The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

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

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Archive for the ‘Development’ Category

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Windows authorization: Adding/Removing users from local groups

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/08/10

Though there are API ways to add users to local groups in Delphi, you need the JwaLmAccess unit from the JEDI API library project to import those.

Sometimes that is not feasible, and sometimes you want to just script things.

For those, you can use the Windows net localgroup command (if you have sufficient privileges, you can even apply it to the local groups on your domain controller by appending it with the /domain parameter, or use the net group /domain command to execute on global domain groups instead of local groups).

Sample of using this in a cmd script:

net localgroup Guests Me Myself I ACME\BugsBunny /delete

It will remove the local users Me, MySelf and I, and remove the domain user ACME\BugsBunny from the local group Guests.

Sample source of using this in Delphi: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in CommandLine, Delphi, Development, Software Development | 1 Comment »

batch files: getting directory and parent directory

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/08/09

In some situations, batch files are the only thing you have.

In this case, I needed the parent directory of a batchfile.

i.e. not the directory of the batch file itself, but the

  echo batchfile=%0
  echo full=%~f0
setlocal
::http://stackoverflow.com/questions/636381/what-is-the-best-way-to-do-a-substring-in-a-batch-file
  set Directory=%~dp0
echo Directory=%Directory%
:: strip trailing backslash
  set Directory=%Directory:~0,-1%
echo %Directory%
::  ~dp does not work for regular environment variables:
::  set ParentDirectory=%Directory:~dp%  set ParentDirectory=%Directory:~dp%
::  ~dp only works for batch file parameters and loop indexes
  for %%d in (%Directory%) do set ParentDirectory=%%~dpd
  echo ParentDirectory=%ParentDirectory%
endlocal

The point is that the %~dp0 trick as explained in this StackOverflow answer on substrincgs in batch files only works for batch file parameters (starting with a single percentage sign: %0, %1, %4, etc) or for-loop indexes (starting with double percentage signs: %%1, %%d, etc). They don’t work for getting path portions of  regular environment variables.

So I used the substring trick (as explained in the same answer), and then used a for loop (which will have one iteration) to get the path portion.

Note: The substrings trick only works on regular environment variables, not on parameters and loop indexes.

Note 2: I used setlocal/endlocal so the changed environment variables stay local to the batch file and won’t leak out to your command-prompt. If you need the value there, then remove the setlocal/endlocal, or use an “endlocal & set” command on a single line. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Batch-Files, Development, Scripting, Software Development | 2 Comments »

Speaking at DelphiLive! 2011 in San Jose, CA, USA from September 12th to 14th 2011

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/08/04

I’ll be speaking at a few conferences this fall.

The furthest for me will be DelphiLive! 2011 in San Jose, CA, which will be held from September 12th to 14th (slightly more than a month from now).

Note that if you want to come, the early bird discount is until augusts 15!

Part of the sessions and speakers lists are already published, but it will be extended shortly (some nice Delphi XE2 sessions are in the pipeline), followed by a workshop tutorials list, and agenda.

My sessions are going to be these:

Not everything for those sessions is set in stone yet, so if you have ideas for things I should include, exclude, emphasize or understate, please let me know.

I’m looking forward to meet (often again!) a lot of attendees and speakers.

The social part of conferences is very important too.
Last year, after the conference, a few speakers, attendees and other people had a marvelous steak dinner. Great fun!

Hope to see a few of my blog readers at one conference or the other.

–jeroen

PS: Like last year, the conference will be held at Crowne Plaza Hotel San Jose Downtown, 282 Almaden Boulevard, San Jose, CA 95113, USA (it has a special room rate of USD 139 per night for conference attendees).

PS2: Some more events will follow shortly.

Posted in Conferences, Delphi, DelphiLive, Development, Event, Software Development | 1 Comment »

Windows Azure Toolkit for Social Games

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/08/03

On my research list: Windows Azure Toolkit for Social Games.

–jeroen

Posted in .NET, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Text displayed in some core fonts appears blurred in Internet Explorer 9 on a computer that is running Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, or Windows Server 2008 R2

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/08/02

Right now there are so many ways to display text, that – depending on your physical display (CRT, LCD, etc) – all behave differently.

Even Microsoft has released a patch (see the below quote from KB 2545698 that got released last month).

This issue occurs because of a design change to how Internet Explorer 9 renders text. By default, Internet Explorer 9 uses sub-pixel positioned ClearType to render text by using DirectWrite, whereas Internet Explorer 8 uses whole-pixel positioned ClearType to render text by using the Microsoft Windows graphics device interface (GDI).

I’m wondering if there is a way to make it work ‘right’ on every type of display combination.

Do you know any?

–jeroen

via Text displayed in some core fonts appears blurred in Internet Explorer 9 on a computer that is running Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, or Windows Server 2008 R2.

Posted in .NET, Delphi, Development, Font, Power User, Software Development | 5 Comments »

Reading list: Version Control by Example

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/08/01

Great stuff to read: Version Control by Example by Eric Sink of SourceGear and Spyglass fame.

–jeroen

Posted in Development, DVCS - Distributed Version Control, Source Code Management | Leave a Comment »

Portable PowerShell – ShellTools

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/08/01

As a contractor, it is far easier to have your tools with you on a USB stick, than to depend on software distribution mechanisms or installation policies at clients.

Hence I like the Portable PowerShell from ShellTools: a way to run (side-by-side!) various versions of PowerShell from a USB stick.

–jeroen

Posted in CommandLine, Power User, PowerShell | Leave a Comment »

Excel XML Spreadsheet: Date.Type is mandatory :)

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/07/28

When you generate Excel XML Spreadsheets, and you load it in Excel, it will report some errors in your Temporary Internet Files directory.

For instance, when you forget to fill the Data.Type attribute, then you get a log file with a message like this:

XML ERROR in Table
REASON:	Missing Tag
FILE:	V:\export.xml
GROUP:	Cell
TAG:	Data
ATTRIB:	Type

Note that some errors won’t be reported. For instance if you forget to put your Data in a Cell.Data (and put it in Cell); then Excel just show empty worksheet.

There seems to be no XSD for the XML Spreadsheet format, so you have to get yourself familiar with the XML in Excel and the Spreadsheet Component documentation on MSDN.

You can view where to put your stuff in the XML Spreadsheet Tag Hierarchy. That list doesn’t have individual links to the tags, you need the XML Spreadsheet Reference for that.

To make things more practical for myself, I perfomed these steps:

  1. created a spreadsheet with all of the data variations I expected
  2. saved this spreadsheet as XML
  3. generated the XSD from that XML
  4. imported the XSD to generate wrapper classes and interfaces

Even with that, you will need to accommodate for many peculiarities.

Hopefully I will find some time to write more those down soon.

The first is ss:Data:

  • It contains the actual data of a cell
  • It has a required ss:Type attribute, which is an enumeration of Number, DateTime, Boolean, String, and Error.
  • When it is String, then x:Ticked should be 1 (meaning True) when the string can be parsed as non-String type (and you would type the value into excel starting with a Tick mark (‘ aka single quote or apostrophe)

–jeroen

Posted in .NET, Development, Software Development, XML, XML/XSD, XSD | 3 Comments »

Marco Cantu’s Delphi XE Handbook Available in print and electronically

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/07/27

Having proofread, I’m really glad that Marco Cantu recently announced that Delphi XE Handbook to be Available in both print and electronic forms.

Note that since the announcement, you can also get the Handbooks Collection in PDF form for something like EUR 55.

His books are always a pleasure to read, so: Great work Marco!

–jeroen

Posted in Delphi, Development, Software Development | 2 Comments »

WebSphere MQ: SYSTEM.DEFAULT.MODEL.QUEUE

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/07/26

What started out as viewing Help – WebSphere MQ: System and default objects to see if SYSTEM.DEFAULT.MODEL.QUEUE is a good model queue to use (and generate dynamic temporary queues named AMQ.* or MQAI.*), ended up into a lot of reading on security and such:

  1. Allowing access to SYSTEM.DEFAULT.MODEL.QUEUE
  2. Using WebSphere MQ Explorer as a read-only viewer
  3. The Deep Queue – Episode #8: The good news and the bad news
  4. Help – WebSphere MQ – Access Control

In the mean time, I added some of the blogs to my Google Reader and learned that one of the blogs moved, and moved again.

  1. http://hursleyonwmq.wordpress.com/
  2. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/messaging/
  3. https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/messaging/?lang=en (slow!)

Oh, and the Diagnosing Probmems with Data Conversion post, WMQ, Channel Security and  WebSphere MQ Security heats up posts will sure come in handy soon.

–jeroen

Posted in Development, MQ Message Queueing/Queuing, Software Development, WebSphere MQ | Leave a Comment »

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