Shedding Some Light

This is a fairly long blog post with a single point: Continue to support the Fox Community, or some day you may wake up and notice it has disappeared. If you already do this, and plan on doing this you probably really don’t need to read the rest. {g}

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.

Conferences are an important part of my training as a developer and as a person who runs a business. I normally attend 4 or 5 conference/events a year. In addition to the three I am presenting at later this year, I will be attending the Business of Software conference in Boston in October, and I am one of the organizers of Southwest Fox (in case you are new to this blog {g}).

I have been invited to present at the following conferences in the second half of the year:

DevLink

DevLink is a conference held in Nashville, Tennessee from August 5th to 7th, 2010. The technical content is for software developers, database administrators, project managers, system administrators, and business analysts. So the sessions cover a wide spectrum of topics. I have not been to one of the previous DevLink conferences, but I planned to attend this year whether I was invited to speak or not based on a conversation I had with the DevLink organizers at last year’s CodeStock conference. I was impressed with their approach and how they offer sessions on multiple development languages and how they cover business topics for people in the industry who are not developers.

Looks like there will be 10 sessions going on during the time slots so picking what session to attend in each slot is going to be a bit challenging to say the least. Also, sessions are offered once so if you miss it and you hear how great it was a lunch or during a break you, well, missed it. There are a lot of topics that interest me for sure and some really good speakers who will be presenting. I am looking forward to sessions on SQL Server, the Entity Framework 4, ASP.NET MVC, Silverlight, lessons  learned while being an independent, social networking, project management, and more.

If you are going to DevLink and want to see a good session called Code Reviews: Why real developers do not fear them!, my session is at 2:30 on the opening day (August 5) in the Swang-S110 room. It is the only time I am rehearsing it before Southwest Fox. {g}

Southwest Fox

Doug and Tamar asked me to return to Southwest Fox again this year (I swear I am not making this up as I don’t actually pick me as a speaker, nor do I have final say on what sessions of mine are selected). As one of the organizers I really hope you will attend the premier Visual FoxPro event in North America. This is the seventh year for Southwest Fox and it seems to get better each time we put it on. The presenters are terrific, the networking opportunities are off the charts important, and no where else will you find that white papers are required from our speakers. So even if you miss a session you can read about it as soon as we make them available (which normally is days before the conference starts).

The conference runs from October 14th to the 17th, 2010 with currently three simultaneous conference sessions for each slot (we are hoping to add a fourth if attendance dictates this is financially feasible). There are four different pre-conference sessions to pick from too. On Monday the 18th dFPUG (publishers of FoxRockX, some new VFP books, and Visual Extend) are putting on a post-conference session on Visual FoxPro and Silverlight.  There will be some bonus sessions offered on Friday night as well. We also should have lots of vendors so you will be able to check out all kinds of third-party products to help you develop better database applications.

The golf resort is phenomenal, the weather is perfect in October, and we believe we have the perfect situation for developers to relax and learn not only about the latest and greatest Visual FoxPro techniques, but other development platforms and tools. If you need more reasons on why you should attend the conference then check out the page: Why Attend Southwest Fox!

I will be presenting the following sessions and participating in the keynote:

• Code Reviews: Why Real Developers do not Fear Them!
• Mocking Your Customer

There is a lot of work that goes into putting the conference on each year, but I am probably looking forward to Southwest Fox 2010 more than I have any other Southwest Fox. Last year was off the hook fun for everyone, including the organizers.

And just in case you have not heard, the super-saver registration deadline is coming up this week. Make sure to save a few bucks, get a free pre-conference session, and get in on the more than $18,000 in drawing prizes and scholarships available to people who register before July 1st.

I hope to see you in Mesa.

German DevCon

This is going to be the seventeenth time Rainer has put on German DevCon and I am really happy he has asked me back for my fifth time. The conference runs from November 11th to 13th, 2010 in Frankfurt Germany. This conference has presentations in German and in English so if you understand either of these languages please consider going. I have sat in on some German sessions and still get a lot from them. The language of technology is the same.

Rainer has not posted the details for 2010 yet, but you can stay tuned to the conference Web site to see all the particulars. I am presenting the same sessions in Germany as I am at Southwest Fox with the addition of a session I am calling: How Craig Boyd Makes Me a Hero!

You might be wondering of there ever will be a fresh book written on Visual FoxPro?

The answer is yes! Making Sense of Sedna and SP2 is a terrific book co-written by Tamar E. Granor, Doug Hennig, Toni Feltman, Cathy Pountney, Rick Schummer, Bo Durban. This book is the the definitive coverage of all the new features added to Visual FoxPro 9 via the Sedna add-ons and the Service Pack 2 release (including the very important and latest hotfixes). I worked closely with Microsoft to test many of the components of Sedna and I still learned a lot by writing my chapters and reading the ones from the other authors. There is a lot of great information and insight packed into the 242 pages.

Special thanks to Rainer Becker who has determination to push for new Visual FoxPro books. dFPUG is simultaneously releasing Making Sense of Sedna and SP2 in English and German.

All the details for the book are on the Hentzenwerke Publishing Web site.

You can get the electronic version of the book immediately after you order it. Hentzenwerke Publishing is putting together a special print run for the book. The printed edition is available in July so get your order in today!

Andrew Ross MacNeill’s “The Fox Show” #65 includes the annual interview of the Southwest Fox Conference organizers (Doug Hennig, Tamar Granor and myself) and our thoughts about Southwest Fox 2010. It is always fun to participate in Andrew’s interview. Listen to his hard hitting interview and see if he can pry some secrets planned for the conference.

More details on the conference at the Southwest Fox Conference Web site.

Thanks Andrew!

Welcome to Shedding Some Light v2.0.

I distinctly remember the first test flight of Columbia launching on April 12, 1981, and how much I anticipated NASA’s returned to manned space missions. It had been nearly six years since NASA put men into space for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. I was a senior in high school, just about to graduate. The Columbia mission proved that a reusable orbiter was not only feasible, but worked well and safely brought John Young and Robert Crippen back to earth. The short two-day mission was a huge success and was the kickoff of close to thirty years of putting astronauts from several countries and the first American women in space. I get the same chills today as I did back in 1981 when a shuttle blasts off. They are the same chills I got watching the Saturn V rockets launch back in the 1960′s and 1970′s. I set a personal goal of seeing a shuttle launch in person.

I have seen the Shuttle on the launch pad numerous times in my visits to Florida, and I have seen and heard it return to the cape a couple of times. I saw it once piggybacked to the 747 transporter, and once we heard it land when it was dark just a couple of years ago. If it had landed on the first pass it would have been light enough to see it land. Still the sonic booms sent chills up my spine.

Flash forward to 1993 and the FoxPro DevCon in Orlando. The day after the conference ended a bunch of Fox developers and space geeks headed out to Kennedy Space Center for a shuttle launch. I cannot remember which conference attendee worked on the space center grounds, but we organized through CompuServe and he got our group an unbelievable good location for the launch. The weather was not cooperating as there were low-level clouds that made it difficult for the astronauts to land at Kennedy if there was something wrong with the engines during launch. We could hear the mission control announcer talk about the countdown, what was happening with the shuttle, and what the problems were they were trying to solve. The biggest was the weather at both Kennedy and the weather in Spain (used as a landing site when the launch aborts across the Atlantic). I distinctly remember praying for the weather to break. If my memory serves me right I also recall FoxPro Guru Tom Rettig climbing a sign on the grounds with “Foxtrot” on it. Tom had a framework called TRO so he climbed up the sign and covered up the last “t” so it read Foxtro. Miraculously the weather broke just as the launch window was closing for the day. The countdown continued and everything seemed to be going smooth. Under a minute I started to get really excited as I was about to see the shuttle launch for the first time. The Mission Control announcer was going through the standard milestones and I was checking things off in my head on what was about to happen. At T-31 seconds the shuttle computers take over the countdown and run the show. This is when some valve sensor triggered the computers to abort the mission. So close, yet so far. It was extremely frustrating at the time, but I thought to myself, better safe than sorry. It turned out the sensor was bad and there was really nothing wrong. We drove directly back to the airport for the flight home. I remember thinking, there will be plenty more launches to see.

I have watched most of the 130 shuttle launches on broadcast TV or on NASA TV on the Internet. When the Challenger exploded in January 1986 I was fearful that my dream of one day seeing one in person might be gone, but fortunately the NASA engineers figured out what went wrong and flights resumed a couple years later. The same when Columbia exploded over Texas in February 2003. Those were very sad days for me.

It turns out that seeing a shuttle launch is harder to see than one would think. There are probably a billion things that could go wrong to cancel a launch. Weather is unpredictable and has to be perfect in several locations here in the USA and in Europe. The shuttle system is the most complex machine ever built by humans. Sensors, wiring, computers, tiles, hatches, pressurization, fuel, valves, o-rings, engines, and on and on and on. Hardware galore. Despite the meticulous checklists and verification of work, things fail and processes don’t work. On top of that the missions to the International Space Station (ISS) have a 10 minute window when the shuttle is launched to minimize fuel usage as the orbiter chases ISS in orbit. Back in the day when a shuttle was launching satellites or doing experiments they could sit on hold for hours. Today’s missions to the space station have 10 minute windows and can only be launched on certain days when the space station is in the correct orbit. NASA also has to coordinate with other space agencies that are launching rockets to ISS.

When the Bush administration decided to retire the shuttle program a few years ago I knew my opportunities were limited. I knew exactly how many shots I had to see one in person. I started planning my calendar around flights to see if I could fit one in. Trying to plan when to fly down and hope one of the billion things don’t go wrong is not easy to solve. In 2009 I arrived in Florida two weeks after a launch and a few weeks before the next one. This year the schedule proved to be the same during our annual Easter family trip. But the unusually cold winter in Florida delayed the flight of Discovery (STS-131) by an additional two weeks and put it smack dab in the middle of our vacation. I crossed my fingers as there was still so much time left between the scheduled change and the launch, and so many variables still in the mix.

Flash forward to April 4, 2010…

The countdown of Discovery continued to go smooth and I kept reading the mission briefings. Everything was going as planned and on schedule. The night before the scheduled launch there was some discussion of fog. Seriously? Can’t we just get some fans and make sure it blows inland? My window for this launch was a couple of days and I was hoping it would go perfect since our son was leaving the next day and I wanted him to see it as well.

The night before the launch I was working, and took a few breaks to see what friends were posting on Twitter. Apparently several were also planning on going to see the shuttle the next day. Markus Egger got wind of this. He and I went back and forth as I provided him some information on viewing sites and timings to get to the coast from Orlando. Twitter made it all the more exciting. The scheduled launch is 6:21am so we had to leave my parent’s place at 3:30am to ensure we could get a parking spot and good seats. I found what appeared to be a perfect location at Space View Park in Titusville. It is 12 miles from the launch pad, but that is the closest you can get without advanced tickets to sit on the NASA Causeway (6 miles from launch pad) or the super special VIP tickets near Mission Control. I went to bed at 10:00pm hoping to get a few hours of sleep before leaving. There is no doubt that I had a difficult time falling asleep. I felt like a little kid the night before a big trip. For me, this had the potential of being one of those really special days in a lifetime.

April 5, 2010…

I woke up at 2:42am without an alarm. I turned on my computer and checked out NASA TV to see where things were in the countdown. If all was well I should be hearing about the astronauts heading out to the launch pad and sure enough they were boarding the astrovan and heading out. No issues were being tracked and the weather was cooperating. Things were going well and my fear of the external tank valve freezing did not materialize. This has been the biggest problem in the last few launches. I woke up Therese, told her we were a “go” and jumped in the shower. I was focused on leaving on time, something my family is not well known for, even threatening to leave people behind if they did not get in the car on time. Don’t mess
with a space geek ready to see a lifelong dream come true.

As we drove along the 528 (I have always known it as the Beeline, now called the Beachline) we hit some dense fog in areas. I was hoping this would not affect the launch. There was a lot of traffic too. Not bumper to bumper, but it was obvious a lot of people were going to see the launch. We hit Titusville around 4:30, right on schedule. When we arrived at Highway 1 (the road along the inter-coastal waterway) we hit a sea of people. Tons of cars, vans, and RVs parked along the road. People were walking along and across the streets. There were lots of people with binoculars and chairs and coolers. Wow. It reminded me of pictures and video of the people watching the Apollo era moon launches. I was expecting a few space geeks like myself, but we are talking about hundreds of thousands hanging along the coast. I felt a twinge of regret thinking we were too late to find a good viewing spot. Maybe I should have followed my hunch and tried to get a hotel room the night before.

We kept driving north on Highway 1 with our final destination being Space View Park. The traffic around the park was nuts and there was no parking. We still had time so I dropped off my parents, our two kids, and my nephew and headed out with Therese to find parking. We drove south about a half mile. I saw a sign for public parking on the right. To my left I saw a young guy with a sign “$20 Parking”. I like young entrepreneurs and thought it would be cool to help him out. I was thinking he was loading up his parents’ front lawn saving up for college. I got out of the car and he took my $20 after explaining the bathroom was in the pool house and the viewing is best from the dock. Dock? Cool. It was already close to 5:00am, a little more than one hour before launch. I called our son and told them we found a spot to park and a place to view the launch, and to stay at the park. I could not go get everyone and make it back in time, and they could not walk because my mom’s knee is injured.

What we found was the perfect location to watch the shuttle launch. Out on this huge dock was room for probably 40-50 people. The dock had 3 slips for boats and a huge area where people could gather. We could have stayed on shore and watched from the beautiful patio, but I wanted to be 200 feet closer. I told Therese I was feeling a bit guilty as we left the rest of our family in this sea of people at the park and we had the perfect unobstructed view. We found room on the dock and Therese decided she needed an extra jacket because the cool breeze off the water was too cold for her. I wore a fleece pullover so I was fine. She went back to the car and I talked with a couple of the photographers who were setting up to take pictures and video. I asked them about the settings they were going to use as I knew we effectively were going to see a night launch and the light from the flames shooting out of the three main engines and the solid rocket boosters would fill the night sky and make it look closer to daylight. I suspected that most pictures would be a blob of light in the dark sky. I had no intention of taking a single picture. I brought the camera, but it is only a 3 megapixel model. Takes terrific pictures, but is not going to do well 12 miles away. I did bring the Flip HD video camera, but I knew that would not get great video. I wanted to just take in the launch first hand and record the best memories possible. The video camera might get pointed toward Discovery or it might be looking at the ground. I did not care.

Therese made it back fine after stopping in the pool house to check it out. What she described meant the kid who was collecting money did not need it for college as she figured this family was doing okay. Personally, it was great that they shared their view with the rest of us. I would gladly paid $100 for the view considering I could not get Causeway tickets or VIP seats through our congresswomen.

Off in the distance you could see the Vehicle Assembly Building (the very tall building where NASA assembles rockets and shuttle stacks) to the right, and just to the left was Discovery basking in the light of numerous spotlights. We could not see detail from 12 miles away, but you knew right where to look. Several boats were going up and down the inter-coastal waterway. I suspect they were Coast Guard or NASA boats keeping people out of places where they did not belong. We also could see off in the distance the NASA plane that does fly-bys to test landing conditions on the shuttle’s runway.

All along I was reading the @NASA and @ExploreSpaceKSC tweets about how things were progressing. I also surfed the web looking for launch status stories, mostly on Space.com. Smooth sailing. I was sharing the updates with those around me. Several other space geeks were also sharing information they found on the Web. Smartphones rule! You could tell the intensity of most people around me and their love of the space program and space exploration. I felt among my kind {g}. Even Therese mentioned that there are a lot of people on this dock just like me.

At 6:00am a tweet was posted about the International Space Station doing a fly over from the south-southeast at 6:04am. My mom called me soon after to let me know too. They had a live feed from Mission Control broadcast over speakers in the park so they were getting live updates. I let others on the dock know so we could start looking for it. Therese actually spotted it first. More chills. Yes, I have seen ISS fly overhead before on numerous occasions (once paired with a shuttle), but this time Discovery was going to launch and begin the process of chasing it with the 17,000 pounds of supplies in the Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module securely stored in the cargo bay. My son Chris had my tripod and used his superior camera to take some extended exposure pictures of it streaking across the sky. What a nice bonus.

Internally I was doing my own countdown. 10 minutes, 5 minutes, 3 minutes. I was imagining what Mission Control was doing, what the shuttle was doing, how the launch pad was alive with the sounds of a machine about to thrust itself skyward. I recalled that hot Florida day back in 1993 and how disappointed I was when the launch aborted. Was this the time I would see it go? Two minute to go. The sky was just starting to brighten from the soon-to-come sunrise.

One minute to go and no time to check Twitter. I turned on the video camera and pointed it east. 30 seconds to go. You could see some people get anxious as 6:21am showed on their cell phone clocks. Obviously they did not know it was scheduled to go at 6:21:25. All of a sudden the horizon got brighter. You could see the main engines light up, and then the solid rocket boosters ignited. Liftoff of space shuttle Discovery!!! Godspeed!!!

To say chills went up and down my back, well that was a given. The sky lit up and was bright as day. It was silent except for the oohs and aaahs from the people around me. You could hear the cameras clicking, especially the guy next to me who had two digital SLRs firing in rapid succession. Discovery was off the launch pad and in the roll maneuver. The thick stream of solid rocket propellant burning along with the three main engines created a long flame trail. That is all we really could see as she lifted higher and higher. The brightness of the flames made it so we could not see the orbiter, external tank or the solid rocket boosters. I miscalculated the timing on the sound reaching us. The speed of sound depends on the temperature, but travels approximately 1 mile in 5 seconds. When I was doing the math I was thinking it was going to hit us in 5 seconds, but actually it took closer to 50 seconds to reach us. I was really surprised not only by the volume, but by the vibrations that hit us. We could hear the rolling thu
nder of the rockets *and* feel it hit us in the face. You could hear what sounded like a sonic boom. What special effects put on by NASA! I later heard on TV that the water sound suppression system did not work correctly and read on Twitter that Discovery’s launch was louder than usual due to atmospheric conditions (moist air and a breeze blowing from the east amplified the sound). I have not been able to confirm the water sound suppression system failure.

We watched for about 7 minutes as Discovery went off towards the horizon, across the Atlantic Ocean, going faster and faster, higher and higher. We could see the solid rocket boosters separate which is always something you want to see every time since Challenger’s last launch back in 1986. All we could really see was two little red dots in the sky float away from the fireball. On Twitter I read a post that Discovery made it successfully to orbit. This experience was just what I had hoped for. On April 5th NASA made a billion things go right so I could witness the magnificent launch of a space shuttle. Thanks to everyone from NASA and all their partners for making it a terrific launch to watch.

My dream had been realized and it was better than I had imagined, and believe me, I have imagined it a lot and often. Nearly thirty years of wishing I could see a space shuttle blast off from Kennedy Space Center and in less than 10 minutes it was over. Now I want to see another. This was considered a night launch so maybe I can see a day launch too. Not sure of that is going to happen, but I might as well dream big, because as I have proven over and over, dreams really do come true.

Over the last several months a few of my friends have asked me about the Kindle I purchased in December. A recent inquiry made me think it would be best expressed in a blog post so I could just point people to one source.

I have the standard size 2nd generation Kindle (available world-wide now), not the DX, and I really like it. The dimensions of the Kindle are 8″ tall by 5.3″ wide by 0.36″ thick, and weighs in just over 10 ounces. The screen is 4.75″ tall by 3.5 wide. While the larger DX would be easier on the eyes, I could not really justify the additional cost. I purchased a protective cover to so I don’t worry about the screen getting scratched when I carry it in my computer backpack.

The Kindle is easy to read. The technical books I read are normally a more than one-inch thick and are heavy to hold up as you are reading in bed. The Kindle is light and not difficult to hold at all. The electronic ink screen is crisp and very easy on the eyes, and is snappy to the touch as you are paging through the book you are reading.

I love the fact that I can be talking with someone about some good, must have book and literally buy it and have it in minutes. I have several books I have purchased, several more I got for *free*, and I have loaded all the Hentzenwerke PDFs (technical FoxPro books), and created PDFs of the Southwest Fox 2009 conference white papers to load. Books purchased from Amazon are installed automatically if you are connected to the 3G network. Loading other books is done by connecting the Kindle to PC via USB, and like a USB memory device it becomes a drive you copy files to. You also can create subfolders and all the books show on the menu. I wish it would follow subfolders on the menu though so it would seem less cluttered. For instance, I currently have seven pages of books to page through to find book I want to read. It does sort them in different ways to make finding books easier. I personally like last book read at the top of the list. It also starts with the last book you are reading opened on the page you were reading. The Kindle works like I want it to work. Not many enhancement requests.

One thing I was concerned about with respect to an e-book is the ability to dog-ear a page. The Kindle allows you to make bookmarks and write annotations. I find this useful when I am doing research for a conference session or article I am writing and want to have something to reference a researched note. The Kindle comes with a keyboard that is easier to use than a phone keyboard, but definitely not as easy as a computer keyboard.

I have used the native Internet browser to check something on the Internet and it works fine. It is not as fast or as easy to use as FireFox, Chrome or IE on my computer, but if I am away from the computer it serves the purpose to look something up and is bigger than the screen on my phone. I have even read and posted Twitter tweets on it.

You can try the Kindle without purchasing one. You can get the Kindle for PC app for you computer, and there are Kindle apps for the iPhone and BlackBerry phones with rumors that Android is not far behind. Amazon has free books you can download and read on those platforms. While it is not the same exact form factor it does show you how nice it is to have e-books. And the different apps all synchronize together so as you change devices the book opens with the ability to start where you left off on the other device. At first I thought this might not be useful as I really spend enough time in front of the computer and rarely open the Kindle for PC app. But the Blackberry version rocks when I have a few minutes where I am waiting for a customer or friend and I did not bring my Kindle.

In general I think the device is easy to use, easy on the eyes, and compact. I do think it is over priced in general and if they want masses to have them they should price it at $99 to $129. But considering there are no monthly connection charges to the 3G network I understand the $259 pricing model. And for me it is worth every penny.

I have not played with the text to speech yet, but it would be a great way to read while driving. I am pretty sure it is limited to Amazon Kindle format books though, not PDF files you have loaded.

The pros definitely outweigh the cons for me.

Pros:

1. Fewer new printed books means saving the planet and shelf space and storage.
2. Easy to carry anywhere, lighter backpack when traveling (up to 1500 books at one time)
3. Books e-books are normally cheaper (9.99 in most cases), but you do have to watch for the flip where they are more expensive
4. Delivered in minutes via the AT&T; 3G
5. Kindle for PC and Kindle for BlackBerry allow me to read even when I don’t have Kindle. All three synchronize to the last page read for the book on any machine.
6. Good battery life, I only have to charge it once every couple of weeks if I turn off the 3G connection. Naturally the more you use it the more you have to charge it, and the battery will drain significantly faster if you leave the 3G on.

Cons:

1. Cannot lend people books like I can with the paper versions (hoping for a future Amazon policy change)
2. Slight fear someday the electronic media is going to go away and I don’t have recourse on the electronic books lost.
3. If you are outside of the AT&T; 3G you are not going to get the books in minutes. (Got a map for that?!?)
4. Your existing library only gets loaded if you have an e-book
5. Older e-books like the ones from Hentzenwerke are not in the Amazon Kindle format so you get PDF rendering. Amazon Kindle format streams pages of text, where PDFs render the entire page on the small screen. PDFs are not as easy to read unless you go to landscape mode and see half the page at a time.
6. There is no defined standard between e-book manufacturers.
7. Not every book is available on the Kindle.

I do like how Amazon allows me to inform the publisher/author that I want their book in the Kindle format.

How did I pick the Kindle over the Barnes and Nobel nook? Couple of reasons: first, the Kindle is already 2nd generation while the nook was just rolled out and sold out of their first run when I made the purchase. I was not interested in investing into a platform while the company was learning how to make it all work. Second, I do a lot more purchases from Amazon than B&N; so it makes sense. I have nothing against the nook and have several friends who purchased and love it. Another advantage of the nook is Barnes and Nobel policy that allows people to share books, which I think is ultimately better than Amazon’s hard nose “no” approach. You also can try out a nook in the brick and mortar stores.

This past week I was contacted by someone who attended one of my sessions at Southwest Fox and asked me for some help with a problem he was having getting an application and even the VFP 5 IDE to run on Windows 7. The error he was getting: “error initializing application object.”

According to the developer the VFP Help indicates the message relates to some kind of problem with the registry.

To me it sounded like a rights issue. I recommended he try to run VFP 5 as an administrator and see if the message disappeared. My thinking on it was the problem happens because the user does not have rights to modify the registry. VFP would probably succeed running as an administrator. Sure enough it worked for him. What I am not sure is if this is a “run once and it is fixed for all users” (machine level registry entries) or you have to continue running as an administrator.

I have not been able to reproduce this behavior in a virtual machine. VFP 5 worked for me the first time. I don’t recall this problem showing up on Vista either. Anyone else have experience with this? I only have one application still using VFP 5 runtimes (never needs updates or changes) so I am slightly curious in case my customer decides to upgrade to Windows 7.