I love Google. Not just because of its usefulness as a search engine. What I really like is their new G-Mail Service. Mind you, I don’t use it or plan to, but I really love it.
Why? Because I have a paid account at Yahoo! Mail and today I got an e-mail from them telling me the following:
I know Yahoo didn’t do this out of the goodness of their hearts (though I presume their hearts are in the right place)… they did this in order to compete effectively against Google’s new E-mail service.
Which is why I love Google.
Comments Off on I Love Google!Sorry about the site being down for most of today. Appparently, the server LaunchPad Zero was on at my hosting provider (Powweb) had severe hardware difficulties.
Comments Off on Site Down TodayWrote some one-shot VBA code to move stuff around between a couple of Excel worksheets:
Public Function CompareTT(T_Div As String, T_ST As String, T_Add As String, _
S_Div As String, S_ST As String, S_Add As String) As Integer
'Returns -1 for "<", 0 for "=", 1 for ">" .
Dim Temp As Integer<br>
T_Div = Trim(LCase(T_Div)): T_ST = Trim(LCase(T_ST)): T_Add = Trim(LCase(T_Add))
S_Div = Trim(LCase(S_Div)): S_ST = Trim(LCase(S_ST)): S_Add = Trim(LCase(S_Add))
Temp = StrComp(T_Div, S_Div, vbTextCompare)
If Temp <> 0 Then
CompareTT = Temp
Exit Function
End If
Temp = StrComp(T_ST, S_ST, vbTextCompare)
If Temp <> 0 Then
CompareTT = Temp
Exit Function
End If
CompareTT = StrComp(T_Add, S_Add, vbTextCompare)
End Function
Public Sub CopyTT()
Dim Source As Range, Target As Range
Dim SourceRow As Integer, TargetRow As Integer
Dim CompareValue As Integer
Dim TempFormula As String
Dim SFormulaReplace As String
Dim TFormulaReplace As String
Const cDIV As Integer = 1
Const cST As Integer = 5
Const cAddress As Integer = 2
Const cHardWare As Integer = 13
Const cYearBuilt As Integer = 17
Const cSqFt As Integer = 19
Const cOccupancy As Integer = 21
Set Source = ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("Source").Cells
Set Target = ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("Target").Cells
SourceRow = 4: TargetRow = 4
Do While Source(SourceRow, cDIV) <> ""
CompareValue = CompareTT(Target(TargetRow, cDIV), _
Target(TargetRow, cST), _
Target(TargetRow, cAddress), _
Source(SourceRow, cDIV), _
Source(SourceRow, cST), _
Source(SourceRow, cAddress))
Select Case CompareValue
Case -1
TargetRow = TargetRow + 1
Case 0
'Calculate new formula
TempFormula = Source(SourceRow, cHardWare).Formula
SFormulaReplace = "Y" & SourceRow
TFormulaReplace = "Y" & TargetRow
TempFormula = Replace(TempFormula, SFormulaReplace, TFormulaReplace)
Target(TargetRow, cHardWare).Formula = TempFormula
Target(TargetRow, cYearBuilt) = Source(SourceRow, cYearBuilt)
Target(TargetRow, cSqFt) = Source(SourceRow, cHardWare)
Target(TargetRow, cOccupancy) = Source(SourceRow, cOccupancy)
TargetRow = TargetRow + 1
SourceRow = SourceRow + 1
Case 1
SourceRow = SourceRow + 1
End Select
Loop
Set Source = Nothing: Set Target = Nothing
End Sub
Sure it’s a hack, but it worked. It certainly beat looking through 500 rows of excel that span 30 columns and manually copying everything over.
Comments Off on What I Did At Work TodayI went to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban with a friend yesterday. The interesting thing is how different our reactions were. I was thoroughly spoiled from reading online reviews and the Harry Potter mailing lists I subscribe to. She has read the books for times but is not part of the online Harry Potter community at all.
I knew the movie was very different from the book. She didn’t and it kept surprising her. She must have whispered “that wasn’t in the book” at least a dozen times through the course of the film and told me at the end that she just didn’t enjoy it as much as the first two films. I, on the other hand, liked Prisoner of Azkaban a great deal though I think it had a great many flaws as well.
Some of my observations/comments on the film in no particular order (warning – spoilers ahead):
(more…)
Fic Title: The Slayer In Question
Author: Booster
Links: The Slayer In Question on Twisting The Hellmouth, The Slayer In Question on Fanfiction.net
Content: Rated PG-13 by author.
Status: Complete
Rating: G-Good
Don Sample makes a recommendation on alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer.creative for the The Slayer In Question. I’d like to second that recommendation.
The Season 5 Angel episode, The Girl In Question, was not one of the better episodes of the series. I found it rather boring and other people actively disliked it. The Slayer In Question gives that episode an entirely new meaning.
Booster doesn’t change any of the scenes of The Girl In Question, he merely adds new ones showing background events which places that episode in an entirely new context. His characterization of Buffy and the rest of the Scoobies is pretty good and his new scenes blend seemlessly into the events of the episode.
While I prefer long, epic-length fics, The Slayer In Question is an excellent short story. I hope to read more of Booster’s stuff in the future.
Comments Off on The Slayer In QuestionFic Title: Harry Potter and the Rising Darkness
Author: kyc639
Links: Harry Potter and the Rising Darkness on Fanfiction.net
Content: Mystery story. Rated PG-13 by author.
Status: Complete
Rating: A-Acceptable
Harry Potter and the Rising Darkness by kyc639 is mystery story set after Harry Potter leaves Hogwarts and becomes an auror. It is a Harry/Hermione shipper fic, although that is not the main plotline.
I have mixed feelings about this story – it is well written from a grammatical point of view and has lots of potential. Harry’s characterization is well done and the original character of Robert Toms is rather interesting. The groundwork for the mystery is laid out rather nicely also. Where I feel the fic falls short is in the endgame. The mystery is very straightforward…nary a red herring in sight. What is a mystery without at least one detour leading the character(s) and reader astray? We don’t learn much about the main villain(s) in the story either…they seem rather flat and one dimensional, as does kyc639’s characterization of Hermione. While I am a Harry/Hermione shipper, it just doesn’t interest me in this story.
Overall, Harry Potter and the Rising Darkness is better than the average fanfic, but it didn’t leave me wanting to reread it or hope for a sequel, which is why I rated it merely A-Acceptable.
Comments Off on Harry Potter and the Rising DarknessYesterday night’s Succubus Club IRC chat transcript has now been posted.
Comments Off on Posted June 9, 2004 Chat TranscriptI recently upgraded to Opera 7.5 from 7.23 (the free version in both cases). I then had the usual minor trials and tribulation of getting my old bookmarks and other settings transferred over properly. After about a half-hour of work, I had everything pretty much just the way I want it, except for one thing – the icon in the system tray.
The thing is, I don’t want an icon in the system tray. I want to reserve the system tray for stuff I have running in the background or minor applets. Prior to version 7.5, Opera didn’t put an icon in the system tray, so it wasn’t a problem. Now it does, whenever Opera is running. I know it is supposed to allow easy access to mail and news, but I use other programs for that. It is totally useless to me. The annoying thing is I can’t find out how to turn the stupid thing off!
I have checked Google and I have checked Usenet. I tried Opera’s help files, but generally they are worthless. As far as I can tell, I am stuck with the red Opera icon glaring at me from the system tray whenever I use the program.
Adding the icon to the system tray may be a feature, but I consider not being able to turn it off a bug.
Comments Off on A Feature, Not A BugThere is a thread on usenet in alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer.creative regarding the state of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer and Angel fanfiction. JLB, the originator of the thread, thinks that fanfiction regarding the later seasons of Buffy and Angel is “pretty barren.”
I have to agree with him. I think the situation is actually worse – I think Buffy fanfiction as a whole is dieing. Other than Regertz’s stuff, which I don’t read, I don’t see much new stuff being posted on alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer.creative, which has always been my go-to source for good fanfiction. Ryan Kinkor has given up on Black and White. Doyle Investigations hasn’t had a new episode in a year and a half. The last episode of the Trick Chronicles was updated over a year ago.
I am, admittedly, cherry-picking my favorite series and that there are some exceptions (M. Scott Eiland comes to mind). Still, I have been following Buffy fanfiction for about 4 years and it seems to me that there is less fanfic and more importantly, less quality fanfic being written than a couple of years ago.
Comments Off on The Death of Buffy and Angel FanfictionI don’t have much of a problem with Spam right now. I don’t mean I don’t get it…I actually get a fair amount. It just isn’t a problem. For that, I have to thank Steve den Beste, the Captain of the USS Clueless.
In mid-March, the good Captain made a couple of posts regarding his own battles with the evil Spam monster, wherein he discussed his experiences POPfile and K9. Both of these are programs designed to identify spam so you can filter it out of your inbox.
After reading his posts, I installed K9 on my machine on March 20th. It has worked wonderfully. I seldom see more than 1 or 2 spam messages my inbox now where before installing K9 I would often see upwards of 20.
Installation Notes
K9 was easy enought to install. The directions on configuration were pretty easy too, although the “Auto-Configure Microsoft Outlook” feature did not work for me. K9 caught approximately 90%of the spam out of the box. After “teaching” it what I consider spam, that number shout up to 97% and has slowly crept up to 98%.
Spam Statistics
K9 keeps detailed statistics regarding e-mails that it processes. All numbers are the current daily average:
# e-mails per day: 162
# Good e-mails: 117 (72%)
# Spam e-mails: 45 (28%)
# Spam e-mails caught by K9: 159 (98%)
# Spam e-mails making it to my inbox: 3(2%)
So instead of 45 spam messages clogging my inbox everyday, I have do deal with 3. I can live with that.
Comments Off on K9 & Spam