I have been stuck with Delphi 7 for a long time. It seems like most people still do the same. Say, why should we upgrade? Since D7 itself is a very good tools. Most ppl skip Delphi 8, 2005 and 2006. Now, for the CodeGear version, it is really nice. It packs a lots of new feature that an IDE should have, refactoring, smart editing, visual guide, etc. I have a pretty good reason to upgrade to Delphi 2007. However, when I tried doing so, its turn out that CodeRush is not available for Delphi 2007. In fact, CodeRush release no more update for Delphi since D7. (They still have update for VS, alas.) There exists some alternative, Castalia provides much of the same feature as CodeRush. Nevertheless, Delphi 2007 itself has a lots of feature CodeRush originally has. The Live Template is as good as that of CodeRush itself.

Anyway, the feature of CodeRush that I used most is the code navigation feature. CodeRush allow you to jump to any method with just a few click. You simply hit Ctrl + Alt + F and CodeRush pops you a windows with the list of all function in the current unit and you simply type in a name. You also get a smart search. For example, if your method name is OpenNewWindows, you could simply type "newwin" and every method having "newwin" as a substring of its name will show up. That is very handy. It is like you are having launchy or KRunner. And this exact feature is not available in Castalia. How sad.

It is lucky that both CodeRush and Castalia use the Open Tool API which allows a programmer to write plug-ins for the IDE itself. I might look into that somehow. A good starting place might be these.

http://www.gexperts.org/opentools/ http://delphi.about.com/od/objectpascalide/a/wizardsexperts.htm

Okay, the version 2.0 of the nerd test is out and just I have just done. Thanks to kong for the link.

the result is as follows:

<a href="http://www.nerdtests.com/nt2ref.html"> <img src="http://www.nerdtests.com/images/badge/nt2/3c6523f8c44ecee6.png" alt="NerdTests.com says I'm a Slightly Dorky Nerd King. What are you? Click here!">

OK, true hispeed are good. Wait. Might correctly say that they live up and beyond my expectation. Really, I have to call them the third time to have the problem fixed. The first two result in some action but futile. At the third, they actually come to my home (again) and check almost everything. Anyway, they don't really know what happen so they just change the line from the center (somewhere around 1km from my home) to the pole in front of my house. No charge, and I am happily online.

PS. Start being a twitter-er. Let's see what it can do.

The internet at my home is down now. Called true twice but the technician who visit my home says that it is the problem of wiring (inside my home) and he can't do anything about it so I will try to fix it myself.

Will post any update soon.

Due to my laziness, planet.cp-24.com has been downed for a year or so. This is because the DNS of cp-24.com was pointed to one of now defunct server of me and I have no time nor willingness to set up another DNS for it. Luckily, Chanon approach romerun, the former owner of cp-24.com and have it transfer to him. Now, planet cp24 is back online.

Big thanks to chanon and romerun.

I was very busy since the last upgrade to 6.0 which was not quite completed yet. The worst is that I forgot to put CHAPTCHA on a forum and everybody can immediately tell what was bounded to happen. Lots of spams are in the forum now and I have to clean all that up very soon. I just manage to have some free time finally to tidy things up on my home page. Now it is running drupal 6.2 and, in the case that you might not notice, the theme is changed again.

I have switched to Drupal 6.0. Some modules still need to be upgraded. Check back soon.

Quick words, I am having problem with the Win Key in Linux; Cannot use it with other key combination to make a keyboard short cut. For example, I wish to open Konqueror by pressing Win+E (just to resemble openning windows explorer) but KDE won't accept it. When I press Win+E, KDE recognized it as just "E".

Googling around and the solution is simply to put this option in /etc/X11/xorg.conf in the InputDevice Section

Option      \"XkbOptions\" \"altwin:meta_win\"

After that, everything works just fine.

It has been a long time since my last entry. Obviously I could blame to lots of workload bestowed upon me recently. To remind myself, these significant event happened since the past few months.

• The paper submitted to Trans on Robotics got reviewed with ``Revise and Resubmit'' result. I would take that as a good sign, though in fact it made me quite nervous.
• The software things still going on. The deal is not closed yet.
• Few problems with the life.

Anyway, what persuades me to return to writing an entry is not any of the above list. I come to write about Orson Scott Card, or more precisely, his books.

Orson Scott Card is a writer maybe best known for his Ender series. The first two books is translated into Thai by ASK Media. The first time I saw the English title of the first book, it does not hit me. Saying that it actually made me feel unlikely to give it a try anyway. Of course, the Thai title does not help neither. However, when I gave it a try last year, it turned out to be quite good. And after I realized that the first book is nothing but a prelude to the second book which is the heart of the story. I can't simply wait to read that. Now I have consumed the second book and I would says that it is a masterpiece.

Though it is dubbed as a science fiction book (both received Hugo and Nebula in consecutive years), it is the same as saying that Asimov books are barely sci-fi. Yes, they indeed is sci-fi but they are a lot more. Science play a major role but what made me love is the story. The intrigue laid out by Card involving people, mind, morality, love, hope and lots more. Several moral concept is introduced, compared and tested in the series.

Of course I cannot wait for the rest of the series and I would say sorry to ASK Media since I went straight to Kinokuniya last week to fetch the remaining two that complete the first quartet.

This is definitely won't waste your time.

Just watched The Prestige. Check it out, hardly believe that the one who performs Nikola Tesla is David Bowie. Anyway, the movie is very good. My recommendation for everyone.