Posted by jpluimers on 2025/04/15
The problem with error messages is that they just displays errors as a fact without providing the user of future steps.
Offer them with a helpful, actionable message instead.
Not just for people with a visual impairment, I added readable text to the image below.
Posted in accessibility (a11y), Conference Topics, Conferences, Development, Event, Software Development, Usability, User Experience (ux) | Tagged: HelpMessages | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/04/10
A while ago I assisted to translate parts of some software from English to Dutch.
Knowing from the last, that there were on-line guidelines for this, I tried to find them back.
That was tough, and I got a feeling many of the past ones vanished.
Here are some links – in the order I browsed them – for a future self in case I want to find them again (in bold, the useful resources):
Posted in Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/04/10
Over the last years a few C:\Windows.msi vulnerabilities have been discovered (and fixed), of which some are linked below.
The core is that the Windows Installer tries to be transactional, and NTFS is, but the combination with installer processes isn’t.
That leads into vulnerabilities where you can insert malicious Roll Back Scripts (.rbs files) and Roll Back Files (.rbf files), and I wonder if by now more have been discovered.
So this post is a kind of reminder to myself (:
Oh, and I learned much more about whoami on Windows, as there whoami /groups shows very detailed SID information. From that, I learned more on the internals of SIDs too!
Posted in Blue team, C++, Development, Power User, Red team, Security, Software Development, Visual Studio C++, Windows, Windows Development | Tagged: 1, else, endif, if | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/04/09
This is soooo cool: [Wayback/Archive] GitHub – PluMGMK/vbesvga.drv: Modern Generic SVGA driver for Windows 3.1
Modern Generic SVGA driver for Windows 3.1This is a rewrite of the Windows 3.1 SVGA driver, designed to support ALL available 8-bit, 16-bit, 24-bit or 32-bit graphic modes on any system providing the VESA BIOS Extensions (hence theVBEin the name). It is based on the Video 7 SVGA driver included in the Win16 Driver Development Kit, with most of the hardware-specific code gutted out, and with support added for multi-byte pixels.
Related:
svgapatch.zip properly archived.
svgapatch.zip downloadable from [Wayback/Archive] www.japheth.de/dwnload1.html at Wayback svgaptch.zip with the file being web.archive.org/web/20250106100041/https://www.japheth.de/Download/Win16/svgaptch.zip.It reminds me of other endevours to keep retro-software easy to use: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Delphi, Software Development, Development, Power User, Windows, Delphi 1, Assembly Language, x86, Windows 3.11 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/04/09
Nice historic perspective: [Wayback/Archive] From Turbo Pascal to Delphi to C# to TypeScript, an interview with PL legend Anders Hejlsberg – YouTube
Via [Wayback/Archive] Zack Urlocker on Twitter: “Great interview with @ahejlsberg on the evolution of programming languages, the rise of TypeScript and more. Anders is one of the best programmers I ever worked with. …”
--jeroen
Posted in .NET, Borland Pascal, C#, Delphi, Development, History, JavaScript/ECMAScript, MS-DOS, Pascal, Scripting, Software Development, Turbo Pascal, TypeScript, Windows Development | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/04/08
Cool (and available both for regular Raspberry Pi and Raspberry Pi Zero):
[Wayback/Archive] GitHub – PiSCSI/piscsi: PiSCSI allows a Raspberry Pi to function as emulated SCSI devices (hard disk, CD-ROM, and others) for vintage SCSI-based computers and devices. This is a fork of the RaSCSI project by GIMONS.
I wonder how it compares feature wise and performance wise to [Wayback/Archive] BlueSCSI (which is Raspberry Pi Pico based, see [Wayback/Archive] index – BlueSCSI v2 Documentation, and now has a [Wayback/Archive] BlueSCSI Wi-Fi Desk Accessory – joshua stein which is open source at [Wayback/Archive] jcs/wifi_da – BlueSCSI Wi-Fi Desk Accessory for classic Mac OS – AmendHub and important to for instance [Wayback/Archive] Adding Wi-Fi to the Macintosh Portable – joshua stein).
Via [Wayback/Archive] The RaSCSI is MAGIC for Old Macs (and Much More!) – YouTube
More links:
Posted in Apple, Classic Macintosh, Development, Hardware Development, Hardware Interfacing, Macintosh SE/30, Power User, Raspberry Pi, Raspberry Pi Pico, Retrocomputing, RP2040, SCSI, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/04/08
As a start a comment some 5 years ago in [Wayback/Archive] Document the import order of the common msbuild extension points. · Issue #2767 · dotnet/msbuild, though informal, made this a lot more clear.
Via: [Wayback/Archive] Nick Craver on Twitter: “Possibly the single most useful issue comment I’ve ever come across: …”
--jeroen
Posted in .NET, Continuous Integration, Development, msbuild, Software Development | Tagged: 2767 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/04/07
A while ago, I wrote two threads (one in English and one in Dutch) about using the Twitter Alt-badge to make pictures in tweets more accessible.
The English one had the correct quote, but a wrong link which I corrected below (we want editable tweets!).
Two bots that I mention in reply-Tweets usually helps to rudimentary restore the text:
@get_altText @AltTextUtil OCR
in the first Tweet and to the reply that @AltTextUtil gives, I respond with another
@get_altText
Here are the two threads:
Posted in accessibility (a11y), Development, Power User, SocialMedia, Twitter, TwitterBot | Tagged: a11y, inclusion, inclusive | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/04/03
When you look at the History of Delphi (software) – Wikipedia, the real innovation – including Borland Kylix – was during the Early Borland Years fading later with three temporary surges, the first being the Delphi .NET support introduced in Delphi 7 and Delphi 8 happening too late during the Later Borland Years, then during the Embarcadero Years support for Unicode and Generics both in Delphi 2009 and followed by a the struggle of their cross platform compilers and (externally bought) FireMonkey vector-based GUI support independent from the Windows API in the XE series of Delphi versions. The Idera Years did not bring any real innovation: just minor updates presented as major ones.
This went hand-in hand with their then flagship relational database InterBase dwindling down after first open sourcing InterBase version 6 in 2000, then closed sourcing it again (sparking the Firebird database development ) with latest versions were years apart: 2020, 2017 and XE7.
This more or less stalled innovation means that older Delphi manuals and books stay relevant despite their physical copies having been long out of print, and made their way as PDF files on the internet.
So, for my link archive:
Posted in Delphi, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/04/03
Learned a while ago: if you have the username from a GitHub or GitLab user, you can download interesting that sometimes can make life easier (but not necessarily more secure):
github.com/username.keys gives you their public SSH keysgitlab.com/username.keys gives you their public SSH keysgithub.com/username.png gives you their profile imageAnd that there are tools like gh, glab and age that can make direct use of them.
I love Twitter, so thanks for these for teaching me these little tricks:
Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, ArchiveTeamWarrior, Conference Topics, Conferences, Development, Event, GitHub, GitLab, Internet, InternetArchive, OpenSSH, Power User, Software Development, Source Code Management, SSH, ssh/sshd, WayBack machine | Tagged: GitHub, GitLab | Leave a Comment »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 