Tuesday, December 9: Menachem Bazian: "Jazz you Web Applications with JQuery!"

Our next meeting is next Tuesday, December 9. As usual, feel free to bring some dinner and come as early as 6:30 PM.

Menachem Bazian returns this month to teach how to “Jazz your Web Applications with JQuery!”

Abstract: This session is an introduction to the most powerful and widely used client side function library in the web development world. JQuery is both a function library and a foundation that makes web development easier and more powerful. It is also the basis for hundreds of really handy plugins that can make you look like a master web developer with little effort.

This is an introductory session to JQuery and will introduce you to how it works and show you some of the great plugins I use daily in my web application development.

November 11: Bob Pierce double-header

Our next meeting is next Tuesday, November 11. Member Bob Pierce will speak this month with two short topics:

Loosely coupled VFP data

While trying to get a forklift program going, I was having trouble with dropped wifi signals in the warehouse.  So I developed a background data program that maintains data on a local drive that gets updated from data on the server.  I realized later that this technique can also be used during our move to the new facilities when running the in house MRP from multiple locations.  In addition it can be used as a mechanism to sync remote data and even reduce total network traffic.

Working with VFP and SQL together and providing easier migration path

I have developed a simple technique that allows me to work with MySql, Sql Server and other SQL flavors within the VFP environment.  No big deal you say, been there done that…  The class I developed allows you to mix and match the data using VFP syntax without knowing where the data is or what type of host it is on.  This allows me to move data piecemeal in my migration, not change the code in the program (except the added class), to eliminate case sensitivity (MySql on Linux), and to use VFP user defined functions against any data. 

Mark your calendars for December 9 for the return of Menachem Bazian.

October 14: Toni Feltman double-header

Note the change of room beginning this month. From now on, we'll meet in room 104.

We continue our Southwest Fox previews this month. Toni Feltman will (remotely) present both of her Southwest Fox 2014 sessions.

Title: I Need a REST!
Abstract: Web APIs are one way to enable distributed systems to interact with each other over HTTP. In the past, SOAP-based Web Services were the Web API of choice. Today developers prefer to use RESTful Web APIs to enable system to communicate. Our Visual FoxPro applications are just one of the types of systems that may need to communicate with others over the web. It is very possible, and pretty easy, to do so using RESTful APIs. In order to take advantage of all that is available using the web you must first
understand Web APIs, know how to find them (or write them) and then plug them into your applications.

Title: Should I be Concerned?
Abstract: I remember way back around 1994 when people started talking about the concept of business objects and application layers. I know that when I spoke on the topic, many people looked at me like I was completely nuts. Why would anyone want to add such layers of complexity to an application? Fast forward a couple of years (or decades) and we have complex business applications that are screaming for features that FoxPro can't provide such as Metro interfaces, offline databases, interactions with specialized hardware such as cameras and GPS. I am really glad that I added that layer of complexity back then because moving portions of my applications to other platforms is significantly easier than it could have been. But what about you? How can you retrofit monolithic FoxPro applications into an n-tier model in an efficient manner that does not require extensive rewrite or testing?

Toni Feltman, a Microsoft Certified Professional, is an experienced software developer, project manager, instructor and speaker. Currently Toni serves as the Application Development Manager for CoreLogis, LLC, a Westerville, OH company that specializes in Inventory and Asset management software for local to international government entities. She is also Vice President and a Partner at F1 Technologies and is still an integral part of the company. During her 15 years at F1 Technologies she has served as both a developer and project manager on numerous projects and as Product Manager for the highly successful FoxExpress product line.

Toni is a well known contributor to the Visual FoxPro development community. She has spoken at most major FoxPro conferences in North America and Europe over the last several years. Although Toni has expertise in a number of areas, she generally focuses her presentations on Team Development, XML, n-Tier Development and new features in Visual FoxPro. In 2011, Toni was honored by the FoxPro community with a lifetime achievement award in recognition of her contributions to the community throughout her career.

Toni has penned several articles for Advisor Guide to Microsoft Visual FoxPro and is co-author of What's New in Visual FoxPro 9.0 (Hentzenwerke Publishing). Toni also designed and developed Project HookX, a public domain utility designed to allow developers to manage and use multiple project hooks on a single Visual FoxPro Project. Toni is one of several co-authors of DBCX, a public domain data dictionary tool used or supported by many notable Visual FoxPro products including the Stonefield Data Dictionary, Visual FoxExpress, FoxFire! and Stonefield Query.

Toni taught for several years at the University of Toledo on a wide variety of technologies including Microsoft Office applications, XML, various Internet development technologies and database design and programming. Toni also enjoyed a stint as an instructor for AppDev.

Toni's introduction to the FoxPro community came while she worked in the technical support department at Fox Software. Toni was a senior level support technician and Sysop of the Fox Software Forum on CompuServe.

Toni graduated from Bowling Green State University in 1989 with a BA in Management Information Systems.

September 9: Tamar Granor on SQL Server

Our next meeting will be next Tuesday, September 9. We continue our Southwest Fox previews this month. Tamar Granor will be rehearsing her session “Go Beyond VFP's SQL with SQL Server”.

Abstract: The subset of SQL in Visual FoxPro is useful for many tasks. But there's much more to SQL than what VFP supports. Those additions make it easy to do a number of tasks that are difficult in VFP.

In this session, we'll solve some common problems, using SQL elements that are supported by SQL Server, but not by VFP. Among the problems we'll explore are combining a set of values contained in multiple records into a delimited list in a single record, working with hierarchical data like corporate organization charts, finding the top N records for each group in a result, and including summary records in grouped data.

Southwest Fox previews will continue on October 14 when Toni Feltman will present (remotely) both of her Southwest Fox sessions: I Need a REST! and
Should I be Concerned?

August 12: Doug Hennig on PowerShell

Our next meeting will be next Tuesday, August 12 at 7 PM. As usual, feel free to bring something to eat and arrive as early as 6:30.

This month, we begin a series of Southwest Fox previews. Doug Hennig will (remotely) present “Windows PowerShell: Batch Files on Steroids.”

Bio: Doug Hennig is a partner with Stonefield Software Inc. He is the author of the award-winning Stonefield Database Toolkit (SDT); the award-winning Stonefield Query; the MemberData Editor, Anchor Editor, and CursorAdapter and DataEnvironment builders that come with Microsoft Visual FoxPro; and the My namespace and updated Upsizing Wizard in Sedna.

Doug is co-author of VFPX: Open Source Treasure for the VFP Developer, Making Sense of Sedna and SP2, Visual FoxPro Best Practices For The Next Ten Years, the What's New in Visual FoxPro series, and The Hacker's Guide to Visual FoxPro 7.0. He was the technical editor of The Hacker's Guide to Visual FoxPro 6.0 and The Fundamentals. All of these books are from Hentzenwerke Publishing (http://www.hentzenwerke.com). Doug wrote over 100 articles in 10 years for FoxTalk and has written numerous articles in FoxPro Advisor, Advisor Guide to Visual FoxPro, and CoDe. He currently writes for FoxRockX (http://www.foxrockx.com).

Doug spoke at every Microsoft FoxPro Developers Conference (DevCon) starting in 1997 and at user groups and developer conferences all over the world. He is one of the organizers of the annual Southwest Fox and Southwest Xbase++ conferences (http://www.swfox.net). He is one of the administrators for the VFPX VFP community extensions Web site (http://vfpx.codeplex.com). He was a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) from 1996 through 2011. Doug was awarded the 2006 FoxPro Community Lifetime Achievement Award (http://tinyurl.com/6po3pwv).

Abstract: Windows PowerShell has been included with the operating system since Windows 7 and is available for download for Windows XP and Vista. What is PowerShell? It's Microsoft's task automation scripting framework. PowerShell isn't just a replacement for batch files; it can do a lot more than batch files ever could. This session looks at PowerShell, including why you should start using it and how to create PowerShell scripts.

Mark your calendar now. We’ll have Southwest Fox previews by Tamar E. Granor on September 9 and another by Toni Feltman on October 14.

No meeting in July

We're taking off the month of July. Check back soon to see the line-up of Southwest Fox previews for the coming months.

June 10: A double dose of XML

Our next meeting is next Tuesday, June 10. We’ll have a double dose of XML.

First, Bill Fitzgerald will present “Using XML to store data.”

Abstract: There are some cases where storing data in SQL Server or VFP tables is not practical. Because of its ability to  structure data, XML is a good alternative.

Bill will walk through the code of  two working applications that use XML for data storage and discuss XML’s pro’s and con’s and why he chose to use XML in these cases.

Then, Tamar E. Granor will talk about an application that uses XML for both long-term data storage and data transport.

There’s likely to be time for open discussion as well, so bring questions.