Various notes on the Radio SoftSpoken Wavelength

C&L Nicholls - Spacefold >L<'s Page >L<'s Fox Stuff

****** Special note on links in retired FoxSpoken pages:

Retired volumes of FoxSpoken are edited to remove material that is now irrelevant. However, I do not continue to validate links on retired pages, except for those to my own pages.

If the "retired" information has been retained, it means I think the text is still valuable, but you may not be able to do appropriate followup using the links within this text.

If you find links on my retired pages that are not current, for example to a Microsoft page that has been retired on the Microsoft site, you can let me know. If I have more current information, I will be happy to give it to you (and I'll fix the page at that time). If not, and if you find one, I'll try to replace it.

** Why I don't supply links to UseNet news groups:

Browsers typically accept URL information for newsgroups only in the form news:group.name. Most of them do not allow you to use the appropriate link type, which would allow you to specify the news server and looks like this: NNTP://servername/alt.whatever.

Unfortunately, for the news: information to work, a news server that carries this particular group must already be set up in the news reader you've attached to your browser. (Many news readers will still not find this group unless you have already told the news reader you're interested in it, at some earlier time. You will have to add the group name manually.)

Even if your current news server does carry the group to which I want to send you, it's likely to be carried as a "slurp site". This means your server echos the contents of the original group at its local site.

Although this method of sharing group content at local sites is convenient, it is not appropriate for fast-paced technical discussion. You have no control over how often your local server gathers messages from the original group, whether it gathers all messages or just a sample, and how long it will take to post your reply.

That's why I've decided on a different technique for news group recommendations. Assuming I know the original location of the group, I won't use a news: link. Instead, I'll give you the real server name, along with the group name, and expect you configure your news reader appropriately to get there.

**** A Commercial Break: NOT!!

Hey, folks, if you're interested in having your Fox site listed here, feel free to write me an e-mail with your URL and your request.

But please be aware that I do not list sites here simply because somebody asks/demands the listing as a "reciprocal courtesy".

If I visit your site and personally enjoy it, I'll recommend it. If it is about Fox and contains real information and/or is entertaining, there is a good chance I'll enjoy it. (I gotta add that I am biased in favor of people who are providing volunteer, peer-to-peer Fox help and information because they enjoy it. If your site is designed to advertise your services and incidentally shares a tip or two to show how good you are, you'd better be really entertaining.<gd&r>)

However, I don't list a site just because that site lists me -- in fact, in my ripe old age I'm relatively indifferent to seeing my name or URL in print or on the screen.<s>

If you find my attitude irritating or unreasonable, feel free to remove your link to my site.

***** MasterClass Framework: Why and What

For those of you who wonder what I worked on in VFP 3 and much of VFP 5, MC is it.

MC was originally going to serve as the basis of book in VFP 3, but somehow a marriage and an international move interfered. Meanwhile, MC continued to evolve quite nicely, in VFP 5. Several of my clients use it, and I have also released work-in-progress versions of it at conferences from time to time.

I released these versions because it got difficult for me to explain my VFP point of view without referring to MC. After all, it contained my development theories embodied in code (frameworks are like that!). So, whenever I taught, many of the non-trivial examples necessarily were drawn from MC components.

In VFP 6, I've found it easier to draw examples from the Application Framework shipping with the product. MasterClass architecture, originally designed to support multiple instances of applications, is also better-supported by creating COM objects in VFP 6.

If you are not a client, and received a conference-release version of MC, thank you in advance for understanding the limitations of the development support I can give you. I can send return e-mail with my consulting standard terms, if you'd like.

Learn from MC, and adapt/apply what you learn, and if you feel you have something to share, please do let me know... I am always happy to get feedback and I will post instructive comments or extensions to MC.

If you are neither a client nor a conference attendee who has received a copy of the MC framework, I don't sell my framework. I wrote it to help me teach people how to use VFP 3 and 5, not to get into the business of selling tools. So don't bother e-mailing me to ask!<g>

*** Required Although Boring Disclaimers
and Statement of Intellectual Property Rights

The Master Class Framework and my other VFP RAD applets, information, and code samples are provided as learning tools, with no warranty of any kind and no promise of endless free support.

The (completely unfettered) opinions expressed on SoftSpoken pages that bear my name are mine, and mine alone. Nobody else has edited or condones them. If you quote them in other publications, you should attribute them to me.

Please don't put my pages in your frames. I've made it difficult, but not impossible, for you to do this, so please respect my wishes in this matter. Restrict your "borrowings" to reasonable quotations, or refer people to my URLs where my content can be seen in its proper context. Thank you in advance.

Got that?