CodeRage 7 – Day 1 Highlights: Marco Cantu is the new Delphi Product Manager, RAD Mobile Studio demoed, relevant links

07/11/2012 Leave a comment

Embarcadero’s Coderage 7 conference Day 1 started with a great announcement, so I took the chance  to congratulate  Marco Cantu  that  joined Embarcadero as Delphi Product Manager . It is quite fortunate to have the Master of Delphi himself with his full expertise (writing tons of Delphi books, a great and frequent speaker in a lot of Delphi conference, opens source contributor…) to be in charge of Delphi’s future. Bringing his practical expert user/developer perspective into the overall Embarcadero’s vision regarding Delphi should have a big, positive impact.  It remains to be seen how much liberty Marco will have to decide in regard of development priorities/choices. Maybe with this announcement,  it is also a good opportunity for Embarcadero to let FREE (to acquire) some late Marco’s books (as ebooks) to form sort of new Delphi Developer Guides.

While Marco’s appointment was the best news so far, the demo performed with the new RAD Mobile Studio (for XE3 ?!) was definitely great demonstrating the (non-vaporware!) current status of development and the Embarcadero commitment to the mobile focused (Android and iOS) roadmap . I took the chance to make some screenshoots to have a look of the nice & natural integration of the new mobile plugin into the  RAD Studio. 

RAD Mobile Studio Visual Designer

RAD Mobile Studio Visual Designer + iOS Simulator

RAD Mobile Studio Visual Designer + iOS Simulator

Bonus: Here are some relevant links that I collected during #coderage 7

Filed under android, delphi, ios

Special offers for Delphi components and tools during CodeRage 7 (Delphi Edition)

06/11/2012 2 Comments

There are few hours left until the Embarcadero’s Coderage 7 conference Delphi sessions will start, and as now a good established tradition, several well known Delphi & C++Builder components and tools vendors have very good special offers during the conference [6-8 November] so it look like a good time for shopping. To have a better overview of the special offers, I collected all the offerings with direct links and I also highlighted the discount offered.

ProTip: If you missed last year Coderage 6 conference, the recorded sessions videos are available on Code Central, where  I also expect that all Coderage 7 videes will be available shortly. Last year, the videos were incrementally added  at the end of the conference days, so just keep checking the next day to pick your favorite presentation.

Filed under delphi

Oracle ADFMobile: The key point – A lightweight/headless (~ 10M) JVM is put now on iOS & Android with HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript integration

25/10/2012 1 Comment

Oracle just announced ADF Mobile that is a mobile web framework based on the Oracle’s own ADF but this time targeting mobile developments on iOS and Android.

Aside the overall user advertised features (HTML5, Java, ADF, CSS3, JavaScript, REST) the really STRONG key-point I see is that it actually runs FULL Java on iOS and Android over an a lightweight/headless JVM deployed/embedded with the application, being practically the first mass Java based platform running successfully on iOS …. It will be interesting to see how Apple will react to this good news (for Java developers).

So here are some of the relevant links related to the just announced ADF Mobile framework and the underlying JVM:

“…An application developed with ADF Mobile contains a lightweight Java virtual machine (JV7M). Think of this JVM as a library that gets used for business logic and data access – the JVM is not a container for the whole application and it does not render the user interface. Rather, the JVM simply passes data to an HTML5 view, which renders the user interface.
Developers can code the application business logic in Java and the compiled bytecode can run on either the Apple iOS or Android platforms. The Java technology is optimized and has a minimal on-device footprint (around 10MB). Access to the SQLite database is available through Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) and support for web service requests
are available through SOAP or REST…”

Filed under android, ios, java, jvm

Special offers for Delphi components and tools during CodeRage 6

19/10/2011 1 Comment

Embarcadero’s Coderage 6 conference sessions are in full swing now and several Delphi & C++Builder components and tools vendors have very good special offers during the conference [17-21 October] so is definitelly a good time for shopings. Bellow I colected the vendors special offerings with direct links and also highlighted the discount offered.

ProTip: The Coderage 6 conference pre-recorded sessions videos are already (and will be) available on Code Central, so if you  miss or like to watch again any of presentation you may grab it from here. Please note that the videos are incrementatly added  at the end of the conference day, so just keep checking the next day to pick your favorite presentation.

Filed under delphi Tagged with , ,

video – Everything You Need to Know About Windows 8 in 8 Minutes

13/09/2011 Leave a comment

A quick recap of today’s Windows 8 keynote, featuring all the best stuff in a quickly digestible format.

Filed under tech, Uncategorized, video Tagged with ,

13 key screenshoots for Windows 8 developers [BUILD 2011, Day 1 Keynote]

13/09/2011 1 Comment

After all the wild speculations regarding it, Windows 8 was finally introduced to the public by Steven Sinofsky at BUILD Conference 2011. For the ones impatient to play with Windows 8, a developer preview (WITHOUT activation !!!) will be made available at http://dev.windows.com. For additional feedback on BUILD 2011/Windows 8 follow Twitter on #bldwin hashtag and/or my tweets here @devstonez

Here are some of the key features presented during the keynote that I managed to capture from the live stream (click the thumbnails for the full images):

Windows 8 vs. Windows 7 memory usage and performance

Windows 8 Platform and Tools: native, web or managed APIs over WinRT

Windows 8 Developer Platform and Tools: XAML, C#, C++, Silverlight, HTML5, Javascript

Windows 8 Store integrated in Visual Studio 11 (vNext)

Microsoft Expression Blend 5 Supports XAML, CSS3, HTML5, Metro Style controls/grids

Silverlight 5 to support new Metro Style conditional code

Silverlight 5 to support new Metro Style controls/grids

Samsung Windows 8 Developer Preview PC/Tablet specs, includes “everything”, ready for development

Windows 8 Task Manger, unused “Metro Style” apps are suspended to save batery/cpu

Windows 8 enhanced multimonitor with “Metro Style” apps support

Internet Explorer 10 minimalist UI, fullscreen, desktop mode, Metro Style

Windows 8 SkyDrive sharing and full access to computers, phones over the shared Live account

Windows 8 SkyDrive and Live API cloud services with full access to computers, phones

Additional Windows 8/BUILD 2011 relevant links:
Windows 8 Replaces the Win32 API, introduces WinRT & “Native XAML”
Microsoft to developers: Metro is your future
Top 10 Moments from BUILD Day 1 Keynote
Previewing The Future: Hands On With Windows 8
Microsoft’s Windows 8: Here’s what we now know (and don’t)
Build 2011 Day 1 Keynote: Re-imagining Windows Yet Again
Build 2011: HTML5 + JS ‘First-Class Citizens,’ Silverlight Takes a Back Seat
Build 2011: The Two Worlds of Windows 8
Hardware and Cloud Demos at Build 2011
video – Windows 8 for tablet hands on
Here comes Windows 8 – but what about the apps?
BUILD 2011 Session … Metro everywhere !
Microsoft, Behind in Mobile, Tries to Woo App Developers With Windows 8
Microsoft BUILD Conference Outlines New Opportunities for Developers

Filed under tech, Uncategorized Tagged with ,

Introducing the Ceylon Project – Gavin King presentations at QCon Beijing 2011

13/04/2011 39 Comments

Gavin King, the Hibernate Java ORM famous creator was busy lately developing Ceylon … a new JVM language that suppose to be a Java KILLER. Bellow is Gavin King’s presentations given at QCon Beijing 2011

Introducing the Ceylon Project

The Ceylon Type System

References:
– Ceylon – by Gavin King
– Red Hat Uncloaks ‘Java Killer’: the Ceylon Project
– Gavin King unveils Red Hat’s top secret Java Killer/Successor: The Ceylon Project
– Talk at QCon Beijing – by Gavin King
– What’s the difference between Scala and Red Hat’s Ceylon language?

Filed under java, jvm, scala, tech Tagged with

All you need to know about Cloud Foundry: blogs, articles, reviews, tutorials, videos

13/04/2011 2 Comments

Cloud Foundry, the first open platform as a service (PaaS) is in the wild now. You can run your Spring, Rails and Node.js applications and you can develop and deploy from your IDE or command line.

Here I collected some of the most relevant resources, blogs, reviews, turorials, videos … so let’s start !

Blogs, articles, reviews, tutorials:
– Launching Cloud Foundry, The Industry’s First Open PaaS
– VMware Introduces Cloud Foundry, The Industry’s First Open PaaS
– Cloud Foundry — Delivering on VMware’s “Open PaaS” Strategy
– VMWare Cloud Foundry – Quick Analysis and Press Pass
– VMware Launches Open-Source Cloud: So What Exactly Is Cloud Foundry? Who Gets Hurt ?
– VMware Changes the Game with Launch of Open Platform
– Cloud Foundry Spring examples
– Cloud Foundry for Spring Developers
– One-step deployment with Grails and Cloud Foundry
– Roo + Cloud Foundry = Productivity in the Cloud
– SpringSource Cloud Foundry Tutorials – Spring, Roo, Grails
– Getting Started guide for Spring STS users
– Getting Started Guide – Command Line (VMC) users
– Cloud Foundry Grails plugin
– Cloud Foundry Grails Plugin User Guide
– Launch VMware’s CloudFoundry PaaS using RightScale
– Try out cloudfoundry on AWS
– Cloud Foundry Grails examples
– MongoDB tutorial running on Cloud Foundry

Official References:
– Cloud Foundry
– Cloud Foundry Open Source Community (licensed under Apache 2)
– Cloud Foundry Blog
– Cloud Foundry Forums
– Cloud Foundry Knowledge Base (articles, how-tos, tutorials)
– Cloud Foundry FAQ
– Cloud Foundry Open Source Repository @Github
– Cloud Foundry @Twitter
– Cloud Foundry @Facebook
– Cloud Foundry @YouTube

video – Cloud Foundry Getting started:

Introduction to Cloud Foundry

Cloud Foundry – Getting Started with SpringSource STS IDE

Cloud Foundry – Getting Started with vmc, the Cloud Foundry Command Line Interface

video – Cloud Foundry Launch/Live Webinar [12.04.2011]:

Part 1 – Paul Maritz and Rod Johnson introduce Cloud Foundry

Part 2 – Rod Johnson general demonstration

Part 3  – Spring demonstration

Part 4 – Ruby demonstration

Part 5 – Node.js demonstration

Part 6  – Scale out demonstration

Part 7  – Cloud Foundry additional services demonstration

Part 8 –  MicroCloud demonstration

Part 9 – RightScale demonstration

Part 10 – Function Source demonstration

Part 11 – Rod Johnson closing the webinar

Filed under java, tech, video

Delphi 64-bit Compiler and 64-bit VCL in action

05/04/2011 8 Comments

Delphi x64 used to be a very hot topic for long time … but finally, after a lot of roadmap overhauls and promises from Borland, CodeGear and lately Embarcadero, and after a lot of FUD and “Delphi-is-dead” discussions on various blogs, forums and other Delphi haters, the FIRST, OFFICIAL and PUBLIC release of Delphi 64-bit (beta) was just announced  by Embarcadero, and is available here. To be fair, under Embarcadero Delphi absolutely got a better treatment and we witnessed so far more commitments toward the product quality and the openness for the user demands. Hopefully with the new release (x64) and the future developments (X-Platform/Mac/Linux, … maybe ARM compiler ?!) Embarcadero will earn the “Delphi Saver” mark and will be the best home for the good-old Borland tools.

Aside from the announcement, David I. made a very informative visual presentation of the new Delphi 64-bit features and IDE integration also pointing out the major differences when programming for 64-bit.

Even that I absolutely recommend to watch the full video,  I took the liberty to extract (from the official video) just the part demonstrating the new Delphi x64 IDE integration, to highlight how smooth the transition from 32-bit to 64-bit will be.

As seen into the video (and detailed bellow) to re/compile a regular Delphi project for x64 (basically without any code changes !), you just have to add/switch the target platform from 32-bit to 64-bit into the updated Project Manager including now a new configuration node named “Target Platforms”.  I expect that into the future RAD Studio versions (XE2, XE3…) we will witness how the target platforms will be extended with Mac-OS/X, Linux … an who know, hopefully ARM  🙂

Delphi IDE – Target Platforms

Not a definitive conclusion, but as we can see, the 64-bit Delphi IDE integration is looking quite good, being simple and intuitive. Hopefully, Embarcadero will provide more information and features demonstrations of the new Delphi x64 soon.

Great work so far from the Embarcadero guys ! … And now the Delphi-haters should step forward and start complaining 🙂

Delphi 64-bit references/blogs:
– Delphi 64-bit Compiler Sneak Preview – Official Website
– Delphi 64-bit Compiler Sneak Preview and Beta – Official Announcement
– Delphi 64-bit Sneak Preview – Marco Cantu
– Delphi 64-bit Compiler Sneak Preview available now – Embarcadero Forums
– Delphi 64-bit Compiler Preview and Beta Program – Andreano Lanusse
– Delphi 64 beta official after all – Eric Grange / delphitools.info
– Delphi 64-bit Compiler Sneak Preview – Radek Červinka / delphi.cz
– video – Delphi 64-bit Compiler Sneak Preview – Official Youtube Preview

Filed under delphi

Embarcadero AppWave Store (beta) opens to developers

25/03/2011 Leave a comment

The AppWave Store (beta) from Embarcadero is now opened for developers. Embarcadero even offers a FREE (TIME LIMITED) registration for 1 YEAR (otherwise a $99/year fee will apply).  After the registration you’ll get access to the AppWave (beta), where you can use the AppWave Studio to convert your software into AppWave apps. The additional good news is that most (if not all) of the countries are supported and the payment will be using PayPal.

So what’s this AppWave stuff, anyway ? Now Embarcadero answers with more details:

The first PC apps store that delivers a mobile-like app experience to your customers, for your Windows applications. AppWave lets your customers experience apps-not the traditional software hassles of buying, licensing, and installation

Apps are the key to accelerating PC software utilization and sales. The streamlined app experience on mobile platforms kicked off a tidal wave of software purchasing and utilization. AppWave is about to deliver the same streamlined experience for PC software.Traditional software applications, installers, and delivery systems put barriers between apps and users. AppWave breaks down those barriers–making it easy to find, try, buy and run PC apps–giving users a mobile experience on their PC.Using the Free AppWave Studio to create an app of your traditional software application is easy and requires no changes or modifications to your software. AppWaveʼs built-in elastic licensing technology allows users to easily increase license capacity as their usage increases. All of this means you can sell more without expensive and complicated sales and marketing efforts 

Comparing the newly updated web store with the previous/unfinished version (mentioned here) reveals a lot of new details, so bellow I’ll highlight some of them:

  1. AppWave Developer’s benefits:

    • Using the Free AppWave Studio to create an app of your traditional software application is easy and requires no changes or modifications to your software
    • Code then Cash: Forget about licensing, packaging, and distribution
    • Allow users to easily search, browse and run your App, and keep them instantly updated with the latest version
    • Users can add ratings and reviews for your application
    • Pick your own price, get 70% of sales revenue, payed monthly over PayPal
    • You pay NO FEES for: free apps, credit card payments, hosting, marketing, license management, trials

  2. AppWave User’s benefits:

    • Runs on-demand without installation (one-click), without affecting the Windows registry or OS
    • Easily search and browse into the store to find applications, can add ratings and reviews
    • Updated on-demand to the last version of the app

  3. AppWave Features:

    • Discovery – Your apps are easily found by search and can be rated and reviewed
    • Instant Access – Apps get into users hands with one-click
    • Always Available – Apps go where you go, can run from anywhere and recover anytime with no installs
    • Convenience – Simple to upload, simple to access

Additionally, Embarcadero made available The AppWave Developer FAQ and also included a sneek peek animation of the AppWave in action (http://signup.appwavestore.com/video3.swf):

Additional AppWave Reviews:
– Marco Cantu’s Understanding Embarcadero AppWave
– Tim Anderson’s Another Windows app store – but this time it is virtual. Embarcadero’s AppWave promises instant installs

Filed under delphi, tech

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