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The Answer is: "This Fox team member was once an MVP and visible member of the Fox community before joining Microsoft 2001 to as Software Design Engineer/Test on the VFP team.". Question: "Who is John Koziol?"

I'm a little late getting this posted, but I received the following email with the subject "Johnny goes to Hollywood", from John earlier this week:

Hi friends!

Well, not quite. Where I am going is San Francisco for an audition for the gameshow Jeorpardy! (Very popular here). I don’t know why I was lucky enough to be selected for the audition, but I’m psyched. Some of you may know that I’m a trivia, English language, and factoid demon; I love that stuff.

To pass the audition, I have to answer 35 out of 50 written questions correctly in 15 minutes. Supposedly, there’s about a 15-20% pass rate. If you pass you do a mock game with the buzzers and the life to ensure that you have a modicum of stage presence and won’t fall apart under pressure. I read one account from a successful contestant whom estimated that about ˝ the people who make it to the mock game are eliminated on “style points”.

If I pass these hurdles, I’m entered into the contestant list for this season. Supposedly, those chosen in the spring have an excellent chance of making the show soon especially if they had good test scores and looked passable on stage.

Sooo….wish me luck!

PS: I will wear a small Foxhead lapel pin on my suit. Still trying to figure a way to mention VFP on-the-air, if I make it that far.

Good luck, John!

I just received a new Microsoft Fingerprint Reader. This is a nifty gadget that will let you store your username and passwords into the reader database, then logon to Windows, programs, and web sites with the touch of your finger. I've been trying it out at the office and so far have run into two instances where it doesn't work. The first is logging onto Windows. If you're on a domain, the reader won't work. This is clearly explained in the docs. The second was with our source control software. I don't know if it's because it's a Java app or something else. The reader software came up and said that the current window was not a login screen, but it clearly was. It did work for all the web sites I hit, including the Universal Thread, FoxForum, Hotmail, several 3M internal sites, and others. I'll play with it at home this weekend to see how it works for Windows on a non-domain PC and with fast user switching.

Andrew MacNeill wonders why source control isn't part of programming 101. Ted Roche follows up by asking, "Do real programmers user source control?" Well, Andrew and Ted, my experience from college (granted it was over 20 years ago) was that college doesn't teach you real skills needed for the real world. I often questioned the department heads about the things they were teaching and asked why the curriculum wasn't updated. My faculty advisor really came out and said it best, "You spend four to five years going to college, then they stamp BS on your back and send you out into the world."

Now, if you don't use source control, you really should..no..you must take a serious look at it, even if you are a one man shop. Andrew points to good information from Eric Sink, called Source Control HOWTO that should get you started. Even if you are using source control, you may pick up some pointers.

FYI, a new session I will be presenting at the German FoxPro DevCon in November is called "Coder to Developer". It's based on the book of the same name by Mike Gunderloy that's geared to .NET developers. The session and the book look at additional tools and skills that you need to know how to use to make that leap from being just a coder to a serious developer. Source control is one of those tools/skills that I will discuss.

Tim Landgrave explains problems behind the "Write Once, Run Anywhere" concept behind J2EE and why some companies are looking at .NET.

Well, DUH! We all know that. But, there are many areas where we might not see tech changes so rapidly. I was at the dentist this morning. He put some kind of plastic on my tooth to get a mold so the lab can make a crown. After he took it out, I commented on how it reminded me of my orthodontist making a plaster mold of my teeth many years ago. It tasted awful...like chalk. I also commented on how the novocaine tasted like citrus, not icky like I remember. And, as it's worn off, my mouth hasn't gone all tingly. The dentist told me that in ten years the drills will probably all be replaced with lasers. Yes, most of us hate to go to the dentist, but these tech advances help get over those phobias. These are excellent examples of where tech has improved our lives.

I just received approval to attend the Microsoft PDC in September. Hope to see you there.

I got an email this afternoon from former VFP Product Manager Robert Green that he's leaving Microsoft. You can read about his new endeavors on his blog. Good luck, Robert...and stay in touch.

Microsoft has launched a new web-based (but supports RSS) forum for Visual FoxPro. Yag blogs,

The ease of a web interface, RSS feeds for tracking, IM or Email when your question gets answered, integration with the VS2005 shell, easy searching to lok for an answer to your question (something that I always found missing with newsgroups). I'm really excited by the possibilities...

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One of the most used items in your home and office turns 25 today. Happy birthday to Post-it® Notes!! To celebrate, 3M is giving away prizes. Information is available here.

Yesterday, Microsoft posted a survey regarding VFP. I blogged it here and encouraged you to take it. I also posted a thread about it on one of the online forums that I regularly visit.

This morning, I got an email from the forum owner, telling me that my post was "marketing" and that it wasn't allowed. The thread had been deleted. My reply to him was that it wasn't totally marketing. The survey, while managed, run, and developed by Microsoft marketing, is designed to improve the technical aspects of VFP. The more people that respond to the survey, the better the results.

That reply caused the forum owner to call me. He said that a forum member had flagged the message as being "inappropriate and not technical". He had reviewed it and decided that the forum member was correct. To this forum member, I say, "Shame on you!" You should be doing everything you can to improve VFP. That includes encouraging others to express your technical needs to Microsoft.

But, you decide...is the recent survey purely marketing or not? You know where I stand.

The Visual FoxPro team at Microsoft has posted a survey about how you use VFP. When you take the survey, you'll be entered into a drawing for some great prizes, including admission to Visual FoxPro DevCon 2005 worth over $1300, one cash prize of $500, and five cash prizes of $100. You must complete the survey by midnight on May 1st, 2005 to be eligible for the drawing.

Georige Ou tells us that what you are probably doing on your wireless LAN is totally useless. [ZDNet]