2010 Annual R:BASE Conference Wrap Up Ken Shapiro
The 2010 Annual R:BASE Conference has concluded, and for the 4th year, it is my honor to recap the festivities. This years' conference did not disappoint. Before getting into some of the details a few acknowledgments are in order: - To Razzak, Donna and Rafee who made us a part of their family for two days. - To Bill Downall, who did a great job as emcee and who kept the audience on their toes with two straight days of jokes that made the attendees groan. (More about this later.) - To RBTI; Razzak, Donna, Wayne, Aleksy, Alex, John and special projects coordinator Rafee, who prepared, rehearsed, moved equipment, motivated the attendees, made sure everyone was taken care of, and worked harder to make this conference a success, more than we can even guess. - To the presenters who took time out of their schedules to share their commitment to RBTI products, techniques and insights with the attendees. - To Jan Johansen and Tom Eldred for heading up Project Bundle-Up. - To Paul Dewey/Brock Dewey/Ken Shapiro "staff photographers." - Last but not least, to all attendees, for being able to arrange their schedules and resources to be in Monroeville for the weekend. This year we had new attendees to the conference, they were: Steve Johnson, Bill Stacy and Vincent Vellella. The big news is R:BASE 9.1. Version 9.1.1.1.10.10.10. We the audience had fun to hear Razzak repeat this over and over on October 10, 2010 at 10:10am. Version 9.1 has substantial enhancements over 9.0. - New BSTR, binary string Unicode database datatype and associated form control to allow more thorough multi-language implementations by supporting native text characters of any language for storage in the database. - New DB video capture control, to allow the output from any video source on the computer to be captured into a form. - New search feature to search all forms, reports, labels for a specific string. We are looking forward to enhancements to this function to support wildcards. - New index efficiency indicators to enable the developer to make better decisions about how to index the tables. - Updated BLOB editor. - New intelligent paste feature for forms and reports text and images. - New feedback system variable. - Rollup MDI forms, and more. There were some really cool whiz-bang technical demonstrations: - Using R:BASE Version 9.x to access Oracle and SQL Server database. - Managing terminal server applications using Windows 2008. - Cool uses for the DB Slider control. - Converting legacy applications into R:BASE Extreme 9.x - A quick and easy tutorial on how to use the updated user privileges dialogs. - Mike Byerley gave a special presentation on how to combine DLCALL, Microsoft Script Control and the XMLHTTP request method to retrieve data from a remote server into your R:BASE desktop application. Very cool Mike. - The Dream Team gave a special demo on how to integrate a fingerprint reading time keeping system name R:Timetrack into R:BASE applications. - A very cool demo was given on the use of a thin-client R:BASE executable similar to the R:DCC client. - Rafee show us it is possible to simulate R:BASE forms/reports using PHP. - Frank Taylor showed us the possibility of partnering with RBTI to convert a full R:BASE application into a web based solution for a competitive advantage. - Razzak showed us some new PROPERTY/GETPROPERTY commands. - Razzak also showed us how to bring up the form/report designer in the middle of application execution. Cool stuff Razzak. There was a lot of information presented, the goal was to stimulate our creativity so we could get that advantage over the competition using R:BASE. Bill Downall did a great job of keeping everyone on track for these presentations. This years' twist, was we had to name a Beatles' song before asking a question. If we couldn't name a Beatles song, a donation to Project Bundle-Up was required. A lot of us, including the writer of this blog, couldn't remember a Beatles song or kept repeating one that was already mentioned. I think that is called CRS, but I can't remember. (CRS..Can't remember..stuff) In addition Bill D. kept us highly entertained with jokes such as: "What does a church choir do to warm up?" They sing R:ias. (arias) After a day of this I thought to myself, "R:gh" (arrgh). To keep the attendees on their collective toes: Razzak gave away multiple single seat licenses of R:BASE 9.0 All one had to do was answer simple questions such as: (I remember only three questions..that CRS thing again) - On what day was R:BASE 9.0 officially announced? May 11, 2010 - How many themes are in R:BASE 9.0? 86. (I answered 89..so close yet so far.) - How many people came from Michgan? 5. (Razzak, why didn't you pick New Jersey, I knew the answer.) This years' banquet featured a buffet. After socializing and dinner the Award Ceremony started. It is always fun and moving because every attendee gets acknowledged and is made to feel special with an award/acknowledgement and some type of grab bag gift. - Razzak acknowledged the new attendees first: Steve Johnson, Bill Stacy and Vincent Vellella. - As in prior years, random grab bag gifts were awarded to volunteer attendees involved in the conference. - An award was then given to R:BASE 9.0 Beta Testers. It is no surprise most of the conference attendees were acknowledged for their efforts in making 9.0 the fine product it is today. - After that Razzak acknowledged the Bug Finders Extraordinaire. Again it was no surprise most of the conference attendees received this acknowledgment. As Razzak succinctly put it, and I'm paraphrasing again, R:BASE is what it is due to the dedication of its' developers and users. - The big moment of the awards ceremony went to Mike Byerley for a Lifetime Achievement Award for his selfless dedication in helping the R:BASE community. Anyone who has met Mike, or has asked a question on the list, knows Mike's willingness to lend a helping hand, whether it be answering questions or writing code. Congratulations Mike. - After that hard act to follow, Razzak announced the Developer Of The Year. This years' award went to Ken Shapiro for the systematic way he worked with RBTI in troubleshooting issues related to the R:BASE 9.0 Beta. Razzak I was truly humbled by this and I deeply appreciate the acknowledgment. On Sunday, Jan Johansen and Tom Eldred tallied up the donations to Project Bundle-Up, which was approximately $1,400. Razzak generously pledged an amount equal to double the amount of the donations. The conference ended early about 3:30pm. Going back home in the car with Myron, we discussed the possibilities of "if you can dream it, you can do it." I would like to thank the proof readers of the draft of the recap. Ken
