Blog
General articles and random thoughts that don’t fit into the knowledgebase.
Latest Blog Posts
NewIT 10/27/2009 (a.m.)
<p class=‘diigo-description’> Organisation promoting standards for healthcare systems integration </p> <p class=‘diigo-tags’> <a style=‘color:#000 !important;text-decoration:none !important;’ href=‘http://www.diigo.com/cloud/knightnet'>tags</a>: <a href=‘http://www.diigo.com/user/knightnet/work'>work</a>, <a href=‘http://www.diigo.com/user/knightnet/healthcare'>healthcare</a> </p>
Nearest Postcode Search in Microsoft Excel
I need to find a load of addresses by proximity to a postcode. I have the addresses in a Microsoft Access database. Download Paul Jenkins’s UK Postcode csv and import into Access as a table Create a query on your own table adding the following calculated field: <pre>PCregion: Trim( Left( [My Table]![Postcode], InStr( [My Table]![Postcode], ” ” ) ) )</pre> Create a second query that joins the above query to the imported postcode table.
Hello WordPress! My blogs now combined
I’ve moved my several Blogger blogs over to a single WordPress blog as I can take better control. Unfortunately, I’m guessing that some comments may get lost in the move – sorry about that. Anyway, you will now find blog entries about all areas of IT that take my fancy including Windows, Linux, Web & Office development, Identity Management and doubtless lots of other random stuff. My blogs are mainly for me so that I can keep things I’d like to remember (or rant about!
Flashing the BIOS from Linux (OpenSUSE 11.0)
I’ve been a bit quiet here recently because I’ve mainly been working with my business laptop currently running Windows 7. You can see more about this on my other blog – [Much Ado about IT][1]. However, the power supply on that died recently so I’m back to my trusty desktop which runs OpenSUSE 11.0 24×7. I managed to get hold of an upgraded CPU for this a while back but I’ve not really had an incentive to upgrade till now.
Cygwin BASH function to open the latest version of a document
One handy function I’ve added to .bashrc (so it is always available) under Cygwin (the LINUX command environment for Windows) works out the current working version of a document. It assumes that you keep copies that have a version number or date in the file name that will sort correctly. You can use it with an alias like this: If you name your documents sensibly such as “a-document-2009-07-20.doc” or “a-document-v01.01.doc”, then the latest version of the file will be opened in the default application
Speeding up Cygwin
Yesterday I mentioned my success with Cygwin. One issue I did have though was with the speed of startup. It was taking 15-20 seconds to start a BASH shell. It turns out that this was a PATH issue. I went through my Windows PATH and cleared out the clutter. Now it takes just around 3-4 seconds for a full BASH login and less still for just running a script. I now find myself using the BASH shell for all sorts of things and I’ve set up a number of alias’s to switch to folders I’m using a lot and to open common documents.
Windows command prompt vs PowerShell vs Cygwin for remote backup scripts
I’ve been struggling with trying to get a new backup routine working for my Laptop. I should point out that I have several complex requirements for backup so my needs are probably not average. However, it really shouldn’t be this hard! I need to use a combination of BZR (Bazaar) for document version control and RSYNC (for files that don’t need version control and for those folders that might contain files too big for version control systems – around 1/3 to 1/2 available memory).
Nobody is listening at Technorati
I’ve had a problem trying to claim this blog at the Technorati web site. It seems that using Firefox doesn’t work and that in getting part the way through the claim process and then failing, I can no longer complete the process. No problem I thought, I’ll contact the Technorati support and they will help. Well think again. Despite several emails over the last few months (there’s no phone number), nobody has even bothered to reply.
Running Komodo Edit Open Source Code Editor Under Windows 7
The open source version of Komodo’s code editor and development environment Komodo Edit is a great tool for development. I use it for PHP, HTML, JavaScript and more. However, I haven’t done any serious coding for a while so I haven’t needed to run it under Windows 7 even though I had it installed. When I did, I was disapointed to find it behaving very poorly. It wouldn’t resize properly without messing up the screen.
New Comments System
I’ve moved my comments over to [Disqus][1] from the default Blogger comments. It means that you don’t have to log in to comment and you get much better tracking of discussions. My other blog “[Much Ado About IT][2]” has had this for a while and it seems to work really well. Unfortunately, it does mean that I’ve lost any existing comments – sorry to those who have commented in the past.
How-to use WebDAV on Windows Vista and Windows 7
Windows is supposed to have a built-in WebDAV client. However, it doesn’t ever seem to have been especially robust and certainly since Vista a lot of people (myself included) have found that it simply doesn’t work on many supposedly WebDAV enabled sites. Thankfully there are a couple of free (and some not free) options that, while not as nicely integrated into Windows Explorer, do enable you to transfer files back and forth.
Keeping Control: File and Folder Links for Windows Users
A good backup strategy for any computer involves keeping control of where stuff is stored. The fewer locations that contain files that change, the fewer locations have to be maintained. UNIX users have always had the ability to keep things wherever they wanted and then to LINK that information into the required location. Basically, links create a link or tunnel between one file or folder and another. Most of the time, you will not notice that you’ve entered a tunnel and you are not interested really.
Version Control for Mortals
[Version control systems][1] (VCS, or Revision Control Systems or Source Control Systems) are designed for software developers. They enable one or more people to work on source code, annotate changes, split and merge the code, link to bug tracking systems and a number of other things that are interesting to developers but not to most people! Indeed then, for most people, you might expect that version control systems are not interesting at all.
Copy and Paste to OneNote (AutoHotKey script)
After yesterdays OneNote tool post, I thought I’d do another while I think about it. Another annoyance of OneNote is it’s lack of control over pasting information from the clipboard. I’ve raised a suggestion with MS to improve this; you can see my comment in the newsgroup. To ease things a little if you need to copy and paste lots of stuff to OneNote, here is an AutoHotKey script to help.
📖 Posts | 📎 Development, Microsoft, Windows | 🔖 AutoHotKey, Configuration, Office, OneNote, Scripting
Setting list item gaps in Microsoft OneNote (AutoHotKey script)
Although I like Microsoft OneNote and use it continuously, it does have a few failings. One of these is the inability to set the default styles and layout for text. In particular, when you create a new paragraph or list entry in OneNote, the default – non-changeable – setting is to have no white space between the paragraphs. This is very poor design and makes more than a small amount of text quite unreadable.
