Andrew MacNeill - AKSEL Solutions

Ouch - poor Kevin! If My Data's In Purgatory, Does My App Go To Hell?

Very amusing story in zdNet about how since individual devices will eventually all have RFID on them, a database is no longer required - just realtime access to where things are - right? Well, if you read further into the article, it's not that it's about databases themselves (hopefully Feinberg isn't so naive as to think that tracking numbers isn't a job for a database- but then who knows) - but rather it's the DBAs. The quote: a point made by the Gartner analysts is that there's a bit of urban myth to the idea that data must always be stored — or cached — in a database. Sometimes when you really think about the business processes that the data must support and then the degree to which the data must persist to support that process, you may realize that you don't need a database after all. As data is moved closer to its source and only kept in one place, not only is the quality is better, according to Friedman, "the data is where you need it, ...

I know - nothing to do with VFP but I just LOVE MindJet! And this diagram gives you a great idea why... Now the big question - where is the OPML? Mindjet: Gnomdex 6

As Rick Borup pointed out, it's hard to keep up with every post so I typically shy away from posts like this but Alex's link to Coding Horror cracked me up. What's more though - if you read the real Legend of Stinky , you'll find it even funnier (in spite or perhaps because of the bathroom humour) One of my favorites: ""Well, at the beginning we tried COM components, especially Patrik was agile about that, but we encountered many problems with that compatibility stuff, new version of the application didn't work with old version of components or vice versa. So, to make things simpler, I just threw away all that component stuff and put everything into one exe file. Since then we haven't got similar problems. Who needs COM anyway?"" - funny as it may seem, I actually had a similar discussion just recently. I've got to read the rest of these stories - they are hilarious.

Calvin made a post about code optimization and noted that if you actually attempt to do a FOR i = 1 TO num IF wParam=ASC("a") wParam=ASC("b") ENDIF ENDFOR It would take longer than just using the direct values. So what happens if you used variables or #DEFINE statements. I first thought "i'll use constants" , adding the following #DEFINE cn1 ASC('a') #DEFINE cn2 ASC('b') and changing the logic to: FOR i = 1 TO num IF wParam=cn1 wParam=cn2 ENDIF ENDFOR The Result? A little faster but nowhere close to the performance improvements gained by using the literal values. Why? Because it is simply replacing the cn1 and c2 with the ASC('97') statements. But even when I changed the #DEFINEs to variables and assigned the values, they still weren't improved. The only time it came close was if I explicitly did #DEFINE cn1 78 #DEFINE cn2 79 Here...

Craig Bailey and Scott Scovell did such a great job on FoxTabs - I just had to show a quick screencast of it. If you subscribe to the FoxShow, you'll also notice it is posted there as well but in Windows Media Format. Guys - this is something that should definitely be put into the SednaX project. Liquid Web Project Streamer - aksel - FoxTabs

Great read - I wish he had put in the Canadian equivalent of it because he missed one other aspect of it: the government taxes. For example, in Canada, we're today at 90 cents a litre - but in truth, about 40% of that is taxes. Here 's another site that explains it in more details. As the index shows , 98 cents a litre in Ottawa is really 66.9 cents when you take away the taxes. So when we compare ourselves to the US, we always say when they pay far less than we do in Canada (using Markus' example, Canada we would be paying about $3.75 a gallon, far closer to the European example) But then Markus actually then puts it into perspective - compare how far it is for 100KM and then look at the changes across the board. Don't single out the US - everyone in North America is getting the short end of the stick when it comes to rising gas prices. (oh, except the Canadian government who makes money when the price goes up)