UAC in Windows Vista

You folks might be aware that Windows Vista is pushed in market with “enhanced security” being a major feature in it.

As Marco Cantu points out, Windows Vista uses application name (or at least one of the parameter is application name) as an indication of an application being potentially unsafe.

So any application that contains “setup” word, is considered to be potentially unsafe to the extent that it requires administrative privilege to run it. There is one more word that is considered taboo by Vista and that is “Update”. I managed to waste 4 hours just to figure out whats wrong with my application that requires elevating permissions. I turned out that it was application name (mine was PasswordUpdater.exe) which is a simple file editing application.

Did you know?

• William Huskisson was a British member of parliament. He was run down by a train during the opening of first railway in 1830.
• Thomas Midgley was an American inventor who was strangled in 1944 by a machine he had invented to help him move after contracting polio. He invented three products that have since been found to be environmentally harmful: lead in petrol, CFCs in fridges and aerosols and the insecticide DDT.
• Last words of French Queen Marie Antoinette (1893), who accidentally trod on her executioner’s foot as she went to the guillotine: “Pardonnez-moi monsieur” (Pardon me, Sir).
• Last word of Joseph Henry Green, a British doctor (1863), after checking his own pulse: “Stopped.”
• Some non-Catholic countries such as Britain refused to adopt the Gregorian calender at first. The Julian calender, previously used in Britain was based on a solar year, the time taken for the earth to rotate around the Sun. This is 365.25 days, which is fractionally too long (it is actually 365.24219 days), so the calender steadily fell out of line with the seasons. In 1752, Britain decided to correct this by abandoning the Julian calender in favour of the Gregorian. By doing so, 3 September instantly became 14 September - and, as a result, nothing whatsoever happened in British history between 3 and 13 September 1752. Many people believed their lives would be shortened. They protested in the streets, demanding, “Give us back our 11 days!”
• If we put the history of the Universe into the scale of a calender year, i.e. Big Bang on 1 Jan (midnight), then:
  • Earth formed on 12 September
  • First many-celled life formed on 18 December
  • First dinosaur on 24 December
  • Extinction of dinosaurs on 28 December
  • Homo sapiens (modern human) appears on 31Dec (11:55 PM)
  • Everything that happened in last 475 years takes place in less than the last second of the last minute of the year!

CodeGear’s roadmap for Delphi and C++ Builder is published

CodeGear has published the roadmap for 2 of it’s major products Delphi and C++ builder.

Top 5 most used commands in MS Office

Here is an interesting post I came across. Can you guess what are 5 most used commands in MS office?

Here is the answer!

Think before you speak

Taken from another blog:

The classic example is the Sony Walkman which was universally panned because it did not record, but only played tapes. The rest is history. But here are a couple of quotes that are hard to believe these days:

In reference to the Apple Macintosh, Windows, and GUI

• “The Mac simply doesn’t have the look or feel of a business computer.” (InfoWorld, March 26, 1984)
• “A few traditional computer users see the mouse, the windows, and the desktop metaphor as silly, useless frills.” (Byte, May 1984)
• “‘Icons represent an attempt to restrict what people do with computers, in the guise of user-friendliness.’ According to Currie, icon-based systems are appropriate for novice computer users, but will hinder the work of knowledgeable users.” (Computerworld, August 20, 1984, interview with Edward H. Currie, president of Lifeboat Associates, a New York-based software publishing firm)
• “Because works the way you do, you don’t waste time with a mouse or learning a Macintosh-like graphics environment. works the way PC software is supposed to work.” (Ashton-Tate brochure for Byline Desktop Publishing, 198

In reference to the mouse peripheral device

• [headline] “Mice are nice ideas, but of dubious value for business users” (George Vinall, PC Week, April 24, 1984)
• “I was having lots of fun, but in the back of my corporate mind, I couldn’t help but think about productivity.” (George Vinall, PC Week, April 24, 1984)
• “Does the mouse make the computer more accessible, more friendly, to certain target audiences such as executives? The answer is no.” (Computerworld, October 31, 1983)
• “There is no possibility that this device will feel more comfortable to the executive than the keyboard. Because of its “rollability,” the mouse has the aura of a gimmick….” (Computerworld, October 31, 1983)
• “The mouse and its friends are merely diversions in this process. What sounds revolutionary does not necessarily help anyone with anything, and therein lies the true test of commercial longevity.” (David A. Kay, Datamation, October 1983)

Disposable email ID

When was the last time you were surfing a site and want to try a software out. You click on download and it asks for your email id?
When was the last time you want to see just a conversation thread in a forum and it forces you to register (asking your email Id) before letting you see the conversation?
When was the last time you wanted to register to some site by are afraid of spams?

If any of above web annoyances happened to you, the solution is mailnator!

What mailnator does is exactly what you want. It creates a disposable email id for you every time you open mailnator homepage. And you can even check your emails (for registration confirmation, trial keys etc.) and email Id will automatically be deleted after few hours…

Moving to .NET Platform, A difficult choice?

I am working on a product which is developed using Delphi for Win32. Originally Delphi 7 was used and we then moved to Delphi 9 (Delphi 2005) and are now planning to move to Delphi 10 (Delphi 2006). I have to admit that despite the originally reluctance in accepting the Delphi as the long term development technology, I have now grown to simply love it. You know what I like about Delphi most? The fact that it solves the real world problems!

You know there is lot of technology talk always going on. Every second day you hear the announcement of a new language, new database technology, new framework which would just magically solve all your problems. But if you have worked even for few months in software industry (as I have), you will realize there is no such thing which can solve all our problems magically. Language, framework and components just assists you do your job and *nothing* can replace a good programmer. Still Delphi provides the simple to understand and simple to use framework which suits most developers. This is because real developers like to find the “most appropriate way” to solve a problem in given time and resources and not essentially the “best way”. Lengthy and exhaustive time, performance, use analysis is luxury of few developers, who program in a garage and for fun.

Everything was working fine until my organization had to think “What to do about .NET platform? Do we need to go for it?”

After thinking for sometime, I concluded couple of points:

1. Developers (who actually get to work on product) like to work on a technology which is popular in market. Perhaps it makes them feel safer that it will not be too difficult to find another job, just in case. If you ask “Why you like to work on .NET?” it would be difficult for them to answer. Perhaps the only answer is “because every second person seems to talk about .NET”.
2. It doesn’t matter to the organization whether its developers are using .NET or Java or Delphi; it wants to deliver the right solutions to customer at right time.

During my initial couple of months in software development, I used to find so many problems with existing code/structure/design etc. Even a stupidly named variable would drive me nuts. It’s not that now I don’t care about how variable are named but you just can’t make everyone to name variables like you. You have to adjust somewhat somewhere. I always liked to do things the perfect way and I still do, but now I also think “what is more important? Renaming the variable to my taste in 20 odd units or shipping the product to customer next week?” Don’t take me wrong, I am a real nasty person in this regard; I would still rename the variable in 20 odd units but only in next planned release!

In coming few days, a decision will be made by me and few senior people (who I actually admire). Lets see what comes up!

My Nerd Score

How to be highly paid manager even though you are a stupid moron?

1. Start a subscription of good technology magazine. Whenever a new issue arrives, read the headlines (only) of all articles and recite few new names in it. You will need to utter one of those in big management meetings so that you sound most updated person.
2. Once in a while, open one of those fat books which you managed to steal from your library when you were pursuing your dumb management degree, and go through some of those chapters. Hey! You will find at least dozen management ideas which sound super cool but actually does nothing in practice. You can suggest those ideas to someone and pretend to be super-intelligent. Don’t worry, if ever, someone will try to work on those ideas, soon he will become more confused than ever and will never come to you again.
3. Don’t be too involved with your sub-ordinates. More you speak, more they will know the truth you are a stupid moron. So say few words straight from Oxford dictionary, sitback and relax.
4. Always use the ^professional^ language in your documents and emails. Don’t use witty sentences and humour ‘coz that will create an impression that you are not professional. Any yes, don’t forget to discourage your sub-ordinate who uses simple english to say things straight and little humour to enjoy his job/work. You can say something like “You need to work a lot on your communication skills”. It will make him feel you are perfect manager and he should improve a lot to be *such a nice manager*.
5. Whenever you are in a meeting, act like you an angel straight from heaven. Speak in a very low polite voice and sound a real gentleman. I know you are not actully like that but you need to pretend that you are a gentleman.
6. Don’t leave a single chance to mark your name on a good work done by your sub-ordinate. Do mention his name for good work also when he is present and a very few people are listening to you, otherwise maintain *your* larger than life image.
7. Instil a culture of ideals that don’t actually mean anything practical, this involves coming up with a mantra that sub-ordinates are supposed to adopt like “we must all realise the max” or “strive to achieve” etc. Essentially this means asking people to do more work without getting more money and still feeling good about it.

Delphi Compiler Version Directives

Here is a list of Delphi Compiler version directives. I searched few places but none could give me complete list (A page on About.com was closest to completion) so I thought of creating this list and publishing it.
SYMBOL	COMPILER VERSION
VER80	Delphi 1
VER90	Delphi 2
VER100	Delphi 3
VER120	Delphi 4
VER130	Delphi 5
VER140	Delphi 6
VER150	Delphi 7
VER160	Delphi 8
VER170	Delphi 2005
VER180	Delphi 2006
WIN32	Indicates that the operating environment is the Win32 API.
CONSOLE	Indicates that an application is being compiled as a console application.
LINUX	Indicates that the operating environment is Linux.
CPU386	Indicates that the CPU is an Intel 386 or better.
MSWINDOWS	Indicates that the operating environment is Windows. Use MSWINDOWS to test for any flavor of the Windows platform instead of WIN32.
CLR	Indicates the code will be compiled for the .NET platform.