Talking with Malcolm Groves of Code Partners in Sydney, Australia about his smart, connected rubbish bins.
Author: Jim McKeeth
Categories
Delphi’s DNA Infographic
Remember my blog post about Delphi’s DNA? We’ve been working on making it into an Infographic, and now people are asking about creating a poster of it too! What do you think? Do you want a DNA poster for your wall? What suggestions or change
s would you make?
Categories
The Stephen Ball Smart Grid Episode
Today we talk with Stephen Ball about his work at Embarcadero, and Smart Grids!
I’m a huge fan of the REST Client Components included with RAD Studio. They make it really easy to take advantage of the huge amount of REST services available online.
Here is a quick video of me using the REST Client components to build a REST Client in 5 minuntes.
One thing about more complex REST APIs is REST isn’t a strict protocol like SOAP, it is more of a philosophy in building an API. This usually means I spend a few hours looking at each REST API that I want to work with. Authentication is the thing that really changes from API to API.
That is where the TMS Cloud Pack comes it. They make working with some of the standard large APIs a breeze (get it, a breeze when I am talking about clouds!?!) You just need to setup an API account and get your API key and provide it to the component and it does the rest.
I got a license for TMS Cloud Pack from TMS Software. I was surprised at first that it didn’t work with FireMonkey. It turns out there is a seperate Cloud Pack for FMX, although they offer a Cloud Studio that works with a variety of tools (including IntraWeb!)
When I started working with it I realized it made sense to have a different VCL and FMX version of the components because they include a browser window that is used when the user needs to authenticate for the OAuth services.
Besides the different browser window I found the FMX and VCL versions very simialr in functionality. So it is just a matter of what frameworks and platforms you want to work with since the FMX versions add support for macOS, iOS and Android in addition to the Windows support in the VCL version.
With the power and variety of REST APIs available today, you really should look at leveraging them in your apps, and if it is one of the APIs that TMS supports, then you will want to use it!
If you are new to TMS Cloud Pack then join us for our webinar on Tuesday the 21st of February and check out the TMS Cloud Packs in the GetIt Package manager.
See you online!
Categories
The New Embarcadero MVP Feed
We just launched a MVP Blog Feed on the Community page. You can get to it at embt.co/mvp-feed. Eventually we will expand it to contain all the MVPs, Tech Partners and other Embarcadero Partners that may be of interest to the general public.
We are just getting warmed up!
So go bookmark it today and check back next week for more fun and excitement.
Talking with Craig Chapman about Internet of Things, high altitude balloons, Linux server configuration, enumerating data sets and 4K displays.
Links from today’s episode . . .
- The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England Explained
- Tiobe Index – Delphi back in the top 10 (Craig’s post about getting Pascal & Delphi combined)
- IoT Boot Camp 2017
- Makerfabs kit (Promotional pricing ended, but still a nice kit)
- Craig’s High Altitude Balloons
- Configure Delphi and RedHat or Ubuntu for Linux development
- Libc manual
- RAD Server
- Web Broker
- Linode Linux Cloud Hosting
- “Brutally Roll Your Own Server” scripts
- Visuino the visual IDE for Arduino
- Mitov Software
- Dataset Enumeration Reloaded
- Writing and Enabling Delphi Applications to Support High DPI Displays and 4K Screen Resolutions
Microsoft’s Tweet about RAD Studio first IDE with Desktop Bridge support
Same code, new customers. Develop, package, test and deploy without leaving RAD Studio. Check it out: https://t.co/uRlR23ecQG pic.twitter.com/3VXGe6Sfjp— Windows Developer (@windowsdev) December 11, 2016
Categories
#ILoveDelphi How About You?
February 14th is Delphi’s birthday (and some other holiday). What a great time to talk about how much we love Delphi.
I moved from Basic to Turbo Pascal back in the DOS days, and then started using Delphi with version 2. Since then I’ve used a number of other development tools, including Objective-C, Java, JavaScript, C# and others. Delphi has always been my favorite. It is the tool I turn to when I need to get something done quickly, and it is the bar which I use to measure every other development tool (and none of them measure up).
My son took a class in JavaScript through school. He was really frustrated with it, and wanted to give up programming. I told him I’d be happy to sit down with him again and teach him Delphi (I’d done it a few times in the past, but he lost interest). He reluctantly agreed. After a few minutes he was blown away. All the major frustrations he had from JavaScript was alleviated right away. Soon he created a mobile app that was useful and solved a problem for him in one of his games. He was telling his mom about how much better Delphi is than JavaScript when he said “No wonder everyone loves Delphi, it is the best!”
What about you, why do you love Delphi? Create a video, a blog post or whatever works for you, and share it with the hash tag #ILoveDelphi.
Nick and Jim discuss cool mobile apps built with FireMonkey.
- SoundJuke turns your smartphone into your personal jukebox at any public site. It uses a combination of these Embarcadero tools in building the app: Delphi for iOS and Android, Cloud API, Parallel Programming API, REST Client Library. If your customer likes what they hear, they’ll spend more time in your store.
- EarMaster turns your iPad into a private music training classroom. Powered by FireMonkey and TMS iCL plus it also uses SQLite, SSL, In-App purchases, XML and Indy components in the app. The IDE extensions CnPack and MMX were also very valuable. This video provides an excellent introduction. EarMaster is the Most Advanced App for Music Theory and Ear Training on iOS.
- Pocketslip will eliminate those pesky paper receipts once and for all. Pocketslip it is powered by Delphi for iOS and Android, Cloud API, Parallel Programming API, REST Client Library and FireDAC. Fast and secure point-of-sale, integrated digital receipts for you and your customers. These videos will provide insight into Pocketslip.
- Switchboard turns your iPhone into, well, a fully featured and networked phone system in the palm of your hand. It is for the iPhone only and uses Delphi for iOS, Cloud API, Parallel Programming API, and REST Client Library. This video will provide some details.
- Alpemix is a remote desktop for increasing your productivity wherever you might happen to be in the world. It is a multi-platform system compatible with iOS, Windows Mac OS X and Android so you can be productive under all circumstances and is built on the Delphi platform. More detail is available here.
- ValidIN is a mobile medical app that networks Croatian biomedical laboratories so that blood samples can be validated quickly and accurately. It is built on the Delphi platform for iOS and Android using FireDAC and DataSnap as well.
- MindGlow is a powerful meditation tool you can use to induce your mind into states of peace in those times when stress might just be a bit too much. It uses Embarcadero Delphi and FireMonkey but also Apple’s Core Audio and Google’s Android AudioTrack. More and more, the research is showing that meditation has physical health benefits. From reduced cortisol, to increase in HRV, meditation can and will improve your health. To gain the most of these physical benefits, Delta sessions is critical. Serious trainers and elite athletes know that recovery and rest is an essential component to pushing past physical limits and improving overall health. Delta meditation does this in spades! MindGlow is a fascinating app. Learn more here.
It this week’s episode we talk with C++Builder Product Manager David Millington about his role at Embarcadero along with other news and tech tips for the week.
Links relevant to the podcast today . . .
- C++Builder MVPs
- Drive by Daniel Pink
- Embarcadero contests
- Sarina’s blog post on streaming audio
- AllPlayer Media is the cool app winner for January
- IoT Boot Camp
- Android Apps on Chromebooks
- Why I Believe Live Coding is Cool
- Livecoding.tv
Stay tuned to my LiveCoding.TV channel if you want to catch me live in the near future.
Categories
Checkout the Embarcadero Competitions!
We’ve launched a new competitions section on the Embarcadero Community. This will host competitions for you to show off your creativity and technical skills. It is kicking off with two competitions, the Delphi 10.2 T-Shirt Graphic Contest and the #FunWithDelphi: NASA API Mashup.
#FunWithDelphi: NASA API Mashup
You can have a little fun with Delphi in the new year by entering into our Fun With Delphi contest! Delphi makes it fast and easy to build REST clients using powerful built in components like TRESTClient and TRESTResponseDataSetAdapter. You can easily load up the JSON data retrieved from a REST API into in-memory components like TFDMemTable. Finally, you can use LiveBindings to visually display the data in your apps with very little code required.
We are excited to see what creative ways the Delphi community can come up with to utilize the REST libraries so we are announcing a contest where you can showcase your best REST client mashup using the NASA API.
Disclaimer: This contest is not sponsored or approved by NASA.
Delphi 10.2 T-Shirt Graphic Contest
The next release of Delphi, C++Builder and RAD Studio is 10.2 Tokyo. While the release is still some time away, we can start having fun now. If you want to play with the technical bits, make sure you are on Update Subscription and join the beta. For a little fun we have a contest to create T-shirt designs. Break out your creativity and artistic skills.