The LA Fox Developer Newsletter

June 1999

SlowStart Arrives

SlowStart is a small program that fixes a problem on Pentium II

computers that have trouble starting some 16 bit programs like

FoxPro for Windows. It seems that Windows (NT Workstation

4.0 in our case) intermittently expects a program to be loaded

before it actually is. This results in a “Divide By Zero or Over-

flow” message from NT (I don’t know what happens on Windows

95 or 98) and the process never starts. So I wrote a small

program to make the processor busy while starting a program.

There are two ways to use SlowStart. The first method involves

passing command line arguments from SlowStart directly to the

application being launched. The second method employs a

shortcut to pass arguments; as well as allowing you to specify

a startup directory different than SlowStart’s startup directory.

For the first method use the command line as follows:

SlowStart I-t n -timeout n] program-to-launch

(argi ][arg2][arg3]. . .[argn]

Note that any command line switches passed to SlowStart

must come before the program-to-launch.

The second method employs a shortcut to pass parameters,

startup directory, and any other shortcut properties to the

program being launched. First, create a shortcut to the 16 bit

program you wish to run. Second, create another shortcut to

SlowStart. Third, change the SlowStart shortcut’s target prop-

erty to include the path to the shortcut created in the first step.

Note that quotes are required if there are any spaces in the path

or filename. When in doubt, include them anyway and you can’t

go wrong. See the screen capture below for a demonstration.

The -t (-timeout also works) argument followed by a number tells

SlowStart how long (in seconds) to make the processor busy.

The default is three seconds. This options is supplied because

(Con’t, page 8)

Microsoft and Micro Endeavors

Team Up to Deliver Compre-

sive Developer Curriculum

Micro Endeavors’ Skills 2000 Visual Basic Cur-

riculum Licensed by Microsoft

UPPER DARBY, PA- May 19, 1999--Micro Endeavors, Inc.

(MEl) today announced an agreement with the Microsoft

Corporation to license its Skills 2000 Training Curriculum for

developers. This curriculum addresses the training needs of

individuals without previous Information Technology experience

and provides a great learning path for students wanting to enter

the IT field as developers. The Micro Endeavors courses will

become a part of the Microsoft Official Curriculum (MOC)for

Developers that is taught by Microsoft Certified Technical

Education Centers (CTEC) worldwide. The new co-branded

Microsoft/MEl courses will be orderable by Microsoft CTEC’s

beginning July 1, 1999. The course titles will include:

* Introduction to Programming with Microsoft Visual Basic 6,

course# 1587A, 5-days of training.

* Principles of Business Application Development, course #

1632A, 5-days of training.

* Building Data-Centric Business Applications with Microsoft

Visual Basic 6, course # 1633A, 5-days of training.

In 1997, Microsoft Corporation launched their Skills 2000

Initiative to promote awareness about the growing skills gap in

the IT industry. In fact, the need for IT professionals today has

grown to critical numbers. According to the U.S. Bureau of

Labor Statistics, 1998-99 Occupational Outlook Handbook,

computer and data processing services are expected to be the

fastest-growing industries. At the same time, there is an acute

shortage of qualified IT workers in the United States. With an

estimated shortfall of nearly 400,000 workers last year alone,

it’s clear that skilled IT professionals are-and will continue to be-

in great demand.

In response to the ever-growing shortage of qualified IT profes-

sionals, Micro Endeavors, Inc., a Microsoft Certified Technical

Education Center and Solution Provider-Partner, developed the

Skills 2000 Technical Training Curriculum to fill the IT skills gap.

The curriculum was designed from the outset to complement

the Microsoft Official Curriculum (MOC), which was primarily

designed for people who already have 1-3 years of programming

experience. The Skills 2000 curriculum provides a training

bridge between the MOC courses and a clear path for an

individual to move toward Microsoft technical certification and

into an entry-level IT positions.

The curriculum actually answers two questions: how do corpora-

tions fulfill their IT staffing needs; and, how can people with little

or no experience get into the information technology profession?

Daryl Hancock, a Regional Training Manager for Microsoft

Corporation, says, “This curriculum is helping Microsoft close

(Con’t, page 8)

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