A friend (thanks Mike) sent me an email recently with some tips for making Delphi 2007 faster and more stable. Here is the list of things you should do to improve your Delphi 2007 installation:
To make Delphi 2007 (or Rad Studio 2007) fast and stable, do this:
1. Install “December 2007 update”
2. Install the “April 2008 Hotfix”
3. Install the “June 2008 Hotfix for ilink32?
4. Install IDEFixPack 1.6 (or newer) – freeware from 3rd-party
5. Install DelphiSpeedup 2.78 (or newer) – freeware from 3rd-party
If you use the built-in help, then also install “May 2008 Help Update”
Both DelphiSpeedup 2.78 and IDEFixPack 1.6 are must-haves for any Delphi user.
I’ve already patched with IDEFix which has got rid of some annoying ‘features’ in the original release, including the two taskbar buttons that occasionally appear with Delphi.
The original link comes from a D2007 review:
http://excessive.wordpress.com/2007/06/12/codegear-delphi-2007-review/
Delphi
What is Google doing with Gmail and Gears? Those guys have been busy for several years figuring out how to take the internet with them on a local hard-drive. Finally they’ve got around to doing this with their flagship ‘gmail’ application. Of course, here at Wizard Software, with Delphi and a little PHP, we’ve also been taking our internet with us; mainly on a thumb drive. In a few weeks we will be releasing our first major ‘offline capable’ portable application which has been developed for a high profile perfume and cosmetics company. It’s a sales tool for their in-field operators who only have occasional internet access. The application we have developed functions offline and synchronises data with the server on connection to the internet. It really is the way applications are going to be used in the future and we have some great tools with Delphi, PHP, XML and of course a little encryption. Check out what Google have been doin via the link below. In a little while I’ll be uploading some sample applications written in Delphi and PHP that demonstrate the future of mobile, distributed computing.
http://www.download.com/8301-2007_4-10152019-12.html
Delphi, php
gears, gmail, google
Borland the company (and brand), synonymous with Delphi, Pascal, Turbo C and Windows coding, is now ‘The Open ALM Company’. No longer a single reference to any of its great products or past glory. What is ALM, I hear you ask? Me too. I found the meaning right at the bottom of the Borland web site, in the small text. ALM is Application Lifecycle Management. OK, you and I should know this as we’re in the ‘industry’. ALM is where Borland are at these days. I call it consultancy, all very corporate and non-descript. I wish Embarcadero (that just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it) had bought the Borland name as well as the product code. Borland RAD Studio 2009 or even better Borland Delphi 2009 sure sounds better than Embarcadero Technologies CodeGear RAD Studio 2009
Good ol’ Borland, and good luck Tod Nielsen. Check out what he’s doing with our beloved Borland brand:
http://www.borland.com/
Industry
Borland
Hosting has often been an issue for me. Reliability and price/performance are obvious factors in choosing the best host. Additonally, because a lot of our TCP Server work is written using Delphi, we are always on the lookout for a good Windows host. These have been difficult to find withouth paying lots of dollars. In fact, we write a lot of server code in PHP which allows us to take advantage of cheaper Linux-based hosting. For the past two years we have hosted our Linux servers with a company in the US called WiredTree (www.wiredtree.com). I can recommend them very highly. Their service, support and price is unmatched. Check them out.
Windows hosting has been a little less than reliable. However, I discovered a company recently who look like they might bake the grade: LiquidWeb (https://www.liquidweb.com/). We’ll be trying them out soon for our Windoes server hosting and I’ll report back with details.
Hosting
Hosting, wiredtree
Recently I’ve been doing a lot of torrent downloading and wanted to shutdown my torrent computer after a specified period of time, so, I wrote the following short function, connect it to a TTimer and you’ve got an automatic (and well-behaved) means of shutting-down Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. The RebootParam is: EWX_POWEROFF or EWX_FORCE.
function MyExitWindows(RebootParam: Longword): Boolean;
var
TTokenHd: THandle;
TTokenPvg: TTokenPrivileges;
cbtpPrevious: DWORD;
rTTokenPvg: TTokenPrivileges;
pcbtpPreviousRequired: DWORD;
tpResult: Boolean;
const
SE_SHUTDOWN_NAME = 'SeShutdownPrivilege';
begin
if Win32Platform = VER_PLATFORM_WIN32_NT then
begin
tpResult := OpenProcessToken(GetCurrentProcess(),
TOKEN_ADJUST_PRIVILEGES or TOKEN_QUERY,
TTokenHd);
if tpResult then
begin
tpResult := LookupPrivilegeValue(nil,
SE_SHUTDOWN_NAME,
TTokenPvg.Privileges[0].Luid);
TTokenPvg.PrivilegeCount := 1;
TTokenPvg.Privileges[0].Attributes := SE_PRIVILEGE_ENABLED;
cbtpPrevious := SizeOf(rTTokenPvg);
pcbtpPreviousRequired := 0;
if tpResult then
Windows.AdjustTokenPrivileges(TTokenHd,
False,
TTokenPvg,
cbtpPrevious,
rTTokenPvg,
pcbtpPreviousRequired);
end;
end;
Result := ExitWindowsEx(RebootParam, 0);
end;
Delphi, Software
shutdown source
If you’ve been doing Delphi development as long as me, then you’ll know about Marco. Way back in the days before the internet (about 10 years ago), they used to have places called libraries and bookshops. These were our only source of information and reference for Delphi programming tips and advice. Nowadays of course, things have changed alot and most of us rely soley on google and the web. Occasionally, during my never ending search for more Delphi info, I land on Marco’s site. Usually brought to it because google picked-up a code-snippet from his latest book. I’d really like to know who buys them these days. Hat’s off to Marco for all those early years of knowledge!
http://blog.marcocantu.com/
Books
delphi books, marco
Time and time again my google delphi search leads me to this excellent resource of information on programming and the fundamentals of Delphi:
http://www.delphibasics.co.uk/index.html
Thanks Neil for a truly useful resource!
Delphi
Delphi, Programming
Happy new year and best wishes for 2009!
Delphi, php
r/c helicopter
