Tuesday, March 8--Tamar E. Granor--Going OVER and above with SQL

Our next meeting will be next Tuesday, March 8. Our speaker this month will be member Tamar E. Granor who’ll present “Going OVER and Above with SQL."

Abstract: The SQL 2003 standard introduced the OVER keyword that lets you apply a function to a set of records. Introduced in SQL Server 2005, this capability was extended in SQL Server 2012. The functions allow you to rank records, aggregate them in a variety of ways, put data from multiple records into a single result record, and compute and use percentiles. The set of problems they solve range from removing exact duplicates to computing running totals and moving averages to comparing data from different periods to removing outliers.

In this session, we'll look at the OVER operator and the many functions you can use with it. We'll look at a variety of problems that can be solved using OVER.

You will learn:

    How to find the top N records in a group

    How to compute running totals and moving averages

    How to compare data from multiple records side-by-side

    How to divide records into n-tiles, including percentiles

    How to search for records in a particular percentile

February 9 meeting cancelled!

With snow predicted throughout the evening, and members driving long distances, we've decided to cancel tonight's meeting. See you next month!

February 9, 2016: Menachem Bazian: "Map it with Google!"

Our next meeting will be next Tuesday, December 9; we'll again be in room 125.

Our speaker will be Menachem Bazian. His topic is “Map it with Google!”

Abstract: Google maps is a tremendously powerful service that can really add useful functionality to your apps. This session will introduce the Google Maps API and show an application that was built around it.

Jan 12, 2016 Jim Connolly on West Wind Web Connection 6.0

Our next meeting will be next Tuesday, January 12 at 7:00 PM in room 125, Devry University, 1140 Virginia Drive, Fort Washington, PA. Feel free to come as early as 6:30 and bring some dinner.

Our speaker this month will be member Jim Connolly who’ll discuss West-Wind Web Connection 6.0 Beta. From the West Wind web site, here’s the description of the product:

Create Web applications with Visual FoxPro and take advantage of a powerful and proven framework using the FoxPro environment you already know. Develop and test your code inside of the VFP IDE against live Web requests. Web Connection provides a core foundation engine, and several high level frameworks for developing just about any kind of Web application you can imagine. Create server driven HTML with our ASP.NET like Web Control Framework, or chose a more MVC like Templating approach. Build rich JavaScript apps and use REST services to feed data. Build raw POX or SOAP backend or use no framework at all and create your own low level engine on top of the core. If you need Web for FoxPro - Web Connection can do it all.

Jim will show the new features and give examples of setting it up on a computer.

December 8: Toni Feltman: An introduction to SQL Server Reporting Services (Part 2)

Our next meeting will be next Tuesday, December 8. This month, we'll again be in room 125.

Our speaker this month will again be Toni Feltman. She’ll present “An introduction to SQL Server Reporting Services (Part 2)”

Abstract: Last month we looked at the basics of SSRS. This month we will pick up where we left off and:

•         See how to accomplish some more complicated reporting tasks.

•         Ways to render SSRS Reports in Visual FoxPro

•         A way to "centralize" reporting services to be used by more than one type of client

•         Differences between SSRS "express" and paid versions

 

November 5--Toni Feltman--An introduction to SQL Server Reporting Services (Part 1)

Our next meeting is next Tuesday, November 10. Note that we will meet in Room 125.

Toni Feltman’s postponed September session has been divided into two parts. This month is part 1.

Title: An introduction to SQL Server Reporting Services (Part 1)

Abstract:

SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) is the Microsoft answer to reporting tools like Crystal Reports. The really nice thing about SSRS is that a version is now included with SQL Server Express which is FREE. Free is good, right? SQL Server Reporting Services is a quick and inexpensive way for developers to create and deploy reports when using SQL Server as the database engine. It is not difficult to use and is similar to other reporting tools that may already be in your toolbox. There are benefits to having a language-agnostic reporting tool such as the ability to share reports between different applications and platforms. It also makes really good sense to have a reporting tool tightly coupled with the data used for reporting.

Desktop applications need reporting. These applications are being extended through other technologies such as the web and mobile. Even if your development environment has its own reporting engine, SQL Server Reporting Services is a great way to get query and reporting capabilities that are available on the desktop, web and mobile device all from one code base.

In this Part I session we will talk about:

•         Where to find and how to install SQL Server Express and SQL Server Reporting Services

•         The basics of the Report Builder and Visual Studio Data Tools

•         Different Ways to tie data to reports

•         The native Report Output Options

•         How to accomplish some simple reporting tasks.

Mark December 8^th for Part 2.

Tuesday, October 13: Christof Wollenhaupt presents "Computer Sensors in Business Applications"--note change of room

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, October 13 at 7:00 PM in room 127, DeVry University, 1140 Virginia Drive, Fort Washington, PA. Note the change of room; this new room is a computer lab and no food or drinks are permitted. You can still plan to come as early as 6:30 and bring some dinner, but you’ll have to eat in the commons area (where the vending machines are located) before coming to the meeting room.

This month, Christof Wollenhaupt returns to do a Southwest Fox preview on his way to Phoenix. He’ll present “Computer Sensors in Business Applications.”

Abstract: Most notebooks have a variety of sensors that were uncommon when Visual FoxPro 9 was released. In this session we cover a variety of modern sensors and devices and how to access them from Visual FoxPro by using some .NET helper code. These devices include the camera to take pictures and the microphone for audio recording, the touch screen to respond to finger input and multi-touch gestures, the GPS receiver to determine the current location, the compass to obtain directions, and the accelerometer to measure device movements.

Sensors are useful in many mobile business applications. For instance, you can automatically track time and route of mobile workers. The camera takes pictures that are directly added to the VFP application when entering orders at a client site.

Bio: Christof Wollenhaupt, head of Foxpert, offers FoxPro and .NET development and consulting services to customers who benefit from his nearly 20 years of experience. Christof is a regular speaker at conferences and user groups around the world, organizes the Hamburger Stammtisch für Microsoft Datenbankentwickler (Hamburg user group for Microsoft database developers), has written for various magazines including a regular column in FoxPro Advisor for more than 10 years, and was a Visual FoxPro MVP from 1997 to 2010.