foxpro.catalyst «

FoxPro workBLOGS and MORE… . . .

WesnerM’s blog Smart Software.  In my blogroll since I started blogging 7+ years ago.

Naomi Nosonovsky:  Working with 32 bit providers and 64 bit SQL Server

So You Want To Build a Software Product

My pet tiger has a new hero… Mr. David Thorne.

Andrew MacNeill » Intense Development: Why We Need Passionate Programmers

Best Software Essays of 2004.

Marketing for Geeks. (from the same person who wrote the Product Pricing Primer article (a must++ read)).

Here’s an advanced debugging approach from Calvin Hsia.

I don’t know… during my first job after college we were trained in the hardcore-cool-iold-schoolic approach of debugging things sans the debugging tools and watch windows. Just plain source code tracing and… cursing.

Of course you’ve heard already of that now-a-classic ‘How Microsoft Lost the API War‘ blog/essay from Joel Spolsky. Now here’s another Joel Spolsky interview from Microsoft-Watch.com.

For free lance programmers like me, reading information that tackles the ‘behind the scenes’ and/or politics of software company helps in a lot of ways.

Wikis-warp: Directions how to repair tables after getting the ‘Not a table’ error messages and Manual Garbage Collection.

CHESTYSOFT has this simple GUI front end for registering DLL and OCX files with REGSVR32.

Hmm… ‘chesty soft’… me likes how it sounds.

How To Write Unmaintainable Code Coding Obfuscation.

Inspiring. (link via Beakman’s blogs)

This article talks about Henry Sy from his daughter’s point of view. Henry Sy, for those who don’t know him, is one of the most successful entrepreneurs here in our country.

He started from ‘humble beginnings’.

Her daughter in this article talks about his father’s 14 Principles which he and his family applies in the way they tackle things. These principles are not only applicable in business but also in education, software development and day to day life.

It is also good to note that Henry Sy came from China and went here to the Philippines at age 12 to seek greener pastures.

Something which is quite different these days. Now, most Filipinos are yearning to jump into the next boat of opportunity that drives them outside the bounds of this country.

But not all of us wants to jump in that ship. Some of us share the same views Herdy Yumul points out in this article. (Also a link from Beakman)

Besides, I believe the business of software development is one area our developing country could compete with the other far developed giants.

Speaking of ‘business’ and ‘software development’, I found some good links related to Micro-ISVs while reading Wesner Moise’s blog that tackles this matter.

He also gave independent and small software marketing related links such as: Shareware-Marketing.net – StartUpJournal.com – StartupSkills.com – SoftwareMarketingResource.com and SharewarePromotions.com.

These sites include RSS feeds so my RSSBandit aggregator adds more pounds… as well as the tendency to be ‘info-overloaded’.

I am already subscribed to Eric Sink and Joel Spolsky‘s feeds which also shells out insightful software-related marketing views.

But then of course, if you’re following Microsoft’s moves keenly you’ll learn a lot of strengths and sometimes weaknesses from their visions, moves and ‘workarounds’.

I’ll presume you have already read Paul Graham’s Great Hackers. I posted a link to that essay days ago.

And 1,618,009 websites linked too that article as well.

Now hear Eric Sink’s Great Hacker != Great Hire. It’s always good to listen to two (or more) opposing sides on certain things. It helps balance the chi.

Speaking of Eric Sink, there are more SoftwareDevelopment/ISV-related articles on his site. Here’s a direct link to his feed in case you want to subscribe.

Going back to Paul Graham, the Great Hackers article has an audio version already which you can stream or download. He posted a recent article, Python Paradox, which again stirs up my interest to delve into that language.

I have already ‘httrack‘-ed Phyton.org last week.

Official Guidelines for User Interface Developers and Designers.

Do you want an Official Doom III Hardware Guide to come along with that?

Keith Brown: The .NET Developer’s Guide to Windows Security.

Today’s article: Un-Dynamics of Software Development, or, Don’t Bite the Flip Bozo. A little ‘warp’ but interesting and true. Here’s a snip:

The Perfect Software CompanyThere is a perfect software company. It is where I work. The coffee is excellent. The chairs are comfortable, the computers are wicked fast, and we take a lot of video game breaks. The humidor is well-stocked with Cohibas, there is a killer library, and naps are encouraged. The furnishings are handsome, and the décor is pleasant. There are no cubes. The Managers sign checks and buy whatever software, computers, books, gadgets, and video games are desired. Schedules are not set until requirements are defined, software release dates are only announced after the features are done and rock solid. There are no suits. No ties. No cubes, and no timesheets. The work hours are very flexible but long, but I show up because I have more fun there than anywhere else.

Hmm… imagine when hard disks were this huge? Here’s an overview of that picture.

As expected Microsoft expands it’s quest for innovation. Yes… we do have different thoughts what ‘innovation’ really is. Now it’s crawling into searching, anti-virus (once there was MSAV right), mobile phones, XBox consoles, Tablet PCs and more.

Nice… but how come this move? Is this part of that promise a couple of months ago to fight and stop spam in the future?

Technology Review has something about Holograms, tweezers and teleportation. Now that’s news… beam me up, cowboy.

On the pixel-side of things, MIGHTY DEPTHCORE released the Infinity Pack. I don’t have any submission in that pack though since I’ve been busy battling out with Miss TCP/IP this week. But with or without me… the pack rocks.

Two more interesting reads: Dan Bricklin’s Software That Lasts 200 Years and Paul Graham’s Great Hackers.

James Avery’s Ten Must-Have .NET Tools Every Developer Should Download Now

From Visual-Foxpro-to-.NET-programming-related blogs. (via Aleksoft)

And here’s the link to the RSS feed of the blog above. I presume that most Blogger.com/Blogspot accounts has this default atom.xml feed attached to their ‘home url’.

I am not a hundred percent sure though. But I tried it a couple of times already… and it’s working fine.

ODBC DNS Less Connection Strings. Hey… that serves as a good tongue twister too.

James Sullivan: Mike, that’s not Boo‘s door.
Mike Wazowski: Boo? Who’s Boo?
James Sullivan: That’s what I decided to call him.
James Sullivan: Any problem with that?
Mike Wazowski: You’re not supposed to name it. Once you name it, you start getting attach to it.

Scrap the crap.

Boo: A wrist friendly language for the CLI

Boo is a new object oriented statically typed programming language for the Common Language Infrastructure with a python inspired syntax and a special focus on language and compiler extensibility.

http://boo.codehaus.org

23-19!