Notice I said device, not “tablet computer” or “tablet PC.” That’s because most of these devices, while technically computers, are not suitable for most of the things people (and by people, I mean me; YMMV) use computers to do. I’ve experimented with these things before; taking one off a friend’s hand for a few minutes; and have always been unimpressed.  Not because I didn’t like them, but because for $500+ they weren’t worth it. My estimation of tablets to date has been “meh.”

Because: they are toys. Their usefulness is limited to doing things toys do. Yes, Apple iPad users, I think your tablet is a toy, too.

And that’s okay. There is nothing wrong with buying, owning, and using (playing with) toys. But let’s not be pretentious about them (*cough* Apple *cough*). And when it comes to toys, I don’t feel the need to get the first ones, especially when they cost too much.

Yesterday I opened a Kindle Fire. Tablets are ready for prime time.

This thing is great. And I figured out why: it’s not pretentious. The Fire doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not. It doesn’t bother to tell you what kind of processor its running, though you can find out if you care. It doesn’t have a camera because there is no reason to put a piece of junk light sensor on a tablet when we all know you already have a piece of junk light sensor on your cell phone. It doesn’t have a GPS because your tablet doesn’t need one. It doesn’t have 3G because you really don’t need it since you can download your books and a movie or two and you will probably have access to free WiFi where you are anyway. It only has 8 GB of on-device storage because that is enough and more costs more. It has a rubberized back because this isn’t a device made to be beholden; this is a utilitarian device made to be, well, utilized.

The people who made the Fire know I am not going to try to use this to do work, so they didn’t waste time and hardware putting things in there to make me think it might be useful for work. Instead, they made a solid device with which I can read books, browse some websites, check (but not really much else, unless you like to torture yourself with a non-keyboard) email, check facebook, listen to music, etc. And it does all these things well, while being the perfect size.

I’m not going to give an in-depth review because there are already a thousand reviews out there. But I will say this: The Kindle Fire is “worth it.” They got it right. It’s $200 and while it’s not an iPad, the fact that it is not an iPad is a good thing for me. If I wanted an iPad I would have bought one already. I didn’t, and I’m glad I waited for the Fire.

PS: thanks to my wife for not objecting to wrapping an empty box so I could use the Fire she got me as a gift.

So you ask, “can you post some new pictures of your Commodore 64?” Sure I can!

Several years ago I took a perfectly good “breadbin” C64 and painted it red. Then I drilled some holes in it and added some mods — a reset switch and a JiffyDOS switch (though you can’t see those here). Yesterday I felt like taking some pictures, so here they are:

The new SwordSearcher 6.1 supports integrating Alexander Scourby’s Bible narration right into the software. I made a video demonstrating this.

The Scourby recordings are quite old, so the quality isn’t exactly “digital master.” But they are still very easy to listen to. The AMG CD set (containing MP3 files) is the best quality you’re going to find. There is a more recently “re-mastered” MP3 set of the recordings, but the remastering is ham-fisted and clunky, so I don’t recommend anything other than the AMG CD set.  And again, it’s cheap!

But if you’re looking for an alternative to Scourby, Max McLean did an excellent job reading the Bible too. And you can integrate that into SwordSearcher as well!

Romans 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

New to this version is tight integration of audio Bibles. You can import your MP3 Bible so that it’s playable in the Bible panel (with scrolling text), and if you’re using the excellent AMG Publisher’s Scourby Narration, you’ll have verse-level playback (not just chapter-based), individual verse highlighting during playback, and you can also play verse lists. More info on audio Bible support here.

Also, as usual, there are a bunch of new library resources, including the often-requested Bullinger Companion Bible Notes and Appendixes.

Perhaps the most important library update, however, is the newly Expanded Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. A lot of work went into this “completion” of the TSK. Check out the link for details.

More information on the new version is available here and here.

I welcome the name change. The word shareware has a positive ring to it for me, but I have come to realize that for most people, it only serves as an unnecessarily confusing moniker for what is now a normal means of software marketing — trying software before buying it.

Back before the Internet was ubiquitous, someone wanting to market their software without going through the normal retail channels could encourage their users to “share” the application with others, who would pay for the software if they liked what they tried.  These days, there is no need for “sharing” a disk or uploading to a BBS, since one can simply visit a website to download the program.  There is a lot of debate over what the “first” shareware program was or whether or not it was even “shareware” at all, but the point is, shareware described a software marketing method, not the software itself.

The distinction is lost, however.  Therefore, it is wise to discontinue using the term altogether.

Though I market my software with “try before you buy” download versions, I haven’t used the term “shareware” in many years, because I’d rather describe my software to someone instead of defining idiosyncratic marketing terms.  My company does what other software companies do: design and sell computer programs.

So, kudos to the ASP for getting this done and moving on.

I still have a bunch of these in a shrink wrapped box (just in case I ever want to save a new file on my Commodore 64) — but those are even more rare, because the Commodore drives use an older double-density format.

Remember those floppy disk cases that let you organize the disks like they were paper in file folders?

Interestingly (well, to me), I have old floppy disks from the eighties that have outlasted burned DVDs and CDs from the early 2000s.

Been busy.

SwordSearcher Bible Software version 6 is now available. 2010 marks the 15th anniversary of SwordSearcher.

I love my job!

Lots of details here and here. Also got a video of some of the new features here.

I’ve recently created a SwordSearcher fan page on Facebook, too.

So, I’m starting up a web design service: Vexelfire.

Vexelfire: Design is the first impression.

A stock Delphi TToolBar will paint with a flat color or with a gradient. This is how a plain TToolBar appears in Windows Vista and Windows 7:

It looks okay, but Windows Vista has been around for a long time now, and this toolbar looks a bit dated. It doesn’t scream "old," but it certainly doesn’t pop out as "shiny."

What we want to do is have the toolbar paint its background with the current operating system theme. This will give us a nice toolbar look that conforms to the current them, looks modern, and is backwards-compatible with Windows XP. Delphi (2007 and 2009) doesn’t offer us a property to do this, so we need to add some code to the toolbar’s OnCustomDraw event.

First, we add Themes to the form’s uses clause. The Themes unit contains Delphi routines for accessing the Windows XP and Vista Theme API.

uses
  Windows, Messages, SysUtils, Variants, Classes, Graphics, Controls, Forms,
  Dialogs, ComCtrls, ImgList, ToolWin, StdCtrls, Menus, Themes;

Next, add the TToolBar’s OnCustomDraw event handler (double-click it under Events in the Object Inspector). And add the code to paint the background:

procedure TForm1.ToolBar1CustomDraw(Sender: TToolBar; const ARect: TRect;
  var DefaultDraw: Boolean);
var
  ElementDetails: TThemedElementDetails;
begin
  if ThemeServices.ThemesEnabled then
  begin
    ElementDetails := ThemeServices.GetElementDetails(trRebarRoot);
    ThemeServices.DrawElement(Sender.Canvas.Handle, ElementDetails, Sender.ClientRect);
  end;
end;

A little explanation:

ThemeServices.ThemesEnabled lets us know Themes are actually being used, so we don’t try to paint a theme element on a system that isn’t using themes.

The record variable ElementDetails is used to tell Windows what kind of theme object we want painted. In this case, we are using the rebar background, specified with a call to ThemeServices.GetElementDetails(trRebarRoot). We use ThemeServices.DrawElement to paint the rebar background on the TToolBar’s canvas.

This is how our Toolbar looks now:

With just a few lines of code, our application looks like it has had a major face lift.

There is still something left that can be done to improve the appearance of the form a little more. Ideally, the toolbar should be blended a bit with the menu above it. You only need to do this if you are using a standard TMainMenu on the form’s Menu property to display your menu.

Change the OnCustomDraw event handler for the TToolBar so it looks like this:

procedure TForm1.ToolBar1CustomDraw(Sender: TToolBar; const ARect: TRect;
  var DefaultDraw: Boolean);
var
  ElementDetails: TThemedElementDetails;
  NewRect : TRect;
begin
  if ThemeServices.ThemesEnabled then
  begin
    NewRect := Sender.ClientRect;
    NewRect.Top := NewRect.Top - GetSystemMetrics(SM_CYMENU);
    ElementDetails := ThemeServices.GetElementDetails(trRebarRoot);
    ThemeServices.DrawElement(Sender.Canvas.Handle, ElementDetails, NewRect);
  end;
end;

What we’ve done is introduced a new TRect so we can modify where the background painting starts. NewRect is initialized to the toolbar’s client rect coordinates. Then we use a call to GetSystemMetrics to get the height of a menu bar, and subtract that from the top of NewRect, and pass NewRect as the drawing rectangle to DrawElement. This starts the rebar background at the same position of the menu, giving us a more blended look for the toolbar:

Now the toolbar looks more "attached" to the menu bar.

Note that the toolbar paints well under Windows XP, too:

Giving a stock TToolBar a modern-looking background only takes a few lines of code and is an easy way to improve the appearance of your application. Once you’ve done this, you’ll want to start poking around in Themes.pas to see what else you can add some theme magic to.