Southwest Fox/Soutwest Xbase++ 2015 Deadline Approaches

Simple, quick reminder: the Early-bird registration deadline is this Monday, August 31st. We would hate to see you lose out on the $50 discount.

If you still need to register, please head over to the registration Web site today: http://geekgatherings.com/Registration

Every registered attendee gets admission and white papers to all regular conference sessions. Don't miss this chance to learn from the best and mix with your peers.

Only 50 days until we gather in Gilbert.

Changing Windows 10 Title Bar Colors

In Windows versions prior to 10, the color of window title bars is determined by what theme you’re using. In Windows 10, most applications have a white title bar. It doesn’t matter to me much what color they are, but since I’ve upgraded to Windows 10 and I’m updating the documentation for Stonefield Query as we get ready to release version 5.2, the screen shots I’ve taken for updated forms don’t match the existing screen shots for forms that weren’t changed. I have a few choices:

• Ignore it, because who else but me will notice? Unfortunately, I’m too anal to take this approach.
• Redo all screen shots. A cool feature of the Stonefield Query SDK is that it automates the taking of screen shots for about 50% of the dialogs. The reason for that feature is that Stonefield Query is highly configurable and some of the configuration settings affect the appearance of many forms. To make the documentation for a customized version of Stonefield Query match what the user sees, we have a function that regenerates the help, including running the app and automatically taking shots of any such forms. Unfortunately, that still leaves 50% of the forms I’d have to do manually. Life is too short.
• Somehow change the title bars of the updated forms to use the same color as the existing screen shots.

I wasn’t sure the latter was possible but fortunately came across a blog post by Daniel Rubino that explains how to do it. One thing he doesn’t explain is how to select the desired color for the title bars. To do that, right-click the desktop, choose Personalize, select Colors, turn off Automatically pick an accent color from my background, and select the desired color from the palette that appears.

Southwest Fox News

Bad news and good news. First, the bad: Cathy Pountney had to pull out of speaking at Southwest Fox this year due to a heavy work load. The good news: Tuvia Vinitsky, who’s spoken at Southwest Fox several times, has agreed to take her place. I doubt he’ll be bringing as many shoes as Cathy usually does, but he will be bringing his A-game with two very interesting sessions: dbSchema: SQL Server Database Design and Maintenance Made Easy and PCI Compliance: Facts and Fear. Thanks for stepping up, Tuvia!

Also, a reminder that the September 1 early bird deadline is less than a month away. Sign up today to save $50.