In case you are unaware, there are a lot of FoxPro user groups and regional conferences hosting Southwest Fox Rehearsals, you might want to check out a relatively new page on the Southwest Fox Web site: Session Rehearsals Rehearsals are important for a couple of reasons:

1. Speakers refine and enhance their sessions based on feedback.
2. Frees up slots of sessions already seen so you can see other sessions during the conference.
3. Learn in advance of the conference, try things out, and ask the speaker more questions in person at the conference.

A couple of years ago I was able to see half the sessions before I even arrived in Arizona. I cannot tell you how much value that brought to me except to tell you it was a lot. This year I have seen several sessions and have a couple more to see before I arrive in Arizona. Even if you are not able to attend the conference it is an opportunity for you to learn from the presenters and provide them feedback so their sessions rock at Southwest Fox. I was particularly moved this morning because of an email sent to me by Mike Potjer of the Grand Rapids Area Fox User Group. Mike is a long time supporter of Southwest Fox and is attending this year. This past weekend he attended one of the many rehearsals Jim Nelson is doing for his two sessions on VFPX’s Thor. Mike wrote:

I hope this is already on your agenda, but I would really like to see a big plug for Thor during the Welcome/Keynote session of SW Fox.  I think Thor is the most universally useful productivity enhancement for VFP developers since IntelliSense.  I have created IntelliSense enhancements, and looked at creating builders, but adding functionality to Thor is much simpler than either of those, and really hardly requires any documentation.  And Thor blows away IntelliSense and the builder architecture in terms of making it easy to share what you’ve created.  ….  I really think Jim deserves accolades for this (not to mention all the PEMEditor development that laid the groundwork for Thor).  I told Jim that I honestly believe that if Thor had been available when VFP 9 was released, that it should have been included with the product.

Wow, talk about a session having an impact, and the conference has not even started. Hopefully you will get a chance to attend one of the remaining rehearsals held in the next two weeks before the conference gets rolling.