The question is, as always with this common situation is whether to pull the code into a “blob” method in the form and change all variables to properties, or call the program from the form with parameters. I realized my usual inclination is to use the former because eventually I would be binding the form properties to properties on future business classes that I’d create down the road. It’s odd how I’ll suddenly think of a usual problem in a different light. This is a routine that’s run four times a year, the new format is needed soon, and the client wants to begin planning for a new application to replace this one. Visual FoxPro will probably not be the tool of choice, so there is no reason to build the Queen Mary when a dinghy will get us across the narrow inlet just fine.

Can you tell I’m prone to make everything into A Work Of Art? Maybe I’m changing after all.

I had to revive my previous laptop in order to run an old version of software incompatible with Windows 7. I felt inordinately smug that 1) I hadn’t yet cleaned and dumped the laptop, and 2) I use a removable hard drive for many of the tools my two laptops would need to share.

Luckily I was only stuck slightly when, on-site at a new client’s, I couldn’t get to information I wanted to use from the removable drive. The files had been encrypted on the drive while connected to the other laptop.

I say luckily, because, while searching for a work around (or reality check) I read posts from people who found out only when a computer had died and they installed the old drive in a new system. Yikes.

I expect this may seem obvious to some of you. It wasn’t to me. And it effectively kills any reason whatsoever to use it. Indeed, I’d go so far as to call it a danger.

I haven’t settled on an alternative, so if you have a personal favorite, I’d like to hear about it. And if I’ve just missed the work around, I’d be pleased to hear about that, too.