https://ideasawakened.github.io/Blog site dedicated to Delphi programmers around the world from Darian Miller, an Embarcadero MVP 2026-02-26T19:00:41-06:00 Darian Miller https://ideasawakened.github.io/ Jekyll © 2026 Darian Miller /assets/img/favicons/favicon.ico /assets/img/favicons/favicon-96x96.png 2026-02-26T18:30:00-06:00 2026-02-26T18:31:00-06:00 https://ideasawakened.github.io/post/powershell-script-to-archive-urls Darian Miller

Anyone who has maintained technical documentation over time has run into the problem of link rot. After carefully crafting a links section pointing to a relevant blog post or reference page, six months later it can return a 404. The missing links eventually reduces the long-term value of your content. The common solution is to snapshot URLs to a web archiving service at the time you write the...

2026-02-08T15:00:00-06:00 2026-02-11T15:00:00-06:00 https://ideasawakened.github.io/post/delphi-versus-free-pascal-lazarus-comparison Darian Miller

This article is based on an ongoing, decision-oriented comparison between Delphi and Free Pascal/Lazarus, maintained as a public reference on GitHub, with feedback encouraged: https://github.com/ideasawakened/delphi-and-fpc-lazarus-comparison What follows is a guided walk-through of the comparison, highlighting the most important decision points rather than reproducing the full tables. This a...

2025-12-28T13:00:00-06:00 2026-01-22T04:00:00-06:00 https://ideasawakened.github.io/post/delphi-community-edition-5000-revenue-limit-explained Darian Miller

Understanding the Delphi Community Edition $5,000 Revenue Rule TL;DR The Delphi Community Edition eligibility is based on total annual revenue of the licensee, not just software income. Employees may use Community Edition personally (on their own hardware, with no employer benefit). Business owners or self-employed freelancers exceeding $5,000/year are not eligible, even for unrelated w...

2025-08-22T13:00:00-05:00 2025-08-22T13:00:00-05:00 https://ideasawakened.github.io/post/embarcadero-job-hub-success Darian Miller

Update Back in my original post introducing the new Embarcadero Job Hub, I highlighted their web resource where Delphi developers and employers can connect. At that time, it was really new and just three developers had taken the first step. Fast forward just a few days after my blog post, and the momentum is quickly building. The Job Hub now features 18 Delphi developers who have published th...

2025-08-18T14:00:00-05:00 2025-08-18T14:00:00-05:00 https://ideasawakened.github.io/post/embarcadero-job-hub Darian Miller

There’s a new resource available for the Delphi community from Embarcadero - the Job Hub offers features for Employers and Developers. Employers - Find Delphi Developers Browse a growing network of professionals skilled in Embarcadero products, from Delphi and C++ Builder to RAD Server and more. Connect with developers who bring years of expertise in application design, database development, ...

2025-08-08T14:00:00-05:00 2025-08-10T13:20:00-05:00 https://ideasawakened.github.io/post/How-To-Easily-Extend-your-Delphi-Community-Edition-License Darian Miller

The free Community Edition license for Delphi was first introduced in 2018 for Delphi and C++ Builder 10.2.3. It has been successful for Embarcadero, but it has caused a few concerns around licensing over the years. One issue involves the simple fact that the license is only good for one year and they do not release a new Community Edition every 12 months and it has been a little confusing on...

2025-05-29T15:00:00-05:00 2025-05-29T15:00:00-05:00 https://ideasawakened.github.io/post/2025-stack-overflow-developer-survey-place-your-vote-for-delphi-today Darian Miller

The 15th annual developer survey from Stack Overflow includes options to select Delphi and the ability to write in RAD Studio. This is a very popular survey within the developer community with nearly 70,000 developers participating last year - so please boost visibility of the RAD Studio developer by participating! As usual, you do not have to be an active Stack Overflow member to take the sur...

2025-04-30T15:30:00-05:00 2025-04-30T15:00:00-05:00 https://ideasawakened.github.io/post/rad-programmer-challenge-number-one-winner-announcement Darian Miller

The first in a series of challenges for the RAD Studio developer community now has a winner! 18 contestants supplied their own version of Minesweeper, written in the latest version of RAD Studio in either Delphi or C++ Builder. All of their repositories were forked to a new RAD Programmer Challenge 1 organization on GitHub: https://github.com/radprogrammer-challenge1-entries Each contestant ...

2025-03-30T11:30:00-05:00 2025-03-30T11:30:00-05:00 https://ideasawakened.github.io/post/rad-programmer-challenge-update1-first-entries-received Darian Miller

The first in a series of challenges for the RAD Studio developer community is well underway! Contestants have started building their own versions of Minesweeper using Delphi and C++Builder. Please support them by giving their GitHub repositories a ⭐ and following the authors! As a reminder from the initial challenge announcement, the submission deadline is April 26, 2025. New entries and cod...

2025-03-29T22:00:00-05:00 2025-03-29T22:00:00-05:00 https://ideasawakened.github.io/post/microsoft-windows-11-local-account-oobe-bypassnro-fails Darian Miller

Microsoft is taking one more step to force you to use an internet-connected Microsoft Account to install Windows. In their latest build 26200.5516 (based on Windows 11, version 24H2) they have removed a commonly-used script to setup a local account during the install process. Quote from the Windows Insider Blog Post: We’re removing the bypassnro.cmd script from the build to enhance securit...

2025-03-16T15:00:00-05:00 2025-03-16T15:00:00-05:00 https://ideasawakened.github.io/post/rad-programmer-challenge-number-1-minesweeper-game-build Darian Miller

Introducing the first in a new series of challenges for the RAD Studio developer community. The RAD Programmer Challenges are designed to inspire innovation, increase the visibility of RAD Studio online, and encourage more online community involvement. Kicking off this series, I am inviting developers to build a classic MineSweeper game in RAD Studio. Sharpen your UI design, game development, a...

2024-12-25T06:00:00-06:00 2024-12-25T06:00:00-06:00 https://ideasawakened.github.io/post/Merry-Christmas-Delphi-Developers-2024 Darian Miller

🎄🎅 Merry Christmas, Delphi Warriors! 🎅🎄 This holiday season, let the Spartan spirit of resilience and precision guide your coding battles! Whether you are conquering TObject hierarchies or defending against runtime exceptions, may your code be as robust as a Spartan shield! Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year filled with inspiration, growth, and, of course, bug-free code...

2024-08-25T15:00:00-05:00 2024-08-26T09:00:00-05:00 https://ideasawakened.github.io/post/why-you-should-not-use-WITH-in-your-Delphi-code Darian Miller

Delphi Programming Best Practices - Avoid WITH Statements There have been many discussions over the years about using WITH statements in your Pascal code. We just had another short with-related discussion on the Delphi Programmers Telegram server the other day and I decided to write a blog post so I could simply include a link to this post and hopefully rarely discuss it in detail again. Some...

2024-03-16T20:00:00-05:00 2024-03-16T20:00:00-05:00 https://ideasawakened.github.io/post/global-delphi-summit-2024 Darian Miller

Delphi Summit - June 2024. Have you heard? There is a great convention dedicated to Delphi Developers coming this June to Amsterdam! The 2024 Global Delphi Summit is sponsored by GDK Software, Embarcadero, and Barnsten and features a great list of speakers and informative sessions. View the quick YouTube introductory video: Invite for the Delphi Summit 2024 featuring Marco Geuze, Jim McKe...

2024-02-03T06:00:00-06:00 2024-02-03T06:00:00-06:00 https://ideasawakened.github.io/post/2024-02-03-setup-postgresql-on-windows-from-zip Darian Miller

PostgreSQL is one of the most popular database solutions in the world. A few years back, I published a blog post full of PostgreSQL links and general information which includes links for the various distributions that are available and some connectivity options for Delphi. Shortly before that article was released, EDB and 2ndQuadrant merged and since that time EDB seems to be the only choice ...

2024-01-24T06:00:00-06:00 2024-01-24T06:00:00-06:00 https://ideasawakened.github.io/post/lets-do-the-rewrite-again-horror-show Darian Miller

Sometimes you get an idea that you just have to dig into just a little bit deeper… I made an off-handed comment earlier today to Ian Barker (as usual) and later thought about it more and figured that I would spend a bit more time on it tonight. The concept involves The Rocky Horror Picture Show which is an American cult-classic musical comedy film. I remember first seeing it in the mid-1980’s...

2024-01-16T06:00:00-06:00 2024-04-11T16:30:00-05:00 https://ideasawakened.github.io/post/embarcadero-network-issues Darian Miller

There has been persistent connectivity issues recently to Embarcadero websites including their DocWiki, Quality Portal and others. The issue is being actively discussed in multiple channels including on Telegram and Facebook. There are apparently some underlying infrastructure issues that they have been chasing and you should look for an official announcement soon. Ian Barker posted a quick ...

2023-11-11T06:00:00-06:00 2023-11-11T06:00:00-06:00 https://ideasawakened.github.io/post/delphi-12-now-available Darian Miller

The latest major version of Delphi was released on November 7, 2023. This has been another huge effort towards quality improvements with over 1,200 customer-reported Quality Portal issues closed with this release (along with hundreds of additional internal issues.) The release name is “RAD Studio 12 Athens” and this is a major new release that is binary incompatbile with the previous Delphi 1...

2023-06-19T07:00:00-05:00 2023-06-19T07:00:00-05:00 https://ideasawakened.github.io/post/delphi-developers-twitter-community-available Darian Miller

I received a notification from Twitter that I was invited to start a Twitter Community so I did a quick search and did not find any existing Delphi-related communities, so I started a new Delphi Developers Community on Twitter. We quickly jumped up to 73 members and everyone is invited to join (and to invite others as well.) A little while after posting a Tweet about the community, I receiv...

2023-05-27T07:00:00-05:00 2023-05-27T07:00:00-05:00 https://ideasawakened.github.io/post/prevent-concurrent-execution-batch-file-implementation-how-to Darian Miller

Batch files are a convenient way to automate repetitive tasks on Windows systems. However, in certain scenarios, it is crucial to ensure that a batch file can only be executed one at a time to avoid conflicts or data corruption. In this blog post, we will explore a technique to enforce single execution of a batch file using a locking mechanism. Example Batch File To begin, open a text editor a...