Speakers Biographies
Marcia Akins
Marcia
is an independent consultant and software developer who for the past few
years has worked primarily with Visual FoxPro. She is a Microsoft Most
Valuable Professional and also has Microsoft Certified Professional
qualifications for both Distributed and Desktop Applications in Visual
FoxPro. She has written articles for both FoxPro Advisor and FoxTalk
Magazine and co-authored the books 1001 Things You Wanted to Know About VFP
and MegaFox: 1002 Things You Wanted to Know About Extending VFP with Andy
and Rick Schummer (Hentzenwerke Publishing). She has been co-author of the
Kitbox column in FoxTalk with Andy Kramek since December, 2001. Speaking
engagements include SouthwestFox (Tempe, 2004, 2005), Praha Devcon (Prague,
Czech Republic,2002, 2005), EssentialFox (Kansas
City, 2002, 2003, 2004), OzFox (Sydney, Australia, 2003), Conference to the
Max (Holland, 2000, 2002), Great Lakes Great Database Workshop (Milwaukee,
2000, 2001, 2003, 2003), Advisor DevCon (2001, 2002), European DevCon in
Frankfurt, as well as user group meetings in Europe and the U.S.
Craig Berntson
Craig
has been developing custom and packaged software since 1984 and has
worked with every version of Fox, beginning with FoxBase. Currently he
uses Visual FoxPro 8 and 9, Microsoft SQL Server, and C++ to develop
medical coding and database software for 3M Health Information Systems
in Salt Lake City. He has authored articles for FoxTalk and the VFUG
Newsletter and wrote the book CrysDev: A Developer’s Guide to
Integrating Crystal Reports, available from Hentzenwerke Publishing.
Craig has spoken at Advisor DevCon, Great Lakes Great Database Workshop,
Southwest Fox, Essential Fox, DevTeach, FoxCon, several Microsoft events,
and user groups around the country. He is the President of the Salt Lake
City Fox User group, where he is also a frequent speaker, a Microsoft
Certified Solution Developer, and has been a Microsoft Visual FoxPro MVP
since 1997. You can contact him at
craig@craigberntson.com or read his
blog, FoxBlog, at www.craigberntson.com
Martin Haluza
Martin
Haluza is an independent software developer, who specializes in web-based
and desktop database applications. He has been working with FoxPro and
Visual FoxPro since 1993. He is an author of XFRX - an alternative report
generator for Visual FoxPro, a tool for converting existing reports to PDF,
HTML, Excel, Word and other documents. He has spoken at Prague Devcon in
2004 and 2005. He can be reached at
mhaluza@eqeus.com.
Sessions: V-XFRX
Steven Black
Steven has been a Fox developer since 1986. He markets Steven Black's INTL Toolkit, a multi-lingual framework for FoxPro and Visual FoxPro, which he created in 1993 and continues to refine. He has been a featured speaker at over forty FoxPro Devcons and regional conferences, and his contributions occasionally darken the pages of VFP books and magazines. Steven is also the creator and webmaster of the Visual FoxPro Wiki, an innovative VFP community knowledgebase, which is found at http://fox.wikis.com.
His company, Steven Black Consulting, is based in Kingston Ontario, and operates worldwide. He specializes in multi-lingual, multi-site, and other challenging FoxPro projects, including out-of-control project turn-arounds and cleanups. He consults with small developers as well as large corporations, national and international government agencies, and software development companies to elevate their development teams.
Doug Hennig
Doug
Hennig is a partner with Stonefield Software Inc. He is the author of
the award-winning Stonefield Database Toolkit (SDT), the award-winning
Stonefield Query, and the MemberData Editor, Anchor Editor, New Property/Method
Dialog, and CursorAdapter and DataEnvironment builders that come with
Microsoft Visual FoxPro. Doug is co-author of the “What’s New in Visual
FoxPro” series and “The Hacker’s Guide to Visual FoxPro 7.0”. He was the
technical editor of “The Hacker’s Guide to Visual FoxPro 6.0” and “The
Fundamentals”. All of these books are from Hentzenwerke Publishing. Doug
writes the monthly “Reusable Tools” column in FoxTalk. He has spoken at
every Microsoft FoxPro Developers Conference (DevCon) since 1997 and at
user groups and developer conferences all over North America. He is a
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP). Web:
www.stonefield.com and
www.stonefieldquery.com, Email:
dhennig@stonefield.com.
Venelina Jordanova
Venelina
has been FoxPro developer since version 2.0. She is specialized in database
development and designing application architecture. She is principal of
JEI located in Varna Bulgaria. The company is Microsoft Certified Partner
and operates as outsourcing center providing VFP and .NET solutions. She
can be reached at venelina@mnet.bg.
Dan Jurden
Dan
Jurden is a Senior Application Developer for EPS-Software Corp located
in Houston, Texas. He is a Microsoft Certified Professional. He co-authored
the book Creating Visual FoxPro Applications using Visual FoxExpress with
BOb Archer, published by Hentzenwerke Publishing. Dan also was the Technical
Editor for CrysDev: A Developer's Guide to Integrating Crystal Reports
also published by Hentzenwerke Publishing. He has also authored articles
published in CoDe Magazine, Fox Talk, MSDN Brazil, SDGN Magazine and Universal
Thread Magazine dealing with SQL Server, .NET, MySQL, VFP and other topics.
Dan has presented topics at the German DevCon, Essential Fox, SQL Server
Live!, SDC Netherlands and GLGDW conferences. He has been developing Client-Server
applications using SQL Server Crystal Reports for over 8 years. Dan can
be reached via email at dj@eps-software.com.
Andy Kramek
Andy is an independent consultant and long-standing FoxPro developer.
After many years working in England and Europe Andy moved to Akron, Ohio
at the beginning of 2001. He and his wife, Marcia Akins, are joint
owners of Tightline Computers Inc and they have, for many years,
specialized in the development of customized data-centric software. As
well as having been a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional every year
since 1998 he is also a Microsoft Certified Professional for Visual
FoxPro in both Desktop and Distributed applications.
He has spoken at User Groups and Conferences all over the world, recent conferences include Advisor DevCon (2001, 2002), GLGDW (Milwaukee 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003), Essential Fox (Kansas City, 2002, 2003, 2004), Southwest Fox (Tempe, 2004), European Devcon (Frankfurt 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005), CTTM (Amsterdam, 2000, 2002) and the Praha Devcon (Prague, 2002 and 2005).
In addition to helping write white papers on Visual FoxPro for Microsoft, he has been co-author of the monthly "Kitbox" column in FoxTalk Magazine, since April 1998 partnered, since November 2001 by Marcia Akins, and he has now more than 70 articles in that series to his credit. His book credits include "The Revolutionary Guide to Visual FoxPro OOP", Wrox Press, 1996 and, together with Marcia Akins and Rick Schummer, he co-wrote the very successful "1001 Things You Wanted to Know About VFP", Hentzenwerke Publishing, 2000 (which won the Universal Thread Members Choice Award 2001 for Best VFP Book). The same team re-assembled to write "MegaFox: 1002 Things you Wanted to know about Extending VFP", Hentzenwerke Publishing, 2002.
Ken Levy
Ken
Levy is Microsoft's VS Data product manager which includes Visual FoxPro and
the XML tools for Visual Studio. He has developed many FoxPro applications
and tools since 1986, including GenScrnX, and he created many components of
VFP including Class Browser and Component Gallery. Ken has been technical
editor and writer for many software magazines and is a frequent speaker at
industry conferences. Ken's blog can be found at
http://blogs.msdn.com/klevy
Lisa Slater Nicholls
Lisa Slater Nicholls is an independent software developer. She and Colin Nicholls provide enterprise data integration and analysis services using Visual FoxPro and XML in a variety of environments and languages (dba Spacefold). She has served in project management, design, and Xbase development roles for Visual FoxPro 9.0's report system features. She served as an integration engineer for Acxiom Corporation for four years, designing solutions for Oracle, Siebel, IBM, and other Acxiom Alliance partners.
Lisa has a special interest in the development of peer-to-peer support mechanisms in the programming community and was one of the original Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals. She has taught numerous FoxPro-RAD seminars and has been a featured speaker at major FoxPro and database conferences throughout the world. She served as editor and writer for various FoxPro and database development magazines. She was lead writer for the bestselling Using FoxPro 2.x volumes (Que) and FoxPro MAChete (Hayden), the author of the "Report Writer" volume of Pros Talk Fox Series One, and Series Editor for Pros Talk Fox Series Two (Pinnacle).Rick Strahl
Rick
Strahl is president of West Wind Technologies on Maui, Hawaii. The company
specializes in Web and distributed application development and tools with
focus on Windows Servers, Visual FoxPro, .Net and Visual Studio. Rick
is author of West Wind Web Connection, a powerful and widely used Web
application framework for Visual FoxPro and West Wind HTML Help Builder,
a rich Windows HTML Help creation tool geared at developers. He's also
a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional, and a frequent contributor to
magazines and books. He is co-publisher and co-editor of Code magazine,
and his book, "Internet Applications with Visual FoxPro 6.0",
is published by Hentzenwerke Publishing. For more information please visit
http://www.west-wind.com.
Rick Schummer
Rick
is the president and lead geek at his company White Light Computing,
Inc., which is headquartered in southeast Michigan, USA. He prides
himself in guiding his customers' Information Technology investment
toward success. He enjoys working with top-notch developers; has a
passion for developing software using best practices, and for surpassing
customer expectations, not just meeting them. After hours he writes
developer tools that improve productivity and occasionally pens articles
for FoxTalk, FoxPro Advisor, and several user group newsletters. Rick is
a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (VFP), and a Microsoft Certified
Professional.
Rick is co-author of What’s New In Nine: Visual FoxPro’s Latest Hits, Deploying Visual FoxPro Solutions, MegaFox: 1002 Things You Always Wanted to Know About Extending Visual FoxPro and the award winning 1001 Things You Always Wanted to Know About Visual FoxPro (KiloFox), all from Hentzenwerke Publishing. He is founding member and Secretary of the Detroit Area Fox User Group (DAFUG) and is a regular presenter for user groups across North America, and at GLGDW 2000-2003, EssentialFox 2002-2004, Southwest Fox 2004, and VFE DevCon 2K2 conferences. You can reach Rick at raschummer@whitelightcomputing.com, rick@rickschummer.com, and http://www.whitelightcomputing.com