ADV: The filePro Survivor Series

[John Esak]

I promised you all a new product recently, and events have caused me longer
delays than I had anticipated... BUT, it's finally here! I am so proud to
announce the arrival of

            The filePro Survivor Series!

I think these tutorial CD's are simply the best thing that has ever happened
to (and for) the filePro community. In a nutshell, and without as much hype
as I am capable... They comprise of two items, The full Programming
Tutorials, and the Runtime Tutorial.


The Programming Tutorials

The Programming Tutorials are 3 CD's, Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced,
which take you via the use of step-by-step movies from knowing nothing about
filePro at all, to just about everything you need to know to be an excellent
filePro programmer. Absolutely no previous programming skills or filePro
knowledge is required. Just sit back, watch and listen as one of the leading
experts in the field (me :-) teaches you from scratch. Beginning takes you
from knowing nothing, to a point where you will know what any good filePro
programmer has learned. The Intermediate will land you at a fully competent
plateau where you will have covered most of filePro's important aspects. The
Advanced CD will deposit you at a place where you'll be able to write almost
any program you can imagine, in filePro. Any other training course at this
level would be considered full expert mode.

These tutorials are designed to cover every little detail of designing good
applications in filePro assuming that you have not studied anything about
filePro or programming before. Anyone can learn this material. The movies
are that good, the entire series is aimed at accomplishing this goal, and it
does. Take the lessons at your own pace, stop, rewind, play them again, you
will find this an elegant and wonderful way to learn filePro, learn it from
the ground up, and learn it in a way that is designed from the outset to
make you able to learn even more if you wish. This is not a course that just
teaches you the functions and syntax of each command, instead, it teaches
you the ones you absolutely need to know using a useful application that you
build from the outset all the way through to the highest level. Throughout,
the courses strive to impart the concepts behind good design. Soon, you will
understand the program in  a way that will allow you to use any function or
command as easily as the next. This course teaches you not only how to eat
fish, but how to fish with great technique as well...


Runtime Tutorial

The Runtime Tutorial is just about the exact opposite of the Programming
series, however, it is just as well done and just as well laid out. This
disk is for end-users of filePro. It teaches them from the absolute
beginning as if they have never seen filePro (and most of them haven't!).
After a couple/three hours of enjoyable interactive movies, users of this CD
will know everything there is to know about running filePro and applications
written in it. Again, absolutely no prior knowledge of filePro is required.
Like the Programming Tutorials, these lessons start at the beginning and
move step-by-step through all the features and functionality of filePro, but
they do it from a user's standpoint... no programming whatsoever.

Give this interactive movie CD to a temp and a short while later (about 3
hours for the full course), they will know and understand filePro and how to
use it. Someone replacing an employee for a couple weeks/month vacation?
This is the ideal way to train their replacement.

Set aside some time for a company meeting and watch this group of lessons
together. A pot of coffee and a few bagels later, and everyone will learn
something they didn't know about running filePro. I know I did when I was
preparing the course and making the movies. This CD has it all, and it
starts from scratch. You can take as much of the training as you want, but I
am certain you will go back time and again to reference some of the tricks
in these demonstrations. It is a methodical start to finish program, but you
can start and stop where you like, and go over any particular parts at any
time. People who have tried this CD out during its construction have raved
about it. Even those users I have who have used filePro for 25 years tell me
they had no idea how much they didn't know about running filePro. Each one
of them said they learned a whole host of things that they now use on a
daily basis. (Let me warn you, once this CD starts being passed around the
office, you'll find it hard to pin down who has it... no one wants to give
it up.)


That's it, the scoop is out... they are finally here. All that I can say
about this work is... I wish I, myself, had access to something like this 25
years ago. Had this Programming series and this Runtime disk been available
back in filePro's heyday, I think they would have helped it grow to be a
staple of business use today. Interest and understanding in a product helps
it flourish and develop. These CD's will bring just that to a community
which has been clamoring for such support for years. You don't have to go
anywhere to take a one-time class, the benefit of which leaves you
exponentially as the days progress until you've forgotten all the good
stuff. You save a tremendous amount on airfare and lodging... not to mention
the course itself.  You don't have to buy any dry reading reference, you
don't have to spend time trying to remember that single thing you NEED to
know right NOW. It's all here, ready for you to replay and brush up. As I
said, I am extremely proud of this work. It took months and months. If it is
the last thing I ever accomplish for filePro, it would be enough. Have a
look, learn more at this link.

      www.valar.com/training

Incidentally, I hold true to my promises. All of you who bought the
Pig-in-a-Poke, will get a huge discount. In fact, you will get ALL of your
$48 back. The full Programming Series costs $350 and if you are a legitimate
pig-purchaser, you will receive a $48 check back from The Valar Group along
with the CD package. By the way, the full Programming Series comes with not
only Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced CD's, it ALSO includes one Runtime
Tutorial CD for free. The Runtime Tutorial by itself costs $99.  (And, also,
again just "by the way", incidentally, so to speak... one of the beta
testers of this entire series said exactly this... "John, these CD's are
worth $500 a piece. You are a fool for selling them so cheap. They are
spectacular."  Well, maybe I'm a fool, but I promised to make this
affordable for everyone in the filePro community, and I want not only
businesses, but individuals to be able to afford them. Thanks you all so
much for your support on the Pig-thing... Here is the promised reward.
ENJOY!

John Esak
The Valar Group

P.S. - You all see that my company is called a "group". Honestly, this
project was not just me this time. Had it not been for the huge efforts of
"the group" on this work, you would not be seeing this mammoth series at
all. Be they all from other companies, even so, I must publicly thank them
for helping me pull this all together. I do all the talking on the CD's, but
without the help of Jim Asman, Tony Ryder, Leah O'Shell, Scott Shackelford,
Rick Walsh, Joanne Walker and Karen (my wife), these Tutorials would never
have seen the light of day. I have just had a 4th cornea operation on
Monday, and it is anyone's guess if I will ever really "see" again... had
these folks not helped me push this all through and finish it up by that
deadline, I would have been devastated. Thank you all so much! I will
publish your individual mail-to's and websites on my site, so anyone out
there wishing to avail themselves of the top-notch services you offer in
graphics, printing, layout and design, networking, and general computer
knowledge... not to mention great filePro smarts... they can find you.  I'm
glad I did.

There is not much I will be able to do for the next couple months... but, if
my sight does come back to any usable degree, I intend to offer up a
quarterly addendum CD to this product. It will contain just a few little
processing tables. Explanations of more filePro commands, and snippets of
code to demonstrate them. Maybe, I'll be able to include other
filePro-related items as well. Not a hard and fast promise, but judging by
the generally good results of this operation so far, a pretty good "maybe".
Again, enjoy the Tutorials! Let me know what you think.

P.P.S. - Oh yeah, these things are not small. They will take many days to
see... so, if you go for the full Programming set... have _many_ pots of
coffee and _many_ bagels ready. :-) I think the Beginning CD is 13 or 14
hours long.