Archive for the “Miscellaneous” Category

Everything else

With CodeRage III, CodeGear’s Virtual Developer Conference (December 1-5, 2008), approaching, all speakers have to find a solution to pre-record their sessions. One way is to load a trial version of Camtasia Studio, but if you did that a while ago already, then you either have to purchase or find an alternative if you cannot afford a license.

I gave Wink, the open source solution for tutorial and presentation creation, another try a week ago. It basically works, and if taking into account that Wink is for free, it has an amazing feature set.

I must say though, that if you know Camtasia, Wink does not reach its usability. You might say now that comparing free and commercial Software would be unfair, but there is at least one free option for Camtasia:

The latest issue (24/2008) of Germany’s c’t Magazine comes with a free version of Camtasia Studio 3.0.2. Thats an old version (current is 5.0 6.0), but its completely working. They had a similar offer a year ago or so for version 3.1 (thats the one I’m using) – but that expired now as I found today.

So, if you are a CodeRage speaker, don’t have a session recording solution yet and if you are in Germany or know someone in Germany, try to get a copy of that magazine.

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Martin Beck and Erik Tews are presenting the (probably) first practical attack against WPA:

http://dl.aircrack-ng.org/breakingwepandwpa.pdf

The described attack is a bit limited, but it’s interesting (and maybe scary) anyway.

WPA is the “safe” successor of WEP, which are encryption methods for wireless LANs. WEP is known to be easily hackable since quite a while.

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According to Mike Nash, Microsoft’s Windows Product Manager, there will be a release called “Windows 7” anytime soon (or less sooner).

So I guess that’s somehow a service release for Windows 3.11, as Windows 3.11 was followed by Windows 95 (RIP) a couple of years ago.

If I’m wrong though and Windows 7 is supposed to be the successor of Windows Vista, then I wonder what the product management and marketing department of MS is smoking these days, with Windows 2003, 2008 on the market already …

Anyway, good that CodeGear was wise enough to not remove the Win 3.1 components. They are still there, even in Delphi 2009 :-)

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This is an announcement for a CodeGear Webinar about using .NET with Delphi Win32. This seminar will be held in German language.

Am 14.10.2009 um 10:00 (MESZ) werde ich in Zusammenarbeit mit Embarcadero/CodeGear Deutschland ein (kostenloses) Online-Seminar abhalten in dem das Verwenden von .NET Funktionen aus Delphi Win32 vorgestellt werden wird.

Die Veranstaltung wird über das Embarcadero LiveMeeting-System durchgeführt. Hier geht es zur Anmeldung.
(Die Freischaltung erfolgt 15 vor Beginn)

Um vor der Veranstaltung den LiveMeeting Client zu installieren und/oder zu testen klicken Sie bitte hier.

 

Inhalt:

Wer native Windows 32 (und später ggfs. Win64) Anwendungen mit Delphi  erstellt, kann sich in der Regel auf schnellen, stabilen Code und kurze,  effektive Entwicklungszyklen einstellen. Es gibt eine reichhaltige, in  Delphi integrierte und durch zahlreiche Dritthersteller verstärkte  Komponentenbibliothek mit der sich die unterschiedlichsten Probleme  lösen lassen.

Es gibt jedoch manchmal Situation, wo man als "nativer"  Delphi-Entwickler auf das .NET Framework schielt, weil dort eine noch  viel größere Klassenbibliothek - in großen Teilen sogar kostenlos - zur  Verfügung steht und ein anstehendes Problem dort bereits eine Lösung  hat. Deswegen das ganze Projekt nach .NET zu portieren (sei es nun  Dlephi.NET oder VisualStudio/C#/VB.NET) ist jedoch meist nicht  vertretbar - was also tun?

Interessanterweise gibt es Schnittstellen zwischen .NET und Win32  Anwendungen, die es erlauben, aus Win32 Anwendungen auf .NET Funktionen  zuzugreifen.

Die Standard-Schnittstelle ist hier COM/Interop, allerdings dürfte das  viele Entwickler eher abschrecken. Mit "Managed-VCL" und "Hydra"  existieren zwei 3rd Party Produkte, die gewohnt Delphi-komfortable  Schnittstellen zur Verfügung stellen. Diese Lösungen sind leistungsfähig  aber kostenpflichtig.

Als wenig bekannte Schnittstelle bietet sich zusätzlich "Reverse  P/Invoke" an, was für für C#/C++ Entwickler recht mühselig ist (und  daher vermutlich kaum verbreitet). Für Delphi User ist das jedoch extrem  simpel einsetzbar, da das notwendige "Brimborium" komplett vom  Delphi-Compiler versteckt wird.

Diese Session wird die drei genannten Alternative vorstellen und mit  praktischen Beispielen zeigen, wie man z.B. Winforms oder  .NET-Verschlüsselungsroutinen aus Delphi für Win32 nutzt.

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As I recently noticed and already mentioned by Jim McKeeth Delphi made it back into the Top Ten of TIOBE’s Programming Community Index. Actually “we” are Ninth! :-)

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Holger recently mentioned Live Writer again, which is a Windows application that simplifies writing your blog posts with WordPress and other “standard” Weblog systems. Extremely cool - I must say :-)

Inserting images/screenshots is really a snap now!

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This article is an announcement for a Delphi Code Camp in Germany. Course language will be German, thus this article is available in German only.

Diesen Monat (vom 22. bis 25. September) wird die Entwicklerakademie wieder ein sogenanntes “Delphi Code Camp” in Mainz ausrichten. Es werden mehrere Ganztages-Workshops zu verschiedenen Delphi Themen angeboten. So werde ich unter anderem auch einen Workshop zum Thema Webentwicklung mit Delphi und IntraWeb/VCL for the Web leiten.

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Experiencing 100% CPU periodically? Installed an HP printer recently?

Talking about printer drivers is certainly somewhat off-topic on development blog, but as every developer uses a printer I thought this article to be possibly helpful …

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I recently relocated my blog and switched to WordPress as blogging engine. I must say, I’m really happy about this new blogging engine. It has thousands of plugins, virtually one plugin per possible requirement. Counterize II is a powerful hit-tracking plugin. Read the rest of this entry »

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Times are changing. In July CodeGear was finally sold from Borland to Embarcadero. From Agust 1st 2008 I will no longer represent Atozed Software. Read the rest of this entry »

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