To this StackOverflow question, I simply answered to forget D2010 Datasnap because IMHO it is only half-backed and lacks several needed features and is not flexible. Two people commented my answer was not helpful, and wrote Datasnap is absolutely flexible (later one comment was withdrawn). I am going to explain in details why the “new” Datasnap is not […]
Categories
Visiting CERN
On December 8th, a holiday in Italy, we woke up early in Geneva to visit the CERN centre. After a rainy day spent visiting Geneva, the Moon was shining in the sky, telling us that beside some remaining clouds, it was going to be a sunny day. The CERN laboratories are nearby Geneva airport, just outside the city, and […]
In the past few days I had many troubles making our application work when the client was installed on a PC outside the application domain. It was due to several Delphi 2007 issues with DCOM. Usually, when a user was outside a domain we used TSocketConnection and the “Borland” Socket Server to establish the connection. “Outside” the domain usually […]
In the past days I hit another DCOM issue: callbacks do not work if “Simple file sharing” is enabled (Settings → Control Panel → Folder Options → View). That’s because the full name of that option is “Simple file sharing and ForceGuest“. When enabled, Windows will ignore incoming calls credentials and will authenticate everybody as “guests”. And of […]
I’ve bought a Logitech STX QuickCam Communicate STX webcam – nothing sophisticated – just needed a simple, good quality webcam to be used in Skype chats. But after installing the camera, the audio in Flight Simulator X was no longer working correctly. Unluckily that camera comes with a built-in microphone, and the usual installer made for […]
Yesterday on the Italian Delphi newsgroup run by Marco Cantù, Delphi&Dintorni, appeared a post asking how to load BPLs without writing them in the system directory or in the application directory. I suggested to use the “App paths” registry key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths], but while looking for a reference for its proper use I didn’t find a […]
Windows Vista changed the way it shutdowns. Developer should be aware of this change. Read at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms700677.aspx the rationale behind it: “If you take only one thing away from reading this topic, it should be this one. You will be presenting the best experience to your users if your application does not block shutdown. When users initiate shutdown, […]
A while ago, I had a discussion on a newsgroup about the reasons a programmer should call the correct API even if the same information were available elsewhere, in that case it was the paths of some special Windows folders, like Document & Settings or Program files. It was impossible to convince some programmers that […]
Microsoft didn’t include the WinHelp32 application in Windows Vista. The official reason is its code does not meet Vista standards. Later it has been made available as a separate download (probably to avoid a lot of users complains!), anyway developers “are encouraged to transition their Help experience to an alternative Help file format, such as .chm, […]