Code Crunching

Actually, this time I just wanted to promote the website which will host the BlackFish WebConsole soon. As I have written before, it will be a free product which you can deploy to any server hosting the BlakFish SQL server. I was excited after first seeing a video on this tool and even more after seeing it demonstrated live.

Daniel, you do work in the dark!

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.      

At the EKON I met Ray Konopka of Raize Software and he showed me his VCL component sets and their logging application CodeSite. WOW! Why didn't I know this application already, why didn't anyone tell me before? What a great tool for tracing your software, even on your clients computers when you are not there. When developing our content management system Content ACE, CodeSite would have helped in a great way when debugging sessions just could not get us there, especially when initially deploying our software to beta customers. I am surprised that CodeGear does not use it inside the Delphi tools development process.

I have toyed around with it yesterday and started today with inserting the first traces into my new software project which I will introduce later this year. While I have actually not yet done much tracing with it in the new software, I am already aware that it will help a lot when time comes. You should check it out!

The greatest thing about CodeSite, it works not only in native Delphi, but in C++Builder, Delphi.NET, C# and any other .NET language as well. With some tweaking, I am sure, you could use it in scripting languages as well - sure, first you have to create some ActiveX that hosts CodeSite, but this should be done easily enough. Might happen, that I'll do just that soon.

Auch wenn es den regulären Betrieb vom RAD Studio nicht so beeinflusst wie es das Update #3 von Delphi 2007 tat, so fehlt sie doch manchmal, die gute alte System.pas. CodeGear hat einen kleinen Fix bereitgestellt, der die System.pas in wenigen Sekunden herunterlädt und der Installation nachschiebt ;-)

Trotzdem ist es aus meiner Sicht erschreckend, dass solche wichtigen Dateien einfach im Installer vergessen werden. Welche wohl noch?...

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.

Letztes Wochenende war ich endlich mal wieder auf einem Lehrgang mit Sensei Nishiyama. In die Schänzelhalle am sehr schönen Bodensee in Konstanz kamen ungefähr 150 Karateka. Aufgeteilt in 4 Einheiten (Samstag) waren die 1. und die 2. Einheit inhaltlich fast identisch, so dass ich froh war, bei der ersten nur zugeschaut zu haben.

Ich hatte mir mehr erwartet von dem Lehrgang. Sensei Nishiyama hat sehr viel erzählt und leider inhaltlich nichts Neues verraten, sondern mehr aus der Geschichte erzählt. Dafür ist mir mein Geld eigentlich zu schade. In der 4. Einheit hat er das Tempo leicht angezogen, so dass wir immerhin mal geschwitzt haben, aber auch nicht viel. Und wer mich kennt, der weiß, dass ich eigentlich sehr schnell schwitze.

Aber nach gut 10 Jahren tat es gut Sensei Nishiyama wieder mal erleben zu können. Leider war es mir nicht möglich auch Sonntag zu bleiben und da der Veranstalter Fotos mit Sensei Nishiyama am Samstag nicht zuließ, bin ich auch aus dieser Sicht leer ausgegangen...

So habe ich die Gelegenheit genutzt und etwas Geld in Literatur investiert, da Schlatt vor Ort war und seine Ware verkauft hat.

Ich habe die Ehre, Sensei Keigo Abe, Chief Instructor der JSKA, nach München einzuladen. Sensei Abe war 10 Jahre technischer Direktor der JKA, der größten japanische Karateorganisation.

Der Lehrgang wird in zwei Einheiten aufgeteilt und wird am 17. Oktober von 18:00 bis 21:00 Uhr im Pestalozzi-Gymnasium stattfinden. Weitere Informationen findet Ihr auf der speziell eingerichteten Lehrgangsseite.

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