First off, I'd like to say that words cannot express the appreciation I have for Razzak, Donna and The Dream Team for providing this wonderful venue for all of us to network, collaborate, and learn. It is a valuable experience for all developers, of all skill levels that should not be missed.
For all those who could not attend, I would suggest contacting John at RBTI to purchase the Conference files. You really must see some of these presentations! Bill Downall and Sami Aaron were phenomenal as usual as Conference MCs. Charlie Parks, 2004 Developer of the Year, was a great host / guest MC. There was so many great things at this conference. Even the dreadful weather could not keep the socks from flying off! (Literally flying at one point, thanks to Bernie Lis.) Razzak, with his usual flair, announced the official unveiling of R:Base 7.5 after a year of beta testing. There are so many new features and enhancements, that it is difficult to list them all here. A few of the favorites are the Property / Getproperty commands for reports, report actions and report band eeps, themes, custom pop-ups and a new query wizard. The new undelete button in the Forms Designer received a round of applause from all of us who tend to be not so careful at times. Adrian Hüessy showed off the new multi-lingual capabilities of R:Base 7.5. With a setting change, we can switch from English to German. There are other languages in the works, of course. Sami Aaron showed us all how to use RTF report objects for mail merge. Emmitt Dove's presentation on real-time DB maintenance revealed some new commands that allow us to determine if a table needs to be packed, and allows us to pack a table while in multi-user mode. (Yes, pack a table in multi-user mode!) Emmitt also showed off the R:Base Editor 7.5, which was described as R:Base 7.x internal editor on steroids. R:Base Editor 7.5 runs independently of R:Base, with many customizations that allow you to use it your way. Razzak presented a new plugin, titled R:ColumnAnalyzer, that helps us find common columns and table relationships. Razzak also introduced us to: Dynamic Listviews, which we can use to replace CHOOSE commands; Pop-up menus for the DIALOG command - which is one my personal favorites! Charlie Parks even had Aleksey's attention when he presented his custom form actions and form wizard that creates new forms programmatically. I have no idea how he comes up with this stuff so easily! Mike Byerley has a habit of making complicated things appear easy. Which he did when he explained ActiveX controls and how to use them. I get it now! Aleksey showed us how R:Scope 7.5 can come to the rescue of a corrupt database. Bill Downall showed us how to configure the new R:Style 7.5, with it's new features, so we can, again, have it our way. (Are you sensing a trend?) Bill also showed us how to automate import and export routines using GATEWAY. Neil and Suzy Smith came from England to show us that a database design that uses classification and profiling can give the flexibility and performance to meet many customers' demands more easily. Bob Thompson showed us how to integrate UPS WorldShip with R:Base 7.5, using the Oterro 3.1 ODBC driver. (I'm putting that one to use very soon!) Rafee showed us how simple it is to set up an Apache Web server with PHP. (At least he made it look simple!) Ben Fogt's presentation on database security really opened our eyes to the fact that sometimes we make things way too easy, sacrificing security in the process. Wayne Erickson introduced inner joins and nested inner joins syntax that are currently in development. David Blocker shared some marketing success stories and what he learned along the road to those successes. Razzak also updated us on the status of R:Linux. It certainly has progressed since we saw it last. Though a release data is still a ways off, we could see how hard they'd been working. RBTI also introduced: R:PDF Merge, for merging multiple PDF documents. R:PDF Search, for searching multiple PDF documents for text or keywords. R:PDF Works, which consists of R:PDF Merge and R:PDF Search. RBZip, a plugin for command line access to compressing and backing up your files. RBAdmin, for network database administration. R:RemoteControl, a way to remotely connect to your database over IP. R:Watchdog, a vertical market application for video surveillance. The banquet was fabulous as usual. We started off with the quartet of Ben Fogt, Thom Cimicato, David Blocker and Dennis McGrath, singing Happy Birthday to Razzak. (Did you know he just turned 50?!) Bob Thompson served as auctioneer for our auction to benefit Project Bundle-Up, which I assure you was great entertainment all itself. Gunnar placed a long distance bid of $100 for the Chicago White Sox shirt and there were no challengers. There was a spirited bidding battle between Adriana Montano and Donna Memon for a Lenox vase. $200 was the winning bid from Donna. The lobster dinner donated by Frank Taylor went to Sami Aaron for $100. There was a silent auction for smaller items during the conference. Developers brought local favorites for others to bid on. I was very disappointed that Nicole outbid me by $2 for the Swiss Beanie brought by Adrian Hüessy! Though I was very glad to hear that all-in-all, we raised over $2,500 for Project Bundle-up. Thanks to Claudine and Adriana for organizing auction items and collecting the funds. Thanks to all those developers who donated items. The SWORBUGS, once again, did not perform....sort of. Ben and Thom, along with newest member Bret Tucker provided a fun "dueling guitar" piece. After some heckling from a certain former SWORBUG, Bob Thompson joined in with a banjo to show everyone how it's supposed to be done. The following awards were given out: First-Timer awards / gifts were given to Jim Buddemeyer, Pat Peake, Catherine Scholz, Bret Tucker and Materna Wojciech. Extra Mile awards were given to Adrian Hüssy, Neil and Suzy Smith (which from here on, I think we should refer to as the Dynamic Duo!) and Materna Wojciech. Outstanding R:BASE 7.5 Beta Tester awards were given to Sami Aaron, David Blocker, Emmitt Dove, Bill Downall, Mark Kwoka, Dawn Oakes, Charlie Parks, Claudine Robbins, Neil and Suzy Smith, Steve Sweeney and Buddy Walker. Outstanding R:BASE 8.0 Beta Tester was given to Gary Wendike Outstanding Oterro Beta Tester awards were given to Mike Byerley, Emmitt Dove, Bill Downall, Neil and Suzy Smith, Steve Sweeney, Bob Thompson, Buddy Walker. Outstanding R:SCOPE 7.5 Beta Tester awards were given to Sami Aaron, Emmitt Dove, and Dennis McGrath Outstanding R:BASE Editor & R:Style Beta Tester awards were given to Sami Aaron, Emmitt Dove, and Bill Downall. Best Suggested Feature awards were given to Emmitt Dove, Bill Downall, Rafee Memon, Dennis McGrath, Claudine Robbins, Neil and Suzy Smith. Bug Finder Extraordinaire award was given to Midge Nielsen. The Bridge Builder was given to Mark Kwoka. The Software Monger award was given to Bob Castanaro. The Whiz Kid award was given to Charlie Parks. Abuse of PROPERTY Command award was given to Claudine Robbins. Interpreter award was given to Adrian Hüssy. Dedication to Excellence award was given to Gary Wendike. Corporate Supporter of the Year was given to Barberton Citizens Hospital. Big Spender award went to Emmitt Dove. And Developer of the Year was given to ... ME, Dawn Oakes - I'm still floored. Very honored...but...floored. And feeling a tinge of carpal tunnel after finding out the reward for the honor was writing this summary! I apologize for being long-winded, I'm trying not to leave anything out. My mind is still recovering, so if I've forgotten someone or something, please fee free to help me out. I hope to see everyone next year! Dawn Oakes
