New Session Video Available

Jim Nelson has created a video previewing his session on the PEM Editor. In case you haven’t see it, PEM Editor is one of coolest tools on VFPX and certainly a tremendous productivity tool every VFP developer should have in his or her tool belt.

Southwest Fox Sessions and Speakers Announced

We announced the speaker and session lineup for Southwest Fox 2009 today. This year was the hardest yet selecting from the list of proposals because we had a record number of submissions. Once again, there are great topics such as using Visual Earth in VFP applications, implementing MySQL, getting the most out of FoxCharts, and adding full-text search to your applications.

Registration is now open, so be sure to sign up today for a fun three days in Phoenix in October. Take advantage of the “Southwest Fox Stimulus Plan”: if you register before July 1, you save $125 and get a free half-day pre-conference session, a $99 value. With sessions on Web development, source control, and refactoring legacy code, the hard part will be picking which one to attend.

We also offer an early-bird special: register before September 1 and save $50.

We're looking forward to seeing you in October!

Some Session Updates Posted

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.

Streaming Video of Keynote and VFPX Session

Thanks to Steve Bodnar, we're providing streaming video of the Southwest Fox keynote (Thursday, October 16, 7:00 p.m. MST) and VFPX bonus session (Friday, October 17, 8:00 p.m. MST). You can watch both of these videos at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/swfoxtv.

More Videos Available

We've posted more videos of Southwest Fox sessions, including a new one on custom report controls by Bo Durban.

Only two weeks to Southwest Fox!

Southwest Fox News

As we get closer to the conference (it starts four weeks from today), the news gets as hot as the Phoenix weather!

Visionpace is offering a free six-month subscription (or a six-month extension for existing subscribers) for Visual MaxFrame Professional (VMP) to all Southwest Fox attendees. Between all the offers (VMP, xSQL, and CoDe magazine) and prizes to be won (over $100,000), this conference will pay for itself before you attend your first session!

Five bonus sessions are planned for Friday night at 8:00 pm after the dinner party:

• Stonefield Software is hosting a Stonefield Query Developers Meeting. This meeting is open to everyone.
• Visionpace is hosting a VMP Developers Meeting. This meeting is open to all developers using VMP (developers not using VMP are also welcome).
• Bo Durban is leading a VFPX meeting. Everyone interested in VFPX is welcome to attend.
• Mike Yeager of EPS Software is presenting a bonus session titled "VFP to .NET Migration Strategies." This session provides a detailed overview, based on best practices and real world experience, of the optimal way to transition a mission critical application from any version of FoxPro to .NET and SQL Server.
• "Show Us Your Apps" is an opportunity to show the crowd what cool things you've done in VFP. Because there's a limited amount of time available, presenters are limited to 10-15 minutes each. Please email info@swfox.net to let us know what you'd like to show.

Southwest Fox News

The Southwest Fox 2008 session schedule is now available. One thing you might note is that we've planned a dinner party for Friday night this year. Also, vendor sessions are held concurrently with other sessions rather than in the evenings as they were last year.

I posted a new video demoing one of the cool features I'm showing in my session on Advantage Database Server: full text search capabilities, even against VFP tables.

Former VFP Product Manager Ken Levy will be at Southwest Fox, hanging out at the VFPConversion booth and showing a new utility he's created and releasing into the public domain.

One of the bonus sessions this year is "Show Us Your Apps", an opportunity to show the crowd what cool things you've done in VFP. Because there's a limited amount of time available, presenters are limited to 10-15 minutes each. Please email info@swfox.net to let us know what you'd like to show.

Session Videos

We're creating videos for some of the sessions to give you an idea of what you'll see at the conference. One is available now; stayed tuned for more.

Southwest Fox Sessions and Speakers Announced

On May 1, we announced the speaker and session lineup for Southwest Fox 2008. It was even harder selecting from the outstanding list of proposals this year than it was last year, and Rick, Tamar, and I are very excited about the sessions being presented this year. There are some killer topics such as taking advantage of GDI+ in your VFP applications, creating custom report controls, profiling and refactoring code using the VFPX Code Analyst tool, using WMI, taking advantage of the Sedna Upsizing Wizard, using Ajax and jQuery in Web applications ... the list is long and exciting!

Even better, in my opinion, is the chance to see old friends again and meet new ones. Many people say networking is the real reason to attend conferences, and that's absolutely true.

Registration is now open, so be sure to sign up today for a fun three days in Phoenix in October. Even better, if you register before July 1, you get a free pre-conference session, a $99 value. With sessions on Transact SQL, MySQL, and the VFP 9 report writer available, the hard part will be picking which one to attend.

We're looking forward to seeing you in October!

Session Selection Process

Today is opening day for many baseball teams here in the USA. All the players went through spring training to prove to the team management they are the best of the best and will help the team be successful during the year. All the players dream that in October they will be playing for the baseball championship.

In many ways I see parallels with respect to Southwest Fox 2008. Each of the potential speakers have submitted sessions hoping they are selected and make the roster for the conference in Mesa this October.

At Southwest Fox I am both a player and on the management side of things. I don't enjoy being on either side during the selection process. I believe it is the most difficult part of the entire effort to put the conference together.

As a speaker I try to find topics I am passionate about and topics people will be interested in seeing. I submit them hoping the organizers find them to be sessions that draw attendees to the conference. Then I wait for the decision with fingers crossed hoping I get picked and the session I really want to do are the sessions selected. The wait time seems like forever for most conferences. With Southwest Fox I can at least bribe the other organizers to pick my sessions. {g}

As an organizer I try to select topics I think developers find interesting and inspirational. We need to find a great mix of practical topics people can use when they get back to the office on Monday, as well as futuristic "visionary" topics people can think about as they manage new features and projects and their careers. I am looking for as many topics as possible for people to walk out of the session telling others "this session paid for the entire conference."

The organizers are both blessed and cursed by the quality and quantity of sessions to pick from. The problem is simple, more great speakers than we have budget for, and more great sessions than we have slots for. The submissions this year are no different, and maybe even triggering more difficult decisions than what we did last year.

The selection process is in the final stages as Tamar, Doug and I have individually reviewed the proposals and made some of our own picks. We then get together for a conference call for the "Battle Royale" (image of the three of us in a wrestling ring comes to mind - but too many sports metaphors for one day) as we negotiate the slots. Truth is, I am very glad there are three of us to make these decisions because the perspectives give us a rounded selection. I guarantee you, we will do our best to pick the right sessions, keep as much of a balance as possible, and try to provide you with as many sessions as we can where you walk out feeling like that one session was worth the entire trip to Mesa.

199 days until we meeting in Mesa!