December1998

The LA Fox Developer Newsletter

December 1998

Fee Structure (Con't from page 5)

not changed from the way membership has been in the past.

However, if you feel you’ve gained a lot from attending these

meetings and reaped several benefits, then (if the spirit moves

you) and you’re comfortable with it, by all means renew at the

Premium level. And please take the time to complete the

membership application form on Page 13.

LA Fox Christmas Party

In December, LA Fox will be hosting its Annual Christmas Party.

Normally, during this meeting, we forego speakers and just

concentrate on having a good time, sharing the spirit and

fellowship of the season.

Three years ago, we implemented two new “firsts”. For the first

time, we actually split up the responsibility of supplying treats

and goodies for the party. It wasn’t a very complicated imple-

mentation. A few people volunteered somebody brought

coffee, somebody brought paper products (plates, napkins,

etc.), somebody brought “auxilliary” goodies so that George

wouldn’t have to work so hard (George Dvorak normally bakes

himself into a tizzy <g>), somebody brought plastic utensils

(knives, forks, and spoons),,,,,you get the idea. It really doesn’t

take a lot of effort, believe me, and it makes it a lot easier for all

concerned. You can volunteer by reaching me at CIS#

72723,3422 ut brlee@earthlink.net, ui by calling the direct

800/499-6237, or Twila Miller at tamiller@eathlink.net, or’310/

318-6366

The other “first” was the implementation of a “white elephant’

gift exchange. The idea behind this exchange is to bring a

wrapped “something” that is no longer useful to you but might

be to someone else <g>. Last year, “lucky” recipients received

such valuable gifts as “cheesy” romance novels, copies of

“useful” computer books (The Complete DOS 5.0 Reference,

Understanding Lotus v2.01; WordPerfect 4.2, etc.), hardware

(2400-baud modems, etc.), stocking stuffers that didn’t quite

turn you on last Christmas, etc. It’s great fun, with lots of

laughs, and provides you an opportunity to pass those white

elephants along to someone “deserving” of such presents. So,

look in the back of your closets and out in the garage I’m

sure you’ll find something. It’s not mandatory that you bring one

since there’s usually plenty to go around, but it does make it

easier.

So come prepared for a good time.

Dates and Times (Con't from page 8)

Julian calendar. But it’s a fact. And it is at the root of the

recurring argument about whether the third millennium really

starts in 2000, or in 2001 as many people assert.

Better VFP (Con't from page 7)

energy into restructuring the guts of Visual FoxPro. To build a

good, scalable middle-tier component is not a trivial thing. Just

talk to any developer who’s trying to write in that middle-tier

space. We want to make this easy for our customers. The fact

that Visual FoxPro 6.0 now works with MTS was a big jump for

us, because our Visual FoxPro 5.0 servers did not. Our users

expect Visual FoxPro to have a high level of compatibility with

system services. It just takes us time to design it all and get

everything working. In the next release, we’re looking forward to

having Visual FoxPro work very well in the middle-tier space.

The next release also will focus on traditional FoxPro developer

who builds one- and two-tier applications. We’ll add various

features to improve their RAD experience, as well as add

features to make Visual FoxPro integrate well with the next

release of Visual Studio.

[John Rivard manages the Visual FoxPro development team.

He joined Microsoft in 1991 as a developer on the Windows for

Workgroups 3.1 team, and later worked on Windows 95.

Rivard moved to the Visual FoxPro team in 1994, and has

worked as a developer there ever since. He was the lead

developer on the team that designed and built Visual FoxPro

6.0. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from

the University of Washington.)

Job Opportunity

Job Title: Programmer/Analyst

Responsible for design and implementation of various financial

applications for a Beverly Hills based company. Should have 5

years total experience, at least 2 years in Visual Foxpro and

database applications. Salary to mid - $60’s.

Contact: Please forward resume to Ray Laser - National Re-

sources, Inc. EMAIL: rlaser@earthlink.net or call 818-703-1994.

VFP Hot Tips (Con? from page 10)

This code will work whether there are 4 columns or 40!

Another use for the SetAll method could be setting the Enabled

property for all text boxes to .T. when the Edit button is selected

in a toolbar on the form. In the Click event behind the Edit button

you could use:

THISFORM.SETALL(”Enabled”,.T.,”TextBox”)

Page 12