A small history
Since its debut, we have seen a cross publications of the magazine in English, Portuguese and Spanish. Our first issue in Portuguese was published in February 2003 and in April 2002 for the Spanish version. We had synchronized content for the Portuguese version since February 2002 but the first issue which was included simultaneous online versions came up only a year later. So, basically, it has been close to three years that we have released simultaneous versions in English, Portuguese and Spanish. This takes a lot of effort from the team and the translation of those articles is one of the biggest processes we have to take care of. We have a great team for translations and we really appreciate their involvement to help us to continue in that direction. You can get the entire team layout from the editorial on each issue.
This year will not be any exception. We will continue to deliver three versions of this magazine to accommodate the need for foreign readers to access our magazine. But, since the last two issues, our readers have seen a great improvement on the site, including the layout for accessing the magazine. Since the November issue, the magazine is framed within the same itself making is easier to move from one issue to another and from an issue to the site content. It is also easier than ever to switch interface by simply doing one click on the upper right corner of the site to switch language, no matter if you are in an issue or not. While having done that enhancement on the site for faster content retrieval, we also adjusted old issues to respond to the actual layout. So, no matter which issue you are reading, you always get all articles in one page making it easier for reading and printing purposes.
In order to respond to our readers, we have turned this magazine into a dedicated one to Visual FoxPro. Thus, starting from this issue, you will find only related Visual FoxPro content. All of the .NET content is now part of our new magazine, named Level Extreme .NET Magazine. Martín Salías continues his role of editor in chief but with that new magazine.
Note that actual readers of the magazine get a free subscription to Level Extreme .NET Magazine, assuming such desire. So, until June 30, 2006, readers can access both magazines without changing anything. The cost of the subscription for Level Extreme .NET Magazine remains the same as Universal Thread Magazine.
A year in review
The last year was great for the Universal Thread. While having done some continuous work on the magazine, we also continued to enhance the Universal Thread sites. The biggest one came in the 4th quarter of the year for the User Group Meeting Tracker site. The following lists several of the enhancements done on that site:
It was another great year of conference coverages around the world for the Visual FoxPro community. Our lineup included DevTeach 2005, Visual FoxPro DevCon Praha 2005, Southwest Fox 2005 and the German Visual FoxPro Developer Conference 2005. You can get all those coverages from our Universal Thread Coverages site.
As far as DevTeach is concerned, it is unfortunate that 2005 was the last event which was including Visual FoxPro material. Jean-René Roy, the president of DevTeach, has announced the conference is shifting towards .NET content only starting in 2006. We, however, congratulate him, for great events he and his team have prepared for the first three years of the company which delivered successful conferences which was including Visual FoxPro material.
The Universal Thread messages area, our most popular service in 2005, continued to provide a great service to its members. While having done a few enhancements here and there over the year, that product has reached the level of a mature product a few years ago so it was not likely that major enhancements would have been done. We however continue to listen to our customer's needs and suggestions and we are always happy to consider and develop the requested features.
What's on schedule for 2006
The upcoming year will focus on maintaining a high quality service for our customers on all of our products. The major change is certainly the split of our magazine team into two separated teams to handle the management for the publication of both magazines. We will continue to deliver high quality reports at major Visual FoxPro conferences while keeping in reserve a few surprises.
