Techtricks is an online technical resource for a variety of application development tools and concepts, including Corel Paradox, Borland Delphi, and a variety of web technologies.
We focus on information that many folks assume you already know, information that may not be clearly documented or easy-to-find in the primary sources. While some of our material may be familiar to you, we hope you'll also find new things to ponder. We've also collected a number of links and resources that we've found useful.
Because so many people assume that you already know things when you approach a project using one of the technologies we cover, we felt it appropriate to begin collecting and publishing those dirty little details that tend to slip out of the documentation.
Our primary goal is to create a community-based information exchange that generates enthusiasm and additional support for the products in our coverage areas. We encourage your feedback. If you have ideas for articles, please let us know or even consider contributing to our site.
Pretty much the same way that you do, through a variety of sources. We're developers who are using these things in our work. While learning and using these tools, we came up with questions and solved problems. Unlike many developers, who prefer to hide their knowledge for some competitive advantage, we prefer to offer our lessons to you as a service to the user and developer communities related to the areas we cover. We believe this helps repay some of the folks that helped us.
Our main information sources include the Usenet newsgroups, other Web sites, personal experimentation, third-party books, magazine articles, mentors, and so on. When we post something from a direct source, we attribute that source as clearly as possible. If we inadvertently take credit from something we didn't invent, please let us know. We wish to ensure that the original person gets the credit richly deserved.
Techtricks is run, edited and maintained by team of professional developers.
Lance Leonard currently leads this team and serves as primary editor, administrator, and chief architect for the site. Lance is a professional Windows developer with more than 15 years of experience with PC's, databases, and related technologies. He has been performing Internet related duties for nearly three years. His work on this site is performed during his own time and under his own initiative. This work is not related to any performed for any employer, client, or other entity.
For the record, we are not sponsored in any way by Corel, Borland, or any other agency, nor do we receive any support from these or other related parties, save perhaps in the form of moral support and the occasional answer to a question.
We are hosted by biocede.com, an provider of Internet hosting and development services. If you need Internet related services or have projects that need to be completed, please consider Biocede as your provider.
We took the "Hemingway" approach, which basically means that we wrote about the things that we've personally learned during our professional service to others.
Since the online community has been instrumental to our individual success as developers, we believed it appropriate to return the favor by collecting and publishing technical knowledge that the original designers/publishers forgot to tell you.
We may add additional areas over time. If you wish to take point on a new area, please contact us at your convenience.
Because there are so many possible questions out there, we can't conceivably cover every possible answer in existence. We provided the things we thought of, so there may be something related in a different area. Check those.
If you still can't find the answer your looking for and we haven't provided a link to another resource, consider posting your query on a relevant newsgroup. These international feeds get input on a regular basis and it's likely that someone has run into your situation before.
If you do not have access to newsgroups, take a peek at Google's Usenet archive, which contains 20 years of messages posted to Usenet newsgroups. This is an invaluable resource for locating technical information, for most problems have been encountered by many people. Google's excellent search engine makes it easy to locate answers and hints posted over time.
Also, feel free to send us a short message outlining what you were looking for. We may add something relevant.
We're working on this as we grow and as our audience grows. We will be adding tutorials for a variety of activities, each designed to help you master specific skills. These are taking longer to produce primarily because tutorials take longer to write well. For example, we have several tutorials in process, including:
This is only a small portion of topics we hope to provide shortly. Many more will appear over time.
Our initial content is based on the traffic in the newsgroups, which we try to frequent on a regular basis.
If you are looking for specific answers right now, please consider posting to the newsgroups or letting us know via the Feedback link.
If you wish to write a tutorial or have already written one, please contact us via the Feedback link. We'll be more than happy to post it.
Of course! We do ask that you let us know. We need the ego boost and we may even add a link to your site from ours.
We're working on one right now, along with several other conveniences. These may take some time to complete, as we're currently focused on adding as much content as possible. For more information about our plans, please see our wishlist.
Not at the moment, though we are considering our alternatives. If we decide to add banners to our site, we will try to keep them under control and out of the way of the content.
If you have a suggestion about ways to provide ad services without aggravating our audience or violating copyrights, trademarks, or other intellectual properties, we'd love to hear them. (This site is currently paid for using out-of-pocket, personal funds.)
Perhaps, though we do ask that you post a message to an appropriate newsgroup before sending us direct e-mail. We get a lot of messages and work on the site in our spare time. This means we have a limited amount of personal bandwidth available. By posting to the newsgroups, you are placing your problem in from of a wider audience than can possibly work on this little site. You are far more likely to get the help you need more quickly.
Please note that any reply to your message will depend entirely on a) our available time and b) the tone and demeanor of your message. Flames, abusive language, rants, spam, unsolicited commercial email (UCE), and other forms of modern rudeness shall be cheerfully deleted.
If you choose to send us an e-mail, please do not include attachments unless absolutely necessary. This helps ensure that our time is used as effectively as possible.
Every page contains a feedback link. While this currently sends an e-mail message, it will eventually lead you to a custom form for reporting the problem as specifically as possible.
If you choose to send us an e-mail, please do not include attachments unless absolutely necessary. This helps ensure that our time is used as effectively as possible.
Please note that any reply to your message will depend entirely on a) our available time and b) the tone and demeanor of your message. Flames, abusive language, rants, spam, UCE, and other forms of modern rudeness shall be cheerfully deleted.
Almost certainly. Submission guidelines will appear very soon. Send us an e-mail and we'll discuss the possibility. Again, please do not send large file attachments unless specifically requested.
Almost certainly. Send us an e-mail detailing the services and/or products you provide, along with information about linking to your site and we'll discuss the possibility.
Probably not. With ~5 million different web sites (as of this writing), it's nearly impossible to know all of them. Please let us know about this amazing resource so we can include it, too.
Please note that any reply to your message will depend entirely on a) our available time and b) the tone and demeanor of your message. Flames, abusive language, rants, spam, UCE, and other forms of modern rudeness shall be cheerfully deleted.
Also, please note that we're still adding in the initial content. We are happy to provide links to any helpful resources available. Let us know so we can help get the word out.