VFP Shortcut Keys

Today I was working in a VFP .prg and accidently discovered a shortcut that I didn't know about. When editing a prg (MODIFY COMMAND) or a file (MODIFY FILE), press Ctrl+Enter to display a Save As dialog. When editing method code in a visual designer, this key combination closes the current editing window. The other key combination works in MODIFY COMMAND, MODIFY FILE, and the method editor. Press Alt+Enter to display the Edit Properties dialog.

.NET Architecture

As one of the benefits of being an MVP, Microsoft offers online training classes. This week I started the Application Architecture for .NET class. It consists of a book, Powerpoint slides, and a set of questions. We have an instructor that is available to answer questions. The class started Monday and runs for four weeks. It looks like it will take about an hour a day to keep up. There is also an exam at the end of the class. I also plan to take the Analyzing Requirements and Defining Microsoft .NET Solution Architectures MCSD exam when we're finished.

Salt Lake City Unwired

Salt Lake City already ranks as one of the highest wired cities (Internet connections) and homes with the number of computers per capita. Now, Intel ranks it as the 25th most Unwired City (wireless Internet accessability) in the country. The University of Utah ranks 93rd on the list of Unwired campuses. Unfortunately, we didn't rank on the list for unwired airports.

FoxTalk 2.0

If you've missed it, FoxTalk is alive and well. While at the Summit, I got a preview of FoxTalk 2.0. I'm excited about the new features and directions of the magazine. If you don't subscribe, you should. If you are a subscriber, you should definately renew.

Channel 9

Here in Utah, Channel 9 is an educational channel. It's fitting, I guess, that Channel 9 is the name of a new Microsoft educational site. It's designed to get more information to developers. If you haven't seen it yet, you need to spend some time there. Ken and Yag are among the first people interviewed.

Feedster

Here are the Feedster links for the Summit.

What do you want to print today?

The updated report writer in Visual FoxPro 9.0 is full of new features, many of which have been discussed in Ken's monthly letters. But, what features are on the top of your list? I'm preparing my precon presentation for DevEssentials and wonder what you want to see or what printing problems you have with the current report designer? Post a comment to let me know.

MVP Summit Press Coverage

I've found some press coverage here and here on last week's summit.

Paging Dr. Berntson...

The MVP Summit ended today here in Seattle and I must say that it was the best day yet. We spent all day with the Fox team show us great new features in VFP 9.0...and a couple of surprise guests. The day started with Eric Christenson. If you've been doing Fox for years or read Fox Tales, then you know who Eric is. He was responsible for putting Rushmore into FoxPro. He's still with Microsoft, working on the SQL Server team.

David Anderson of the Fox team was up next. He showed us many of the great new data enhancements coming in VFP 9.0 including enhanced SQL support, data types, and more.

Richard Stanton...remember this name because Rick Schummer says he'll be your new hero...showed off the new Report Writer enhancements. Richard is doing much of the work, along with some help from another long time Fox developer, Lisa Slater Nichols and her husband Colin. We got to see how the multi-detail band works, how you can get different output types, and control the different report objects. You're going to be amazed at what can be done. If you can make it to Dev Essentials in June, I highly recommend that you attend my pre-con reporting session or catch Doug Hennig's or Cathy Pountney's sessions there. You'll see lots of great things.

Tim Laverty of the VS Data Tools team (yag's other group), came in during lunch and we had a discussion about data modeling. If you're not familiar with what the VS Data Tools team does, look at the SQL Server tools in Visual Studio.

In the afternoon, Calvin Hsia and Randy Brown continued the VFP show with a bunch of new features. I can't remember all of them and I'm not sure which ones have been publically announced so I can't go into detail. However, several of the enhancements shown by all the presenters received applause from the MVPs. Visual FoxPro 9.0 will be a "must have" version.f

The day's official activities ended with another surprise guest, Rob Copeland. He had also worked at Fox Software and is also still with Microsoft.

This evening, I had organized a dinner for the Fox MVPs. Most of us that were here went out to Cutter's Bayhouse. Hopefully those that had to fly home early can stay and extra night next year as we are planning to go again after the next summit. Ken, yag, Randy Brown, Richard Stanton from the Fox product team, and Trevor Hancock from PSS Fox support joined us. Also former MVP Nancy Folsom and C# MVP and former Fox developer Bonnie Berent were also at dinner. In all, there were about 30 of us in the group. yag noticed that other MVP groups seem to hang out in small groups, but with Fox, it tends to be all of us. That's one thing that makes the Fox Community so great!

After dinner, many of us went to the lobby bar here at the hotel. Markus Egger, Rick Strahl, Claudio Lasalla, and Kevin McNeish came and joined us. Kevin greeted me as "Dr. Berntson".

The past three days have definatey been worth it. I have learned alot, had fun, and as is tradition at a conference, gotten little sleep. I'm looking forward to next year's summit.

I have lots of pictures that I'll post next week sometime after I get home. I'll be offline the next few days while I take a short vacation on the Washington coast and Olympic Penninsula.

Executive Day

Today was Microsoft Executive day at the MVP Summit. The past two years, we were at the Microsoft Conference Center on the MS campus. There are now too many MVPs, so today we were at the Washington Convention Center in downtown Seattle. The day started with Lori Moore, Corporate Vice President of Product Support Services. Since the MVP program comes out of PSS, she is our host. She gave us some interesting information on the Summit. For example, they used more than two miles of lanyards.

Eric Rudder, Senior Vice President of Servers and Tools was next. Eric was the main design guy behind VFP 3.0 and is now in charge of development tools and servers. He announced Channel 9. The first issue includes video of yag and Ken Levy.

Jim Allchin, Group Vice President of the Platforms Group was up next and showed off some interesting stuff that will be coming up in the next couple of years.

After lunch, we heard from Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive Officer. All I can say is "blah, blah, blah".

Rich Kaplan, Corporate Vice President Content Delivery and Delivery Group followed. He's in charge of Microsoft.com, MSDN, Technet, and other online properties.

Lori Moore then came back and again said "thanks" for all the MVPs do.

The evening's activities were back at Microsoft. They had dinner and yummy desserts. The entertainment consisted of XBox games, karaoke, open mike night, an improv comedy troupe, and more.

Tomorrow, I'm with the Fox team all day to get some in depth info on VFP 9.0

So, you may be wondering why I'm not giving you more information on what we were told. It's simple...we're under NDA. I can't talk about it unless it's public. The press has been here, so you may find some information on news sites such as news.com or eweek.com.

Live, from the Summit

I'm sitting here in the Microsoft Conference Center. A wireless connection has me on the Internet so I can blog this for you. Visual Studio .NET 2005 dominates today's agenda. We had a great session this morning on some things coming up in the Whidbey release of ASP .NET. Web development will get MUCH easier. After that, I attended a session on the .NET IDE. This was a terrible session. The presenter did not prepare until yesterday and then he insulted his audience not once, not twice, but three times. I then went to a good session on data enhancements coming in next year's release. Lunch was spent with several Fox MVPs and John Koziol and Mike Stewart from the Fox Team. I opted to skip the second part of the data presentation so I could blog this and catch up on email. There's a session coming up at 3:00 on Indigo and Avalon where Don Box will be presenting. Tonight, it's dinner with some .NET teams. The Fox team will be there too.

MVP Summit Begins

Tonight marked the opening of the annual Microsoft MVP Summit in Seattle. Tonight was the "Meet and Greet" party. I brought with me a gift for Longhorn Evangelist and welll known blogger Robert Scoble. We has planned to meet Wednesday afternoon, but I found him in the lobby of my hotel, so he got it early. It was something that a Longhorn Evangelist should have. I bought it last December, before Christmas and held on to it. What was it? A set of longhorn on a headband. Robert loved it and wore them all evening. I have pictures of Scoble and some Fox MVPs that I hope to post tomorrow.

Updated 4/05/04 9:40 AM] Picture of Scoble is here.

April Book of the Month

The book this month is the same as last, SQL for Smarties by Joe Celko. I only got through part of the book, so I'm continuing it this month.

Last month, someone asked how I can recommend a book that I haven't read. I've never said that I was recommending the book of the month. It's simply the book I'm currently reading. If I feel the book warrants recommendation, I'll add it to my reading list.