Archive for the ‘productivity’ Category

Scripting Engine Unit Template

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

I must say, Delphi Live Templates and the Scripting Engines are REALLY amazing.  I wanted to make a new scripting engine, but then I got to thinking that my scripting engines had a lot of similar code, so I figured I would make a Live Template to create Scripting Engines.  I based it on Nick’s BaseScriptingEngine from his article on Creating a Live Templates Scripting Engine.

I then created a Template Project for the Scripting Engine Package.  So I can pop out a scripting engine now faster then you can say “Delphi Rocks”.

I thought I would share my Scripting Engine Unit Template.  You will probably want to make your own Scripting Engine Package Template Project, but if there is enough interest I will share mine out.  You will most likely want to modify this template to suite your own framework.

[Scripting Engine Unit Template]

Note: This references my general scripting engine to create a new GUID.  You will need to do that manually until I dress up my general scripting engine for public consumption.

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Posted in CodeGear, Delphi, library, productivity, tools | 1 Comment »

Attending CodeRage II

Monday, November 26th, 2007

So I am breaking the cardinal rule of attending a virtual developers conference: multitasking. Sure, that is one of the advantages, but at the same time, it really detracts from how much you get from the conference if you are are tying to do your job at the same time (not to mention it detracts from your job performance). Normally I would commit some time, but we are on a serious deadline right now, so I am getting it done.

As a result I am skimming many of the sessions. I’ll catch them on replay.

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Posted in CodeGear, CodeRage, Delphi, productivity | No Comments »

Differences in desktop VMWare versions

Wednesday, October 17th, 2007

As a developer, VMWare provides a great way to test your software and version control your entire development environment. You can do it for free too.

Version controlling your client requires just installing Delphi in VMWare and doing your development in the VM. Then when you have a release you backup the entire VM and move forward, able to change your packages, libraries and components without fear. Then if you need to go back and make a one off on the previous release you can go back to that backup and everything is setup just as you left it. Naturally you keep your source code in a version control system with the versions marked and forked correctly.

Technically VMWare claims to have 2 desktop versions: VMWare Workstation (their desktop powerhouse) and VMWare Player (their free version), but their base VMWare server is very similar to VMWare Workstation and is also free. I’ve always just used VMWare Workstation, which is what I recommend if you have the choice. But if you are on a budget, or want the latest version without upgrading (what happened to me) then here is a feature matrix of the differences for your reference:

Version Make new Snapshots Multiprocessor VM’s Drag & drop* Price
Workstation Full Multiple and forks 1 or 2 CPU (if host supports) Between host and guest $189
Player No, w/ limited editing None* Yes, but can’t change Same as Workstation Free
Server Full Single Snapshots Same as workstation No drag and drop Free
  • Drag and drop requires VMWare Tools to be installed.
  • While player has no Snapshots, you can always backup the whole VM.
  • Server has the added bonus of connecting to a VM on a remote VMWare server or locally.
  • Only Workstation has multi-monitor support.
  • Server and Workstation have a nice quick switch view for running multiple VM’s at once.

For development, VMWare Workstation is really the best. It has a number of other features not even listed here, like video capture of the screen. There are a lot of other features in common on all three too.

One last tip: If you can, get the Volume License version of Windows XP to install inside your VM since it does not require activation or reactivation.  What an annoying feature of XP – make a change to the VM and it comes up telling you that you software is now illegal and no longer works.  I believe the Volume License version of the Enterprise edition of Vista also circumvents the activation hurdle, although with 120 day evaluation, that isn’t such a big deal.

Are there other differences I am missing?

Posted in Delphi, productivity, reference | 3 Comments »

Find out if Someone is Copying You

Monday, September 10th, 2007

In school could could just look over your shoulder. Online it is a little trickier, and a greater threat. This is especially a threat to bloggers: Someone else posts your content as their own. Now you can quickly check to find out with Copyscape. I’ve seen similar services. It looks for other sites that are largely similar to yours. They offer “premium” services if you are really serious. The results I saw with the free service were not convincing though, and “premium” service didn’t seem to offer enough more to justify the investment.

Posted in productivity | 3 Comments »

Did you know. . .

Friday, August 31st, 2007

So Nick Hodges posted a Did you know in response to Steve Trefethen’s challenge. I thought I would get in on the act.

I was actually unfamiliar with the keyboard shortcuts Nick shared. I am an old school keyboard shortcut kind of guy and still use the [CTRL]+[K] shortcuts for the most part (go WordStar!), so I use the [CTRL]+[K] + [I] and [CTRL]+[K] + [U] equivalents instead.

Did you know you can use [CTRL]+[K] + [N] to convert the selection to UPPERCASE? and [CTRL]+[K] + [O] to convert it to lowercase?

There may be a non [CTRL]+[K] alternative, but I don’t know it. What would be slick is if there was a “correct case” conversion that would convert it to the case it was declared in. I’ve seen plug-ins that do that though.

Posted in Delphi, productivity | 4 Comments »