Technology Stuff

Orchard BPM is finally finished

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:18:58 +1000

One of the hardest things to do is finish software. After 12 years of developing software solutions either as a developer or as a manager, this holds just as true today as it ever did. Orchard BPM has been a spare time project for over two years, and on Tuesday the 5th of September it will be available to purchase online.

I'm extremely pleased with the results. So if you are manager who is looking to automate their business processes for the Web or Mobile devices, or if you are a developer who is looking to embed BPM/Workflow functionality into your application, take a look at Orchard BPM and let me know what you think.

All the best, Glenn

ADUG Symposium 2006

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:18:59 +1000

Its great to head back to the ADUG Scene for the 2006 Autumn Symposium. ADUG have asked me to do a presentation at their symposium on developing Plug-in Architectures in .NET. After building my Business Process Management (BPM) system OrchardBPM, this is a problem that I ran into quite early and found a tonne of pitfalls when applying these techniques in production and getting them to work regarless of the context that they run in, such as WinForms, WebForms, Mobile WebForms and Web Services. And even after I got it working there were some backward compatability issues with .NET 2.0. As a result there are some lessons learnt that this session will cover.

Medical-Objects

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:18:59 +1000

Many of you may not know this, but for a long time I have been progressing down the management stream as a Software Development Manager, an Architect, and now I am pleased to announce that from January 2006 I started as CEO of Medical-Objects. Medical-Objects is a software company with a focus on communications between health providers such as General Practioners, Specialists and other members of the health industry.

Parts of the main reason for joining as CEO is that I had a helping hand in designing parts of their integration system years ago and have kept in regular contact with Medical-Objects founder, Andrew McIntyre and following the progress of Medical-Objects. Andrew is the typical founder of a software company, he has a strong vision for the company and excellent architecture skills which has shone through in the fantastic products that the company has provided.

Today Medical-Objects is a team of developers, medical analysts, support team, marketing professionals and administrative roles. It is great to be a part of such a fantastic team and and to help grow and developer Medical-Objects both in their product lines as well as their business.

What has happened to you...

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:18:59 +1000

The main purpose of a blog is to keep information up to date. I must admit that the last several years has been a phenominal time and I have been busy at times to the point of exhaustion, but also challenged to the point where I was still enjoying what I have been doing. Predominatly I've been working as an Architect at one of Australia's best known businesses, which has been extremely demanding, challenging and enjoyable.

In addition and probably over the last two years I have been working on a Business Process Management system called OrchardBPM. OrchardBPM allows you to design Business Processes and have them executed on a variety of different presentation systems such as your Web Page, your WAP supported Mobile Device and also expose the same Business Processes through Web Services as well as a variety of other presentation systems.

For Businesses, it is extremely effective because it allows you to develop and document Turn-Key systems in an extremely short period of time. It then allows you to execute the same processes you defined as the OrchardBPM system also gives you the ability to define workflow interactions, integrate with other databases and systems, communicate via email and fax.

For Developers, you can extend this system extremely easily by creating your own customised actions and decisions, extending parts of the decisioning aspect and also integrating the existing presentation components into your own applications. The application even provides tools for you to create the source code you want in any .NET enabled language (C#, VB.NET, Delphi.NET, J#.NET, Chrome, COBOL.NET, etc). It has massive amounts of power for you and your users and you can design and execute most simple workflows in just a few minutes.

I guess I'm extremely proud of the system, and I'd encourage you to take a look at it by visiting the Web Site or viewing the online demo of the application (an older version of the system, but shows you the fundamentals of the system). The system is now complete, but is going through some final testing stages and should be released in Q2 2006. If you would like more information on it, send an email to me at glenn@glennstephens.com.au and we'll see what we can do.

What I've been doing

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:19:00 +1000

I had a look at my blog today and didn't realise that it's been three months since I've updated anything. But this can kind of be expected. I've had a busy few months at work, at home, pretty much everywhere. My wife Rebel and I had a baby girl (Willow Gaia) about three months ago, I've been busy with some major changes at work, I was lecturing a programming course at a Sydney uni, studying for my MBA, and add to that trying to work on a fairly large C# software project in my spare time. Put this together and my life has been way too full, and I've decided to slow down a bit and let everything happen in a more relaxed manner.

As a result, you can probably see why I haven't been updating the blog so frequently, but I'll be pushing some new content up in the next few weeks. There are always more things on the horizon; it's just been more internalised.

Published in the Delphi Magazine

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:19:00 +1000

Just letting you all know that the Command Pattern article has been published in the Delphi Magazine in December 2004. The abstract/details are available from http://www.thedelphimagazine.com/conts/conts112.php.

Its cool to be published in some more magazines. I have some more articles coming up over the next few months but these are focusing on ASP.NET issues with C# and VB.NET. More details will follow as it becomes available.

If you have read the article, I also have some C# equivilant code if you are doing .NET work, just email me and I'll forward it on.

Melbourne Patterns Group - The Command Pattern

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:19:00 +1000

I had a great time on Wednesday presenting at the Melbourne Patterns Group. This is a great group of people who bring up some incredibly good arguments. If your into good design and intelligent discussion about patterns and happen to live in Melbourne then I would check it out. The session was on the Command Pattern and slides the slides there were some C# and Delphi examples. If I'm in Melbourne again when the group is on I'll definiatly make my way there.

Exciting news coming soon

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:19:00 +1000

Just a bit of a teaser trailer. There's an event coming soon that I'll be speaking at that I'm extremly excited about, and will be announced soon....Can't wait.

The Command Pattern in the Delphi Magazine

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:19:01 +1000

You may have noticed that the Delphi Informant magazine is now no-more, and I still had an article to be published on the Command Pattern. Well luckily the Delphi Magazine will be running the article in the December edition which is awesome and I'm looking forward to seeing it in there. I personally think that this is one of my best articles and it is extremely useful. When I've give my talk on the command pattern, it always seems to be well received, and this new article has some powerful new additions to my normal talk. Keep a look out for it.

Photos from the ADUG conference

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:19:01 +1000

Photos from the other speakers and myself from the ADUG event were taken by Peter Herriman (Thanks Peter). They can be viewed on the ADUG site by clicking here.

The Delphi.NET developer conference - C# for Delphi Developers

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:19:01 +1000

I'm really excited about this presentation coming up. It's essentially a two day conference on .NET technologoes with Delphi and I get to speak with some great speakers including Danny Thorpe, Steve Texeira, Charlie Calvert and Lino Tadros. Not to mention Malcolm Groves, who has presented at nearly every symposium/conference I ever presented at.

I'll be presenting on C# for Delphi Developers. This session covers what a Delphi Developer needs to work with C#, why the Delphi developer should or should not work with C#. I do have a white paper that is available for download that contains all the information I have written down. It is by no mean feat complete, but I expect it to be a work in progress as long as someone has questions regarding it. So please feel free to download it and email comments to glenn@glennstephens.com.au

Delphi Informant Articles

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:19:02 +1000

I've always wanted to write for Delphi Informant. I think its just something about the feel of the magazine. When I started writing for the Delphi Developer Journal, although it was a good publication, it didn't have a wide enough appeal.

Through a combination of luck, many hours of writing and some pitching I now have several articles published in Delphi Informant and some articles soon to be published there. The articles are listed as follows: (Content from the www.Delphizine.com website)

Enterprise Core Objects
Glenn Stephens introduces Enterprise Core Objects and delves into the Model-driven Architecture of Delphi 8 for the Microsoft .NET Framework

Moving to Delphi 8
So, you've decided to make the move to .NET? That's when the questions really start. Glenn Stephens provides answers.

Moving to ADO.NET
Emphasizing how to convert your VCL TDataSet skills to ADO.NET skills, Glenn Stephens covers the basics of ADO.NET, including the Borland Data Providers, accessing data, creating master-detail relationships, accessing data from code, creating calculated fields, and validating data.

While I am talking about the articles for Delphi Informant, its worth noting that this is the only place that I have seen a review of my book. The details can be found below.

The Tomes of Kylix: The Linux API
Book review by Bruno Sonnino.

There are more articles on the way. There is another articles on Advanced ADO.NET techniques and another articles on the Command Pattern using Delphi. I am really happy with the Command Pattern article, as I started it a couple of years ago while I was having a break from writing due to the massive amount of writing I did for the book. It was based on my presentation that I was showing around Australia, but the article includes some of the advanced techniques that I never discussed in my presentations. I can't wait to see that one in the magazine, and of course I'll update the website here when it is finished.

C# and DB2 Developer Articles

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:19:02 +1000

Some of my C# Builder and IBM DB2 articles have been published. They mainly deal with working with IBM's DB2 database, but even those of you working in other .NET languages may find some use from them. The articles are:

Five Performance Rules for Developing DB2 Web Applications with C# Builder,
Exposing IBM DB2 UDB Data via Web Services with Borland C# Builder and
Build ASP.NET Web Sites with IBM DB2 Universal Database

ADUG Sydney - Using Delphi with ASP.NET

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:19:02 +1000

I will be giving a talk on the 18th of December in Sydney on how to use ASP.NET with Delphi. The session will cover the fundamentals of creating dynamic web applications using ASP.NET and the Delphi.NET preview compiler. The session will also look at various issues such as What is ASP.NET, How is it better/worse/different to the other web frameworks, Using Delphi as a language for ASP.NET pages, A look at the ASP.NET server controls, Mixing ADO.NET and ASP.NET, Web Services with ASP.NET and ASP.NET tools and resources.
For more details about ADUG visit The ADUG web site

"The Tomes of Kylix - The Linux API" available in German

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:19:02 +1000

Guten Tag! Wow. I had to look again when I found this out. It was cool to see that my book that I spent 14 months on is now available in German. If you are a German owner of the book, then I'd love to hear how you find it. I personally think the cover for the German edition looks really cool as well. If you want to see the information on the book, visit The German Amazon Web Site.

Delphi 7 and .NET Seminars

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:19:03 +1000

I would like to thank those of you who attended the Delphi 7/.NET Training Seminars that I gave for Borland in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. At some time it felt as if I was in a Ray Martin forum, with the amount of questions being asked, especially about the .NET technologies.

5th Annual Borland Conference Papers uploaded

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:19:03 +1000

My sessions from this year are now online. Click here for the Papers. For more information on Borcon visit http://info.borland.com.au/borcon2002/

Kylix Certifications

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:19:03 +1000

I recently was asked to be one of the writers for the Kylix 2 certifications by Personal Delphi Agents. More information or details on the certification can be found by visiting the Personal Delphi Agents web site.

The 5th Annual Borland Conference

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:19:04 +1000

This year Glenn will be presenting three sessions and a pre-conference tutorial at this years conference. These are

Preparing for Delphi Certification
Intro to Websnap Tutorial
Open Tools Productivity and
Spinning Threads in your Delphi apps

For more information visit http://info.borland.com.au/borcon2002/

Delphi and the Command Pattern at Melbourne ADUG

glenn@glennstephens.com.au — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:19:04 +1000

I will be presenting a discusion on using the Command pattern to the Melbourne chapter of the Australian Delphi User Group.

How do we implement multiple level undo in our applications? How can we incorporate powerful macro recorders similar to those used in Microsoft Office, as well as powerful plug-in functionality?
The answer is the Design Pattern most neglected in Delphi: the "Command Pattern". In this presentaton, you will see how to use the command pattern, and how best to apply it in desktop and database applications.
You will see a simple graphics application similar to Microsoft Paint, but with more power and flexibility, as well as a simple database application with Multiple Level undo and scripting and logging support.

For more information visit http://www.adug.org.au/meetings/next_meeting_melbourne.htm