January 2006
GRAFUG meeting recap
January, 14,
2006
Treasury
update
We started the meeting with an
update from our Treasurer, Mike Potjer. We have enough money to pay the expenses
for bringing in a few speakers this year.
Topic and
Speaker Requests
Next, we asked attendees which
speakers or topics they would like to see in future meetings. Here’s a list of
what was discussed. Please let us know which ones you are interested in, which
speakers you would like to see, or any other topics/speakers not listed
here.
Ø
Topic: Using SQL Server with
FoxPro
o
Possible speakers: Jim Duffy, Rick
Schummer
Ø
Topic: Connecting to other
databases in a FoxPro application
Ø
Topic: Using the Cursor
Adapter
o
Possible speakers:
Ø
Topic: Using
MySQL
o
Possible speakers: Carl Karsten,
Whil Hentzen
Ø
Topic and Speaker: Andy Kramek to
talk about his tool which divorces the interface from the database engine so you
can plug in any engine
Ø
Topic: Using handhelds with
FoxPro
Ø
Topic: Information on a diagnostic
tool for handhelds (name might be Theena)
Ø
Topic & Speaker: Mike Potjer
said he could talk about n-tier design
Ø
Topic: Show & Tell – Have
attendees each talk and/or show something about their application as a way for
us to get to know a little bit more about each other’s jobs and also to pick up
tips and ideas.
Ø
Topic:
XML
o
Possible speaker: Toni
Feltman
Ø
Topic: UML from a FoxPro
perspective
o
Possible speaker: Markus
Egger
Ø
Topic: Using VFP and .NET together
to get your application on the web
o
Possi8ble speakers: Rick Strahl,
Jim Duffy
Ø
Topic: Using the VFP Development
Environment
Ø
Topic: Windows
Officer
Elections
I guess the current officers are
doing such a great job – because they were all re-elected!! Okay .. the real
truth is that nobody else wanted the jobs!! <g> Actually, there is
one change in officers – Paul Emery volunteered to be our webmaster. Here’s the
full list of 2006 officers:
Ø
President – Cathy
Pountney
Ø
Vice President – Jody
Meyer
Ø
Treasurer – Mike
Potjer
Ø
Secretary –
Ø
Webmaster – Paul
Emery
Miscellaneous
Ø
There was mention of a tool called
Cottonseed for Frontpage which emulates DotNetNuke. Not much information was
given, but it might be worth investigating.
Ø
Here’s a link to an article
titled, “FoxPro Not an Endangered Species”, www.redmondmag.com/columns/print.asp?EditorialsID=1166
Ø
The January FoxPro Newsletter from
Ken Levy mentioned that they will release detailed feature specs on Sedna next
month.
Ø
Windows
Conferences
Here’s a list of 2006
conferences:
Ø
Great Lakes Great Database
Workshop,
Ø
DevTeach,
Ø
Advisor Visual FoxPro DevCon 2006,
Ø
Southwest Fox,
Give
Away
We had a few books to give away,
but most everyone had them!
We also had a free copy of Visual
FoxPro 9.0 to give away, compliments of Cathy Pountney who received it as a gift
from Microsoft in return for her efforts in the beta program. The winner was Ed
Richardson.
Feature
Presentation
Cathy Pountney showed us XFRX
which is a 3rd party tool that allows you to output your existing
FoxPro reports to other formats such as PDF, Microsoft Word, BMPs, TIFFs, etc.
It works with older versions of
Visual FoxPro as well as with Visual FoxPro 9.0. There are several different
pricing options available on their website (www.eqeus.com). It can be distributed royalty
free in your application and you can even purchase source code.
Output options
include:
Ø
PDF
Ø
Word
Ø
RTF
Ø
Excel
Ø
Plain
Text
Ø
HTML
Ø
XML
Besides having options to output
to other outputs, XFRX also has its own preview container that you can use
instead of VFP’s. You can download the demo version of XFRX and the
documentation for free on the eqeus website.
Next
Meeting
The next meeting is February 11, 2006. Paul Emery
will be speaking on the topic of using VFP to generate real time HTML reports
for the web.
If you too wish to volunteer to be a speaker for a
future meeting, information and a link for topic submission can be found on our
website: http://www.GRAFUG.org.
Re-cap courtesy of Cathy Pountney.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
GRAFUG Secretary
hodgsons@optimalinternet.com