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Showing posts from 2012

Is the the best Microsoft can do? Windows 8 is still not here!

So on the 26th of October 2012 Microsoft released hardware and software for their new Windows range I have been so excited about this release, since their first tablet was released just after XP in 2003. Their tablet version was great it had a fantastic new concept Inking. I used this extensively from 2003 until recently. It allows you use a computer for computer stuff and also have the ability to use it to replace your standard A4 pad of paper. With journal and one note and later Evernote I had a device that could finally replace paper. Except for two things: Size and portability. Even with small laptops from HP it was still too big It took too long to go in and out of sleep mode These two reasons was why I think the product from Apple suddenly became the gadget to have. Everything you can do on an iPad can be done on a standard Windows tablet, but you need to get past the turning on and lug-ability of the device. . So this is why I was excited to see the new prod

Dharma ponderings

The Buddhists say we all have a purpose in life our or Dharma. This belief is a confusing one for me when looking at Buddhism. Most of the religion is about acceptance of all. Everything arriving is of the moment after all Zen is the epitome of Buddhism. This is what for me makes Dharma so un Zen. It seems to imply that we need to spend some of our life looking for our Dharma and then the rest of our life fulfilling it. I think you could spend your whole life looking for it. Never mind living it. Perhaps it is more of an acceptance that you are the one and only you (sorry Nic Kurshaw) and everyone Is the one and only them. Now that is a little more Zen. If we are supposed to spend time in silence the one thing that drives silence away from my thoughts is this obsessive belief that I am supposed to be something for the greater good with my life otherwise I have failed in some way. Over a decade When I was doing financially well for myself. Having started a successful business my

MP3 Downloading in South Africa - legal they say

This site claims that they are legal, and what better way to catch up you collection. After going to the Rewind tour realized I have never got round to buying some of the CD versions of the vinyls I bought in the 80s MP3 Obsession Personally I like mp3caprice.com and they do seem to be legal. Also check out http://legalmusiconline.info/allservices/

Some tools for checking code

FROM:  Why Coding Style Matters | Smashing Coding Tools To Help Don’t be afraid of using tools to help enforce coding style. Web developers have an unprecedented number of tools at their fingertips today, and many of them can help ensure that a coding style guide is being followed. These range from command line tools that are run as part of the build, to plugins that work with text editors. Here are a few tools that can help keep your team on track: Eclipse Code Formatter The Eclipse IDE has built-in support for code formatting. You can decide how specific languages should be formatted and Eclipse can apply the formatting either automatically or on demand. JSHint A JavaScript code quality tool that also checks for stylistic issues. CSS Lint A CSS code quality tool by  Nicole Sullivan  and me that also checks for stylistic issues. Checkstyle A tool for checking style guidelines in Java code, which can also be used for other languages. These are just a small sampling of the tools

Report: A Hard Drive Diagnostic Procedure

What follows below is a repost of  Hard Drive Diagnostic Procedure , I found on line: For any copyright problems please contact me, I will remove this post. I have also added additional information. I found the site looking for a fix for error 6e 74667363686b2e b34 I had running chkdsk /f /r /b Bootable Hard Drive Diagnostics This is intended to be a one-stop shopping spot for testing your hard drive outside of Windows.  If you're able to get into Windows, some of the manufacturer's offer tests that will work inside of Windows.    Suggestions are welcomed! What you'll need: A blank CD; A computer with an internet connection where you can download a file, install a small program, and burn a CD (doesn't have to be the computer that you'll be testing). 1.    Determine the make and model of your hard drive(s), do one of the following: In Windows: Go to Start...Run...and type in "devmgmt.msc" (without the quotes) and press Enter. Click on th

Microsoft Windows shortcut keys

Microsoft Windows shortcut keys Always seem to loose these.So from the website above: Microsoft Windows shortcut keys Microsoft Windows they are supported in. Shortcut Keys 3.x 9x ME NT 2K XP Vista 7 Description Alt + Tab X X X X X X X X Switch between open applications. Alt + Shift + Tab X X X X X X X X Switch backwards between open applications. Alt + double-click X X X X X X X Display the properties of the object you double-clickon. For example, doing this on a file would display its properties. Ctrl + Tab X X X X X X X X Switches between program groups or document windows in applications that support this feature. Ctrl + Shift + Tab X X X X X X X X Same as above but backwards. Alt + Print Screen X X X X X X X X Create a screen shot only for the program you are currently in. Ctrl + Print Screen X X X X Creates a screen shot of the entire screen Ctrl + Alt + Del X X X X X X X X Reboot the computer and brings up the Windows task manager. Ctrl + Shift + Esc X X X X I

What me worry OR how not to worry

Worry is it worth it, or how to not worry Turning worry in to concern is what you would like to do with all worries, heatlh, wealth, love and life. Here are some thought I have gathered in understanding a Anxious part of my life, and how to get around it: William Janes quote; “When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome” from MAD magazine An attitude we wish to adopt. To deal with worry: - gather facts objectively as if you are an outsider - use those facts when the thing you are worrying about actually happens. Action List - create a plan to stop worry From Gayland Richie: four questions to answer. You must write down and answer: 1. What am I worrying about? 2. What can I do about it? Write down scenarios or facts 3. What am I going to do about it or here's an action list 4. When am I going to start doing it? So look at facts. Write down the questions to the ans

Motivational Ideas

There are many motivational people out there, and many techniques. Over the last month I have had to reflect back on this stuff and look for new messages from old. Whether it be John Kehoe, Louise Hay, Depak Chapra, Dale Carnegie or the secret there are some principles that seem to stick out. Learn to appreciate yourself. Louise Hay says look in the mirror and say to yourself something like this I am wonderful intellegent and a beautiful. Watch your expressions and see at which point you stop believing if at all. If there is a point then that is the point at which you are running through a negative message that has been planted in you by your past. Affirm it 5 minutes at night and 5 minutes in the morning, to release that negative message. This will help rebuild the cognitive pathways to reverse the negative. Appreciate what you have, your health, your position, your friends and give thanks for it Use the belief that "Only good lies in front of me" Also write down what

South African national Museum

As part of our Dad's day out we went to the SA museum in Gardens Cape Town. I have not been there for years. I was very impressed. Firstly they are open each day from 10:00 to 17:00. The kids are free and adults only pay R20.00 so the is more than reasonable. The displays are excellent. In fact done we so vivid that my kids thought that there was real blood on one. The marine exhibition has more info than the aquarium, and the Dino's are cool. They also have an exhibiting of living and recently extinct animals. The kids loved the interactive displays, walking like a dinosaur on the one mat and we were lucky enough to be there when there was snatching band playing. I was with a set of younger kids so we did not Do the planetarium, but that is a good reason to come back in a year or 2. Well done, we will go back

SAN Cicrus mostly a winner

The South African National circus. Is now running shows daily. They say they are heard to stay and I hope they are. For the most part it was a great almost 2 hrs of entertainment. And for R18 for a family of four it is reasonable. The acts are good and local. If you want to enjoy the circus evenings then here are two things a recommend you do: Take your own pop corn and drinks. They sell there but you have to queue for coupons then queue for food. And they ran out of pop corn. My kids almost did not get but the kids that did not started their experience negatively Take cotton wool for your ears. The music was so loud I clocked it at almost 110 decibels o. My app. That is almost as loud as a rock concert. I spent most of the performance with my fingers in my ears, as did some others. I tried to find someone to get them to turn it down but they obviously could not hear what I was saying. Do those two things and them the show will be enjoyable. My girls lived it.

How to stop SPAM Text Enhance on your browser (Chrome)

I recently went to a wholesale chinese site that sounded to go to be true, and after googling foudn it was to god to be true. Afterwards however random text on websites would pop up an add that seemed to be run by Text Enhance. After blowing through forums, and their help I figured that it was an extension that was not correctly named. So I went to my browser's Extension Manger in my case Tools->Extensions. Disabled all the extensions,  went back to the page with the "enhancements" Pressed refresh and saw that the enhancements where disabled I then went through each extension and enabled them one by one to find the misbehaving on. Now fixed. So the malware / virus or whatever had obviously affected the extension, or was an extension automatically installed.

SQL Quick, viewing a store procedure

I had to blog this, seems as though it took me almost an hour to find ;) If you want to view a stored procedure using SQL, how do you do it? The command I found to work is: EXEC sp_HelpText " yourStoredProcName " Then to alter it, you do as follows USE AdventureWorks2012; GO ALTER PROCEDURE Purchasing.uspVendorAllInfo @Product varchar(25) AS codeOfProc.... GO

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - The Adventure Game

When we was young... The first ever game I played was the Hitchiker's guide, I googled it the other day and found there have been a couple remakes. BBC - Radio 4 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - The Adventure Game From their website: Based on the popular radio and book series, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is a text-based adventure game, considered by many to be a classic. The plot of the game roughly follows the first book, starting with the destruction of the planet earth and ending with the gang landing on the "lost" planet of Magrethea. This has to be done in a very roundabout way, by collecting various tools and several different kinds of pocket fluff(lint). The game also has you assume the roles of other characters in the story line, leading players to use the "Who am i" command to find out who they are playing as. It also has an in-game version of The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, which you can consult for

Free Images to put on buttons or make buttons?

A few cool site for icons that you can use on buttons or as icons, and the are free Find ICONS: Icon Search Engine/a> Icon Finder Icon Archive more here ... Some sites let you donate ;)

Serious do we always have to go back wards? PHP is rubbish

I have been programming on and off since I fell out of my teens. In those days languages where showing some sign of maturity. Pascal had shown the way of what a types language could achieve, to the point that a scratchy language called "B" had borrowed from this language to become "C". With in a decade another language called basic had borrowed from Pascal to become Visual Basic. SmallTalk was showing the way, showing how objects to help with re-usability and ease of use and understanding. And it had resulted in object pascal and C++ in the early 90's. And I thought that languages where showing that they could leave behind their ugly past based in COBOL and Fortran and its even uglier sisters like RPG. Unfortunately the quest to win the rat race took me away from programming as the GUI and web started to take hold. But in the last 5 years I have got back into programming par time. Initially just in VBA and access, but then C# for all things serious. Afte

The world as you have never seen it...

Worldmapper: The world as you've never seen it before This is a great site for people that love statistics, you can spend hours there, looking at how man has consumed and spread around the world ;) Example: Internet Users 2002 Map No. 336 Open PDF poster Next Map > Read more here: http://www.worldmapper.org/textindex/text_index.html

Dad's Day Outh May 2012; Greenpoint Park

There are a number of things in life we take for granted. At the same time if you do not sit up and notice you can miss the best parts of your life. With this in mind I decided to approach some other Dads I knew to do what I wanted to call Dad's Day out ( I have since found others calling it this, like Cape Town's child) The rules where simple, no Mom's only Dad's. After about a month of emails back an forth we set a date and a venue The Venue was Green Point Park in Cape Town, which was only opened properly just over a year ago. The kids ranged from almost 3 to almost 8, and we meet with picnic baskets and blankets and the obligatories when having kids. Most of the Dad's remembered to bring the kids bikes, so they kids had fun cycling or using their scooters then we went to the junior kids park to meet, and once we had assembled we then moved to big children's park, which is rated 6 -16 but kids under 12 are allowed if supervised (I know it is a little

Programmatically send email in Access using VBA and Outlook

When I first wrote my early Access system I used a function I setup in Outlook and then I called that. On upgrading I had a few problems with the older method then I found some help on the MSDN website here... and the related video. The first thing to do before starting the code is go into access, access the VBA (press Ctl+G) then click on "Tools" The "References" and then make sure you scroll down to "Microsoft Outlook ..." the version there will be determined by what version you have installed. This the code that I ended up with after looking at the site above Private olApp As Outlook.Application Private olNameSpace As Outlook.NameSpace ' The basics of this from MSDN site ' http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee208547(v=office.12).aspx Private Sub InitOutlook()  ' Initialize a session in Outlook   Set olApp = New Outlook.Application   'Return a reference to the MAPI layer   Set olNameSpace = olApp.GetNamespace("MA

Fixing Error when build a page/project is Visual Studio 2010

I has getting the following error every time I build the my page or project in Visual Studio Express 2012. Error 78 (0): error CS1703: An assembly with the same identity 'System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, has already been imported. To fix it I goggled all over eventually I figured this out: In Solution Explorer right click on the root of the project then click "Property Pages" (or Shift+F4) Then it will display something like this: Select the assembly that is giving problems and then click "Remove" ;) Problems solved.

Redirecting you page to a mobile ready page

There are a number of solutions on the internet but the one I found to work, is here 51Degrees.mobi - Mobile Device Detection and Redirection The is the code: I allow the user to click on a button that redirects back to the proper page, using PostURL with a Parameter   protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)   {     string _strUserAgent = Request.UserAgent.ToString().ToLower();     if ((Request.Browser.IsMobileDevice == true) || _strUserAgent.Contains("iphone") || _strUserAgent.Contains("blackberry") ||            _strUserAgent.Contains("mobile") || _strUserAgent.Contains("windows ce") || _strUserAgent.Contains("opera mini") ||            _strUserAgent.Contains("palm"))       {         if (Request.Params["ForceStandard"] != "Y")          Response.Redirect("mobiProducts.aspx");         // show a status message         _strUserAgent = "mobile detected";      

Car rentals - beware the perils of them

Recently I travelled to the states to see some companies and do some business. Seem as though some of the places we went to see were in remote areas we had to rent a car. The first place we went to was Sandpoint. We had to rent a car at the Spokane airport and return it there. Even though there were rental companies based in Sandpoint we could not rent in Spolane and drop off in Sandpoint at all. The weekly rental did not sound bad at $220. Per week. When we collect the rental car at Enterprise I was asked if I want the the fuel included or the insurance upgraded etc. I was never given a price and as I was tired from travelling (we had spent 36 hours travelling already) I said yes. When I returned the car I was charged $750. When I queried this I was told actually it was cheaper than I had agreed on collection. When I scrutinized the invoice I found I had been charged $500 in options. As I said to their customer services person who just through the paper work in my face "well done

In Business be honest to yourself

Many people dream about running their own businesses. I know I dreamt for years before taking the plunge. And it is a plunge I have taken 3 more times. So what have I learnt. Each business has had moderate to great success. My latest foray has been a little different as I have had some capital, this gave me the flexibility to really set standards. You need to be in the business because you love it. And also determine why you love it. For me I have been in the coffee industry now for five years, and my basic philosophy of only selling what I am prepared to drink was a founding principle, and even though along the way I let product creep in that made me a buck, I have closed those product lines. I find it amazing how I meet people who have taken the plunge and how much they have lost their way listen to the complainers in life. Those people who always want to provide negative criticism on whatever crosses their path. Ignore it. Those people who give positive advice are the ones you take

Excel: Getting the next value in a table rather than the first match

I recently needed to get the next biggest value in a table of values, and after surfing the net and looking at a few examples that where a little confusing this is how it is done: Use VLookup ( value, TableRange , 1, TRUE ) - true means approximate value, which means that in a sorted table it will choose the value equal or less than Then using Match ( theVLookupAbove , TableRange ) - This will return the row number of the value Then take the result from that use Index ( TableRange , theMatchAbove + 1 ) This will give you the result you are looking for. Example: 2^N VALUE 100 1 2 Formula Value Formula in Text 4 VLOOKUP 64 =VLOOKUP(D1,A2:A10,1,TRUE) 8 MATCH 7 =MATCH(D4,A2:A10) 16 INDEX 128 =INDEX(A2:A10,D5+1) 32 AllInOne 128 =INDEX(A2:A10,MATCH(VLOOKUP(D1,A2:A10,1,TRUE),A2:A10)+1) 64 128 256