Friday, December 7, 2007

Happy Birthday, Commodore 64!

Commodore 64 still loved after all these years.

I started using Turbo Pascal in 1986, but I actually first learned Pascal on the Commodore 64 somewhere around 1982-83!

25 years? You don't look a day over 19... Crazy! :)

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Delphi for PHP - Best New Developer Tool!

Andreano Lanusse has all the details on this.

Thanks to all who voted for Delphi for PHP to receive this great honor!

:)

CodeGear CEO Jim Douglas interviewed in SDA Asia Magazine

Jim Douglas (CodeGear CEO) interviewed by SDA Asia Magazine

Marco Canto has an excellent summary of the interview on his blog.

3rdRail update is live

Shelby Sanders announced on the newsgroups that the first 3rdRail update (1.0.1) has been published to the update site.

Shelby says "This update includes numerous bug fixes and significant performance enhancements, and is therefore recommended for all users. More details regarding the contents of the update will be sent via email. I just wanted to give you all an early notification."

The updated install notes are now live at http://dn.codegear.com/article/36926

And the release notes at http://dn.codegear.com/article/36927

Portuguese Delphi Day!

It's 4:18am here in Scotts Valley, and we're broadcasting the First Ever Delphi Day in Portuguese, and there are over 500 people tuned in listening to Andreano Lanusse's RAD Studio 2007 Overview talk.

Fantastic show of support!

Obrigado! :)

PS: In the two minutes it took me to write this, the number of people went from 500 to 520!

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Gothenburg Meetup Recap

Magnus Flysjö picked me up at the airport. He also organized a customer visit with Extenda - an international IT company offering system solutions for department stores, fashion chains, commodity retailers and general merchandise chains. It was great to meat with them and see what the cool stuff they're doing in Delphi.

After the visit with Extenda, we headed to the restaurant for dinner, beers and CodeGear talk. It was a great turnout in Gothenburg, and we had lots of fun. Unfortunately I was dumb enough to leave my camera in Magnus' car, but luckily he had his cell phone and took these artistic shots. :)







Thanks Magnus for organizing a great afternoon/evening!

Picture of blogger on Rails

David requested picture proof of blogging on train. So here it is, uploaded and posted while still on the train. :)

RailsConf interview with Neal Ford

Short interview with Neal Ford.

No one has ever done this before!

I'm pretty sure this is the first time in history that someone is blogging about writing a Rails blog application, while actually using 3rdRail hooked into the third rail.

I just boarded the high speed train that runs between Gothenburg and Stockholm. They have wireless Internet on board. This is the way to commute if you have to!

Back to my blog app in 3rdRail. :)

Recording solution on MacOSX

Kirby asked in a comment on my 3rdRail video post what software I used to record the videos.

Don't laugh, but I (and others) haven't found anything much better than VNC to a Windows machine and use Camtasia, so that's what we did.

Feel free to share your thoughts on what we *should* use for Mac. The solution we have is far from perfect, but it does work better than other ones we have seen.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

3rdRail feature videos - recorded on MacOS X

Fresh off the presses. Born mere hours ago. Five videos. See for yourself how 3rdRail frickin' rocks!

Again, thanks a million to Shelby and Mark for taking the time to sit down with me and record these.

"High speed" Internet at hotels

Is there anything more frustrating than sitting on what feels like a 0.0000000001 GBps line at a hotel?

Shelby, Mark and I spent the better part of the evening and night recording videos for 3rdRail and I'm trying to upload them as I type this. They're awesome videos and will serve as both internal training and videos for customers to watch. Thanks a million to Shelby and Mark for taking the time to sit down just before your well deserved vacations!

Oh, so back to uploading these things... The 72MB of sweet rockin' SWF files are estimated at 40 minutes to upload. That's almost longer than it took to generate them once recorded and edited. I'm almost afraid that it'll take longer because I'm blogging this. :)

Oh, and to top it off, stupid me only bought an hour access at the rate of 6 Euros and thought I'd be in bed by now. It's 4am in Berlin...

I'll have to get another hour, so that I can get them up before getting some sleep.

Hold please... :)

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

DHH video interview at RailsConf

Here's a short video of me doing a quick interview with David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH).

More pictures from RailsConf Berlin

Here are some of the photos I've been taking in and around the booth today:



David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) chatting with Joe McGlynn and Mark Howe.



Roy Fielding stopped by and chatted with me for a bit.



Shelby "Schmoozelicious" Sanders



I just couldn't resist taking a photograph of this photographer and her toy right in front of our beautiful logo... :)

Interviewing speakers and luminaries

I'm doing some impromptu interviews with a few speakers and luminaries. I'll be posting these shortly as short video clips.

So far I've chatted with David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), Roy Fielding, Martin Fowler, Neal Ford, and a few more. Hopefully I can locate David Black and Dave Thomas as well.

Excitement about Ruby on Rails and 3rdRail

Joe's post does a great job of describing the passion and interest here at RailsConf Europe in Berlin.

A couple of times yesterday our booth was just as packed with people as the U-Bahn is in rush hour! My low res video from yesterday doesn't quite make it justice.

I will post Shelby's and Mark's talk and more high res video once I get back to the office and produce it.

Neal Ford introduced me to Martin Fowler yesterday. Hopefully I get a chance to talk to him some more today.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Video from RailsConf Berlin

I edited a little bit of booth video. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday :-)

The Smiley :) Turns 25!

Pictures from RailsConf Berlin

We're enjoying a short break here in the booth, and what better time to post some pictures I've taken. I still have to process a bunch of video. Speaking of Rails, I did take the U-Bahn (subway) to the show this morning. :)



Shelby and Mark discussing the next upcoming 3rdRails feature. I was sworn to secrecy... :)



Joe talking to a potential customer.



Joe (sitting), Shelby and Mark showing off 3rdRail to a couple of customers.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Come harness the power of 3rdRail

Learn how to Harness the Power of 3rdRail in Shelby Sanders' session at RailsConf Berlin.

Here's a preview (click the image):

Heading to RailsConf in Berlin!

If you're in or around Berlin, come by and say hi. Have a beer with us in the booth, or just chat about all things CodeGear.

Something tells me that you'll find more and more stuff around here soon.

RAD Studio 2007 technical sessions live

The replays of the two developer days I just hosted are now available for replay. Special thanks to John Kaster and Christopher Jones for helping my out in David I's absence. David is recovering from surgery (gallbladder removal) and doing well.

Enjoy!

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Friday, September 7, 2007

RAD Studio 2007 launch chat replay posted

David I has posted the RAD Studio 2007 Launch Chat

David I presents the new product and Nick Hodges, Delphi Product Manager, demonstrates several new features of RAD Studio. The demonstrations include:

  • Multi-language project support - Delphi, Delphi for .NET and C++Builder
  • Delphi for .NET language support for parameterized types (generics)
  • AJAX powered websites with ASP.NET 2.0
  • Blackfish SQL - the managed SQL database with no charge deployment
  • VCL for .NET 2.0

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Working like mad...

It seems like there's an insane amount of stuff going on at the moment...

Almost seems like it was yesterday we announced the JGears, but it was actually almost a month ago. You'll find some good resources for the JGears on the JGear support pages.

We just announced RAD Studio 2007 the other day, which will be available very soon. I've been deep down in producing the Partner DVD.

Very soon, as you may have seen indications of, there will soon be some noise on the Ruby on Rails front. Less than two weeks until that Berlin trip. :)

I am going to be in Sweden. Want to meet?

Surrounding my trip to Berlin for RailsConf Europe 2007, I will be in Stockholm, visiting family. I will arrive on the 16th of September, then head for Berlin the afternoon of the 17th. Back in Stockholm afternoon of the 20th, and then head back to Scotts Valley the morning of the 23rd.

So, there's a little room in my schedule for meetups, or impromptu chats over beer. Possibly even in Gothenburg - a 4.5 hour train ride from my dad's house.

You tell me, fellow Swedes - what shall we do? Chat about RAD Studio 2007? Ruby on Rails? JGears? JBuilder? InterBase? BlackFish? Let me know.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Ruby (on Rails) community added

Are you doing Ruby on Rails yet? We are!

We have added a new community - Ruby, where we will soon start posting Ruby and Rails articles.

As you may know, we announced that we are working on a Ruby on Rails IDE product at RailsConf in Portland, OR earlier this year. You will see a lot more of what we have been working on shortly. A good place to start looking (if you have the chance) is our booth at RailsConf Europe in Berlin. The booth is open September 18th and 19th, and I will be in it. :)

Stay tuned to the new Ruby community for lots of cool stuff over the next couple of weeks.

RAD Studio 2007 announced!

CodeGear RAD Studio 2007 Provides Rapid Application Development for High-Performance Windows(R) and .NET Database-Driven Applications

SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CodeGear, a leader in developer tools, today announced CodeGear RAD Studio 2007, a new version of the award-winning rapid application development (RAD) environment for Microsoft® Windows. The new offering is designed to help developers more quickly and cost effectively build rich database-driven Windows and Web applications.

Complete press release

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Good and Evil in computer fight

I got this emailed to me. Thought it was funny enough to share. :)

Jesus and Satan were having an on-going argument about who was better on the computer. They had been going at it for days, and frankly God was tired of hearing all the bickering.

Finally fed up, God said, "THAT'S IT! I have had enough. I am going to set up a test that will run for two hours, and from those results, I will judge who does the better job."

So Satan and Jesus sat down at the keyboards and typed away.

They moused.

They faxed.

They e-mailed.

They e-mailed with attachments.

They downloaded.

They did spreadsheets!

They wrote reports.

They created labels and cards.

They created charts and graphs.

They did some genealogy reports

They did every job known to man.

Jesus worked with heavenly efficiency and Satan was faster than hell.

Then, ten minutes before their time was up, lightning suddenly flashed across the sky, thunder rolled, rain poured, and, of course, the power went off..

Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed every curse word known in the underworld.

Jesus just sighed.

Finally the electricity came back on, and each of them restarted their computers. Satan started searching frantically, screaming:

"It's gone! It's all GONE! "I lost everything when the power went out!"

Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all of his files from the past two hours of work.

Satan observed this and became irate.

"Wait!" he screamed. "That's not fair! He cheated! How come he has all his work and I don't have any?"

God just shrugged and said,

JESUS SAVES

Monday, August 20, 2007

CodeGear Video Competition entries

Current entries in the competition

As of this blog entry, there are three entries. There's still plenty of time left to submit. Not to mention the chances of winning are very high at this point. One in four at least if you submit a fourth one. ;)

The earlier you submit, the more views and such you will get... :)

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Mt Charlie (or how I lost 7lbs in 2.5 hours)

How do you beat a 25 mile ride? You make up a 30 mile ride of course... :)

Rewind about a month or so. I wanted to see if I could make it up Mt Charlie Road - it's a 5.2 mile one-lane beast climbing up the Santa Cruz Mountains from Scotts Valley to Summit Road. It's about a 1,000 ft elevation change from Scotts Valley to the Summit. I never made it up this particular day. I hit a really nasty thorn and was stupid enough not to realize what it was, so I brushed it off my tire. Actually, I pulled it off. Yeah, stupid is right. I quickly decided to turn around. I really didn't want to fix a flat tire on this narrow road. Luckily the asphalt was so hot that it sealed my tire as I rolled down and home...

That was a month ago. Today I decided that Mt Charlie needed to be beat. I made it up to Summit Rd overlooking Hwy 17 in 50 minutes. Then down Summit Rd to Soquel-San Jose Rd to Laurel-Glen to Mountain View Rd to Branciforte to Granite Creek and back home. A total of 30.3 miles. I was blown away that I lost 7lbs of sweat during this 2.5 hour ride! Most of that is already back in the form of liquid and food of course, but the scale did say 185lbs after a shower... :)

The most fun on this ride when a pack of motorcycles passed me. There were at least 75 of them. All Harleys. Damn those things are loud when you're on a bicycle. This was down hill on Summit Rd. I set a new land speed record - 46.3 mph drafting off the pack of motorcycles! I actually had to hit my breaks not to tun into the middle of the pack, otherwise it would've been more than 46.3mph!

0.3 miles from home, when my odometer said 30 miles a car crossed into the middle of the bike lane right in front of me! Her right side panel almost clipped my left side pedal. I slipped off the pedal and banged up my left leg as the pedal cut into the flesh... The words I yelled through her open passenger window are too strong for this blog. I caught up to her at the next light and yelled some more. If I hadn't been so tired I would've taken her license plate down and sued her for enough money to get a road bike... ;)

Monday, August 13, 2007

Three new Eclipse tool plug-ins help Java developers increase performance and productivity on Eclipse and open-source tooling

Today, we announced the JBuilder Product Roadmap and four new products - the JGears!

Tomorrow, August 14th, we will host 3 community chats discussing the roadmap and today's announcements. Looking forward to chatting with you all then!

Saturday, August 11, 2007

My first 25 mile bike ride

I went for my first 25 mile non-stop ride today. The ride took me 2 hours flat. Of course, this area is very hilly. Some hills you climb at 5 mph and zoom down at 35-40 mph...

I've put 600 miles on my bike in the last 2 months. I think I can safely say that that's more miles than I've put on any bike in total in the last 20 years before that.

About one mile from home, on an uphill climb, this guy passes me and says "that'll get your heart going". I said "yeah, I'm a bit tired after 24 miles" to which he replies "that's like 50 miles on one of these"... Probably true, my bike is a piece of #$%^ - it's a 10 year-old Marin Bolinas Ridge weighing in at 30lbs (with water bottle, tools, etc).

If anyone wants to trade a real road bike for something, let me know. I've got a Borland leather jacket that's too big now that I've lost 80lbs for instance... :)

In case you wanted details on the ride. Start at CodeGear. Ride up Glenwood Dr all the way up to Hwy 17. Zoom down. Turn right on Bean Creek. South on Scotts Valley Dr, left onto Mt Herman, cut over to towards Green Hills and down south on Glen Canyon. Up north on Branciforte. Eventually back to CodeGear. 24.98 miles and 4 lbs of sweat lost. :)

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Delphi Hour Replays from June 21, June 28, July 12, and August 2 now online!

Thanks a million to Richard Davis who saved me a bunch of time and took a bite out of my back log by sending me these mp3 files for everyone's enjoyment!

June 21st, 2007
June 28th, 2007
July 12th, 2007
August 2nd, 2007

It's awesome to have such great people out there in the Delphi community!

Thanks again, Richard!

Friday, June 15, 2007

Delphi and C++Builder Roadmap briefings next week

Please join is for a series of community presentations during the week of June 18th that will focus on the recently unveiled Delphi and C++Builder product roadmaps. These presentations will also demonstrate some of the new capabilities in Delphi 2007 for Win32 and C++Builder 2007. We will also take your questions about the current versions of CodeGear products and the product roadmaps.

Full schedule of the 10 chats next week can be found here

The Delphi Hour replays are back!

The much awaited replays from June 7th, 2007 and June 14th, 2007 are now up!

Thanks for your patience!

Friday, June 8, 2007

Road Map!

Did somebody say road map?

The much awaited Delphi and C++Builder roadmap is here!

Friday, April 13, 2007

Lose Weight

Why the heck am I writing this? Simply because I promised myself I would blog about it when I had lost 50lbs. Today is that day. I was at 270lbs (123kg) 4 months ago and now I'm at 220lbs (100kg). Here's my promise to keep it off. My goal is about 195lbs. That happens to put my BMI at 25 exactly.

I contemplated making the title "Fitness for Geeks", but it only had 350 some hits on Google. "Diet and Exercise" had 1.3M, "Friday the 13th" about 2 million and "Metabolism" had 78M... I picked "Lose Weight" at 4.6M. :)

Anyway - I'm not an expert on anyone else's metabolism than my own (and probably not on that either), so what I did may not work for you, eventhough the principles should work for most people.

I had tried various ways of "cheating" (diet without exercise) and failed a few times. Then I came to the conclusion that it's really very simple, and I'm sure you've seen this many times. Simple fact of weigth loss - you have to consume less than you burn in order to lose weigth. You can do it by eating less, burning more (aka exercise) or a combination of both.

For everyone I've heard of, the biggest problem is getting started. The second biggest problem is keeping the good work up. In my case it just happened to be a really bad stomach flu that lost me 12lbs in 3 days, and I figured I could keep it off.

So, I finally decided to join the gym. Part of the package was a couple of free personal training sessions. This is where I publically thank Randy Yagi, a personal trainer with Club One here in our building. He showed me most of the machines and a starter set of things to do in the gym. Before this I was completely clueless on how to use these things or what to do, how much, how long, etc, etc.

So for me, it was really Randy that got me started. Or at least the fact that I now knew what the heck I should be doing in the gym.

So how do I keep it up? Well, it just so happens that I'm a freak when it comes to numbers. So, I started plotting my weigth in a chart. That gave me a visual to look at - with a goal to make sure it kept going down.

I also started keeping a diary of what I ate. I read somewhere that if you're reasonably active you should be consuming 14 times your own weight in pounds per day to maintain your weight. At 250lbs that would mean 3,500 calories per day.

OK, so how much should you be cutting back if you want to lose weight? They say that you can safely lose 1-2 lbs per week. 2 lbs a week of fat would be 7,000 calories less per week (one pound of body fat is roughly around 3,500 calories).

Alright, so 7,000 calories less per week is 1,000 less per day putting me at 2,500 calories per day. I decided to go for around 2,000 per day. The key (at least for me) was to write it down at least once a day. If you're forgetful, write it down every time you eat something. Then average what you eat over a week. I've been averaging around 2,000 calories per week since I started tracking 10 weeks ago. Those 10 weeks have lost me 24lbs.

How do I know how many calories are in what I eat though? Look at the labels and pay attention to how much is in one serving, and how many servings you eat. Here's a good resource - Calorie King.

Maybe I'll find some before and after pictures... :)

Good luck!

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

The wonders of technology

I like my cell phone, the Nokia 6800, a lot. I like it so much that when it broke down after 4 years of service, I bought another one just like it off of eBay. Turned out to be brand new actually.

Stupidly enough, I never stored my contacts anywhere but in the phone, but luckily the old one wasn't completely dead. Of course I couldn't find my data cable for it either, so I couldn't transfer stuff over easily.

Ah, there's a "copy all contacts from phone to SIM" function. Perfect!

NOT! It copied each phone number as a new contact, so when I had 5 numbers for one person, it became 5 new contacts... No way of telling which one was which.

OK. So let's try IR... No way of copying all contacts via IR. Only one by one. Oh great...

Time to bite the bullet. Sunday, I went for an hour long walk. Took me about 45 minutes to copy over my 250 contacts...

Now I have carpal tunnel... Just kidding.

My manual copy program while walking:

enable IR on new phone
navigate to first contact on old phone
click 7 times to get to "send business card"
click "by IR"
click "All details" if needed
click send
flip old phone over to point at new phone
wait for two beeps by new phone
click view on new phone
click save on new phone
flip old phone back over
navigate to next contact on old phone
repeat 250 times

Luckily I was focused on my walk and on a phone in each hand, so I didn't pay attention to what people I passed thought about me...

Next on my to-do list: Get a data cable, save contacts on laptop (which I do back up).

:)

Our new CEO is blogging

Our new CEO, Jim Douglas, is off to a great start, and just posted his first blog entry.

Looking forward to lots more! :)

Friday, April 6, 2007

University Visit

Today, we had the honor to host 37 students from Aalborg University. Lots of people were lined up to present to the students. I'm pretty sured they liked what they saw and enjoyed their visit.


Joe McGlynn is presenting


Obligatory photo in our "garden"

Thanks to everyone who helped me put this on, and thanks to all the students for coming to see us!

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Launch Tour 2007

Make sure you register to reserve a spot to check out Delphi 2007 and Delphi for PHP!

Please help me invite all your Win32 and PHP friends!

Read more and register here

Thursday, March 1, 2007

Google can't count?

Some people are saying that "Google can't count"...

I don't know if it can count or not. I assume it can... With a market cap of 137 Billion Dollars I would imagine that it can count at least to 137 billion... ;)

Kidding aside, I'm sure there's a very good explanation for this. Possibly that if you didn't find what you're looking for by page 50 or 100, you need to tweak your search query...

Here's a really silly example... Go search for the word "and" in Google. Yes, the word "and"...

4.2 billion results right? How many can you see? That's right 912 or so...

Certainly there must be more than 912 "and" written on more than 912 different web pages, right? ;)

It's all in the relative numbers.

"the" is more popular than "and" BTW... 4.5 billion... ;)

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

PHP buzz!

As others have pointed out, the Delphi for PHP buzz is huge. Here's a little detail and perspective.

Googling for these search times, as of this post's writing, yields the following results:

  • "Delphi 7" - 1,250,000 hits
  • "Delphi 2005" - 1,120,000 hits
  • "Delphi 6" - 990,000 hits
  • "Delphi 2006" - 907,000 hits
  • "Delphi 5" - 890,000 hits
  • +CodeGear +PHP - 883,000 hits
  • "Delphi 8" - 588,000 hits
  • "Delphi for PHP" - 548,000 hits
  • "Delphi 4" - 477,000 hits
  • "Delphi 1" - 442,000 hits
  • "Delphi 3" - 376,000 hits
  • "Delphi 2" - 339,000 hits
  • "Borland Developer Studio" - 271,000 hits
  • "Delphi 2007" - 93,700 hits

Notice that "Delphi for PHP" is rocketing towards the top of this list, and that it is 6 times as popular as "Delphi 2007". The buzz about this thing is on fire! It'll be interesting to watch this list change over time.

Friday, January 26, 2007

The Mayonnaise Jar and the 2 Cups of Coffee

This was sent to me by a great friend of mine, and I figured I would share it with the entire CodeGear community. Enjoy!

***************

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when you feel really down, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 cups of coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "yes."

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

"Now," said the professor as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things - your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions - and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.

The sand is everything else - the small stuff. "If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

"Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take time with your true love. Play your keyboard. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first--the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.. The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."

Please share this with someone you care about.

I JUST DID.