myTselection

Batch parameter modifier

2011-08-22T16:14:00.002+02:00

In batch script, one can use the following modifier to expand to full path etc.

%~1 Expands %1 and removes any surrounding quotation marks ("").
%~f1 Expands %1 to a fully qualified path name.
%~d1 Expands %1 to a drive letter.
%~p1 Expands %1 to a path.
%~n1 Expands %1 to a file name.
%~x1 Expands %1 to a file extension.
%~s1 Expanded path contains short names only.
%~a1 Expands %1 to file attributes.
%~t1 Expands %1 to date and time of file.
%~z1 Expands %1 to size of file.
%~$PATH:1 Searches the directories listed in the PATH environment variable and expands %1 to the fully qualified name of the first one found. If the environment variable name is not defined or the file is not found, this modifier expands to the empty string.
%~dp1 Expands %1 to a drive letter and path.
%~nx1 Expands %1 to a file name and extension.
%~dp$PATH:1 Searches the directories listed in the PATH environment variable for %1 and expands to the drive letter and path of the first one found.
%~ftza1 Expands %1 to a dir-like output line.

In the previous examples, you can replace %1 and PATH with other batch parameter values.

The %* modifier is a unique modifier that represents all arguments passed in a batch file. You cannot use this modifier in combination with the %~ modifier. The %~ syntax must be terminated by a valid argument value.

You cannot manipulate batch parameters in the same manner that you can manipulate environment variables. You cannot search and replace values or examine substrings. However, you can assign the parameter to an environment variable, and then manipulate the environment variable.

Salling Clicker - Windows Mobile

2011-01-21T11:06:00.009+01:00

Salling Clicker is a remote control software. It lets you control popular applications from a mobile phone or handheld computer through a user interface similar to a portable media player.
You can choose to have the computer take action when you make or receive a phone call or get close to your pc. For instance, Salling Clicker can automatically mute the system volume while you're on the phone or automatically lock the pc while your gone.

Control PowerPoint, iTunes, Windows Media Player, and more with your mobile device.
Works with all major Bluetooth stacks (no configuration required).
Amazingly easy-to-use WiFi connectivity for long-range control.
Works with over 300 devices.
Easily extend support for other applications using JavaScript or VBScript

Scripts

Salling Clicker is installed with a set of default scripts (JavaScript for Windows) to support many different applications (PowerPoint, iTunes, MediaPlayer, etc.). On the forums of Salling Clicker many other custom scripts can be found, created and shared by the community.
I've created a set of personal scripts, some are base on the official scripts, some are based on the scripts found in the forums and some are completely new. I just list all the scripts I use:

De Slimste Mens: as explain in this separate blog post, I've created a complete interface to control the Flemish game "De Slimste Mens".
myT Mouse Keyboard: full control for mouse and keyboard. Specially made for Windows Mobile devices with hardware keyboard (tested on Samsung Omnia B7310 and HTC Wizard (Qtek9100)). Use the screen to move mouse, use 'Menu' button to get context menu (mouse right click), use 'Help' button for extra options. To get a good overview of all options, I’ve put some screenshot online.
Use hardware keyboard to send all keys. The used keys will be displayed on the main screen for easy action tracking.
The extra option are:
- switching of Shift/Ctrl/Alt/Win keys
- sending special characters
- sending function keys (eg F1-F12, pause, insert, delete, etc)
- sending media keys (play next song, webbrowser control, etc)
- sending long text: text input on device
- open a file on pc: navigate to folder and open a file, recent file history, easy access to favorite locations (eg start menu, 'my documents', etc)
- Zoom screen using freeware ZoomIt application, all ZoomIt options supported (pen, break, etc)
- Show a screenshot of the pc on the main screen.
- Exchange data from pc clipboard to device and/or put text into the pc clipboard
PowerPoint: distribuated by Salling Clicker
MediaPlayer: distribuated by Salling Clicker
MediaPortal: from forum
MediaCenter: from forum
iTunes: distribuated by Salling Clicker
BSPlayer: from forum
VLC: from forum
WinDVD: from forum
MSN Online status: from forum
uTorrent: from forum
ShutdownControls: shutodown/hibernate/standby/screen on-off/lock
Device Info: distiribuated by Salling Clicker
Disconnect: distiribuated by Salling Clicker
System volume: control pc volume
MuteWhileOnPhone: distribuated by Salling Clicker
CallNotifier: distribuated by Salling Clicker
LockComputer: distribuated by Salling Clicker
MonitorAway: distribuated by Salling Clicker
Show Message: show message on pc

Toshiba Tecra S11

2011-01-17T15:13:00.030+01:00

We recently replaced our old portable Lenovo ThinkPad T61 by the Toshiba Tecra S11, Intel® Core™ i5 M520, 2,40GHz, 4GB Ram.
Although this new one is certainly not the best device available, as can be read in this technical review, it has some nice new features like a finger print reader, SmartCard reader, webcam, DisplayPort and a larger HDD (320GB).

Drivers

When we received the laptop, not all drivers were installed correctly. Additional drivers can be download and should be installed in the provided order:

TOSHIBA Assist

TOSHIBA Extended Tiles for Windows Mobility Center, Windows Mobility Center can be opened in Windows 7 using the shortcut key Win+X

Infineon Trusted Platform Module Software

Intel Chipset SW Installation Utility

Intel Management Engine Interface

Active Management Technology (AMT)

Display Driver, switch between displays in Windows 7 using the shortcut key Win+P

Intel Storage Driver

TOSHIBA Value Added Package

Realtek Audio Driver

NVIDIA HD Audio Driver 1.0.2.0

LAN Driver Intel

LAN Realtek

ALPS Pointing Device Driver Touch Pad

Ricoh Card Reader

O2Micro Smart Card Reader Driver 1.1.4.207G

TOSHIBA Software Modem

TOSHIBA Software Modem Region Select Utility

Wireless LAN Driver

ConfigFree

TOSHIBA Network Device ID Registry Setting Tool

TOSHIBA 180 Degrees Rotation Utility

TOSHIBA Fingerprint Utility

TOSHIBA Face Recognition slows down Windows logon and not very effective

Bluetooth Stack for Windows by Toshiba

Bluetooth Monitor

TOSHIBA eco Utility 1.1.12.64

TOSHIBA HDD/SSD Alert 3.1.64.4

TOSHIBA HDD Protection 2.2.0.3

TOSHIBA Service Station V2.1.40

TOSHIBA PC Health Monitor 1.5.1.64

PlayReady PC Runtime

TOSHIBA USB Sleep and Charge Utility 1.3.2.0 allows charging (power) external devices over USB, even while the pc is in sleep or hibernate mode

TOSHIBA Web Camera Application V1.1.2.6

BIOS Upgrade

ReelTime

Rapid Storage Technology Driver

Registry Patch

Security Assist

Service Station

TEMPRO

Turbo Boost Technology

Wireless Manager

Toshiba official software download site: http://aps2.toshiba-tro.de/

Extras

The build-in SmartCard reader can be used to read the Belgian eID cards, and thus also to login on the Tax-On-Web pages. After installation of the SmartCard driver (see above) and a reboot, install the eID software and reboot again.

AutoSensitivity allows you to define different mouse sensitivities (speeds) for your touchpad and mouse and automatically switch between them (based on mouse connect / disconnect). This can be useful since the touchpad on this Toshiba is rather slow.

Windows Explorer extentions

De Slimste Mens Ter Wereld

2010-12-01T22:15:00.018+01:00

(Nederlandse versie: zie onder)

Jonathan Huyghe has made a nice little flash tool to let you play the popular Flemish TV show ‘De slimste mens ter wereld’ (The smartest person of the world) at home.

Because I found it quite complicated to prepare the game, I made a little Excel template that should make it more straightforward to make all preparations for it. It can easily generate the required ‘antwoorden.txt’ file with the correct syntax and it can print out cards with instructions to be used by the host during the game play.

User Manual

Download this package containing the original sources of Jonathan Huyghe + Excel template ‘DSM-Voorbereiding.xlt’
Open the file ‘DSM-Voorbereiding’ with Excel and allow macros to run.
Fill in all grey marked fields (names of players, questions, answers). The other fields are protected so no mistakes can be made by accident.
Some questions require .jpg images or .flv flash movies. The names and resolution of the files are put next to the questions. These files should be saved in the same folder next to the DSM .swf flash file manually.
Save the Excel sheet, it is advised to save it in the same folder as the DSM .swf file
Click on the top button ‘Exporteer antwoorden.txt’ to generate (or overwrite) the ‘antwoorden.txt’ file (in the same folder as the Excel file) based on the data provided in the sheet. This file is required by the DSM .swf flash tool.
Click on the top button ‘Print steekkaarten’ to get a print preview of the instruction cards that can be used by the game host. All instructions, questions and answers are clearly put together to print out and use during the play. The cards can be printed out 2 or 4 per page to make it easier to hold them during the game.

Examples

I've made two quizzes using the Excel file with questions, images and movies:

Quiz1

Quiz2

Extra

If some changes are required to customize the layout etc, the sheets can be unprotected (no password is used) using the Excel menus.

To convert movie files the freeware tools Format Factory and / or Riva FLV encoder can be used.

To convert / edit the picture files, the freeware tool Paint.NET can be used.

While exporting the 'antwoorden.txt' file, another file 'DSMData.txt' will be created (since v2.0). This 'DSMData.txt' file can be imported on a Windows Mobile pocket pc to get a very user friendly interface to control the flash quiz on a pc. For this, it will be required to install Salling Clicker on the PC and Windows Mobile device. Next this Salling Clicker 'De Slimste Mens' script needs to be added in Salling Clicker. A new item will be available in Salling Clicker on the Windows Mobile device. I've put some screenshots online.

(Dutch – Nederlands)

Jonathan Huyghe heeft een mooi flash programmaatje gemaakt om je thuis het populaire Vlaamse TV spel ‘De slimste mens ter wereld’ te laten spelen.

Omdat ik het nogal omslachtig vond om het spel op te zetten, heb ik een Excel template gemaakt om alle voorbereidingen te vergemakkelijken en wat duidelijker te maken. Deze Excel laat toe om het bestand ‘antwoorden.txt’ te genereren met de juiste syntax. Ook kunnen steekkaarten afgeprint worden met alle instructies, vragen en antwoorden die nodig zijn tijdens het spelen van het spel.

Handleiding:

Download dit zip bestand met alle nodige bestanden van Jonathan Huyghe en de Excel template ‘DSM-Voorbereiding.xlt’.
Open het bestand ‘DSM-Voorbereiding.xlt’ met Excel en sta het uitvoeren van macro’s toe.
Vul al de grijze velden in (namen spelers, vragen, antwoorden). De andere velden zijn normaal beschermd zodat deze niet per ongeluk kunnen gewijzigd worden.
Voor sommige vragen is het nodig om .jpg afbeeldingen en .flv flash filmpjes beschikbaar te maken. De namen en de resoluties die hiervoor moeten gebruikt worden, staan aangegeven naast de vragen. Deze bestanden moeten manueel in de zelfde map als het DSM .swf bestand geplaatst worden.
Sla het Excel bestand op. Het is aangeraden om het bestand in dezelfde map als het DSM .swf bestand op te slaan.
Klik op de bovenste knop ‘Exporteer antwoorden.txt’ om het bestand ‘antwoorden.txt’ automatisch aan te maken (of te overschrijven). Dit bestand zal in dezelfde map als het Excel bestand geplaatst worden. Het bestand ‘antwoorden.txt’ is nodig voor de werking van het .swf programma DSM.
Klik op de bovenste knop ‘Print steekkaarten’ om een print voorbeeld te krijgen van de steekkaarten. Deze steekkaarten kunnen tijdens het spel gebruikt worden en geven duidelijk de instructies, vragen en antwoorden aan. De steekkaarten kunnen per 2 of per 4 per blad afgedrukt worden om ze gemakkelijker vast te houden tijdens het spel.

Voorbeelden

Zelf heb ik 2 quizzen gemaakt, met de Excel met vragen, afbeeldingen en filmpjes:

Quiz1

Quiz2

Extra

Als er wijzigen nodig zijn in de layout enz. kan het nodig zijn om de bescherming van de Excel tabbladen te verwijderen. Dit kan eenvoudig via de Excel menu’s (er is geen wachtwoord gebruikt in de beveiliging).

Voor het omzetten van de filmpjes kunnen de gratis applicaties Format Factory en / of Riva FLV encoder gebruikt worden.

Voor het omzetten / bewerken van afbeeldingen, kan de gratis applicatie Paint.NET gebruikt worden.

Bij het exporteren van het bestand 'antwoorden.txt', zal nu ook een bijkomend bestand 'DSMData.txt' aangemaakt worden. Dit bestand kan geïmporteerd worden op een Windows Mobile toestel om zo een zeer eenvoudige bediening van het volledige spel toe te laten. Hiervoor moet op de computer en de Windows Mobile PDA wel Salling Clicker geïnstalleerd worden en vervolgens moet dit Salling Clicker 'De Slimste Mens' script toegevoegd worden. Een nieuw item zal beschikbaar zijn in Salling Clicker op het Windows Mobile toestel. Enkele schermafbeeldingen.

Update 2/12/2010 v1.4: Extra validation added for field lengths. Status bar message for export added. Added import functionality.

Update 6/12/2010 v1.5: Added example quiz questions.

Update 17/01/2011 v2.0: Added export for Salling Clicker

Personal expense sheet

2010-11-29T11:49:00.012+01:00

With the formula I presented in my previous blogpost on Excel look-ups I created an Excel sheet to monitor my personal expenses.
It is based on the data I extract from my different online banking systems (currently for the Belgian banks Argenta, Landbouwkrediet and KBC).

In the 'Categories' sheet, different keywords linked to the category name need to be filled in, this could be the name of a company or the account number. The keyword will be looked up in the account and comment of each transaction. And this will make it possible to automatically categorize each bank transaction and automate some analysis/summary overview on the transactions.

Every now and then, I copy the data from the online banking system into the 'data' Excel sheets. All expenses are categorized automatically with my formula in the column 'Auto Type', but if some exceptional category needs to be assigned, a 'Manual Type' column can be set to override the 'Auto Type'. Based on these categories, I created some sheets with an summary overview for each month and some averages per month and per year. This way, I can get a clean overview on our expenses and incomes and keep a copy of our banking data offline as well (since many banks only keep last 2 years online).

Based on my personal sheet I created this empty (dutch) template sheet, but it will still need some custom changes to be usable for someone else. But it could be a nice starting point.

GIT usage (for an SVN user)

2010-11-25T11:16:00.036+01:00

I put together some stuff about git I found interesting.

Installation

To get started with git on Windows, you'll probably want to download TortoiseGIT (and this requires msysgit)

Setup

To use git, a username and email need to be configured. This can be done in of TortoiseSVN -> Settings -> Git -> Config.

Migration from SVN

A very good manual to migrate your existing SVN repository to GIT can be found in this blog post of Jon Maddox.

Good to know

Git tracks content not files
Many revision control systems provide an 'add' command that tells the system to start tracking changes to a new file. Git's 'add' command does something simpler and more powerful: git add is used both for new and newly modified files, and in both cases it takes a snapshot of the given files and stages that content in the index, ready for inclusion in the next commit.

Most SCM systems use Delta Storage systems - they store the differences between one commit and the next. Git does not do this - it stores a snapshot of what all the files in your project look like in this tree structure each time you commit. This is a very important concept to understand when using Git.

There is only one Git Directory per project (as opposed to one per subdirectory like with SVN or CVS), and that directory is (by default, though not necessarily) '.git' in the root of your project.

Git is much faster than SVN.

In SVN, each file & folder can come from a different revision or branch. At first, it sounds nice to have this freedom. But what this actually means is that there is a million different ways for your local checkout to be completely screwed up.

You have to tell SVN whenever you move or delete something. Git will just figure it out.

Branches are cheap and easy to merge, so this is a good way to try something out.

A single git repository can maintain multiple branches of development. The 'master' branch is a default branch that was created for you automatically. The 'git checkout branchname' command will switch between branches. The command 'git merge branchname' will merge changes from another branch in the current active branch.

The 'pull' command performs two operations: it fetches changes from a remote branch, then merges them into the current branch.

'git commit' commits locally, whereas 'git push origin master' pushes the master branch to the remote named 'origin').

Git adds complexity. Two modes of creating repositories, checkout vs. clone, commit vs. push... You have to know which commands work locally and which work with "the server" (I'm assuming most people still like a central "master-repository").

Git is MUCH better suited if some developers are not always connected to the master repository.

Even if you don't have commit rights for a project, you can still have your own repository online, and publish 'push requests' for your patches. Everybody who likes your patches can pull them into their project, including the official maintainers.

Drawbacks of Git:

it's much harder to learn, because Git has more concepts and more commands.
- many Git commands are cryptic, and error messages are very user-unfriendly
revisions don't have version numbers like in subversion
you have to have a full copy of the repository, you can't work on partials

Git branching model

A very good post on git branching model
Pdf model overview

Central repo with 'origin/master' and 'origin/development' branches (infinte lifetime)

'origin/master' branch reflects the production release

Supporting branches

feature branch: branches from development and merges into development, branch name different from master, develop, release-* or hotfix-*, exist in developers repos only, not in central origin
release branch: branches from development and merges into development and master, branch name release-*, all feature branches must be merged in development before release branch is branched off
hotfix branch: branches from development and merges into development, master and release, branch name hotfix-*

Central Repo

If you like to setup a git central repository on Windows (for example to replace your VisualSVN environment), you can follow this manual.

MoWes Portable + OS Commerce 2.2 / 3.0a

2010-11-24T17:08:00.002+01:00

I wanted to play with OS Commerce. Since this is written in PHP I needed some portable PHP, Apache and MySQL package. MoWes Portable does exactly what I was looking for and they offer some very nice online MoWes Mixer so anyone can easily create it’s own portable package (choice in version, packages, etc.). I created my own package with OSCommerce v2.2, v3.0a and phpMyAdmin. I added extra languages and applied some standard configuration/tweaks to make it immediately usable in Belgium.

Full package download containing MoWes Portable 2, Apache2_SE, MySQL5_SE, PHP52, MediaWiki, OpenDB, OS_Commerce 2.2, OS_Commerce 3.0a, phpBB3 and PHPMyAdmin.

VirtueMart is a similar open source project, but build within Joomla!. For me they seem very similar in the provided functionality. Joomla and thus VirtueMart can be integrated within MoWes as well using the MoWes mixer.

InstantRails + Redmine

2010-11-24T17:04:00.005+01:00

I just discovered Redmine, and it looks quite promising to me as a project development tracking system.

InstantRails

Since I’m a big fan of portable applications, I tried to play with Redmine using InstantRails, but had some trouble getting it to run, since InstantRails uses some old versions of some required gems. So after upgrading gems to 1.3.7 and rack to 1.0.1 and finding some old version of the MySQL lib libmysql.dll v5.0 I got it all working nicely locally and portable. If anyone would like to play with it: download InstantRails 2.0 + Redmine 1.1.1 (42MB). I removed some parts of the gems documentation files to make it smaller.

The InstantRails package contains MySQL, Apache, Ruby and Rails. To use it, just run ‘InstantRails.exe’, the Apache and MySQL servers will automatically be launched.

During startup, InstantRails may request to regenerate the configuration because of a folder location change. Just press ‘Yes’. If Apache doesn’t start automatically, make sure the ‘apache\logs’ folder exists.

Next click on the ‘i’ button, in the menu chose ‘Rails Applications’ –> ‘Manage Rails Applications’, select ‘Redmine’ push the button ‘Start with Mongrel’.

A command window will open up and when it’s loaded you can navigate to http://localhost:3003 and start using your own personal portable Redmine. (default login: admin, password: admin). To manage the database, phpMyAdmin is included as well, just navigate to http://localhost/mysql.

If you don’t care to have it portable, you could as well install Ruby on Rails and Redmine using this 1 minute guide.

Plugins

Redmine 2 is included, but I added the following plugins I found interesting as well:

Codereview: code review comments can be added in repository within Redmine. It has a project tab with an overview of the code review comments as well
Hudson: project tab for Hudson administration
Issue due date: automatically set issue due date to the version due date
Timesheet: create a timesheet with overview of tracked timings
Time Tracker: easily track timings while working on issues
Wiki notes: extra wiki options, example created
Wiki tabs: possibility to add a project tab linked to wiki page, not configured yet
Tab: custom project tab configuration, configured to get the Sonar project information page

Demo

Within Redmine I configured roles, issues states, permissions and a workflow. I set up different users, projects and issues to be able to play with different configuration settings. Each user is configured to use the same password as the username: admin, teamleader, developer, etc. (see administration console). It is very easy to configure which role can perform what tasks and see specific content within Redmine.

Creation and management of issues is straightforward. It has a good integration of time tracking, at every update of an issue, the user can immediately update the time tracks.

With the time tracker plugin, it is even easier to track your timings. With an issues selected, you can easily let Redmine keep track of the time you spend on that issue by using the start/stop links at the top.

Reporting

An important part of an issue tracking system is the reporting capabilities.

A summary with the number of issue in open or closed state can be seen:

In the list of issues, filters can quickly be added and columns can be chosen:

In the roadmap overview, all versions / planned version of the project are listed with an overview of their related issues:

The activity overview shows the activities performed within a project.

The spent time within a project can be viewed in an overview:

But custom reports can be created on the fly as well:

With the Timesheet plugin, an overview of all projects, all users, etc. of the spent time can be generated easily on the fly:

Integration

Specific plugins exist to integrate the Redmine issue lists with TortoiseSVN and TortoiseGIT: Tortoise Redmine Plugin.

For full integration, follow this manual for the BugTraq properties configuration.

Points of improvement

One thing I noticed during my tests: if an issues is updated and a user changes the state of the issue, he still can select any user to assign it to. In my opinion, only users able to make changes on the selected target state of the issue, should appear in the list of users to assign the issue to. An issue tracking system should enforce all constraints of the workflow to make sure an issue can’t come in an invalid workflow state (eg. assigned user can not change the status). But this problem occurs on most tracking systems I checked (Track+, Jira, etc.). See this feature request, I checked the plugin development, but so far I couldn’t make it work myself yet.

Update 31/01/2011: InstantRedmine package updated to Redmin 1.1.1

Excel lookups in formulas

2010-11-02T11:33:00.035+01:00

Different solutions exist to work with looked up data in Excel formulas: LOOKUP, VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP.

LOOKUP(value, lookup_range, result_range): searches for value in the lookup_range and returns the value in the result_range that is in the same position
VLOOKUP(value, table_array, index_number, not_exact_match ): searches for value in the left-most column of table_array and returns the value in the same row based on the index_number.
HLOOKUP(value, table_array, index_number, not_exact_match ): searches for value in the top row of table_array and returns the value in the same column based on the index_number.

But I needed yet some other lookup functionality, something like SEARCHHLOOKUP(search_in_text, lookup_range, result_range) where values from the lookup_range are searched in the text of search_in_text and if found the value of the result_range with the same column as were it was found is returned.

I wanted to be able to define some categories, with keywords linked. If a keyword occurs in a sentence, I wanted the category name as result. and I wanted to easily add new keywords for each category, without changing the formula. For example sheet CATEGORIES:

	A	B
	Fruit	Food
	1	2
1	apple	chocolate
2	banana	milk

Next I have a cell with value: "Apple belongs to category" In another cell I want a formula (no VBS) that would result in the category name: "Fruit". For example sheet EXAMPLE:

	A	B
1	Apple belongs to category	Fruit
2	Chocolate belongs to category	Food

(Example SearchLookup.xlsm)

Since I need to search for the keyword in a sentence, I use the SEARCH(search_text, search_in_text, start_position ) function. If the result is bigger than 0, the keyword was found (not case sensitive). But if the keyword was not found, an error value #VALUE will be returned. To catch this error value, the function IFERROR(value, value_if_error) can be used. So I get this function: {=IFERROR(IF(SEARCH(CATEGORIES!$A$2:$A$5;EXAMPLE!$A1)>0;CATEGORIES!A$1);"")}

But this will only lookup keywords in my first column of Categories, while I want many more. I solved this by attaching a weight to each category and using the formula CHOOSE(position, value1, value2, ... value_n ) to select the category name corresponding it's weight. To ignore the error values when the keyword is not found, I return 0 if an error occurs and the category weight when the keyword was found, so a MAX on that array will result in the matching category weight. To make sure that 0 is returned, only when the keyword is not found, I add any single character (µ in this case) in front of the text to search in, else 0 could be returned if the text to search in starts with the text we are searching. Now the search has to be bigger than 1 when the keyword is found.

The result is this formula: {=CHOOSE(MAX(IFERROR(IF(SEARCH(Categories!$A$3:$A$6;"µ"&Example!$A1)>1;Categories!$A$2;0);0);IFERROR(IF(SEARCH(Categories!$B$3:$B$6;"µ"&Example!$A1)>1;Categories!$B$2;0);0))+1;"";Categories!$A$1;Categories!$B$1)}

Since we apply the SEARCH function on an array, the complete formula has to be an array formula, so don't forget to press CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER to save as an array function and get the "{=...}" signs around the formula.

So using a combination of CHOOSE, MAX, IFERROR, IF and SEARCH functions I can lookup category names base on keywords and the keywords can be added dynamically. The only "problem" left is that I need to change my formulas when a new category is added, but at least not when adding keywords in a category.

To solve this last problem, I ended up creating a 'User defined function' SEARCHHLOOKUP(search_in_text, lookup_range, result_range, (result_range_index)):

Function SearchHLookup(Search_in_text As Variant, Lookup_range As Range, Optional Result_range As Range, Optional Result_range_index As Integer)
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
'Written by myT -  http://myTselection.blogspot.com
'Values from the lookup_range are searched in the text of search_in_text
'If a match is found, the value of Result_range in the same column and top row (or result_range_index) is returned
'Example:
'A  B
'1  2
'3  4
'if 2 or 4 is found in Search_in_text, B will be returned
'if 1 or 3 is found in Search_in_text, A will be returned
'if none is found, empty string will be returned
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Dim iRow, startRow As Integer
Dim iColumn, startColumn As Integer
If Result_range Is Nothing Then
    startRow = 2
Else
    startRow = 1
End If
startColumn = 1
For iColumn = startColumn To Lookup_range.Columns.Count
    For iRow = startRow To Lookup_range.Rows.Count
        If Not (Lookup_range(iRow, iColumn) = "") Then
            If (InStr(1, Search_in_text, Lookup_range(iRow, iColumn), 1) > 0) Then
                If Result_range Is Nothing Then
                    SearchHLookup = Lookup_range(1, iColumn)
                ElseIf Not (Result_range_index = 0) Then
                    SearchHLookup = Result_range(Result_range_index, iColumn)
                Else
                    SearchHLookup = Result_range(1, iColumn)
                End If
                    
                Exit Function
            End If
        End If
        Next iRow
    Next iColumn
    SearchHLookup = ""
End Function

So in my example, the function I use now has been simplified to:

=SearchHLookup(A1;Categories!$A$3:$B$4;Categories!$A$1:$B$1;1)

Of course, a SearchVLookup could be made easily as well:

Function SearchVLookup(Search_in_text As Variant, Lookup_range As Range, Optional Result_range As Range, Optional Result_range_index As Integer)
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
'Written by myT -  http://myTselection.blogspot.com
'Values from the lookup_range are searched in the text of search_in_text
'If a match is found, the value of Result_range in the same column and top row (or result_range_index) is returned
'Example:
'A  1  2
'B  3  4
'if 1 or 2 is found in Search_in_text, A will be returned
'if 3 or 4 is found in Search_in_text, B will be returned
'if none is found, empty string will be returned
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Dim iRow, startRow As Integer
Dim iColumn, startColumn As Integer
If Result_range Is Nothing Then
    startColumn = 2
Else
    startColumn = 1
End If
startRow = 1
For iRow = startRow To Lookup_range.Rows.Count
    For iColumn = startColumn To Lookup_range.Columns.Count
        If Not (Lookup_range(iRow, iColumn) = "") Then
            If (InStr(1, Search_in_text, Lookup_range(iRow, iColumn), 1) > 0) Then
                If Result_range Is Nothing Then
                    SearchVLookup = Lookup_range(iRow, 1)
                ElseIf Not (Result_range_index = 0) Then
                    SearchVLookup = Result_range(iRow, Result_range_index)
                Else
                    SearchVLookup = Result_range(iRow, 1)
                End If
                    
                Exit Function
            End If
        End If
        Next iColumn
    Next iRow
    SearchVLookup = ""
End Function

The user defined function needs to be defined in a module. Example: SearchLookup.xlsm)

Userfriendly encryption (on USB sticks)

2010-09-23T12:51:00.006+02:00

Previously, I always used FreeOTFE to encrypt personal files on my USB sticks. The problem is that I don't find the 'FreeOTFE Explorer' very user friendly and safe, since files need to be exported before you can open them. This 'FreeOTFE Explorer' is the only way to use a FreeOTFE encrypted container on a pc with no administrator rights.
So now I found a better little tool: Rohos Mini Drive.

free (official 2GB encrypted disk limited for freeware, but disks created with the free Rohos Disk Browser can be as large as you want)

easy to use, with AES 256bit encryption

unique on-the-fly encryption with no administrator rights, the disk browser allows working with files as regular (double click any file to open it immediately)

Download Rohos Min Drive 2,2MB.

When setting up a USB stick with Rohos, it will copy the 'Rohos Mini.exe' and 'Rohos Disk Browser' to your USB stick. You can always use the 'Rohos Mini.exe', if it detects you have currently no administrator rights, it will automatically open the Disk Browser application (located in a hidden folder [drive]:\_rohos\rbrowser.exe).

Btw, Rohos has some other very nice applications as well, like the Rohos Face Logon to login in Windows with webcam (or see a picture of people who tried to break into your computer)...

Exam point counter (Excel)

2010-03-28T22:56:00.006+02:00

To help counting points during correction of the exams, I made some Excel VBS. When the exams are corrected, next to every error a -0,5 -1 or -1,5 is written, and these have to be substracted from the total points of every part. To make it possible to perform this little task one handed, I linked the 'h' key to -0,5, the 'j' key to -1 and the 'k' key to -1,5. Now the exams can be run through very fast and the result of every part is shown immediately. To keep track of the total points of every part for every student, I linked the 'x' key to save the result in a sheet with the totals. Finally, the 'c' key is linked to clear the contens of a column with all substractions of a part of the exam.

The exepected usage of the sheet:

fill in the totals of every part of the exam in the top most row of the first sheet (called 'Punten teller'/'Point counter').

(optional) if the maximum points in a part is different from the weight of that part in the complete exam, the second row in the first sheet can be used. The points will be recalculated to match the weight.

(optional) fill in the name of every part, for example: excercises, theory, vocabulary, etc.

select the cell in the fifth row of the first column an run through the exam. For each part of the exam, a next column should be used

while running through a part of the exam, use the keys 'h', 'j' and 'k' for every mistake in the exam, respectively substracting 0,5 1 or 1,5 points

when a part of the exam is finished, you can see the total points in the third row of that column

if you want to keep that result in the totals list, press the 'x' key, the statusbar will clearly show the changes applied in the totals list (so you don't need to switch the sheets every time to verify)

if you want to recount the points of that part again, press the 'c' key to clear the data of that column (exam part), without updating the totals list

if you want to clear the column (part of exam) and go to the next part, use the 'n' key

when every part is done, the points of each part will be saved in the 'Totaal'/'Total' sheet for every student, and the total is converted to a % point

(optional) for every student, a name can be added in the second column of the 'Totaal'/'Total' sheet

the total point of every part are rounded as for example 6.0; 6.1; 6.2 go to 6, 6.3,6.4,6.5,6.6 and 6.7 go to 6.5 and 6.8 and 6.9 go to 7

(optional) comments for the exam of every student can be added in the 'Totaal'/'Total' sheet (last column)

to get a nice overview of results of every student in a separate document (vakrapport/course report), a word template using Words build in MailMerge is created. It can be used in combination with a sheet based on this Excel template. The template can be updated, the result will be a separate page with points, median and comments for every individual student (a hidden sheet 'MailMerge' in the Exel template is used for this). To get best results using this template, it is advised to fill in the topics in this list marked as '(optional)'

Excel sheet template (english version, dutch 2003 version, english 2003 version) (when opening a new sheet will be created, so the template will always be kept intact)

29/03/2010: Updated template, english and 2003 versions added

04/04/2010: Updated template, added vakrapport template

FreeOTFE command line

2009-12-22T13:59:00.003+01:00

FreeOTFE is a very nice freeware encryption program. It is very similar to the well known TrueCrypt application, but I prefer FreeOTFE since it has a PocketPC version and it's thus more portable.

Like I mentioned in a previous post, I use FreeOTFE in combination with Dropbox. I encrypt a complete portable DropBox folder to make sure all data and account information is kept save whenever I would lose my USB stick. This is possible since FreeOTFE can very easily be used as a portable application and thus perfect for any USB stick.

Since I use my USB stick with portable DropBox and portable Roboform2Go almost every day, I made some small batch scripts to easily start up the FreeOTFE drive and the portable applications within the encrypted volume. So far I have created these scripts:

FreeOTFEAutoLoad.bat: Batch script to mount a volume with a portable FreeOTFE, the volume to mount has to be specified as first parameter when running the script, so for example: FreeOTFEAutoLoad.bat "example.vol"


   @echo off
   TITLE Auto load FreeOTFE
   FreeOTFE\FreeOTFE.exe /portable start /silent
   FreeOTFE\FreeOTFE.exe /mount /volume %1%
   exit

FreeOTFEStop.bat: Batch script to unmount all volumes that are started using a portable FreeOTFE.


@echo off
TITLE Stop FreeOTFE
:DISMOUNT
        FreeOTFE\FreeOTFE.exe /dismount all /silent
        IF %ERRORLEVEL% NEQ 0 GOTO DISMOUNTFAILED
        GOTO STOPPORTABLE
:STOPPORTABLE
        FreeOTFE\FreeOTFE.exe /dismount all /silent /force
        FreeOTFE\FreeOTFE.exe /portable stop /silent
        GOTO EXIT
:DISMOUNTFAILED
        echo Dismount of FreeOTFE failed: %ERRORLEVEL%.
        echo Make sure all locks on FreeOTFE disks are removed, then continue this process.
        SET INPUT=
        set /p INPUT=Press enter to try again, f to force dismount, e to exit. 
        if /i "%INPUT%" == "f" goto FORCEDISMOUNT
        if /i "%INPUT%" == "e" goto EXIT
        FreeOTFE\FreeOTFE.exe /dismount all /silent
        IF %ERRORLEVEL% NEQ 0 GOTO DISMOUNTFAILED
        GOTO STOPPORTABLE
:FORCEDISMOUNT
        FreeOTFE\FreeOTFE.exe /dismount all /silent /force
        IF %ERRORLEVEL% NEQ 0 GOTO DISMOUNTFAILED
        GOTO STOPPORTABLE
:EXIT
        exit

FreeOTFE - volume.bat: Batch script to automount a specific volume and launch some script from within the encrypted volume once it is mounted.


@echo on
start "AutoLoad" /wait FreeOTFEAutoLoad.bat "example.vol"

set _Target=NotFound
set _TargetName=REPLACE_THIS_TEXT_WITH_THE_EXACT_NAME_OF_YOUR_MOUNTED_FREEOTFE_VOLUME

for /f usebackq %%a in (`Drives.exe -f %_TargetName%`) do set _Target=%%a

if "%_Target%" == "NotFound" (
    echo Unable to find target drive named "%_TargetName%"
    goto :EOF
)
pushd %_Target%
%_Target%\SCRIPT_OR_APPLICATION_TO_BE_STARTED_FROM_THE_MOUNTED_VOLUME.bat

When launching FreeOTFE it can take some time to load all cyphers and hashes included, so I created my own archive only including the cypher and hashes I use (the most secure onces). Now FreeOTFE will launch much faster. The application "Drives.exe" is created by Scott Seligman and is used to determine the drive letter based on the name of a volume. The minimal portable FreeOTFE with all scripts above can be downloaded using this link.

Extra features for Log4j DailyRollingFileAppender

2009-11-24T19:32:00.003+01:00

Log4j has some nice features and supports many appenders, but so far we never had a file appender with all features as it should be. Recently we wanted to write our own appender but before doing so we found Ryan Kimber already had the same idea and did a good job rewriting the original DailyRollingFileAppender: the CustodianDailyRollingFileAppender. On his blog he provides some info on how he updated the appender. We made some very small changes to make it completely working for us and to make sure the log file directory is created if it didn't exist.

make sure the directory structure to the specified log file exists

create a new log file for each day

compress log files older than today

remove log files older than a specified number of days

CustodianDailyRollingFileAppender.java source

Example of log4j configuration:


log4j.rootLogger=INFO, FILE
log4j.appender.FILE=com.myt.common.logging.CustodianDailyRollingFileAppender
log4j.appender.FILE.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
log4j.appender.FILE.layout.ConversionPattern=%d{MMM dd yyyy HH:mm:ss,SSS} [%t] %-5p %l - %m%n
log4j.appender.FILE.File=/var/log/myt.log
log4j.appender.FILE.DatePattern='.'yyyy-MM-dd
log4j.appender.FILE.MaxNumberOfDays=30
log4j.appender.FILE.CompressBackups=true

How to choose the right WiFi channel

2009-11-18T21:19:00.007+01:00

If you setup your wireless access point, you may want to configure it in such a way minimizing interference in your neighborhood. I found this interesting post with some tips:

There must be a spacing of at least 5 channels (or more) between each WiFi network in order to avoid interferences. Two WiFi networks operating on the same channel are forced to share bandwidth, as they can't "talk" simultaneously, which halves each network's bandwidth. In order to evade this effect, you need to change your access point's channel, but taking the adjacent one won't do it, as WiFi channels are arranged in an overlapping pattern, as you can see in the scheme below. The default channel of most wifi devices is channel 6, so in many cases channel 11 or higher are a good choice. Using NetStumbler one can very easily see which channels is used for each access point.

If all your WiFi-devices support 802.11g (the 54 MBit/s WiFi-variant), you should set your router to 802.11g-only mode, as the 802.11b-compatibility impacts on bandwidth and range even among 802.11g-devices.

Another possible cause of low performance may be proprietary WiFi acceleration modes like "SuperG", "MAXg", "125 High Speed Mode" or "SpeedBooster", if not all devices in your network support the very same mode, why you should disable those.

Also note that a lot of cordless phones in NZ operate at the 2.4 GHz band like Wifi and so most of them cause interferences WiFi, that can't be avoided by a channel change, since those phones use a very broad spectrum or perform permanent frequency hopping.

If you own a 2.4 GHz phone, try switching it off and removing the power supply of it's base station. In case your wireless signal improves, replace your cordless phone with a new one operating at 1.8 GHz or 5.8 GHz.

A cheap and easy solution to extend the coverage of your WiFi environment is to place a repeater at the correct location. It will repeat the wireless signal and extend the coverage (no cables needed), without creating a new network. Many very cheap (+-10euro) wifi access points (for example my DLink DWL-G700AP) can be configured to work as a repeater instead of the default access point functionality.

Transmit power: In most cases, the transmit power should be set to the highest value. This maximizes range, which reduces the number of access points and cost of the system. If you're trying to increase the capacity of the network by placing access points closer together, set the power to a lower value to decease overlap and potential interference. Lower power settings also limit the wireless signals from propagating outside the physically controlled area of the facility, which improves security.

Service Set IDentifier (SSID): The SSID defines the name of a WLAN that users associate with. By default, the SSID is set to a common value, such as tsunami for Cisco products. In order to improve security, you should change the SSID to a non-default value to minimize unauthorized users from associating with the access point. For even better security, some access points let you disable SSID broadcasting. This keeps most client device operating systems (e.g., Windows XP) from sniffing the SSID from access point beacons and automatically associating with the access point. Someone could, however, obtain the SSID using other sniffing tools that obtain the SSID from 802.11 frames when users first associate with the access point.

Data rate: Most access points allow you to identify acceptable data rates. By default, 802.11b access points operate at 1, 2, 5.5, and 11Mbps data rates, depending on the quality of the link between the client device and the access point. As the link quality deteriorates, the access point will automatically throttle down to lower data rates in an attempt to maintain a connection. You can, however, exclude specific data rates. For example, you may want communications only at 11Mbps or not at all. This could be necessary to support higher bandwidth applications.

Beacon interval: The beacon interval is the amount of time between access point beacon transmissions. The default value for this interval is generally 10ms, that is 10 beacons sent every second. This is sufficient to support the mobility speed of users within an office environment. You can increase the beacon interval and have lower overhead on the network, but then roaming will likely suffer. It's best to leave this setting alone.

Request-to-send / clear-to-send (RTS / CTS): The RTS / CTS function alleviates collisions due to hidden nodes, which is when multiple stations are within range of a common access point but out of range of each other. In most cases, it's best to disable RTS / CTS, but refer to a previous tutorial for cases where RTS / CTS may be beneficial and what threshold values to use.

Fragmentation: Fragmentation can help reduce the amount of data needing retransmission when collisions or radio frequency (RF) interference occurs. As with RTS/ CTS, refer to a previous tutorial for cases where fragmentation may be beneficial and applicable threshold values.

Wifi security

The impact on the performance by using WEP or WPA really depends on the router. Underpowered old routers don't like the encryption overhead and will slow down somewhat. It is expected to be about 10-15% for either WEP or WPA on older units. In many cases, it's also affected by the speed of the client computer, especially if the WPA encryption is done in driver. Fortunately, this hasn't been the case for many years. These days, there's hardly any slowdown of using WEP or WPA on the performance. However, there's a huge difference in security between WEP and WPA.

A nice overview on the weakest to the strongest wireless security capacity is:

- Considered as not safe:
- - No Security
  - Switching Off SSID: same has No Security. SSID can be easily sniffed even if it is Off
  - MAC Filtering: only to be used if nothing else is available, MAC number can be easily Spoofed
  - WEP64: Easy to "Break" by knowledgeable people
  - WEP128: A little Harder, but still easy to "Break" by knowledgeable people
- Considered as safe:
- - WPA-PSK: Very Hard to Break
  - WPA-AES: Not functionally Breakable
  - WPA2: Not functionally Breakable

If you use Windows XP bellow SP3 and did not updated it, you would have to download the WPA2 patch from Microsoft.

The documentation of your Wireless devices (Wireless Router, and Wireless Computer's Card) should state the type of security that is available with your Wireless hardware.

All devices MUST be set to the same security level using the same pass phrase. Therefore the security must be set according whatever is the best possible of one of the Wireless devices. I.e. even if most of your system might be capable to be configured to the max. with WPA2, but one device is only capable to be configured to max . of WEP, to whole system must be configured to WEP.

Even when using WPA2, one still has to be careful and never use the default WEP or WPA password and default SSID. Different applications exist to recover the default WEP/WPA password based on the SSID. For Alcatel / Thomson SpeedTouch router this online generator can be very easy to recover the default password based on the SSID.

Recovery tools boot USB stick

2009-11-16T00:03:00.006+01:00

Based on Hiren's Boot CD 12 I created my personal Boot USB stick to be as complete as possible (containing more than 500 portable tools, 2,30GB). The original Hiren recovery CD contains many very useful tools to recover, tweak or patch pc's, divided into the following categories: Partition Tools, Backup Tools, Recovery Tools, Testing tools, RAM testing tools, Hard disk tools, System information tools, Master Boot Recovery tools, BIOS CMOS tools, Multimedia tools, Password tools, NTFS tools, Browser File manager tools, Other tools, Dos tools, Optimizers, Network tools, Process tools, Registry tools, Startup tools, Tweakers and Antivirus tools. A portable 'mini Windows XP' that can be run from the stick is available as well at boot time.

Many of the tools are available by booting up from the USB stick, but others need to be run into a Windows environment. These windows tools can be easily accessed by using the 'HBCDMenu.exe' tool which will be started when the cd or USB stick is started within a running Windows environment. Since the tools available within the 'HBCDMenu.exe' can be configured very easily using a 'HBCDMenu.csv' file, I created an Excel file to change the configuration an export to the csv file easier. Using this Excel it is much easier to move and rearrange the tools. Next I added all the tools I was still missing to make them available through the 'HBCDMenu.exe' tool. All tools are started using a DOS bat script and an UHARC archive. The archive is extracted in the PC's %temp% folder and started. All tools should be completely portable so no tool settings in the registry are kept after running them. I created a generic batch script to be able to run all tools in different modes: normal, just open a command window, just open an explorer windows, run the tool in Sandboxie, show online info on the tool, convert the tool into a zip file, force extraction of the uharc file. The mode is set by creating a specific file in the %temp% folder.

I keep all my personal files in a secured FreeOTFE file to make sure if I ever lose the stick no personal information can be discovered.

Besides the Hiren tools I also converted the latest BackTrack 4 bootable ISO to make it boot from a USB stick and added this into the Hiren boot screen menu. This live cd linux distribution is focused on penetration testing and perfect for quick and easy WEP cracking.

On the website of Hiren, a good explanation is provided by Hiren on how to easily convert the BootCD into a bootable USB stick using Grub4Dos. I used this 'menu.lst' as boot menu so it includes the launch of the BackTrack live environment and portable Mini Windows XP. Within an Windows environment, this 'autorun.inf' file is used to make it easier to start the 'autorun.exe' tool and other commonly used tools. To keep a backup of all my configuration, I configured a specific portable Dropbox so I can access all my tools online and keep them in sync on different locations.

The USB stick with all the extra tools requires now at least 2,29GB (I use it on a 8GB stick). I also added many of my extra tools into the CD iso file, but to keep it burnable onto a 80minute CD, some of the large tools didn't fit (office portable, tor browser, skype, toad, oracle client).

Compared to the original Hiren 10 boot cd, I've added different Windows tools. In the HBCDMenu cvs creator Excel, the complete list of all the tools are ordered in comprehensive categories. Many of these tools come from Sysinternals and Nirsoft since they provide some very useful portable little tools.

Update 25/11/2009: removed long list of personally added tools
Update 3/12/2010: update for Hiren Boot CD 12

Regular Expressions Regex

2009-10-26T18:17:00.005+01:00

I mostly use RegexBuddy to create and test my regular expressions, but I just came across some nice free online tools RegExr , RexV, JavaScript Regex Generator and Nregex to create and test regular expressions. Also useful, a toolbox, RegExp Tools and some examples of some commonly required regular expressions...

Java regex tester

Dropbox - daily usage

2009-10-16T09:52:00.033+02:00

Dropbox is a free online service to easily synchronize and backup your data. It can be very useful and it has some very nice features, but it has some limitations too.

Dropbox features:

2GB free online storage, easy registration.
Easy sync to different computers / Macs.
Files are always reachable using the Dropbox website.
Dropbox keeps 30 days version and deleted files history.
A public folder with direct static file url's makes it possible to host your site on Dropbox server.
Sharing of folders between Dropbox accounts is possible.

Dropbox limitation:

No filtering on files / folders is possible.
For each account, one folder is synchronized. You need to use Junctions (hardlink NTFS shortcuts (easy Junction explorer extention)) if you want to include external folders in the sync.
No default support for multiple account synchronization. You need to use the portable Dropbox (see information below) if you want to synchronize multiple accounts from the same computer at the same time.
No option to make Dropbox always request for account password on startup (would be useful for the portable version).

Personal usage scenario's:

Synchronization of my AI Roboform data so I have all my login's everywhere. I combine this with the Roboform2go on my USB stick and Dropbox portable to make sure everything is kept in sync.
Hosting of files for websites. Instead of having to upload them to different free hosts with ads, I can now use the Dropbox space for easy hosting. Even complete websites are usable when hosted within the 'public' folder of a Dropbox account.
Combination of FreeOTFE portable to make sure my USB stick portable Dropbox account is kept save. I place all Dropbox files within a FreeOTFE secured file, since else when losing USB stick, anyone could have access to my Dropbox account by just starting up the portable Dropbox application.
Some other tips and tricks for Dropbox usage from LifeHacker. The 'start torrent from anywhere' trick is nice!
Since I use my personal SVN I wanted to make a combination of the automatic Dropbox synchronization coupled to the full control SVN synchronization for development projects. By using the Junctions I could link the SVN folders into Dropbox. Now I have an auto sync of files and folders, but I can manually sync with SVN to have an extra backup and history tracking with full control. The downside of this is that all hidden '.svn' folders are kept in sync too within Dropbox and this can take a lot of your Dropbox space. With the selective sync option in Dropbox, you can disable the syncronisation of the .svn folders to save space. But be carefull, when deselecting .svn folders in the Dropbox configuration, it will remove those folders from your local system. So it’s best to first create some dummy empty .svn folders, next disable the sync of these folders and then copy the real .svn folder at the correct location.

Dropbox Portable installation:

DropboxPortableAHK is now available. This makes the use of Dropbox Portable much easier. All download/configuration is now automated and very userfriendly. Just download from the developer website: http://dropportable.ho.am/#english-home

Update 09/01/2011: New version of the Dropbox Portable framework (5.3.4). But this new framework requires a relink! The new version has easier update (just copy official Dropbox setup file in the update folder). Cleanup of blog and added extra info on installation.

Update 20/01/2011: added info from comments to change path in config.db

Update 03/04/2011: link to new DropboPortableAHK version, no more manual tweaks required.

Keep your batteries in good shape

2009-10-11T13:46:00.004+02:00

I red a good article on how to keep your batteries in good shape: Dutch, Babelfish translated English version

Top tips:

Make sure to recharge long enough before first usage

Always use the original or exactly matching charger

Nickel Cadmium (NiCd) batteries should be completely empty before recharging (a battery memory effect will shorten the battery live)
- These batteries are most often used as AAA or AA rechargeable batteries or older mobile phones

Lithium Ion batteries should never be completely empty before recharging (no battery memory, but very sensitive to higher temperatures while charging)
- These batteries are most often used in mobile phones, pda's and notebooks

It can help to put your batteries in a cool environment when you won't use them for some time.

Folder structure creator - Excel VBS

2009-10-01T22:03:00.013+02:00

If you need to create a lot of folders and subfolders, with some specific structure, it can be usefull if you can use the power of Excel to make up your folder names and structure. All kind of easy and quick formulas can be used, and once the strucuture is set up, you can easily create the empty folder structure with just one click by using this little VBS macro. The base folder used will depend on the location of the Excel file, so make sure it's saved or copied in the correct folder.

Sub CreateFolderStructure()
'Create folder for all vlues in current sheet
'folders will be created in folder where the excel file was saved
'folders will be created from first row, first column, until empty row is found
'Example expected cell structure: (data starting in current sheet, column A, row 1)
'folder1 subfolder1 subsubfolder1
'folder2
'folder3 subfolder3
'...
'this will result in:
'\folder1\subfolder1\subsubfolder1
'\folder2
'\folder3\subfolder3
'...
Set fs = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
For iRow = 1 To 65000
pathToCreate = ActiveWorkbook.Path
For iColumn = 1 To 65000
currValue = Worksheets(ActiveCell.Worksheet.Name).Cells(iRow, iColumn).Value
If (currValue = "") Then
Exit For
Else
pathToCreate = pathToCreate & "\" & CStr(currValue)
'MsgBox (pathToCreate)
folderToCreate = pathToCreate
If Not (fs.FolderExists(folderToCreate)) Then
fs.CreateFolder (folderToCreate)
End If
End If
Next
Next
End Sub

The Excel sheet with the macro can be downloaded here. Before running the macro make sure the rows and columns of the active sheet are filled in correctly. Next simply run the macro by using the button.

If you created to many empty folders by accident, you can easily remove them again using this little tool: Remove Empty Directories

Update 13/11/2009: Modified the Excel VBS script to let you navigate to the desired base folder upon launching the macro, so the Excel file may now be saved at any location, the base folder will have to be specified upon launching the macro:

Sub CreateFolderStructure()
'Create folder for all vlues in current sheet
'folders will be created in folder where the excel file was saved
'folders will be created from first row, first column, until empty row is found
'Example expected cell structure: (data starting in current sheet, column A, row 1)
'folder1    subfolder1  subsubfolder1
'folder2
'folder3    subfolder3
'...
'this will result in:
'\folder1\subfolder1\subsubfolder1
'\folder2
'\folder3\subfolder3
'...
parentFolder = BrowseForFolder
Do While parentFolder = False
parentFolder = BrowseForFolder
Loop
Set fs = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
For iRow = 1 To 65000
pathToCreate = parentFolder
For iColumn = 1 To 65000
currValue = Worksheets(ActiveCell.Worksheet.Name).Cells(iRow, iColumn).Value
If (currValue = "") Then
Exit For
Else
pathToCreate = pathToCreate & "\" & CStr(currValue)
'MsgBox (pathToCreate)
folderToCreate = pathToCreate
If Not (fs.FolderExists(folderToCreate)) Then
fs.CreateFolder (folderToCreate)
End If
End If
Next
Next
End Sub

Function BrowseForFolder(Optional OpenAt As Variant) As Variant
'Function purpose:  To Browser for a user selected folder.
'If the "OpenAt" path is provided, open the browser at that directory
'NOTE:  If invalid, it will open at the Desktop level

Dim ShellApp As Object

'Create a file browser window at the default folder
Set ShellApp = CreateObject("Shell.Application"). _
BrowseForFolder(0, "Please choose a folder", 0, OpenAt)
'Set the folder to that selected.  (On error in case cancelled)
On Error Resume Next
BrowseForFolder = ShellApp.self.Path
On Error GoTo 0

'Destroy the Shell Application
Set ShellApp = Nothing

'Check for invalid or non-entries and send to the Invalid error
'handler if found
'Valid selections can begin L: (where L is a letter) or
'\\ (as in \\servername\sharename.  All others are invalid
Select Case Mid(BrowseForFolder, 2, 1)
Case Is = ":"
If Left(BrowseForFolder, 1) = ":" Then GoTo Invalid
Case Is = "\"
If Not Left(BrowseForFolder, 1) = "\" Then GoTo Invalid
Case Else
GoTo Invalid
End Select

Exit Function

Invalid:
'If it was determined that the selection was invalid, set to False
BrowseForFolder = False

End Function

Mouse rocker gestures

2009-09-16T18:06:00.015+02:00

Based on the AutoHotKey script from Adam Pash on the Lifehacker site, I made my own version to fit my personal mouse rocker gesture needs.

Basically, a mouse rocker gesture requires that you press one mouse button, hold it down, then press the other. You can rock across the mouse from right-to-left or left-to-right; each direction you rock gives you a different result. Once you get used to this gesture, the name makes perfect sense, and you'll wonder why you weren't mouse rocking your whole life.

I changed the way the script is configured so one can now easily add process names in the rocker.ini file to change the behaviour for a specific application. And I added extra navigation combinations so one should be able to easily make it fit his own needs.
For example in excel you can now easily switch to the next or previous tabbed sheet using mouse rocker gestures. UltraEdit switching between open files is also supported by sending 'Alt + up' or 'Alt + down' keys with the mouse rocker gestures. On first run, it will now also ask if you want to start the tool automatically during windows start. The ini file is created on first run in the directory from where the rocker.exe file is launched. The different groups denote the keys that will be send when a mouse rocker gesture is detected, one can easily add or remove any process name to change the behaviour in a specific application.

[Preferences] CtrlGroup=itunes.exe CtrlTabGroup=notepad++.exe,dreamweaver.exe,pidgin.exe CtrlUpDnGroup=empty CtrlPgUpDnGroup=excel.exe AltGroup=firefox.exe,iexplore.exe,opera.exe,feeddemon.exe,explorer.exe AltUpDnGroup=uedit32.exe AltPgUpDnGroup=empty BckspGroup=empty IgnoreGroup=empty Startup=1 UpdateCheck=0 Version=0.3

No installation is required, just download the zip file, extract and run the exe. The AutoHotKey source script is included in the zip file.

Update 19/02/2011: links updated

Hibernate subquery join using Criteria

2009-09-16T08:39:00.009+02:00

I recently needed to create max query in hibernate returning an object instead of the maximal value of the field and I wanted to do this using Hibernate Criteria in our JPA environment.
A simple example of what I wanted:

select *
from user
where userid = (select max(userid)
from user
where company = 'aCompanyName')

The way to program this in JPA/Hibernate using Criterias, DetachedCriteria and Subqueries. Make sure to use Subqueries.propertyEq instead of Subqueries.eq if you want to join on a field:


public User getMaxUserOfCompany(String companyName) {
 Session session = (Session) em.getDelegate();
 DetachedCriteria subCriteria = DetachedCriteria.forClass(User.class);
 subCriteria.add(Restrictions.eq("company", companyName));
 subCriteria.setProjection(Projections.max("userid") );
 Criteria criteria = session.createCriteria(User.class);
 criteria.add(Subqueries.propertyEq("userid", subCriteria));
 return (User) criteria.uniqueResult();
}

SpeedTouch ADSL router patch

2009-07-02T19:55:00.012+02:00

Below is shown how to flash a SpeedTouch router with a new firmware when the administrator password is not known, and then patch the SpeedTouch 716v5 router to disable the ADSL modem and use it as a standard 3-port lan router, 1 port will be used for incoming internet (wan). The configuration was provided by Thomson.

Recently we had to leave Tele2 with theire very nice unlimited offering. We joined Telenet because we coulnd't connect but through a coax cable in our new house.

For Tele2, we had to buy a ADSL modem + router, the Thomson Alcatel SpeedTouch 716v5. It's a very nice router with Wifi and VOIP integrated. Since this router was still working fine, I didn't want to throw it away. But the problem is that Tele2 puts an administrator password on it, and they didn't want to remove the password or provide it to me. To flash a new rom on the router, you also need to have the administrator password.

I was able to find a method to flash a new rom on the router without having the administrator rights. I flashed this (afterwards I used 6.2.29.2) rom onto it:

-connect your computer with a lan cable to the SpeedTouch router

-assign a static ip to your network card, you can just copy the settings you got when you received an IP from the DHCP

-start the flashing by executing the upgrade file

-when the upgrade requests for the router password, use a small screwdriver to push the reset button and keep this reset button pressed. In the meantime power off the SpeedTouch and power it on again. Keep on pressing the reset button and wait for 10 - 15 seconds. The power led will blink red, now you can release the reset button.

-Quickly press back on the upgrade flasher, the software will search again for the SpeedTouch device and continue the upgrade without requesting the administrator password.

I had to do it over some times before all went right, but at the end I managed to flash the default SpeedTouch716v5 rom v 6.1.7.2 and afterwards v6.2.29.2

Once the default rom is installed, you will have Administrator rights by logging in using: username Administrator and emtpy password.

Next, I configured the router to not use ADSL modem anymore, but use the 4th lan port as incoming internet connection and distribute the internet over Wifi and the remaining 3 lan ports with the build in DHCP server. The commands must be put in using telnet: Start -> Run -> cmd -> telnet, login with user Administrator and password (empty by default).


:ppp relay flush
:ppp flush
:eth flush
:atm flush
:atm phonebook flush
:eth bridge ifdelete intf=ethport4
:eth ifadd intf=eth_wan
:eth ifconfig intf=eth_wan dest=ethif4
:eth ifattach intf=eth_wan
:ip ifadd intf=ip_wan_eth dest=eth_wan
:ip ifconfig intf=ip_wan_eth status=up
:ip ifattach intf=ip_wan_eth
:nat ifconfig intf=ip_wan_eth translation=enabled
:dhcp client ifadd intf=ip_wan_eth
:dhcp client ifconfig intf=ip_wan_eth metric=5 dnsmetric=5
:dhcp client rqoptions add intf=ip_wan_eth option=dhcp-lease-time
:dhcp client rqoptions add intf=ip_wan_eth option=dhcp-renewal-time
:dhcp client rqoptions add intf=ip_wan_eth option=dhcp-rebinding-time
:dhcp client rqoptions add intf=ip_wan_eth option=subnet-mask
:dhcp client rqoptions add intf=ip_wan_eth option=classless-static-routes
:dhcp client rqoptions add intf=ip_wan_eth option=default-routers
:dhcp client rqoptions add intf=ip_wan_eth option=classfull-static-routes
:dhcp client rqoptions add intf=ip_wan_eth option=domain-name-servers
:dhcp client ifattach intf=ip_wan_eth
:saveall

You can now connect your incoming internet connection on LAN port 4 and the internet will be distributed over the other LAN ports and Wifi. I tested this method with rom version 6.2. But then the internet was only distributed over the 3 remaining LAN ports, and not over the WIFI connections.
Update 18/04/2010: working with 6.2.29.2.

Finaly, I configured VOIP. I find out Weepee was very cheap and working very well so far. They have a very fast email support. To get a Weepee fixed line telephone number it costs 9 euros. One time fee! You can chose to receive a new number or transfer your existing fixed number, either way it will cost only 9euros. After this one time cost, you only have to pay for the calls you make, and the rates are very competitive.

To configure Weepee VOIP on my SpeedTouch, I used these VOIP settings:

SIP URI: SIP username provided by Weepee (12 numbers, starting with 32)

Username: SIP username provided by Weepee (12 numbers, starting with 32)

Password: SIP password provided by Weepee

Displayname: SIP username provided by Weepee

Abbreviated number: SIP username provided by Weepee

Port: Phone 1

Expert VOIP configuration:

Registrar: SIP server provided by Weepee, ssw7.weepee.org

Registrar Port: 5060

Proxy: SIP server provided by Weepee, ssw7.weepee.org

Proxy prot: 5060

Expire time: 3600

That should do the trick. I hope someone else can benefit from it.

Update: 8/11/2009

WeePee now has native support for Skype over VOIP. You can be called and make calls for free over Skype. To make it work you'll need to follow these steps:

- Login into WeePee client configuration panel: https://ssl.weepee.org/klanten/flash

- Go to 'Information' -> 'Skype'. As mentioned on this page, you need a Skype Business Account. You'll need to create a new account through the Skype Business Account User management panel using the Skype button 'Create a business account'. (It doesn't work by registering an existing account into Skype Business)

- When the Skype business account is created, you'll need to login once using Skype normally. This way, you'll be able to add your contacts into this account too.

- Now you can provided the Skype username and password of the Skype Business Account into WeePee client configuration panel. Click on the 'Create' button to connect Skype into Weepee. Your status should change to 'Online'.

- To make calls over Skype through WeePee, click on the tab menu 'Short numbers' within the WeePee client configuration panel. For each of your Skype contacts, add a shortcode by adding the 'skype#<skypeusername>' for each shortcode. No you can call your Skype contacts by calling for example '25' from your phone.

Update 09/04/2010: new link for speedtouch rom

Update 18/04/2010: new rom version 6.2.29.2 which works with the specific lan configuration

Cobol data + Cobol copybook + Java conversion

2009-05-24T15:58:00.010+02:00

Although I'm absolutely not a fan of Cobol, it's still inevitable in the Finance IT development sector.

Lately, we needed a way to let Cobol and Java data work together, and we didn't want to hard code the complete data structure. To make this possible we noticed different non-free applications exist, but the open source project Cb2Xml got our attention.

This project already worked out some Java code to parse a Cobol copybook and convert it into an XML representation. (The copybook can be seen as the interface of the Cobol data). But this project was mend to import and export data from xml to Cobol stream and vice-versa, while we needed some Java objects to work with the received Cobol data input.

So I added some extra code to convert a Cobol data stream (String) into a Java object (using a Hashtable internally). Now, it's possible to provide a String of Cobol data and its interface definition (Cobol copybook file) and return a Java CobolElements object. One can search in this CobolElements object based on the name or xpath. I made a simple example to test, which might make it clear how to use the code.

A simple example of Cobol copybook used as data interface:

 01 ACCOUNT-GROUP                                               .
  02 ACCOUNT                                              .
   03 DFND                                 PIC  9(4)             .
   03 DCTB                                                       .
    04 DUPD                                PIC  9(8)             .
    04 DNUMCTB                                                   .
     05 DCTB-12                            PIC  9(12)            .
     05 DCTB-04                            PIC  9(4)             .
     05 DFMT                               PIC  9(2)             .
    04 DCDRCTB                                                   .
     05 DRGOCDRCTB                         PIC  9(1)             .
     05 DROFCMCCDRCTB                      PIC  9(3)             .
     05 DBRACMCCDRCTB                                            .
      06 DBRACMCCDRCTB                     PIC  9(6)             .
      06 GBRACDRCTB                                               
             REDEFINES DBRACMCCDRCTB                             .
       07 DROFCDRCTB                       PIC  9(3)             .
       07 DBRACDRCTB                       PIC  9(3)             .
    04 DBLK                                PIC  9(2)              
             OCCURS 5                                            .
    04 DBLK2                               PIC  9(3)              
             OCCURS 5                                            .

The data that should match this copybook:

input = "00000000000039300022955600000123703602231122334455111222333444555";

Converting the data to a Java CobolElements object:

Converting the copybook to an xml representation (this XML Document should be created once for each copybook and can be cached):

Document cb2doc = Cb2Xml.convert(new File(_cobolCopybookFileName), _debug);

Converting the Cobol data stream (input string) to it's matching Java representation:

CobolElements cobolElements = Dat2Java.convertWithDoc(input, cb2doc);

Retrieving data from the CobolElements object:

CobolElement childElement = cobolElements.retrieveChildElement("GOUTCTT-CSISEQ/GANSCTT-CSISEQ/GCTB/GNUMCTB/NCTB-12"); 
System.out.println(childElement.getData()); 
//returns: 393000229556 
childElement = cobolElements.retrieveChildElement("ACCOUNT-GROUP/ACCOUNT/DCTB/DBLK[3]"); 
System.out.println(childElement.getData()); 
//returns: 44

Download source and jar (zip 1,78MB) (link updated 16/09/2009)

Update (27/11/2009): After creating the cobol2java, we found another interesting open source project called LegStar. They have a completely worked out solution, while the code we use is quite basic and only usable with simple copy books...

Eclipse project

2009-05-24T14:31:00.001+02:00

Each project (workspace) in Eclipse has it's own .project file. To easily open the correct workspace with Eclipse, I wrote a little batch script that can be associated in Windows with the .project files. Now, I only have to double click the .project file and Eclipse will be loaded in the correct workspace.

Save the batch script bellow and make sure the correct Eclipse.exe file is used. You might want to change the Eclipse options if required.
Double click on a .project file, the first time Windows will ask how to open this file. Choose the .bat batch file script to open your .project file and make sure to make Windows remembers this option.
Eclipse will now open with the correct workspace loaded.

@echo off
set ECLIPSE_BIN=R:\tools\eclipse\eclipse.exe
set ECLIPSE_OPTIONS=-refresh -showlocation -Xmx512M -XX:MaxPermSize=512m
set PROJECT_FULL_PATH=%1%
set PROJECT_FOLDER=%PROJECT_FULL_PATH:.project=%
cd %PROJECT_FOLDER%
cd ..
set PROJECT_WORKSPACE="%CD%"
start "eclipse" "%ECLIPSE_BIN%" %ECLIPSE_OPTIONS% -data %PROJECT_WORKSPACE%
@echo on

Download batch script.

LogExpert - Windows tail freeware

2009-05-11T22:47:00.004+02:00

Today I tested yet another Windows tail application, LogExpert, and I was very amazed with its features!
It has most of the features I'm used to work with in BareTail Pro, like adding some filters (regex) or highlighting lines matching some text. And unlike WinLogTail, it does support opening multiple files at one with a tabbed interface as in BareTail.
Besides all this, I really appreciate the following functions:

run some specified application and providing some information of the selected line. This way, one can easily open the tailed file within UltraEdit on the selected line.
parse the timestamps of a log file and show these in separated columns
freeze some columns to make these alway be shown and only scrolling other columns (horizontal scrolling)
advanced filtering with possibility to show some lines before or after the line matching your filter
activate an 'edit' mode to easily copy some parts of a line
add some bookmarks and comments on a line to easily find these back afterwards
support for multifiles (show files as app.log, app.log1, app.log2, etc as one big file)
support for different files provided on the command line while opening, so the scripts we used to open many files with BareTail also work with LogExpert (but opening many files from shared drives is not as lighting fast as with BareTail)

So, compared to BareTail it has many benefits and it's completely free! But one should know, it's not always as fast and stable as BareTail, but so far it worked very well for me.

Some nice screenshots (but those only show a small subset of all it's features):

Find-Replace text in files from command line

2009-04-26T19:45:00.001+02:00

In Linux one can easily find and replace some text in files by using the sed application. In Windows, I couldn’t find a decent build in equivalent. I ended by using the ported version of sed for Windows. I works quite well using the same syntax and doesn’t require to be installed. Just make sure sed.exe, libiconv2.dll and libintl3.dll are existing in the same folder or on the classpath.

One should know any file altered by sed for Windows will result in this file being also converted from Windows line ending (using 2 characters: Carriage Return + Line Feed) to Linux line endings (only 1 character: Line Feed). This can sometime give some strange results. To overcome this, one should make sure the last replacement in the file is set to replace the Line Feeds back to Carriage Return + Line Feed:

sed -i "s/$/\r/" "%DIR%\file.txt"

Some other useful sed commands are available from sed sourcefourge:

FILE SPACING:
 # double space a file
 sed G
 # double space a file which already has blank lines in it. Output file
 # should contain no more than one blank line between lines of text.
 sed '/^$/d;G'
 # triple space a file
 sed 'G;G'
 # undo double-spacing (assumes even-numbered lines are always blank)
 sed 'n;d'
 # insert a blank line above every line which matches "regex"
 sed '/regex/{x;p;x;}'
 # insert a blank line below every line which matches "regex"
 sed '/regex/G'
 # insert a blank line above and below every line which matches "regex"
 sed '/regex/{x;p;x;G;}'
NUMBERING:
 # number each line of a file (simple left alignment). Using a tab (see
 # note on '\t' at end of file) instead of space will preserve margins.
 sed = filename | sed 'N;s/\n/\t/'
 # number each line of a file (number on left, right-aligned)
 sed = filename | sed 'N; s/^/     /; s/ *\(.\{6,\}\)\n/\1  /'
 # number each line of file, but only print numbers if line is not blank
 sed '/./=' filename | sed '/./N; s/\n/ /'
 # count lines (emulates "wc -l")
 sed -n '$='
TEXT CONVERSION AND SUBSTITUTION:
 # IN UNIX ENVIRONMENT: convert DOS newlines (CR/LF) to Unix format.
 sed 's/.$//'               # assumes that all lines end with CR/LF
 sed 's/^M$//'              # in bash/tcsh, press Ctrl-V then Ctrl-M
 sed 's/\x0D$//'            # works on ssed, gsed 3.02.80 or higher
 # IN UNIX ENVIRONMENT: convert Unix newlines (LF) to DOS format.
 sed "s/$/`echo -e \\\r`/"            # command line under ksh
 sed 's/$'"/`echo \\\r`/"             # command line under bash
 sed "s/$/`echo \\\r`/"               # command line under zsh
 sed 's/$/\r/'                        # gsed 3.02.80 or higher
 # IN DOS ENVIRONMENT: convert Unix newlines (LF) to DOS format.
 sed "s/$//"                          # method 1
 sed -n p                             # method 2
 # IN DOS ENVIRONMENT: convert DOS newlines (CR/LF) to Unix format.
 # Can only be done with UnxUtils sed, version 4.0.7 or higher. The
 # UnxUtils version can be identified by the custom "--text" switch
 # which appears when you use the "--help" switch. Otherwise, changing
 # DOS newlines to Unix newlines cannot be done with sed in a DOS
 # environment. Use "tr" instead.
 sed "s/\r//" infile >outfile         # UnxUtils sed v4.0.7 or higher
 tr -d \r <infile >outfile            # GNU tr version 1.22 or higher
 # delete leading whitespace (spaces, tabs) from front of each line
 # aligns all text flush left
 sed 's/^[ \t]*//'                    # see note on '\t' at end of file
 # delete trailing whitespace (spaces, tabs) from end of each line
 sed 's/[ \t]*$//'                    # see note on '\t' at end of file
 # delete BOTH leading and trailing whitespace from each line
 sed 's/^[ \t]*//;s/[ \t]*$//'
 # insert 5 blank spaces at beginning of each line (make page offset)
 sed 's/^/     /'
 # align all text flush right on a 79-column width
 sed -e :a -e 's/^.\{1,78\}$/ &/;ta'  # set at 78 plus 1 space
 # center all text in the middle of 79-column width. In method 1,
 # spaces at the beginning of the line are significant, and trailing
 # spaces are appended at the end of the line. In method 2, spaces at
 # the beginning of the line are discarded in centering the line, and
 # no trailing spaces appear at the end of lines.
 sed  -e :a -e 's/^.\{1,77\}$/ & /;ta'                     # method 1
 sed  -e :a -e 's/^.\{1,77\}$/ &/;ta' -e 's/\( *\)\1/\1/'  # method 2
 # substitute (find and replace) "foo" with "bar" on each line
 sed 's/foo/bar/'             # replaces only 1st instance in a line
 sed 's/foo/bar/4'            # replaces only 4th instance in a line
 sed 's/foo/bar/g'            # replaces ALL instances in a line
 sed 's/\(.*\)foo\(.*foo\)/\1bar\2/' # replace the next-to-last case
 sed 's/\(.*\)foo/\1bar/'            # replace only the last case
 # substitute "foo" with "bar" ONLY for lines which contain "baz"
 sed '/baz/s/foo/bar/g'
 # substitute "foo" with "bar" EXCEPT for lines which contain "baz"
 sed '/baz/!s/foo/bar/g'
 # change "scarlet" or "ruby" or "puce" to "red"
 sed 's/scarlet/red/g;s/ruby/red/g;s/puce/red/g'   # most seds
 gsed 's/scarlet\|ruby\|puce/red/g'                # GNU sed only
 # reverse order of lines (emulates "tac")
 # bug/feature in HHsed v1.5 causes blank lines to be deleted
 sed '1!G;h;$!d'               # method 1
 sed -n '1!G;h;$p'             # method 2
 # reverse each character on the line (emulates "rev")
 sed '/\n/!G;s/\(.\)\(.*\n\)/&\2\1/;//D;s/.//'
 # join pairs of lines side-by-side (like "paste")
 sed '$!N;s/\n/ /'
 # if a line ends with a backslash, append the next line to it
 sed -e :a -e '/\\$/N; s/\\\n//; ta'
 # if a line begins with an equal sign, append it to the previous line
 # and replace the "=" with a single space
 sed -e :a -e '$!N;s/\n=/ /;ta' -e 'P;D'
 # add commas to numeric strings, changing "1234567" to "1,234,567"
 gsed ':a;s/\B[0-9]\{3\}\>/,&/;ta'                     # GNU sed
 sed -e :a -e 's/\(.*[0-9]\)\([0-9]\{3\}\)/\1,\2/;ta'  # other seds
 # add commas to numbers with decimal points and minus signs (GNU sed)
 gsed -r ':a;s/(^|[^0-9.])([0-9]+)([0-9]{3})/\1\2,\3/g;ta'
 # add a blank line every 5 lines (after lines 5, 10, 15, 20, etc.)
 gsed '0~5G'                  # GNU sed only
 sed 'n;n;n;n;G;'             # other seds
SELECTIVE PRINTING OF CERTAIN LINES:
 # print first 10 lines of file (emulates behavior of "head")
 sed 10q
 # print first line of file (emulates "head -1")
 sed q
 # print the last 10 lines of a file (emulates "tail")
 sed -e :a -e '$q;N;11,$D;ba'
 # print the last 2 lines of a file (emulates "tail -2")
 sed '$!N;$!D'
 # print the last line of a file (emulates "tail -1")
 sed '$!d'                    # method 1
 sed -n '$p'                  # method 2
 # print the next-to-the-last line of a file
 sed -e '$!{h;d;}' -e x              # for 1-line files, print blank line
 sed -e '1{$q;}' -e '$!{h;d;}' -e x  # for 1-line files, print the line
 sed -e '1{$d;}' -e '$!{h;d;}' -e x  # for 1-line files, print nothing
 # print only lines which match regular expression (emulates "grep")
 sed -n '/regexp/p'           # method 1
 sed '/regexp/!d'             # method 2
 # print only lines which do NOT match regexp (emulates "grep -v")
 sed -n '/regexp/!p'          # method 1, corresponds to above
 sed '/regexp/d'              # method 2, simpler syntax
 # print the line immediately before a regexp, but not the line
 # containing the regexp
 sed -n '/regexp/{g;1!p;};h'
 # print the line immediately after a regexp, but not the line
 # containing the regexp
 sed -n '/regexp/{n;p;}'
 # print 1 line of context before and after regexp, with line number
 # indicating where the regexp occurred (similar to "grep -A1 -B1")
 sed -n -e '/regexp/{=;x;1!p;g;$!N;p;D;}' -e h
 # grep for AAA and BBB and CCC (in any order)
 sed '/AAA/!d; /BBB/!d; /CCC/!d'
 # grep for AAA and BBB and CCC (in that order)
 sed '/AAA.*BBB.*CCC/!d'
 # grep for AAA or BBB or CCC (emulates "egrep")
 sed -e '/AAA/b' -e '/BBB/b' -e '/CCC/b' -e d    # most seds
 gsed '/AAA\|BBB\|CCC/!d'                        # GNU sed only
 # print paragraph if it contains AAA (blank lines separate paragraphs)
 # HHsed v1.5 must insert a 'G;' after 'x;' in the next 3 scripts below
 sed -e '/./{H;$!d;}' -e 'x;/AAA/!d;'
 # print paragraph if it contains AAA and BBB and CCC (in any order)
 sed -e '/./{H;$!d;}' -e 'x;/AAA/!d;/BBB/!d;/CCC/!d'
 # print paragraph if it contains AAA or BBB or CCC
 sed -e '/./{H;$!d;}' -e 'x;/AAA/b' -e '/BBB/b' -e '/CCC/b' -e d
 gsed '/./{H;$!d;};x;/AAA\|BBB\|CCC/b;d'         # GNU sed only
 # print only lines of 65 characters or longer
 sed -n '/^.\{65\}/p'
 # print only lines of less than 65 characters
 sed -n '/^.\{65\}/!p'        # method 1, corresponds to above
 sed '/^.\{65\}/d'            # method 2, simpler syntax
 # print section of file from regular expression to end of file
 sed -n '/regexp/,$p'
 # print section of file based on line numbers (lines 8-12, inclusive)
 sed -n '8,12p'               # method 1
 sed '8,12!d'                 # method 2
 # print line number 52
 sed -n '52p'                 # method 1
 sed '52!d'                   # method 2
 sed '52q;d'                  # method 3, efficient on large files
 # beginning at line 3, print every 7th line
 gsed -n '3~7p'               # GNU sed only
 sed -n '3,${p;n;n;n;n;n;n;}' # other seds
 # print section of file between two regular expressions (inclusive)
 sed -n '/Iowa/,/Montana/p'             # case sensitive
SELECTIVE DELETION OF CERTAIN LINES:
 # print all of file EXCEPT section between 2 regular expressions
 sed '/Iowa/,/Montana/d'
 # delete duplicate, consecutive lines from a file (emulates "uniq").
 # First line in a set of duplicate lines is kept, rest are deleted.
 sed '$!N; /^\(.*\)\n\1$/!P; D'
 # delete duplicate, nonconsecutive lines from a file. Beware not to
 # overflow the buffer size of the hold space, or else use GNU sed.
 sed -n 'G; s/\n/&&/; /^\([ -~]*\n\).*\n\1/d; s/\n//; h; P'
 # delete all lines except duplicate lines (emulates "uniq -d").
 sed '$!N; s/^\(.*\)\n\1$/\1/; t; D'
 # delete the first 10 lines of a file
 sed '1,10d'
 # delete the last line of a file
 sed '$d'
 # delete the last 2 lines of a file
 sed 'N;$!P;$!D;$d'
 # delete the last 10 lines of a file
 sed -e :a -e '$d;N;2,10ba' -e 'P;D'   # method 1
 sed -n -e :a -e '1,10!{P;N;D;};N;ba'  # method 2
 # delete every 8th line
 gsed '0~8d'                           # GNU sed only
 sed 'n;n;n;n;n;n;n;d;'                # other seds
 # delete lines matching pattern
 sed '/pattern/d'
 # delete ALL blank lines from a file (same as "grep '.' ")
 sed '/^$/d'                           # method 1
 sed '/./!d'                           # method 2
 # delete all CONSECUTIVE blank lines from file except the first; also
 # deletes all blank lines from top and end of file (emulates "cat -s")
 sed '/./,/^$/!d'          # method 1, allows 0 blanks at top, 1 at EOF
 sed '/^$/N;/\n$/D'        # method 2, allows 1 blank at top, 0 at EOF
 # delete all CONSECUTIVE blank lines from file except the first 2:
 sed '/^$/N;/\n$/N;//D'
 # delete all leading blank lines at top of file
 sed '/./,$!d'
 # delete all trailing blank lines at end of file
 sed -e :a -e '/^\n*$/{$d;N;ba' -e '}'  # works on all seds
 sed -e :a -e '/^\n*$/N;/\n$/ba'        # ditto, except for gsed 3.02.*
 # delete the last line of each paragraph
 sed -n '/^$/{p;h;};/./{x;/./p;}'
SPECIAL APPLICATIONS:
 # remove nroff overstrikes (char, backspace) from man pages. The 'echo'
 # command may need an -e switch if you use Unix System V or bash shell.
 sed "s/.`echo \\\b`//g"    # double quotes required for Unix environment
 sed 's/.^H//g'             # in bash/tcsh, press Ctrl-V and then Ctrl-H
 sed 's/.\x08//g'           # hex expression for sed 1.5, GNU sed, ssed
 # get Usenet/e-mail message header
 sed '/^$/q'                # deletes everything after first blank line
 # get Usenet/e-mail message body
 sed '1,/^$/d'              # deletes everything up to first blank line
 # get Subject header, but remove initial "Subject: " portion
 sed '/^Subject: */!d; s///;q'
 # get return address header
 sed '/^Reply-To:/q; /^From:/h; /./d;g;q'
 # parse out the address proper. Pulls out the e-mail address by itself
 # from the 1-line return address header (see preceding script)
 sed 's/ *(.*)//; s/>.*//; s/.*[:<] *//'
 # add a leading angle bracket and space to each line (quote a message)
 sed 's/^/> /'
 # delete leading angle bracket & space from each line (unquote a message)
 sed 's/^> //'
 # remove most HTML tags (accommodates multiple-line tags)
 sed -e :a -e 's/<[^>]*>//g;/</N;//ba'
 # extract multi-part uuencoded binaries, removing extraneous header
 # info, so that only the uuencoded portion remains. Files passed to
 # sed must be passed in the proper order. Version 1 can be entered
 # from the command line; version 2 can be made into an executable
 # Unix shell script. (Modified from a script by Rahul Dhesi.)
 sed '/^end/,/^begin/d' file1 file2 ... fileX | uudecode   # vers. 1
 sed '/^end/,/^begin/d' "$@" | uudecode                    # vers. 2
 # sort paragraphs of file alphabetically. Paragraphs are separated by blank
 # lines. GNU sed uses \v for vertical tab, or any unique char will do.
 sed '/./{H;d;};x;s/\n/={NL}=/g' file | sort | sed '1s/={NL}=//;s/={NL}=/\n/g'
 gsed '/./{H;d};x;y/\n/\v/' file | sort | sed '1s/\v//;y/\v/\n/'
 # zip up each .TXT file individually, deleting the source file and
 # setting the name of each .ZIP file to the basename of the .TXT file
 # (under DOS: the "dir /b" switch returns bare filenames in all caps).
 echo @echo off >zipup.bat
 dir /b *.txt | sed "s/^\(.*\)\.TXT/pkzip -mo \1 \1.TXT/" >>zipup.bat

End (kill) some application from command line

2009-04-26T12:10:00.001+02:00

Different methods exist in Windows to end or kill some application from command line.

The normal way to do this is by using the TASKKILL command, for example to end FireFox one can use:

TASKKILL /F /IM “firefox.exe”

When you need to stop some command window it can be dangerous to just kill any cmd.exe, so one could use the window title to kill a specific batch window, for example to kill any batch window with name starting with “SIM-” I used:

TASKKILL /FI "WINDOWTITLE eq SIM-*"

But sometimes you’ll need to be more specific, I wanted an automated way to kill some Java application but only when it was started with some specific parameter. The only way I found to do so on Windows was by using the WMIC commands. This example show how I killed our Java monitor application which started as follows:

java -Dapp.prop.file.monitor="monitor_system.properties" -classpath SOME_JARS Monitor

Kill this specific Java instance:

wmic process where "name like '%%java.exe%%' AND commandline like '%%monitor%%'" DELETE

Before killing your application, you want to make sure your query will result in the correct process, one can easily check the query by executing the similar wmic command without yet killing the process:

wmic process where "name like '%%java.exe%%' AND commandline like '%%monitor%%'" get processid, name, commandline /VALUE

More examples and combinations that can be used with wmic are available on this page.

The Linux equivalent we used was pkill, for example to kill our simulators we used:

pkill -f "simulator.jar"

SVN Automated repeated backup / dump – Windows / Linux

2009-04-19T13:30:00.004+02:00

Every project using SVN should have an automated backup system in place for their SVN repository. We decided we wanted a weekly incremental backup. But we also wanted to easily create a new initial backup. I scripted it on Windows and Linux with the Shell/Batch scripts shown below.

For both scripts, the same methods is used: we keep track of the last backed up revision in a file called svn_backup_delta.txt. Every time the script is started, an incremental dump is exported and archived, starting from the last dumped revision till the latest available revision. If the latest revision is the same as the last dumped revision, nothing will happen.

If the svn_backup_delta.txt doesn’t exist or the revision could not be read correctly, a complete initial dump from revision 0 till the latest revision will be exported and archived. The scripts are called daily or weekly with a standard OS scheduler. When we want to have a new initial complete dump, we simply remove the svn_backup_delta.txt file.

The scripts can be a good starting point to create your own automated SVN dumping mechanism.

Windows svnbackup.bat Batch script:

@echo off
::CONFIGURATION
SET REPO_URL=https://url:8443/base/project
SET REPO_PATH=C:\repository\project
SET DUMP_DIR=C:\backup
SET WINRAR=C:\Program Files\WinRAR\Rar.exe
SET LAST_DELTA_FILE=%CD%\svn_backup_delta.txt
:END_CONFIGURATION
echo.
echo Starting SVN backup
echo Using following configuration:
echo  -Repository URL: "%REPO_URL%"
echo  -Repository full path: "%REPO_PATH%"
echo  -File to keep track of last revision backed up: %LAST_DELTA_FILE%
SET DUMP_FILE=""
SET Today=%Date: =0%
SET Today=%Today:~-4%%Date:~-7,2%%Date:~-10,2%
SET Now=%Time: =0%
FOR /F "tokens=1,2 delims=:.," %%A IN ("%Now%") DO SET Now=%%A%%B
mkdir "%DUMP_DIR%"
svn info "%REPO_URL%" > %TEMP%.\repoinfo.tmp
SET LAST_REV=
for /f "usebackq tokens=1,2 delims=: " %%i in (`find "Revision: " "%TEMP%\repoinfo.tmp"`) do (
SET LAST_REV=%%j
)
echo Last revision:%LAST_REV%
echo Last delta file: %LAST_DELTA_FILE%
IF EXIST "%LAST_DELTA_FILE%" GOTO DELTA
:FULL
SET DUMP_FILE_NAME=%Today%-%Now%-INITIAL-R%LAST_REV%.dump
SET DUMP_FILE=%DUMP_DIR%\%DUMP_FILE_NAME%
echo Dump file name: %DUMP_FILE_NAME%
echo Dump file: %DUMP_FILE% 
svnadmin dump "%REPO_PATH%" -r 0:%LAST_REV% > "%DUMP_FILE%"
"%WINRAR%" m "%DUMP_FILE%.rar" "%DUMP_FILE%"
echo Date: %Today%-%Now% > "%LAST_DELTA_FILE%"
echo Revision: %LAST_REV% > "%LAST_DELTA_FILE%"
goto END
:DELTA
SET LAST_DELTA=
for /f "usebackq tokens=1,2 delims=: " %%i in (`find "Revision: " "%LAST_DELTA_FILE%"`) do (
SET LAST_DELTA=%%j
)
echo Last delta:%LAST_DELTA%
echo Last revision:%LAST_REV%
IF "%LAST_DELTA%"=="" GOTO FULL
IF "%LAST_DELTA%"=="%LAST_REV%" GOTO END
SET /A INCRE_LAST_DELTA=LAST_DELTA+1
SET DUMP_FILE_NAME=%Today%-%Now%-INCREMENTAL-R%INCRE_LAST_DELTA%-TO-R%LAST_REV%.dump
SET DUMP_FILE=%DUMP_DIR%\%DUMP_FILE_NAME%
echo Dump file name: %DUMP_FILE_NAME%
echo Dump file: %DUMP_FILE%
svnadmin dump "%REPO_PATH%" -r %INCRE_LAST_DELTA%:%LAST_REV% --incremental --deltas > "%DUMP_FILE%"
"%WINRAR%" m "%DUMP_FILE%.rar" "%DUMP_FILE%"
echo Date: %Today%-%Now% > "%LAST_DELTA_FILE%"
echo Revision: %LAST_REV% > "%LAST_DELTA_FILE%"
goto END
:END
rem pause
rem exit
:END

Linux svnbackup.sh Shell script:

#!/bin/sh
#SETUP
REPO_URL=https://url:8443/base/project
REPO_PATH=c:/repository/project
DUMP_DIR=/home/user/dumps
LAST_DELTA_FILE=svn_backup_delta.txt
#BEGINING OF THE SCRIPT ITSELF
date=$(date +%Y%m%d)
LOG=dump-$date.log
LAST_REV=$(svn info $REPO_URL |grep Revision |gawk ' { print $2}')
#Both files MUST exist, otherwise, wer'e going to init new "delting"
if [ -e $LAST_DELTA_FILE ] ; then
LAST_DELTA=$(cat $LAST_DELTA_FILE)
if [ $LAST_DELTA -ne $LAST_REV ] ; then
DUMP_FILE_NAME=$date-INCREMENTAL-R$((LAST_DELTA+1))-TO-R$LAST_REV.dump.gz
DUMP_FILE=$DUMP_DIR/$DUMP_FILE_NAME
svnadmin dump $REPO_PATH -r $((LAST_DELTA +1)):$LAST_REV --incremental --deltas 2>>$LOG |gzip -c > $DUMP_FILE
else
echo nothing to do : last revision number is same as last delta number, run it again later !
exit 0
fi
else
DUMP_FILE_NAME=$date-INITIAL-R$LAST_REV.dump.gz
DUMP_FILE=$DUMP_DIR/$DUMP_FILE_NAME
svnadmin dump $REPO_PATH 2>>$LOG | gzip -c > $DUMP_FILE
fi
#Is all ok ?
if [ $? -eq 0 ] ; then
echo -n $LAST_REV > $LAST_DELTA_FILE
else
echo "ERROR :" $date "Problem occured while saving dump" >>$LOG
fi

Update 02/07/2010: Script tested and working in Windows 7 (in combination with Visual SVN server). Make sure to add the bin folder of Visual SVN server to your 'path' system variable to make the 'svn' command available system wide. Run the script with right-click 'Run as administrator'.

Run custom application or script as a Windows service

2009-04-12T18:02:00.001+02:00

If you need your application or script to be started, whenever Windows is booted, you need to install it as a service (so it will even be started when you didn’t login yet). Microsoft offers a little tool to easily create your own service and make it run some batch file / application as a part of their Windows Server Resource Kit Tools. From this package, you only need srvany.exe and instsrv.exe to install your custom service, but you still need to perform all this manual configuration before your service will be running.

I created the following batch script to easily install or uninstall your custom application as a service. All required information will be requested interactively to the user step by step. No further manual configuration will be needed anymore. Errors will be shown with colors and attention points will be flashed.

@echo off
echo.
echo.
echo Use this script to install / uninstall your custom applications or scripts as a service and make sure they will be started whenever Windows is booted.
SET DFAULT_BACKGROUND_COLOR=0
SET DEFAULT_TEXT_COLOR=7
SET ERROR_BACKGROUND_COLOR=4
SET ERROR_TEXT_COLOR=F
SET ATTENTION_BACKGROUND_COLOR=0
SET ATTENTION_TEXT_COLOR=F
rem 0 = Black
rem 1 = Blue
rem 2 = Green
rem 3 = Aqua
rem 4 = Red
rem 5 = Purple
rem 6 = Yellow
rem 7 = White
rem 8 = Gray
rem 9 = Light Blue
rem A = Light Green
rem B = Light Aqua
rem C = Light Red
rem D = Light Purple
rem E = Light Yellow
rem F = Bright White
:MAIN_MENU
  COLOR %DFAULT_BACKGROUND_COLOR%%DEFAULT_TEXT_COLOR%
  
  SET RETURN_DRAW_ATTENTION_POINT=MAIN_MENU_INPUT
  GOTO DRAW_ATTENTION
  :MAIN_MENU_INPUT
    echo.
    echo.
    SET INPUT=
    echo To Install a new custom service, press I.
    echo To Uninstall a previously created custom service, press U.
    echo To open the Windows Services application, press S.
    set /p INPUT=Press E to Exit: 
    if /i "%INPUT%" == "i" goto START_INSTALL
    if /i "%INPUT%" == "u" goto START_UNINSTALL
    if /i "%INPUT%" == "s" goto START_SERVICES
    if /i "%INPUT%" == "e" goto EXIT
    GOTO MAIN_MENU
  :END_MAIN_MENU_INPUT
  echo.     
:END_MAIN_MENU
  
:START_INSTALL
  rem INTERACTIVE MODE is used, lines below kept for reference
  :HARD_CODED_PATHS_AND_NAMES
  rem APP_NAME=REPLACE_THIS_WITH_YOUR_CUSTOM_APP_NAME
  rem APP_PATH=FULL_PATH_TO_CUSTOM_APP
  rem one can use %CD% in the path, which will be replace by the current directory
  rem uncomment following 2 lines if you want to use the folder name (where this bat file is run) as service name APP_NAME
  rem SET APP_NAME=
  rem for %%* in (.) do set APP_NAME=%%~n*
  
  :INTERACTIVE_INPUT_OF_PATHS_AND_NAMES
    :INTERACTIVE_INPUT_APP_NAME
      echo.
      SET APP_NAME=
      set /p APP_NAME=Provide the name of your custom application (will be used as the name of the service): 
      echo. 
    :END_INTERACTIVE_INPUT_APP_NAME
    
    :INTERACTIVE_INPUT_OF_APP_PATH
      echo. 
      SET APP_PATH=
      set /p APP_PATH=Provide the full path of your custom application to run as a service (don't use quotes): 
      echo. 
    :END_INTERACTIVE_INPUT_OF_APP_PATH
    
    :CHECK_CUSTOM_APP_PATH
      IF EXIST "%APP_PATH%" GOTO END_CHECK_CUSTOM_APP_PATH
      echo.
      echo Your custom application %APP_NAME% could not be found at %APP_PATH%!
      echo Please try again!
      SET RETURN_DRAW_ERROR_ATTENTION_POINT=INTERACTIVE_INPUT_OF_APP_PATH
      GOTO DRAW_ERROR_ATTENTION
    :END_CHECK_CUSTOM_APP_PATH
      COLOR %DFAULT_BACKGROUND_COLOR%%DEFAULT_TEXT_COLOR%
      
    :INTERACTIVE_INPUT_APP_FOLDER
      echo.
      SET APP_FOLDER=
      set /p APP_FOLDER=Provide the folder to be used as working directory for your custom application (press ENTER if not required) (don't use quotes): 
      echo. 
    :END_INTERACTIVE_INPUT_APP_PARAM
      
    :INTERACTIVE_INPUT_APP_PARAM
      echo.
      SET APP_PARAM=
      set /p APP_PARAM=Provide the parameters of your custom application (press ENTER if no parameters are required) (don't use quotes): 
      echo. 
    :END_INTERACTIVE_INPUT_APP_PARAM
    
    :INTERACTIVE_INPUT_OF_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH
      echo. 
      SET INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH=
      set /p INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH=Provide the full path to instsrv.exe (don't use quotes). LEAVE EMPTY to use default path (%CD%\instsrv.exe): 
    :END_INTERACTIVE_INPUT_OF_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH
    
    :CHECK_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH_INPUT
      if "%INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH%"=="" goto DEFAULT_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH
    :END_CHECK_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH_INPUT
    
    :CHECK_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH
      IF EXIST "%INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH%" GOTO END_CHECK_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH
      echo.
      echo instsrv.exe could not be found at %INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH%!
      echo Please try again!
      SET RETURN_DRAW_ERROR_ATTENTION_POINT=INTERACTIVE_INPUT_OF_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH
      GOTO DRAW_ERROR_ATTENTION
    :END_CHECK_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH
      COLOR %DFAULT_BACKGROUND_COLOR%%DEFAULT_TEXT_COLOR%
    
    :INTERACTIVE_INPUT_OF_SERVICE_APP_PATH
      echo. 
      SET SERVICE_APP_PATH=
      set /p SERVICE_APP_PATH=Provide the full path to srvany.exe (don't use quotes). LEAVE EMPTY to use default path (%CD%\srvany.exe): 
    :END_INTERACTIVE_INPUT_OF_SERVICE_APP_PATH
    
    :CHECK_SERVICE_APP_PATH_INPUT
      if "%SERVICE_APP_PATH%"=="" goto DEFAULT_SERVICE_APP_PATH
    :END_CHECK_SERVICE_APP_PATH_INPUT
    
    :CHECK_SERVICE_APP_PATH
      IF EXIST "%SERVICE_APP_PATH%" GOTO END_CHECK_SERVICE_APP_PATH
      echo.
      echo srvany.exe could not be found at %SERVICE_APP_PATH%!
      echo Please try again!
      SET RETURN_DRAW_ERROR_ATTENTION_POINT=INTERACTIVE_INPUT_OF_SERVICE_APP_PATH
      GOTO DRAW_ERROR_ATTENTION
    :END_CHECK_SERVICE_APP_PATH
      COLOR %DFAULT_BACKGROUND_COLOR%%DEFAULT_TEXT_COLOR%
  
  :END_INTERACTIVE_INPUT_OF_PATHS_AND_NAMES  
  
  :SHOW_CONFIG
    echo.
    echo Ready to install your custom application, using the following configuration:
    echo.
    echo   Custom application name: %APP_NAME%
    echo   Custom application full path: %APP_PATH%
    echo   Custom application parameters: %APP_PARAM%
    echo   Custom application working directory: %APP_FOLDER%
    echo   srvany.exe full path: %SERVICE_APP_PATH%
    echo   instsrv.exe full path: %INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH%
    echo.
    SET RETURN_DRAW_ATTENTION_POINT=SHOW_CONFIG_WAIT
    GOTO DRAW_ATTENTION
    :SHOW_CONFIG_WAIT
      COLOR %ATTENTION_BACKGROUND_COLOR%%ATTENTION_TEXT_COLOR%
      set INPUT=
      set /p INPUT=Press ENTER to continue installation, all other will return to main menu: 
      if /i not "%INPUT%" == "" GOTO MAIN_MENU
      COLOR %DEFAULT_BACKGROUND_COLOR%%DEFAULT_TEXT_COLOR%
    :END_SHOW_CONFIG_WAIT
  :END_SHOW_CONFIG
  
  :INSTALL_SERVICE
    "%INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH%" "%APP_NAME%" "%SERVICE_APP_PATH%"
    echo.
    echo Service installed : %APP_NAME%
    echo.
  :END_INSTALL_SERVICE
  
  :UPDATE_REGISTRY
    REG ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\%APP_NAME%\Parameters" /v "Application" /t REG_SZ /d "%APP_PATH%" /f
    IF NOT "%APP_FOLDER%"=="" REG ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\%APP_NAME%\Parameters" /v "AppDirectory" /t REG_SZ /d "%APP_FOLDER%" /f
    IF NOT "%APP_PARAM%"=="" REG ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\%APP_NAME%\Parameters" /v "AppParameters" /t REG_SZ /d "%APP_PARAM%" /f
    echo.
    echo Registry updated to run %APP_PATH% with service %APP_NAME%
    echo.
  :END_UPDATE_REGISTRY
  
  :START_SERVICE
    SET RETURN_DRAW_ATTENTION_POINT=START_SERVICE_INPUT_REQUEST
    GOTO DRAW_ATTENTION
    :START_SERVICE_INPUT_REQUEST
      echo The service is now installed successfully (if no errors are logged above!)
      set INPUT=
      set /p INPUT=To start the service now, press Y. All others will return to main menu: 
      if /i not "%INPUT%" == "y" goto END_START_SERVICE
    :END_START_SERVICE_INPUT_REQUEST
    NET START "%APP_NAME%"
    echo.
    echo Service %APP_NAME% started
  :END_START_SERVICE
  
  GOTO END_START_INSTALL
  
  :DEFAULT_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH
    echo Using default path for instsrv.exe %INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH%
    SET INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH=%CD%\instsrv.exe
    GOTO END_CHECK_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH_INPUT
  :END_DEFAULT_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH
  
  :DEFAULT_SERVICE_APP_PATH
    echo Using default path for srvany.exe %SERVICE_APP_PATH%
    SET SERVICE_APP_PATH=%CD%\srvany.exe
    GOTO END_CHECK_SERVICE_APP_PATH_INPUT
  :END_DEFAULT_SERVICE_APP_PATH
:END_START_INSTALL
  GOTO MAIN_MENU
:START_SERVICES
  start "Services" services.msc
:END_START_SERVICES
  GOTO MAIN_MENU
:START_UNINSTALL
  :INTERACTIVE_INPUT_APP_NAME_UNINSTALL
    echo.
    SET APP_NAME=
    set /p APP_NAME=Provide the name of your custom application (the name of the service to uninstall): 
    echo. 
  :END_INTERACTIVE_INPUT_APP_NAME_UNINSTALL
    
  :INTERACTIVE_INPUT_OF_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH_UNINSTALL
    echo. 
    SET INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH=
    set /p INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH=Provide the full path to instsrv.exe (don't use quotes). LEAVE EMPTY to use default path (%CD%\instsrv.exe): 
  :END_INTERACTIVE_INPUT_OF_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH_UNINSTALL
  
  :CHECK_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH_INPUT_UNINSTALL
    if "%INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH%"=="" goto DEFAULT_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH_UNINSTALL
  :END_CHECK_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH_INPUT_UNINSTALL
  
  :CHECK_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH_UNINSTALL
    IF EXIST "%INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH%" GOTO END_CHECK_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH_UNINSTALL
    echo.
    echo instsrv.exe could not be found at %INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH%!
    echo Please try again!
    SET RETURN_DRAW_ERROR_ATTENTION_POINT=INTERACTIVE_INPUT_OF_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH_UNINSTALL
    GOTO DRAW_ERROR_ATTENTION
  :END_CHECK_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH_UNINSTALL
    COLOR %DFAULT_BACKGROUND_COLOR%%DEFAULT_TEXT_COLOR%
  
  :STOP_SERVICE
    NET STOP %APP_NAME%
    echo.
    echo Service %APP_NAME% stopped
    echo.
  :END_STOP_SERVICE
  
  :REMOVE_SERVICE
    "%INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH%" %APP_NAME% REMOVE
    echo.
    echo Service %APP_NAME% removed
    echo.
  :END_REMOVE_SERVICE
  
  :UPDATE_REGISTRY_UNINSTALL
    REG DELETE HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\%APP_NAME%\ /va /f
    echo.
    echo Registry cleaned up for service %APP_NAME%
    echo.
  :END_UPDATE_REGISTRY_UNINSTALL
  
  GOTO END_START_UNINSTALL
  
  :DEFAULT_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH_UNINSTALL
    echo Using default path for instsrv.exe %INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH%
    SET INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH=%CD%\instsrv.exe
    GOTO END_CHECK_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH_INPUT_UNINSTALL
  :END_DEFAULT_INST_SERVICE_APP_PATH_UNINSTALL
:END_START_UNINSTALL
  GOTO MAIN_MENU
  
:EXIT_WITH_PAUSE
  echo The end. Comments and updates: http://myTselection.blogspot.com, Copyright MightyMouse. Copyright srvany and instsrv Microsoft.
  pause
  GOTO EXIT
:END_EXIT_WITH_PAUSE
  
:EXIT
  exit
:END_EXIT
:DRAW_ATTENTION
  COLOR %ATTENTION_BACKGROUND_COLOR%%ATTENTION_TEXT_COLOR%
  @PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 100 >NUL
  COLOR %DEFAULT_BACKGROUND_COLOR%%DEFAULT_TEXT_COLOR%
  @PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 100 >NUL
  COLOR %ATTENTION_BACKGROUND_COLOR%%ATTENTION_TEXT_COLOR%
  @PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 100 >NUL
  COLOR %DEFAULT_BACKGROUND_COLOR%%DEFAULT_TEXT_COLOR%
  @PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 100 >NUL
  COLOR %ATTENTION_BACKGROUND_COLOR%%ATTENTION_TEXT_COLOR%
  @PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 100 >NUL
  COLOR %DEFAULT_BACKGROUND_COLOR%%DEFAULT_TEXT_COLOR%
:END_DRAW_ATTENTION
  GOTO %RETURN_DRAW_ATTENTION_POINT%
:DRAW_ERROR_ATTENTION
  COLOR %ERROR_BACKGROUND_COLOR%%ERROR_TEXT_COLOR%
  @PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 100 >NUL
  COLOR %DEFAULT_BACKGROUND_COLOR%%DEFAULT_TEXT_COLOR%
  @PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 100 >NUL
  COLOR %ERROR_BACKGROUND_COLOR%%ERROR_TEXT_COLOR%
  @PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 100 >NUL
  COLOR %DEFAULT_BACKGROUND_COLOR%%DEFAULT_TEXT_COLOR%
  @PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 100 >NUL
  COLOR %ERROR_BACKGROUND_COLOR%%ERROR_TEXT_COLOR%
  @PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 100 >NUL
  COLOR %DEFAULT_BACKGROUND_COLOR%%DEFAULT_TEXT_COLOR%
  @PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 100 >NUL
  COLOR %ERROR_BACKGROUND_COLOR%%ERROR_TEXT_COLOR%
:END_ERROR_DRAW_ATTENTION
  GOTO %RETURN_DRAW_ERROR_ATTENTION_POINT%
@echo on

A full package to easily install your own custom application as a service can be downloaded here, sources (zip).

Update (26/04/09): Added possibility to specify application working directory and command line parameters. (AppDirectory and AppParameter registry keys.)

Update (09/10/2011): New links

My “Firefox add-ons” selection

2009-04-12T14:47:00.003+02:00

Firefox has one big benefit: it’s support for Add-ons / Plug- ins / Themes / Extensions. Without this benefit, I simply wouldn’t use Firefox, but only Google Chrome.

I list below, the Add-ons I’m using mostly:

AI Roboform toolbar: best way to safely keep track of your website logins, passwords, forms. Even better with it’s nice and easy synchronization to Windows Mobile PDA. the nice toolbar allows you to navigate to pages you use most and immediately login, with just 2 or 3 characters to type!
All-in-one Gestures extension: easily navigate using your mouse (navigate using mouse movements and special mouse click combinations)
Cooliris picture/movie viewer: great way to watch pictures from many sites (facebook, flickr, google images, youtube, …). The new beta 1.10 version has even better support for facebook.
Delicious bookmarks: keep your bookmarks online, so you can easily find back what you liked before, everywhere, anytime. This plug-in has a nice sidebar and easy integration.
Facebook toolbar: some extra’s for facebook
Fetch Text URL: select some non clickable or miss-spelled url and easily open the url in a new tab.
Flashgot: integration of Flashget (download manager) in Firefox.
Firebug: required add-on for every web developer. Nice JavaScript debugging possibilities.
Greasemonkey: framework to easily install scripts to customize your navigation in specific websites. Thousands of scripts are available for many well known sites. Some of the scripts I prefer:
- JavaDoc search frame: very nice search facilities for JavaDoc pages. Find as you type support.
- StuBru download streams: add extra links on the Studio Brussel webpages to easily download theire music webstreams.
- IMDB pirated version: add links to IMDB pages to easily download movies, subtitles, torrents, trailers, etc.
- YouTube Lyrics: immediately show the lyrics when watching a song movie.
- YouTube Downloader: easily download mp4 and / or flv version of YouTube movies
- IMDB enlarge actor pictures on hover
- Rapidshare autowait: automatically start the rapidshare free-user timer and start the download
- Google maps maximizer: add extra buttons to be able to maximize the Google maps
- Test Aankoop: add pdf download link next to magazine topics for easy download
- Surfplaza: remove adds and replace by weather image on this great start page
- AutoPagerize: Automatically load next pages while scrolling down, to get a continues scrollable page (eg for Google results)
IE Tab: some sites still require Internet Explorer. With this plug-in you can combine Internet Explorer within Firefox.
NextPlease: add some keyboard and mouse shortcuts to easily navigate through sites with ‘next’ and ‘previous’ kind of links.
SendTo: Send selected text to a text file, together with url and timestamp. SendTo v0.4 is not compatible with Firefox 3.0, but I just changed the compatibility settings in the plug-in and it still works very well now. I use this plugin a lot to always keep a text file with some information on applications I download. I download a lot of software and want to be able to easily retrieve what I’ve downloaded before or get some basic information on the tool. I made an UltraEdit macro to copy the text from the sendto file into a new file, this way I can even retrieve all I need even faster in the format I prefer. All files (SendTo v0.4 for FF 3, batch file to start ultra edit with macro, UltraEdit macro) can be downloaded here.
Tab Mix Plus: add extra options and extra functionality for the tabs in Firefox. For example duplicate current tab, open tab on mouse hover, show tab close button on mouse hover, etc.
WebDeveloper: required add-on for every web developer. See and change many site settings, form settings, CSS settings, javascripts etc.
Vista-aero theme: just a nice look and feel, copied from Internet Explorer.

Once Google Chrome will support all this functionality I’ll dump Firefox and will finally get my 400MB stolen memory back.

UPDATE 05/10/2009: added links to my own Greasemonkey scripts

UPDATE 01/06/2010: added AutoPagerize Greasemonkey link