OzFox 2007

Colin Nicholls is an independent software analyst/programmer based in Nevada, where he lives and works alongside Lisa Slater Nicholls, also an independent software developer.

As Spacefold, they specialize in enterprise data integration using Visual FoxPro, .NET, Java, and XML. Prior to moving to the U.S. in 1999, Colin was development manager at Cornerstone Software in New Zealand for three years, but started database programming with FoxBASE+ in 1988.

He has contracted for the Microsoft Visual FoxPro team reporting features, written technical articles for a number of international FoxPro journals, and has been a speaker at many FoxPro developer conferences.

When he isn't programming or otherwise on duty, Colin enjoys recording music in his home studio, attending rock concerts, and cooking.

Rick Schummer is the president and lead geek at White Light Computing, headquartered in southeast Michigan, USA.

He prides himself in guiding his customers' Information Technology investment toward success. He enjoys working with top-notch developers; has a passion for developing software using best practices, and for surpassing customer expectations, not just meeting them. After hours he writes developer tools that improve productivity and occasionally pens articles for FoxTalk, FoxPro Advisor, and several user group newsletters. He blogs regularly at Shedding Some Light.

Rick is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (VFP), and a Microsoft Certified Professional. He has co-authored many VFP books, spoken at numerous conferences across America and Europe, and is the founding member and Secretary of the Detroit Area Fox User Group (DAFUG).

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, and the MemberData Editor, Anchor Editor, New Property/Method Dialog, and CursorAdapter and DataEnvironment builders that come with Microsoft Visual FoxPro.

Doug is co-author of 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 (Hentzenwerke Publishing).

He has spoken at every Visual FoxPro DevCon since 1997 and at user groups and developer conferences all over North America.

He's a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) and writes a VFP based blog here.

She and Colin Nicholls provide enterprise data integration and analysis services using Visual FoxPro and XML in a variety of environments and languages (dba Spacefold). She has served in project management, design, and Xbase development roles for Visual FoxPro 9.0's report system features.

She served as an integration engineer for Acxiom Corporation for four years, designing solutions for Oracle, Siebel, IBM, and other Acxiom Alliance partners.

Lisa has a special interest in the development of peer-to-peer support mechanisms in the programming community and was one of the original Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals. She began working with Fox in 1989.

She has taught numerous FoxPro-RAD seminars and has been a featured speaker at major FoxPro and database conferences throughout the world. She served as editor and writer for various FoxPro and database development magazines.

She was lead writer for the bestselling Using FoxPro 2.x volumes (Que) and FoxPro MAChete (Hayden), the author of the "Report Writer" volume of Pros Talk Fox Series One, and Series Editor for Pros Talk Fox Series Two (Pinnacle). Her most recent book is Flying Fox: Applying Visual FoxPro Reporting to Any Data, in Any Environment.

As well as our fantastic international speaker line-up we're keen to promote some home grown talent.

We're looking for three Australian or New Zealand speakers to present a session each at OzFox.

If you think you've got something worth showing then send your session proposal to Craig Bailey.

Presentation of a Visual FoxPro based solution you (or your company) has developed

Discussion and in-depth explanation of how you've applied a specific Visual FoxPro technology

Innovative ways to use Visual FoxPro Andrew Coates was one of our 'local' speakers at OzFox 2004

Using Visual FoxPro with .Net, Office or SQL Server

Examples of how you've used the new features in Visual FoxPro 9.0

Best practice and guidance on building Visual FoxPro solutions

You don't need to have presented at a conference or user group before, but you do have to give us confidence that you'll be able to present well in front of an excited VFP crowd (eg tell us how you'll be preparing and what experience you've had).

If you are selected as one of our three local speakers, then you'll get a free ticket to attend (that's right - we'll cover the cost of your OzFox registration).

We've confirmed our local speakers. Here's the local speaker details and links to their sessions:

Born in South Africa, Mark became involved with PC’s in the early 1980’s. He sold Lanier Word Processors in the 70’s and developed his first application on an Osborne “luggable” PC. As an accountant Mark stated developing applications using dBase for DOS and since immigrating with his family to New Zealand switched to Visual FoxPro.

In South Africa Mark developed an extensive Clothing Manufacturing Application. In New Zealand Mark started DataWise Limited and has been supporting MYOB installations and developing customized business applications. He has developed Medical Applications including a full suite for White Cross A&E clinics in Visual FoxPro.

Twice a year Mark indulges his passion to teach and lectures in Accounting and Corporate Finance at Lifeway College which is extremely stimulating and forces keeps him to keep up to date with the latest developments in accounting.

Alain Legrand is the founder and Chief Technical Officer of Legrand Software, a company that has developed an off-the-shelf CRM application which is used by over 3,000 small business clients in 23 countries (www.legrandcrm.com). Originally a native from Belgium where he obtained his M. Elec. Eng. at the University of Leuven, Alain moved to Australia in the early 80s.

He has been programming in a multitude of languages for over 25 years, and in FoxPro since 1995. Outside of work Alain’s time is consumed by his wife and three very active boys.

A self-confessed gadget and technology tragic, Andrew is ideally suited to his role as a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft.

Based in Sydney, Andrew travels extensively, educating developers on the latest technology from Microsoft, and building the developer community around Australia.

A long time Fox developer, he ran a successful VFP custom software development company prior to joining Microsoft.

In his spare time he loves spending time with his family and watching the cricket.

Bing Bao is a Senior Security Consultant at Talman. A Microsoft MVP in Windows Security, he has spent the last decade analysing and resolving security issues in Windows Servers and networks.

Final session descriptions (by Monday 15 January 2007)

Microsoft PowerPoint slide decks of their presentations (by Monday 05 February 2007)

Source code from sessions (by Monday 05 February 2007)

Session whitepapers (optional*) (by Monday 05 February 2007)

Important: US and Canadian residents will need a Visa to enter Australia (details here).

Sessions are presented using a projector that supports up to 1280 x 1024, however presenting at 1024 x 768 is recommended.

Colin Nicholls has kindly prepared these two PowerPoint templates (Ayers and Opera) which you can use (but feel free to use your own if you prefer).

*Optional: Ideally we'd like to receive whitepapers about your sessions so that we can provide them to all attendees. However, we realise this is not always possible, depending on your topic (eg if your session is all code demos then there's not much need for a whitepaper). We'll leave it up to you to provide them or not.