The first beta release of Message Compiler Editor 3 is available here. The main new feature is the support of Unicode message files (version 2.x was still compiled with Delphi 2007). Importing already existing message files is planned for this release but not available yet due to some bugs still needing to be fixed in the parser.

It looks my efforts to convince BorCodeDero to design a sound security model into Datasnap are doomed to fail. The main reason is it looks only me is worried about the actual fake secutity model. Known speakers and writers about Delphi look totally unaware about sound security. Look at this post by Bob Swart.

Many "news" about the imminent death of PC are appearing around despite its 30th birthday, replaced by smartphones and tablets. What's true in that? Let's look for a moment at the past history, and the personal computer revolutions. Before that there was centralized systems from which you could rent some processing time and highly proprietary systems using software paid yearly  (clouds, anyone?), and consumer electronics were made by highly specialized devices that could usually only consume proprietary contents.

It's now confirmed and made public that FireMonkey (let aside its ill-fated name, for now) will be the Delphi cross-platform GUI framework. FireMonkey, aka KsDev VgScene/DXScene is a vector based GUI framework. So it looks after two attempts failed to build a cross platform library first on Qt (CLX) then on .Net (VCL.Net) Embarcadero selected the Java Swing approach and decided to develop its own proprietary GUI framework. It's a dangerous approach, for several reasons.

Recently my mail server started to deliver an increased spam volume. Inspecting the logs I found Spamhaus blacklist was no longer effective. After some tests, it turned out that the DNS used by my (virtual) server at Aruba non longer resolved Spamhaus queries correctly:

Some reactions to some posts of mine on Embarcadero Delphi non-tech forums are interesting. It looks many Delphi users on that forum are victims of a kind of "siege syndrome" and don't accept any critique to Embarcadero behaviour. Let's analyze it.

This post is in Italian because it is about issues with my Italian ADSL provider, it could be interesting to an Italian audience only.

Dopo dieci anni di felice uso della mia linea ASDL Infostrada, improvvisamente, a metà aprile, la velocità passa da una media di 4-5 Mbit (con punte vicino ai 7 massimi, essendo a poche centinatia di metri dalla centrale), ad appena 0,5 Mbit (con rare punte attorno al megabit), non rararamente la velocità in upload è maggiore di quella in download.

Today this site has been unavailable due to a fire in the hosting provider's (Aruba) UPS facility that prompted a safety shutdown of servers. I apologize for the inconvenience.

On April 10th, 2011, Sandon Utensileria, the company established by my grandfather, Francesco Sandon, and his brother Luigi (later joined by the other two brothers, Felice and Fausto), celebrates its 75th anniversary of uninterrupted activity, even when WWII swept across Milano the warehouse was moved in a hayloft outside the city, and orders were dispatched via sidecars to the workshops that were still operative.

The first site, via MacMahon 22, in the very early years (Copyright © Sandon Utensileria, all rights reserved)