Happy Memorial Day weekend.
FoxPro? got one of those all-too-rare mentions on the Microsoft site, in MSDN’s Dr. GUI column. Check it out here.
This site has a great article on creating Cascading Style Sheets that will adequately print the onscreen text. Good stuff. And check out the links from there…
Tortured poor Apollo this morning. I had it all set up as a web server, less content, but not yet exposed to the internet. However, I was also setting it up as a SourceOffSite server, but I do not yet have enough licenses for the entire staff. So, I turned it back into a file server, allowing sharing of the SourceSafe data directories (around 2 Gb at this point). It was a little tricky, as there were several places within the interfaces I had to change:
Added a bunch of MSKB articles to the WebHome? MSKB and FoxPro? articles. Wish there were an easy way to gather all of them related to VSS and organize and manipulate them locally. I suppose I should install the monthly MSDN Library disks, but they always screw up my machine.
Found the DLL Help Database again – I had lost it for a while. It can be reached at http://support.microsoft.com/servicedesks/fileversion/dllinfo.asp?sd=MSDN
Working away. Got to skim another chapter of The Wiki Way, work on client projects, and follow up on some of the neat stuff going on in the early-evening meetings at the Greater Boston FoxPro User Group. The late meeting, btw, was one of my topics, where I showed Net Resources: The Answers Are Out There.
Tuesday, and more stuff going on.
http://80211b.weblogger.com/2002/05/06 is an interesting site with news on wireless networking. A good use of blogging, too, I think.
The Project Manager built into FoxPro? solves about 99% of the needs o f most developers, but the remainder can be frustratingly hard to reach. This project is designed to create several layers of programmable, extensible interfaces that will allow developers to create and share the add-ons that they need for their projects.
The challenge with the design is that we cannot be sure what needs the next developer will have, so we want to make a set of interfaces most easy to access, difficult to break, and good at cooperatively having multiple extensions share access.
The project manager itself needs to be instantiated as an invisible object, visible only through the PMX programming interfaces. This will prevent inadvertant interference.
One of the key features will be support for multiple user interfaces. A “Classic” user interface can duplicate much of the functionality of the original Project Manager. An “Explorer” interface can present a treeview and file list interface. A “Favorites” tab can be added. Perhaps the ability to dynamically define organizational schemes is needed by some. A toolbar interface to add additional tools might be needed. The design key here is that the user inteface need not dictate the underlying inteface of the PMX. Separation of UI from business logic.
Toni Feltman has a great design in ProjectHookX? that allows chaining of multiple well-behaved project hooks. This needs to be supported.
Weather took a really severe turn for the worse – it SNOWED! Not sticking enough to shovel, but we’ll see what the morning brings. More tidbits:
Jon Udell wrote this piece a couple of years ago: A Perl Hacker in the Land of Python, but I enjoyed it. Also, an interesting piece with a business case for open source: Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS)? Look at the Numbers!.
Finally a little contribution to the world:
In issue #7.06 of Woody’s Office Watch, Woody said about Service Pack 1 to Office XP:
“Don’t even try to run Visual NET on your Office development machine until you’ve installed this baby.”
Would that I had know that a little bit sooner. Apparently, there’s a right way and a wrong way to install these things, and I’m about 14 hours into trying variations of the wrong way in hopes of tripping on the right way.
I’ve got a test laptop I thought I’d install all the latest MSDN Galactic toys on, to have a machine I could afford to risk crashing-and-burning, so I could evaluate the latest goodies for my company and clients. Little did I know…
I installed Windows XP and all of the requisite services packs and security patches, courtesy of Windows Update. Next was Visual Studio .NET, Visual FoxPro? 7 and Visual SourceSafe? 6.0c. Then came Office XP and it’s service packs. All seemed good, until I tried to access Visual Studio .NET. No joy. The error message “The application cannot start” lead me to MSKB 306905, which tells me there could be any one of three problems, and no clue how to tell which. So, I start at the beginning, patching MSMXL2, 3 and 4, unregistering DLLS and registering keys in the Registry, tracing down paths of obscure DLLS, doing a “Repair” installation of Office XP (hours pass…) and finally registering an OLB that seems to solve the problem. The IDE starts.
And the help doesn’t work.
So, back to the drawing board, I uninstall Visual Studio .NET and attempt a reinstall. Browsing through the voluminous README, I do come across the section that mentions that NET ought to be installed after Office XP.
Bingo! Right combination! Everything works.
Only twenty hours of toying with it down the drain. Sheesh.
Happy Tax Day. Twelve hours of billing yesterday left little time for blogging. Today was cleanup and errands and also little time.
Ken Levy sends a “Memo from Microsoft” with good news for Visual FoxPro enthusiasts.
Microsoft claims HailStorm wasn’t killed, the strategy just changed, in this (now deleted) piece. Spin doctoring.
Funniest MSKB:Q313166 article of the day stated:
“Known Issues”
NT domain authentication does not work on computers running Windows XP Home Edition
When working with the Workflow Designer for SQL Server or the Workflow Manager for SQL Server on a computer that is running Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, you will not be able to obtain NT domain authentication. To avoid this issue, do not use the Workflow Designer for SQL Server or the Workflow Manager for SQL Server on a computer that is running Windows XP Home Edition.”
Sounds like the old vaudeville routine: “Doctor, it hurts when I do this” “So, don’t do that” OK, it was funnier in the original Yiddish.
Microsoft cancels the PDC: no big surprise, they talked out all they could at TechEd. They might need to actually back it up if they had any more conferences :). A report on that and the reaction from the DevX editor to a quiet TechEd.
A Washington Post column reviews a promising, simple ThinkFree Office.
Spring forward!
Installed UltraEdit on my main development machine. What a program! Incredible capabilities, small memory footprint, everything you want in a programmer’s editor, and $35.00 shareware. Hard to beat. Unless, of course, you try out the Programmer’s File Editor I mentioned two weeks ago, for free. But I don’t begrudge a fellow developer $35, especially for a worthwhile program.
Downloaded the Session Plug In and Tiger Skin skin for the twiki, and have them half-working (and half not). Could be cool if I can get a better look going for the twiki here. Before I go public with this thing, there’s three items I want to work through:
Mike Lewis is an active participant in the FoxPro forums on CompuServe. His home page is (updated) http://www.ml-consult.co.uk/foxstuff.htm