04May 2020 by richard@baronsoftware.com

Using SATA Wire 3.0 to clone drives

Hardware Reviews
Recently Baron Software was using Apricorn SATA Wire 3.0 to clone drives in multiple machines. SATA Wire is an amazing piece of software. It comes with a cable which connects the SSD to the USB port 3.0. It is also compatible with a USB 2.0 port. An average person who has a little computer knowledge can clone any computer drive to the SSD drive with ease. Apricorn sells the SATA Wire kit for about $30. The cable and software is reusable. Simple steps to clone. Step 1: Install the software. There is an option to get the latest software from Apricorn web site. Step 2: Insert the one end of the cable into the SSD and insert other end into the USB port. Step 3: Start the software and select…
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13Jan 2020 by richard@baronsoftware.com

Gotchas when using Delphi Update

Rad Studio Delphi Development, Software development Concepts
Sometimes when you are programming using Embarcadero Delphi you will come up with a few Gotchas. These are not bugs but more as a pain. Initially you create an application in a debug mode while you are testing the code. You have a icon for the application making it look professional and just go to the release state. The icon may or may be what you expected. Your debug application has the correct icon but your release doesn't. Pretty strange but Windows keeps an icon cache. The simple thing would be to rename your executable and suddenly it looks good. You wonder why Windows would do that ? It is Windows and you have to live with that. Click on this link to see what else you can do to…
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05Jan 2020 by richard@baronsoftware.com

How to restart a VCL Delphi application while using a Mutex

Rad Studio Delphi Development
How to restart a VCL Delphi application while using a Mutex. This article puts all of the research in one single page. Using a mutex prevents multiple application instances from occurring. You may wonder why would you wish to restart an application. It doesn't mean there was a software defect in the code. Application settings have changed. What is a mutex A mutex object is a synchronization mechanism designed to ensure mutually exclusive access to a single resource that is shared among a set of kernel-mode threads. Using a mutex can ensure that there is only one instance of your application executing. A unique name should be used when starting the application. The simplest way is to use your application name and/or a shorten name that would be unique when…
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29Dec 2019 by richard@baronsoftware.com

Terminating an Application when using Delphi

Rad Studio Delphi Development, Software development Concepts
Sometimes there are reasons to terminate an application due to unforeseeable issues and there has been a lot of talk how to handle this event. Let's go over a simple application and break down what needs to be done. Go to the code The initial code opens up a splash screen, displays it and finally releases it after a few moments. Splashscreen.Show; Splashscreen.Update; Sleep(2000); Splashscreen.Free; Application.Initialize; The application defaults are set with the title and the help file as well as creating the data module along with the login screen. Application.DefaultFont.Name := 'Arial'; Application.MainFormOnTaskBar := True; Application.Title := 'Application Name'; Application.HelpFile := ExtractFilePath(Application.ExeName) + 'Help.CHM'; Application.CreateForm(TDM, DM); Application.CreateForm(TfrmLogin, frmLogin); The application at this point will open up the login screen allowing the user to enter their information. The license is…
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22Jul 2018 by richard@baronsoftware.com

Microsoft SQL Server how to get a table size

SQL Tips
Microsoft SQL Server how to get a table size Sometimes you need to get the size of a particular table located in a database within the Microsoft Server and the following query can provide you that.  You can run this manually or place it in a stored procedure for numerous tables. The SQL code {{CODE1}} Looking at the actual code it displays the name of the table, schema name, record count (rows), size and additional information pertaining to the space used or not used. This is a nifty way to quickly view which tables are large and growing.  This provides analysis on the database giving a SQL admin a method to adjust what could happen in the future. You can also place this in your source code to call the…
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