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Overview all articles

On this page you will find an overview of all articles that I have written myself. The more recent articles deal with software development with .NET (C#, Visual Studio, VSTS, Azure, LINQ, Entity Framework, Web services, WPF, Silverlight, ...) in particular. The older articles were often written for the purposes of courses or demonstrations at my computerclub and these articles are mostly about Delphi, PHP, databases, Javascript, Windows, Office, Multimedia applications, Atari, ...

Use the left panel to filter the more than 115 articles by category. These articles can be used freely for personal use. Placing the full articles on other websites is not allowed without the permission of the author.

Documentation Delphi TscExcelExport component
English
Delphi
Excel
Documentation, release notes and many examples of the Delphi VCL TscExcelExport component (in PDF format). The last version of this component works in Embarcadero Delphi 10 Seattle, 10.1 Berlin, 10.2 Tokyo, 10.3 Rio and 10.4 Sydney and it supports all Excel versions from Office 97 to 2019.
20 years a personal website
Dutch
IT
A brief history of my personal website over the past 20 years. In 1997 I developed my first website and in the meantime it is a large collection of my own applications, technical articles written by myself and my many travel and nature photos.
.NET - Customized tasks in VSTS builds
English
.NET
VSTS
The Microsoft Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) have a totally new way of creating build definitions. There are many available tasks right out of the box. In this article I will cover some techniques how to customize the build process. I will show you how to implement PowerShell scripts and work with environment variables and arguments, how to load custom C# .NET assemblies and how to create extensions and upload them to VSTS.
.NET - Azure Management Libraries
English
.NET
Azure
This article contains a lot of C# .NET examples how to use the Microsoft Azure Management Libraries to automate, deploy, and test cloud infrastructure easily. It includes examples for creating and deleting Azure clouds services, SQL databases, storage, websites, services bus, configuring websites, starting and stopping virtual machines, …
.NET - ASP.NET WebAPI services and Windows Integrated Authentication
English
.NET
Web services
A detailed article about ASP.NET WebAPI 2.2 REST services and Windows Integrated Authentication (WIA) for intranets. How does it work and how to configure windows authentication in your .NET server project, in IIS (Express) and in the webbrowsers. And finally I will show some examples how to implement .NET and HTML/Javascript clients which consume the service.
.NET - Spatial Data in Entity Framework 5.0
English
.NET
Entity Framework
Geography
In Entity Framework 5.0 spatial data types are supported so now we can create Linq queries to query nearby locations, calculate distances and check if locations intersect with an area. This articles demonstrates how to insert and update locations with latitude and longitude coordinates and how to query them in different ways.
.NET - Customize WCF RIA Services code generation
English
.NET
Web services
Silverlight
SP1 of Visual Studio 2010 and the new WCF RIA Services Toolkit makes it possible for you to implement you own code generation classes that can manipulate the client code generation of WCF RIA Services. In this article I will describe how the code generation works and I will demonstrate some scenarios and ideas were customizing the generated code is a nice technique to extend your own framework.
.NET - Functions in the Entity Framework 4.0: part 3
English
.NET
Entity Framework
Database
In this third article about the Entity Framework 4.0 I will explore some SqlClr features and show how to call custom .NET functions and aggregates in LINQ to Entities queries.
.NET - Functions in the Entity Framework 4.0: part 2
English
.NET
Entity Framework
Database
In this second article about the Entity Framework version 4.0 user defined functions and the new Model Defined Functions will be explored. Based on a series of simple examples I will show how to map UDF's and Entity SQL expressions to Model Defined Functions and how to call them in LINQ to Entities queries.
.NET - Functions in the Entity Framework 4.0: part 1
English
.NET
Entity Framework
Database
The Entity Framework together with LINQ to Entities are very powerful technologies to access and manipulate data from a database. But when you need to gain performance or need extra security, stored procedures and user defined functions are often required. In this first article in a series of three I will focus on how to use stored procedures in the Entity Framework 4.0.
.NET - Silverlight 4 design-time features for ViewModels
English
.NET
Silverlight
Visual Studio
Visual Studio 2010, .NET 4.0 and Silverlight 4 offer a lot of new features. I like all the new features but I was especially interested in improvements that could help my current developments which are based on a M-V-VM architecture with ViewModels and a lot of bindings with UI controls. In this article I will focus on the improved design-time features. Along the way I will show a lot of screenshots and try to cover some other new Silverlight 4 features.
.NET - Advanced databinding with ViewModels in Silverlight
English
.NET
Silverlight
Silverlight and RIA Services are great technologies and the Model-View-ViewModel (M-V-VM) pattern is a nice approach to keep UI and logic separated. But using the combination of view models with item controls, dataforms and commands can be a laborious task because the databinding features in Silverlight are quite limited. In this article I will demonstrate how binding with ViewModels can be improved by using the BindingHelper class and by creating your own command behaviors.
.NET - First look at WCF RIA Services
English
.NET
Web services
Silverlight
A few months ago Microsoft released the first preview of .NET RIA Services. This new framework promises to simplify building n-tier Line of Business (LoB) applications by providing patterns, components and tools to build services, query data, handle CRUD operations, resolve concurrency, manage data validation, ... In this first article I will focus on the current limitations and I will offer you some of my workarounds and tips.
.NET - New connection providers in LINQPad
English
.NET
LINQPad
LINQ
Entity Framework
LINQPad was introduced in 2007 and nowadays it is a very mature tool which should be in the toolbox of every .NET developer. Version 1.35 offers new connection providers and it has native support for LINQ to SQL and the ADO.NET Entity Framework data models. It also provides new query types like SQL and Entity-SQL. In this small article I will highlight some of the new features.
.NET - Sharing source code between .NET and Silverlight
English
.NET
Silverlight
Entity Framework
A common problem when developing Silverlight applications is how to share classes and in particular (Entity Framework) entities which are compiled for the full .NET framework in a Silverlight application. Silverlight is a browser plugin and a subset of the full .NET framework. Therefore Visual Studio does not allow referencing .NET assemblies from your Silverlight application. In this article I will demonstrate a very simple technique to share source code and it will give several real world examples and some handy tips.
.NET - Cleaning up and organizing Outlook mailboxes
English
.NET
Office
Outlook
LINQ
LINQPad
This small article contains a few C# scripts which can be executed in LINQPad to clean up and organize Outlook mailboxes. If you want to keep Outlook performing as fast as possible and to reduce the size of mailboxes then these scripts and my OutlookProvider component can simplify this job.
.NET - ADO.NET Entity Framework : Metadata extension methods
English
.NET
Entity Framework
In addition to my article about querying the metadata of the ADO.NET Entity Framework I have implemented several extension methods that utilize this metadata. This article will describe a set of extension methods which can be used to extend the standard Entity Framework classes (ObjectQuery, EntityObject, ObjectStateManager, ...).
.NET - Querying Excel worksheets with LINQ
English
.NET
Office
Excel
LINQ
LINQPad
A while ago I was looking for a way to query Excel with LINQ. I needed a simple solution that allowed me to query tables in Excel worksheets in a tool like LINQPad. This article will describe how I implemented my ExcelProvider and it will demonstrate its features by giving an example of a LINQ query and the result in LINQPad.
.NET - ADO.NET Entity Framework : Querying metadata
English
.NET
Entity Framework
LINQ
A few months ago I posted several articles about the ADO.NET Entity Framework beta 3. In the meanwhile the Entity Framework has been officially released and a lot of resources about this technology have become available. In the last few weeks I have been taking a closer look at the metadata services. This article will demonstrate 20 examples which use LINQ to query the metadata collections of the ADO.NET Entity Framework. These queries can be used to examine the structure of your Entity Data Model or to get statistics about it.
.NET - LINQ AsHierarchy() extension method - part 2
English
.NET
LINQ
Entity Framework
LINQ to SQL
A few months ago I published an article about my LINQ AsHierarchy extension method. This extension method can be used to convert a flat collection of records to a hierarchical structure of nested collections. I got a lot of enthusiastic responses and questions so I decided to improve this technique a little further. This new article will describe the new features and demonstrates how to use the LINQ to Objects and the new LINQ to SQL AsHierarchy extension methods.
.NET - Generic custom WPF/Silverlight value converters
English
.NET
WPF
Silverlight
Data binding is one of the most powerful features of WPF/Silverlight. It allows developers to achieve more with less code. However, when building user interfaces with WPF/Silverlight, you often need to create your own value converters. A common mistake is to implement custom value converters for each and every binding that requires one. Of course value converters can be generalized an re-used. In this article I will show you the source code of my library of generic custom value converters and I will demonstrate in which scenarios you can use them.
.NET - Using the Google Maps HTTP geocoding service
English
.NET
Geography
This article will demonstrate how to use the Google Maps HTTP geocoding service and how to handle REST services and XML in general. The Google Maps service can be used to retrieve the latitude, longitude and a lot of other geographical data from a given address.
.NET - UI automation with the WPF UIAutomation framework
English
.NET
UI Automation
WPF
WinForms
WPF UIAutomation is a framework from Microsoft to automate Windows applications. In this article I will demonstrate a lot of features (invoking button clicks, focusing controls, entering data, sending keystrokes, subscribing to events, ...) and compare it with the open-source project White.
.NET - UI automation with the White framework
English
.NET
UI Automation
WPF
WinForms
This short article covers the most important features of the open-source White framework and the Microsoft UISpy tool. White can be used for UI automation and my C# .NET application demonstrates how to automate the Windows calculator by sending keystrokes, clicking on buttons and menus, pressing function keys, accessing textboxes, ...
.NET - LINQ AsHierarchy() extension method - part 1
English
.NET
LINQ
Entity Framework
LINQ to SQL
This article explains how to convert data from a self referencing table (adjacency model) to a hierarchy of nested collections (nested set model). The new LINQ AsHierarchy() extension method can be used to convert data and bind it to WPF TreeViews.
.NET - WPF ProcessingControl and BackgroundWorker
English
.NET
WPF
This small article about the Windows Presentation Foundation will demonstrate how to use a WPF ProcessingControl and a BackgroundWorker thread to create responsive user interfaces and how to give visual feedback about the progress.
.NET - ADO.NET Entity Framework & LINQ to Entities - part 3
English
.NET
Entity Framework
LINQ
In this third part of my series of articles about the ADO.NET Entity Framework I will demonstrate how to add and modify data, use change tracking and handle concurrency conflicts. I have also implemented a Dump() extension method which can be useful for displaying all change tracking information.
.NET - Modeling PowerToys for Visual Studio 2008
English
.NET
Visual Studio
Tools
A new version of the open-source PowerToys for the Class Designer and Distributed System Designer has been released. These add-ins provides additional functionality for the Visual Studio Class Designer, such as HTML/XML export, new creation commands, filtering commands, formatting commands, a pan/zoom window, a documentation window, a floating properties window, ... This small post describes how to install it and shows a screenshot which highlights almost all features.
.NET - Background color problem with WinForms and WPF
English
.NET
WPF
WinForms
This post briefly describes how to integrate a WPF user control in a Windows Forms application. It also provides a workaround to solve the background color problem of the ElementHost class. This workaround will demonstrate how you can map properties between Windows Forms controls and WPF UI elements.
.NET - ADO.NET Entity Framework & LINQ to Entities - part 2
English
.NET
Entity Framework
LINQPad
LINQ
Second part of my series of articles about the ADO.NET Entity Framework. This article covers a few handy testing and learning tools like eSqlBlast and LINQPad. It also describes a few techniques on how to view the generated T-SQL statements when executing Entity SQL or LINQ to Entities queries.
.NET - ADO.NET Entity Framework & LINQ to Entities - part 1
English
.NET
Entity Framework
LINQ
A few weeks ago Microsoft released Beta 3 of the ADO.NET Entity Framework (EF). The Entity Framework looks like an interesting technology which is more powerful and advanced than LINQ to SQL. I have created a small tutorial on how to start with the Entity Framework using the Northwind sample database. This first article covers the Entity Data Model (EDM), Entity SQL and LINQ to Entities. I will try to compare EF to LINQ to SQL if possible.
.NET - LINQ to SQL - part 4
English
.NET
LINQ to SQL
LINQ
Fourth part of this series of articles about LINQ to SQL (.NET 3.5). This article shows the features of the 2 provided visualizers (LINQ to SQL Visualizer & Expression Tree Visualizer), the use of the Refresh method and how to create dynamic strong-typed Where- and OrderBy-clauses. Powerful expression trees can be created easily by using the PredicateBuilder class.
.NET - Mole Visualizer for Visual Studio
English
.NET
Visual Studio
Tools
Last week version 4 of the Mole Visualizer for Visual Studio was released. Mole is a great visualizer while debugging WPF, WinForms and WCF applications. Mole does not only allow you to view objects and data, it also allows you to drill into properties and child objects. A lot of properties can be modified and the result is displayed in a live preview.
.NET - WPF/Silverlight treeviews and LINQ to SQL
English
.NET
WPF
Silverlight
LINQ to SQL
LINQ
A few examples about .NET WPF applications using LINQ to SQL. This article will describe how to create nice looking treeviews which are populated with data using LINQ to SQL (or LINQ to Entities). Of course resources, templates, styles, datatriggers, value converters, ... will be utilized. Most examples will also work with Silverlight.
.NET - Performance comparison with Parallel Extensions .NET 3.5
English
.NET
LINQ
First tests with the Community Tech Preview of the Parallel Extensions for .NET 3.5. A comparison between sequential and parallel execution is made on the basis of charts. PLINQ and the ParallelTask Library can surely improve the performance of .NET applications.
.NET - Display Outlook contact pictures in WPF application
English
.NET
Office
Outlook
LINQ
WPF
In this article I will show you how to create a ValueConverter class which can be used in a WPF application to display the pictures of the Outlook contacts.
.NET - Execute queries on Office data with LINQPad
English
.NET
Office
Outlook
OneNote
LINQ
LINQPad
This short article is an addition to my 'Querying Outlook and OneNote with LINQ' article. It describes how you can utilize the free LINQPad tool to execute queries on Office data.
.NET - Querying Outlook and OneNote with LINQ
English
.NET
Office
Outlook
OneNote
LINQ
In this article I will describe how I developed two wrapper classes for Outlook and OneNote. These classes can be used to execute LINQ to Objects (.NET 3.5) queries on emails, appointments, tasks, contacts, notebooks, sections, pages, ... So you could call it LINQ to Outlook and LINQ to OneNote.
.NET - LINQ to SQL - part 3
English
.NET
LINQ to SQL
LINQ
Third part of this series of articles about LINQ to SQL (.NET 3.5). This article includes some useful tips about adding sequences and using variables in a LINQ query. Further more the techniques of eager loading and query compiling are covered.
.NET - LINQ to SQL - part 2
English
.NET
LINQ to SQL
LINQPad
LINQ
An article about LINQ to SQL with examples of how to use the LINQPad tool and how to implement inheritance with LINQ.
.NET - LINQ to SQL - part 1
English
.NET
LINQ to SQL
LINQ
An article about LINQ to SQL (Visual Studio 2008 bèta 2) with a lot of code examples using the Northwind database. Following topics are being covered : querying, view entities, view SQL statements, local data shaping, non-mapped properties in partial entity classes, object Relation Diagram versus Class Diagram, data shaping with non-mapped properties, change tracking, bulk operations.
.NET & Delphi - Freeware and open source developer tools
English
Tools
Delphi
.NET
Visual Studio
Overview of all kinds of interesting freeware and open source developer tools, plugins and components for Delphi and .NET (GExperts, DDevExtensions, CFBH, MemProof, GPProfiler, FastMM, JEDI, WinSpector, Yapp, SourceMonitor, LINQ for SQL Visualizer, Cache Visualizer, Reflector, Resourcer, Managed Spy, Snippet Compiler, FxCop, NUnit & DUnit, ColorPic, ...)
Google Earth - Placemarks for Lommel
Dutch
Geography
Collection of placemarks (KMZ) for Google Earth of my home city Lommel in the province of Limburg in Flanders, Belgium.
Google Earth - Icons for placemarks
English
Geography
Overview of all icons which can be used to create placemarks in Google Earth.
Google Earth - More then a 3D globe
Dutch
Geography
Article about the fascinating features of Google Earth version 4.0 (layers, paths, placemarks, 3D buildings, ...)
Magix - Quality video DVD & video files
Dutch
Multimedia
Short article about the best settings which can be used to create high quality DVD videos with Magix.
.NET - Overview VisualStyleElements
English
.NET
WinForms
Overview of all VisualStyleElements (XP theme elements) which can be used when drawing on a GDI+ drawing surface.
.NET & Delphi - Change the Recent documents menu
Dutch
.NET
Delphi
Delphi and C# .NET examples how to add files to the 'recent files' menu or how to clear this part of the Start menu.
Delphi - Developing Pocket PC applications with Delphi 2006
English
.NET
Delphi
This article 'Developing Pocket PC applications with Delphi 2006' has been published on the CodeGear (Borland) Developer Network website on July 5th 2006. It describes the differences between the .NET and the .NET Compact Framework, how to utilize the Windows Mobile emulators and how using the CFBH tool and the Oosterkamp Class Helpers can make it a lot easier to develop Pocket PC applications with Delphi.
History of computerclub Volwassenen, Jeugd en Informatica vzw
Dutch
IT
Atari
A brief history of computer club Volwassenen, Jeugd en Informatica (VJI) in Lommel. Since its foundation in 1990 and until 2005, thousands of people have learned about computers and all their possibilities in this computerclub. Many volunteers have been helpful for years to give lessons and demonstrations about software and hardware, to help people with computer issues or just chat about software, programming, photo editing, games, the internet, ....
Magix - Multimedia travel coverages
Dutch
Multimedia
This article provides a few ideas, tips and tricks on how to create nice looking multimedia travel coverage. It demonstrates how to create animated maps, use panoramic photos, ... in DVD videos.
Delphi - Quickstart Guide Delphi .NET Compact Framework, part II
English
.NET
Delphi
This article describes the preview version of the Borland Delphi for .NET CF compiler. The preview of this compiler can be used by Delphi developers in exploring the world of the .NET Compact Framework on Pocket PC's or Smartphones. A lot of controls and how to use them, the emulators and several tools will be demonstrated.
Delphi - Configure tools menu with VB scripts
English
Delphi
Tools
Scripting
This article shows a way of creating handy extensions for the Delphi Tools menu. Most Delphi developers like to add some extra tools like resource editors, database managers, report designers, ... I have created some Visual Basic scripts (VBScripts, VBS) to open a help file or PDF document, open an URL in your web browser, create a zipped backup file, create a list of PAS files, compile your project with the .NET CF compiler, ...
Delphi - Handle SQL Server errors with ADO
Dutch
Delphi
Database
This article, which is written in Dutch, describes which exceptions/errors can occur in MS SQL Server and how they can be handled in stored procedures and with ADO components in Delphi. Furthermore this article describes some ideas of how to develop your own error message window to show errors in the language of the end user.
Atari emulator Steem
Dutch
Tools
Atari
At the end of the eighties the Atari computers with the TOS operating system became very popular. This article describes how to use the emulator Steem to run old Atari ST/TT applications on your Windows PC. Furthermore a lot of screenshots of old popular Atari programs, games and my own developed applications are included.
Version control systems & Visual SourceSafe
Dutch
Tools
Version control systems (VCS) are applications which are used when you need to share source code (Delphi, C++, VB, C#, Java, PHP, HTML, ...) with all members in a team. This article, which is written in Dutch, describes some common principles (check-in, check-out, merging, branching, shelving), it gives an overview of the most popular VCS tools (SourceSafe, SVC, SubVersion, StarTeam, ...) and it provides some info of how to use Visual SourceSafe.
Delphi - Returning data with stored procedures
English
Delphi
Database
A comprehensive article about all features in Delphi to use stored procedures to return data to the client. The examples are tested with ADO (ActiveX Data Objects), DBX (dbExpress) and IBX (InterBase Express) components and databases like Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle en Firebird/Interbase.
PHP - Generate list with files and file information
Dutch
Webdevelopment
PHP
This article, which is written in Dutch, demonstrates the scGetFileList function which can be used to generate a list with file information. This function can be handy to build dynamic PHP pages which show thumbnails and links to files.
PHP - Execute MySQL queries with less source code
Dutch
Webdevelopment
PHP
In a lot of PHP scripts you need to access a MySQL database and therefore you need to write a lot of code to make a connection, execute a query, check the result, ... This article demonstrates how this can be simplified with some functions.
PHP - Automatically select language of visitor
Dutch
Webdevelopment
PHP
A lot of welcome pages on websites force the user to choose a language. This can be done better by checking the IP-address, resolving the corresponding country and then proposing a language. This article, which is written in Dutch, demonstrates how to build some PHP functions to resolve the user language.
PHP - Template engine Smarty
Dutch
Webdevelopment
PHP
Smarty is an open-source template engine for PHP. It makes it possible to separate the HTML pages (content) and the PHP code (logic). Therefore it becomes a lot easier to maintain and reuse your PHP code. This small article shows the most interesting features of Smarty like building HTML tables, replacing tags, ...
RSS - What is it and how to use it ?
Dutch
IT
Webdevelopment
An article about RSS. What is it? How can you read RSS-feeds? And how can you create XML RSS files in PHP, Delphi or .NET? This small article tries to give an overview.
Use data from Outlook in Access
Dutch
Office
Outlook
Access
This is a small article, written in Dutch, which demonstrates how to export data from Outlook (agenda, contacts, ...) to Access. In Access these data can be used to build queries or reports.
JavaScript - Examples and exercises
Dutch
Webdevelopment
Scripting
This PDF file contains a lot of examples and exercises about JavaScript. It handles windows, frames, arrays, form validation, images, DHTML tables, ...
Magix photos on CD&DVD
Dutch
Multimedia
This is a small report, which is written in Dutch, about the application Magix Photos on CD&DVD. This software makes it possible to create good looking multimedia presentations which can be played on a DVD player on your TV.
Ulead DVD PictureShow
Dutch
Multimedia
Short report about the features of Ulead DVD PictureShow which can be used to create photo slideshows on VCD, SVCD or DVD.
HTML-Kit - Powerful editor for creating webpages
Dutch
Webdevelopment
HTML-Kit is a great freeware editor for the creation of webpages. The application supports all kinds of web files and scripting languages like HTML, XML, DHTML, JavaScript, PHP, Perl, CSS, ... The editor provides syntax highlighting and code completion. In this document, which is written in Dutch, I will summarize the most interesting features.
ACDSee - View, manage and edit photos
Dutch
Multimedia
ACDSee is one of the best viewers for all kinds of graphical file formats. But this application has a lot more features; it allows you to resize/crop images, convert images to other file formats, rename files in batch, manage albums, view file info and EXIF info, ... In this article, which is written in Dutch, I will show how ACDSee can be used to view, edit and manage photos.
Improve photos with some easy steps
Dutch
Multimedia
This short article, which is written in Dutch, demonstrates how you can use ACDSee and Corel PhotoPaint to edit a photo. Brightness, contrast and sharpness are often the key ingredients to improve a photo.
Different kinds of memory cards
Dutch
Multimedia
This document gives a short summary of the different kinds of memory cards for digital cameras like Compact Flash, SD, MemoryStick, Smart Media, xD, ...
Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP
Dutch
Windows
In this introductory course on Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP, we will focus on the main features of the Windows operating system. We will learn how use the Start menu, the windows and the desktop. Furthermore, we will use Windows Explorer to navigate to files, moving, copying and renaming them.
Delphi - Debugging techniques
English
Delphi
Even if you wrote a program in a disciplined, well-structured, careful manner, you will probably still need to debug it to find some bugs. Delphi offers great debugging tools and when you know how to use them, you will surely save a lot of time finding the exact reason of the problem. In this small tutorial I will explain some nice features in Delphi which will help you to debug your programs. Because it is better to avoid bugs, I will also give a few tips to make better programs.
Save images as JPG
Dutch
Multimedia
JPG or JPEG is the most used file format for photos and images. This file format offers compression but this also leads to quality loss. In this small document I will show the differences between compression, file size and quality of JPG files.
Databases and SQL
Dutch
Database
This document has been used in a brief training about databases and SQL. It explains all the key concepts of a database (tables, records, fields, keys, referential integrity, indexes, triggers, stored procedures, transactions, ...). Furthermore it gives an overview of the different databases and tools and it gives an introduction to SQL for querying and modifying a database.
SQL examples and exercises
Dutch
Database
This document shows a lot of examples of SQL and it contains several exercises.
Windows XP - Restore points
Dutch
Windows
This small article describes how you can create and manage restore points in Windows XP.
Windows XP - Tips & tricks
Dutch
Windows
This article gives some tips and tricks to improve the performance of Windows XP and it shows some hidden features.
Windows XP - Explorer
Dutch
Windows
This small article about Windows XP demonstrates the new feature of the Windows Explorer like thumbnails, grouping, templates, ...
Windows XP - Multi users
Dutch
Windows
This small article describes how you can manage several users and how you can change security in Windows XP.
History of OOP
Dutch
IT
This article, which is written in Dutch, gives an overview of the history of OOP (Object Oriented Programming). The first principles were designed in the sixties. After the language Simula, other languages like Smalltalk, ADA, Prolog, C++, Object Pascal, Java and C# followed.
What is UML ?
Dutch
IT
The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is one of the most used methodologies to describe a process which can be understood by analysts, developers and clients. This document, which is written in Dutch, gives an overview of UML and shows the different graphical elements which correspond to principles from object oriented programming (OOP).
How to use e-mails and internet safely
Dutch
IT
This article, which is written in Dutch, explains some a few dangers on the internet and describes how you can prevent your PC from being infected with viruses, worms, hoaxes, ...
Memproof - Find memory and resource leaks
English
Delphi
Tools
MemProof is one of the best heap memory and resource 'leaks' debuggers - this means the MemProof will help you find pointers and other various resources that you allocate but forget to free. This article describes how you use MemProof to find memory and resource leaks in your Delphi applications and it gives a few tips of how to avoid these problems.
Picto - Creating a glyph for a TSpeedButton
English
Tools
Multimedia
This article demonstrates some features of my freeware application Picto. This article shows the fastest way to create a glyph containing 3 images which will represent the different states of a button. This new glyph will be used for a TSpeedButton in Delphi or C++Builder.
Picto - Creating a TImageList with glyphs
English
Tools
Multimedia
This article demonstrates some features of my freeware application Picto. It shows you how to fill an imagelist with the small icons of all sorts of applications on your hard disk. Afterwards we will copy this TImageList component to Delphi or C++Builder and use it for a TTreeView component.
Picto - Creating web buttons
English
Tools
Multimedia
This article demonstrates a few features of my freeware application Picto. This example will show how to create images which can be used as beveled web buttons.
Icons and filetypes with icons
Dutch
Multimedia
This article gives an overview of all file formats which can contain icons like ICO, CUR, EXE, DLL, SCR, ICL, OCX, BPL, RES, DCR, ANI, ... files.
Delphi - Copy, move, delete and rename files
English
Delphi
In the Windows Shell (= Explorer) several Windows API functions are available to copy, move, delete and rename files. Delphi has some older CopyFile, DeleteFile, MkDir, ... functions but the new Shell functions do have several advantages. This article shows all the Delphi examples you need.
Windows 2000 - System management
Dutch
Windows
This article shows an overview of the system management features of Windows 2000 like logs, shared folders, services, ODBC, performance, ...
Windows 2000 - Customize folders
Dutch
Windows
This article, which is written in Dutch, demonstrates how you can modify the visualization of folders by modifying HTML templates.
Microsoft Word 2000 advanced
Dutch
Office
Word processing is one of the most widely used computer applications and Microsoft Word 2000 is one of the most advanced word processors. In this course we will work with levels and styles, numbering, headers and footers, footnotes, tables of contents, tables, ... and finally we create custom templates.
Microsoft Word 2000
Dutch
Office
Word processing is one of the most widely used computer applications. In this course we are going to work with Microsoft Word 2000. We learn to use different fonts, styles and colors, wrapping the text in columns, inserting tables and images, providing documents with headers and footers, ...
History of the computer
Dutch
IT
This document, which is written in Dutch, gives an overview of the history of the computer. Everything started long ago with mechanical calculators and only in the forties the first 'computers' were developed. Since the '80s PC's also found their way to the consumer.
Windows 98 - Tips and tricks
Dutch
Windows
This small article gives several tips and tricks for Windows 98 like hidden utilities, shortcuts, interesting registry keys, ...
Delphi - Programming style, avoid problems and use of IDE
Dutch
Delphi
This article gives some tips to write readable and well structured Delphi programs and to avoid bugs and memory leaks. It also gives an overview of the most useful shortcuts for Delphi.
Delphi - Starting external applications
English
Delphi
Sometimes you need to start an external application from your own application. In the past this could be done with the WinAPI function WinExec. Nowadays it is better to use the ShellExecute (unit ShellAPI) function. This function can also be used to open an URL, to create an email and to open a file with the application which is linked in the Windows Explorer. This article shows several examples.
Delphi - URLs and emails
English
Delphi
In Delphi it is quite easy to open an URL (Universal Resource Location) in your webbrowser by using the WinAPI function ShellExecute (unit ShellAPI). This function is generally used to start applications but it can also be used for calling some internet protocols like MailTo, HyperText Tranfer Protocol (http), File Tranfer Protocol (ftp), News, Telnet, ... This article shows a few examples.
Delphi - Get file information
English
Delphi
There is a very nice Shell API function which can be used to retrieve the icon of a file or folder (ShGetFileInfo). In combination with the FindFirst function of Delphi you can create a very useful function which returns all information about a given file. This article shows a detailed example.
Delphi - Splash screen
Dutch
Delphi
Almost all Windows applications show a splash screen on startup. Meanwhile other forms will be created. This article demonstrates how you can make your own splash screen in Delphi.
Start programming with Delphi 4.0
Dutch
Delphi
In this training course we will gradually get acquainted with the features of the Delphi programming language. We will start with the basic commands and datatypes. Then step by step we will create screens with various components such as buttons, edits, list boxes, checkboxes, ... We will also draw on a canvas and will open images and play videos. This document contains all examples and exercises of the training course.
Windows Scripting Host and VBScript
Dutch
Scripting
The Windows Scripting Host is a scripting language for 32-bit Windows based platforms. Since Windows 98 this is integrated in the operating system. New ActiveX controls and the WSH offer a lot of advantages compared to old MS-DOS batch files. This article shows several WSH and VBScript examples.
Excel - Create your own functions with VBA
Dutch
Office
Excel
Scripting
This article contains several examples of VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) functions for Excel.
Delphi - Programming graphics
Dutch
Delphi
Delphi offers many features for drawing and painting lines, circles, rectangles, bitmaps, ... and for defining fonts and colors. This article shows several Delphi examples.
Delphi - Drag & drop
Dutch
Delphi
It is quite easy to create drag and drop support in run-time. This article shows how to accomplish this in Delphi.
Delphi - Use enter as tab
Dutch
Delphi
In forms in which a lot of input is done on the keyboard it can be handy to support the enter key for tabbing to the following input control. This article shows how to do this in Delphi.
Access - Selection queries
Dutch
Office
Access
This article gives an overview of all operators (>, <=, between, like, and, ...), expressions and functions (count, sum, right, year, len) which can be used to create SELECT queries in MS Access.
Windows 95 - Registry
Dutch
Windows
This article gives a long list of tips and tricks of how to modify registry keys in Windows 95 to enable extra features or to disable features.
Windows 95 - DOS
Dutch
Windows
This article describes the new features of DOS in Windows 95 and it explains what can be done with the IO.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files.
Windows 95 - Install/uninstall
Dutch
Windows
This article describes several tricks to install or uninstall Windows 95 (Extract, CabView, startup disk, command-line parameters, ...).
Palindromes
Dutch
Delphi
A palindrome is a word, phrase, number or other sequence of units that can be read the same way in either direction. Examples are level, 1001, madam, 5445, kayak. This article shows examples in Delphi, C++, Visual Basic, JavaScript and VBScript of how to generate numerical palindromes. Furthermore the performance of these programs will be compared.
Antialiasing
Dutch
Delphi
Anti-aliasing is the technique of minimizing the distortion artifacts known as aliasing when representing a high-resolution signal at a lower resolution. Anti-aliasing is used in digital photography, computer graphics, digital audio and many other applications. This article shows how anti- aliasing is calculated and how to use it in Delphi.
Photo editing with Picture Publisher
Dutch
Multimedia
A training course on general concepts and features of software programs to edit photos. The training will cover topics like how to draw and add text, cropping, contrast and brightness adjustments, sharpening, ... In this course we will use Micrografx Picture Publisher.
Microsoft Access 2.0
Dutch
Office
Access
A training course on Microsoft Access 2.0 to create your own databases. Step by step we will define tables and make custom queries, forms and reports. We will be able to enter or edit data in a form and to filter and sort afterwards to show it in reports. Microsoft Access 2.0 was released in 1994 for Windows 3.11.
Microsoft Word 6.0 advanced
Dutch
Office
A training course on Microsoft Word 6.0 for advanced users. Topics that are covered are footnotes, tables of contents, tables, images, database links, macros, ...
Atari CAD3D
Dutch
Atari
A introduction course for children to 3D drawing progam CAD3D for Atari ST computers.
Atari desktop TOS & GEM
Dutch
Atari
A introduction course for children to the operating system (TOS) and desktop (GEM) of the Atari ST computers.