The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

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

  • My badges

    Mastodon

  • Twitter Updates

  • Pages

  • All categories

  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 1,854 other subscribers

Archive for the ‘Software Development’ Category

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »

Installing SourceTree 3.x for Windows on an air-gapped machine

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/03/11

Since the “account.json” SourceTree search did not help me much, below are the steps for installing SourceTree for Windows 3.x on an air-gapped machine.

Prerequisites:

Steps:

  1. Run Process Explorer on the target system
  2. Run the SourceTreeSetup installer on the target system
  3. When registering, click on the “BitBucket” button on the target system
  4. In Process Explorer, find out the web browser process that the setup kicks off and grab the command-line, which looks like this when running Chrome as default browser:
    "%LocalAppData%\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" -- "https://bitbucket.org/site/oauth2/authorize?response_type=code&client_id=123456789012345678&state=authenticated&redirect_uri=http://localhost:34106/"
  5. Copy the URL bit https://bitbucket.org/site/oauth2/authorize?response_type=code&client_id=123456789012345678&state=authenticated&redirect_uri=http://localhost:34106/ over and paste it on a machine that has internet access
  6. Logon, and follow the steps until the URL look like this: http://localhost:34106/?state=authenticated&code=876543210987654321
  7. Copy that URL over to a web-browser on the target system and execute it
  8. Finish the installation steps on the target system

Now a new file should be in %LocalAppData%\Atlassian\SourceTree\accounts.json suitable for SourceTree 3.x. In the future you might be lucky enough to copy that to a target system before installing.

I was not so lucky, because my accounts.json was SourceTree 2.x based, which the SourceTree 3.x setup modifies, but is still not happy with.

Note these number differ on each request:

  • 123456789012345678 is a base64 encoded request ID
  • 876543210987654321 is a base64 encoded response ID
  • 34106 is a random TCP port where the installer is listening on to get the authentication information

Fiddler

Initially, I had Fiddler steps in the above, but found out I did not need those. One thing that complicated this is that Fiddler had been removed from Chocolatey for a while, so I was not sure it would stay as a product:

SourceTree

Now has an MSI installer:

Has old steps for 2.x versions to get around the above hoopla:

–jeroen

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

Bad surprise of the day: SysUtils.TEncoding in XE2+ defaults to ANSI, while in XE it defaulted to UTF-8.

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/03/11

Bad surprise of the day: SysUtils.TEncoding in XE2+ defaults to ANSI, while in XE it defaulted to UTF-8 .Among other things this means that TStringList… – Eric Grange – Google+

Source: Bad surprise of the day: SysUtils.TEncoding in XE2+ defaults to ANSI, while i…

Delphi

Eric Grange's profile photo

Eric Grange+1
+Stefan Glienke Indeed, you’re right. The issue must be deeper somewhere. Don’t have time to investigate too much, I’m bypassing the RTL now (also have to work around the limitation that for utf-8 the TEncoding.GetString method returns an empty string if one character in the buffer isn’t utf-8)

Asbjørn Heid's profile photo

Asbjørn Heid+1
I wouldn’t trust the RTL at all with loading non-ascii text, we’ve had it hang on invalid UTF-8 codes more than once.

–jeroen

Posted in Ansi, Delphi, Development, Encoding, Software Development, UTF-8, UTF8 | Leave a Comment »

Practical Deep Learning for Coders 2018 · fast.ai

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/03/11

I’ve read this twice and need to re-read this a few times, so from my reading list then need to follow the course one day: Practical Deep Learning for Coders 2018 · fast.ai [WayBack].

… deep learning course based on Pytorch (and a new library we have built, called fastai), with the goal of allowing more students to be able to achieve world-class results with deep learning. … this course, Practical Deep Learning for Coders 2018 [WayBack], … The only prerequisites are a year of coding experience, and high school math (math required for understanding the material is introduced as required during the course).

Related: [WayBack] The Matrix Calculus You Need For Deep Learning – Terence Parr and Jeremy Howard

Via:

–jeroen

Posted in Development, Python, Scripting, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

The last thing you need to do when you cause link rot is to list the page as “online banking is down”

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/03/10

Nice example on how not to copy with link rot: as a bank is to indicate “internet banking is unavailable” scares your customers away.

[WayBack] Jeroen Pluimers on Twitter: “dit heet overigens link rot, en gebruiksvriendelijke sites proberen dat te voorkomen; is zeker niet gecompliceerd en eigenlijk ook niet complex: het is een kleine moeite om dat in je ontwerp en onderhoud-proces mee te nemen. 1/2 …

[WayBack] Jeroen Pluimers on Twitter: “de huidige down-melding zet sowieso je klanten volledig op het verkeerde been, dus daar moet zeker iets aan gebeuren. 2/2 “I.v.m. een storing kunt u geen gebruik maken van Internet Bankieren. Internet Banking is unavailable”…”

–jeroen

ABNAMRO

Posted in Conference Topics, Conferences, Development, Event, LifeHacker, Power User, Software Development, Usability, User Experience (ux), Web Development | Leave a Comment »

Start Together. Finish Together – Hacker Noon

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/03/10

I need to read more Hacker Noon stuff:

It may seem counterintuitive, but… Start Together. Finish Together – Hacker Noon [WayBack]

Via a mention of the “non developers” point of view, who are the key persons to do this whole “start/finish together” mantra wit: [WayBack] “Their mental model is that developers/designers are this tiny little pipe, and you have to play this intricate game of Tetris to get the most amount of… – Marjan Venema – Google+ (who does great coaching, so be sure to check out her postings)

–jeroen

 

 

Posted in Agile, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Some tools useful for analysing PDF documents

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/03/05

A while ago, I wanted to analyse the difference of some PDF documents: why they had suddenly grown to twice their size.

[WayBack] Jeroen Pluimers en Twitter: “dat genereren kun je overigens zien als je dezelfde downloads doet, maar dan een fikse periode uit elkaar.…”

There are quite a few tools on [WayBack] Browse Internal PDF Structure – Super User and [WayBack] Best tool for inspecting PDF files? – Stack Overflow, including:

They also made me discover [WayBack] GitHub – pipwerks/PDFObject: A lightweight JavaScript utility for dynamically embedding PDFs in HTML documents documented at [WayBack] PDFObject: A JavaScript utility for embedding PDFs 

This particular case

The quickest way to analyse these for me was [WayBack] PDF Object Browser based on [WayBack] GitHub – brendandahl/pdf.js.utils: PDF.js Utility Files which is also the foundation of [WayBack] Test PDF Creator.

It runs in your web browser as local JavaScript, so it is pretty OK to load a PDF file into it: it does no “phone home”.

In this case, for generating PDF files with the same content, ABN AMRO added five Type 3 fonts of which one font was not used at all, and two others used to be Type 1 fonts.

Type 1 fonts (wikipedia)

Type 1 (also known as PostScript, PostScript Type 1, PS1, T1or Adobe Type 1) is the font format for single-byte digital fonts for use with Adobe Type Manager software and with PostScript printers. It can support font hinting.

It was originally a proprietary specification, but Adobe released the specification to third-party font manufacturers provided that all Type 1 fonts adhere to it.

Type 1 fonts are natively supported in Mac OS X, and in Windows 2000 and later via the GDI API.[2] (They are not supported in the Windows GDI+, WPF or DirectWrite APIs.)

Type 3 fonts (wikipedia)

Type 3 font (also known as PostScript Type 3 or PS3, T3 or Adobe Type 3) consists of glyphs defined using the full PostScript language, rather than just a subset. Because of this, a Type 3 font can do some things that Type 1 fonts cannot do, such as specify shading, color, and fill patterns. However, it does not support hinting. Adobe Type Manager did not support Type 3 fonts, and they are not supported as native WYSIWYG fonts on any version of Mac OS or Windows.

So far for optimised PDF rendering…

Being in software development for this long, I am constantly reminded that The inmates are running the asylum – Wikipedia. I can definitely recommend reading “The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity”, by Alan Cooper:

–jeroen

Posted in Development, EPS/PostScript, PDF, Power User, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Multi-parameter FreeAndNil plus InitialiseNil methods – interesting code ceremony reduction by David Heffernan

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/03/05

I’m probably getting a truckload of anti-FreeAndNil folks over me, but there are cases this comes in useful, so having an overloaded version cutting down code ceremony makes sense: [WayBack] interface – Avoiding nested try…finally blocks in Delphi – Stack Overflow

Which means I need to update my type safe FreeAndNil one day.

This should be relatively straightforward, given that David published a python generator for his Delphi code [WayBack].

–jeroen

Via: [WayBack] Interesting approach by David Heffernan (*1) to the nested try..finally blocks because of multiple object creations: Overloaded InitializeNil and FreeA… – Thomas Mueller (dummzeuch) – Google+

Read the rest of this entry »

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

Abilities that makes you a better developer – Hacker Noon

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/03/05

If we have passion for what we do, why not try to be a better professional every day?

Source: [WayBack] Abilities that makes you a better developer – Hacker Noon

That is an interesting, but very hard question which very few people around me are afraid of trying to answer.

I think the hardest part for most developer isn’t the tech/science bits as usually they have a natural feel for natural science and formal science related topics (which I’d rather not call STEM).

I’ve a hard time to remember the STEM acronym because it means “vote” or “voice” to since I’m Dutch, and equally hard the . Also I really dislike the term “hard science” as “soft sciences” are very hard for me. So lets stick with natural science and formal science.

So if you are a developer and trouble motivating yourself to learn new things in the mathematics, algorithms & data structures, databases, computer architecture, operating systems and networks, then you will have a really really hard time.

I can understand it is tougher to motivate learning about English (and other languages), paradigms & design patterns, teamwork, or to put it in a broader perspective the human side of affairs. Those however are the areas that do not come “natural” for most developers and are in effect the ones most developers need to work on most to improve.

Doing that will make it a lot easier to work with people around you.

For myself, I still have to grow a lot in those areas even though I already have. Having originated as nerd/geek/introvert or however you want to call that direction, my natural habitat is still a silent place with little distraction with some relatively quiet people around me that help me keep focus and force me in the rhythms that are good for me. But I’ve learned to speak for large groups, write (not just posts) and have many other nice social interactions.

That growth brings so much joy and makes work so much nicer, that the effort and persistence keeps being worth every minute I put in.

Via: [WayBack] Cesar Romero (@cesarliws) on Twitter: “Abilities that makes you a better developerhttps://t.co/svwn4CueNe”

–jeroen

 

Posted in About, Agile, Development, Personal, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

SMS Backup+ – Apps on Google Play

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/03/04

Simple but cool app: [Archive.is] SMS Backup+ – Apps on Google Play:

Automatically backup your SMS, MMS and call history with a separate label in Gmail and Google Calendar.

Later you can restore the saved data (except MMS) back to the phone, especially useful when switching to a new device.

IMAP access needs to be manually enabled in Gmail, see the website and FAQ for more information. You can of course use your own IMAP server for backups, giving you full control over your data.

SMS Backup+ is a free open-source project which has been in active development since the early days of Android, completely ad and tracking-free, supported through voluntary donations.

Sourcecode: [WayBack] GitHub – jberkel/sms-backup-plus: Backup Android SMS, MMS and call log to Gmail / Gcal / IMAP

Via: [WayBack] Wirre Telefongespräche für 500. Ich kriege ja nicht mehr oft Anrufe auf der deutschen Telefonnummer, und so liegt das Telefon jetzt daheim und hängt am… – Kristian Köhntopp – Google+

–jeroen

Posted in Android, Development, Mobile Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Entwicklertag 2016: How Agile and OO have lost their way together – James Coplien – YouTube

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/03/04

Still an interesting video, though I wish James Coplien would have a less shouting voice: that would be much easier on the ears.

–jeroen

Posted in Agile, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »