Vista solves XP SP2 problem

This week one of my colleagues visited a client at the university of Antwerp to upgrade their installation of Sevensteps software. They were still using version 4.x (which we developed some 5 years ago). It was really time for them to upgrade to the current state of our engine.

Version 4.x suffered from the Windows XP Service Pack 2 upgrade - in fact that upgrade broke our software big time. It was then decided to do a complete remake of our software and version 5 was born. It was a major upgrade for us as you can imagine but one that we didn't regret for a single moment.

Much to our surprise we found in Antwerp that installing version 4.x on Vista generated a Windows error message, stating that the problems were known and if we wanted an update for it. After confirming that - we just were too curious to find out what MS had in store for us - some downloading occured, a new OCX was installed and presto: version 4.x performed as well as it ever did, and some....

So, Vista not only takes you to a next level on Windows, it also solved our old problems. A bit late, I must admit, but it is nice to now that customers with old versions of our software can still us it under Vista.


Bye,
Bart

New hardware is always a thrill

I admit, I'm a gadget lover. And gadget lovers always get a buzz when something new pops up. This time it was a new mouse. My old one was worn out, it just didn't work properly anymore. So, I got myself a new mouse, a Logitech MX Revolution. It's an expensive one, but luckily we have a motto in our company: our hardware is our tool and we should get the best available.

This thing has one function that I haven't had before. The scroll wheel can have two modes: one light, fluent scroll mode and one 'clicking' scroll mode. By default (as far as I have found out yet) browsing on the internet uses the fluent mode and all other programs use the clicking mode. To me it means that scrolling through my code uses the 'clicking' mode, which is great because it clicks at every scrolled line. The fluent mode gives you a 'soft' feeling when browsing the internet, which somehow eases my mind. I don't feel as rushed as before when reading webpages. Funny how such a thing in hardware feedback can set your mind.

I can recommend adopting our motto: investing in hardware is never bad. It's much better to spend some money on fast, good performing hardware then having a mindset that is uncomfortable. Feeling not well when working can cost you money.

Bye,
Bart

Anticipating Unicode Delphi

For some time now the Delphi community has been waiting for Tiburon, the Delphi version that will support Unicode. It is announced to be released somewhere this year. Of course, you can expect companies like DevExpress to wait for that version to do any work on their components for Unicode support.

There is some news though, which you can read at http://blogs.codegear.com/nickhodges/2008/03/24/39041. Apparently things are going very smoothly and 'some technology partners' have had a look already. You can only expect DevExpress to be one of those.

We are waiting for Unicode support very eagerly I can tell you. Our engine is quite ready to do propery multi lingual support, but we couldn't implement it in a proper way due to the lack of user interface controls that support that. That all might change this year and I think the 2009 versions of Sevensteps products will have the multi lingual support that we designed many moons ago already...

If anything new comes along, I'll keep you posted.

Bye,
Bart