Southwest Fox Speakers
Southwest Fox has the best lineup of speakers on the planet.
Click a session topic for a description of that session.
Menachem Bazian, CPA, CITP is President and founder of BC Consulting Services, Inc, a Business Management and Technology Consulting Firm based in Northern NJ. Menachem has been a database developer for over 20 years, having starting out with Dbase II and moved on to Dbase III, Clipper, Foxbase and all the versions of Visual FoxPro to date. He returned to the Fox speaking circuit several years ago and has presented at Southwest Fox for several years. He has published numerous articles and books over the years.
Sessions:
PHP for the VFP Developer (pre-conference)
SQL Server 2012
Steve Bodnar is the President of Geeks and Gurus, Inc., a software development company with offices in Detroit, MI, Williamsburg, VA and Madison, WI.
Steve started developing FoxPro applications with FoxPro for DOS 2.0. He actively develops VFP line of business applications as well as websites using Microsoft's ASP.NET MVC and jQuery. Steve was one of the founding members of the Detroit Area FoxPro Users Group and has attended Fox conferences as often as possible since the early 1990's.
Steve has spoken at VFP conferences and user groups in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Kansas City, Toledo, Milwaukee, Sacramento and Atlanta. He's also spoken at .NET user groups, Code Camps and conferences in Grand Rapids, Raleigh, Richmond, Roanoke, Northern Virginia, Chattanooga, Philadelphia and Knoxville.
Geeks and Gurus develops line of business applications and websites for small and medium sized organizations. We deliver solutions based on Microsoft technologies such as Visual FoxPro, SQL Server and .NET.
Steve can be contacted at sjbodnar@geeksandgurus.com. You can learn more about Steve and Geek and Gurus at http://www.geeksandgurus.com.
Sessions:
An Afternoon of Modern Web Development (post-conference)
HTML5
Rick Borup is owner and president of Information Technology Associates, a professional software development, computer services, and information systems consulting firm he founded in 1993. Rick earned BS and MBA degrees from the University of Illinois and spent several years developing software applications for mainframe computers before turning to PC database development tools in the late 1980s. He began working with FoxPro in 1991, and has worked full time in FoxPro and Visual FoxPro since 1993. He is a co-author of the books Deploying Visual FoxPro Solutions and Visual FoxPro Best Practices For The Next Ten Years. He has written articles for FoxTalk and FoxPro Advisor, and is a frequent speaker at Visual FoxPro conferences and user groups. Rick is a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD) and a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) in Visual FoxPro.
Sessions:
Advanced Topics in Mercurial: Taking it to the Next Level
Amazon Elastic Cloud Computing for Fun and Profit
Tamar E. Granor, Ph.D., is the owner of Tomorrow's Solutions, LLC. She has developed and enhanced numerous Visual FoxPro applications for businesses and other organizations.
Tamar served as Editor of FoxPro Advisor magazine from 1994 to 2000 and was Technical Editor from 2000 to 2008. She served as co-author of the popular Advisor Answers column from 1993 to 2008. She has also written for FoxTalk and CoDe; she currently writes for FoxRockX.
Tamar is author or co-author of more than ten books including the award winning Hacker's Guide to Visual FoxPro and Microsoft Office Automation with Visual FoxPro. Her most recent books are VFPX: Open Source Treasure for the VFP Developer (to be published in 2012) and Making Sense of Sedna and SP2. Her books are available from Hentzenwerke Publishing.
Tamar is one of the organizers of the annual Southwest Fox conference and founder of the Philadelphia Visual FoxPro User Group. In 2007, she received the Visual FoxPro Community Lifetime Achievement Award. She received Microsoft Support's Most Valuable Professional award annually from the program's inception in 1993 through 2010. Tamar speaks frequently about Visual FoxPro at conferences and user groups in North America and Europe.
You can reach her at tamar@tamargranor.com or through www.tomorrowssolutionsllc.com.
Sessions:
Try Thor's Terrific Tools
VFP: Ideal for Tools
Doug Hennig is a partner with Stonefield Software Inc. He is the author of the award-winning Stonefield Database Toolkit (SDT); the award-winning Stonefield Query; the MemberData Editor, Anchor Editor, and CursorAdapter and DataEnvironment builders that come with Microsoft Visual FoxPro; and the My namespace and updated Upsizing Wizard in Sedna.
Doug is co-author of VFPX: Open Source Treasure for the VFP Developer, Making Sense of Sedna and SP2, Visual FoxPro Best Practices For The Next Ten Years, the What's New in Visual FoxPro series, and The Hacker's Guide to Visual FoxPro 7.0. He was the technical editor of The Hacker's Guide to Visual FoxPro 6.0 and The Fundamentals. All of these books are from Hentzenwerke Publishing (http://www.hentzenwerke.com). Doug wrote over 100 articles in 10 years for FoxTalk and has written numerous articles in FoxPro Advisor, Advisor Guide to Visual FoxPro, and CoDe. He currently writes for FoxRockX (http://www.foxrockx.com).
He has spoken at every Microsoft FoxPro Developers Conference (DevCon) starting in 1997 and at user groups and developer conferences all over the world. He is one of the organizers of the annual Southwest Fox conference (http://www.swfox.net). He is one of the administrators for the VFPX VFP community extensions Web site (http://vfpx.codeplex.com). He was a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) from 1996 through 2011. Doug was awarded the 2006 FoxPro Community Lifetime Achievement Award (http://tinyurl.com/6po3pwv).
Web: http://www.stonefieldquery.com
Blog: http://doughennig.blogspot.com
Sessions:
Introduction to C# for VFP Developers (pre-conference)
Win32API for VFP Developers
Cathy (Pountney) Knight has been developing software for three decades and is proud to have earned the Microsoft Visual FoxPro MVP Award eight years in a row. She is equally proud to have had the opportunity to work as a subcontractor onsite in Redmond with the Microsoft Fox Team in 2001. Cathy enjoys writing articles for various Fox magazines as well as writing books. She authored "The Visual FoxPro Report Writer: Pushing it to the Limit and Beyond" and co-authored "Visual FoxPro Best Practices for the Next Ten Years" and "Making the Most of Sedna and SP2". Cathy participates in her local FoxPro user group (GRAFUG) and speaks at other user groups when time permits. She has spoken at numerous conferences including GLGDW, Essential Fox, Advisor DevCon, DevTeach, German DevCon, and of course, her favorite, Southwest Fox. For the past several years, Cathy has worked for Memorial Business Systems writing software for the cemetery and funeral home industry which proves ... Fox is NOT dead!
Email: cathy@frontier2000.com
Blog: www.cathypountney.blogspot.com
Personal: www.frontier2000.com
Business: www.mbs-intl.com
Sessions:
OutFox the VFP Report Writer - Printing on My Terms
VFP Report Writer Tips & Tricks
Jennifer Marsman is a Principal Developer Evangelist in Microsoft's Developer and Platform Evangelism group, where she educates developers on Microsoft's new technologies. In this role, Jennifer is a frequent speaker at software development conferences across the United States. In 2009, Jennifer was chosen as "Techie whose innovation will have the biggest impact" by X-OLOGY for her work with GiveCamps, a weekend-long event where developers code for charity. She has also received many honors from Microsoft, including the Central Region Top Contributor Award, Heartland District Top Contributor Award, DPE Community Evangelist Award, CPE Champion Award, MSUS Diversity & Inclusion Award, and Gold Club.
Prior to becoming a Developer Evangelist, Jennifer was a software developer in Microsoft's Natural Interactive Services division. In this role, she earned two patents for her work in search and data mining algorithms. Jennifer has also held positions with Ford Motor Company, National Instruments, and Soar Technology. Jennifer holds a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Engineering and Master's Degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her graduate work specialized in artificial intelligence and computational theory. Jennifer blogs at http://blogs.msdn.com/jennifer and tweets at http://twitter.com/jennifermarsman.
Sessions:
Industry Trends in Windows 8
Kevin McNeish is President and Chief Software Architect of Oak Leaf Enterprises, Inc., and an eight-time recipient of the Microsoft. .NET MVP Award. He is a well-known .NET and iOS speaker and trainer throughout North America and Europe including DevConnections, VSLive!, DevTeach, SDC Netherlands, Advisor DevCon, as well as numerous Code Camps and Boot Camps. He is author of the upcoming book iPhone and iPad App Development for Everyone, co-author of the book "Professional UML with Visual Studio .NET", author of the book ".NET for Visual FoxPro Developers", as well as many software development magazine articles. He has also been interviewed multiple times on the .NET Rocks! Internet Radio Show. He is the Chief Software Architect of the MM .NET Framework as well as the upcoming MMiOS Framework. e-mail: kevinm@oakleafsd.com, Web: www.oakleafsd.com. Phone: 434-979-2417
Sessions:
iPhone / iPad App Development for Beginners, Part 1 (pre-conference)
iPhone / iPad App Development for Beginners, Part 2 (pre-conference)
Rod Paddock founded Dash Point Software, Inc. in 2001 to develop high quality custom software solutions. With over 20+ years, Rod's current and past clients include: Six Flags, First Premier Bank, Microsoft, Calamos Investments, The US Coast Guard and US Navy. Along with developing software, Rod is a well-known author and conference speaker. Beginning in 1995, Rod has given talks, training sessions and keynotes in The United States, Canada and Europe. Rod has been Editor in Chief of Code Magazine since 2001. Rod's web site is www.dashpoint.com.
Sessions:
Introduction To Ruby On Rails
jQuery 101
Rick Schummer is the president and lead geek at White Light Computing, Inc., headquartered in southeast Michigan, USA where the team guides the customer's Information Technology investment toward success. He enjoys working with top-notch developers, thrives on the mode of continuous learning, has a passion for developing software using best practices, strives to surpass customer expectations, and shares his knowledge with others whenever he can. After hours you might find him creating developer tools that improve developer productivity, or writing articles for his favorite technology journals and his blog.
Rick is a co-author of VFPX: Open Source Treasure for the VFP Developer, Making Sense of Sedna and SP2, Visual FoxPro Best Practices for the Next Ten Years, What's New In Nine: Visual FoxPro's Latest Hits, Deploying Visual FoxPro Solutions, MegaFox: 1002 Things You Wanted To Know About Extending Visual FoxPro, and 1001 Things You Always Wanted to Know About Visual FoxPro. He is regular presenter at user groups across North America and is founding member and Secretary of the Detroit Area Fox User Group (DAFUG). Rick is the lead organizer of the Southwest Fox Conference, and is a regular presenter at other conferences in North America, Europe, and Australia. He is an administrator of VFPX, and a Microsoft Visual FoxPro MVP from 2002 to 2011. Rick was awarded the FoxPro Lifetime Achievement Award in October 2010.
You can contact Rick via email at raschummer@whitelightcomputing.com or via his company Web site: White Light Computing, Inc.. Read more of his thoughts on Visual FoxPro and software development in his blog: Shedding Some Light.
Sessions:
Finding the Treasure in VFPX!
How Craig Boyd Continues Making Me a Hero!
Eric Selje is a software developer in Madison, WI. He has been programming in Fox since FoxBase 1.21 in 1986 and recalls eagerly waiting for the box from UPS with "FoxPro". In 1995 he founded MadFox, the Madison FoxPro User Group, after attending DevCon in San Diego and realizing that learning Visual FoxPro 3 would take a group effort.
Eric is part of the Geeks and Gurus team, developing business applications for the desktop, web, and most recently mobile devices with an emphasis on database-driven applications. He is also co-author of VFPX: Open Source Treasure for the VFP Developer.
When he's not planted in front of a screen, Eric can often be found on the Ultimate field, the baseball diamond, solving crosswords, or with his face in a book.
Sessions:
More Fox on the Run
SSMS for Developers
Rick Strahl is president of West Wind Technologies on Maui, Hawaii. The company specializes in Web and distributed application development, training and tools with focus on ASP.NET,.NET and Visual FoxPro. Among the tools created and sold by Rick's company are West Wind Html Help Builder, West Wind Web Store, Web Monitor and Web Connection. Rick has been working with Microsoft technology close to 20 years, is an ASP.NET Insider, a frequent contributor to magazines and books and speaks frequently at professional developer conferences all over the world. He is also co-publisher of CoDe magazine. For more information please visit: www.west-wind.com, contact Rick at rstrahl@west-wind.com or check out his WebLog at www.west-wind.com/weblog/.
Sessions:
ASP.NET COM Interop with Visual FoxPro Revisited
Calling .NET Components from Visual FoxPro with wwDotnetBridge
Tuvia Vinitsky is a principal in Vinitsky Consulting Inc. VCI develops and markets major vertical applications for non-profit organizations and community centers (JCC, YMCA). They also provide custom software and website development.
Tuvia's Fox experience dates back to the days of FoxBase and Compuserve. He has written for FoxTalk and has been a presenter numerous times at regional users' groups. Tuvia has always enjoyed expanding the capabilities of Foxpro, whether it was graphic printer drivers in the days of DOS or Web enabling the latest VFP 9 features.
Tuvia believes in having both breadth and depth of experience. He has served as project leader for many large projects, including projects at companies like Avis-Rent-a-Car, Chicago Board of Trade, Marmon Group and Lotus.
Tuvia and his family are long time Chicago residents. He attended Northwestern University, and is an ordained Rabbi. His years at Northwestern, with its reputation for the performing arts, must have left a mark—not only is he known for his popular presentations on software development, but he frequently is a guest speaker on Jewish philosophy and teachings.
Sessions:
Give Me Some Skin, Man!
Show me Your License, Please
Christof Wollenhaupt, head at Foxpert, offers FoxPro and .NET development and consulting services to customers who benefit from his nearly 20 years of experience. Christof is a regular speaker at conferences and user groups around the world, organizes the Hamburger Stammtisch für Microsoft Datenbankentwickler (Hamburg user group for Microsoft database developers), has written for various magazines including a regular column in FoxPro Advisor for more than 10 years, and was a Visual FoxPro MVP from 1997 to 2010. Foxpert offers multiple products, including Active FoxPro Pages, Guineu and PC-AS. For more information please visit http://www.foxpert.com or send an e-mail to christof.wollenhaupt@foxpert.com.
Sessions:
Office Automation Without Office
Unit Tests with FoxMock