DevBlog

Many of us have long complained about Advisor's inability to listen to the marketplace and offer a conference that is affordable. The next DevCon will again be at a resort location. Now, they've done it with the Advisor Guide to Microsoft Visual FoxPro. The name change from FoxPro Advisor doesn't bother me (except that the new name is too long). The problem is with the current issue that I just received. It came with a notice that this will be my last issue. A call to Advisor confirmed that the issue I just received, the January, 2006 issue (yes, I know that February is almost over), will be my last. My subscription has expired. I then asked why I wasn't notified earlier, something like weeks ago. I was told that Advisor was change fulfillment houses and renewals is one thing that slipped, but she would be happy to take my credit card information. I told her that Advisor has again screwed up and not paid attention to the customer and that I would have to think about renewing. Should I decide to renew, I will miss one or two more issues, as it will take a few weeks for the request to wind through corporate and get approved. This is not the way to run a business, but then, we've known that about Advisor for some time.

There was a TV show in the 1950s called You Bet Your Life, that was hosted by Groucho Marx. The audience was shown a secret word, then Groucho would tell the contestant, "Say the secret word and win a hundred dollars". Groucho would then begin asking the contestant questions that hopefully would cause him to say the secret word.

Now, Microsoft has carried that a bit further with MSN Search and Win. The idea is that if you input the correct phrase, for example, XBox 360, and search for it, you may win a prize. I tried a few searches, but none that was a winner. Maybe you'll have better luck.

I blogged here about my misgivings with the FoxForward conference. Kevin Cully, the conference organizer has done some work to help with issues I brought up, including researching ground transportation including rental car rates, sponsorship, and an explanation of why the conference is so far away from the airport. Kevin blogs that the criticism shows people care...and he's right...I do. I hope FoxForward is successful, but at the same time, I echo Marcia Akins concerns on the Universal Thread that another fall conference will hurt all of them.

For years, we've been told about the importance of design patterns and how they can improve our class design. I've sat in several conference sessions that discuss design patterns and frankly, never quite got them. I've read the Gang of Four, but it's more of an encylopedia of design patterns rather than a book that explains what they are and how to use them.

Design Patterns Explained: A New Perspective on Object Oriented Design is a great book that explains design patterns in English instead of throwing a bunch of Java code at you, hoping that you'll figure it out. The authors, drawing on years of experience of teaching OOP and Design Patterns, take a real world application and show how different parts are created using design patterns. Each chapter ends with a short quiz to help ensure that you've absorbed the material. There is also a bibliography of additional works that can keep you studying for some time.

If you've been struggling with Design Patterns or simply want to increase your understanding, Design Patterns Explained should have a spot on your book shelf.

I've moved back to IE 6.0. The Beta 2 Preview had too many usablility issues. The lastest is very annoying to me. I often times launch a particular site, then Alt+Tab to a different program to keep working while the site loads, then Alt+Tab back to IE when I'm ready to view the web site. This has worked well under IE 6.0, but IE 7.0 will take focus once the page is fully loaded, thus interrupting my work flow.

A new conference is born. Fox Forward will be held September 15-17 in Atlanta. The conference runs over the weekend, so it should help attract attendees. While it's great to see another Fox conference announced, I see some problems with this one. The hotel is about 40 miles from the airport. That makes for an expensive cab ride or requires a rental car. The airfare and hotel rooms for speakers are not being paid for, as is customary at conferences. Hilton Garden hotels don't have great bars...an almost must at Fox conferences. Session length needs to be adjusted to 75 minute sessions and 15 minutes between sessions. Shorter breaks were tried at Essential Fox a few years ago and they didn't work well. I really hope the conference is successful, but a first glance, I see potential problems.

Yesterday I installed the IE 7.0, Beta 2 Preview on my primary development machine. I am writting this from IE 6.0 on a Virtual PC. Why? A bug in IE 7.0 doesn't render the text in the editor control used by Blogger. It's not that the text is white...it isn't rendered at all.

But there is a second, bigger problem with the IE 7.0 install....and something that I've complained about for many years....something that has occurred with every IE upgrade and Service Pack since at least IE 4.0. I spend time to arrange the buttons on the Links toolbar exactly how I want them and to remove superfluous buttons like "Customize". The IE install has always reordered these buttons alphabetically and added back the "Customize" and other buttons that I've deleted.

Additionally, IE 7.0 came up and told me there was a problem with my security settings and wouldn't automatically load my home page. I had options to have IE fix the security settings, change them manually, or ignore the warning this one time. Hmmm..not very good options as I was never told what, exactly, was the problem...only that there was one.

My Microsoft finger print reader doesn't seem to work quite as well. I have to touch the reader more than once to get it to work and the icon that normally appears in the title bar next to the minimize button also appears at the top of rendered page.

IE 7.0 seems to render pages faster. I've never liked tab browsing, but am giving it a try. I may yet turn it off. There are more security settings and an anti-phishing tool, but I'm not sure that's working. I got a message on one page that it wasn't turned on, but going into Options showed that it was.

My grade on IE 7.0 at this point is a C. Hopefully that will change as the IE team continues their work.

Ken Levy announced on his blog yesterday that he is leaving the Fox team. I wish Ken good luck in his new job. Earlier this week I talked to Ken about his move and he's excited about it. Many of his responsibilities are being absorbed by other team members. SP2 is in the works and planned for about a year from now. Sedna will allow VFP to work with many new Windows Vista technologies. Your Fox investments will continue to work for many years to come.

But, are you surprised by Ken's announcement? I can say that I'm not. Last year I blogged here and here about Sedna being the end of the road for VFP. I also blogged here that Fox would live on, not as we know it, but a new .Net technology. In September, we found out that technology is LINQ. Despite Mary Jo Foley's column that Fox has a bright future, I see Ken's departure as more evidence that the end is coming. If Ken's departure isn't a wake up call to learn something new, it should be.