Acknowledgements

From Rick Schummer

Ship it! Participating in any effort like a software project or writing a book has that one enjoyable moment when we determine to put the product in the hands of our customers. In the case of this book, it came a little later than any of us wanted, but it is finally ready, much better, and many more pages than any of us anticipated. I have many to thank and I always feel like I am going to miss one. If I did, I apologize to you in advance. Trust me, I really appreciate everyone ‚ s contribution no matter how significant or trivial.

First, I want to thank my family. To my wife, Therese, who once again supported my efforts in completing this project. The last couple of years have been very tough and her level of commitment to my career has been way over the call of duty. While I am off having fun playing a geek, she is performing the task of super mom, which is the most difficult and under appreciated job on the planet. She gives the world ‚ s best back rubs. I love you more and more each day. To Chris, Nicole, and Amanda ‚ I hope I did a better job this time around by making sure I was there when you needed me and appreciated the times you made me take a break from the writing. I am sure my four parents (natural and in-laws) think it is crazy to do projects like a book where you invest every hour of spare time you have and make little money. Their support in these crazy endeavors did not go unrecognized. I do believe a third crack at this does qualify me for a vacation at our local mental health institution. At least I know the software they use is a Visual FoxPro application!

I want to thank Whil for asking me to do this book. My passion for the topic of deployment is well known, but Whil knew I just finished MegaFox and was worried that Therese might hunt him down in Milwaukee if he pushed . Safe to say, Therese has never been to Milwaukee and when Whil came to Detroit as part of his ‚“Fox is Everywhere ‚½ tour in 2003 he made it home alive despite meeting Therese in person. Thanks for taking the risk! You publish some of the finest technical books on the planet.

I want to thank my new partners in crime, my co-authors Rick Borup and Jacci Adams. These two were very patient as my life and job pounced and stomped on our initial schedule. Their contributions to this book go far beyond the words on the pages. I am not only proud to have them as co-authors, but as friends . Additional thanks to Rick for assembling the sample app that Jacci and I used for our examples. Rick, thanks for your insight and keeping me honest. I swear nobody knows the Windows Installer better than you do, maybe not even the developers who wrote it. Jacci, you exceeded all my expectations. Thanks for letting me push both of you to the limit. It was an honor to tech edit your work. It gave me a new perspective and a stronger appreciation for tech editors and the work they do.

Nicole McNeish is a terrific Copy Editor (and I am not just sucking up because this is one of the last writings she will review). Her work and contribution to this book is significant and I am a better writer today because of her gentle pen. I have always appreciated the editors who make me look like a better writer than I am, she did an extraordinary job.

Thanks to my son, Chris, for his drawings in chapters 1 and 12. His artistic ability is just one of his many talents that he will share with the world in the years to come. Thanks to my daughter , Nicole, for her artistic contribution in chapter 11 and 12. She too will impress many with her abilities and her charity.

To my co-authors on KiloFox and MegaFox, Andy Kramek and Marcia Akins, thanks for your trust and support on the first two books. Without it there might not be a DeployFox. Marcia, for the record, I was the last one done writing on this book too, my record is unblemished! To John Hosier and Steve Dingle, see my comment above about tech editing, you guys rock.

There would be no book if I did not have the experience to write about. I want to thank all the customers I have deployed applications for ‚ for the lessons they brought to me over the years and all those in the Fox Community for sharing their experience and lessons learned. I also want to say thanks to my former and current teammates for sharing the experience (both positive and not so positive) deploying applications. This has been very valuable . These experiences enhanced the passion I have for this topic and are a driving reason behind why I wanted to write this book.

I would not have been able to tackle this project without the support of the geeks at Geeks and Gurus, Inc. I want to thank my former partners Steve Bodnar and Steve Sawyer, and our employee Mike McCaffrey for their patience and examples. I also want to thank Steve Sawyer for his sample screen shots and the photo of the G2 server room. I was able to bounce ideas off these smart guys at random and was always given valuable feedback.

At serious risk of forgetting someone, special thanks to Doug Hennig, Toni Feltman, Mike Feltman, Charles Hankey, Steve Black, Ted Roche, Tamar Granor, Ceil Silver, Steve Sawyer, Jim Booth, Rick Strahl, Markus Egger, Jim Duffy, Rod Paddock, Harold Chattaway, Randy Pearson, Barb Peisch, Nancy Folsom, Cathy Pountney, Craig Berntson, Rick Bean, Pamela Thalacker, Russ Swall, Drew Speedie, Doug Carpenter, Paul Mrozowski, Alex Korot, Mike Henderson, Della Martin, Bob Archer, Randy Jean, Carl Karsten, Mary Pilon, Jim Felich, Gary Mandela, Steve Finegold, Roxanne Seibert, Ed Leafe, Christof Lange, Jim Slater, Sue Cunningham, Doug Sherman, Dan Greenburg, Larry Miller, Rich Wolfe, Phil ‚“Dr. Rushmore ‚½ Parker, Tony Gerardi, Gary Rice, Lori Ozdowy, Alan Cooper, Edward Yourdon, and Steve McConnell for their direct or indirect advice over the years that somehow influenced the writings in this book.

A special thanks to fellow authors John Koziol, the late Ed Rauh, and Sally Guenette that shaped some of the content and topics discussed throughout the book. Their contribution was very important.

I want to thank my long-time friend and close advisor Patty Nowak. She is always challenging my thinking on software development, deployment, and life in general. I also want to thank Daniele DeVoe for her insight and advice.

There are always people that define your career. In the case of my deployment experience I want to thank my former manager Dean Hartman for not firing me after my first ever deployment gone wrong at UNISYS (Burroughs at the time), and Nick Benecker, who taught me many lessons both in deploying applications and in life. Bob Babbas for teaching me an important lesson in how not to treat people after they pour their hearts and hours into a project, Toni Fetko who trusted me enough to hire me to work on the FoxPro projects and taught me the art of estimation. Rhonda Belinc, George Krinke, and Tod Phelps who trusted me to deploy applications all across the world, and Bill Kirtland for allowing me to deploy more applications in the first week at Kirtland Associates than I did in the last year and half of working at EDS. Each of these leaders have defined me as a developer and influenced my thinking on software engineering. It is the experiences I learned over the years that I take forward to my new company, White Light Computing, Inc.

Finally, to the bottlers of Coca-Cola, your fine product makes it easier to write code and books at all hours, day and night.

From Rick Borup

First, I ‚ d like to thank Whil Hentzen for inviting me to collaborate on this project. Whil first approached me to do the technical editing for this book. As we discussed the scope of the book ‚ s content, I realized it was a perfect fit with a couple of things I was working on at the time, so I said I ‚ d like to write a few chapters, too. Whil, thanks for being open to suggestion and for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this book both as an author and as a technical editor.

Next, I want to acknowledge my two talented co-authors, Rick Schummer and Jacci Adams. Rick has been the driving force behind most of the material in this book, and I learned a lot in the process of tech editing what he ‚ s written. I ‚ d also like to thank Rick for the great job he did tech editing my own chapters. He encouraged me to stretch my knowledge in several places and to fill in some of the spots I might otherwise have skated over more lightly. The result is better and more complete material for you, the reader. I also enjoyed and benefited from the opportunity to edit some of Jacci ‚ s work on this book. Rick and Jacci, it ‚ s been a real pleasure working with both of you.

My thanks to Nicole McNeish for her fine work as copy editor. Nicole made sure I remembered to write in the active voice and the present tense, and helped make my prose leaner and more direct. Nicole, I ‚ ve got a special folder on my computer with a collection of the words ‚“that ‚½ and ‚“will, ‚½ which I tended to overuse and which you so patiently culled from my chapters. Thank you for all you did to make my work more readable.

Finally, I ‚ d like to acknowledge all of those in the VFP community from whom I have learned so much over the years. In particular I ‚ d like to recognize Whil Hentzen, Tamar Granor, Doug Hennig, Rick Schummer, Ted Roche, Steve Sawyer, Jim Duffy, Mike Levy, Jim Booth, Kevin McNeish, Rick Strahl, Ed Rauh, George Tasker, Cetin Basoz, Nancy Folsom, Cindy Winegarden, and Paul Brown, each of whom has been a great benefit to me through their various writings, presentations, forum contributions, and in some cases personal friendships. Thanks to all of you for your willingness to share what you know with the rest of us. It makes being a VFP developer a truly rewarding experience.

From Jacci Adams

First, I have to thank my husband, and best friend Dave for giving me his never-ending love and support in everything I do. He is the reason I ‚ m a 13-year cancer survivor . He stood by me through all the nausea, vomiting, baldness, and long hospital stays. He pushes me when I think I can ‚ t go any more and has helped make me the person I am today. Without him and his love and support, I believe I wouldn ‚ t be here writing this book today. I must also thank him for taking over the household duties while I worked on this project. Thank you to my daughter Rachael who always let Mommy work while she waited patiently and who always reminds me to stop and smell the flowers be it a bouquet of red roses or a handful of dandelions and clover. She also considers a pile of rocks her treasures, reminding me to leave no stone unturned. To my parents, thank you for a lifetime of love and support.

Thank you to my co-authors, ‚“The Rick ‚ s. ‚½ It was fun working with two authors with the same first name and trying to keep the e-mail and edits straight. But, since we are software developers and work with so many TLA ‚ s, their names were shortened to RAS and RB. Rick Schummer, a big thank you for giving me the opportunity to participate in this project and being such a wonderful mentor and editor who encouraged me to ‚“dig deeper. ‚½ Rick Borup (Whenever I type RB I can ‚ t help but think of a large roast beef sandwich at one of my favorite fast food restaurants in Ohio, Arby ‚ s), thank you for doing the tech editing.

Thank you to my chapter illustrators, Chris and Nicole Schummer. You ‚ re both very talented. I wasn ‚ t sure about that ‚“free ‚½ clip art. I wanted to make sure we didn ‚ t use any previously copyrighted clip art. After all, that ‚ s what Chapters 11 and 12 stress. Your artwork keeps us legal.

I can ‚ t forget Nicole McNeish, our copy editor. Thanks for keeping us grammatically correct.

Whil Hentzen, thank you for your mentorship, seeing potential, and giving me the confidence I needed in those early FoxPro years and throughout the last 10 years. You played a big part in helping me become the developer and speaker I am today.

I want to thank my long time friend, advisor and mentor, Gary Mandela for his insight and advice and always being close to the phone for the technical and not so technical questions. I must not forget Bob Coppedge who ‚ s not so subtle nudging got me over my fear of speaking in front of people and helped me lead three successful special interest groups over the years.

A special thanks to all of the hard working volunteers of The Greater Cleveland PC User ‚ s Group . All of your hard work makes being a SIG leader an easy task, Chris King, Linda Webb, Rob McDonough, Jim Evans, Lyle Jenkins, Lori Berenson, Linda Koco, Stuart Smith, Bill Kiraly, Vaughn Bentley, and Dan Hanson. I can ‚ t forget my Consulting SIG regulars who over eight years provided me with support and dedication to make the SIG successful Russ Jirberg, Dave Pfeil, David Anderson, Phil Ardussi, Richard Chadwell, Jude Burns, Clayton Clark, Charles Martis, Marty Nuetzel, Stephen Schneider, Rich Spinner, Ray Valenti and all that attended the SIG over the years ‚ thank you.

Last but not least the entire VFP community; all of you who are part of CompuServe, the UniversalThread, the EPS and West-Wind message board, the Fox Wiki, and the FoxForum. Thanks for being there to answer the questions. A special thanks to ‚“The Gurus ‚½ whose advice and technical expertise has guided me over the years. I ‚ ll never forget my first face to face meeting with the folks who had been answering my questions on CompuServe; ‚“the Brewster McRooster group ‚½ at GLGDW 1994, the very first FoxPro conference I attended, Whil Hentzen, Tamar Granor, Doug Henning, Ted Roche, Steve Black (you sure know how to tell a joke), Dan Freeman, Ceil Silver, Leslie Koorhan, Barbara Peisch, and Jim Booth (Please forgive me if I forgot anyone it was 10 year ago and I ‚ ve lost a few brain cells from sleep deprivation.). I appreciated the warm welcome you gave me into this community. I can ‚ t forget the others who ‚ ve also provided guidance along the way Steve Dingle, Steve Sawyer, Ed Leafe, Toni Feltman, Mike Feltman, Charles Hankey, Jim Duffy, Marcus Egger, Rick Strahl, Michel Fournier, Marcia Akins, Andy Kramek, Nancy Folsom, Roxanne Seibert, Mike Levy, Cathy Pountney, Kevin McNeish, Steve Finegold, Randy Jean, Bob Archer, Dan Jurden, Craig Berntson, Dave Tansey, Carl Karsten, Don Tanner, Michael Babcock, and Stephen Russell.