The printed edition of my book is now available on Amazon, at http://www.amazon.com/Delphi-2010-Handbook-Features-upgrading/dp/1450597262/. The book is still also on CreateSpace (which is the actual print-on-demand company), but buying it from Amazon you can take advantage of their lower-cost shipping and handling. Notice that this is Amazon US only, these books rarely show up on international versions of Amazon.

At the same time Embarcadero (who bought an open license from me) has made the PDF available now on their Embarcadero Developer Network, free for registered users of Delphi 2010 (in its various incarnations). The direct link to the page which will check your permissions is http://cc.embarcadero.com/item/27613. As you'll see, the book has half a dozen ads, from companies that helped making the free dowanload for registered users possible (adding some to the money offered by Embarcadero).

Finally, I wanted to thank all the developers who attended my online webinar on REST on Wednesday. It was tough (particularly getting up at  am), but certainly worth.

After officially releasing my Delphi 2010 Handbook last week, today I'm announcing the availability of the printed version of the book. It is, as for my past books, a print-on-demand version. The book is available on the CreateSpace web site (not on Lulu.com, this time) at the address:

https://www.createspace.com/3433762

If you are interested in both the PDF and printed version, consider buying the PDF first, as you'll receive a 20% discount for the printed version (the reverse is not possible, though Embarcadero should make the PDF of my book available to registered users of the Delphi 2010 and related products).

The book should take a couple of weeks to become available on Amazon (US) and other online outlets. On Amazon you might get cheaper shipping (particularly if you are in the US and buy other books along with it), although CreateSpace seems to be offering better options than Lulu.com. I'll let you know over the blog as soon as it becomes available on Amazon. 

Finally, I'm investigating the option to make it available in other ebook formats, including supporting Amazon Kindle, but nothing has been decided.

After reading articles and seeing on CNN journalists spreading a lot of misinformation about the recent Google vs. Italy case, I decided to write to clarify a few facts. In fact, I'm not sure I have an opinion... and doubt anyone is entitled to have one, at least for now. In any case, Italy has 3 grades of justice, so this is not a definite decision. Here are some facts:

1. We know a judge has sentenced three local Google executives. The sentence is for "privacy violation".

2. We don't know why and based on which evidence. The judge has three months to explain the rationale behind the decision, so it is hard to counter-argue: we don't know many details.

3. Google was found not liable for the video content ("defamation") and for not evaluating it in the first place. It is not true that Google was sentenced for the content of the video. Still, most comments are centered about the opposite. Including Google own comments!

4. YouTube has nothing to do. It was Google Video. I know, this is as similar service, but most journalist didn't get even this basic fact right. This is somewhat worrying.

5. Google did remove the video immediately after Italian police asked them. But many weeks after users of the site and associations protecting disabled people pointed to the video and ask for removal. So (apparently) they didn't take action even if solicited, only after the associations filed a complaint to the police. This might be part of the reason of the sentence, we don't know.

Now, how can be comment something we know basically nothing about? Hard. But a few things can be said. From a legal point of view, most of the issue relate to the fact whether Italian privacy law applies to Google or not. Of course, I have no clue about this.

The sentence is for privacy violation, which was done of course by the people uploading the video, not by Google... because they tell the name of the boy involved. Still I found this to closely map to copyright violations.

Suppose I go to YouTube and uplaod a copyrighted video. Not only I'm going against the law, but I'm also infringing the site policy, who clearly and repeatedly tells me not to upload copyrighted material. This happens on most (honest) file sharing sites. If I had a US site for sharing with no Digital Millenium Copyright Act information, I'll get some serious trouble. Is this different? Not much.

There is a trial against RapidShare in Germany about the fact they do very little to prevent copyright violations, and actually profit from them. Was the company accused, will you see the entire web commenting Germany is attacking the Internet? Quite the opposite, most people will be happy for it (myself inclued).

Now is the health, the respect, and the privacy of a disabled boy worth much less than copyrights? Probably yes, but this is a very sad thing few people are commenting about. This seems the key element of the sentence, again we'll know more in the future.

In Italy there is a law forbidding to show pictures of boys and girls in TV, on newspapers, and this applies also to the web. You need to have a signed disclosure to do the opposite. When I was helping a local politician with his web site, we got signed disclosure by parents to show a picture of him with a few kids. Is this censorship? Hardly, I'd say.

To comply with Italian laws a photo sharing site should warn users not to upload copyrighted pictures, x-rated pictures, and also pictures of kids. Nothing more and nothing less. This is what is at stake, not the freedom of the web, as Google claims.

We do have some singificant problems in Italy as the govern is trying to over-regulate the Internet, and the prime minister would like YouTube to disappear (and his media company has sued YouTube) because his TVs are loosing viewers. This is quite odd. But this has little or nothing to do with this sentece, which is about privacy laws. Privacy is a serious problem, as much as the freedom of speech. Yet, most comments tie the sentence to Italian political status. As much as I hate what's happening in my country, this is a lime excuse. The two are quite clearly unrelated.

To summarize, we know very little, there is a huge misinformation (not sure if spread on purpose, but it looks Google helped it), the are some credible reasons behind the sentence... and still I think it was a wrong decision, but not as bad as most have depicted it. Yes, I think the judge was wrong, but he apparently had some reasons for his sentence .

Finally (and this was my reason for writing this unusual post for me) I get very worried when I see dozens of journalists and thousands of bloggers repeat what they've heard without even trying to check the sources. Google said it, so it must be true. Considering they are involved, it is hard to treat them as "the source" of information. This is a problem in itself, regardless of what you think of this specific sentence.

*** 

Some references. You can see most of my ideas detailed in the comments to this blog post, specifically those from blogger Stefano Quintarelli (the post itself simply repeats what Google said, thanks a lot for the effort): http://www.buzzmachine.com/2010/02/24/italy-endangers-the-web/
(BTW, "we Americans invented the Internet so we decide how the world uses it" is slightly arrogant, don't you think? So the Swiss invented the Web at CERN and they should rule it? No, please!)

Prosecutors reasons are mentioned (if only shortly) by the NYT, in a slightly more balanced article than the average: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/technology/companies/25google.html

Final link: TechCrunch is a good example of the many articles get most info wrong info (and has an insulting attitude), starting with YouTube references: http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/24/can-someone-please-tell-this-italian-judge-what-youtube-is/

Embarcadero technology is hosting a webinar in which I'll discuss consuming and creating REST Web Services in Delphi 2010, following the steps of my white paper on the same topic.

The webinar, titled, Restful Web services with Delphi and RAD Studio 2010, will be given three different times, for three time zones (Europe, US, Asia) and I'll cover the development of client applications for popular services as well as the new REST server support available in Delphi 2010 (and part of the DataSnap). (And I hope I won't be too asleep when I'll wake up very early!)

Embarcadero already published a white paper I wrote on the topic, that you can download for free. The paper partially overlaps with the last chapter on my Delphi 2010 book and was also translated to other languages (French, German, Japanese) over the past few months, as announced in my blog. If you have questions you want me to address, feel free to ask them here on my blog... or live during the session.

All of the details, the links to register, the white paper and the existing videos are on the site: http://www.embarcadero.com/rad-in-action/rest

Yesterday I officially released my latest book , Delphi 2010 Handbook. As usual it was a huge effort to write it, and an equally long and time consuming effort to go through the editorial process, incorporate reviewers feedback, and manage the book publishing (which is all on my shoulders, as the book is self-published). The book has 318 pages, including the introduction, table of contents, and index. The table of contents is available here. As you can see, the cover is focused on Delphi's gestures support, although this is a limited section of the book, which covers all of the new Delphi 2010 features... but nothing on previous versions (so you can consider buying it along with Delphi 2007 and 2009 Handbooks, in printed or PDF formats).

As I've signed off the book yesterday, it is immediately available in PDF format at 28 USD (about 20 Eur). You can buy it on my company's FastSpring shop at sites.fastspring.com/wintechitalia/product/delphi2010handbook. Note that the book has half-a-dozen pages with ads of Delphi third party components and that printing of the PDF content is disabled.

The printed version should be out by next week, depending on the quality of the proof copy I should get in a few days. At first it will be on CreateSpace, a couple of weeks later it should show up on Amazon and other major book sale outlets. Cover price of the printed book will be 43.50 USD.

PDF, Embarcadero, Discounts

As I mentioned, I'm in the process of reaching a deal with Embarcadero to let them distribute the PDF for free to registered users of Delphi 2010 and related products. Before buying the PDF, please consider that you might later get it for free, but I have no idea about the actual timing.

Also, if you bought the first two book parts, watch out for a super-offer in your mailbox (you'll be able to get the complete book for the cost of the never-to-be-published third part). Should be out today, but I'm getting ready for a trip so it might be delayed.

BTW, in retrospect publishing individual parts let me get some money early... but it did slow down the entire process, so I'm not sure I'll do it again.

Deal: Discounted printed book for PDF owners

Now there is another deal that is open to everyone. If you buy the PDF of the complete book (as an upgrade from individual parts or not) I'll send you a 20% (8.70 USD) discount coupon for buying a printed copy on CreateSpace (notice that I cannot give you a coupon for Amazon, so you either use my discount or Amazon own discounts and cheaper shipping). Also, the opposite operation (buy the printed version, get the discount on the PDF) probably  won't be possible.

Here is a first tentative video for showcasing the Delphi 2010 Handbook examples. Some of them, in fact, are hard to explain using a screen shoot, so I'm capturing very short demo videos. I got Jing from Techsmith (not terribly happy, but does its work).

I actually promised the same for the last book, but never delivered. For this book I'm trying to reserve some time... and also to make the process very easy (hence the idea of using the capture-and-load-on-YouTube feature of Jing). Here is a first example (well, I did capture another but when YouTube resizes the video it blurs the text... so I'll remove the other one).

Let me know if those of you who have the book find it useful. Without the book, it doesn't provide much value. 

Speaking of the book, I have a tentative final version. Still need to replace a couple of images and double check the PDF, but the book is now days from completion. And I've got an ISBN!

Delphi is 15 years old today. Here are some pictures from that day.

The invitation to the launch event and my badge:

The Delphi 1 box and manuals (in a picture taken a few years later) and the "fact sheet":

Borland booth description and a picture of the booth itself:

And myself, way younger:

You can find more at my "ten years birthday" page.

As the 2010 Winter Olympics start, it is nice to know that the application controlling the thousands of LEDs of the Vancouver Olympic Rings was written in Delphi (although I could not find an external source, I spoke with one of the actual developers). The application controls the ultra-low consumption LED lamps and (as you can see in the video below) can change the color of each forming any kind of effect. You can also read an article here.

Update: I've actually found the video I meant to include, about the rings constructions and technology:

Anders Ohlsson and others former Borland employees (now at Embarcadero) have set up a very successful eBay action of old Borland memorabilia which is still ongoing.

Some of the newest pieces (a dinner with David I and Anders Hejlsberg's Compaq II luggable) are quite impressive, I have to say. But I saw many other old computer boxes and goodies worth looking into, like a Delphi 1 floppy  disk set or Turbo Pascal 5.0. Place your bid for an item of the computer industry.

PS. This has been already running for a week or so, but I realized only today I didn't mention it in my blog, helping spread the word about this action, ultimately benefiting Haitian relief effort.

My white paper on REST in Delphi 2010 is now a available in a fourth language (after English, French, and German). As for the others, there is a site where you have to register (giving Embarcadero your contact information) before you can download the document. The web site is:

http://www.embarcadero.com/jp/rad-studio-2010-in-action-jp-marco

Funny to see my profile, which (of course) I cannot read:

BTW, also Bob Swart paper on DataSnap has been translated to Japanese.