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The First Issue of the Universal Thread Magazine
Michel Fournier, June 1, 2001
Welcome to our first issue of the Universal Thread Magazine. We kept receiving many requests to have such a media available on the Universal Thread, so we decided to release our first issue this month. Many people have mentioned an interest to either have such a magazine for the pleasure to read abo...
Welcome to our first issue of the Universal Thread Magazine. We kept receiving many requests to have such a media available on the Universal Thread, so we decided to release our first issue this month. Many people have mentioned an interest to either have such a magazine for the pleasure to read about technical articles and Universal Thread topics as well as having the ability to contribute on a regular basis.

This magazine covers technical articles in regards to the technologies covered by the Universal Thread, recent and upcoming events as well as a monthly Universal Thread profile from one of our members. It will be available online only available from the Universal Thread site.

This month issue features an interesting article on the treeview control from Cetin Basoz. We have reviewed the Visual FoxPro Certification Exams Study Guide recently released written by Evan Delay and Cindy Winegarden. We also included an interview with Ari Bixhorn about VB.Net as well as some Visual Basic FAQs submitted this month in the Visual Basic and VB.Net forum. Our first Universal Thread members profile is about Eric Moreau. Eric is mostly involved in the Universal Thread Visual Basic forum since its debut. He'll tell us more about what he is doing, his involvment in the forum and his view at long term.

VS Connections

Our recent conference was the VS Connections one in Orlando where we were on site to cover the event for the Official Coverage. This has been our most interesting coverages so far. I am proud of all the persons who were involved in the reporting team who contributed to deliver that report. Evan Delay has been working on a permanent basis with me on it. We got some help from contributors Nick Neklioudov, John Koziol and Robert Pierce. The support we got from the conference team was excellent. They have helped us for any specific situation we had. They made sure we had access to all events and that we were having all necessary materials and information to deliver the report.

That conference was having an impressive number of attendees for the SQL Connections. The number of attendees for the VFP Connections was second most followed by the VB Connections and the VC++ Connections. What was also impressive is the interaction between the different conference attendees. That conference is allowing us to attend sessions in other conferences. We can then network with other conference attendees and exchange about any topic. In the Official Coverage, I mentioned that we learn as much when we are not in sessions than when we are attending some. Being able to network with SQL Server attendees, for example, to exchange opinions, get some tips and tricks and to know more about any other related topics is one good advantage of attending that conference.

In overall, the conference was a big success. I had the chance to talk with Shirley Brothers at the end for about an hour to exchange our feedback about the conference. She was extremly happy about how everything run. Her team has done an excellent job. The attendees liked the conference a lot and they have expressed that in the conference evaluation.

Tech Conferences became a subsidiary of Penton Media

As announced recently, Tech Conferences became a subsidiary of Penton Media. Penton Media owns several computer shows around the world such as Internet World, Streaming Media and Wireless. Internet World just by itself attracts more than 30,000 attendees worldwide and are holding events in 27 countries. By that, Tech Conferences became International. They are expecting to run conferences worldwide starting in 2002 in Europe, Asia and Australia. Among several benefits of this agreement, this offers Tech Conferences a much more powerful marketing exposure and a greater visibility.

Universal Thread Official Coverage

That conference allowed us to exchange a lot with the Universal Thread members. They were always stopping by and expressing their feelings about the Universal Thread. I have seen a lot of people I have seen before as well as some I saw for the first time. While talking with them to know what they like the most on the Universal Thread and what they would like to have as new features, we had to occasion to take some pictures for members who don't have their pictures online. So, you might see new faces online now. <s>

Basically, the members have expressed some feedback on the report. They mentioned this is good as they were able to follow the ongoing evolution of the report on a daily basis at the conference. This will also allow them to read more about it once they get back at work. We also receive a lot of feedback from online members who were not able to attend the conference. For them, that is a must as they were able to follow everything as if they would have been here. Many have expressed that this is encouraging them to register for upcoming events.

They also want more from us. They want us to get involved at the trade show, to present some sessions and to advertise more. We will focus on that more for the upcoming events.

Our next coverages will include the Advisor Visual FoxPro DevCon in San Diego in September as well as the Great Lakes Great Database Workshop in Milwaukee in October. Other coverages are to be confirmed shortly.

Universal Thread Magazine

The Universal Thread Magazine still has some space availability for July to December 2001 issues. If you would like to be a writer and submit a technical article, feel free to do it by sending your request at mfournier@transformation.com. You can also submit a request to be part of our monthly profile. If you would like to submit us a two pagers on your background, your involment on the Universal Thread and any other related topics, feel free to do it as well.

Universal Thread Enhancements

You might have seen in the recents months a lot of Universal Thread enhancements. Continue to submit your request for any suggestions you may have to continue this evolution of the Universal Thread. You can submit any suggestion at info@universalthread.com.

We also would like to thank all members who have a Premier Universal Thread Membership. The Premier Universal Thread Membership allows us to continue to support the Universal Thread and to make it evolves. We also would like to thank all other members for their participation. We provide the tool, you provide the input. See you all online!

Michel Fournier, Level Extreme Inc.
Michel Fournier is a professional, visionary, perfectionist, mostly known for his renowned realizations over the years, designer, architect, owner of the « Level Extreme Platform », formerly known as the « Universal Thread », recognized as one of the longest running Web sites of the planet, also known as a precursor to social networking, product manager, Internet serial entrepreneur, practiced Lean Startup techniques long before they were known, out of the box thinker, using the tenth man rule, specializes in building entire virtual data center solutions, has provided high end IT consulting worldwide, has owned and operated three companies, delivered worldwide renowned e-commerce Web sites, designed and architected two world class top level development frameworks, wrote over 100 IT articles for various sources, presented at user groups, conventions and corporations nationwide as well as in the US, has provided his contribution in political and legal issues to provide a better world, Owner and Senior IT Consultant at Level Extreme Inc., former Architect Software/Application & Project Manager, 7 times Microsoft Most Valued Professional for VB.NET, 7 times Microsoft Most Valued Professional for Visual FoxPro, Developers Choice award for best site at VFP DevCon 2000 Connections in New Orleans, featured in Acadie Nouvelle on October 2003.
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This article discusses the ability to use Visual FoxPro to schedule a list of tasks to be executed at specific intervals. While there could be the approach of using the Windows Scheduler to execute those tasks, it is always interesting to be able to control everything from within VFP. A small VFP sc...
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This article describes an overview of sending an email from VB.NET. It covers the basis of creating the email functionality in a class and using an instance of that class to define and send the email. The class includes the ability to send to multiple recipients as well as sending attachments. Sendi...
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From recent discussions I had, with several persons from my team, about common patterns which occur in the evolution of the Universal Thread, I thought it would be nice to write an article about it. Basically, within the evolution of a product, there are some similitudes which are sometimes interest...
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It's January 3rd, 2002, I am writing this editorial at 20h32 EST. The Christmas break is over but was it really a break? More and more, years after years, I keep seeing a lot of persons online during Christmas day or a few minutes before the new year. And, I mean, they are online as per their own ti...
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Michel Fournier, March 1, 2002
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