foxpro.catalyst «

FoxPro workBLOGS and MORE… . . .

OOPS. Wrong CGI-bin.

Let me compensate that with this foxpro-warp: Stuart Dunkeld.

It is 3:28AM and I do hope what I will scribble here would still make some sense.

As you might have noticed May has become a month for TheLair. I’ve been sleeping around 4AM (and sometimes even around five in the morning (when the sun.daylight.init event happens)) working on that seven year old site.

Maiden Seven of Azure Realms / Download 1600×1200 illumination

We released V7 last May 19 and I was still tweaking the site up until hmmm… 30 minutes ago before I devoured what some might consider a midnight snack at three in the morning.

Good thing I introduced and trained qs how to code and develop database applications in VisualFoxpro (the samurai/jedi way) a couple of years ago.

Now she’s coding for around 9 hours a day, answering client system-related queries and fixing some bugs while I’m sitting on my arse working on HTMLs/PSDs/JPEGs/css-es/javascripts and other graphics/website-related matters.

You can’t disturb me when I’m working on something so qs is intimate these days with the chm file that came with Visual FoxPro 9, the fox.wikis.com site and of course… Google.com.

Every now and then she discovers things in FoxPro which I haven’t even encountered yet… which is good.

But when she starts to grumble and mumble random incoherent words and stuff, it starts to scare me though.

In random places, to make things worse. Random places!

Like there was this one time when we were in the mall… a crowded mall, and I with all my invisible hover drones were mapping and calculating the fastest route we could travel from Point A to Point B, and qs out of nowhere started blurting out normalization principles, dtos/alltrim approaches, cdx optimization and database initialization topics and techniques.

Did I mention we were in a crowded mall when she started doing that..?

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Anyway… come June 2006 I will return to the usual programmer mode, and will work on graphics/web related stuff on weekends.

I am also planning on how to integrate VFP on my site.

Nope… no Active FoxPro pages for now or some other VFP on the ‘net related tools but more on generating, parsing and converting data to an equivalent HTML format.

Upload, download and synchronization mechanisms included.

I still have to finalize the specs though. But I’ll be tackling that in the near future and the links.database section of TheLair will be the first to be handled.

Also, I am heeding Craig Bailey’s call to make Visual FoxPro cool. In line with that I am creating some icons, which I plan to release for free once I’m done with one set.

Visual FoxPro (and other developers as well) can download and use these icons in their applications.

Ok… 3:48AM… bed’s calling.

It’s no secret that a conscience can sometimes be a pest
It’s no secret ambition bites the nails of success
Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief
All kill their inspiration and sing about their grief
Oh love…
– U2 (The Fly)

Nancy Folsom on BLOGGING.

Looks like Bruno’s question was answered in this 28th episode of the FoxPro Show (Interview with Milind Lele.)

Also here’s a link to Milind Lele’s May 2006 – Letter from the Editor.

I may be occupied (‘occupied’ used instead of ‘busy’, for the latter seems so overused these days that if each of the letters are to be converted (even in its compressed format (parallel worlds not included)) to food, there would be no need for noble campaigns such as ONE and MakePovertyHistory)…

Let’s do that sentence again.

I may be occupied with TheLair V7 creation these days in between client visits but that doesn’t mean that I’m not aware of the news about YAG’s departure from the VSData team.

And this comes at a time where FoxPro is soaring high in the TIOBE rankings (which leaves even some humans wondering), the proliferation of insightful FoxPro-related blogs and all those positive fox-vibes which we’ve seldom seen in the past fox years.

I’m looking at the FoxPro team picture which was featured inside that VFP9 CodeFocus issue and MIGHTYAG will be the Nth person leaving from that crew.

Mike… John Koziol… Randy Brown… Ken Levy and now YAG.

Honestly a part of me wants to be as optimistic as Andrew. Really it’s a cool job and I’m pretty sure one way or another FoxPro will benefit strategically from it.

Craig Berntson’s prophecies, though, haunt the northern hemisphere of my brain.

Plus I’m starting to hear darklings chanting ‘Denial! Denial! Denial.’ in the background.

Seven of Yoda’s fleas armed with green light sabers are guarding my back so I’m safe from these creatures for now.

Cover Darkness Volume I Issue 07 � Top Cow / Pencils: Marc Silvestri / Inks: Batt / Colors: Steve Firchow The Angelus � Top Cow / Pencils: Marc Silvestri / Inks: Batt / Colors: Steve Firchow

[off.topic.initialize] For those who are wondering, these are how darklings look like. Currently I don’t have a picture of Yoda’s fleas but somehow they look a little similar to Top Cow’s Angelus character. (Yes… envy my back.) [off.topic.deconstruct] But despite of these negative forces, I still believe in FoxPro. I believe in its future. I have faith in FoxPro’s future. Now I was in the process of balancing these thoughts when my pet tiger Bruno butted in. ‘Now who’s working on Visual Foxpro?’, he asked. I rushmored my brain, but still, it took me around 17 seconds before I could find a reply. ‘The community, Bruno. The community.’

With that I dismissed him, since qs and I still had to prepare for yesterday’s client demonstration.

cSTR01 = ‘I believe in the community that supports Visual FoxPro, as well.’
cSTR02 = ‘I have faith in FoxPro`s future.’
cEnter = InsertSTText(at(cSTR02, ThisBLOG), IRchar(13) + IRchar(13) + SetTF(cSTR01, ‘B’))

… and I believe in a future with FoxPro and it’s legacy in it.

Doug Hennig: Forget TXTWIDTH – use GdipMeasureString. (No direct links..? Hmmm… : )

Calvin Hsia: SQL Server Interpreter Sample.

The FoxPro Show 37: Interview with Rod Miller of dbi-tech.com (Here’s a direct link to DBI’s Visual FoxPro Sedna Community)

Happy Easter!

Rick Schummer: FoxPro Rocks Parsing Data. (with source code (via akselsoft))

FoxPro rocks [- insert choice of verb in here (insert optional conjunctions) -] data. Period.

If you search your dictionary it has been there underneath the words ‘speed’ and ‘data’.

If you can’t see it there, GOOGLE this phrase: howto fix alien mindwiped human brains.

One of these days I’ll add a FoxPro icon inside wikipedia’s speed entry.

April 2006 – Letter from the Editor.

There… my chipmunks are chanting ‘More more more’ in the background.

Start with this… Doug Hennig: The User is Always Right.

Then proceed here… Craig Berntson: Complexity and Experience.

While I do agree with almost all the points stated in those blogs/articles, the ‘User is always right’ mindset does not appeal to me that much.

User is always KING. Insert fat/lazy/abusive/bum KING… but that doesn’t mean he’s always right.

Probably one of the reasons, I studied mind control and hypnosis before I studied coding.

SPS: Visual FoxPro Visibility

Craig is the Bono (U2) of the FoxPro community. What do they have in common..? Their songs inspire… give hope… shed light.

Now who wants to fill up the slots for TheEdge, Larry Mullen Jr and Adam Clayton… so we can now start dismantling the Atom.NET Bomb, carry that which we cannot leave behind and start our FoxMart Tour?

Seriously… a must read: Visual FoxPro Visibility.

This is Sedna, sing with me.

Ah… this is why pampered and cuddable aliens like Andy Kramek. (via AkselSoft)

But then… they’re after these robots these days. (Don’t forget the video (Watch closely and you’ll see the aliens in the background))

Here… settle with some interesting Entrepreneurial Proverbs.

SPS: Visual FoxPro’s Future.

I have been posting a link to that news blog in a number of forums… I forgot I haven’t posted the link here yet.

Nice!

Now what are you waiting for..? Ride with me, baby.

News for March from Milind Lele.

More on VFP9 and GDI+: Special Effects / Scale and Shear / Converting Image Types / Rotating and Flipping / Resizing Images. Yup all done in VFP9… courtesy of Cesar Chalom from within the weblogs at Foxite.com which just had a facelift.

SPS: Setting the System Cursor using GDI+ and VFP9.

I was doing a little clean-up experiment on CGIs/Perl+css, html tables and [br] tags with that post on multiple detail bands (step by step hints section) so if it breaks your rss reader, feel free to view the online version.

If it still doesn’t work, here’s a screenshot of the steps part in GIF format.

After countless trials and errors, with each error pounding one of my faithful neurons, reading (and re-reading and re-reading), roundtrips to the Program Files\VFP9\Samples directory and pathetic attempts to have a crash course on ‘Absorbing the Mozart Effect 101’… I finally figured out how to make VFP9’s multiple detail band feature work on one of my reports.

(And no, Mozart wasn’t helpful this time.)

More than 77 neurons are off to meet their maker. I stopped counting though an hour and a half ago, so there’s probably more. (And we’re not even counting the injured and now-limb-less ones.)

Yes I know… I’m quite late with this. Most VFP9 coders are now using the multiple detail band to extract data from different databases located in parallel universes while I have been using the dump N table records to one ‘cursor/table holder’ with generic field names where I can extract data for reporting…

… or firing up CrystalReports.

Anyway at 1:37AM, I’m scribbling this down just in case an alien decides to teleport its presence here in this room, do some wholesome (I hope) experiments and decides to mind-wipe me afterwards, which might possibly corrupt this multiple-detail-band-eureka moments I have.

Also this could probably help a coder out there who decides to google things after being mind-wiped by an alien.

Just a basic overview… I’ll call these step by step ‘hints’ not a ‘guide’. (A User Guide expert would scream bloody hell when he sees this. (But trust me a programmer will understand. (Especially those mind-wiped by aliens.)))

Given:
Parent.dbf / Child01.dbf / Child02.dbf
Right click = Right click in the Report Designer.

Hope this helps.

Now I’m off to re-inspect the protective shields of this room.