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Microsoft Announces Changes to IE for Developers

By on October 7, 2003 in Home Page

In a move likely to break some existing applications, Microsoft announced changes
to the Internet Explorer programming model, scheduled to be released
with Service Pack 1b for Internet Explorer 6, updating the version
number to 6.01. I suspect this change is in response to losing a lawsuit
from Eolas over their object embedding technologies. There has been a
lot of speculation that Microsoft did not seek other solutions short of
limiting their own products by, for example, buying the company and
their patent, because the change might be more damaging to Microsoft
competitors than to Microsoft themselves. That would be evil.

There
could be many implications of this decision, and each developer will
need to evaluate their own code. Microsoft provides a beta of the
“bits” to test. I’ll need to wait until I have a sacrificial machine
from the TR&A labs to test them out. Applications I’m concerned
about right away include those with embedded HTML Help, embedded IE
browsers, and those I’ve written to spider web sites, including those
with RSS feeds.

Ken Levy, now Visual FoxPro Product Manager,
distributed code to use an embedded IE control as WebExplorerX, when he
was an independent developer and posting his samples to
http://www.classx.com (no longer available but you can find archive
echos at
http://web.archive.org/web/20000511064829/http://www.classx.com/). If
you used some of the WebExplorerX technology, you’ll want to retest
with Microsoft’s patches. Good luck!

Visual FoxPro and Citrix

By on October 6, 2003 in Home Page

Andrew MacNeill posts a great piece here on
the use of Citrix and VFP. I have several clients doing this, to great
success. “Microsoft’s ” (not sure who this is) claim that this isn’t a
good or popular solution is just plain wrong. Here’s Andrew’s post:

MS Response to Why Not Promote VFP and Citrix.

David
Dee (see post from 9/22) asked MS about promoting VFP by discussing
items with Citrix…As noted in his comments, the response from MS was:
We
do not test VFP with Citrix and it is not something we are focused on
as a solution, mainly due to lack of demand. For web (or thin client)
applications with VFP, we are promoting VFP with ASP.NET using VFP 8.0
with Visual Studio .NET 2003 and that is working well, and most
companies we talk to who need web front ends to VFP applications are
using or considering ASP.NET with VFP combined. Thanks for your
feedback.

Huh?!?! – Until such
time as Desktop apps are killed off completely (don’t see that
happening anytime soon), I actually prefer to recommend Citrix or
Terminal Server based solutions than purely Web-based.

Maybe
David’s problem was actually using the term “Citrix” instead of the
more “MS-friendly” Terminal Server. VFP continually gets updated in
service releases to better support Terminal Server applications(recall
the NOBITMAP setting in SP3 for VFP 6). In fact, in one newsgroup, one
of the fastest suggested ways to build a “mobile” app for the PocketPC
was NOT to use SQL Server for PocketPC, etc but rather to build a
Terminal Server (read: CITRIX-like) application and connect to it using
the PocketPC’s Terminal Server client. The only caution was “keep your
screens really small”.

It’s
the “MS response” that really hurts the community. Promoting VFP with
ASP.Net is great for all those bleeding edge developers (and yes, I
know it hurts to say it but for most people ASP.Net is still a little
too bleeding edge for many companies – note that not even MS bCentral
allows SOAP access on their .Net services – wonder why not?).

The
fact is that EVERY developer needs to be told of workable solutions.
Citrix and Terminal Servers represent GREAT Solutions for companies who
have remote needs and WORKING desktop applications. VFP is not only
ideally suited in these environments – it kicks serious butt when it
comes to performance! Why? Because the application actually runs
LOCALLY instead of being on a network.

Other reasons to consider Citrix/Terminal Server solutions:
1. It’s easier to support – you can shadow other users, and easily disconnect users when connected.
2. Single point of access – easier to track errors, provide updates and more.
3. Single type of workstation – easier to manage. Hell, even better than trying to deal with multiple browsers
4.
You can FIND many companies willing to HOST TS servers for you – yes,
they may charge for it but will provide 24/7/365 uptime with various
guarantees (check out http://www.meganetserve.com)

If
you have never considered using Terminal Server as a remote solution
for your apps, I strongly recommend it. AND it’s getting easier and
better. Don’t be fooled by Microsoft’s response – VFP does work well
under Citrix and is always being improved to work better because of it.
(just don’t mention Citrix in the same breath )

Andrew MacNeill [Andrew MacNeill – AKSEL Solutions]

Scoble: Why does Microsoft need to do everything?

By on October 5, 2003 in Home Page

Scoble: “Why does Microsoft need to do everything?” [Scripting News]

Well, Robert, I think it’s about money. Microsoft does everything in
hopes that some of those things will make money. Games, MSN, digital
photos, mice, PocketPCs, music, digitial photos and more. What is it
that Microsoft won’t do for money?

Looking at the question from another angle, perhaps I’d suggest that
Microsoft is obsessive and compulsive about doing everything.

But that’s not really the jist of his post. He seems to be implying
that Microsoft won’t have a blogging tool, at least not yet. With
Google and AOL already out there with blogging tools, I’m skeptical
that there won’t be a response from Microsoft. Time will tell.

Microsoft Visual FoxPro MVP Award Winners Announced

By on October 1, 2003 in Home Page

Congratulations to the new and renewed MVPs. I did not receive the
award this year, which is probably all for the best. Here’s the post
from the Wiki:
MvpVfp2004.
The MVP Award, which stands for “Most Valuable Professional” is an
annual award given to outstanding members of Microsoft’s peer-to-peer
communities. The following list contains all of the names of the
current VFP MVPs who have received awards for … more at FoxForum Wiki

@Stake fires CTO for not trusting Microsoft

By on September 26, 2003 in Home Page

Daniel Geer, former CTO for Cambridge, Mass-based @Stake, apparently
lost his job for co-authoring a report distributed by Microsoft rivals
via the CCIA, that claims that Microsoft’s monopoly and integrated
software and operating system poses a “clear and present danger” to
computer security.
Links: Rogers Cadenhead reports on an analyst who apparently was fired for criticizing Microsoft. [Scripting News]
Report: Microsoft Monopoly Puts Computing at Risk [MCPMag]
Microsoft critic dismissed by @Stake [c|Net News.com]
The report in PDF format, available here.

Did Microsoft throw a fixed fight?

By on September 18, 2003 in Home Page

From Scripting News: “Zeldman asks the question no one dared ask, did Microsoft want to lose the browser patent case? Postscript: Vincent Flanders dared to ask. “

A disturbing idea, that Microsoft would so devastate the internet space in order to gain themselves.

To me, the real problem here is the idea that a patent can apply to an
innovative software technique. I don’t believe that patents rightfully
exist in software. You cannot steal the code of others, but you can and you should be able to build on the ideas of others.

New Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-039

By on September 10, 2003 in Home Page

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms03-039.asp [updated link]
lists a new security flaw, based on an extension of MS03-026 to new
ports. The MSKB is pretty confusing. Bottom line, right now, ensure you
have a firewall in place, whether you are attached to the internet
directly or through an intranet. Working through the language of the
patch will take some time. Look at this:

Note If you use the KB823980scan.exe tool to scan
a computer that has the 824146 security patch installed, the tool will
incorrectly report that the computer is missing the 823980 security
patch (MS03-026). Microsoft encourages customers to run the
KB824146scan.exe tool to determine whether the host computers on their
networks have the 823980 (MS03-026) and the 824146 (MS03-039) security
patches installed.

Pretty confusing stuff.

What nonsense!

By on September 9, 2003 in Home Page

Forrester: Linux development can be more costly than using Microsoft software.
“The Microsoft-commissioned study estimated the cost of building custom
J2EE and .Net applications within large and medium-size organizations.”

“The price gap was primarily the result of the
difference between the prices of the BEA and Oracle software and those
of Visual Studio .Net and SQL Server.”

 What nonsense. So, it is possible to spend more money on
expensive software and end up with a more expensive solution. Duh. And
what if they used Apache, JBOSS and PostGreSQL?
[Computerworld News]

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