Shedding Some Light

Out of all the changes to Microsoft Office 2007, the big hit or the app most important to me is Outlook. I spend probably too much time in Outlook, so any improvements would be great. Unfortunately I have hit a few “features” that are real frustrating.

The first is the appearance of Outlook locking up during a Send/Receive pass. I have a dozen email addresses designed to get email to Outlook. All of them are POP3. When I used Outlook 2003 I would never even know a pass was in process unless the desktop alerts popped up. I could interactively use Outlook to get contact information, manage tasks, etc. while the pass was in process. Outlook 2007 is completely different. I cannot do anything until the pass is more than 50% complete. This is a huge frustration because I really live in Outlook.

The second frustration is how Microsoft changed the email flags. There are colorized email flags and there are contact categories, and calendar labels in Outlook 2003 and earlier. Now there are colorized categories, and flags represent due dates. Previously I set up email flags to mean things (red – hotlist, blue – developer tools, orange – home, and so on). I set up a couple of Search folders in my favorites list so I could easily track these things. Now all my flags are categories (which is okay, but I have to reset them to something meaningful), and my red flags have become due today items.

I also colorize my calendar items with the 2003 labels. I set up a handful of colors to mean different things. This really made finding events in the calendar simple and allowed me to balance my work and home life. Now the colors are tied to categories. So my blue developer tools color for email conflicts with my blue White Light Computing color in the calendar. Outlook 2007 sees the colors as one category. What a pain in the back end.

It will take some time (which I have very little of this month) to re-categorize all my emails, tasks, and calendar items. Along with the Daylight Savings Time correction, I am not sure Outlook and my Treo are ever going to synchronize. {g}

The last frustration is the themed appearance of the title bar. It does not follow the normal Windows title bar colors. To me it is hard to determine visually which window is active and which windows are not. In particular the problem is accentuated when I have an email window open on top of the main Outlook window. I am sure the usability studies tested this out, but I find it extremely frustrating when I accidentally click on the menu of the main window when I want to work with the email window. This is a time waster. I have not seen any settings in the Options dialog box, but I might have overlooked the setting.

I am hoping to talk to someone at Microsoft next week while I am in Redmond for the almost- annual MVP Summit to see if there is a fix in the works for the send/receive pass lock-up and how I can easily work around my flags/categories issue.

Today we posted the open call for speakers for Southwest Fox…

Southwest Fox 2007 (October 18-21 in Mesa, AZ, www.swfox.net) is looking for speakers. The conference is focused on Visual FoxPro and sessions should fit into one of the following tracks:

• Working with Sedna and SP2: This track will cover the new features and changes introduced in Sedna and in VFP 9 Service Pack 2.
• Extending VFP (including VFPX, COM, etc.): The sessions in this track will cover technologies that extend VFP’s capabilities, such as those in VFPX.
  
• Reviewing VFP Fundamentals: This track will appeal to those newer to VFP, whether they are just moving up from earlier versions of FoxPro, or coming from other languages.
• Integrating VFP (with SQL Server, .NET, etc.): This track will look at using VFP together with other products, including back-end servers, Automation servers, and .NET.
• Managing the Software Business: This track will offer business advice to VFP developers, including managing clients, the software development process, and so forth.

If you’re interested, click on the Call for Speakers link at http://www.swfox.net/speakers.html. Please read the entire document before submitting session proposals. All proposals are due by March 26; speakers and topics will be announced May 1, 2007. Send any questions to speakers@swfox.net.

I got an email from Kevin Cully this morning and see on ProFox the FoxForward 2007 conference has been formally announced for September 7-9, 2007. The conference will be held in Alpharetta, Georgia. All the details for the conference including the call for speakers, hotel, and registration costs can be found on the conference Web site.

Congrats Kevin and as I mentioned in my email to you this morning, I hope FoxForward is a huge success!

I am sick as a dog today. The cold I had before going to Australia got a little better while I was attending OzFox, and now is worse. I am sure it has everything to do with the lack of sleep, the changing of time zones in rapid fashion, and various other levels of stress inflicted on my human body. So I finally broke down and visited a doctor this morning.

She was very nice to me, only drawing what seemed like a pint of blood and beating my chest with radiation for an x-ray. Nothing found, just a simple bad cold. She then proceeded to tell me traveling is not for the weak of heart and gave me twenty or so tips for long flights. Sure would have been nice if she could have emailed these to me two weeks ago.{g}

Anyway, one of the medications she gave me is cough medicine. I already have a cough so I figured this would be unnecessary. My wife corrected my thinking that this was anti-cough medicine. Strange, that is not what the bottle says. There is another huge mistake on the bottle. These are the direct instructions:

Take 1 or 2 teraspoonfuls every 6 hours

I ask my wife as she drives me home, what is a teraspoonful? Is that like a 1000 gigaspoonfuls? So I call the pharmacy and ask the pharmacist the same two questions. He laughs at my geek humor. I like this guy even though he is a drug pusher. {g}

Thought I would blog about this before I take the next dose. The last one triggered an all afternoon nap. During the nap I recall taking two customer calls, but don’t remember a thing we talked about. This is some powerful stuff. Heck, I may not even recall posting this blog entry.

Southwest Fox 2007

October 18-21, 2007
Arizona Golf Resort and Conference Center in Mesa, Arizona
http://swfox.net

It is our pleasure to announce the fourth annual Southwest Fox Conference, presenting the latest in Microsoft Visual FoxPro development techniques, new changes in VFP 9.0 SP2, Sedna Components, and interop with other technologies with sessions from some of the best and the brightest VFP speakers.

This highly acclaimed and popular conference is the perfect venue for VFP developers interested in learning more about VFP, further refining their software development skills, learning how to better run a consulting firm or IT department, and being a better software craftsman. To this end, there will be sessions available in the following tracks:

1) Working with Sedna and SP2:
This track will cover the new features and changes introduced in Sedna and in VFP 9 Service Pack 2.

2) Extending VFP (including VFPX, COM, etc.):
Sessions in this track will cover technologies that extend VFP’s capabilities, such as those in VFPX.

3) Reviewing VFP Fundamentals:
This track will appeal to those newer to VFP, whether they are just moving up from earlier versions of FoxPro, or coming from other languages, or are new to a specific area of VFP.

4) Integrating VFP (with SQL Server, .NET, etc.):
Sessions in this track will look at using VFP together with other products, including back-end servers, Automation servers, and .NET.

5) Managing the Software Business:
This track will offer business advice to VFP developers, including managing clients, the software development process, and so forth.

The call for speakers will go out shortly and the initial speakers and their sessions will be published when registration opens on May 1st.

If you are interested in more details for the conference you can send them to info@swfox.net.

You will also notice that Southwest Fox is under new management. After three very successful years under Bob Kocher’s management, Southwest Fox is now being organized by Visual FoxPro MVPs Rick Schummer, Doug Hennig and Tamar E. Granor. We look forward to continuing the great traditions of Southwest Fox, and building on some new ones too.

More details can be found at www.swfox.net.

We look forward to seeing you in Arizona in October!

I see in the CTP 4 (February 2007) readme file the list of things added and fixed to the Sedna Data Explorer is incomplete. Here is the list of changes made just for this release:

Bug Fixes:

• None in this release (waiting for the Fox Community to provide feedback)

Enhancements:

• Return from Options dialog no longer collapses the treeview. (ER in CTP 3 Preview)
• Menu Manager Dialog, Add-in Manager, Drop and Drag Manager – Double-click on the menu list brings forward the Script to Run page, and right-clicking on script editboxes will bring up script in program editor.
• VFP Database Documenter – Has HTML option. HTML controlled by CSS in template (user maintainable)
• Refresh button added to the main form just like Visual Studio Server Explorer
• Icons now available on the main form buttons. Icons are compatible with VS .NET Server Explorer where appropriate.
• Main form buttons now have user selectable properties on Option Dialog (show or hide icons, and separately set the Hot Tracking style).
• Run Query dialog now runs selected text if user has selected text, otherwise runs entire query
• Run Query dialog now displays query error message in the Messages tab, previously nothing happened if problem with query.
• BROWSE form now adds records when Ctrl+Y keystrokes pressed for VFP data sources.
• Exposed the location and file name of the Data Explorer metadata on the Options dialog so user knows where it is located.

IMPORTANT: To test the add-in enhancements you have go into the Data Explorer Options and press the Restore to Default button. I recommend you keep any connections you have and any third-party options added. This will load the new features into your DataExplorer.DBF metadata file where your connections are, as well as the add-ins, menus, and drag/drop functionality.

If you are interested in the list for CTP 3 (October 2006) you can check it out here.

Enjoy!

The post conference buzz is abound with OzFox and I am feeling it as I spend 13 hours flying from Sydney to Los Angeles, push/rush through US Customs to change terminals, and hop on my four and a half hour flight back to Detroit Metro. The best part of traveling back to Detroit is I arrive three hours after I took off. Looks like I found a time machine after all {g}.

We headed to the Sydney International Airport by cab. I’m still not used to the driving on the opposite side of the road. The only other time I experienced this was back in 1995 when I was on a business trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina. You also have to be extra careful as a pedestrian too, or you could get blindsided. I also noticed Aussies are a bit more aggressive drivers than I am use to.

I have mentioned how nice the weather has been during our short visit. Storms hit the airport just as we were about to board our flights and this delayed us for the better part of two hours. Fortunately the winds were kind and pushed my flight to LA. We arrived only an hour later than expected. I was concerned because I had to clear customs in LA, get my luggage and walk 15 minutes to another terminal. I was expecting the same long lines I have experienced in Detroit and Sydney, but instead got the short lines I experienced in Frankfort last November. There was even time to grab a veggie burger and make a couple of phone calls. Shocking – I did not have someone sitting in the seat next to me on both flights. What a treat!

There is one thing I want to point out that I forgot to mention in previous posts. Andrew Coates mentioned something at OzFox, something I have been looking from Microsoft to make my life easier. I have battled the beta software installs and the disclaimers that you might have to reformat your machine to fully unload the product before you install the RTM’d version. I have asked Microsoft to just provide me a virtual machine with the product loaded. This saves every beta tester the hassle of building their own VM, and simplifies setup. The negative drawback is the vendor (in this case Microsoft) don’t get the software tested on a variety of machines and configurations. No matter, Andrew’s “reveal” during my Professional Developer Toolkit session is the VHD Test Drive Program. He discusses it on his blog. Andrew also mentioned it costs nothing to register as a Microsoft Partner (which I have already done to get the Action Pack) and the program is available to registered partners. So at least we can offer this service to our customers. Now I hope Microsoft (and other software vendors) start offering this to me. The big deal on this is you don’t have to worry about distributing your OS license. This program makes it ok to do so via the VHD redistribution agreement.

I am back home now. I love to travel and see different parts of the world, but there is nothing like coming home to your family and your own bed. Gotta get my rest because tomorrow is going to be a big day with a couple new projects to get started, a conversion to run, and a big announcement too! Whew, no rest for the jet-lagged.

I like traditions. I have one with respect to the last day of a conference that has developed over the years. Some may say it came together by accident, but I know better. The tradition is I present during the first session of the last day of the conference. I asked Whil years ago when I started to recognize the “trend” and he confirmed he scheduled me because I don’t drink, and he knew I was reliable to not have a hangover. Smart plan if you are conference organizer.

So I asked Craig today if this was planned and he claims to know nothing of this tradition. So know I have to believe there is some sort of supernatural intervention going on when Whil, Russ, Bob, Mike and Toni, Rainer, Christa, and now Craig put together their schedules. The good thing is I never mind and I have always been amazed when people show up for the session. At this point in the conference you are exhausted, physically, mentally, and maybe even spiritually. I am always appreciative of everyone who hangs out.

Today is packed with seven more grey-matter expanding sessions:

• Rick Schummer – “Using and Extending VFP’s Data Explorer”
• Lisa Slater Nicholls – “Getting the Most Out of Reporting in VFP“
• Alain Legrand – “Using a data driven approach to application customization”
• Doug Hennig – Stonefield Query (during lunch)
• Rick Schummer – “Professional Developer’s Toolkit”
• Lisa Slater Nicholls – “Migrations: Many stops on a tour”
• Doug Hennig – “Best Practices for Vertical Application Development”

I definitely got something out of each session. When I first read the title of Lisa’s second session I thought it was “Migraines”. I think we all have gotten headaches when developing {g}. This session showed how VFP apps can extend 2.6 apps and even do cool interop using XML and other techniques. I was particularly interested in this session because I am doing a lot of 2.6 to VFP migrations.

Alain’s session was very interesting as he talked about his application architecture to localizing his CRM package. It was not traditional localizing though. When you think of localization you normally think of changing strings from one language to another. Alain’s app does do this, but his application often interacts with other systems. Not only does the app change strings, but it goes to the level of changing the names of the fields to be in the native language. Initially I thought this was strange because most presentation of the data is handled with metadata so users won’t care what the columns are named. Alain’s app is accessed externally so the localization of the data elements helps the local software developers who access the structures. Once this was understood the whole thing made perfect sense. The bonus was how cool his app looks and works. Nice job.

There was lots of good discussion in my “Professional Developer Toolkit” session. I actually finished this session early which is the first time this has happened. I really appreciated Andrew Coates‘ participation. He is the local Microsoft evangelist and seemed to throw Team System into the discussion for nearly every category. This shows how wide this product is and how it addresses the various aspects of software development. Great discussion.

The last session of the conference was “Best Practices for Vertical Application Development”. I listened to this session in Milwaukee last year, but again as it happens so often for me, hearing it the second time still reminded me of things important to some projects I have on the horizon.

Craig wrapped up the conference after Doug’s session with some thank yous and really cool speaker gifts. More good news – sounds like there will be another OzFox next February.

This conference was fantastic! I really enjoyed talking with the developers about Fox, the real world problems they face, the real world solutions they are developing, and the successes they are achieving down-under. Craig and the Talman team were very hospitable. My head hurts because of the lack of sleep, but mostly because of the amount of information I digested over the last two and a half days. You have my highest recommendation to attend OzFox 2008.