Code Crunching

Ein guter Freund von mir, André Hotzler, veranstaltet am 11. Juli 2009 einen Fotoworkshop, welcher sich speziell an Amateure richtet. In 4 Stunden erhalten die Teilnehmer Einblick in die Zusammenhänge von Blende, Verschlusszeit und ISO-Empfindlichkeit und den daraus resultierenden Ergebnissen. Wenn auch Sie schon immer mal weg wollten von den Standardprogrammen Ihrer Kamera und Ihre Kreativität zum Ausdruck bringen wollen, dann schauen Sie doch mal rein.

Alle Informationen zum Kurs und zur Anmeldung finden Sie auf XING: https://www.xing.com/events/359475/description

Well, in a word: fantastic! The "Delphi-Tage" (Delphi Days), this year in Hamburg, are over. Last Friday and Saturday were great. Lots of sessions, quiet a few things to learn (and give away), fantastic people and friends. It was great. Thanks to all speakers and visitors, as well as thanks to Sabine Rothe from Embacadero Germany and Daniel Wolf of the Delphi-PRAXiS for making the event such a success!!!

Here is a selection of my pictures:

Do you have pictures yourself? Publish them on Flickr.com and tag them with the following tags: Delphi-Tage 2009 Hamburg Delphi Tage myEvents:event=Delphi-Tage myEvents:DT=2009, allowing us to display them on www.delphi-tage.de.

First: thank you Johan and Dr. Bob for inviting me over, I had a great time.

It was interesting meeting so many developers from the Netherlands and from so many fields across the whole development sphere. The SDN group is not solely for Delphi developers, but for all and this makes their events quiet different from others.

Developers have the chance to look outside their box at other options or just get in-depth information on their field of interests. Dr. Bob and Johan already invited me to come back for the large SDN Event in October and I am looking forward being there again.

This event was in Driebergen, close to the city Zeist, where I took this photo the night before the event.

Well, I am back from the SDN Event in Driebergen. It was a fun event, I have met quiet a few people and, after a few years, finally met Dr. Bob again. One of my session was about the Windows 7 Taskbar (an update for the components is in the pipe line, btw). And when talking about Windows 7, one of the question coming up was the user account control (UAC) and how - IF - they have changed it.

While talking about that, I started out to remind them WHY it was implemented in Windows Vista and WHY I have not turned it off, ever. The reason is simple: it was implemented to block viruses from invading your computer and yes, it works. My story for them was as simple as it was obviously surprising for most of them sitting in the room.

About two years ago, I started a small experiment. I set up a computer with a new and clean Windows Vista install. Leaving the UAC on and running updates as Windows reminded me to do just that. The way a user should be working with the PC. However, I have not installed any third party Anti-Virus software, nor any third-party firewall, just the on-board tools Windows Defender and the UAC. I used this PC regularly for internet surfing, writing mails, doing some fun, testing software and so on. I let my girl friend use it for internet surfing - she knows how to use a computer, but by far, she is no geek, or even close to that. She does Excel, Word, mails online, games online, iTunes, etc. Even some peer-to-peer sharing. She had an administrative account and I explained to her what UAC meant and why it was implemented.

Well, end of last year I put on Norton AntiVirus, McAffee and a few other anti-virus tools and ran the big test: All tools reported the same final results: 0 viruses found!

Now my challenge to you: try that with Windows XP in todays Internet world ;-)

Conclusion: yes, the UAC is bothersome at times, and when it pops up to often, it will get the user aggravated, but it has its purpose. With Windows XP's on-board tools you simply where at a large risk when you went online. I am a believer of the UAC and, while it bothers me at times, I support it.

With Windows 7 it shows up less often. So some settings will be changed easier than under Windows Vista without the user confirming that. But as far as I have seen, none of the changes (except setting the computer time of course) will survive the next reboot of your computer. And if you don't mind, under Windows 7 you can move up the UAC messages to the Windows Vista level again. And yes, if you still mind, you can turn it off as well, but I know, I won't.   

So, you've read it here before, but I have to write about it as well. The next Delphi Code Camp is coming up, and it is the best so far. The concept of the Code Camp was totally redone and this time there will be loads of new courses as well. It starts with a full day session "back to the roots." My friends Holger Flick and Daniel Wolf will give a hands on session for all who are not yet totally familar with Delphi and OOP. You have colleagues whos code scares you? Send them there, they'll get OOP injected in just a day.

All coming days, two (most are) full day courses run parallel. Olaf Monien will talk about the VCL for the Web (aka IntraWeb) and about internet protocols (Tue, Wed). Daniel Wolf will talk about usability - a must go, if you ask me. Sadly I have to be at Photokina in Cologne that day (Tue). Wednesday may track on Windows Technologies around COM is coming. Thursday Bernd Ua will talk about Multithreading and Thomas Pfister helps your RAVE reports along. So, if you speak German and you need some more of those skills, be sure to check it out!

All information are online at entwickler akademie.de. You want to go there, send me an e-mail and I'll help you to get a rebate, let's say 20% off the price ;-)

The Delphi-Tage (Delphi Days) event in Günzburg, Germany were a success. Finally I had a few minutes to scan through my image stack and select a few for presentation online. Many happy faces - well with the offers available there, no wonder at all...

Next weekend, on June 14th there are the German Delphi Days (www.delphi-tage.de). On this event speakers from Italy (Marco Cantù), CodeGear US (DavidI), CodeGear Germany and Embarcadero are coming, as well as many speakers from the German community.

Let's talk Delphi! Delphi! and Delphi!

And now, just coming in, they allow to sell older releases at prices never seen from CodeGear! BDS 2006 Architect SmallTeam Pack is being sold at 1.309 Euro (instead of 6.652 Euro), Single License for only 714 Euro (instead of 4.152 Euro). And many more products. Many other products like JBuilder 2007, the Turbo line, C++Builder 2006 and Books are for sale. Over 20 different products in over 150 combinations!

Those prices are valid on June 14th only!!! So do not miss them and come and visit the German Delphi Days, it is a once-in-a-life-time saver offer, as long as the products last!!! First come, first serve!

Well, it is available since about 3 weeks now and I had some feedback already. Now, I would like you guys to take a look at it and let me know what you think. There is a small update in the pipeline, but that is not available yet. A short product description and a video are on the project site: http://www.wischnewski.tv/en/products/dw32pl.html

Start localizing your applications. Demos come with the installer - the product is free for personal and commercial (not governmental) use.

Since Sebastian Gingter (a moderator of the Delphi-PRAXiS) is not on the Delphi-Feeds list, and he just uploads(!) his papers right now, I am giving you a pointer over to his blog. His papers are on WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) and Patterns (MVVM), in German, too.

Entries:

• WMI
• MVVM

My conference sessions are all done, so the papers are ready for download. Go to my Conference Papers page and download them as you like. They are German only this time.

Well, I just hope that the EKON has a good start today and all of you, there already HAV FUN! The first two days are centered on Workshops mostly on basic OOPP/Delphi concepts. EKON Spring itself is centered around Delphi concepts, rather than all things surrounding development with Delphi.

My Session are on Wednesday Logging with SmartInspect and on Thursday Application Localizing using my new tool.

Tomorrow I will take off here and come to Frankfurt - I am looking forward to see you all there!

At the EKON Spring, I'll present a new solution for multi-language VCL applications. It allows you to translate all forms and resource strings in an external application, comes with a command line tool for updating strings. Every language resource can be deployed seperatly, the application can be deployed without any additional resources at all - in the original developer language.

In a second step, I'll probably will not show that at the EKON Spring yet, you can save translations of forms and resource units for later projects to use.

Stay tuned for more, I'll present that here after the EKON for download ;-)

Best of all, there will be a fully usable version for free.

Finally, we have announced the official date of the upcoming Delphi Days 2008, the 4th time the German speaking community will meet for sessions, talks, and get-togethers. This year we will meet in Günzburg, southern Germany to better accomodate Delphi developers coming from Austria and Switzerland as well.

While planing is still in progress, please, tell us what you would like to see, hear, and do at the next Delphi Days. Your suggestions are welcomed and needed to make it a memorizable event, once again. This year, we want to go back to the roots and more emphasize on the community idea of the whole event.

Let's meet in Günzburg on June 14th!

I know, it is a little late, but last week was stuffed with work and I did not have time to blog anything. So, all I wanted to say "Well done, CodeGear," thanks for making CodeRage II free.

Now folks, it is time for a real life conference from CodeGear - yes, we are willing to pay for that and yes, it costs much more than USD 150 for a online conference, but it is all about the face-to-face meetings...

Anyway, you all have fun attending CodeRage. Next week I'll use to prepare my Delphi CodeCamp session on Windows Vista, write a few articles and do more web development. Then I'll continue working on my localization solution, which I am going to present at the EKON Spring 2008 edition, so stay tuned, much stuff coming up soon...   

I did not get around to write more on comparing SmartInspect and CodeSight, though there are a few more things I want to name here - so stay tuned on that. However, if you are interested in learning more about SmartInspect, join me...

I will talk about SmartInspect at the upcoming EKON 12 Spring, next February in Frankfurt/Germany. In this session I will show you how to use SmartInspect in your applications, how to pass objects, how to inspect and watchs values over time, and most importantly give you a strategy on how to implement it into an already existing application - like an afterthought. But be warned, planing to use such a tool upfront is more sensible ;-)

Track description (in German)

Well, Hadi has written about it already, he was as fast as they come. And not much more can be said, than Hadi has written already. However, I just want to throw my voice in there as well. I was quiet surprised when I read about the registration fee of 150 USD for participating in the conference, if you are not using one the current products. Well, I missed CodeRage last year, because I had other things on my hands to do, but same as Hadi, I wont attend this year either.

Why? Well, for starters, I prefer real life conferences as well. I always dreamed about attending some BorCon (was not in my budget back then) or a real life CodeRage now. As far as I heard, they probably will never happen again and I have to console myself with the EuroDevCon, which is fine. However, a virtual conference just does not have this same flair and for me it is all about meeting the people in person, get to know them, talk a little about whatever one likes, go out for a nice dinner, have fun with all those guys in the lobby and maybe attending a few sessions. But sitting in front of my laptop or computer just does not cut it.

So Hadi, what are you doing end of November? Like to meet? *g*

Well, I just wanted to ask you guys, what topics would you like to hear about on EKON 12 Spring - currently I am at submitting my proposals for the conference and there is still some room left for one or two sessions to hand in. Anything specific you want to hear about?

Drop me a line, please and let me know.

Vom 3. - 5. Dezember macht das Delphi Code Camp seinen ersten Stop in München. An drei Tagen erhalten Sie von drei Speakern viele Tipps und Tricks rund um die Softwareentwicklung mit der CodeGear Delphi IDE. Ich werde Sie am ersten der drei Tage durch die Änderungen von Microsoft Windows Vista führen und Ihnen näher bringen, was sich durch Microsofts neuestes OS für Ihre Software ändert.

Dieser Kurs bringt Ihnen als Delphientwickler das neue Betriebssystem Windows Vista näher. In Windows Vista hat Microsoft einige Spielregeln verändert, die man kennen sollte, damit auch die eigene Software problemlos funktioniert.

Sie erhalten alle Informationen, die Sie benötigen, um Ihre Software schnellstmöglich einsatzbereit für Windows Vista zu gestalten. Gleichzeitig können Sie die Software auch so gestalten, dass Sie neue Features von Windows Vista nutzen können, ohne den Nutzer zum Umstieg zu zwingen.

Agenda

Weitere Informationen entnehmen Sie bitte der offiziellen Webseite zum CodeCamp.

The Entwickler Akademie presents the Delphi-CodeCamp in Munich from December 3rd through 5th. Three days compact information on Delphi development for Windows Vista (3rd, me), Rave Reporting (4th, Thomas Pfister) and Web Development (5th, Olaf Monien). All courses will be held in German.

For more information read the Code Camp page or check my German section of the blog in a few days for detailed information on my track!

Die Planung der 4. Delphi-Tage hat begonnen. Wir wälzen derzeit einige neue Ideen, haben weitere im Hinterstübchen, überarbeiten die Alten. Hast Du Ideen oder Wünsche, gibt es etwas, das Du uns wissen lassen willst. Dann sende mir eine Email und ich werde diese ans Organisationsteam weiterleiten. Willst Du uns helfen, lass es mich wissen! Kennst Du einen Speaker, welchen Du auf den Delphi-Tagen sehen willst, lass es mich wissen! Gibt es ein Thema, welches Dich brennend interessiert, lass es mich wissen! Hast Du einen Vorschlag für einen Veranstaltungsort, lass es mich wissen!

Kurz gesagt: lass es mich wissen!

The planing of the next Delphi Days has started. Some new ideas have come up, some are still in the back of our minds, some old ideas will come back. Do you have any ideas or wishes, is there anything you want to tell us? Well, drop me a message and I'll make sure to pass it along. Do you want to help us, let me know! Do you have a speaker you would like to see, let me know! Do you have a topic you want to hear about, let me know! Do you have a suggestion for a location this year, let me know!

In short: let me know!

At the EKON I gave a session on the Windows Vista search engine and how to feed it with own content. One thing I heard quiet often was Who bothers using it. or It is hard to find what you are looking for! Well, you may be right, but I think you are wrong.

First: how is it designed? Who did Microsoft have in mind when implementing the search feature right in to the start menu of Windows Vista? Not you, probably. Microsoft designed it for the laymen using Windows, persons who use the computer as part of their work life, as part of their free-time. The average user is probably quiet happy how well the search works. But then you are coming and you tell me you can't find what you are looking for. Why?

Well, mot of us remember searches from a time when it worked strictly on file names, like dir *demo*.*, but this is not how the Windows Vista search works. The search engine (aka Windows Desktop Search 3.x) matches your search against the file name, the content of the file, meta data of the file, data about the program used to create the file, and quiet a few other things.

If you want Windows Vista to search for files containing demo in their name, you have to tell Vista to do so. And it is quiet easy, once you know it, simply type: file:(demo) and the search will return just those. You want to search for files created by a specific person, well you use author:(Daniel Wischnewski) or author:(Daniel OR Bob) (AND, NOT, OR, and so on are case-sensitive)and so on.

Once you know that the search works this way, it is time to get to know over 50 search modifiers, all part of the advanced query language coming with the Windows Desktop Search. Btw, if you like what you read here, but you are still running on Windows XP, go get it!

I just thought I let you know already, the dates for the next EKON are published. It will be in Frankfurt/Main again in September 2008, 22nd through 26th.

I'll be there, will you?

Aufgrund von Nachfragen habe ich mich entschieden meine Unterlagen der EKON aus dem letzten Jahr und der DevTracks aus diesem Frühling zum Download bereit zu stellen. Die Vorträge beider Vorstellungen waren in Deutsch und für deutsch-sprachiges Publikum.

Auf der EKON X habe ich Vorträge zu .NET gehalten (ASP.NET Web Controls & Delphi and .NET 2.0)
Die DevTracks waren auf Delphi 2007 und Windows Vista Softwareentwicklung ausgelegt.

Die Unterlagen finden Sie auf meiner Conference Page als Downloads.

On Request I have decided to offer my EKON X papers (last year) and the DevTracks Spring Edition 2007 papers for download as well. Both papers where for a German audience, contain the PowerPoint slides as well as all samples shown.

At EKON X I focused on .NET development (ASP.NET Web Controls & Delphi and .NET 2.0)
The DevTracks were focused on Delphi 2007 and Windows Vista development.

The papers are on my Conference Page for download.

At the EKON I noticed that many developers do not know one of the great new short cuts introduced. The first ten icons in the short cut menu bar can be reached by two keys on you keyboard at any time. Simply press the [WIN] key with [1] through [0] above your letters to start the corresponding application. Those short cuts however do not work with your number block at the right of the keyboard.

Just to highlight what I mean...

Just in case you don't know [WIN]+[L], give it a try as well (this is not new though).

One of the things promised, which are on the Internet somewhere, but sometimes hard to find, was a code snippet which reliably returns, whether the program is started in administrative mode or not. This piece of code is similar to old known solutions, however under Vista the old version returned the user level, rather than the token under which the program was started. The following code works well under Windows Vista and older systems.

const
  SECURITY_NT_AUTHORITY: TSIDIdentifierAuthority = (Value: (0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 5));
  SECURITY_BUILTIN_DOMAIN_RID = $00000020;
  DOMAIN_ALIAS_RID_ADMINS = $00000220;
  SE_GROUP_ENABLED = $00000004;

function IsAdmin: Boolean;
var
  hAccessToken: THandle;
  ptgGroups: PTokenGroups;
  dwInfoBufferSize: DWORD;
  psidAdministrators: PSID;
  x: Integer;
  bSuccess: BOOL;
begin
  Result   := False;
  bSuccess := OpenThreadToken(GetCurrentThread, TOKEN_QUERY, True, hAccessToken);
  if not bSuccess then
    if GetLastError = ERROR_NO_TOKEN then
      bSuccess := OpenProcessToken(GetCurrentProcess, TOKEN_QUERY, hAccessToken);
  if bSuccess then
  begin
    GetTokenInformation(hAccessToken, TokenGroups, nil, 0, dwInfoBufferSize);
    ptgGroups := GetMemory(dwInfoBufferSize); 
    bSuccess := GetTokenInformation(hAccessToken, TokenGroups, ptgGroups, dwInfoBufferSize, dwInfoBufferSize);
    CloseHandle(hAccessToken);
    if bSuccess then
    begin
      AllocateAndInitializeSid(SECURITY_NT_AUTHORITY, 2, SECURITY_BUILTIN_DOMAIN_RID, DOMAIN_ALIAS_RID_ADMINS, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, psidAdministrators);
      {$R-}
      for x := 0 to ptgGroups.GroupCount - 1 do
      begin
        if (SE_GROUP_ENABLED = (ptgGroups.Groups[x].Attributes and SE_GROUP_ENABLED)) and EqualSid(psidAdministrators, ptgGroups.Groups[x].Sid) then
        begin
          Result := True;
          Break;
        end;
      end;
      {$R+}
      FreeSid(psidAdministrators);
    end;
    FreeMem(ptgGroups);
  end;
end;

Thanks to Olaf for pointing out the insufficient memory problem. Fixed in this sample.

The downloads are ready, you'll find my conference papers at my new Conference Page. There are no downloads for the CodeCamp session, as this was mainly a session for questions & answers on Delphi, Windows Vista & .NET. However, I have promised a few code snippets on this session, which will appear over the next days on my blog, though not before Tuesday, when I will be in my office next time.      

In one of my sessions I promissed you folks to post the links for fixing the Windows Vista copying issue, being so slow and so on because of DRM.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=938194
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=938979

Right now I am sitting at the EKON in Daniels lately announced session on BlackFish SQL .NET. While he talks about BlackFish and how to create fully managed assemblies which plug into the BlackFish database, which itself is fully managed, he also shows his software solution named BFWebConsole. BFWebConsole will enable you to administrate any BlackFish SQL .NET server remotely. The tool will be available in about two (let's say four) weeks for free from his (or his employees) website. Once it is out, I'll let you know, it is definitely worth a look! Folks inside CodeGear are stunned by his tool already, Steve S. wrote:

You work fast and in the dark. [...] Looks really nice.

I'll upload a picture from his presentation later today, as I cannot find my USB cable to plug in the card reader.

Well, all my papers are prepared and I just boarded the train from Munich to Frankfurt. While bying my ticket I realised that I have forgotten my BahnCard which allows my a 50% rabatte. Well, the conductor just passed and signed my ticket for this purpose, so I can go to the ticket office later and get my money back, at least most of it.

Yesterday evening I skyped Marco Cantú and asked him to save a copy of his new book for me, which he will do, so I am going to pick it up today, too. Great, I am interested to see what I have missed in the latest releases of Delphi. The IDE and the whole package is growing so fast, despite the recent ommissions such as C#Builder, that I know I have not seen everything just yet.

I'll write a short review of the book here as soon as I had the time to read through it, however this will take a few weeks as I just bought a few other technical books on a different matter, which I'll read first. Well, that's it for now, more later in the day.

After the Sessions at the EKON I will release the conference materials on my newly created conference page. I do hope that this page will fill over time, but here is a start. My sessions will be on Wednesday, so there is not much sense in going there just now, but I wanted this part to be ready, so here you go.

http://www.gumpi.com/Blog/Special.aspx?=Conferences

Well,

it has taken longer than expected, but I am back in the blogging community. Starting with the EKON @ Frankfurt today, I will be blogging again, yes! As for the EKON itself, I will be there starting tomorrow. I have two sessions on Windows Vista (Application Recovery API and Windows Desktop Search) and a CodeCamp on Windows Vista.

A few things on this Blog: I will start blogging about different matter, not just software development. However, the feed supports categories, so you can filter them in your reader as you like. Each entry will be marked as either German or English, depending on the language I chose to write it in. Comments are moderated as in my old blog to prevent spamming. The current design is one of the default designs comming with dasBlog. For now, I'll simply adapt it for my needs and future will tell what comes...

I am looking forward to meet old friends again, seeing people I have not met yet and having some fun.

See you soon and read you often,
Daniel