DevBlog

For weeks, proponents of Open Source software have pointed out that some 25 million downloads of Firefox show that people are fed up with Microsoft Internet Explorer and that it's days are numbered. However, reality is very different. This story on CNet's News.com shows that actual usage of Firefox has dropped.

The Southwest Fox conference has a new place in the Internet, www.swfox.net. Bob and Jeff did an outstanding job last year as they started what I hope to become an annual trip south. This conference should definately be on you list.

Last month I blogged about problems getting a book ordered and shipped. Not willing to use Amazon.com anymore, I decided to give Bookpool another try. After all, I could have ordered the wrong book, which means the sent the "right" one to me. I'll see how this works. I've ordered this book. It should be here no later than Wednesday. I'll keep you posted.

The one problem with Bookpool is they only sell computer books. I'm still looking for a suitable reseller for non-tech titles.

John Koziol has blogged about the stability of VFP 9.0. I've been playing/using/developing with VFP 9.0 since an early alpa release and I have to agree with him.

Yes, you read that correctly. From vnunet.com,

"A Linux enthusiast at the RSA Conference in San Francisco has reluctantly concluded that Microsoft produces more secure code than its open source rivals.

In an academic study due to be released next month Dr Richard Ford, from the Florida Institute of Technology, and Dr Herbert Thompson, from application security firm Security Innovation, analysed vulnerabilities and patching and were forced to conclude that Windows Server 2003 is more secure than Red Hat Linux."

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You can also find it at the Seattle Times and even SlashDot.

As I've posted before, I'm finally working my way through .NET and actually building something with it. That doesn't mean I'm doing less Fox, except to say that my Project Manager replacement is on hold (do more to lack of a suitable treeview control). I'll have more to say on my .Net project next week.

If you're a Fox developer looking at .NET, I can't agree more with John Koziol, who is learning VB.Net (I chose C#). You can read about what John is doing here and here.

Rick Strahl made a great post on the Universal Thread earlier this week that also includes some good tips. I don't have the exact quote, but it was something along the lines of, "VFP developers are used to having the data language and the rest of the language intermingled. It's easy to manipulate data because it's all the same. When moving to .Net, you have to do what developers from other languages do...create a connection to the data and manipulate it outside of the application." In other words, don't bring the data into the application to things like searching for a particular record or doing some data munging. This should be done on the server. Don't do things like SELECT * FROM MyTable and bring down then entire table. Find what you need on the server and bring down only what you need. In other words, include a WHERE clause that limits the data.

One of my favorite books of all time is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I'm anxiously awaiting the premiere of the movie on April 29. Amazon.com is showing the latest trailer.

I've heard good things about the DevTeach conference in Montreal. This year it will be held June 18-22. I'm pleased that I will be there presenting topics on COM+ and the Windows Event Log.

Bill Gates has announced that a new and improved Internet Explorer is coming sooner than expected. Microsoft had previously announced that no IE update would happen before Longhorn ships, but that has changed, due to security issues and pressure from Firefox. A beta version of IE 7.0 should be available before summer. [CNet]

Indigo looks to be a very cool technology? Don't know what it is or want to learn more? Read Introducing Indigo: An Early Look by David Chappell.

I'm once again exploring the .NET world. This time, I came up with a single project for learning web forms, Winforms, web services, and a PDA. It could even spill over to Office integration. First up is web forms, since this is primarily a web app. I'm working through the book, "MCAD/MCSD Self-Paced Training Kit: Developing Web Applications with Microsoft® Visual Basic® .NET and Microsoft Visual C#® .NET". This book covers alot of territory and should at least get me started. Yes, I am aware that there are MAJOR changes coming in ASP.net 2.0. I'll deal with that when the time comes. I'll post information on the project when it actually starts (about two weekds from now) and give you updates on how it is progressing and what I'm learning from it.

Wanna see you favorite superbowl ad again? See them all here. My favorites, in no particular order..

- GoDaddy.com, Strapless (see more about Go Daddy below)
- Diet Pepsi, Ladies man (I laughed so hard when Carson checked out the guy)
- Bud Light, Parachuting
- Anheiser Busch, Thanking the Troops (what a GREAT ad)
- Mastercard, Mascots

Second place (ads that make me chuckle, but don't rank in the top)
- Bud Light, Cedric the Entertainer
- Ameriquest, both ads
- Careerbuilder.com, all three ads...the best of the three was the one where the chimp photocopied his butt. Note to Careerbuilder..Chimps are not monkeys.
- Emerald Nuts
- Fed Ex
- Pizza Hut, It's the Muppet Show

Lame (ads that were a HUGE waste of money)
- Cadillac, 0-60 in 5 Seconds
- Honda Truck, Can you say UGLY vehicle
- McDonalds, Lincoln Fry
- Degree for Men
- Napster, both ads
- Pepsi, all the iTunes ads

It seems that the GoDaddy ad ranked highest for viewers...and the NFL yanked the second run of the ad (details here). Now, I've used GoDaddy for years. The ad pushed their domain registration, which is cheap. However, their hosting service SUCKS.

This is kinda cool! A new CD ROM Database, The Himalayan Database, is written in VFP. The description says,

"The historical archives of Elizabeth Hawley—for more than 40 years the meticulous chronicler of mountaineering expeditions in Nepal—are now available on this searchable CD. Searchable database informs decisions for expedition planning; Records provide a glimpse into the successes and failures of expeditions; Searchable by peak, climber, expedition, nationality, conditions, seasons, causes of death and many other details."

One of the great Fox conferences the past few years has been DevEssentials, put on by Vision Data Solutions (now VisionPace) in Kansas City. I've spoken at each of them and really enjoyed them. Russ Swall has posted on the Universal Thread that VisionPace has no plans to put on DevEssentials this year. Bummer.

Utah state government has won several awards for it's online services and information. Now, the Utah Administrative Office of the Courts and the Utah State Bar have published their first public links to synidcated feeds of their home page. Utah Courts offers an RSS feed for "Recent Court Opinions" that links to recently released and archived opinions of the Utah Supreme Court, Utah Court of Appeals, and Per Curiam decisions[RSS in Government]