Speakers

Click a session topic for a description of that session.

Peter Alderliesten

Peter Alderliesten is owner of Solvention bv, a software development company. He comes from a Clipper background and started developing in Xbase++ in 1999. He develops vertical applications and is advising clients on conversions from Clipper and xHarbour to Xbase++. He was in charge of product development at Emergo Systems bv for over 20 years. The company became a market leader in HRD software targeting sheltered workshops, with installations of 100+ concurrent users.

Peter started speaking on Xbase++ subjects for the Software Developers Group in the Netherlands and later for the Xbase++ eXchange Platform. The XXP is the Dutch Xbase++ user group of which he was a founding member. He currently holds the position of chairman of the Xbase++ user group.

Sessions:

Pull up Your (Web)Sock(et)s
The Xbase++ Postman

Rick Borup

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:

I See What You Mean: Data Visualization for the Database Developer
Version Control Faceoff: Git vs Mercurial

Roger Donnay

Roger Donnay is the owner of Donnay Software Designs, a Boise, Idaho firm specializing in programming and consulting in the Xbase++ language. Roger started using xBase languages in 1982 with dBASE II. His product, dCLIP, was voted "Best Clipper Add-on" by readers of Database Advisor magazine. Roger has 12 years of experience with Xbase++ and developed the product eXpress++, a library designed specifically for Clipper-developers to leverage their knowledge of xBase dialects in a way that eases the transition from text-based to GUI. Xbase++/eXpress++ applications are now in use by thousands of end-users in the USA and Europe. Roger has been speaking at Clipper and Xbase++ Developer Conferences around the world since 1988.

Sessions:

How do I get to "Hello World?"
I Got To "Hello World", What's Next?
Internet Technologies in Xbase++ 2.0
Xbase++ Programming for Visual FoxPro Developers (pre-conference)

Spyros Bobby Drakos

Spyros Bobby Drakos started programming on an IBM 360/370 Mainframe while in college during which time he took various jobs performing and playing in bands to aid tuition. After graduating with a B.S. in Management Information Systems and a B.S. in pre-medicine from Pace University, he bought an IBM PC while working in one of New York City's first personal computer stores. Armed with the original IBM manuals he got his taste of how computers work by upgrading his system to an XT and started a small service in computer system repair. After a short stint teaching system design case studies at the University, he landed a job in the field of medical diagnostics followed by a job working on projects for the US Department of Defense and consulting for Coopers and Lybrand. From there he went out on his own to design software for video rental, dental laboratory and building management companies. When not programming, he has served as head speech writer for various cultural affairs events and performed solo in clubs and cruise ships and with his band in several parts of the country.

Today he owns Business Development Micro Systems and consults for the Taxi Limousine Industry of New York City. He currently maintains software for law firms, insurance companies, taxi meter shops and medallion leasing companies, dispatch garages as well as Transportation companies in Puerto Rico.

These days he divides his interests by serving as musical director or production manager for local stage productions. He is also an emcee for various community events, conferences and works as a vocal coach, writes mini musicals and monologues for auditions and teaches improve and Broadway stage classes.

Sessions:

How do I get to "Hello World?"
I Got To "Hello World", What's Next?
The Art of the Screen Interface
Xbase++ Programming for Visual FoxPro Developers (pre-conference)

Toni M. Feltman

Toni Feltman, a Microsoft Certified Professional, is an experienced software developer, project manager, instructor and speaker. Currently Toni serves as the Application Development Manager for CoreLogis, LLC, a Westerville, OH company that specializes in Inventory and Asset management software for local to international government entities. She is also Vice President and a Partner at F1 Technologies and is still an integral part of the company. During her 15 years at F1 Technologies, she has served as both a developer and project manager on numerous projects and as Product Manager for the highly successful FoxExpress product line.

Toni is a well-known contributor to the Visual FoxPro development community. She has spoken at most major FoxPro conferences in North America and Europe over the last several years. Although Toni has expertise in a number of areas, she generally focuses her presentations on Team Development, XML, n-Tier Development and new features in Visual FoxPro. In 2011, Toni was honored by the FoxPro community with a lifetime achievement award in recognition of her contributions to the community throughout her career.

Toni has penned several articles for Advisor Guide to Microsoft Visual FoxPro and is co-author of What's New in Visual FoxPro 9.0 (Hentzenwerke Publishing). Toni also designed and developed Project HookX, a public domain utility designed to allow developers to manage and use multiple project hooks on a single Visual FoxPro Project. Toni is one of several co-authors of DBCX, a public domain data dictionary tool used or supported by many notable Visual FoxPro products including the Stonefield Database Toolkit, Visual FoxExpress, FoxFire!, and Stonefield Query.

Toni taught for several years at the University of Toledo on a wide variety of technologies including Microsoft Office applications, XML, various Internet development technologies and database design and programming. Toni also enjoyed a stint as an instructor for AppDev.

Toni's introduction to the FoxPro community came while she worked in the technical support department at Fox Software. Toni was a senior level support technician and Sysop of the Fox Software Forum on CompuServe.

Toni graduated from Bowling Green State University in 1989 with a BA in Management Information Systems.

Sessions:

An Introduction to SQL Server Reporting Services (pre-conference)
From Developer to Manager

Tamar E. Granor

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 is author or co-author of more than a dozen 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 and Making Sense of Sedna and SP2.

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 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:

Can't This Application go any Faster?
Going OVER and Above with SQL

Doug Hennig

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. These books are from Hentzenwerke Publishing (http://www.hentzenwerke.com) and dFPUG. 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).

Doug spoke 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 and Southwest Xbase++ conferences (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).

Sessions:

50 Shades of Grey: Whipping Your Application's UI into Shape
Creating a Plug-in Architecture for Your Applications

Andreas Herdt

Andreas Herdt was born in 1970 and graduated from his academic high school in 1990. His first contact with computer hardware was a Commodore C64 at the age of 15. However, the first contact with software was on an Apple IIe in a training course of information science. A turtle was to be moved in an area strewn with obstacles.

After he completed his academic high school diploma, Andreas started as trainee for Air Traffic Control in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1995 he accommodated his passion for hardware and software. He studied Computer Science from the Information Science Polytechnic at Darmstadt where he focused on color electronic page setting and simulation technology. Andreas Herdt graduated in 2000 with a Master's degree. His thesis was about quality assurance for GUI applications. An internship brought him to Alaska Software where he got in touch with the Web Application Adaptor (WAA). Since then he constantly developed his appetite for more, leading finally him to work for Alaska Software.

Today Andreas benefits from the experiences and passion—among other areas—in improving the Xbase++ Runtime environment. He is involved in research on multi-core scalability and transactional memory.

Sessions:

The Xbase++ Workbench: Your Best Friend!
Tips & Tools for Developers

Bill Lace

Bill Lace is a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation Phoenix Division and has served as the Counterintelligence Strategic Partnership coordinator for the past five years. As the coordinator, Mr. Lace oversees the FBI's Business Alliance and Academic Alliance programs within the State of Arizona. Among the counterintelligence threats Mr. Lace coordinates with partners regarding is the cyber intrusion threat. After seven years in consulting engineering, Mr. Lace entered the FBI in 1999 and has exclusively worked counterintelligence matters.

Sessions:

Keynote Presentation: Under Siege

Steffen F. Pirsig

Steffen F. Pirsig holds the position as Chief Architect since having started out with the first design and implementation of Xbase++ in Oct. 1994. He also is a co-founder of Alaska Software and President of Alaska Software, Inc.

As a frequent speaker at various developer conferences as well as at universities, Steffen manages to combine his passion for database management systems, distributed computing and of course Xbase++, with his love for engaging into shop talks and in-depth discussions while presenting his ideas and visions to an interested audience.

Steffen enjoys good wines, hiking, bicycling and music of independent labels. He also likes to fly rc-planes in his spare time.

Sessions:

Developing Multi-Tier Applications with Xbase++
SQL Workshop (pre-conference)
Xbase++ Roadmap: What's Next!

Rick Schummer

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 a 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:

VFPX.Edition("2015")
Your Developer Life Improved By Thor

Phil Sherwood

Phil Sherwood is the president of SherWare, Inc., a software company founded in 1994, with offices in Wooster, Ohio and Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Since graduating with a BS degree in computer science 32 years ago, he's gone from IBM mainframe computers to today's laptops and tablets. He started SherWare, Inc. 21 years ago and develops and markets oil & gas accounting and investing software.

Today SherWare, Inc. provides accounting software to over 600 oil & gas operating companies around the U.S. and Canada. SherWare can be found on the web at www.sherware.com and www.wellprofits.com.

When Phil is not working he's playing. He enjoys boating, rock climbing, paddle boarding and playing with his 4 grandkids.

Phone: 330.262.0200
Email: phil@sherware.com

Sessions:

Front-End Web Development for the Programmer: If I Can Do It, So Can You
The New Rules of Marketing and Sales

Rick Strahl

Rick Strahl is the Big Kahuna at 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 Web Connection, West Wind Internet Client Tools, West Wind WebSurge, West Wind Html Help Builder and Web Monitor. Rick has been working with Microsoft technology close to 25 years, is an ASP.NET MVP and Insider, a frequent contributor to magazines and books and speaks frequently at professional developer conferences all over the world. For more information please visit: www.west-wind.com, contact Rick at rstrahl@west-wind.com or check out his WebLog at weblog.west-wind.com.

Sessions:

Consuming and Creating Web Services with Visual FoxPro and .NET
Creating Mobile Applications with AngularJS and Web Connection

Tuvia Vinitsky

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&mdashnot only is he known for his popular presentations on software development, but he frequently is a guest speaker on Jewish philosophy and teachings.

Sessions:

dbSchema: SQL Server Database Design and Maintenance Made Easy
PCI Compliance: Facts and Fear

Till Warweg

Till graduated with a Master's degree in Computer Science from the Information Science Polytechnic in Frankfurt/Main.

In 1997, Till joined Alaska Software straight from college. His primary project was the development of Xbase++ for the Windows platform. Soon thereafter, he assumed responsibilities in maintaining and enhancing Xbase++'s user interface functionalities. His special interest, and maybe therefore his strong suit, are the Graphics Engine and the component library built into Xbase++ (Xbase Parts). Till is also involved in various other areas of product development at Alaska Software. For example, he is a key member of the "PolarFox" project team.

Till is a frequent speaker at various developer conferences and other events surrounding Xbase++, both in Europe and in the US. Apart from his interest in computing, Till enjoys riding his motorcycle, exercising, and reading a good book.

Sessions:

Creating Dynamic Web Applications Without JavaScript
Extending Your Desktop User Interfaces with the WebUI

Christof Wollenhaupt

Christof Wollenhaupt, head of 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.