Andrew MacNeill - AKSEL Solutions

I f you'd like to store that news locally, index and search it, or—gasp—contribute new content expressed in XML, consider NewsML   Content-centric XML hasn't followed its original five-year script. Celebrating its fifth birthday as a standard last February, XML was supposed to supplant HTML, shift the burden of processing Web sites from servers to underutilized client PCs, and achieve the holy grail of "create once, reuse many times."   But there's hope...   http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/ArticleReader.aspx?ArticleID=4619  

Interesting article: Full source is here http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?r81489057   You often need to deal with data stored or transferred in various formats, ranging from comma- or tab-separated files to more complicated formats, each needing an appropriate parser. This can slow down development and create a source of errors. In addition, there is no guarantee that your parser will convert data into a format convenient for future processing or integration, especially with third-party software. One solution to this problem is to convert data of certain frequently used formats to an XML document that can be then saved, processed, or transformed to other formats.    

We now return to our regularly scheduled critical flaw Microsoft issued another passel of warnings about security holes yesterday, including a "critical" flaw involving DirectX that could allow malicious users to run code of their choice on a vulnerable PC. The flaw is unusually widespread , affecting all versions of DirectX from version 5.2 to the current 9.0a running on all versions of Windows from 98 through the new Server 2003.    

Link: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=812696   You use a computer that is running Windows 98 or earlier as a file server, and that computer hosts Visual FoxPro tables that contain memo fields. When users with computers that are running Windows XP try to access these tables, they may receive the following error message, even though there is nothing wrong with the memo file: Error 41 "Memo file is missing or invalid."   The problem is caused by the difference between the file locking in Windows 98 and earlier, and the file locking in Windows XP.   Resolution: Use a computer that is running Windows XP as the file server.

Learn about the ASP.NET Mobile Controls and how they enable you to build a Web-based presentation layer for your Visual FoxPro application that targets multiple mobile devices   http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnfoxgen8/html/VFP8_CreatingMobileSolutions.asp      

Oak Leaf Enterprises is proud to announce version 1.0 of its Mere Mortals .NET Framework. This enterprise-level development tool consists of a powerful component-based framework. Based on solid object oriented design and patterns, MM .NET simplifies many common data access and rule validation tasks, reducing the amount of code you need to write. Business objects can be combined with a set of super-charged user interface controls that simplify databinding, validation, security, error handling and many other mundane tasks. In addition, many Builders and Wizards help in speeding development of user interface and business object services. The HTML Develpoer's Guide includes a number of Jump Starts that get you up and running quickly. MM .NET was architected and implemented by two C# MVPs (Kevin McNeish and Rick Strahl) and the fully commented source code is provided with the product to allow complete customization and review of the code.   http://www.oakle...

If you are really clever , and want to reduce the size of your distribution severely, then you can use UPX to pack the files - if you use "upx --best --crp-ms=999999 --nrv2d [filename]", then you can get vfp7r.dll and vfp7renu.dll down to 1.8 MB, fo r both of the files!   http://fox.wikis.com/wc.dll?Wiki~VFPRuntimeCompression

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak drops stealth: wireless tracking in 900 MHz, ubiquitously (free reg. required): Woz's company, Wheels of Zeus (WOZ, get it?) has a device that can opportunistically use any local network operating in its format to report on GPS-identified whereabouts of people, animals, and things. WOZ uses the 900 MHz unlicensed band, and operates at about 20 Kbps. Interestingly, many of the location-based Wi-Fi systems use the flip side of this: they figure that range is small so if you identify the location of the access point, you can triangulate on a user and pinpoint their location. WozNet identifies the location of each low-speed, long-range (1 to 2 mile) device, liberating the access points. It's not too far in the future that GPS becomes a necessity for travelers and affordably built in. This is yet another example of its utility.... http://wifinetnews.com/archives/001976.html

From Computer World: A widespread flaw affecting all Windows versions, including Windows Server 2003, is raising user doubts about the efficacy of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing initiative.   http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,83221,00.html?f=x10   You know, I appreciate being told about flaws. I even like getting bug fixes every now and then but for the media to decry flaws as though it shakes the foundation of a company is getting really tiring (does McNealy plant these people or the stories?)   As much as it sounds like heresy, software development is not a perfect science. As NASA has proven in the past, trying to account for every possible condition is virtually impossible. This is not to say that software should be full of holes but rather that I would rather be able to tell a company what to fix and have them fix it  - instead of having the media start predicting the uselessness of a co...

The business-reports software company will buy Crystal Decisions in a deal valued at $820 million, the latest in a series of buyouts reshaping the business software market. Business Objects is the company who has a lawsuit with patents on the ability to create SQL statements based on friendly database terms (such as with a data dictionary).   http://rss.com.com/2100-1012_3-1027587.html?type=pt&part=rss&tag=feed&subj=news      

Here's a Microsoft article on  bringing speech functionality into your Web applications with this set of development tools, based on the Speech Application Language Tags specification.   http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnnetspeech/html/VUIBstPrcF.asp   Equally applicable to Desktop applications as well. May use some of these in my new project FoxVoice (a speech enabled development environment for VFP!)   The concept (and I've tested this and it works, "kind of")   User calls out Form. VFP creates a form and displays it. Add Label. VFP adds a label to the form. Add Textbox. VFP adds a text box to the form. Modify Label Move Right 20 VFP moves the label 20 pixels to the right. Property AutoSize True Property Caption User Name VFP changes Label caption to say User Name Modify Textbox Move Right 50 VFP moves Textbox to the right of the label ...

You've seen them wandering through airports and conference centers, holding laptops up at strange angles and squinting at the screens. They move slowly forward, then backward. Then they often scratch their heads, stow their computers and wander off muttering. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/17/technology/circuits/17find.html?ex=1373860800&en=36beec7942dd5c08&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND

Interesting survey results from Advisor.com survey:   Current Results: 28% - Using now 15% - Testing now 31% - Intend to use 11% - Probably will use 16% - No use anticipated  

Ok - I know everyone says it's a tough market out there for FoxPro but maybe it's just that people are being too picky about the work they want to do! Case in point: there's an on-site job in Kingston for 5 months. The catch? It's FoxPro 2.0 DOS. They want changes, they want lots of changes but they have no intention of moving to Visual FoxPro (still trying to find out why not). I don't know if they will ever find someone to do that job - which is really too bad because that means that there's one less FoxPro application (Yes I KNOW it's DOS) that exists. The customer knows it works and just doesn't want to change it, except for these additional modifications. Kind of like one of my customers here in Ottawa - they have a VFP 5 application that they have fought tooth and nail to keep in a government agency. By now, the IT people are saying "whatever!". But they love their app- when I suggested earlier this year they move it to a m...

Wearing Multiple Hats : See why it's better to take a walk in someone else's shoes every now and then... See http://foxproadvisor.com/doc/12541  for the full editorial

Okay - sure I know you can BUY software to prevent SPAM but the easiest way for people who don't usually get e-mails from people they don't know is the following: (Note: this works better in Outlook 2003 because you can specify the Address Book instead of the having to specify each person) 1. Create a rule for messages when they arrive. 2. The rule should be to move ALL messages to a Junk Mail folder but with the following exception: a) in Outlook 2003 - except when user is in your address book b) in all other versions - except when user is (and then you have to select everyone's name) Doing this - I have been able to cut down my SPAM by about 90%. Much happier now - and it didn't cost me a penny.