ADV: The Survivor Addendum

[John Esak]

All right, I've had enough time to think about it. I've had a few more days
of recuperation. It's not going as well as I would like, but it doesn't
appear to have been a total loss.  Regardless, there is no reason for me to
not take on The filePro Survivor Addendum. I believe now that I could even
do it completely blind if that happens again.

What, you may ask is the fPSA? :-)  I mentioned it earlier. I will be
releasing a CD once quarterly that holds a bunch of code, tricks and
what-not specifically about filePro. It will contain mostly movies like the
Survivor Series Tutorials. (Check out samples of these at
www.valar.com/training .)

Each CD will contain perhaps, a dozen or so movies, maybe more depending on
time constraints.  The code will be in separate files which you can
immediately copy to either Unix or Windows. (Assuming the USER command isn't
involved... :-).  I will send these CD's out on the first of each Qtr,
starting October 1st, 2005. The first year is guaranteed, or money back.
After that, who knows? If it is successful enough and/or people really like
the "thing", great, I'll probably keep it up. (Though I never imagine that
I'm going to live longer than tomorrow these days. Each new day always feels
like a gift from God, and I know I'm on borrowed time. :-)

As I promised earlier, those who bought and are buying The filePro Survivor
Series will get this "addendum" for free. To be fair, I'll extend this bonus
until the end of August, 2005. That is, anyone who has already bought the
Tutorial series (and thank you all very much) and anyone who buys it through
midnight on August 31st, 2005 will get the fPSA CD magazine free for the
first year, 4 CD's delivered quarterly. Otherwise, the cost for the CD
addendum magazine itself will be $75/yr (retroactive). This includes
first-class [or maybe even Priority Mail) delivery. [By retroactive, I mean
that if you buy into the series in the middle of the year you get the
previous CD's for that year and any that fulfill that year. Years start on
October 1st, that is when the first CD will be released.]

I will try and pack the CD's with as much great stuff as possible. Happily,
since the majority of fPSA users will have already purchased the Survivor
Tutorials, I can make the assumption on the Survivor Addendum CD's that the
audience is at least Advanced level, if not Expert level. This will make it
much easier in preparation of the movies and code examples. If possible, I
will try and include at least one complete "application" or
"mini-application" on each CD. By that, I mean something which can be put in
place "as is" and work. This is not to say that everyone won't modify, and
customize this small app to their own taste, but it won't just be a code
snippet. I will probably do these similar to the Pig-in-a-Poke demo, which
was a complete working version of the code to use as a starting base. Along
with the mini-app will be about a dozen, maybe more who knows, movie
discussions and step-by-step examples of filePro coding and commands. If
there is anything else of use to filePro people that I can put on there, I
will.

You will have to leave it up to me as to the topics and coverage in the
magazine... I'm sure always happy to take suggestions, input, even
submissions from others, always good to put out what people want and need.
However, I make absolutely NO promises or guarantees on this ground. I've
been there, done that, and know better. I put out The Guru Magazine for
three years (36 months!) without missing one issue or one deadline.... but,
boy, it was like pulling teeth. Even getting good, reliable authors to have
their stuff in on-time in a reasonably ready-to-go format was like herding
cats. I won't go through that again.  However, I still have the experience
and know-how, so hopefully, with more and more free time, I'll be able to
make these CD's rather good.  Like I say, there won't be a whole lot, but
I'm not sure what a "whole lot" really means. I think it will be enough (and
more than enough) for what is essentially a $19 CD, not counting material,
shipping, labor, etc. Again, I'll promise the first year or pro-rated money
back if I fail to deliver. If the year happens and all is well, After that,
I'll let you know.  :-)

Anyway, there it is. Better to announce it now and give everyone the
opportunity to get this new electronic magazine free with their purchase of
the Survivor Series Tutorials, rather than try and drum up new support for
the thing later on in the year.

John Esak

P.S. - Yes, any pig-purchaser still gets their $48 back when purchasing the
Programming Tutorial Series, and yes, you will get the fPSA for free if you
buy the Programming Tutorials  by August 31st. The pig-discount will be
available to you forever, but after August 31st, the fPSA will cost you $75
like anyone else.