in the Fox Community. Not this year.  The Microsoft Developer Division provided each MVP with three licenses to share with other developers. I decided to offer one of these to give away to one person who registered for the Southwest Fox Super-Saver discount.

The winner of the Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN is: (drum roll please….)

1. Mary Pilon of Farmington, Michigan: this is Mary’s fourth year coming to Southwest Fox and she is a fellow officer of the Detroit Area Fox User Group!

Congratulation to everyone who won!

Thanks to Microsoft and in particular S. Somasegar, who is the Senior Vice-President from the Microsoft Developer Division and provided the license for me to give away.

And thanks to all who have registered for Southwest Fox 2010. Your support for our conference is truly appreciated and critical to making the conference a success each year.

One of the definitions of “community” from Dictionary.com:

“a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists”

Software development communities have been around for a while. They are a grass roots processes driven by human instinct to learn and to share. I believe it is not something that can be formed out of an idea by a single individual and it cannot be created because a company wants it to be, it has to form out of the community’s desire to participate in the greater good of the group. I think this is obvious with the different social networking ecosystems. The fact remains that Twitter and Facebook, despite their magnificent technical achievements would disappear if the people decided it was no longer worth participating in. They are vehicles that support the community, not the actual community.

The first technical community I remember belonging to was the TI-99/4A community. The TI-99/4A was the first computer I owned. I subscribed to the industry magazine, I belonged to the local user group here in southeastern Michigan, and I found other people on bulletin board systems locally and nationally. It is where I probably learned of the importance of a technical community and how well people can help each other.

In college you form study groups to help each other. I began to understand the old story about a raising tide lifts all boats. In college it was part of the survival instinct that kicks in. Each person was learning at their own pace until we decided to study together. Some of us also learned the lesson that you can learn more by teaching. There is no question that some of us became leaders/teachers, and some people fell into the learners side of the group, but as a whole I believe it helped us all get grades better than what we would have gotten on our own, and eventually the learners started teaching.

Flash forward just a few years to when I was talking with some friends about PC-File, which is a shareware database from Buttonware. Through one friend I was introduced to FoxBase+ and how a modern and way more sophisticated database with multiple workareas could work. I started playing with it and found a couple of other people who knew Dbase. Together we sort of helped each other in the evenings. Eventually I found a new job that needed FoxBase+ experience. I felt I was learning a lot, but the firehose needed to open up and I needed to learn at a faster pace. I eventually subscribed to magazines like Database Advisor and FoxTalk. But the reality of when the learning curve smoothed out was when I stumbled on to CompuServe and the FoxForum. Questions and answers to some trivial and complex problems. I read everything I could get my hands on. What a gold mine! I also started meeting people and establishing friendships from around the globe. The Fox Community

CompuServe lead to conferences, starting the Detroit Area Fox User Group, more connections, more friends, and more knowledge. I move to a different team because I had outgrown the challenge and needed something bigger. At the same time I felt the need to start giving back once I was confident in my FoxPro skills. I started sharing developer tools that I had written for my self and my team (Project Lister was the first of many). This lead to writing for FoxTalk (thanks to Bob Grommes for giving me that first chance), writing for FoxPro Advisor (thanks to Tamar Granor for sticking with me), and eventually writing for Hentzenwerke Publishing (thanks to Whil Hentzen, Andy Kramek, and Marcia Akins for trusting my report designer skills) and FoxRockX (kudos for Rainer Becker for his continued publication). I gave back on CompuServe, and later on other forums like FoxForum.com. All that lead to speaking at conferences around the world, being awarded the Most Valuable Professional from Microsoft, working on projects like VFPX, and eventually running Southwest Fox. I literally have personal friends from all parts of the world who I know I can count on when I need help with Visual FoxPro or software development. Participating in the Fox Community is very rewarding because you know you are contributing to a greater good. You get so much more than you give.

I believe my story is similar to others who participate in the Fox Community in one way or another, at similar and different levels. You learn and for the most part you give something back when you can. This is what drives and grows a community.

If you want to learn more about the whole history of the Fox Community  the story has been documented as part of The History of FoxPro Web site.

I do want to share with you a couple of thoughts on why the Fox Community needs your continued support for the long term success of the community.

Supporting Community: VFPX (and other open source initiatives)

I recently was instant messaging Emerson Santon Reed who was the Ceil Silver Ambassador at Southwest Fox 2009. We were chatting about his Themed Controls project on VFPX. I have used some of his magnificent controls in my applications and have written about them in FoxRockX. One of my customers asked me to help spruce up their vertical market application so it looks fresh and up to date. One of the controls we talked about using is the Ribbon control. I knew Emerson was working on it so I asked him about it and where it was in the development cycle. He mentioned that the Ribbon control is a complex beast and to get it done requires the community to help through VFPX. He told me he posted his thoughts on this control and asked for help on his blog: Ribbon in ThemedControls suite?. He has the basics working, but the full spec is very wide and he needs people to help finish all the missing features, test, create builders, build samples, document, and figure out how to make it easier to integrate into an application. He is one man who like others has a full-time job and a family to take care of. If you read through the comments of this post you will see numerous people who give him kudos for a job well done and even some people who said they would love to help out, but in the end no one contacted him at the time the two of us talked. So the Ribbon control has been effectively shelved because Emerson is a busy person. Fortunately he was kind enough to point me to the Arg Ribbon control and I can go support another part of the Fox Community.

I have talked with other project managers on VFPX who pretty much have similar stories. Everyone is willing to benefit from the sacrifice and long hours put in by the developers on VFPX, some hand out a few kudos, several complain when something does not work, and move along. Some people don’t even hand out a kudo or word of encouragement. Some complain in a forum outside of VFPX, but don’t spend a few minutes posting the problem in the Issue Tracker so the project team can jump on it. I know some people are afraid they are not good enough seeing the quality of the work on VFPX. Let me assure you, you can test and provide feedback if you have looked into using anything on VFPX. You can learn to be better too. Some people claim they don’t have the time. I understand, it is a limiting factor as we cannot get more time. But if you could give a few hours a month you will make a significant contribution to the projects. Another key thing to remember is that no one gets fired for volunteering so it is a perfect place to get outside of your normal skill set and learn to do something new.

I can tell you that some of the projects on VFPX have gotten a tremendous amount of support. The most visible one today is probably the PEM Editor. I know Jim Nelson has a large group of people who do beta testing for him and this has helped the project tremendously. Jim also gets feedback, code fixes and suggestions from several people, help with documentation, and even has Matt Slay posting releases and doing the marketing to let the Fox Community know about releases. This project is fantastic from a perspective of the Fox Community working together and should be the role model for projects on VFPX. No project should be a single person unless that person wants to be flying solo.

The GDIPlusX project also had several people committed to the cause with people like Bo Durban, Craig Boyd, Cesar Chalom and others. This project went from nothing to production ready in relatively short order with numerous examples to help the Fox Community adapt this tool into their applications. GDIPlusX is also the foundation of several projects on VFPX and out in other parts of the Fox Community.

I can tell you that the party is more fun when more people help put it on and come to it. Developers who get feedback are more inspired to deliver updates to existing projects and others to propose more because they know they will not be doing it alone.

My recommendation is to get involved if you want to see VFPX grow in the future.

Supporting Community: User Groups

I helped form the Detroit Area Fox User Group back in 1994 with 5 other FoxPro developers more than 16 years ago. I also am a member in the Grand Rapids Fox User Group and I have done presentations at user groups across the United States. I find them valuable from a educational experience and from a social experience. From what I can tell the groups change in size and direction, but from what I am observing, they all have a small core group of people who come to most meetings, and a few people who come occasionally. These tight knit groups work because they they too feed off human instinct to learn and share.

At the core these groups survive by members participating. At the same time the membership have to get something out of it. Learning and sharing your knowledge, just like I mentioned back in college with study groups, raises all boats. In fact, when you think about it, user groups are exactly like college study groups. I have also noticed over the years that Fox user groups also like to dabble in other software development concepts and processes, and even other platforms and languages. It is how one grows and how one is able to offer the best solutions to your customers.

My recommendation is to join your local group, or start one if it makes sense. If you are part of one, volunteer to do a presentation, or pick up a leadership role. You will get 10x what you put into it.

FYI: I have also written about my thoughts on the important interdependency of user groups and conferences in a blog post last year titled: User Group Dependency on Conferences.

Supporting Community: Forums

I am kind of surprising myself by even mentioning forums in a post about community as the Fox Community started online and continues to thrive online. Whether you visit Foxite, FoxForum, ProFox (yes a list server, but still an active online discussion area), one of the Tek-Tip FoxPro forums, UniversalThread, or the Visual FoxPro Wiki (yes not a forum, but another online knowledgebase with un-threaded discussions), you will find lots of other people with common characteristics and interests willing to help you out. They each have their own pros and cons, and you really need to find one or more that fit your personality. Please take the time to answer a few questions too. I guarantee you that you will find it exhilarating when you help others with a problem. You may even find it addicting.

Supporting Community: Commercial Activities

How can one consider commercial activities part of the community since they are in the business of making money? Reading this post one might think the Fox Community is all about learning and sharing. There are a number of commercial ventures that support the Fox Community and your ability to make money as well.

For instance, FoxRockX is a journal you can get for an online subscription for US$99/Eur€75. I write for Rainer’s publication and I even get paid for the writing thanks to the fact people subscribe. If people stop supporting the journal it would cease to exist and Rainer would remove my deadlines. Would I stop writing. OK, not completely as I would continue to share posts on Twitter and an occasional article here on my blog, but without a deadline I will probably write less because there will be other customer priorities. Less articles means less sharing and fewer opportunities to learn for others.

The same principle applies to framework vendors, book vendors, tool vendors, and conferences. If you get value from them continue to support them so they continue to support you. I am not saying you should blindly throw your money at the products. They should provide you value. You should demand they provide you value. But if the value is there, and they help you be profitable or more marketable, or enhance your career, you should make sure to show your support by giving them incentive to keep on going. Otherwise the vendors will disappear. If you tell yourself I can subscribe next year when I might need an upgrade to the framework to support Windows 7 features, the framework vendor might not have the resources to write the functionality. If you note you can push that book purchase off until next budget year you might find the publisher no longer has stock. Anyone who believes you can skip a conference this year and go next year might find others who did the same and forced the organizers into a position where they cannot offer it the next time around. Don’t count on someone else supporting the future of the vendors.

Summary

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. Community is important, whether it is the physical community you live in, or a virtual technical community like the Fox Community. Communities survive and thrive based on the members contributing, participating, and supporting others. Please continue to support the Fox Community, or some day you may wake up and notice it has disappeared.