CategoryGeneral Tech

Using Visual FoxPro

I read Andrew MacNeill’s article from last year again. I think he’s right on a lot of points. VFP is great for some applications, but not for everything. Most IT Managers I speak to want to know our .Net strategy (we have a strong .Net strategy on the web side, but if its desktop database apps then VFP is still the tool of choice) but at the end of the day they just want the job done...

MapPoint denied

I want to write a quick MapPoint app. But you need to sign up with Microsoft for the free Web Service trial. Which I did. But after registering I was informed it takes 2 business days before my login ID is sent out. Why can’t this be automated? I can’t do anything until next week now.

Finished The Rule of Four

I finished reading The Rule of Four.
If you are expecting The Da Vinci Code (as I was) then you will be a little disappointed. It is a better written book, but it is not a page turner like TDVC was. However, you’ll like it if, like me, you enjoyed Focault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco.

TechEd 2004 – Day 3

Day 3 (Friday) – the final day. I had trouble getting up this morning. Its been a whole week without exercise, and hardly any fruit. My body starts breaking down pretty quickly. Also I’m missing my wife big time. Anything over a night away from her and I start feeling down. But I’ll be seeing her tonight so I’ve just got to hold on. Missed the first session cause I was running late...

TechEd 2004 – Day 2

BizTalk 2004 We’ve used BizTalk a lot at work, but only BTS2002. This new version is incredible. As Scott Woodbridge said, this is a revolutionary jump, not just evolutionary. Everything is done from in VS2003 and the output/deployment is via assemblies. I don’t really know where to start, there is so much to say about this product. See Scott’s blog for more details: User group/MSDN...

TechEd 2004 – Day 1

Some of my thoughts on TechEd 2004 held in Canberra, Australia from August 3-6. Whilst today (Wednesday) is officially day 2 (it started on Tuesday with registration and a welcome reception) I have labelled my posts based on the 3 days of sessions. Keynote The conference was opened by Dr Joe MacInnis, a marine scientist who has done heaps of impressive stuff. But I won’t note that here, see for...

The Rule of Four

Just borrowed The Rule of Four from the library. I’m hooked.
I’m told it is similar, but better, to The Da Vinci code which I loved.
Michele started reading it aswell, and because we are both hooked we had to go and buy a copy. We spent the afternoon together reading it in a cafe.

STREXTRACT()

I’m almost too embarassed to mention this… I found a VFP function STREXTRACT() for extracting text from a string. Yep, I have the following code all over the place: nStart = AT(‘Starting text’, cString) nEnd = AT(‘End text’, cString) cSubString = SUBSTR(cString, nStart, nEnd – nStart) which can now be replaced with: cSubString = STREXTRACT(cString...

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