The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for 2013

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Delphi XE2: spontaneous Product or License Validation Error | General

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/05/24

Every once in a while an AV in Delphi manifests itself in a very odd way.

Usually it is refactoring, code completion or any of the ‘insight’ features doing odd things.

This time, it got me into a Product or License Validation Error | General:

Product or License Validation Error

Your Embarcadero product or license can’t be validated.

If you see this page when you’re using a valid license and official version of the software, please submit an installation support case for further assistance.

If you need a trial license and official trial software download, visit our Trial Downloads page.

To purchase a product license and receive a certified download, please see our How to Buy page.

Too bad the error hard-quits Delphi, thereby loosing all your work since the last save. Even more reason to safe often.

None of the reasons mentioned in Starting Delphi or C++ Builder results in Product or License Validation Error applied.

Restarting Delphi XE2 solved the problem.

–jeroen

Posted in Delphi, Delphi XE2, Development, Software Development | 7 Comments »

Enable Remote Desktop Connection on Vista Home Premium | frans goes blog

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/05/24

Enable Remote Desktop Connection on Vista Home Premium | frans goes blog.

Great as it has steps both for Windows Vista SP1 and SP2, and steps for Vista RTM.

–jeroen

Posted in Power User, Remote Desktop Protocol/MSTSC/Terminal Services, Windows, Windows Vista | Leave a Comment »

iUSBportCAMERA User Manual V2.0: WiFi for your DSLR

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/05/23

Interesting: this USD 300 device might be a lot cheaper and versatile for my Nikon D700 and D300 than the USD 700 Nikon WT-4/4A transmitter.

iUSBportCAMERA User Manual V2.0.

–jeroen

Posted in Nikon, Photography, Power User | Leave a Comment »

On my research list: Distinguishing USB devices

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/05/23

So I won’t forget:

delphi – How to distinguish flash drives? – Stack Overflow.

In that answer, Dan C talks about VID / PID (Vendor ID and Product ID) and how to get some of the serials without WMI.

–jeroen

Posted in Delphi, Delphi XE3, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Google Reader alternatives: did you make a choice yet?

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/05/22

My Google Reader alternatives shortlist comes down to these 3

Feedly:

  • PRO: imports GR including which posts you already read.
  • PRO: GR imported posts contains all history (even from blog feeds that are now defunct)
  • CON: slows down browser considerably
  • CON: UI has too much whitespace
  • CON: UI is slow (browsing with j/k takes ages)

CommaFeed & InoReader & The Old Reader

  • PRO: uses as much screen estate as possible
  • PRO: very fast UI
  • CON: GR import misses the read/unread markers
  • CON: GR import incomplete (so now defunct feeds do not appear)

One of the reasons I want to have the defunct feeds, is that it contains the old blog of a friend that passed away.

Did you make a choice yet?

–jeroen

via: Google Reader stops at 2013-07-01: How can I download my Reader data? (via: Reader Help) « The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff.

Posted in Google, GoogleReader, Power User | Tagged: , , | 10 Comments »

I love my keyboard; why did they hide “Underline keyboard shortcuts and access keys” in Windows 8 and 7 so far away?

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/05/22

Despite the radically different first look, lot’s of Windows 8 is the same as in Windows 7

So this Windows 7 trick works just as well in Windows 8:

This is how you get the underline character to show for Alt and other keyboard shortcuts in Windows 7 (the link shows you how to do this with the mouse, but we are keyboard lovers, are’t we?):

  1. Press the WINDOWS-U combination to open the “Ease of Access Center”
  2. Under Explore all settings, select “Make the keyboard easier to use” by pressing TAB a couple of times, then press ENTER to select it.
  3. Press ALT-N to select and check “Underline keyboard shortcuts and access keys” under ”Make it easier to use keyboard shortcuts”
  4. Press ALT-O to fire the OK button action.
  5. Press ALT-F4 to close the “Ease of Access Center”

Done!

–jeroen

via: I love my keyboard; why did they hide “Underline keyboard shortcuts and access keys” in Windows 7 so far away? « The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff.

Posted in Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Power User, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8 | Leave a Comment »

DataSnap in the Cloud – DelphiFeeds.com

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/05/22

On my research list (Thanks Uwe!): DataSnap in the Cloud – DelphiFeeds.com.

It shows you how to do DataSnap from the Azure clound, including getting some of the default Delphi database demos to work on SQL Server (erm, SQL Azure).

–jeroen

Posted in Delphi, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Windows Message Loop and Application Reentrancy

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/05/21

One of the things you must be careful with is reentrancy in your application through a message loop.

The most obvious way is Application.ProcessMessages: it will loop until all messages from the Windows message queue are processed, whether your application is ready for them or not.

A less obvious way is because of modal dialogs or forms. They have their own message loop which might cause global reentrancy in your application (for instance through TTimer objects).

That was the case for this problem: stack overflow with repeated DispatchMessageW in the call stack.

A couple of ways to try to avoid these issues:

  • Don’t cause a secondary message loop.
    You can refrain from calling Application.ProcessMessages, but you cannot always avoid modal dialogs.
  • Protect each of your event handlers by disabling the path to it as soon as it gets called.
    This means disabling the Enabled property for instance of TTimer, TControl, TAction, or other objects that cause events.

–jeroen

via: windows – stack overflow with repeated DispatchMessageW in the call stack – Stack Overflow.

Posted in Delphi, Development, Software Development | 7 Comments »

Interesting: CrossLoop (Free Screen Sharing and Remote Access Solutions)

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/05/20

CrossLoop is on my list of software to  try out soon:

Free screen sharing software and remote access solutions. Get affordable Technical Support & Computer Help with money back guarantee.

–jeroen

via: Free Screen Sharing and Remote Access Solutions.

Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »

1213: Combination Vision Test – explain xkcd

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/05/17

LOL, I didn’t know about “XKCD Explained”, but since I didn’t know about synesthesia, I found 1213: Combination Vision Test – explain xkcd.

Now I wonder how they created the colorized picture in an efficient manner (:

Probably would have been just as fast to dim the 0, 4, 6, and 8 digits.

–jeroen

Posted in Comics | Leave a Comment »

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