Generics, anonymous methods, Unicode coming to Delphi

By tim, on April 24th, 2008 Follow tim on Twitter

Codegear has posted an updated roadmap for Delphi and C++ Builder, its native code development tools for Windows. There is also a .NET Delphi but it is not covered here.

The RAD Studio product includes both Delphi (Object Pascal) and C++ “personalities”. A release code-named Tiburon, set for later this year, will update Delphi

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Microsoft’s Office UI patent trap: watch out with that MFC update

By tim, on April 23rd, 2008 Follow tim on Twitter

I installed the Visual Studio 2008 Feature Pack today – which, by the way, you will not find if you use Check for Updates on the Visual Studio 2008 Help menu – and noticed this paragraph in the setup agreement:

What’s this all about? Microsoft has not said so, but it seems

…continue reading Microsoft’s Office UI patent trap: watch out with that MFC update

Will Microsoft abandon DRM?

By tim, on April 23rd, 2008 Follow tim on Twitter

Ars Technica quotes an email apparently sent to customers of MSN Music:

As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers. You will need to obtain a license key for each

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Fixing Vista: Microsoft’s third-party problem

By tim, on April 23rd, 2008 Follow tim on Twitter

Ed Bott has a post on how he fixed a Sony Vaio running Vista, when the user had dismissed it as an unusable brick. Bott reasoned that it was all to do with drivers, configuration, and unnecessary pre-installed applications. He proved his point, making the machine usable. The owner made a video about what

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Microsoft: Live Mesh or Live Mess? Here’s what to read.

By tim, on April 23rd, 2008 Follow tim on Twitter

Here’s what I suggest you read to get to grips with Live Mesh:

Amit Mital’s introduction (he’s the General Manager)

Mike Zintel’s Live Mesh as a Platform (he’s Director of Service Infrastructure)

Mary Jo Foley’s Ten things to know and the helpful stack diagram.

I have a few initial comments. First, it’s the platform

…continue reading Microsoft: Live Mesh or Live Mess? Here’s what to read.

CDs,DVDs still account for more than 75% of music industry revenue, but shrinking

By tim, on April 21st, 2008 Follow tim on Twitter

The RIAA has posted 2007 year-end manufacturers’ unit shipments and value statistics. This covers USA music and music video sales.

Here are my highlights:

CD sales down 17.5% in units and 20.5% in value year-on-year. The peak was 2000; value is down around 44% since then (actually a smaller decline that I would have

…continue reading CDs,DVDs still account for more than 75% of music industry revenue, but shrinking

How to code better: new book from ThoughtWorks

By tim, on April 21st, 2008 Follow tim on Twitter

Which is more important: the code you write, or the tools you use? Instinctively I would say it is the code which really counts; but vendors tend to focus on tools because that is what they sell. I found myself thinking about this last week, because while I was engaged in puzzling out the

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Britannica going more towards free

By tim, on April 20th, 2008 Follow tim on Twitter

Towards free, not completely free. This is a fascinating example of old-school vs new school (Wikipedia and Google – I mean Google search, not the Knol thing). Britannica is opening up its content to “online publishers”, including qualifying bloggers – low traffic is OK, but infrequent posting is not. The idea is to encourage

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RIA means … not much

By tim, on April 20th, 2008 Follow tim on Twitter

Ryan Stewart has a go at nailing what the term Rich Internet Application means.

I think he’s coming at this from the wrong end. It’s better to look at the history.

As far as I’m aware – and based partly on my own recollection, and partly on what Adobe’s Kevin Lynch told the press

…continue reading RIA means … not much

mvn cloudtools:deploy

By tim, on April 20th, 2008 Follow tim on Twitter

I love this. Write your Java EE app; then deploy to up to 20 virtual servers like this:

mvn cloudtools:deploy

The servers are Amazon EC2 instances, charged by the hour.

The tool comes from Chris Richardson, author of POJOs in Action. It combines a Groovy framework called EC2Deploy with appropriate Amazon virtual machine images

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