• First, registration is now open for both Southwest Fox and Southwest Xbase++. Registrations have been already been pouring in, which is great news.
• Second, speakers and sessions for Southwest Xbase++ are now available.

Remember, if you register for one conference, you’re free to attend sessions in the other conference as well: it’s BOGO (buy one, get one free). There are some sessions specifically intended for VFP developers, including Project PolarFox: State of the Union and Xbase++ 2.0 from a VFP Developer’s Perspective. Also, some of the Southwest Fox session will appeal to Xbase++ developers, such as Advanced Topics in Mercurial: Taking it to the Next Level, jQuery 101, and Office Automation Without Office.

I personally hope you’ll head right over to the brand new online registration form developed by my team at White Light Computing. You’ll receive an email when you submit your registration confirming we received it. You’ll get a confirmation message with a paid invoice as your receipt after we process the payment.

I also want to make a brief plea to you as well. We encourage you to register as soon as possible. Our final commitment to the conference center is due by July 2. In order to confirm that commitment, we must have a sufficient number of people registered by then to ensure that the conference is financially sound. So please register soon and spread the word about Southwest Fox to all the Visual FoxPro developers you know, and likewise for the Southwest Xbase++ conference.

Thanks for the continued support!

Only 152 days until we gather in Gilbert!

We’re glad to welcome back a couple of speakers who haven’t been to Southwest Fox in a long time: Rod Paddock and Kevin McNeish. And of course Cathy Knight, Kevin Cully, and Rick Strahl, who didn’t speak at the conference last year. Returning from last year are Menachem Bazian, Steve Bodnar, Rick Borup, Tamar Granor, Doug Hennig, Rick Schummer, Eric Selje, Tuvia Vinitsky, and Christof Wollenhaupt.

We have a terrific line up of topics that cover a variety of Visual FoxPro, Web, and other technologies too. I believe there is something for everyone. I think our pre-conference sessions are going to interest a lot of developers too.

Stay tuned for announcements about the Southwest Xbase++ 2012 speakers and sessions AND the roll out of the new online registration site we are working on.

I hope to see everyone in October. Only 170 days until we gather in Gilbert!

The conference is on “soft skill” topics, not hard technical topics you find at most software conferences. It is very unique in this regard. It is a single-day conference with ten 30-minute sessions with 5 minute breaks in between. I registered for the conference before even knowing the speakers and the topics, purely based on the reputation of the organizers and the good experiences past attendees talked about.

KalamazooX is inexpensive. I registered as an early-bird for $20 (normally $25 for professionals and $15 for students). Add to that a hotel night for $100, a tank of gas for $45, and a couple of meals around $40. Total expenses around $200. I probably could have driven out in the morning and returned the same day, but I wanted to relax a bit so Therese and I went out Friday afternoon.

I arrived a little after 8:00am for registration and found a seat in the back. Nice deep tables and lots of room between attendees. The room was good except for the morning sunlight on the screen which washed out many of the speaker’s slides in the first half of the day. Fruit and continental breakfast style food in the morning, and various beverages available all day. Conference also included a boxed lunch for everyone.

The speakers were good, topics were good, food was good, room was good, and networking/discussions were good. After the conference I noted to the lead organizer that KalamazooX had the same effect on me as the Business of Software (BoS) conference at a fraction of the cost. I walk away with ideas and thoughts I might not have considered without listening to the speakers. I was surprised at the comparison.

If you are interested in the Twitter stream, take a little time to read posts using the conference hashtag  #KalX12.

The thing I noticed throughout the day and probably the reason people kept tweeting it was one good session after another: speakers were prepared, well prepared.

Here are some thoughts on the best-of-the-best sessions (all five out of five stars):

• Best session of the day content-wise was Joe O’Brien’s People Patterns. Smooth speaker who packed my notes. Best idea from this session is the concept of a “Conversation Rolodex”, which means you prepare discussion topics so you do not go down the route of “so how about them Red Wings…”  This is one thing that seriously expands the conference after-hours sessions and likely has the biggest return on investment for a conference attendee. It works in business as well with your customers. I also liked his point about “Assume the positive”, which really rings home as business owners often worry about what happens if things go wrong. Thinking and believing good things result from your decision making helps drive success.
• Best  session of the day to listen to was Justin Searls’ The Mythical Team-Month. Noticeably the most nervous speaker, but his ideas and slides flowed well. All common sense and reaffirming concepts. He was a high energy speaker. His point about there not being any place to hide in small teams is something I really believe in as it forces no-fat productivity. I am glad the organizers went with their gut and picked this one.
• Best surprise session of the day was Suzan Bond’s Intuition. Past the basic business skills, successful business owners rely on their gut and intuition, sprinkled in with a little luck. Most people avoid talking about this. My favorite point: Good decisions get better, bad decisions get worse. This is so true. I have lived through both. This session had to be the softest of the “soft skills” presented and was the session I looked forward to the most before the conference started. Suzan hit home a couple of points that made my day.
• Best stab in the neck came during Jeff Blankenburg’s session How to Learn session. His point about not having enough time to learn everything you want or need to learn is an excuse. Watch a little less TV, sleep a little less, just do what it takes to learn. Time is the thing I cannot buy or create more of, and have always struggled on balance and optimizing my use of time. But he was right, I need to use time better for learning. I disagree with his point on not reading books as did several speakers who followed him, but I know people learn differently. I wish he would have had more concrete examples, but as I learned more and more through the day, it was a day more about inspiration than hard take-aways.
• And Alan Stevens did not push me over the edge once during his Making a Difference talk. Shocking. Although he did push at least one other person’s buttons on a religious argument so his session was deemed a success.  {g}

Strangely, a couple of the sessions actually spawned ideas for the approach I am going to take for my sessions at Southwest Fox and German DevCon later this year. I was not expecting that to happen.

One thing to note, from the get go, each of the speakers were fairly liberal with the use of swearing. If this bothers you the day probably would have been a bit frustrating. Some of it was humorous, and some of it was unnecessary. It definitely did not add to the conference experience.

As is normal for any conference I attend, I added a book to my Kindle and a couple more to the wish list. You are welcome Amazon. If you are interested, the book I added is The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, by Ken Robinson, Ph.D.

I wondered how the 30-minute sessions were going to work. Most conference sessions are 60-75 minute. For a technical topic that seems to work. Someone proposed making some of the session slots for our conference to include some two 30-minute sessions with a 15 minute break inside a normal 75-minute slot. I am skeptical on how well this might work, but plan to give it more thought based on how well these sessions worked at KalamazooX. Shorter sessions kept my attention better. What I am not sure of is if this is better for the soft skill or business topics, or if technical topics can benefit from this format too.

I expect to be back for KalamazooX 2013 and return as a sponsor too. A terrific way to spend my Saturday.

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.

I recently installed Windows 8 on a spare netbook computer. Nothing fancy, but up until a couple of months ago this was my wife’s primary computer running Windows 7 Ultimate (upgraded from the initial Starter edition). I am mostly interested in seeing if some legacy apps still run on the Windows 8, but it is a good opportunity to kick the tires on the new operating system.

I have already run into my first problem. It apparently is not a problem most of the world is going to hit, but the small percentage of people it might bother the most are important nonetheless.

The spare netbook runs at 1024×600 resolution. Not a great form factor for an 8 hour day, but it worked well as a Windows 7 machine for my wife. Also a perfect travel machine for trips where you might want to connect to email or an occasional Web search. The process of upgrading from Win 7 Ultimate to the Win 8 Consumer Preview was a little slow, but a painless experience. I blame the slowness on the Atom processor and low memory config, not the update process.

The first thing I did was click on a Metro tile and get presented with the message of not being able to run in this low resolution. In fact every tile specific to Windows 8 gives me the same message. During the install it warned about not being able to run the Windows Store, but I figured I could live without the experience on this box for this pass at testing the OS.

Just to let you know, the OS is working fine on the netbook. It runs Office on the desktop just peachy. IE10 works too in classic mode. I can read all the tiles on the Start screen. I can work with the OS through the charms and settings. So the Metro UI partially works. But when I click on things like Weather and People and just about everything else on the Start screen I get the message that the resolution is just too small to run the app.

Metro requires 1024×768 or higher. This wipes out the netbook form factor or platform for Windows 8. Maybe Microsoft thinks it is dead, and this might be true. I am not sure this is the case, but it definitely wipes out any potential upgrade revenue, and if people install it and get the experience I am getting they are going to be support trouble for the Microsoft Product Support Services (PSS).

But it got me thinking. I have developed apps for 800×600 for some of our customers because of visually handicapped people. I know one person who has a family member that has macular degeneration and runs to a 24” or 30” monitor at 800×600 to see the screen. It is ugly, ugly for you and me. He literally will not be able to run Windows 8 Metro UI and see it. That seems bizarre to me considering the UI works on something as small as a Windows 7 Phone.

I don’t see the point where Microsoft cannot make the tiles scroll or adjust to the 800×600 screen. Windows 7 Phone scrolls. Scrolling is not hard and for visually impaired people, it is an acceptable tradeoff to run the latest and greatest. I am sure the engineers have considered this, but I am just not grasping why this would be a design decision and limitation.

Another question I have is the tablet market. Obviously Apple upped the ante with the Retina display, but there is still room for 7” tablet platform. If my netbook is a 10” what is the 7” platform going to run at resolution wise.

One other question I have is the colors of the tiles. I have not spent a lot of time poking around, but can the tile colors be customized? I saw the theme selection, but I thought that was just the background color. Again, I played with the OS for about an hour on Sunday so I am not sure. Red tiles are going to be a problem for 10% of the male population with red/green color blindness.

Note: If you want to understand Microsoft’s side of this discussion, check out their Building Windows 8 Blog on this topic. This blog entry is well written and well thought out and covers a lot of interesting material. However, I point to one particular reason sited several times:

“We chose a minimum screen resolution of 1024×768 in order to make it as simple as possible for developers to create great apps that work on all the different screens that are available now and in the future.”

This is hogwash. Developers can easily build metro apps that run on scrollable screens. Don’t put this on the developers. Developers don’t need “easy”, users need usable, regardless of the computer or their physical ability to use the computer.

And don’t even get me started on scrapping the Start button. Argh. This easily will slow the adoption of Windows 8 in businesses. Change the core way people access shortcuts to their apps. Especially after introducing the search box on the start button in recent versions of Windows. This is easily the  biggest bad design decision of Windows 8. I am hoping people will scream loudly and this gets added back in before release.

One of these days I will be invited to the usability labs at Microsoft, but until then I will be happy to provide feedback through my contacts at Microsoft (some of whom actually listen), via the Windows 8 blog in the comments, and this blog.

Anyone else enjoying the Windows 8 experience so far?

This year we have two conferences as one great event at the same location. Southwest Fox has always served Visual FoxPro developers an opportunity to learn and extend their skills, and network with fellow developers. Alaska Software is working on PolarFox, a product that keeps the Visual FoxPro language alive in their next generation tool. You get two conferences for the price of one!

The conferences take place at the San Tan Elegante Conference and Reception Center, the same great location as last year.

If you’re interested in presenting at Southwest Fox 2012, please visit http://www.swfox.net/callforspeakers.aspx, read the complete Call for Speakers document (linked from that page), and download the proposal submission application. Session proposals are due by March 23.

Finally, if there are any topics you hope will be covered this year, please send them to info@swfox.net, right away.

You can check out Steve’s sessions by heading over to Steve’s Southwest Fox speaker page (linked above). I think you will find his sessions are more must-see topics to the conference. And I thought the schedule was already going to be difficult to figure out this year, now it just got more complicated, but in a very good way.

If you have not registered for the conference yet, there is no time like the present moment! We still have a few Saver discounts remaining. More details on the registration page.

Only 35 days until we gather in Gilbert!

Back in July White Light Computing randomly selected two winners from the list of registered attendees to Southwest Fox 2011. Each year since 2006 White Light has offered $300 of scholarships to people who are registered for the conference. You can read all about the scholarships for the 2011 conference on the Southwest Fox Scholarships page.

This year we offered two people a $150 scholarship.

Normally our marketing director (my daughter) pulls the names, but she was out of town on vacation. In her place my wife conducted the drawing. The drawing was done by piling in all the names of the people registered by July 1st. First she pulled out ten names. From this smaller pile five names were drawn, and then the final two people. Interestingly, in the final five were three people from the same company as the winners.

The winners are:

1. Joel Leach from Memorial Business Systems
2. Stacey Violett of Black Mountain Software

Both of these individuals have been to majority of the past Southwest Fox Conferences, and both of their companies are sending more than one individual to this year’s conference. They certainly increased their odds to be winners.

Many thanks to both Joel and Stacey for their continued support of Southwest Fox over the years. And thanks to all who have registered for Southwest Fox 2011 so far. Your support for our conference is truly appreciated and critical to making the conference a success each year.

If you are interested in registering for the conference, feel free to contact me. I am always open to discussing how I can convince you to attend the best Visual FoxPro developer conference in North America, Southwest Fox!

We’re trying to get a better handle both on how many people to expect and the factors in people’s decision to attend or not. Please help us by taking a brief anonymous survey.

http://twitter.com/#!/rschummer/status/76152986992254976

http://twitter.com/#!/rschummer/status/76280482454708224

http://twitter.com/#!/rschummer/status/76286820048044032

http://twitter.com/#!/rschummer/status/76289027896115200

http://twitter.com/#!/rschummer/status/76301141113188352

http://twitter.com/#!/rschummer/status/76326750010867713

I was mostly tweeting to a couple of co-workers who wisely passed on the workshop, but it raised some interest of some followers. At the time I did not want to reveal what workshop I was in hoping it would get better, but now that it is over and I found it disappointing I thought I should share my thoughts. I do this in case it will help other decide if the session is worthwhile to them or not in the event Microsoft decides to do more of them around the planet. Since 140 characters is not nearly enough… here is my story.

This week I attended a one-day workshop from Microsoft called WebCamp. Specifically a special WebMatrix and ASP.NET MVC WebCamp hosted by a couple of Central Region Microsoft Developer Evangelists. When I signed up for this workshop the agenda stated the following:

• Web Stack Introduction
• Building a Site in WebMatrix
• jQuery Fundamentals
• ASP.NET MVC Introduction
• Migrating from WebMatrix to ASP.NET MVC
• Instructor-Led Labs

Since Microsoft is marketing the free WebMatrix to my customers as a simple way to publish Web sites I thought I might get up to speed on the tool. I also anticipate some of our customers potentially hitting a wall with WebMatrix and asking us to migrate to a more robust solution. If there is an easy path to ASP.NET MVC, and that is something we can use to help them, all the better for me to attend this session.

I should state up front that I had very low expectations going into this workshop based on the past history I have had with Microsoft developer workshops. Mostly because I walk out feeling like I just listened to mostly marketing-speak and a lot less technical-speak. That said, even the worst workshop I have attended I have walked away with something of value that allows me to justify at least part of the time spent. I also have a history of being let down by Microsoft Developer Evangelists (with the exception of a couple of exceptional ones like Jennifer Marsman who is in our region).

I also want you to know the Southfield Michigan (suburb here in Detroit) workshop was not the first time this session was given. The room was completely full with approximately 80 people. I would say the venue was completely “sold out”. Also, the WebCamp was free to register.

A couple of days before the workshop we received an email noting we should download and install:

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 (get the trial)
• Download and Install WebPI 3
  • Install WebMatrix (via WebPI)
  • Install MVC3 (via WebPi)
• Download and install the Web Camps Training Kit

The email arrived a couple days before the holiday weekend. I fortunately did not get this email, but one of my co-workers did and it took her hours to download and install everything. Hours that were taken away from doing billable work. These were necessary for the marketed hands-on workshop. (more on this in a minute)

In fact on the WebCamp Web site it states:

As for our presenters, initially we have lots of Southwest Fox veterans like Menachem Bazian, Rick Borup, Steve Ellenoff, Tamar Granor, Uwe Habermann, Doug Hennig, Venelina Jordanova, Jody Meyer, Jim Nelson, myself, Eric Selje, and Christof Wollenhaupt. We also have three Southwest Fox freshman: Steve Bodnar, Kevin Ragsdale and Tuvia Vinitsky.  We are hopeful registrations will allow us to bring in additional speakers as well.

I am looking forward to sitting in on lots of sessions if time allows like last year. I am presenting a couple of new sessions:

1) How Craig Boyd Makes Me a Hero!

2) Programming Standards and Guidelines for Software Craftmanship

White Light Computing is a Platinum Sponsor again this year. We will have a booth to show off our developer tools and services again so please stop by.

You can follow us in Twitter: @SWFox. If you check out who @SWFox is following you will find our list of speakers who are on Twitter.

And there are still plenty of surprises up our sleeves (some we don’t even know ourselves yet) to entice you to come to the best Visual FoxPro conference in North America!

Please help us get the word out about the conference by yelling from the mountain tops. We certainly appreciate everyone who blogs, or records podcasts, or tweets, or Facebooks (is that the proper verb?) about their positive experiences at past Southwest Fox conferences. An email will be sent to everyone who has attended Southwest Fox in the past on June 1st. Send us an email if you are interested in getting on the list. (info [AT] swfox.net)

Registration opens June 1.

Only 152 days until we gather in Gilbert!

In the past I have found that customers like to change their mind about what they want. This normally happens once they see the implementation of what they asked for during the first round of requirements discussion. Developers work hard to put together the user interface using the designers, but it is relatively expensive to the customer base if it gets thrown away. Sure there are times when we hit the nail on the head, but normally I find the real solution does not shine until the customer “spits on it.”

Balsamiq Mockups is a designer that lets developers and non-developers alike build wireframes/mockups. These are blueprints for how the application user interface can look or work. Developers and users can sit down and flow through the application before hours of development are completed. Balsamiq Mockups facilitates the creation of the wireframes with lots of controls developers are using from the toolboxes provided in the native application designers.

You will learn:
* What the benefits are when you wireframe with your users
* How you can leverage customers and designers/artists to create mockups
* How easy it is to create mockups
* That wireframing actually leads to more business, and doesn’t take away revenues from development
* The different ways Balsamiq Mockups makes you a more agile developer/team

I really enjoyed DevLink last year and I look forward to meeting up with old and new friends in Chattanooga (new home of the conference) August 17th to 19th, 2011.

OLE error code 0x8002801d: Library not registered.

To be clear, I got this error trying to get the Help menu to drop down inside of Visual FoxPro, not selecting the Help option on the menu, or by pressing the F1 key (which failed to bring up the Help file). Puzzled I ignored it and opened the CHM file directly in Windows Explorer. It opened fine and I was able to provide the feedback to Francis. I rarely use VFP 8 these days. Actually I mostly use it to compare behavior to VFP 9, which was exactly the case this afternoon, or to help other developers when I am mentoring or answer questions on the various forums.

I took a shot in the dark and tried using REGSVR32 to register the FoxPro Help EXE found in the Common Files folder. I found out immediately this was the incorrect approach as REGSVR32 barked at me that it failed. Fortunately the Visual FoxPro Wiki came to the rescue as it does so frequently for me. The correct way to register the FoxPro Help executable is to run the EXE with the /RegServer parameter.

FoxHHelp8.EXE /regserver

You can do this via the Windows Command Window, but if you are running Vista, Windows 7, or an earlier OS without Administrator rights, make sure to run the Command Window with administrator access.

[I documented this for my future self in case I need it for another machine - RAS]

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.

Now off to get mine polished up and sent in.

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

We are looking for nominations from the VFP community for the 2011 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 AT swfox.net. Names must be submitted no later than April 15, 2011.

Red Gate made a recent announcement in an open letter to the .NET Community, which detailed some future changes to the product with respect to the licensing and most importantly that it was no longer going to be free. I watched the reaction in the .NET Community via Twitter and on some blogs, and was not surprised how many developers were reacting. Developers are notorious frugal and love free stuff, and complained loudly how Red Gate was cheating them and going back on their word/intention of always having a free version.

Any developer with few exceptions, who makes a living developing software and finds use for a tool like .NET Reflector core to their development experience certainly can afford $35 for the standard edition. Here in the USA we are talking a few pizzas or a week’s worth of Starbucks coffee. I have talked with numerous .NET developers over the last few years including people who work with me and they find this tool indispensable. The top of the line version which allows you to step through third-party assembly code is only $95. To me, as a business owner who likes when our company delivers solid software, $95 is a steal to gain functionality like this.

I emailed one of my contacts at Red Gate giving my view point. I am in the slightly unique position of having a line of commercial and some free tools that I make available to the developer community. I have experienced the developers who complain that I charge for tools that have some premium features and how I should make the pro versions free to everyone. I explained to Red Gate that they can expect some heated posts and tweets. But in the big picture, people should understand that the survival of a product for the cost of a few pizzas is minor in the big scheme of things.

As a thank you for my feedback Red Gate has given me some .NET Reflector VSPro licenses to give-away. This came to me as a total surprise.

I gave away 10 licenses to members of the Detroit Area Fox User Group last Thursday. I have 10 licenses to give-away at the Michigan Great Lakes .NET Group on Wednesday, and I have 10 more licenses to give-away here via my blog. This is close to $3000 of software. As you can see, Red Gate is a super generous company.

Rules/Disclaimer

[Edit 15-Mar-2011] All licenses have been given away.

So if you are doing any .NET development, or expect to be doing some .NET development and would like a FREE copy of .NET Reflector VSPro please send me an email: DotNetReflector AT WhiteLightComputing.com with the subject: “.NET Reflector Please”. The first 10 people who I get an email from will get instructions on how they can get their license returned to them via email. If you don’t get a response from me in 24 hours, consider yourself too late. I am fairly certain these licenses will not be around for long.

One license per individual. All tax considerations are the responsibility of the winner (consult your tax accountant for specific details). No employees of White Light Computing, or any family members of the employees of White Light Computing are eligible. Your mileage may vary, some settling may occur during shipping. Not valid outside of planet Earth. All decisions made by me are final.

Thanks

Thanks Red Gate for the great tools and the terrific support of the developer community, you guys rock.

As in the past few years, we plan to offer a good selection of topics in core VFP development, extending VFP, using VFP with other technologies, and VFPX, as well as technology sessions to help VFP developers become better developers, not just more expert at VFP.

If you think you have something to say to the VFP community, please submit session proposals, even if you’ve never spoken at a conference before. Our community is strengthened when more people take an active role. Do be aware that speaking at a conference is a serious commitment. Even for experienced speakers, preparing a new session takes 40-80 hours. Doing it well at the conference calls for several rehearsals beforehand, too. So make sure you can commit the necessary time–the Call for Speakers lays out all the deadlines.

We’re looking forward to seeing what you all come up with. Reading through the proposals we receive each year is really exciting, and choosing among them is always a challenge.

lcLongName = padr(upper(alltrim(tcProperty)), ;
             fsize('cLongName', .cPropCursorName))

The FSIZE() function is one of the functions affected by SET COMPATIBLE ON (it defaults OFF). When the setting is ON the function is returning the actual file size. When the setting is OFF, the function is returning the size of the field. This is one of those design decisions you got to wonder about. I know Microsoft made it to make the code work for dBase developers, but I think it is crazy-nuts to reuse functions in this manner. It leads to time tracking down problems like this one.

The application we are supporting has a SET COMPATIBLE ON in the start up code for reasons unknown to me. This is a global setting and it would take a considerable amount of time to track down all the possible code I would break by turning it OFF making it high risk. One workaround I could have implemented around this problem is inserting the SET COMPATIBLE OFF before the call to the SDT code and resetting it ON after the call (low risk, but only fixes this application). I decided to modify the FindProperty method to set and reset because it could be called by other application that use the DBCX Manager code. I also sent the findings to Stonefield support for their consideration.

[EDIT * 2-Feb-2011]  I have since realized that the changes are necessary throughout the DBCX Manager code. After further consideration, both Doug and I have come to the same conclusion, there are to many places to fix the code in the DBCXMgr, and no good reason why SET COMPATIBLE should be set ON. So I have changed the application to toggle the setting before calling the SDT Reindexing, Update, and Repair functions.

Glad to have that one off the bug list for our customer.

• The shift not only from the second week in October to the last week (to avoid running into Jewish holy days).
• The shift from our usual Thursday to Sunday dates to Wednesday to Saturday this year (so you can get home in time for Halloween).
• The post-conference starts Saturday afternoon rather than the next day.

By the way, the post-conference event is guaranteed to blow your socks off, so you’ll definitely want to consider staying the extra day. Stay tuned for more details.

The speaker dinner was themed oriental with some of my favorites including sushi and Thai food. More importantly the discussion was fun and often so funny I had tears in my eyes. It started at 8:00pm and ended around 3:00am for me, just a few short hours before we had to get in the taxi for the ride to the airport for the morning flights. Lots of discussion on how we can improve both German DevCon and Southwest Fox. We have a lot of synergy between the conferences and the organizers help each other out when ever possible. I think you will find many of the discussed topics making their way into the conferences next year as some of the ideas were downright cool and genius.

Up first is Doug Hennig and his “Cool Controls for Your Applications” session. Doug’s theme this year was deep diving into various controls in both of his conference sessions. Doug is making the important point that your apps do not have to be mundane and boring. There are no more excuses. Doug covered his impressive SF Splitter control (for vertical and horizontal splitting, which I am planning to use soon for one project), the SFComboTree (found in the PEMEditor), the VFPX PopMenu project, Paul Mrozowski’s RCSCalendar control, and finally the VFPX Balloon tips by Carlos Allotti. Great session for anyone looking to spruce up your app.

I skipped the next session because my head was hurting a little bit and because it felt like I had gone non-stop for a few days.

Alaska Software was kind enough to show us where they are going with their “Polar Fox” project. They showed this off at Southwest Fox, but I did not have time to review it in Pheonix. Steffen Pirsig detailed the plans for the next major version of XBase++ and how it will transpile the current FoxPro source code into their format to run. Details include:

• Transpiler: will take existing Visual FoxPro code and transport it to XBase++ code.
• Source code control will be simplified with text based source code.
• Source compiles down to native platform executables.
• Decompilers will be a thing of the past.
• Designers will be written in XBase++, IDE can be automated (continuing the tradition of extensibility).
• Command prompt, roll your own commands (interactive just like Visual FoxPro).
• Concepts they are pushing: no limits, innovate without disruption, favor design, continue the language.

Code already is compiling and building EXEs, the initial designers are working, they are making the reporting engine 100% compatible, and have the Profiler and Debugger working.

The idea that gives me the most confidence that Alaska Software can pull this off is that they have done it before with Clipper and the Clipper Community. They also seem to have a terrific grasp on what Visual FoxPro does and how developers use Visual FoxPro, and the types of applications they write. I really appreciate the time Steffan put in on the presentation and how Alaska Software is working on a path for Visual FoxPro developers in the future.

After lunch was my “Mocking Your Customer” session. This session is the one I was most nervous about because it really counts on audience participation. Having other contribute to any session benefits everyone, and the participation I have had in rehearsals and at other conferences was terrific. So in an effort to coax people into asking questions I offered to draw names for one of two licenses of Balsamiq Mockups. It worked a little as two people asked questions. Each won a copy of Mockups. The business side of the session went faster than normal since there were no questions or observations to share. I enjoyed the session and got several nice compliments from attendees as they were leaving.

The last session of the conference for me was Servoy’s vendor session “Servoy for the Visual FoxPro Developers.” Several Fox developers have made some very public statements on how they are learning Servoy and how they like it. Ken Levy did not show up on time so I went out in the lobby to track him down and remind him he had a session to give in 5 minutes. I am not throwing stones here based on my tardiness to my first session. I normally don’t get to see vendor sessions so I decided to take the opportunity to check out Servoy. After all, they have sponsored SWFox for 4 years and I don’t really have in-depth knowledge of the specifics, and have not seen a demo of the product. It does look impressive, especially how you can literally change the source code while the code is running. Once you save the change it is immediately reflected in the running form. They offer a good deal to start with the development IDE for free. Unfortunately as cool as it looks, the one thing I did not get answered specifically is the licensing costs, which I have been told is per seat licensing. They slipped through the pricing slide extremely quick and ask that you contact them for specifics on the pricing.

The conference finished up with the closing session where lots of door prizes are given away.

Up first is Christof Wollenhaupt with his first of five sessions for the conference. This session is called “Psychologie und Softwareentwicklung” and was presented in German. All the sessions in this slot were in German so I picked the one in the same room as my next session. I listened as much as I could, but mostly I caught up on some email and other work. Christof’s sessions in German are fast, as in speaking fast and packing in the information for the attendees. I like the fact that people laugh at is jokes and he has interactive sessions.

I followed Christof’s session with my “How Craig Boyd Makes Me a Hero!” session. I enjoyed it and hope the attendees did as well. The session was more interactive than most sessions I have given in Frankfurt. I love interaction and contributions from the audience when I talk so this helped me. I got through all but one demo so the timing on this session is still not perfected (something I worked on last weekend and on the plane ride to Frankfurt). The demo gods made sure I was in check with a VFP 9 SP2 C5 crash and the same for Skype (which definitely should not have been running in the first place). Rainer, the conference organizer, stopped by the room before the session and noted how much he really liked the session title. I have plenty of material for part two next year if Rainer wants to invite me back.

Up next was Cathy Pountney’s “Making the Most of VFP 9 SP2 Reports.” Cathy reminded me about some issues with respect to installing VFP 9 SP2. Since I have seen this session numerous times at user groups and conferences I took the time to update my document “Install and Run Different VFP 9 Versions on One Computer” with her discussion about Virtual Storage in Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008. The introduction to the new Report Dynamics is delivered from one of the few experts in the community. The tips she shows in this session are outstanding. One of her tips in particular deals with the wrapping of details to the next page of reports when you have more than one object with different sizes bumping up the height of the band. This one hit home because on of my mentoring customers has a very similar problem (which Cathy helped me work through for a solution during lunch). This reminds me of an important benefits of conferences: getting help from other developers to solve problems that have you stumped. I know I try to help out other developers when ever I have a chance, but to do it face-to-face is really beneficial. This session actually was a perfect warm up to her fxReports session later in the afternoon.

Lunch followed Cathy’s session. At this point I was not hungry because breakfast was so good, but I had some salad and naturally the smoked salmon.

“Windows Presentation Foundation 4″ by Kevin McNeish followed lunch. This was the perfect follow up to the Entity Framework 4 session on Thursday. Kevin compared and contrasted the differences between Windows Forms and WPF-based interfaces. I really know nothing about either, so it was great getting background from one of the experts on the subject.

“fxReports – Sharing Custom Report Features” by Cathy Pountney is another session I saw in rehearsal at the Grand Rapids Fox User Group. Cathy added some stuff based on the fact that the VFPxRepository.com site is established. We are working on getting a place set up so the community can share add-ons and plug-ins for the various VFPX tools that have them. We decided that we needed a place separate from the VFPX Codeplex pages because VFPX hosts core projects and is not great with respect to multiple downloads. The rest of the session showed various dynamics and special effects Cathy has produced via a new reporting framework called fxReports. She showed the code and how they work, and how they are implemented in the ReportListener class hierarchy. The framework is designed to share components with other developers. Cathy has devised a VFPX project that helps developers not only design special effect classes for reports, but to load other ones by other developers, and share the ones they create. This is a really cool project and has tremendous potential for developers to create special effects on report and simple to implement ones developed by others. Really cool and a great session.

Christof (note, I only have to use his first name {g}) presented “Automatisierung des Entwicklungsprozesses” also in German. I was catching up on more work as I listened to him and tried to understand the various processes he has tried to automate in his work life. So many things to try and so little time to do so.

I skipped the two after dinner sessions since they were in German and got some more real work done. I needed to work on a proposal that was due for a customer by 5:00 EST so the fact that I was six hours ahead really helped me beat the space-time continuum limitations.

Once the proposal was completed and emailed I headed downstairs to participate in some discussions in the bar and later headed to bed because I was really tired after the long day. Unfortunately, jetlag was kicking my behind once again.

For the record, I had smoked salmon at every meal during the conference including lunch on day 1. This is a personal goal I am happy to meet each year at German DevCon.

Doug’s “A Deep Dive into the VFPX ThemedControls” session was up first after lunch and as is normal for one of the world’s best speakers, Doug did a great job. He stepped us through a deep dive into Emerson Santon Reed’s class library of fantastic controls that really helps in the quest to make Visual FoxPro applications look modern. Doug talked about the fundamental classes: ThemesManager (allows you and your customers to pick from one of six predefined themes), the ThemedContainer, the ThemedTitlePageFrame, and the ThemedButton (including the builder). After the fundamentals Doug described in great detail the classes and code needed to implement the ThemedExplorerBar, the ThemedOutlookNavBar, ThemedToolbox, ThemedZoomNavBar, and the newer Ribbon. I agree 100% with Doug’s summary that there are no more excuses for Visual FoxPro developers to create applications that do not look good. Doug’s 26 page white paper on this topic is a gold mine of information as well.

Cathy Pountney’s session “PEM Editor: An Absolute MUST HAVE in your development toolkit” followed Doug’s session. I saw this session in Grand Rapids when she rehearsed it for Southwest Fox. Cathy’s session in Grand Rapids was good, but it was obvious she refined timings and material since I saw it. I was wondering if I would learn anything new since I saw it once before, and should not have forgotten that there is so much to this tool and I was destined to learn or relearn something new. PEMEditor is always changing and being improved by Jim Nelson so any minute we can count on a new release with new features. Cathy gave a brief overview to show people in the room who did not know what the PEMEditor is. After this she showed the crowd a dozen or more different features that are new in the current version. One of my favorites was the “Go To Definition” which literally opens up the method in the method editor, the property in the PEMEditor, or an object in the PEMEditor Document Treeview. The “Extract to method” does exactly that, BeautifyX is a beefed up beautifier, and the built in Enhanced Cut, Copy and Paste are fantastic advancements in the PEMEditor becoming a serious refactoring tool.

Kevin McNeish’s “The Microsoft Entity Framework 4″ (also known as EF4) made my list of sessions because I have read and heard from others that it is Microsoft’s data access soup of the day for .NET development. Seriously, Microsoft has put a lot of resources together to improve the Entity Framework. White Light Computing purposely used EF4 in our conference session eval Web site that we created earlier this year for Southwest Fox so we could learn more about it. Kevin introduced EF4 with his normal wit and humor. The one thing I took away from the session is that Microsoft made some significant improvements from EF1 to EF4. EF4 is really the second release of the Entity Framework and in true Microsoft fashion, needs three releases to really get this product at a mature state. One thing is for sure though from what I have learned at German DevCon, Microsoft needs to listen to database developers more closely as there are some fundamentals missing in EF4, which I find disturbing, but not surprising.

I skipped the first session after dinner since I needed a bit of a break. I also needed to finalize the three tips I planned to present during the bonus session.

The second bonus session was the delivery of two “FoxPro Lifetime Achievement Awards” and Tips & Tricks from the conference speakers. Rainer started out the session with an overview of an app he is working on. Most of his discussion was in German with an occasional break in English to help out the non-German people in the audience. It looked like an interesting application.

The two “FoxPro Lifetime Achievement Awards” were given to Jürgen “wOOdy” Wondzinski, and Christof Wollenhaupt. Both wOOdy and Christof are developers people recognize with a single name, like Cher, and have made so many contributions over the years to the world-wide Fox Community. Their contributions are going to be posted soon on the Fox Wiki. I was honored to be one of the presenters along with fellow award winners Doug Hennig and Rainer Becker.

Up next was the Tips and Tricks session. Several speakers presented tips they have learned over the years. I presented an ActiveX/IntelliSense tip, ability to sort Watch Expressions in Debugger, and a DataExplorer Query tip.

Other tips presented by the other developers included:

• Doug Hennig demoed “Go To Definition” feature of PEM Editor and a instrumenting/logging tool.
• Ken Levy demoed _SetAllX FFC class he included in VFP, _EvalText found in _HTML.vcx, and advanced Component Gallery tips.
• Cathy Pountney demos Report Designer trick for “;” as CHR(13) in reports, and is showed off SlickRun.
• wOOdy is showed a field type tip, a BROWSE NAME trick, and EVAL() tip.
• Christof showed integer in Command Window does Goto, “-” concatenates and ALLTRIM(), using SET VOLUME, and killing/restarting VFP. Christof also mixed tips and tricks with humor and had the audience in stitches.

The tips might be printed in a future issue of FoxRockX. That was the end of the conference day. I hung out with folks in the bar for a while, and then headed back to my room around midnight to get some customer work completed. Day 2 would come too quickly.

Today I overslept despite setting up a wake-up call, the television alarm, and my phone as a backup. I did not wake up until Doug Hennig called me almost four hours after the alarms.

I heard the phone ring. I answered it expecting it to be someone from the hotel telling me to wake up. Strange though was the voice sounded a lot like Doug. I think I asked him what time it was. “11:20″, Doug replied. Mental check, my session starts at 11:30. Holy $%#, 10 minutes.

Need computer working so I figured I could log in and get things set up and ready so I can start immediately upon getting in the room. Blue Screen! Seriously?!? Really?!? At this point I thought I might want to wake up from this nightmare. This is not a joke. These are real thoughts. Pinch, nope I am awake, phone says it is 11:21. Reboot the machine and hit shower, dress, login, and run for session room.

I arrived and started my session at 11:35.

The first 5 minutes were the hardest 5 minutes of my presenting life. The adrenaline level was as high as I have experienced in all my years of speaking. I could feel my heart jumping out of my chest as I introduced the session. At the same time I was introducing the session I was trying to figure out where I could cut time, and slow down my racing heart.

Jet lag is obviously killing me this trip. I returned to my room exhausted last night, but could not fall asleep since my body thinks it is dinner time back home. I tried several techniques to sleep and all failed. I got up and called my family and went through my session (which turns out to be a key to delivery this morning), tweeted about the problem of not sleeping, and handled some email for customers. All tasks were done hoping to make me more tired. I ended up falling asleep at 4:30 local time.

All-in-all I was able to convey the information I wanted to share with the people in the room. One of the attendees told me at lunch after the session, after learning I woke up 15 minutes before starting the session, that I did remarkably well considering the experience. In my mind it was definitely not my best work, but appreciate the kind review. I am also hoping the adrenaline levels off some time this afternoon. Wish I could bottle it up for use later.

Thanks to Doug for recognizing my absence and waking me up. Thanks to those who stayed and attended the session. And apologies to Rainer for letting you down this morning. It will not happen again. As a fellow organizer I know how important it is to count on the speakers to show up on time and deliver a good session.

This computer is the only computer for the company and is close to 8 years old, and really did need to be replaced. This customer is running a Visual FoxPro 5 app that I developed in 1997 and has run without major issues since then. The app is so reliable I cannot convince the customer to upgrade it to Visual FoxPro 9.

So let me see, how much could go wrong with VFP 5 on Windows 7 64-bit, using Aero? The app uses Excel to import records via a remote view, and automates Word to generate letters and envelopes via VBA in Office 97. Hmmm, a few versions of Office, lots of potential glitches with Aero, and a handful of ActiveX controls and FoxTools.FLL. My response was: “I don’t have any idea the number of things that could go wrong.”

My greatest concern was the 32-bit ODBC drivers for Excel, followed by the VBA automation, and then the User Interface glitches we have seen in newer versions of Visual FoxPro on Aero. I also used a couple ActiveX controls and had no idea how well it would work on Windows 7.

I did immediately think it was my opportunity to update to Visual FoxPro 9, which means no more Visual FoxPro 5 apps to support. {big evil grin}.

I arrived at my customer’s home. He literally runs his business out of his basement. I start up the app and it immediately crashes on “API library is not found.” Easy one, FoxTools.FLL is not loaded with the run-time files. It took me a little bit of time to track down the location of the VFP 5 runtime files, and copy over a copy of FoxTools. Run-times were in the Window’s SystemWOW64 folder instead of the System32 folder. App up and running FTW. I tested out most of the data entry forms and there are no UI glitches. Customer is happy to see the app running.

Celebration lasted about 2 minutes when we tried to import the Excel file. Hardware dude who moved over “everything” forgot to set up the ODBC driver. This is easy to overlook and I had good documentation on setting it up. I dig around and find the 32-bit ODBC Manager and set up the ODBC driver. Import routine works just fine. Another round of premature celebration follows.

Surely something is bound to go wrong, right? I mean, would I even dare write a blog post about a perfect scenario for an upgrade? Probably not. {g}

Off to test the letter generation code. CRASH! It is not what you are thinking if you are thinking the VBA code was not working. It crashed on the silly progress bar update that runs as the letters are generated. It crashed on the progress bar setting the value to zero, as in zero percent. Odd. I futzed with the code and tried a few things and eventually determined the progress bar was unnecessary for the moment. The VBA code actually ran without a single hiccup once I got past the progress bar not making progress. I am curious about the progress bar, but that battle is for another day. It was more important that the letters and envelopes are generating so the business can meet their commitments to their customers.

Oh, and thanks Microsoft for keeping backward compatibility with VBA and the Excel ODBC driver in Office 2010 on Windows 7. Nice job! Kudos to everyone on the Office team for not making my life miserable and showing the customer that his investment in Visual FoxPro and Microsoft Office was a well placed investment.

The only things I wished I had today was the current error handler we use, and time to dig into the progress bar issue.  The error handler I wrote back in 1997 feels weak. The one we use today is way more robust. I am speculating that the progress bar only accepts integers and I am passing decimals, or it is looking for the percent.

The moral of this story is to add one more thing to consider the next time a customer calls and wants to upgrade to Windows 7: native Windows ActiveX controls. Silly thing is I avoid most of the Microsoft ActiveX controls these days because of the deployment headaches. Not a single issue I worried about materialized. It was the unexpected problem that consumed most of my time. That, should not be a surprise.

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.

This year I am hoping to reduce the effort of recording the evaluations you give us. It is one of the most important tasks we take care of after the conference.  Naturally we are interested in what you have to say about the conference, and the sessions the speakers prepare and deliver.

During the conference post-mortem meeting the organizers divide up the evals in thirds and use a couple very efficient Visual FoxPro forms developed by Tamar to enter in everything you put on the paper forms. We do this mostly because we want to get this information to the speakers. We deliver the details and summaries to them in early November (at least this is the goal). It normally takes me a couple of evenings to enter in my portion of the evals.

The biggest drawback other than the time it takes to enter in the evals is the latency to get the feedback to the speakers. Understanding what you did right and wrong in your sessions would be way more useful if you got it before you give it a second time at the same conference. The paper approach we use does not allow for this type of feedback.

So in an effort to get feedback to the speakers quicker, to save the organizers a little time after the conference, and as a terrific learning experience for the development team at White Light Computing, I designed an online Evaluation site for Southwest Fox.

To make things really interesting we decided to use a lot of new technology so everyone on the team would learn something new. In fact, some of the technology is beta itself. Oh, and I did not cut the development team any slack at all by giving them the specs and mockups just a few short weeks ago. Heh, if we cannot make it interesting, why do it at all?

The core part of the site is already developed. I opened up a private beta testing cycle late last night and already this morning we are getting feedback. If you are interested in beta testing it, we might have a few invites to share with you in the next week or so. So please email me at info AT swfox.net.

If you are interested in how I designed the site please come to my Mocking the Customer session at Southwest Fox 2010 and German DevCon.

Please keep your fingers crossed that White Light Computing can pull this off with the help from the test team, and if you like it don’t be shy about letting us know how we did at Southwest Fox. If you don’t like it, let us know in a constructive way too. We really appreciate your feedback.

Only 18 days until we gather in Glibert!