Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Friday, December 10, 2004

25% rebate coupons for user group attendees

Don't forget to use your 25% rebate coupons before December 31st, 2004. Roughly three weeks left!

If you're not going to use it, please feel free to give the coupon to someone who will use it.

Thanks!

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Delphi 2005 tour - 4 cities next week!

Not to be missed!

Giveaways include 25% rebate and T-shirts. And of course raffles for real product!

Many more live interviews scheduled (BDNradio)

Don't miss these!

Delphi 2005 update coming...

Just wanted to let you know that we do have an update underway that will improve memory usage among some other issues that have been raised post ship. Thank you for bringing some of these to our attention, your early feedback has been very helpful. We expect to have this update available after Thanksgiving, sometime in early December. Although there are some common issues raised here in these forums, the majority of early customer feedback has been that Delphi 2005 is a high quality Delphi release with an amazing feature set. With more features than we ever put in a single release, there will inevitably be some bugs that come up that we need to fix and we're focused on keeping Delphi 2005 quality level up to it's feature level - the highest ever :o)

Thanks again for your feedback and happy holidays,
Michael

Originally posted by Michael Swindell on Borland's newsgroups

Thursday, November 11, 2004

JBuilder 2005 Foundation - Totally FREE! No registration!

That's right. You read it right. NO REGISTRATION.

w00t! :)

Get your piece of the action now!

Delphi 2005 Launch Tour across the US

BDN article

Don't miss these events.

And, if you don't see your local group on the list, please tell your local user group leader to get in touch with me ASAP so we can schedule something. Keep in mind that I'm only running the US ones. Thanks!

Friday, November 5, 2004

Coming soon! BDNradio: LIVE from Scotts Valley, CA

We've done a bunch of successful private partner briefings in the past, and now is the time to start doing some in public for all your listening pleasures.

We're planning to cover a bunch of different topics this quarter for both Delphi 2005 and JBuilder 2005. Developer Relations will be the host, and we will be inviting members of the development staff to discuss the areas that they worked on. You will get all your questions answered directly by the awesome talent that wrote the stuff. The events will also of course be archived, so even if you can't be there when it is live, you can listen and enjoy it later on.

To start off, we will need all of your help to do a load test. This is scheduled to happen at 10:00am PST (06:00pm GMT) on Monday November 15th. Stay tuned for more information.

Assuming that the load test goes well (we have no reason to believe it won't, but please help us anyway), the real stuff will start happening on Monday November 22nd at 10:00am PST (06:00pm GMT).

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

Dale throws a million bucks at Anders

Too bad it's Borland Bucks. :)

This one was planned, BTW. The Video

David I launches T-shirt at Anders

Of course, David couldn't see anything as he was blinded by the lights, but you have to admit that he got a pretty good hit here.

The "Power I" shirt was rolled up and and rubberbanded and hit me straight in the face. The damn thing bounced off and someone else took it though. Unbelievably bad luck on my part. I mean, here I was on the frontline and took a bullet and didn't even get to keep it...

I'll buy it on eBay if you're selling it... ;-)

OK, enough babbling - here's the video. Those dual double barrel T-shirt guns are awesome. Dale is going to have to come up with something better for next year... ;-)

Monday, September 20, 2004

TeamB makes the local paper

In the middle of the annual TeamB conference (this time right after BorCon 2004) we had a photographer (Dan Coyro) from the Santa Cruz Sentinal show up and take a few photos for an article in this past Sunday's business section.

Link to Santa Cruz Sentinel article "Borland Bounces Back"

Dan gave me permission to share the full resolution version of these pictures, so here they are!


This picture was on the front page of the business section under the headline "Borland Bounces Back"


This picture was on the back page of the business section

Friday, August 27, 2004

Ten *fresh* BorCon 2004 admissions on EBay!

BorCon 2004 tickets on EBay!

BDN article

The last auction was heavily sniped at the end, so make sure you put in your max bid early. Bidding went from $800 to $1175 in the last half hour.

Enjoy! Good luck! And see you at BorCon 2004 in San Jose!

Friday, August 20, 2004

We're doing it again! BorCon 2004 admission on EBay!

BorCon 2004 tickets on EBay!

BDN article

The last auction was heavily sniped at the end, so make sure you put in your max bid early. Bidding went from $700 to $850 in the last seconds last time.

Enjoy! Good luck! And see you at BorCon 2004 in San Jose!

Made in Borland hat

This thing's been sitting in my office ever since I had it made. It's better off actually being used by someone who wears hats than collecting dust in my office.

"Made in Borland" hat

Enjoy!

One more sticker on EBay!

BORL sticker

Proceeds pays for DevRel lunch! ;)

Thursday, August 19, 2004

Borland Online Picnic September 18th, 2004

Greetings!

It's time again for the annual Borland Online Picnic, and You're Invited!

Every year Borland hosts a picnic and fun fest for Borlanders, TeamB, and our online community. This is the first year that the picnic will be held in conjunction with the Borland Conference so we hope to have a large turnout. The picnic will be held on Saturday September 18th, 2004 from 11am-3pm at De Laveaga Park in Santa Cruz, California. We will provide food and drinks. Space to play Frisbee, softball and other outdoor games will be available. Parking is metered but there are quite a number of free spots in the area.

Everyone is welcome. If you would like to attend please RSVP to jfrazier@borland.com *no later than* September 10th. Be certain to use a subject line "Online Picnic" and the total number (including yourself) of adults and children attending.

For more information about TeamB please visit http://www.teamb.com/

For more information about the Borland Conference, please visit http://info.borland.com/conf2004/.

The six hour thriller! Pass the popcorn!

Little less than 6 hours left of this incredibly suspenseful thriller. Come watch the ACTION!

Pass the popcorn, please!

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Update: Last chance for a SUPER deal on BorCon 2004!!!

Get your BorCon 2004 pass on EBay

There are currently 4 bids, which means that 4 passes will sell, and the 5th one could be yours!

Bid now before you forget!

Update: There are 12 people watching this auction right now! It was 8 last night and 4 yesterday morning.

"Watching" means that they have it on their watch list, and will get reminders (I think) as the auction is about to expire. In order to avoid being sniped by one of these people, you need to put in your bid now, and as you may know, you only get an "out bid" email once you get sniped, and that might be too late.

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Borland joins ECMA

"We're delighted to be a part of Ecma International -- to play a more active role in furthering the evolution of the .NET platform and strengthening our support for C# development," said Patrick Kerpan, chief technology officer at Borland. "Because Borland is a platform-neutral vendor, we're in an ideal position to lend objective insight into the formation of standards. This is just the latest example of our continuing commitment to helping ensure that these standards meet the needs of developers."

"I am very pleased that Borland has joined the Association," said Jan van den Beld, secretary general of Ecma International. "Getting broadly applied, high-quality standards require active participation of stakeholders in a technology -- i.e. the .NET platform -- and its building blocks. Borland's critical and constructive support is highly appreciated."

Press Release

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Thanks for lunch, Chris!

A couple of weeks ago I sold a BORL sticker on eBay, and it sold for a whopping $56.55 to Chris Dickerson.

Today, DevRel was finally able to enjoy lunch all at the same time and place (Yamamori Sushi here in Scotts Valley).

Thanks again, Chris!

Tuesday, August 10, 2004


This image is part of the cycle on the main page. Just in case you missed it, here it is!

JBuilder 2005 Announced and Available for Pre-Order

JBuilder 2005, our latest and greatest Java version of our award-winning Java IDE, has been announced and is available for pre-order.

For links to the press releases, and other information, please see my BDN article

Friday, August 6, 2004

BorCon 2004 Math Excercise of the Day

As John's article points out, you can buy Delphi 8 at BorCon 2004 at 2/3rds off. Software Assurance on this deal is mandatory. And this will guarantee you a copy of the next version of Delphi!

To fully understand the magnitude of this extraordinary deal, I hereby offer the following math problem:

D8+Dnext = 1/3*D8 + SA

This gives:

Dnext = SA - 2/3*D8

We also know that:

SA = 0.3*D8

Substitution gives:

Dnext := 0.3*D8 - 2/3*D8 = -0.37*D8

With D8 = $3,000 we get:

Dnext := -$1,110

Is that a deal or what?

Friday, July 16, 2004

What have I done?

My BORL sticker for sale

I started it at $0.01 and I was thinking I would get $2 or so, enough for a kid's meal... ;-)

Here it is at $51 and counting... Wow!

And now others are joining in...

Check this out - a vintage Paradox mug.

But you'll have to outbid me on that one, and remember, I have $51 to play with.

Enjoy!

Friday, July 9, 2004

Skype - P2P VOIP (Internet Telephony)



Skype works a million times better than MSN Messenger when it comes to voice communication.

It's free, high quality and encrypted.

Enjoy!

Friday, June 18, 2004

Borland Accelerates Success of State of Geneva

Pretty cool case study. Tim Del Chiaro just posted this on the BDN.

"The State of Geneva’s Information Technologies Centre (CTI) has selected J2EE and Borland for all future local government development projects."

“The ease of implementation of the Borland Enterprise Server solution, its standards compliance, open infrastructure (CORBA) and excellent JBuilder integration gave it the edge.”

Case Study - Borland Accelerates Success of State of Geneva

Thursday, June 17, 2004

First post

Well, first post exclusively to this blog. And using w.bloggar!

w.bloggar rules - I've used it for 3-4 months now. Awesome tool!

TeamB bloggers


It's all over now. TeamB unleashing their blogs on the world!

TeamB blogs

Enjoy people!

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

Delphi 8 help as PDF


The Delphi 8 help file is now available as PDF to registered users.

BDN article

Enjoy!

Scott Bellware blogs about Borland presentation in Austin


"Chris Patterson from Borland gave a presentation at the Austin .NET User Group last night. I must say, I’m thoroughly impressed."

"I’m simply blown away with how much value Borland is delivering with this release."

"Thanks Borland! You guys really get it!"

Scott's blog (a must read)

Thanks for having us, Scott!

Don't talk to strangers


Cell phone virus? Yep, the first one is out. At least it won't spread to far, only about 30 feet at a time. To get infected you have to have a cell phone running the Symbian OS and have BlueTooth on, and be foolish enough to accept an incoming transmission that you didn't initiate. Noone would ever do that, right?

CRN article

My own speculation goes like this... When these things get really intelligent they'll be infecting your camera phones over the cell networks and be keeping an eye on everything through your own lens. Talk about Big Brother...

One more spammer down


"Head has shut down his operation, called Gold Disk Canada, and become a drummer in a rock band."

Well, at least I won't hear his noise...

CRN article

Friday, June 11, 2004

Borland to Present at Bear Stearns 15th Annual Technology Conference


SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 10, 2004--Borland Software Corporation (Nasdaq:BORL - News) today announced that President and Chief Executive Officer, Dale L. Fuller, and Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Kenneth R. Hahn, are scheduled to deliver a presentation on behalf of the company at the Bear Stearns 15th Annual Technology Conference at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York, NY. The presentation is scheduled for 1:45 PM Eastern Time, on Tuesday, June 15, 2004.

Press Release

Wednesday, June 9, 2004

A picture is worth more than a billion words




A little background: A buddy of Loren Hudziak's (a Borland employee) is a Navy pilot and was flying Tomcats off the Constellation when it was in the Gulf. Loren sent him a care package, and in it was one of the Made in Borland stickers. This is what he sent back. Just an FYI, though: That's not a Tomcat. It's the new F-18A Super Hornet. Be sure to click on the image for the full impressive view.

Delphi 7.1 update has been fixed


The persistent field issue has been fixed.

BDN article

Happy downloading!

Tuesday, June 8, 2004

New home coming soon


Unfortunately that means you'll have to switch RSS feeds.

More info coming soon. Stay tuned.

Monday, June 7, 2004

The Black Widow


Found an excellent specimen of the female Black Widow today. Big one too - about 1.5 inches long. The bastard was hiding right under my hot tub lid.

Not having had any experience with spiders I took a moment to figure out how to kill it for sure, without having it run away and hide. These things are apparently shy, and since it was now hiding tucked underneath the lid, I decided to go with a tool that happened to be handy - my long lighter for the BBQ. Perfect long flame grilling the poor sap. Bad spider, no donut.

Toasted Black Widow anyone? ;-)

BDNtv: Together for Visual Studio .NET version 2.0 tutorials


Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: LiveSource
Part 3: Audits
Part 4: Patterns

Borland showcases Together for VS.NET 2.0 at Austin .NET User Group on Monday, June 14th, 2004


Come check out Together for Visual Studio .NET version 2.0 at this event in a week.

Austin .NET User Group

BorCon 2004


Mark your calendars and join us at the 2004 Borland Conference to UNLEASH THE POWER of your applications!

Register now! Save $300!

Friday, June 4, 2004

Welcome Deepak!


Deepak Shenoy

Uncrackable, eh?


If there's a key, there's a crack. It may take forever, but sometimes you get lucky...

Chad's post reminds me of a friend of mine. Super expensive computer equipment at this company. State of the art security to get in through the door.

Just one problem... Computer rooms like these are raised off the floor, with a crawl space underneath. The floor is made out of a bunch of tiles - some of them loose.

Fundamentals of cracking puzzles... ;-)

Thursday, June 3, 2004

CrossKylix beta

Simon Kissel just posted this in kylix.non-tech:

I'm about to release CrossKylix, a free (as in beer and speech) toolkit to integrate the Kylix compiler into the Delphi Windows IDE.

This project was created for people who wish to develop cross-platform web/server/middleware applications with Delphi. Up until now doing this required you to have a seperate Linux installation (either on a dedicated box or inside VMWare) to recompile your project for the Linux platform. With CrossKylix this is no longer needed - you are able to build your project using the Kylix compiler from directly inside your Windows Delphi IDE, without the requirement of a Linux system.

After a few nights of coding, the project is mostly finished now and probably will be released this weekend.

I would be nice to have a few betatesters now to check if there are any compatibility problems I haven't thought about etc.

Requirements for Beta-Testers:

- Delphi 6 or 7 - Windows 2000 or XP - Kylix 3 (either installed or Installation CD). Other Kylix versions are welcome for testing, too.

The testers should be at least be a bit skilled in Kylix development, so they are able to give decent bug reports.

If you are interested, please drop me a mail [kissel at computerman dot de] , and I'll send you the current beta.

Thanks, Simon

WooHoo!

Now I just need to migrate my 205 posts... :-)

Blogalicious


Some new bloggers:

Corbin Dunn (Borland)
Chris Bensen (Borland)
Wayne Niddery (TeamB)
Delphi bloggers of SLC
Atozed bloggers
RemObjects bloggers
Hallvard Vassbotn
Chris Woodruff

Learn how to manage your requirements


Register today for a 1-day training event with Falafel Software. The training takes place on June 14th.

If you register by the end of tomorrow you save $100 on the $399 fee.

Falafel's CaliberRM training

With 82% of all cost of fixing bugs related to bad requirements, this is a no-brainer event.

Wednesday, June 2, 2004

Borland Developer News .NET Edition June 2004


Read the June 2004 installment of the Borland .NET Development Newsletter. The newsletter contains information, news, and links.

Read all about it!

Whatever you do, don't read this...


Actually, please do. Tell all your friends to read it to. Everyone else too. More viewers is good.

:-)

...but don't read this...

Mark Miller at TechEd


John Lam took the picture below. I'm borrowing it... ;-)

It's real! No photoshop involved here. Mark told me about it at a party at TechEd. I believed him even without the picture. Those who know Mark will know that if it's a crazy stunt like this, then it's real.



BTW, he did manage to buy a ticket without getting mugged. ;)

PS: Thanks Mal for the reference!

Borland and Segue Collaborate


Borland and Segue Collaborate to Optimize Performance, Reduce Risk and Deliver ROI in Mission Critical J2EE Environments

Saturday, May 29, 2004

Cool R/C stuff


Just in case you haven't seen it yet...

Michael Swindell found this stalling airplane. Having the plane stall, balancing into the wind, mere feet away from your face is pretty damn cool. It's a good 9 minute drool. The music ain't bad either :)

Then there's the larger scale models... Allen Bauer found this 300lbs B-52, but it appears they had bandwidth problems... I didn't get to see it... *sniff*

Friday, May 28, 2004

Spammer sentenced to 7 years in prison


Excellent! Finally some justice!

But he only got 0.26 seconds of prison time per spam he sent.

Hopefully they make him eat his own diet - spam... ;-)

"A man who sent 850 million junk e-mails through accounts he opened with stolen identities was sentenced to up to seven years in prison on Thursday."

CRN article

Thursday, May 27, 2004

Eyes on the ball


"Will Borland ever officially support the Mono platform?" "Or is there a clause in the Microsoft Framework distribution which makes it legally tricky?"

See what Danny has to say about it

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

PC Pro: Borland's new model of Togetherness boosts .Net development


'Many forward-looking companies are already on-board with Microsoft .NET for the competitive edge it offers, but they face an increasingly complex application development environment,' said Raaj Shinde, general manager for the Borland Together Business Unit. 'Modelling is playing a key role [in reducing these development risks]. Together Edition for Visual Studio was the first advanced modelling environment to exist for .NET technologies, and we're now building on its success to bring more affordable modelling to the masses.'

PC Pro article

My note: $199! Can you afford *not* to buy it? ;-)

Anders Hejslberg stops by to check out Together for Visual Studio .NET



John Kaster impresses Anders Hejlsberg with TVS 2.0


The obligatory photo op! Thanks for stopping by, Anders!

You know you've watched too much TV...


...when your hotel TV crashes and says that the server is too busy...



If I hadn't taken this photo, I'd probably think it was a bad alcohol induced dream... ;-)

Photos from TechEd 2004 San Diego



The Borland booth was packed with folks on Monday!


Dale Fuller (CEO Borland) and Jeffrey McManus (Sr Mgr Platform Evangelism EBay)

Borland Teams Up with eBay and PayPal To Expand Developer Opportunities


SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 26, 2004-- At this week's Microsoft Conference, eBay and Borland Software Corporation (Nasdaq:BORL - News) announced a new relationship that will provide Borland developers with access to tools and resources for creating Web services applications for the eBay and PayPal platforms and communities.

"We are pleased to team up with Borland, which has one of the industry's strongest developer communities for Microsoft Windows and .NET," said Randy Ching, vice president, eBay Platform Solutions. "With access to the eBay and PayPal SDKs, Delphi developers will have new opportunities to innovate on today's leading Web services platforms."

Press Release

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

TechEd: Borland to encourage developer use of eBay SDKs


"Borland Software Corp. has entered into a cross-marketing agreement with eBay Inc. to promote software development kits (SDKs) from eBay and its PayPal unit among Borland developers, the companies plan to announce Wednesday at Microsoft Corp.'s Tech Ed event in San Diego."

"As part of Wednesday's agreement, the Borland, PayPal and eBay Web sites will feature information, resources, tutorials, code samples and tools to encourage Delphi developers to learn about and use the PayPal and eBay SDKs, officials said. In addition to that, the SDKs will be bundled with the next major Delphi upgrade, they said."

ITworld article

Monday, May 24, 2004

Borland wins 3rd Annual People's Choice Awards 2004


Kevin James, VP of Sales & Marketing with MSD2D.com, presented us with the awards today at the booth here at TechEd 2004 in San Diego.

Delphi 8 for .NET won in the IDE category, and Together for Visual Studio for .NET 2.0 won the modeling category. We got two nice certificates to hang on the wall, plus this great award as a company.


Kevin James presents me with the award on Borland's behalf.

It's been a great day here at TechEd. Lots and lots of people coming by to check out all of our ALM tools. Lots of interest in TVS 2.0, which is awesome!

Microsoft to demo integration between Visual Studio 2005 Team System and Borland CaliberRM


SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 24, 2004-- Borland Software Corporation (Nasdaq:BORL - News) today presented alongside Microsoft and leading global systems integrators a Microsoft road map for delivering the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team System. The Visual Studio 2005 Team System will provide a set of best practices, prescriptive architecture guidance and integrated tools designed to enable IT organizations to successfully build and deploy custom solutions for the Windows Server System.

"Microsoft is pleased that Borland is supporting the Visual Studio 2005 Team System," said Rick LaPlante, general manager of the Visual Studio Product Group at Microsoft Corp. "With the support of Borland CaliberRM, our mutual customers will be better prepared to manage an application throughout its entire lifecycle."

Press Release

Come see TVS 2.0 at TechEd today


SAN DIEGO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 24, 2004-- Borland Software (Nasdaq:BORL - News) today announced the second release of Borland® Together® Edition for Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, a complete design and modeling tool for developers. This new release offers additional support for the extensive Microsoft developer community and provides developers and architects with an easier and more cost effective way to collaborate, model and create software so that it better aligns with business requirements.

"Microsoft is pleased that Borland is integrating its Together solution with Visual Studio .NET and that Borland continues to work with Microsoft to advance the modeling capabilities of Borland Together Edition," said John Montgomery, director in the .NET Developer Product Management Group at Microsoft Corp. "As .NET technologies continue to gain traction in the enterprise, Borland is providing our mutual customers with an important step in managing the lifecycle of an application."

Press Release

Saturday, May 22, 2004

Together for Visual Studio .NET version 2.0


Looks like our corporate web page has a new product on it! Excellent!

Come see Together for Visual Studio .NET version 2.0 in action at Microsoft TechEd 2004 in San Diego next week!

Borland® Together® Edition for Microsoft® Visual Studio® .NET, Version 2 speeds the application development lifecycle by tightly integrating the Visual Studio .NET environment with a solution built to visually model software, reduce the modeling learning curve, and improve code quality.

New in version 2.0:

* Roundtrip engineering for Visual Basic .NET projects
* Audits for C# projects
* Support for Rename and Extract refactoring

For more information on Together for Visual Studio .NET version 2.0 check out these links:

Technical Overview of TVS 2.0 (PDF)
Together for Visual Studio .NET home page

Friday, May 21, 2004

Turbo C++ 4.5 Quick Tour posted


A scanned version of the Turbo C++ 4.5 Quick Tour has been posted.

Turbo C++ Suite home page

IDC recommends Janeva for .NET/J2EE/CORBA interop


Great quotes from the IDC Insight report:

"Borland Janeva provides seamless connectivity between Microsoft .NET applications and the J2EE and CORBA infrastructures."

"Borland Janeva is a proven and effective technology for solving the interoperability issues between J2EE and .NET."

"Borland’s Janeva is letting customers solve the interoperability problem today and allowing them to create heterogeneous environments that capitalize on the benefits of both platforms as well as their investments in CORBA and COM technologies. This Insight summarizes the current situation and provides a brief review of the key features of Borland’s Janeva."

Danny continues to make headlines!


"Will giving customers a little inside information keep them loyal or let them take advantage of you? The immediacy and interaction of blogs have caught the imagination of employees who want to talk about their work with peers, customers and anyone who's interested."

Guardian: Inside track

DevRel at TechEd next week


We'll be at Microsoft TechEd in San Diego Monday through Thursday next week. Come see us in the booth. You never know what cool stuff you'll learn!

TechEd 2004 San Diego
BDN article

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Most impressive flying I've ever seen


Flying an R/C helicopter is hard. Very hard. Not to mention that if you screw up, you can actually kill someone with the pieces that fly off.

I've never even seen one being flown before. But after seeing this video, I think I've seen one of the masters, if not the master. What this guy does with his R/C helicopter is just simply amazing.

At one point he actually has it upside down on the ground, balancing on the rotor! (time 03:30)

Incredible R/C choppering

You think it's easy? (I got 500 points before I died - on the 4th try)

Delphi 8 is Free


Yes. That's right. You didn't misread the title.

I was inspired by a combination of Nick and Julian and their recent bloggings.

These little blog wars are entertaining, aren't they.

So, anyway. Delphi 8 is free if you consider ROI. Meaning that you're more productive with Delphi 8 than any with any of it's competition, so that it pays for itself.

Speaking of which, there's actually going to be a case study at BorCon 2004 in San Jose entitled "Why JBuilder Enterprise is free". It's an excercise in ROI (Return On Investment).

Back to the blog wars!

OMG! Is this blog dead?


What? No posts in two days? Did Anders kill his blog?

No, he didn't. He just took Sunday and Monday to celebrate "Syttende Mai".

Oh wait, that's a Norwegian holiday. So that can't be it.

Ah, yes, it was his anniversary.

So there, the blog isn't dead. It's still breathing.

*phew*

Saturday, May 15, 2004

Energizer bunny


If you have kids, I'm sure you're like me in this respect. You go through bazillions of batteries. Until you realize that raiding Costco every other weekend just for batteries just doesn't cut it anymore.

No more batteries for me (yeah, right). This guy in Hawaii sells rechargeables cheaper than normal batteries in some stores. My best EBay experience by far.

Other people want $2 per cell, which is not too bad either, considering you can pay up to $4 per cell in the store.

Anyway, this is just my way of saying thanks again, Sheung!

Friday, May 14, 2004

RSS feeds now ad free!


I'm happy to announce that I have made a deal with Ovi Crisan of 2rss.com which keeps our feeds ad free, and adds him as a happy Borland customer!

If you refresh your feed readers you will notice that my RSS feed is ad free, as well as Allen's and Danny's. Michael's will soon be ad free as well - he just created his profile on 2rss.com so that Ovi can mark it as a paid profile.

Thanks Ovi, and have fun with the stuff I sent!

Thursday, May 13, 2004

More on 2rss.com advertising


Allen comments on 2rss.com ads

I agree with Allen that they of course can offset free with advertising, and if I pay I get rid of the ads. That's great!

However, this wasn't what I agreed to when I started using their free service. You can argue that services change over time. Of course they do.

BUT, how about notifying me before this happens? They have my contact information! If I had received a notification about this before it happened I would gladly have shelled out some cash for the service. Or, if I didn't agree to the terms, I would have had time to react.

Instead it was simply injected into my RSS feed, with no notice anywhere to be found on their web pages.

This is the only thing I've found on the topic, and it was posted 12 hours after the advertising started.

And yes, a blogging solution for the BDN is being worked on. It'll be available as soon as possible. Nothing has changed in this respect.

David Orriss Jr (TeamB) joins the blogging party!


Rock on dude!

Technology, technology and a bit more technology

Kick the Chair!


This fan made MegaDeth video rocks!

Kick the Chair: Unoffical Tribute Video

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

2rss.com spamming my feed?


OK... It looks like all 2rss.com RSS feeds are getting spammed with advertising.

It's in mine, Michael's, Danny's and Allen's RSS feeds now.

I can't find any info on 2rss.com. Anybody got any clues?

Any alternatives to 2rss.com out there?

I'm certainly not subscribing to what they're doing with my feed.

Great ECO info


I was just pinged by Anthony Richardson. He sent me an email and told me that Malcolm Groves has been putting some great ECO stuff in his blog.

Keep up the good work, Mal!

Malcolm's blog on ECO

Now I'll go read all this great stuff and learn a thing or two.

Resolving size mismatch exceptions with the Delphi 7.1 update


While I was in meetings more or less all day, John was working. Here's all the dirt on what we're doing on resolving this issue.

BDN article

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Michael Swindell's blog is now officially live


WooHoo!

Michael Swindell's blog

Welcome, Michael!

Exciting tidbits of C++ information


Kenneth de Camargo: "Could be BCX, though. And no fixes for BCB."
Robert Ehteshamzadeh: "BCB means VCL with a snappy IDE written in native code, and IDE extensions are written in C++ or Pascal, not Java."

Des O'Toole: "Could be a development of BCB6 or 'that other' VCL package [my note: Delphi]."
Robert Ehteshamzadeh: "...VCL is back in vogue."

Tom Boser: "Bring C++Builder up to the Delphi level when the next major version of Delphi for Win32 comes out."
Robert Ehteshamzadeh: "That is the current plan."

PS: As soon as we get a company wide blogging system (real soon now), I'm sure Robert will start his own blog.

:-)

ActionBands update


Steve Trefethen has updated and clarified the reasons why his ActionBands fixes are not in the D7.1 update. Instead you can download an updated ActionBands update from Steve's site.

Monday, May 10, 2004

Sunday, May 9, 2004

$1.93 per gallon - I wish...


Pump prices jump a dime to $1.93

I paid $3.03 today at a tiny Chevron station in Big Sur. Yeah, they rip you off when you're in the middle of nowhere admiring the view. That's why I only bought a gallon and a half to get me back to Scotts Valley. ;-)

Got some liver pate in Solvang too. Yum!

And some really decent Havarti cheese. Not that weak wimpy stuff.

I wish they would have had the stuff that sweats and burst into flames by itself though.

:-)

Saturday, May 8, 2004

Open letter on C++ support coming real soon now...


I have to be honest, I asked for a lot of input from TeamB before posting this. The reason I asked for input was that this is such a touchy topic. Our loyal C++ customers are all in "show me" mode, and who can blame them for it? We promised the open letter on VCL support eons ago, and it hasn't come yet.

But now there's good news on the horizon. Finally. I don't know the exact details. Some TeamB members said that if I'm only going to say that it's still coming (the open letter) then there's no point. Others said it would be good to say at least something.

So here it is.

Robert Ehteshamzadeh (C++ QA) was of course right when he posted on the C++ newsgroups that an open letter on C++/VCL support is planned for next week. He said he's not sure of the content, but that several BCB issues are currently being addressed - as in staff is already working on fixes/features. That's all true.

Don't hold Robert to next week. But it is coming. It will come out as soon as possible. And the current plan is to publish it late next week. We know it's been a long time coming. We want to make sure it's right this time. The letter will be coming from the C++ core team, and not from the execs or the marketing department.

I've been talking to John Ray Thomas (C++ product manager) about this for quite some time, ever since it was first promised actually, and believe me, he wants this to be right.

So, in spirit of the new Borland policy and openness, the open letter is currently being written by John Ray Thomas. It will be reviewed by the C++ core team next week, and posted for your information as soon as possible. I will keep you posted on it's progress. Hopefully J.T. will let me share some juicy details even before it's ready. ;)

Well, anyway, there you have it. There is finally some good news on the horizon. Real Soon Now.

Thanks for still being a loyal Borland C++ customer.

Friday, May 7, 2004

We're almost winning! Help us solidify the lead!


We're just a few votes away from winning this award. Your vote definitely counts!



Only a week and a half to go. Thanks a million in advance!

BabelCode - C# to Delphi


Read the story of building a web service that uses the C#Builder and Delphi for .NET CodeDOMs to instantly convert C# code samples to Delphi code.

Starring Corbin Dunn and John Kaster.

The Tale of the Two CodeDOMs (2004) starring Corbin Dunn and John Kaster

Nik's new ride


I bought this thing from a co-worker who's getting out of R/C. It was my chance to get in cheap, and leave the $20 crappy rigs behind. This thing isn't a national racing monster by any means, but for $50 it does just fine by me and Nik.



The paint job is courtesy of John Frazier, a co-worker and great guy. You probably know him as the "TeamB Cat Herder" or the newsgroup admin, or maybe even your favorite JBuilder support guy!

The truck was completely unpainted (transparent plastic body) when I bought it on Monday, and Fraz pulled out his magic spray gun and laid down an awesome coat of paint.

Fraz also donated a whole bunch of tires - now it sticks like glue!

Some actions movies, you say? Sure!

Fraz doing some rock climbing
Dirt and trees

Man, what have I done... This is going to be an expensive habit...

:-p

Hello ClueTrain!


"Borland's new communication directive is clear and simple: Get the word out. Don't worry about screwing up. Mistakes will be made. Be ready for them, correct them, and move on. Use common sense and good judgment on what to discuss and not discuss. Don't wait for permission."

Read more in Danny's latest post

"Seriously. The idea that the senior leadership is encouraging blogging is a radical shift in policy and tactics."

Nick Hodges gets blown away

BTW, Danny, congratulations on the promotion!

This is great stuff!

Beta 1 Mono 1.90


Novell has released Beta 1 of Mono 1.90.

CRN article

Tuesday, May 4, 2004

Delphi 7.1 Update README


The only difference between this one and the one that Malcolm has, is most likely that this one is hyperlinked for all QC entries.

Once everything is final, the update will be downloadable for registered users, and a BDN article will be made public.

The timeline for this is roughly by the end of this week. But don't quote me on that just in case it takes a day or two longer. ;-)

Enjoy!


Delphi 7.1 Update
Release Notes

=======================================================

This file contains important supplemental and late-breaking
information that may not appear in the main product
documentation, and supersedes information contained in other
documents, including previously installed release notes.
Borland recommends that you read this file in its entirety.

NOTE: If you are updating a localized version of Delphi 7,
visit the Borland Registered User web site to obtain a
localized readme file that may contain important late-
breaking information not included in this readme file.

IMPORTANT: Delphi must be closed before installing this
update.

=====================================================

CONTENTS

* INSTALLING THIS UPDATE
* UPDATING LOCALIZED VERSIONS OF DELPHI 7
* KNOWN ISSUES
* ISSUES ADDRESSED BY THIS UPDATE
- IDE
- CORE DATABASE
- DATASNAP
- DBGO (ADO COMPONENTS)
- dbExpress
- dbExpress COMPONENTS AND DB VCL
- dbExpress CORE DRIVER AND METADATA
- dbExpress VENDOR ISSUES
- dbExpress CERTIFICATION
- WEB SNAP
- ACTIVEX
- COMPILER
- RTL
- VCL
- THIRD PARTY - BOLD FOR DELPHI
* VERIFYING THAT THE UPDATE WAS SUCCESSFUL
* FILES INSTALLED BY THIS UPDATE

=======================================================

INSTALLING THIS UPDATE

* This update can not be applied to Delphi 7 Architect Trial
version.

* This update can not be removed after it is installed.

* You will need the original Delphi 7 installation CD available
to install this update.

* To install this update from the CD, insert the CD, and launch
the d7_ent_upd1.exe file appropriate for your locale.

* To install this update from the Web, double-click the
self-executing installation file and follow the prompts.

* The Delphi 7 documentation PDF files are available on
the update CD.

========================================================

UPDATING LOCALIZED VERSIONS OF DELPHI 7

* This update can be applied only to the English version of
Delphi 7. There are separate updates for the German, French
and Japanese versions of Delphi 7.

* This update provides new localized versions of the SqlConst
files. After installing the update, backup and delete the
following files from the Delphi 7 installation folder:

Lib\Debug\SqlConst.dcu
Lib\SqlConst.dcu
Source\Vcl\SqlConst.pas

and then remove the appropriate locale extension (.de, .fr, or
.jp) from the new SqlConst files in the same folders. For
example, for the French version of Delphi, rename
SqlConst.dcu.fr to SqlConst.dcu.

========================================================

KNOWN ISSUES

* dbExpress driver - After installing this update, the
dbxdrivers.ini file will not contain an entry for MSSQL=1. If
you require that entry, please edit the ini file manually
after installing the update. By default, dbxdrivers.ini is
located at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Borland
Shared\DBExpress.

* If you have updated any Borland packages in the system32
directory with unofficial patches or updates from CodeCentral,
MSI might revert (auto-repair) those packages to their
previous version during installation of this update.
Therefore, after installing this update, you may need to
re-install unofficial patches or updates.

* Due to a Windows Help engine limitation on Windows 98 and
Millennium, the Help system Index tab will be empty if the
index exceeds 32,767 keywords.

If you encounter an empty Help Index tab after installing this
update, open the d7.ohi file in the Delphi7\Help folder and
comment out one or more of the index entries by changing the
colon in column one to a semi-colon, as shown here:

;Index Open Tools API (IOTA)=d7iota.hlp

Save the d7.ohi file and delete any hidden *.GID files in your
Delphi7/Help folder before restarting the Help.

This modification reduces the number of index keywords, but
does not affect other Help system functionality, such as
cross-file linking or F1 accessibility.

========================================================

ISSUES ADDRESSED BY THIS UPDATE

This readme lists the maintenance for all editions of Delphi 7;
not all of the features mentioned in this file are available in
all editions of the product.

This update resolves the following issues:

IDE

* Using the up/down arrow keys to navigate and select items from
the Code Completion window sometimes skips items (Quality
Central 2875).

* In the Project Manager, units are incorrectly displayed in the
order that they are listed in the USES clause, rather than
alphabetically.

* Using collections containing component references and form
inheritance can result in incorrect references being stored in
the dfm file.

=======================================================

CORE DATABASE

* TFMTBCDField initializes to size 8 instead of size 4, allowing
the system to initialize precision to 7 and size to 8
(Quality Central 5938).

* Using a TDBLookupComboBox to display a list of data given
by a detail TQuery results in the error "Field '' not found"
(Quality Central 5384 and 4823).

* TDBRadioGroup maintains its focus on the most recently
selected item, even after an edit has been canceled
(Quality Central 2109).

=======================================================

DATASNAP

* After deleting a row from a TClientDataset, sometimes the
delta dataset still contains a record. This happens if you
populate the Nested Dataset field before populating another
field that precedes it in the field order.

* The TClientDataSet.ApplyUpdates method fails if the dataset
contains only changes to fields that have the
ProviderFlags.pfnUpdate property set to False
(Quality Central 2338).

* TClientDataSet does not order correctly on a TLargeIntField
when used in an index or in the IndexFieldNames property
(Quality Central 1050 & 2626)

* TAggregateField returns an incorrect value after a
filter was used and then cleared (Quality Central 1712).

* A "Key violation" exception may incorrectly be generated
when using poFetchDetailsOnDemand with a nested dataset that
also has an InternalCalc field (Quality Central 2011).

* TClientDataSet may contain invalid Delta entries when using
poPropogateChanges. (Quality Central 2019 & 2333).

* Editing the value of an InternalCalc field on a nested
TClientDataset causes the ChangeCount property of the
parent dataset to increase (Quality Central 2027).

* A TLargeIntField cannot be used as a linking field in a
master/detail relationship. Doing so results in the
error "Cannot access field as type variant."

* TClientDataSet doesn't save data to file when FileName is
set and there is no existing file on disk
(Quality Central 2307).

* Using the Delphi 7 version of midas.dll to open an XML file
that was saved with the Delphi 6 version of midas.dll results
in an illegal operation.

* Incorrect filter expression parsing occurs when parsing a
value that contains a quote in TClientDataSet. The expression
parser incorrectly treats the rest of the expression as a
formula (Quality Central 1266).

* TClientDataSet.ChangeCount will return an incorrect value
when editing the value of a TStringField or a
TWideStringField and then reverting it to the original value
(Quality Central 2717 & 4508).

* Canceling an update to an individual field by assigning the
"unassigned" (varEmpty) value to TField.NewValue in the
TDataSetProvider.BeforeUpdateRecord event handler does not
work (Quality Central 3660).

* TClientDataset InternalCalc fields are reset to null after
calling the ApplyUpdates method when using
poPropogateChanges (Quality Central 3777).

* When using incremental fetching on a TClientDataset with
parameters, the associated TDatasetProvider will repeatedly
return the same set of records (Quality Central 3515).

* TClientDataset.FindKey will fail with an list index error
when used on a cloned nested dataset (Quality Central 3786).

* When the size of a Persistent field in TClientDataSet is set
too large, it overwrites neighboring fields upon Post
(Quality Central 3974).

* TDataSetProvider generates incorrect SQL in response to a
RefreshRecord request in some cases and fails to update
all fields properly (Quality Central 4014).

* When TDataSetProvider obtains the DB 'current' values
after an update conflict, it does so against the wrong
fields (Quality Central 4006).

* TClientDataSet.Delete fails with the error "Cannot
delete master record with details" even when all of the
details are deleted if the detail table was previously
cloned (Quality Central 5646).

* In some cases, records may disappear from a nested
TClientDataset after performing edits, applying updates
and calling refresh (Quality Central 7287).

* When multiple indexes are included with the data from a
provider, the IndexDef entries in the TClientDataset
will show duplicate 'Fields' and 'DescFields' values
(Quality Central 7543).

* When updating blob fields in a TClientDataset with the
LogChanges property set to False, blob data is lost
from other unrelated records (Quality Central 6591).

* Using a Filter or Locate with a TLargeIntField on a
TClientDataSet will always fail with the error
"Constant is not correct type".
(Quality Central 6142 & 3496).

* Calling the CancelRange method on nested TClientDataset
will cause all records for every master record to be
displayed (Quality Central 4301).

* When using RefreshRecord on a Memo or Blobfield and the field
has been modified by another user, the blobsize of that field
does not change if it is less than before (Quality Central 4676).

* Calling the TClientDataset.Locate method on a TWordField
always returns false (Quality Central 5319).

* Using the TDataSetProvider poFetchDetailsOnDemand option
with a server-side master/detail definition (nested dataset
on the client side) raises an exception when the master
TClientDataset is opened (Quality Central 5707).

* TClientDataset may create an incorrect delta when inserting
new master and detail records and then editing the same
master record a second time (Quality Central 6849).

* The assignment of a LargeInt field to another LargeInt field
fails when the destination and source are both TLargeIntFields
(Quality Central 6393).

* When Params are passed from a TClientDataSet to a
TDatasetProvider, the Size,Precision, and NumericScale property
settings are lost (Quality Central 6308).

* TClientDataSet allocates values against nested dataset
AutoInc fields but it should not (Quality Central 5509).

* When using a TimeStamp type parameter with a TClientDataSet an
error occurs when the parameter is passed to the server
(Quality Central 6372).

* Setting MTSDataModule.AutoComplete to False in the IDE is
overridden and set back to True at run time (Quality Central
4716).

* Calls to ApplyUpdates(-1) on a TMTSDataModule do not work
properly (Quality Central 6906).

=======================================================

DBGO (ADO Components)

* Using TParameter.Assign(TParam) or TParam.Assign(TParameter)
causes incorrect settings of the Size, NumericScale, and
Precision properties (Quality Central 6366).

* When values in persistent TMemoFields are returned after
reading a row of a TADOTable, the values are truncated at the
first occurrence of #0 (Quality Central 2771).

* When using TADOQuery to get a result set from a SQL query, the
SQL statement gets prepared but never gets unprepared
Quality Central 3635).

* With a query, when using cursorType set to ctOpenForwardOnly
and cursorLocation set to clUseServer, the "First" method will
move the cursor position to the second record (Quality Central
4769).

* Setting the value of a TLargeInt field to a negative value in
an ADODataSet and calling Post results in the error "Multiple-
step operation generated errors. Check each status value"
(Quality Central 2106).

* When using a SQL Server 2000 table with a BigInt or decimal
columns, negative values are incorrectly returned as positive
values by ADO components (Quality Central 2379 & 998).

=======================================================

dbExpress COMPONENTS

* When including the line delimiter ";" at the end of a select
statement in TSQLQuery, then using the query and a
TDataProvider to give data to a CDS, you cannot apply updates
without encountering a the syntax error "Token unknown."

* Updating on a TSQLQuery with either a WHERE clause or when
adding a delimiter ";" results in the error "Unable to find
record, no key specified."

* When using TSQLConnection and TSimpleDataSet to access a MySQL
database, it is impossible to add new records to a table that
has an auto-increment primary key (Quality Central 5465).

* When using the MySql driver, erroneous state information about
the number of active statements with respect to a
TSQLConnection might result in a transaction starting on one
connection and a commit or rollback happening on another
connection (Quality Central 1074).

* Updating on TSQLQuery with either a WHERE clause or when adding a
delimiter ";" results in the error "Unable to find record, no
key specified" (Quality Central 5550).

* When using TSQLQuery to add calculated fields, OnCalcFields
fails on the first record, because all of the fields in the
first record are empty after OnCalcFields is called (Quality
Central 1328).

* Calling TSQLConnection.getTableNames() to retrieve system
tables takes too long.

* Using TSQLConnection.CloneConnection may result in the loss of
the TableScope status for a new connection (Quality Central
5867).

=======================================================

dbExpress CORE DRIVER AND METADATA

* DB2 V8 Support - Index Metadata retrieval: (Quality Central
4150) Querying for a table with a unique index fails with
"Cannot convert a variant of type (Null) to type (String)"

* DB2 V8 Support - Fetching a stored procedure parameter fails.

* MySQL 4.0.x support (Quality Central 3731).

* MySQL driver supports only the default Port (Quality Central 3736).

* MySQL SQLCommand.GetRowsAffected returns 0 on successful
updates (Quality Central 4504).

* MySQL TimeStamp comes back as NOT NULL always (Quality
Central 4689).

* MySQL metadata causing data truncation (Quality Central
4160).

* AV on SQLCommand.Close() in MySQL driver (Quality Central
5819).

* MySQL metadata is retrieved from wrong database (Quality
Central 4130).

* An MSSQL stored procedure with long names causes memory
corruption (Quality Central 3225).

* The MSSQL driver leaks resources on repeated SQL execution
(Quality Central 4059).

* MSSQL TimeStamp fraction part rounding error while fetching
data.

* MSSQL - ExecDirect() does not return the RowsAffected.

* MSSQL return parameter is not available from a stored
procedure returning cursor/cursors (Quality Central 3763).

* An MSSQL stored procedure with no parameters causes memory
corruption.

* An MSSQL stored procedure does not return @@IDENTITY after a
SP execution. The identity value is returned only on the third
execution.

* ORACLE Functions are now supported (Quality Central 4051).

* ORACLE SQLCommand.getParameter() always returns the NULL
indicator as True (Quality Central 4018).

* InterBase - Support for BOOLEAN data type has been added.

=======================================================

dbExpress VENDOR ISSUES

* MySQL - Data truncation resulted as the cursor level metadata
is incorrect. MySQLField.length is 1024 for the second columns
after describing the SQL "Show create table tablename". -
(Quality Central 1810)

* MSSQL - SubQuery parameter binding causes an AV in MSVCRT7.DLL
(Quality Central 2767) - MS bug. Case # SRX030728604937.

* MSSQL Null parameter binding on a NOT NULL INTEGER columns
fails with a SQL Error "SQL State:HY000, SQLError Code:0
Invalid input parameter values" - MS bug Case
#SRX030728605044. dbExpress MSSQL driver calls
IDBCommand.Prepare() and that seems to cause this bug in
SQLOLEDB.DLL.

=======================================================

dbExpress CERTIFICATION

dbExpress has been certified with the following database
versions:

InterBase 7.1 (*Driver should also work with InterBase 6.5, 7.0)
Oracle 9.1.0 (*Driver should also work with ORACLE 9.2.0)
DB2 UDB 8.x (*Driver should also work with DB2 V7)
MSSQL 2000
Informix 9.x
MySQL 4.0.18

* The driver should work with these database versions, however,
it has not been fully certified with these versions.

=======================================================

INTERNET/WEBSNAP

* Procedure TSockWebResponse.SendResponse contains code that
causes an incomplete response.

=======================================================

ACTIVEX

* On Windows 98 SE, registering an OLE-server on a a shared
mapped drive and then starting the program from a non-UNC path
drive results in an endless loop (Quality Central 3151).

* ShortToLongFileName fails on some UNC paths, which makes TComServer
fail when the executable is located on a remote computer
(Quality Central 3049).

* Additional methods begin with GhostMethod_ are added to
interface declarations which would not appear in Delphi 6
(Quality Central 3426).

* SetOlePicture distorts the target TPicture size (Quality
Central 4137).

=======================================================

COMPILER

* Assigning a partially empty multi-dimensional dynamic array to
a variant causes an access violation.

* Converting an empty dynamic array to a variant array results
in a non-empty variant array with the wrong bounds.

* Assert fails to break and leaves an FPU invalid op exception set
(Quality Central 5248).

* Under some circumstances, optimization causes an access
violation on a call to a dynamic + safecall method (Quality
Central 5071).

=======================================================

RTL

* In System.pas, function LoadResString(ResStringRec:
PResStringRec): string; has a hard-coded buffer of 1024
characters, which causes resource string table entries in
excess of 1023 characters to be truncated (Quality Central
7851).

* On Windows Server 2003, calls to SysUtils.GetEnvironmentVariable
fail with an access violation wHen the requested
environment variable does not exist (Quality Central 4319).

* When a variant array item is a string with embedded null
characters (#0), Delphi treats those items as null-terminated
strings when the string is assigned to an item of variant
array (Quality Central 6078).

=======================================================

VCL

* Context and keyword help does not fire for the OnHelp events.

* Selecting a zero length (empty) item in drop-down combo box
results in an access violation in ntdll.dll.

* Attempting to delete a single item from the TComboBoxEx ItemEx
list, that item and the next item are deleted (Quality Central
3991).

* Calling TBitmap.Assign(nil) may result in a GDI resource leak
(Quality Central 2511).

* TRegistry class leaks a register key handle if LazyWrite is set to
False.

* THashedStringList ignores the NameValueSeparator property
(Quality Central 5632).

* In a DBCS environment, an exe filename that includes DBCS
characters often garbles Application.Title (Quality Central
5089).

* Menu items and images are sometimes drawn partially in black
on Windows XP systems that have themes disabled (Quality Central
2341).

* When the ValueListEditor Visible property is set to False, making
it visible and adding a string at runtime may cause an access
violation (Quality Central 4953).

* When connected to a network printer and the system hosting the
network printer is offline, Printer.PageWidth may cause an
access violation in GDI32.DLL (Quality Central 757).

* The OldCreateOrder property for a form that inherits from
another form is automatically set to True when the form is
saved (Quality Central 1675).

* When ending a Windows session (either by using Log Off or Shut
Down) while a VCL-based Delphi application is running, no
OnDestroy events on the application's forms are called, nor
are any finalization sections executed. This may result in
lost data and user settings (Quality Central 5332).

=======================================================

THIRD PARTY - BOLD FOR DELPHI

* SQLDatabaseConfig now contains settings for database evolution
scripts (separator, terminator and commands for transaction
start/commit). Logs can be saved from the evolution dialog
(Quality Central 4679).

* BoldSelectChangeAction in BoldComboBox is now triggered more
appropriately on incremental searches (Quality Central 2827).

* A potential infinite recursion problem in
TBoldUnOrderedIndexableList.KnowsSupportsNil has been fixed.

* An assert with side-effects in TBoldObjectList.GetBoldObject
has been changed. This affects debug dcus only.

* TBoldUMLModelValidator.ValidateClass no longer has a bad format
string for one error.

* TBoldDbDataValidator.Validate no longer validates without
running any tests when not connected to a database.

* DBDataValidation no longer fails on parent or child mapped
classes.

* Performance of XMI Import has been improved (Quality Central 2827) .

* XMI Export now correctly exports multiplicity 0..n.

* Transaction grouping in optimistic locking has been improved
by performing checks in the same transaction as the update
(Quality Central 3123).

* A memory leak in the Object Lending Library has been fixed
(Quality Central 3648).

* Several issues with BoldGrid and goTabs have been resolved
(Quality Central 3903 and 3904).

* Saving modified multilinks no longer yields an index out of
bounds condition under certain conditions (Quality Central
4870).

* BoldSystemDebuggerForm no longer yields an access violation on
the second invocation from a Bold Action (Quality Central
6482).

* Certain combinations of tableMapping=Child and abstract
classes have been improved (Quality Central 7110).

* The OCL operation includesAll no longer

Borland to Present at R W Baird's 2004 Growth Stock Conference


SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 4, 2004--Borland Software Corporation (Nasdaq:BORL - News) today announced that Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Kenneth R. Hahn, is scheduled to deliver a presentation on behalf of the company at the R W Baird 2004 Growth Stock Conference at the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago, Illinois. The presentation is scheduled for 10:15 a.m. Central Time, on Wednesday, May 5, 2004.

Press Release

Monday, May 3, 2004

Ad banners


People have been asking for marketing stuff, including banner ads.

I'll add our own ad banners over here on the right below the archive links from time to time.

First up is Together for Visual Studio - a steal at $199.

Enjoy!

Sunday, May 2, 2004

Saturday, May 1, 2004

Friday, April 30, 2004

This is why you should use CaliberRM and StarTeam


Are you managing requirements by updating yellow Stick-It notes?

Are you managing changes by renaming files to foo.old, foo.older, foo.oldest, etc?

Of course you're not. You're using CaliberRM and StarTeam (and all the other Borland products) so that you have the competitive advantage and always deliver the right stuff before it's due and under budget.

These people didn't...



:-)

I've received quite a few requests for more information about this cartoon. To clarify, it's not mine. It's actually linked to a different site. I've seen it before, a couple of years ago or so. I have no idea who made it. If you do, please send me the info and I'll add a proper attribution.

Borland to Present at JP Morgan 32nd Annual Technology Conference


SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 30, 2004--Borland Software Corporation (Nasdaq:BORL - News) today announced that President and Chief Executive Officer, Dale L. Fuller, and Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Kenneth R. Hahn, are scheduled to deliver a presentation on behalf of the company at the JP Morgan 32nd Annual Technology Conference at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, California. The presentation is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time, on Monday, May 3, 2004.

Press Release

Thursday, April 29, 2004

JBuilder Customer Application Server Usage Survey


Check out the JBuilder Customer Application Server Usage Survey for your chance to win great prizes!

This could definitely be worth your while. We're giving away 5 copies of JBuilder X - that's $17,500 based on new user pricing!

Borland Developer News .NET Edition May 2004


Read the May 2004 installment of the Borland .NET Development Newsletter. The newsletter contains information, news, and links.

Read all about it!

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Borland to Present at Smith Barney Software Conference



SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- April 27, 2004 -- Borland Software Corporation (Nasdaq:BORL) today announced that Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Kenneth R. Hahn, is scheduled to deliver a presentation on behalf of the company at the Smith Barney Software Conference at the Hilton Hotel in New York City. The presentation is scheduled for 11.20 a.m. Eastern Time, on Thursday, April 29, 2004.


Press Release

Michael Swindell clarifies Delphi 8 license update


"The general idea of [the] license update is that component vendors can now sub-license the Delphi "redistributables" to any component customer - even those who might not have a Delphi license already (such as a Visual Studio developer). Prior to this update the license assumed that a component customer would be a Delphi developer and would already have a redistributables license - so a sub-license provision wasn't necessary."

Thanks Michael!

Tuesday, April 27, 2004

New Delphi 8 license


An updated Delphi 8 License has been posted on the BDN.

The new license provides additional permission for developers of VCL for .NET components.

If there's anything that's hard to read it's legalese. The only thing harder is trying to figure out what changed between two different legal documents.

So, here it is in plain English... You can safely distribute Borland.Delphi.DLL

Yay! Finally.

:o)

Monday, April 26, 2004

Practice Safe Computing


"Microsoft estimates spyware is responsible for half of all PC crashes. Dell says 12 percent of its tech-support calls involve spyware, a problem that has increased substantially in recent months. Scans of one million Internet-connected PCs, conducted last quarter by Internet service-provider EarthLink and desktop-privacy and -security vendor Webroot Software, found an average of 28 spyware applications running on each PC and more than 300,000 programs at large that can steal data and give hackers access to computers."

Yikes!

Tiny, Evil Things

Sunday, April 25, 2004

Borland delivers stronger Java


"Enterprise development today requires a lot more than coding. Aiming to tackle the entire software development cycle, Borland Enterprise Studio 7 for Java ($6,500 direct) takes the already strong JBuilder X Enterprise compiler tool and adds solid UML diagramming abilities, Web service support, refactoring, and a standout profiler."

PC Magazine reviews Borland Enterprise Studio 7 for Java

Thursday, April 22, 2004

Grafitti marketing!




Maybe Nick will tell us where this gem was found...

DOH! The link is out there...

Delphi 7 update - fix count teaser


IDE - 2
CORE DB - 4
DATASNAP - 39
DBGO - 7
dbExpress - 30
ACTIVEX - 4
COMPILER - 5
RTL - 3
VCL - 13
BOLD - 22

Total - 129

More teasers coming shortly... Maybe even the whole README... ;-)

Safe Harbor Statement

This blog post contains forward-looking statements including statements regarding the update's focus, near-term and long-term update outlook, and statements regarding the anticipated number of bug fixes. Such forward-looking statements are based on current expectations that involve a number of uncertainties and risks that may cause actual events or results to differ materially. Factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially include, but are not limited to: my ability to read; my ability to write; my ability to count. These and other risks may be detailed from time to time in this blog. I am under no obligation to (and expressly disclaims any such obligation to) update any of the information in this blog post if any forward-looking statement later turns out to be inaccurate whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Borland Profitability up $18 Million over Year-Ago Quarter


Company Delivers GAAP Profitability

Press Release

Blog'n Roll


I finally got around to add some bloggers and thought bloggers like Doc Searls, Martin Fowler, James Gosling, etc, etc.

You'll find them over here on the right. More coming as I find them...

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Sun loves Optimizeit Suite and ServerTrace


"Borland Optimizeit technologies provide a robust end-to-end solution for managing the performance of Java and J2EE applications. The Java Performance Group at Sun routinely uses Optimizeit Suite to ensure that our application code is fast and reliable, and Optimizeit ServerTrace DataCenter to obtain critical information that helps make our Sun Java System Application Server products deliver the fastest web services performance in the industry. The two solutions together provide an unparalleled breadth and depth of performance analysis that is second to none."

-- Mark Bauhaus, Vice President, Java and Web Services Business Unit, Sun Microsystems

More customer quotes

Microsoft loves Together for Visual Studio


"Borland's Together Edition for Microsoft Visual Studio.NET delivers a compeling modeling environment for enterprise customers focused on productivity, quality, software asset re-use and team collaboration"

-- Marie Huwe, Microsoft Corporation

More customer quotes

Unit testing anyone?


Allen asks what you want

Allen fires back


Dang! This could get interesting...

Allen gives Julian a history lesson

Julian, over to you... :-)

Another sound effect
And one more

Free Pizza!!!


Dear Falafel .NET Usersgroup member,

Falafel Software is pleased to announce the start of the Falafel .NET Users Group on Wednesday, April 21st, 2004 in Santa Clara, CA. The group will assemble every Third Wednesday of each month between 7:00 PM and 9:00 PM.

Address: Techmart Building, 5201 Great America Parkway, Suite 254, Santa Clara, CA 95054

Today, April 21st, we have 2 speakers:

  1. Allen Bauer, Principle Engineer for .NET Products at Borland Software Corporation, will discuss Open Tools API for C#Builder and Delphi 8 for the .NET Framework.

  2. Lino Tadros, President & CEO of Falafel Software Inc, will discuss the new feature of .NET Framework 2.0 (Whidbey) coming Q1 2005.


It is not to be missed! Pizza and Drinks will be available for all registered attendees. If you can't make it please let us know.

Best regards and see you tonight!

More info on the group

More juicy rumors...


Danny's Spring Tour 2004 blog entry has some juicy stuff in it for you Delphites out there...

"While I'm sweating the details of multiunit namespaces at 35,000 feet, Tagawa-san will be finishing up some very exciting Win32 codegen work for the next major version of Delphi, Seppy will be slaving over dbGo for .NET, Corbin and Adam will be grinding through Delphi refactoring, and Doug and the QA team will be shepherding the D7.01 update through the final phases of testing."

"More detail you say? That's what conferences are for. ;>"

(note: my emphasis)

Spring Tour 2004

Danny goes around the world in 25 days


Danny's off to Japan, Australia, the Netherlands and the UK.

Spring Tour 2004

Tuesday, April 20, 2004

Finally claimed my blog...


Some day I'll figure out what all this is about...

Listed on BlogShares

I just now had some time to look at it... Apparently someone listed me on March 9th, 2004. And people have been buying and selling me...

Right now I'm trying to figure out why in the world my shares are worth B$90 and what that means...

At this rate I can't buy 51% of my own blog... :(

Apparently it was worth B$330 at some point...

Go figure.

How do I get my blog noticed by everyone in the galaxy?
How do I make a million bucks off of it?

Did I mention I was a blog newbie?

Blog on! :-p

People's Choice Awards - Vote for Borland!


Vote for Borland products at MSD2D's 3rd Annual People's Choce Awards!

By clicking the graphic below, you can vote for Together for Visual Studio, Delphi 8 for .NET and C#Builder!



Thanks for supporting Borland!

Delphi 7 update teaser


Let's start the greatest rumor of the Win32 world ever!

Just remember that you heard it here first! ;-)

Link to my blog and spread the news galaxy wide! I know, spineless blog marketing!

The Delphi 7 update is going to fix 100+ bugs... And that's only the ones I really quickly counted from the README that has references to Quality Central.

So don't tell me that Quality Central doesn't work.

Sure, I know, some of you won't believe it until you see it. Well, I've seen it. So believe it. It's coming really soon now.

Watch this space for more news RSN...

More PInvoke.NET


Check it out!

VSj reviews Delphi 8 for .NET


Small overview online Delphi 8 for .NET (VSj)

Quote from magazine print article (April 2004): Overall Delphi 8 for .NET is an excellent upgrade that not only makes it easy for existing Delphi projects to make the transition to .NET, but also offers new possiblities and in many ways does .NET better than Microsoft".

(harvested from a newsgroup post - thanks Alan)

Page 23


"Giving is the highest expression of potency" - The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm.

The meme says:

Grab the nearest book.
Open the book to page 23.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions

(watch how it is spreading on the blogsphere here or here)

via Nick Hodges' weblog.

Monday, April 19, 2004

What kind of chocolate bar?


The only thing I find surprising about this CRN piece is that "almost three quarters of office workers in an impromptu man-on-the-street survey were willing to give up their passwords when offered the bribe of a chocolate bar".

Exactly what chocolate would that be?

I would give people the wrong password, but certainly not anything close to my real passwords.

Sunday, April 18, 2004

Santa to elves: You're fired!


It seems that everybody is trying to make fun of "The Apprentice" these days. Seems like a good opportunity for some blogging on a Sunday morning.

Santa to elves: You're fired (CNNmoney)

I don't know about you, but I've heard stories about Santa Claus living in Norway, Sweden, and even in Scotts Valley...

And now Finland. None of these places are of course at the North Pole.

Maybe this is a failed attempt at outsourcing. Ya just can't do anywhere else what's gotta be done at the North Pole. ;-)

Or maybe it failed because Santa Claus is an idea that's in everybody's head and you can't put it in one specific place, especially not in the Finnish Arctic. Who wants their soda pop and cotton candy to be frozen solid?

Oh, Scotts Valley... The road outside Borland is still called Santa's Village Road. I've got a ticket to the theme park in mint condition if anybody wants it. Very cool souvenir. :-p

BTW, Donald Trump is trying to trademark the phrase 'you're fired', so please feel free to contribute to my legal defense fund just in case. ;-)

Saturday, April 17, 2004

I'm done. No more beta blogging.


Experiment done. No more beta blogging for me.

Did I get your attention? :-p

I just removed the beta babble in the description up at the top of this page. I figured since I've been blogging solid for over 45 days, that the beta stuff needs to come off. I can't promise that I can keep up on at least one post per day, especially if I ever go on vacation.

My only problem with shipping this blog is that the directory still has the word 'beta' in it... Oh well... I guess I can't change that without causing major issues for every single one of my readers, including myself. So I won't. Just pretend it's not there, or that it stands for something else...

Feel free to use the comments on this post to say what you think.

Friday, April 16, 2004

Dropping Delphi for VS? You're nuts!


"If you are a Delphi developer with an existing codebase, I see no reason at all to move away from Delphi to go to .Net."

Nick's blog: "I'm dumping Delphi for VS.NET"

PS: No offense meant by the title at all.

Delphi is the best tool for Win32 and .NET


"Simply put, Delphi is the best tool for the job for the vast majority of jobs to be done out there."

Nick's blog: "Pick the tool that meets your needs"

The docs don't always suck


"True, there aren't many examples, but the documentation is actually better than you might realize."

Nick's blog: "Lack of Documentation and Examples"

Interview with Danny coming up in SD Times


Larry O'Brien is looking for good interview questions to ask of Danny Thorpe in an upcoming interview in SD Times.

Some of you have already submitted some good questions. Now that the rest of you are finally done with your taxes, you should have some time to submit some more... :-p

Larry O'Brien: What should I ask Danny Thorpe about Delphi?

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

How to get Borland to do what you want


"Simple: Show us the money. We generally don't do art for art's sake."

There's a lot more to it than that quote of course in this great post by Danny

Linspire?


No, this has nothing to do with Inpr**e. That name is dead. And shall so remain.

"With the proper marketing, it's possible to make any name stick."

Lindows -> Linspire