ADV: RE: export file permissions.

[John Esak]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: filepro-list-bounces+john=valar.com at lists.celestial.com 
> Sent: Friday, June 18, 2010 10:18 AM
> Subject: RE: export file permissions.
>
> John,
> 
> Thanks. I always appreciate your responses. I do own your 
> filePro Survivor CD's. They have saved my countless hours of 
> trial and error in filePro and help me breathe some new life 
> in some of our 20+ year old applications.
> 
> For some reason I didn't think to look there. YOU are the 
> best index for your Survivor series. I'll go back and look 
> for that section.
> 
> Joe


:-)


No problem Joe.  I thought you had bought it.  A lot of people
have...somewhere near 100 now. I hope I haven't saturated the market! :-)
Thanks for your nice words.  It's hard to talk up one's product without
seeming arrogant, or obviously hyping it. Happily, people like you, in fact
everyone who has bought it, can easily see the enormous time and effort I
put into making it the best and fastest way to learn any filePro function.
You see? There I go again. :-)  I know people working hard out there, barely
find the time to refer to it when they need to learn something fast. That is
great and one way I really hoped the course would be used.  Honestly though,
I wish those who bought it, could actually find the time to put it on in the
background from start to finish. I know it will sound funny to say, but
"that's the way I wrote it."  :-)  Of course, one would say that about
anything, but I mean I took meticulous care in presenting the course in such
a way that no programming term was ever used before you had learned what it
meant. The first time any filePro term or programming term was used in the
classes, it was to explain what that term meant and as much about how it is
used as possible. Then, once it was understood, I would use that word or
phrase to describe the next thing to learn... And so on. If anyone thinks
that didn't take some time and preparation, well, a year would be about
right. It was a huge undertaking to make all those several hundred movies.
Most of them I had to re-make several times and/or edit them several times.
Yow! It was tough... But I think it was well worth it. Not for the sale $$$.
That doesn't or didn't come to a small fraction of what I made (and *needed*
to make) a year.  It was worth it for the filePro community and to all those
who need or needed to learn filePro quickly from Being a complete novice to
becoming an advanced/expert in a very short time. (It would take about 2
weeks to a month to totally 

Incidentally, why I thought that developing each programming term
sequentially was so important was because  I have taken numerous courses
which start easy and are extremely understandable... Then in Chapter two or
three go off into outer space using words and concepts it was assumed the
reader knew. That is so frustrating. Everyone knows what I mean, from the
learn C in 21 days type thing, to Beginning Guitar... :-)  There are
plateaus you reach and BANG! They move on light years with no explanations.
I was determined for someone taking this course to NEVER experience that
frustration. So, I started from the ultimate beginning, if there is such a
place... That in itself was hard because you do have to make a few
assumptions about how much the viewer/listener knows. :-)  Then, I built
step-by-step atomically  a complete invoicing system... and everything that
involves. You should see the storyboards I laid out for the project. They
are on giant easel paper, about 7 or 8 full books. I finally distilled them
down to one detailed book and took off. I thought it would take me 3 or 4
months, it took from about my birthday (March 6th) until way after Christmas
the next year. And then, it took me nearly 3 full months to package them all
up with the automatic starting CD's, HTML Contents and chapter cataloging.
After that a month or so of false starts with niggling mistakes here and
there in the very first release. Thank God for my beta testers (mostly Jim
Asman and Tony Ryder). 

About 6 months after Version 1 came out I finished the GUI based filePro
index of everything in the entire series. Then, of course, all the same
distribution/packaging hassles happened on that version. Except that because
I needed filePro itself to scan and index into the databases, I had to
figure out a way to do this without breaking any licensing, while assuring
that anyone who bought the CD's would have the "rclerk" program on their
machine whether they owned filePro or not. I finally settled on having FP
Technologies sell me a bundle of specially designed clerk.exe that would
only run filePro processes in a strictly limited read-only fashion, so I
could include a copy with each CD set.

It has been untouched since then. Version 1.4 is several years ago now, and
there is no problem with it of which I'm aware. If there was and it was
small, I would probably just fix it and keep the level at 1.4. I wouldn't
want everyone to think there is any reason they needed to move to a 1.5
version. I did charge for the version that included the
movie-search-and-play routine since it increased the value of the product
tremendously.

Well, that was a hell of a lot of explanation.  Some would call it another
advert. It wasn't. I get going, and as fast as I type... Well. Sh*t happens.
:-) I'll put an ADV in the subject line anyway. Don't want to offend
nobody...

P.S. ??

Happily, the course is an easy thing for me to get out these days. I hardly
have to do anything at all. I purchased a Linux copy (no, sorry a Free BSD)
copy of filePro for the server used by Verio (the ISP that hosts my site
www.valar.com) and I wrote some nifty processing on there that checks every
few seconds to see if anyone has submitted the Buy Now form which takes it
through my credit-card gateway.  I accomplish this with a little help from
one of Fairlight's programs... Damn I forget the name of it now... Not
Onegate, some other littler utility that lets me encrypt the stuff going to
authorize.net the card processor. But mostly, it's all filePro that sends
out emails directly from the Verio server (another Fairlight utility called
Lightmail) to the buyer, me, and then makes some file copies of the
purchaser's info. When that stuff is all done, the process automatically
prints a label in my living room on a barcode printer... A barcode printer
so Jim Asman was able to make neat little bitmap of a Wizard on it along
with the ship-to address. I have filePro print in tiny letters at the bottom
of the 4" x 4" label exactly what product has just been purchased. (I used
to sell lots of things.) All I need to do is pick the right thing off the
shelf, slap the label on it and put stamps on it. Normally I just bring it
to the Post Office and send it out Priority, because they accept the home
made label.  

It is all so automated thanks to filePro. Money goes in the bank, the
package label goes out, and oh yes, my G/L is updated with the purchase as
well.. And all other ancillary files, customer record, etc. I could not do
anything I do without filePro.

The smartest thing I ever did was buy a copy of filePro for the server I
lease from Verio. Well, no lease, just roughly $95/mo and I can have as many
web sites as I want running anything I can dream up. They are a hell of a
deal... And I've been with them for 20+ years... They used to be something
called Rapidsite and before that Hiway, and before that something else. I
know there may be better deals these days. But I love having a full Unix
server I can log into and run filePro on backing up all my web sites. It
just eliminates so many hassles.  As for the better deals... Well, I am a
big proponent of customer loyalty. If someone has treated me right for years
and years, I don't switch to someone else, just because they offer a lower
price.  

Okay, I'm done. :-)

No need to make this a thread of any kind. Unless someone has questions.

John 

P.S. If anyone wants the Survivor Series CD's... They are $299, and you get
them at www.valar.com/survivor_series. I have always sold them with a money
back guarantee, but I think with the number of copies sold, nearly 100, that
is no longer necessary... They have proven their value. I still love to hear
about any typos or problems, and I will usually fix them, but it will stay
1.4 forever. The product is on 4 CD's and is Windows based.

I also have the Survivor Series accounting package up there. It was also a
monolithic project and well worth whatever it's priced at... I think it's
$299 also. However, I sell that product now with absolutely no support, no
help, no nothing. It is elaborately complete and thoroughly documented with
step-by-step movies. It can usually integrate with anything you have going
in filePro, has a full General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts
Receivable, and Payroll, but you're on  your own with it after the sale.
Anyone could install and run it in less than 15 minutes as is, it's that
good. It isn't Quickbooks, of course, :-), but it does have a default Chart
of Accounts and is the ultimate training course in accounting and filepro. I
think it's worth it just to copy the code and schema of the various modules
and tables, but I am prejudiced. Had you noticed?  :-)   (This product CD,
comes with both *nix version and a Windows version on it. You get both.)