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Have you ever wondered what the Microsoft MVP program is about or how MVPs are selected? Toby Richards, who runs the MVP program at Microsoft, talks about. http://cli.gs/9MU5Hr

// posted by Craig Berntson @ 1:44:00 PM
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Speaking a conferences is a very time consuming prospect. You need to put great effort into the material to ensure it matches the expectations of the audience. Code needs to be tested. And then there are the practice sessions, preferable in front of a live audience.

But conference preparation starts long before any of that. You need to first come up with several topics because conference organizers generally ask potential speakers for more than one topic. A catchy title helps. Several years ago, I had one called "OOP, I Did it Again", that was an introduction to Object Oriented Programming. You then have to come up with a description, bullet points that hit the highlights of the presentation, figure out if it's a 100, 200, 300, or 400 level talk, and what pre-requisites are needed. Then, you need to put your proposal into the format needed by the conference organizers. So, by the time you've done this for three or four topics, you have easily spent several hours.

For the past three years, I've done this for Southwest Fox, but have not been accepted as a speaker there. So, I've decided to no longer submit proposals for the conference. I have no doubt there will be great presentations and it will be a fantastic conference, but it's no longer an effective use of my time.

I probably won't be there as an attendee either. My company has no training budget this year and it really is cost prohibitive for me to foot the bill myself.

I wish the Rick, Doug, and Tamar all the best for this year?s Southwest Fox and for many years to come.

// posted by Craig Berntson @ 8:43:00 AM
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When working in Visual FoxPro, functions are procedures are almost the same thing. Look at the following code:

FUNCTION DoSomething
LPARAMETERS Param1, Param2
? "Param 1= " + Param1
? "Param 2= " + Param2

PROCEDURE DoSomethingElse
LPARAMETERS Param1, Param2
? "Param 1= " + Param1
? "Param 2= " + Param2

The function and procedure are actually identical. The difference to determine whether you have a function or procedure is not how they are defined, but how they are called. You can even call them the same way.

DO DoSomething WITH "Hello", "Procedure"

DoSomething("Hello", "Procedure")

You'll notice that DoSomething was defined as a procedure, but we can call it as either a procedure or a function. We can do the same thing with DoSomethingElse.

The difference is how the parameters are passed. When called as a procedure, the parameters are passed by reference. When called as a function, the parameters are passed by value. You can change how they?re passed in a function with SET UDFPARMS TO REFERENCE but you can?t change how parameters are passed when calling the routine as a procedure.

So, which should you use? I think you should always call the routine as a function because the routine cannot accidently change the value of the parameter. This is the kind of nasty side effect that can be difficult to track down.

Labels: VFP

// posted by Craig Berntson @ 4:14:00 PM
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• Support for perspective 3D
• Offline Support
• .NET RIA Services which simplifies the traditional n-tier application pattern by bringing together the ASP.NET and Silverlight platforms

Building Web Applications with Windows Azure
This session will begin with a brief overview of Azure and discuss some of the announcements made at MIX. We will then illustrate through demo how to build a Windows Azure application from the ground up. We will illustrate how to consume Azure Table Storage, how to host services, web pages and Silverlight components, as well as how to deploy your solution to the cloud.

MVC 1.0 vs ASP.Net Webforms
Have you heard about the new ASP.NET MVC framework from Microsoft and wondered what it was all about? Are you curious whether this replaces ASP.Net WebForms? Well in this session you will learn how to use the model-view-controller (MVC) pattern to take advantage of your favorite .NET Framework language for writing business logic in a way that is de-coupled from the views of the data. In addition, we will talk about the pros and cons of both MVC and Web Forms, how to determine the best choice for a specific project, various techniques and patterns used to build MVC applications vs. Web Forms applications, and the implications for using each approach.

The morning session is from 8:00 am to 12:00 pm. Register here.
The afternoon session runs from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm. Register here.

All events are free and will be held at the Microsoft office in the International Center, 123 Wright Brothers Drive, Suite 100.

Labels: Microsoft, Salt Lake City

// posted by Craig Berntson @ 2:57:00 PM
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• Demystifying Azure - An Overview of the Azure Services Platform for Developers
• Deepen your Debugging - Tips and Tricks for the Visual Studio 2008 Debugger
• Developing for Windows Mobile Devices

Register here.

// posted by Craig Berntson @ 1:08:00 PM
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• Download the install package. I'll accept this one. I can't install without having it.
• Launch installation package.
• Install FAIL. I need to download and install a Windows Installer 4.5 Why does every Microsoft product need a different version of the installer? And why can't it be included in the product's installation package?
• Download Windows Installer 4.5
• Forced reboot. An installer is an APPLICATION, not part of the OS and should not require an OS reboot.
• Launch installation package.
• Install FAIL. I walked through several screens only to be told that installation couldn't continue because PowerShell was not installed. Why is PowerShell even required? And if it is, I should at least be told at the beginning of the install process that it's not installed. Don't tell me half way through several dialogs.
• Download and install PowerShell.
• Launch SQL Server Express installer.
• But wait, there's more. I walked through 16!!! different screens and had over 30 clicks!!! in addition to selecting the account to run SQL Server, entering an administrator password (twice). I didn't even select all features or look at all the options. Many of the dialogs (Setup support rules, Setup support files) weren't needed. Others (license terms, product key) could be combined into a single dialog.

Express is supposed to lite weight and easy to setup and use. Nothing about this was easy to setup. Install process FAIL. In the end, the install was successful.

Labels: SQL Server

// posted by Craig Berntson @ 9:51:00 AM
//  1 Comments // Links to this post

1. Backup Vista hard drive.
2. Launch Windows 7 install.
3. Select to get updates. 862K was downloaded.
4. Chose Custom install. This created a Windows.old folder on the drive that contained the old Vista Windows folder, Perflogs, Users, Program Files, etc. Other folders that I had created were untouched.
5. Setup then copied files and began to expand them.
6. Setup rebooted the PC.
7. After startup, setup continued to expand the files.
8. Another reboot.
9. Setup continued, updating the registry and started services. New Windows files were installed.
10. I was prompted for international settings, country, time zone, etc, for computer name, username, and password. The password hint was required. Why was this required? IMO, it shouldn't be.
11. I then entered the product key. This step is far too late in the process. Windows should ask me for this before I select any of the previous options.
12. I then had the option to set the time, which was already correct.
13. Setup detected the wireless networks available and I selected mine. I was then asked if I wanted to create a Home Group. I chose not to do so.
14. Setup completed soon after. Total time after I did backup was less than an hour.

Overall, the setup process was very clean and easy. Here are my first impressions:

• Taskbar: I'm realy used to the old taskbar and like how it works. I set it up so that running programs appear on top and shortcuts are below. I organize my shortcuts in the order I want so they are easy to find. At first, I didn't like the combined short cuts/running programs on the task bar. I had it set to display the names of the running programs, which moved the icons to the right. After changing the settings to show only the icon, things are much better. It's easy to tell which programs are running. However, when you click a running Internet Explorer, you are prompted to select the tab to activate rather than just activating IE.
• Paint, WordPad, NotePad. Paint and WordPad now use the Ribbon in the UI. NotePad does not and it really looks dated because of that.
• My: The return of My is not welcome by me. When Vista was released, I blogged that I was happy My had been removed, but it's back again in My Documents, My Music, My Photos, and My Videos.
• Media Player: A new UI that looks dated.
• IE 8: Overall, I like IE. In fact, I use it as my primary browser. It does everything I need, so I don't see a reason to change to something else. I found a couple of web sites that had minor problems in IE 8. The biggest issue is that when I tried to log into my bank, I was told the browser wasn't supported and I could not log in. Good thing I still have an XP machine.
• Reboot: I installed updated (beta) drivers for my video card. Windows asked to reboot after. I was very impressed with the speed of the process.
• Aero Glass: I don't see the Aero Glass effects on windows. The window borders are not transparent. I'm not sure if it's the video drivers or a change in Windows.

Overall, Windows 7 seems to be faster and snappier than Vista and I'm happy with it so far. I'm still installing software, so that may change. If you've been debating/waiting to go to Vista, I say wait for Windows 7.

Labels: Windows 7

// posted by Craig Berntson @ 10:10:00 PM
//  2 Comments // Links to this post

We are looking to a way to distrubute the application server load (FoxPro MTDLL) by using a COM+ clustering configuration. Question: How FoxPro COM+ state will replicated through all cluster members? The COM+ are mainly to access MS SQL DB.

The answer is:

You can never count on state being replicated across servers. COM+ itself is designed to be stateless. You'll need to keep state information in a central location, for example SQL Server, or send all the state information every time you CREATEOBJECT() on a COM+ object.

// posted by Craig Berntson @ 6:44:00 PM
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• New task bar similar to OSX Dock
• Jump lists
• New Start menu
• Windows Explorer Libraries
• Home Group Networking provides separate profiles for home and work. You'll be able to plug your work laptop into your home network and not compromise your work files
• Vista Sidebar is dead. Gadgets just go on the desktop
• New light weight media player
• System tray is locked down by default. You can decide what goes there.
• New Action Center. It's a superset of Vista Security Center. It will also queue up "toast" notifications.
• Touch UI is built in and usable with no code changes. One reporter said, "It's like a big friking IPhone".
• WordPad now supports ODF and has a new Ribbon interface, similar to Office 2007.
• Paint is finally updated and also Ribbon interface.
• UAC is more controllable and less intrusive. There is a UAC settings in Control Panel. You can set the level of UAC protection via a slider.
• Reduced memory footprint and disk IO
• Better power management. Microsoft spent time on end-to-end testing with playing a DVD on battery power.
• Faster boot
• Native Virtual Hard Drive monitoring. You can directly mount and boot from VHDs.
• Bit Locker works on USB devices
• Remote Desktop supports dual monitor
• Windows key + P goes into new Presenter Mode
• Shutdown button is customizable

Microsoft promised a beta early next year. It will be feature complete but will not be ready for performance testing. The beta will be public and available on microsoft.com. It will be followed by on Release Candidate, then RTM. While Microsoft did not give a date for release, the press is reporting it will be available late 2009.

More Win7 details are expected at the WinHEC conference in about 10 days.

Here are some links to screen shots and more info on Win7 and Office 14.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1675
http://www.techflash.com/microsoft/Microsoft_taking_Office_to_the_browser.html
http://content.zdnet.com/2346-12354_22-244222.html
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=575
http://www.flickr.com/photos/longzheng
http://www.neowin.net/news/live/08/10/28/introducing-the-windows-7-ui
http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1676
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10074795-75.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.0
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10076864-56.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.0
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10076883-75.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.0
http://www.winsupersite.com/office/office14_web_preview.asp

Labels: Windows 7

// posted by Craig Berntson @ 5:10:00 PM
//  1 Comments // Links to this post

Labels: .Net, ActiveX, VFP, Winforms, WPF

// posted by Craig Berntson @ 10:22:00 AM
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Today’s applications need to do more than simply work. They need to draw
in the user, and provide a differentiated experience. This means moving beyond
battleship gray forms boxy UIs and simple HTML forms, and providing a positive
user experience. Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Silverlight 2
provide powerful capabilities to develop compelling user interfaces, on the
client and in the browser, respectively.

At the heart of
these rich applications is data. There are a growing number of choices of
technologies available to access data, create database abstraction layers and
expose data as services. Visual Studio 2008 (and .NET Framework 3.5) SP1
include the production release of the ADO.NET Entity Framework, ADO.NET Data
Services, as well as some enhancements to the Web Programming model
(REST-Friendly) in WCF.

In this session, Rob Bagby will
examine the core concepts of WPF and Silverlight such as layout panels, data
binding, styles and control templates, and will use them to develop an
application UI from the ground up. Rob will further examine and demystify
the options available to you to expose data to your rich applications.

// posted by Craig Berntson @ 12:42:00 PM
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Labels: FoxPro

// posted by Craig Berntson @ 1:57:00 PM
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Labels: VFP

// posted by Craig Berntson @ 7:10:00 PM
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curRange.Interior.Color = Color.LightYellow.ToArgb();

curRange.Interior.Color = Color.LightCyan.ToArgb();

// posted by Craig Berntson @ 11:22:00 AM
//  7 Comments // Links to this post

* Document SQL tables into Excel

LOCAL oXl AS Excel.Application
LOCAL oSheet AS EXCEL.Sheets
LOCAL oActiveSheet AS EXCEL.Worksheet


oXl = CREATEOBJECT("Excel.Application")
oXl.Visible = .T.
oWkb = oXl.Workbooks.Add()
oActiveSheet = NULL

lnHandle = SQLSTRINGCONNECT("Driver=SQL Native Client;Server=.;database=Northwind;Trusted_Connection=yes")
SQLEXEC(lnHandle, "Exec sp_tables", "cTables")
SELECT cTables
INDEX ON Table_Type TAG TableType DESCENDING
SCAN FOR Table_Type = "TABLE"
  oSheet = oXl.Sheets.Add()
  loActiveSheet = oXl.ActiveSheet
 
  SQLEXEC(lnHandle, "Exec sp_columns '" + ALLTRIM(cTables.Table_Name)
    +  "'", "cColumns")

  * Add the top two rows with table information after adding the column stuff
  * so that the columns will autosize properly
  XLAddColumn(loActiveSheet, "cColumns")
  loActiveSheet = XLAddTable(loActiveSheet, cTables.Table_Name)
ENDSCAN

SQLDISCONNECT(lnHandle)
oSheet = NULL
oWkb = NULL
oXl = NULL

*********************************

FUNCTION XLAddTable(toActiveSheet, tcTableName)
  LOCAL lcTable
  LOCAL toActiveSheet AS EXCEL.Worksheet
 
  lcTable = ALLTRIM(tcTableName)
  * Handle the sheet title (table name)
  toActiveSheet.Name = lcTable
  toActiveSheet.Range("A1") = ALLTRIM(tcTableName) + " Table"
  toActiveSheet.Range("A1").Font.Name = "Arial"
  toActiveSheet.Range("A1").Font.Size = 14
  toActiveSheet.Range("A1", "F1").Interior.Color = 12632256
  toActiveSheet.Rows(1).RowHeight = 24.75
  toActiveSheet.Range("A1:F1").Borders(7).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("A1:F1").Borders(8).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("A1:F1").Borders(9).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("A1:F1").Borders(10).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)

  * Column Titles
  toActiveSheet.Range("A2") = "Column Name"
  toActiveSheet.Range("A2").Borders(7).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("A2").Borders(8).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("A2").Borders(9).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("A2").Borders(10).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
 
  * Data type
  toActiveSheet.Range("B2") = "Data Type"
  toActiveSheet.Range("B2").Borders(7).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("B2").Borders(8).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("B2").Borders(9).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("B2").Borders(10).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)

  * Precision
  toActiveSheet.Range("C2") = "Precision"
  toActiveSheet.Range("C2").Borders(7).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("C2").Borders(8).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("C2").Borders(9).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("C2").Borders(10).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)

  * Length
  toActiveSheet.Range("D2") = "Length"
  toActiveSheet.Range("D2").Borders(7).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("D2").Borders(8).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("D2").Borders(9).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("D2").Borders(10).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)

  * Scale
  toActiveSheet.Range("E2") = "Scale"
  toActiveSheet.Range("E2").Borders(7).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("E2").Borders(8).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("E2").Borders(9).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("E2").Borders(10).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)

  * Comments
  toActiveSheet.Range("F2") = "Comments"
  toActiveSheet.Range("F2").Borders(7).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("F2").Borders(8).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("F2").Borders(9).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  toActiveSheet.Range("F2").Borders(10).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)

  * Format the cells
  toActiveSheet.Range("A2", "F2").Font.Bold = .T.
  toActiveSheet.Range("A2:F2").VerticalAlignment = 2
  toActiveSheet.Range("A2", "F2").Interior.Color = 8454143
  toActiveSheet.Rows(2).RowHeight = 26.25

  toActiveSheet.Columns("B").Autofit()
  toActiveSheet.Columns("C").Autofit()
  toActiveSheet.Columns("D").Autofit()
  toActiveSheet.Columns("E").Autofit()
  toActiveSheet.Columns("F").Autofit()
  
  RETURN loActiveSheet
ENDFUNC

*********************************

FUNCTION XLAddColumn(toSheet, tcColCursor)
  LOCAL lnWorkArea
  LOCAL toSheet AS EXCEL.Worksheet
 
  lnWorkArea = SELECT()
  tcCell = ""

  SELECT (tcColCursor)
  SCAN
    * Column name
    tcCell = "A" + ALLTRIM(STR(RECNO() + 2))
    toSheet.Range(tcCell) = ALLTRIM(Column_Name)
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(7).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(8).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(9).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(10).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)

    * Data Type
    tcCell = "B" + ALLTRIM(STR(RECNO() + 2))
    toSheet.Range(tcCell) = ALLTRIM(Type_Name)
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(7).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(8).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(9).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(10).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  
    * Precision
    tcCell = "C" + ALLTRIM(STR(RECNO() + 2))
    toSheet.Range(tcCell) = Precision
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(7).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(8).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(9).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(10).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  
    * Length
    tcCell = "D" + ALLTRIM(STR(RECNO() + 2))
    toSheet.Range(tcCell) = Length
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(7).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(8).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(9).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(10).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  
    * Scale
    tcCell = "E" + ALLTRIM(STR(RECNO() + 2))
    toSheet.Range(tcCell) = Scale
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(7).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(8).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(9).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(10).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)

    * Comments
    tcCell = "F" + ALLTRIM(STR(RECNO() + 2))
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(7).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(8).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(9).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
    toSheet.Range(tcCell).Borders(10).Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
  ENDSCAN

  toSheet.Columns("A").Autofit()
 
  SELECT (lnWorkArea)
ENDFUNC

Labels: SQL, VFP

// posted by Craig Berntson @ 4:06:00 PM
//  4 Comments // Links to this post