A: My name is Doug. I am a software developer with more than 35 years of experience. I've been developing professionally since 1985 before I was even a teenager. I've been developing mostly utility-type software on Windows since about 1994. Currently I'm doing freelance software consultation. I also do things like audio and video production and photograhy on the side. In addition to strong software design skills, I am also a very fast coder -- about four to five times faster than average, and I believe I have a knack for creating software that is fast, maintainable, easy-to-use, secure, relatively bug-free, and stable very quickly.
A: Gosh, I sure hope so. I use them all of the time, exactly as they exist here.
Seriously, though, these apps don't do anything nasty or unethical to your computer. They don't even save anything to your registry (with one exception, IPEnum, which saves your personalized host names to the registry if you provide them). They don't spy on you. And they don't connect to any servers on the Internet except to check for newer versions. If you don't believe me, run a sniffer and see for yourself.
A: Yes. None require installers, and none require changes to your computer's configuration. Just launch the .exe file and you're good to go.
A: These apps are all things that I wrote for my own use, and figured that it might be nice to make them available to family, friends, and coworkers as well. If they've been useful for me, they'll probably be useful for someone else sometime too.
A1: Short answer: I'm a busy guy and can't afford to take the time to answer questions from the whole world about how to use them... or get harassed about adding new features or fixing a bug. If someone else has a need for one and is willing to forego any type of support, they can contact me via the email and we can talk. I'm not saying that nobody else will ever get access to them, but I'm not making them available generally for just anyone to download without talking to me first.
A2: I may at some time in the future decide to take one or more of these apps, or at least ideas from one of these apps, and turn them into a marketable product. It would be really difficult to start to charge end-users for an app if I've already given away a version. By making them available to family, friends, and coworkers I'm not giving anything up because I never charge family, friends, or coworkers for any of my software.
A3: I do have some software that I give away for free to the public on my web site.
A: If they are a mutual friend, yes. Otherwise, please contact me for permission.
A: I only accept friend requests from people I actually know. If you want one of these badly enough, email me and we'll talk.
A: Frankly, I'm open to suggestions, but chances are that if I haven't already added a feature then it probably isn't something that I've needed, so I won't make any promises. Keep in mind that these are all utilities that I've been using myself for years -- they weren't just written yesterday, so if something useful can be done without much effort, I've probably already done it... But if you've got an idea, email me at the email address on the splash screen of the app. I promise to seriously entertain any idea.
A: Call an exterminator or make it a pet.
Or just email me at the address provided on the splash screen of the app. If I can confirm it is a problem and I'm not occupied taking care of a coding emergency I'll take a look.
A: All DJUtils have a built-in automatic updater. If an update is available it will ask you at launch if you want to download it and replace your existing version.
A: Most of these utilities are mostly wrappers around library code that I've been developing for the last 19+ years -- the code for the apps themselves is actually extremely minimal. I've got an awful lot of work wrapped up in my library code, and it has a lot of value. I can't just give that away.
A: That isn't a question. And, sorry, no.
A: No. Now go away. You bother me.
A: Maybe, if you ask nicely enough, I'll give you some general direction or provide a snippit of code. But I am a really busy guy, and can't really afford the time to give specific, detailed help.
A: This isn't the right place for that question, but it is due to the way that the white light from the sun is refracted and reflected through the atmosphere. Search engines are your friends.
A: All of these utilities are written in Delphi, which is a Rapid Application Development tool based on Object Pascal. And the current collection are all written in the 2007 version. (I haven't upgraded because I haven't taken the extensive amount of time to convert my library code -- which is massive -- to newer versions. In Dephi 2009 and newer the way that strings are handled is very different, and it will require a lot of time to do the conversion.)
And if you're wondering, "Why Delphi?" well, I still believe that it is the most feature-complete, fastest way to create and deploy fast, reliable applications for Windows, even beating out the tools in Visual Studio. It isn't the most popular language around, but the best products very often aren't the most popular. And besides, I've got 19+ years worth of library code written and well tested available to make these very easy and fast to develop.
A: Yes. Seriously. It's a great development environment.
A: While Delphi XE2 and newer can create cross-platform applications, those applications really have to be written with multiple platforms in mind from the beginning -- coding to support multiple targets requires a different mindset and has a much more limited set of tools available. Plus, I haven't converted my library code over to one of those newer versions yet. Maybe in time, where it makes sense to do so (for example, an app to set the IP address on an iPad not only doesn't make sense, but wouldn't be allowed anyway.)
A: I can write X very quickly -- it doesn't require much skill and isn't a huge investment in time. It's just two diagonal lines that intersect in the middle.
But as for the amount of time to create one of these apps, almost all of them were written in a matter of a few hours or less. Some, such as DJCalc, Date Difference, or File System Changes, literally took a few minutes, including the artwork. As mentioned above, they're pretty much just simple wrappers around library code which had already been created. A few were written as test apps for that library code, but in most cases the library code had been done long prior.
A: Maybe. Send me your idea. And then I'll steal it from you. :)
A1: This collection represents a pretty small portion of the tiny litttle apps I've written for myself. But they're pretty much the only ones that are polished enough for me to be comfortable with other people seeing or using them. So as far as the public (or even a friend) is concerned, this is all of them. :)
A2: I do have a number of free utilities that I make available to the public on my web site. So look there too for more free stuff.
A: Maybe. Let's talk. Email me at the address listed on the splash screen if you have an app, or at djutils@djmail.org if you don't.
A: Let's discuss that over email.
A: What's with all of this 'X' stuff?
Most of it came from searching the Internet. There's a lot of information on the Internet.
Some of it, like manipulation of colors, came from study of books and other tomes on the subject. Color theory, for example, is something I've spent a great deal of time studying. Other subjects that really interest me are audio, video, music, graphics, and software security. And in some cases I could write my own volumes on those topics. Unfortunately I don't have a strong enough creative side to do much else with the things I learn other than write small utilities to test theories or deepen my understanding.
A: First of all, Delphi isn't the most efficient at producing small executable files. It includes a lot of stuff that technically probably doesn't need to be there, but can't feasibly be removed. It does a fairly good job at not including developer code that isn't needed, but its own libraries seem to be treated differently.
Second, in addition to the code to perform the intended function, the apps also contain my automatic updater (which has to take into consideration how to install updates on every version of Windows since 2000). They all also contain some code to protect the file from being tampered with to some degree, which uses state-of-the-art, industrial-grade data encryption. It takes a little bit of code to implement that.
Third, the application icons themselves are fairly large. Each utility contains over a dozen different sizes and color depths of the icons, and this information, surprisingly, adds up. For example, 127KB of the 741KB of DJCalc is just for icons.
Fourth, I take pride in my work. I put a lot of code in to make sure that the utilities work exactly as they are intended to, which means doing things like validating input data, or handling potential errors internally so they don't pop up and annoy/scare the user. I also use tricks like running long-running processes in separate threads so the apps don't freeze up for long periods of time, and it takes a bit of code to do that.
But, above all, they do not contain spyware or anything intended to harm you, your data, or your computer. There aren't any hidden 'back doors' or anything of the like. The apps are all exactly what they are represented to be. Nothing more, nothing less.
A: No comment.
A: I use Axialis' IconWorkshop to build them. It is a product that I cannot recommend highly enough. It provides a lot of elements that I can piece together to create high quality, finished icons very easily.
A: Sure! But I'm not providing the tools to do that for you. Just copy the .exe file to a new folder in C:\Program Files (x86), and then create a shortcut to that exe in your start menu or on your start screen. Other than that, you're on your own.