Southwest Fox Ambassador Fund

Doug Hennig Uncategorized

At the keynote presentation for Southwest Fox 2008, we announced the Southwest Fox Ambassador Fund. (We actually called it the Worthy Developer Fund, but that name was just a placeholder until we came up with a better one. Thanks to Christof Wollenhaupt for the inspiration for the new name.)

Many VFP developers around the world are providing incredible contributions to the VFP community, such as working on VFPX projects, blogging about techniques and code to do cool things in VFP, or providing exemplary support in various VFP forums. However, for most of them, attending a conference such as Southwest Fox isn’t feasible.

The Southwest Fox Ambassador Fund is intended to raise money from the VFP community to allow one (or more, depending on how much is raised) developer to attend next year’s conference as an ambassador for the developers in their country. This will give them the opportunity to meet and share experiences with developers attending Southwest Fox and give us the opportunity to learn about VFP development going on in their country.

Geek Gatherings, the organizers of Southwest Fox, are kicking off the fund by contributing the conference registration fee. Also, we held a silent auction at Southwest Fox to start the ball rolling. Between the silent auction and contributions from generous people at the conference, we’ve already raised over $1,100!

We urge you to consider donating any amount you see fit, small or large, to this fund. Contributions can be sent, by check to:

Geek Gatherings, LLC
Ambassador Fund
42759 Flis Drive
Sterling Heights, MI 48314

100% of donated money will go to the travel costs for the ambassador. Not a single penny will be used to cover administrative costs. All time managing the fund and working through the selection process will be donated. No one will be paid for their time. So if you want to donate to the fund, please send a check or we can arrange non-credit card PayPal transaction so we don’t have unnecessary discount fees.

Also, let us know if you want your contribution to be public or not. If so, we will include your name in the list of contributors announced at next year’s conference.

Some Session Updates Posted

Rick Schummer Uncategorized

Good news for those who are interested in any of Christof Wollenhaupt’s sessions (updates to all), and Barbara Peisch’s WMI session – all have been updated on the conference FTP site.

We have updates from Alan Stevens too, but they did not post correctly so we are getting them again to post soon.

Please use the instructions provided in email before the conference, and in the conference booklet you got when you registered on site (under the Conference CD section).

More to come – enjoy.

VFPX Administrator’s Outstanding Service Award

Doug Hennig Uncategorized

At the keynote presentation for Southwest Fox 2008, the administrators of VFPX (Craig Boyd, Rick Schummer, and Doug Hennig) presented Bo Durban with the first VFPX Administrator’s Outstanding Service Award. Bo has been one of the driving forces in GDIPlusX, a key project in VFPX that not only brings amazing graphics functionality to VFP but is also the foundation for several other very cool projects such as the Themed Controls project. Congratulations, Bo; very well deserved!

Southwest Fox Videos Available

Doug Hennig Uncategorized

Thanks to Steve Bodnar, videos of the keynote presentation and the VFPX meeting at Southwest Fox 2008 are available for viewing at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/swfoxtv. Among the items things shown in the keynote are an update on the VFP Studio project by Craig Boyd and Bo Durban.

As far as we know, this is the first VFP conference that had live streaming video of sessions for people who could not attend the conference.

Southwest Fox 2008 is almost here

Rick Schummer Uncategorized

I want to take a moment and make a quick post for some last minute things about the conference.

  1. All people registered for the conference should get the fourth and final email update on Monday. If you have not received the first three please email us as soon as you are done reading this post so we can resend.
  2. Monday’s email will have the link, user name, and password to the session downloads so you can get a head start on the materials.
  3. The Geek Gatherings World Headquarters is being abandoned on Tuesday morning. Email is the best way to get in touch. We are headed to Mesa to get the all the materials organized and assembled.
  4. Yes, there is still time to register. If you are planning on just showing up at the conference to register, please let us know in advance so we can adjust our final numbers with the conference center. This happens on Tuesday.
  5. Can’t make it to Mesa this year? Hope you can watch the keynote live on Thursday evening 7:00 PM MST and PDT, 10:00PM EDT. Go to SWFoxTV! We will have it posted if the live time is too late or very early where you live.

The three organizers are really excited about this year’s event and look forward to seeing everyone this week.

Only 4 days until we all gather in Mesa!

Still time to register

Rick Schummer Uncategorized

October is here. Southwest Fox is this month. Holy cow, Southwest Fox is THIS month? Already.

Okay, I should have realized this before based on the flurry of emails between Doug, Tamar and I, but last week it hit me that we are weeks away from heading to Mesa. Decisions on the food, finalizing the conference booklet (already over 40 pages this year) and eval forms, sending in the speaker and t-shirt orders, figuring out when we will hold drawings for over US$100,000 in prizes, and getting things like the badge materials organized. Seems like there is still a million things to do, but I feel more organized this time around, and there are still a couple of surprises up our sleeves.

So I think I will take one more opportunity to let you know we still have time to register. So join the other 140 attendees and speakers from 31 states, 7 countries on two continents in Mesa in just two short weeks.

Those registered for the conference will get several emails between now and the beginning of the conference with all kinds of details. If you have not received the first update email please let me know at info AT swfox.net.

Only 15 days until we meet in Mesa!