NY Times: “Let’s say you are the replacement for Jerry Garcia in the Grateful Dead. Your new job is to go in front of 20,000 fans and play music that they probably know better than you do.”
from Scripting News
Archive | March, 2003
Fiber to the Home – the new gold rush?
SmartLetter. David Isenberg’s new SMARTletter is terrific again. This one leads with the story of oil and applies it to the telephone system: If John D. Rockefeller were alive today, he would be building fiber to the home… And that David goes on to explain everything you need to know about how the future of telecommunications will unfold. Must reading. David has unearthed a graphic that’s astounding because of its source…. reposted from Joho the Blog
Virtual FoxPro User Group for February Now Available
February VFUG Newsletter Now Available. VFUG (the Virtual FoxPro User Group) just released the February issue of its monthly newsletter. Articles in this issue include The XMLAdapter Class by Les Pinter, What The “Slammer” Worm Means To You by Mark Altenbernd, Part 3 of A Basic Introduction to Automation using MS Visual FoxPro by Matt Jarvis, Wireless Devices, Part 2: Addressing the Issue by Tom O’Hare, an article and resources on conferences, and some assorted utilities that include an Updateable SQL Server Cursor Class, a Wrapper for Gather, Number pages in multiple reports, Excel-VFP Functions, and more. As usual, you can view this monthly newsletter online or download its text version and all other back issues free at the VFUG site. Not a member? Join VFUG for free at the site. [FoxCentral.Net]
The bloom is off the rose, but progress continues…
After initial promising proof-of-concept, the challenges of actually getting an RSS feed to generate reliably were brought home today. Some of the major issues are posted at http://fox.wikis.com/wc.dll?Wiki~ReallySimpleSyndication. However, I’ve got the first of several beta, experimental RSS feeds available for syndication at http://www.tedroche.com/RSSFeeds.html. Please try them out and let me know if they work, or don’t work, for you. Email me here: Thanks!
Thanks, too, to Mark Pilgrim and his XML Validator. His articles at XML.com and tester helped out immensely.
Legacy FoxPro Versions
An interesting survey on Ed Leafe’s site on the earliest version of FoxPro you use. A fairly small sample size so far, but please cast your vote. Courtesy Leafe.com
Bird list
I enjoy watching the birds frolic, one of the advantages of a home office. I just saw a hairy woodpecker feeding on a suet feeder in the side yard. We get a fair variety of birds, including cardinals, robins, chickadees, nuthatches, goldfinches, purple finches, blue jays, tufted titmouse, hairy, downy and (rarely) pileated woodpeckers. There’s a local murder of crows who keep watch over the neighborhood. I’ve also had a few solitary sightings of birds probably blown off-course by storms, including a red-breasted grosbeak and a bluebird. I enjoy the show, and a few dollars of birdseed each winter keeps the yard from becoming a frozen, desolate wasteland.
Use Google to hack the web
People who post things on the web have to understand what they are doing. Wired: “When your medical records are indexed in Google, something’s wrong.” [Scripting News]
Always Trust Microsoft?
Posted at Scripting News:
Last week I got a demo of the new Microsoft Office suite. Poor Jean Paoli [updated link], his hardware wouldn’t cooperate, and every dozen keystrokes it would freeze up. Even so, I got the gist of what it does. I told him in advance not to expect much from me. Been burned by Microsoft too many times. Don’t tell me it’s open, because I expect, fully, that you will break anything I build in the next corner-turn. Anyway, no matter what I said, however begrudgingly, I think people will like and use the XML capabilities of the new suite. However, as a professional, I gotta say, it’s not smart to do so. Microsoft’s track record is really bad. It would be like booking a seat on an airline known for never making its schedule. Interop is not a feature you can sell if you don’t honor past agreements. And Microsoft doesn’t. And it’s not the usual Evil Empire reasons. It’s just corporate arrogance, the kind that plagued Apple in the late 80s and early 90s. Yup, today SOAP means “works with Microsoft” and that makes it no more interesting than COM was.
VFP Conference in Australia
OzFox2003. The first VFP Converence held in the Asia-Pacific region since the mid 90’s.July 21-23 2003 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Coogee Beach, Sydney, AUSTRALIA. Actual View from the Conference Venue. Carefully timed so our friends from the US can tie in a trip down… Posted onFoxForum Wiki
Pre-order Visual FoxPro 8.0 and help a FoxPro user group
Pre-order Visual FoxPro 8.0 and help the FoxPro community. FoxToolbox.Com is currently taking pre-orders for Visual FoxPro 8.0 Professional. Besides offering the lowest advertised price, FoxToolbox.Com donates 3% of sales to FoxPro User Groups for local marketing programs.
The Upgrade version is $299.00 and the full version is $562.47. Pre-ordering now could help lower pricing even further. Posting from FoxCentral.Net I’ve already ordered my full copy.