Posted on 20 Jul 2011 by Joe
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Posted on 18 Apr 2011 by Joe
I'm definitly getting more and more curious about this. Once I send the spit sample in, I should get the results in 6-8 weeks.
Posted on 22 Mar 2011 by Joe
So, I found myself trying to get some json output to validate and was getting caught up on some odd single quotes. I ended up needing to remove any non-ascii characters before it would validate. I figured that I would quickly share my solution. What I did was to use:
#REReplace(strInput, "[^[:ascii:]]", "", "ALL")#
Hopefully this helps somebody else, out there.
Posted on 17 Feb 2011 by Joe
A desktop background is something that you don't often find yourself looking at. Nonetheless, if you are like me, you don't want a boring wallpaper and you don't want to be staring at the same one, each time you close that browser window. One nifty way of approaching this in Windows 7, is to set a collection of images on a timed rotation. The problem with this is that you need a suitably large selection of images and you need to refresh them, every now and then. Well, there's another way. You can link your desktop background collection to an RSS feed. In our example of linking a Flickr account to the desktop background, instead of cycling through a collection of local images, Windows will automatically download the newest images you added to Flickr and cycle through them.
Step 1: Get the RSS feed URL for your Flickr account. It will be at the bottom of your Flickr page. Keep in mind though, you can use a Picasa account or anything else, you want, at this step.
[[Theme]
DisplayName=Flickr
[Slideshow]
Interval=1800000
Shuffle=1
RssFeed=[Insert your rss feed here]
[Control Panel\Desktop]
TileWallpaper=0
WallpaperStyle=0
Pattern=
[Control Panel\Cursors]
AppStarting=%SystemRoot%\cursors\aero_working.ani
Arrow=%SystemRoot%\cursors\aero_arrow.cur
Crosshair=
Hand=%SystemRoot%\cursors\aero_link.cur
Help=%SystemRoot%\cursors\aero_helpsel.cur
IBeam=
No=%SystemRoot%\cursors\aero_unavail.cur
NWPen=%SystemRoot%\cursors\aero_pen.cur
SizeAll=%SystemRoot%\cursors\aero_move.cur
SizeNESW=%SystemRoot%\cursors\aero_nesw.cur
SizeNS=%SystemRoot%\cursors\aero_ns.cur
SizeNWSE=%SystemRoot%\cursors\aero_nwse.cur
SizeWE=%SystemRoot%\cursors\aero_ew.cur
UpArrow=%SystemRoot%\cursors\aero_up.cur
Wait=%SystemRoot%\cursors\aero_busy.ani
DefaultValue=Windows Aero
Link=
[VisualStyles]
Path=%SystemRoot%\resources\themes\Aero\Aero.msstyles
ColorStyle=NormalColor
Size=NormalSize
ColorizationColor=0X6B74B8FC
Transparency=1
[MasterThemeSelector]
MTSM=DABJDKT
Step 3: Save the file and open it in windows explorer. It will ask you if you want to download the files that are attached to the RSS feed. Make sure to say yes. You might want to then, look at the files that it's downloading in, so that you can make minor adjustments.
That is all there is to it. You might want to get more elaborate with this set-up. One idea would be to have a feed dedicated to desktop wallpapers. It is not necessarily needed though.
Posted on 15 Feb 2011 by Joe
Posted on 14 Feb 2011 by Joe
Solver is a usefull tool for optimization problems but it's not enabled by default. Here is some simple instructions for enabling it. Click "File", click "Options", click "Add-Ins", click the "Go..." button, check the box next to "Solver Add-in", and then click "OK". That is all there is to it.
Posted on 14 Feb 2011 by Joe
So, I am currently taking a Quantitative Analysis class right now and part of what we are learning, right now, is how to solve optimization problems, using linear programming. I figured that, as I learn this topic, I would post a blog entry or two about it. For this post, I figured that I would talk about how to use Solver (an add-in that is included with Excel) to solve an optimization problem.
The problem, as stated in my textbook, is:
The marketing manager for Mountain Mist soda needs to decide how many TV spots and magazine ads to run during the next quarter. Each TV spot costs $5,000 and is expected to increase sales by 300,000 cans. Each magazine ad costs $2,000 and is expected to increase sales by 500,000 cans. A total of $100,000 may be spent on TV and magazine ads; however, Mountain Mist wants to spend no more than $70,000 on TV spots and no more than $50,000 on magazine ads. Mountain Mist earns a profit of $0.05 on each can it sells.
To start out, I created a spreadsheet that contains all of those values.
Once you constrains are there, you need to click "Solve" and Solver will adjust the two quantity values until the profit value is maximized.
This is a handy tool because it eliminates the need to have somebody tweak those two values until the profit appears to be maximized. It is sort of like an automated, scripted version of a million monkeys in a room.
Posted on 11 Feb 2011 by Joe
I have had a number of websites, in the past, that I have moved (or simply removed) due to a number of reasons. The big issue with moving a website is that you do not want to to effect the search engine ranking of the website in question. If you simply leave a "This website was moved to ..." page up, it will effect the search engine ranking. The same goes for leaving behind a 404 error. That is why you create a 301 redirect. According to RFC 2616, a 301 redirect tells the client that "requested resource has been assigned a new permanent URI and any future references to this resource SHOULD use one of the returned URIs." So, a 301 status says that the page doesn't live here anymore and tells the client where it is living now.
How do you implement this? If you are using Apache, it easy. Simply create a file named .htaccess, open it in your favorite text editor, and add the line "redirect 301 [the old location] [the new location]". It's as easy as that.
Posted on 9 Feb 2011 by Joe
Finding yourself needing to remote desktop into your work machine? A lot of us do. Unfortunately, by default, remote desktop is a single display affair. There is a way to fix that, though. From the main dialog: click "Options", click the "Display" tab, and then check the box marked "Use all my monitors for the remote session". It's as easy as that.
