DevBlog

Once again, my predictions of open source not being secure are ringing true. Open source guru Alan Cox says that many open source projects are not secure. He says, "Things appear in the media, like 'open-source software is more secure, more reliable and there are less bugs.' Those are very dangerous statements. The debate of Microsoft saying 'Look how secure we are' versus Linux saying 'We're more secure' is not looking at the important points." See the entire article on CNet.

I just installed the final release of IE 7.0 and was not surprised that the install rearranged my Links bar in alphabetical order. I've asked for several releases (dating at least back to IE4) that the install leave my links alone. But, nope. For some reason, the IE team thinks it's better to alphabetize the links rather than let the user decide the best order for them.

For those of you who were at Southwest Fox, my final files were sent to Bob last night. Hopefully he'll have them posted soon.

If you weren't at Southwest Fox, you'll have to wait. I have a policy to not post session material on my personal site until six months after the event where first presented. This adds value to the material for people who paid to be there as well as a way to support the event itself.

However, I'll be repeating my UML session in two weeks at the German VFP DevCon.

Much has been made in the press regarding the new Patch Guard feature in Windows Vista. Both Symantec and McAfee have complained that Microsoft has closed off Vista security to outsiders in favor of their own products. In turn, Microsoft has said that they will work with the vendors and supply APIs for them. And, it looks like Microsoft won't budge on their current stand.

However, could this be a case of sour grapes? Could it be that the two leading companies of security software, Symantec and McAfee, can't get their software to work, not because of Microsoft, but because they are not compentant enough? It could be the case. Apparently, Sophos software has an antivirus application that IS working with PatchGuard.

It will be interesting to watch this all unfold.

Here it is Tuesday evening. I got home early yesterday from Phoenix and Soutwest Fox. As I expected, Bob did a fantastic job of organizing the event with great speakers, prizes, and attendees. It was good to see Jim Booth again and bringing in Christof Wollenhaupt was genius. We had been trying to get him to speak for several years and now that he finally did, he didn't disappoint.

Thursday afternoon were several pre-con sessions. I attended the .Net for VFP Developers session presented by Kevin McNeish. He covered all the basics and clarified a few things for me.

After that was the poolside welcome reception. Attendees and speakers enjoyed great snacks and conversation. Then, it was time to move inside for the keynote by Craig Boyd, Rick Schummer, and Doug Hennig. The theme was FoxPro past, present, and future. It featured an old Fox Software video about the power of FoxPro DOS. Rick said, "If you close your eyes, everything still applies today." He was right. During the keynote we saw glimpses of Sedna and VFP running on Vista. But the highlight of the evening was Doug getting the VFP Lifetime Commumity Achievement Award. I can't think of anyone more deserving.

Sessions started Friday morning. I hit the .Net circuit again, this time, Understanding the .Net Framework by Rod Paddock. He took a different approach than Kevin did the previous day, but an excellent session, again answering a few lingering questions I had. This was a double session, so I was ready for a break when it was over.

However, I was scheduled next and did my presentation on Agile Software Development. I have found several great reviews of this session online. Thank you all for the kind words.

I skipped the session after lunch, then it was time for my Designing with UML session. It was a bit bumpier than I would have liked, but was encouraged by the response. Then I saw the first part of Toni Feltman's Infopath session.

The evening featured attendees going to different activities. Some went to the casino. I did the go kart racing. Cathy Pountney had challenged me to the race, saying she would beat me. I had to accept the challenge, a Mountain Dew was on the line! After getting our safety lesson and eating dinner, it was time for our race. We donned jump suits and helmets, then we were off! We had been told that the winner was the person with the fastest lap. Cathy ended up beating me, but truthfully I had expected this. She grew up driving go karts...but I had better average lap times than she did.

Saturday morning, I was up first with a repeat of my Agile session. I then sat in on Christof's Security Cookbook session. Holy Crap!!!! It scared me seeing all the holes that are in VFP, but it was good to see there are things you can do about them.

After than it was Using Software Design Patterns from Bill Anderson. A great session. I've been studying design patterns lately and Bill filled in the blanks in some areas and presented some patterns I hadn't gotten to yet. He also showed how the patterns were implemented in VFP.

Following lunch, it was time to dive in again with Cristof. And dive is the right word. No wading about with him...he doesn't just jump in, he cannonballs. This time the topic was Crashing VFP and Preventing Crashes. Lots of great stuff and even some tips on how to determine what's causing a C5 error.

The last session of the day was Rick Schummer's Professional Developer's Toolbox. I saw this session in the spring at GLGDW and got lots of great tips. Rick said it had been updated, so I was interested in learning about some new tools to add to my toolbox. I did...and got reminded of things that I'm not doing, but should be.

The evening was the speaker's dinner. This year it was at the hotel. The food was delicious, but it was also time to pay up my bet with Cathy. I walked out of the room to the vending machine in the hall and bought a Mountain Dew. I went back into the dining area, got down on one knee and presented the bottle of Dew to Cathy and said, "I present you with the fruits of your winnings, oh Speedy One."

Only two sessions on tap Sunday morning. I started off with one of my sessions. It was printed in the schedule as Agile, but I had repeated that one and not repeated my UML session, so I asked those present which one they wanted to see. The vote was for UML, so that's the one I did.

The last session was Rick Borup's RSS: Catch the Wave. He presented some interesting ways to use RSS. It's definately something I'll look into some more.

Things wrapped up with the closing session. More prizes were given away, but the highlight was the baby gifts given to Mike and Toni Feltman. Cathy Pountney had been working on this surprise gift for sometime and the Fox community generously donated over $500 for gift cards, etc for them. I can't believe we all managed to keep it a secret and surprise them.

As always, a huge highlight was seeing old friends and making new ones. And thanks to Bob for putting this great conference together. You should make plans now to attend next year. I'm already thinking of great topics to present.

Yesterday Microsoft released the October CTP for Sedna and a CTP for VFP 9.0, Service Pack 2. Note that this is NOT a release of the final product, but is esentially a BETA for SP2. As with any CTP or beta, you should not install on a production system. Download them here.

I used Office 2007 for my presentation in Prague last month. I like the new UI and some nice features in PowerPoint and Word to enhance the presentation or make things easier to do. I was planning to do the same for Southwest Fox next week. However, when I tried to do my Agile presentation Tuesday night at Salt Lake City Fox User Group, there were problems with PowerPoint's presentation mode where sometimes the items on the slide wouldn't display at all. So, I've decided to go back to Office 2003 for tonight's Utah .Net User Group, Southwest Fox next week and Germany next month. The problem is that the file formats are not compatable. You can do a Save As and go back to the previous version, but in PowerPoint, it turns everything into a graphic and it can't be modified in the 2003 version. I spent last night redoing my Agile presentation from scratch in PowerPoint 2003. I haven't tried the Word docs yet, but I suspect they'll move over much easier.

Do you have project management blues? Have trouble meeting deadlines? Is your project over budget? Do you want to learn new practices that can improve your everyday productivity? Agile methodologies may be just for you. I am presenting "Agile Software Development" at three separate venues over the next two weeks:

- Salt Lake City Fox User Group, Tuesday, Oct. 10
- Utah .Net User Group, Thursday, Oct 12
- Southwest Fox Conference, Thursday, Oct 19-Sunday Oct 22

Both Utah presentations are free to everyone. You can still register for Southwest Fox!

I am honored to have again been awarded a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional. I first received the award in 1997, which means it will be ten years next year. Congratulations to all the awardees and I hope to see you at the Summit in March.