Create and/or update Outlook contacts from Excel

When you have a good overview of all your contact details in an Excel file, it can be useful to export these towards Outlook (eg to allow automatic synchronization towards your mobile). When including contact pictures, the look and feel of Outlook and your mobile increases a lot by immediately showing the related pictures when receiving a mail or call.

Since the contact details can change over time, I created the Excel macro below to update existing contacts and create the non existing contact within Outlook, including all available details of the contact.

Using a ‘Reference’ sheet, in which the columns are references using a named cell, it’s easy to retrieve the contact details from the right column, while still being able to easily change the data or order. The data is retrieved using the Cells.Range option, eg: Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("columnname").Value)

In order to make sure the same contact is not added multiple times, the contact is first retrieved from the available Outlook contacts using the olFolder.Item.Restrict(…filter…) option based on the email address of the contact.

Since I load the contact details from a DB using a linked Query within Excel, I also refresh the query data before performing the migration from Excel to Outlook.

All details can be found in the macro source below and the example Excel file (including the macro).

'Developed by myT, http://myTselection.blogspot.com
Option Explicit


Public Sub RefreshQueries()

  Dim wks As Worksheet
  Dim qt As QueryTable
  Dim lo As ListObject

  For Each wks In Worksheets
    For Each qt In wks.QueryTables
        qt.Refresh BackgroundQuery:=False
    Next qt

    For Each lo In wks.ListObjects
        lo.QueryTable.Refresh BackgroundQuery:=False
    Next lo

  Next wks

  Set qt = Nothing
  Set wks = Nothing
End Sub
'http://www.globaliconnect.com/excel/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=167:import-contacts-from-excel-to-outlook-automate-in-vba&catid=79&Itemid=475



Sub ExcelWorksheetDataAddToOutlookContacts()
    'Automating Outlook from Excel: This example uses the Items.Add Method to export data from an Excel Worksheet to the default Contacts folder.
    'Automate Outlook from Excel, using Late Binding. You need not add a reference to the Outlook library in Excel (your host application), in this case you will not be able to use the Outlook's predefined constants and will need to replace them by their numerical values in your code.
    
    
    
    Dim oApplOutlook As Object
    Dim oNsOutlook As Object
    Dim oCFolder As Object
    Dim oDelFolder As Object
    Dim oCItem As Object
    'Dim olItems As Outlook.Items
    Dim olItems As Object
    'Dim olContactItem As contactItem
    Dim olContactItem As Object
    Dim oDelItems As Object
    Dim lLastRow As Long, i As Long, n As Long, c As Long
    Dim firstRowToProcess As Integer, emailColumn As Integer, pictureColumn As Integer, processedColumn As Integer, itemsFound As Integer
    Dim sheetName As String, fullFilePath As String
    Dim updateExistingContacts As Boolean
    
    
    RefreshQueries
    
    'Config:
    sheetName = "Contacts"
    firstRowToProcess = 2
    updateExistingContacts = False
    
    updateExistingContacts = MsgBox("Update and overwrite fields of existing contacts? Pictures will always be updated. (Existing notes will be appended, not overwritten)", vbYesNo, "Overwrite")
    
    
   Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    ' turns off screen updating
    Application.DisplayStatusBar = True
    ' makes sure that the statusbar is visible
    Application.StatusBar = "Preparing export contacts to Outlook"
    
    'determine last data row in the worksheet:
    lLastRow = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(Rows.Count, "A").End(xlUp).Row
    
    'Create a new instance of the Outlook application, if an existing Outlook object is not available.
    'Set the Application object as follows:
    On Error Resume Next
    Set oApplOutlook = GetObject(, "Outlook.Application")
    'if an instance of an existing Outlook object is not available, an error will occur (Err.Number = 0 means no error):
    If Err.Number <> 0 Then
        Set oApplOutlook = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
    End If
    'disable error handling:
    On Error GoTo 0
    
    'use the GetNameSpace method to instantiate (ie. create an instance) a NameSpace object variable, to access existing Outlook items. Set the NameSpace object as follows:
    Set oNsOutlook = oApplOutlook.GetNamespace("MAPI")
    
    '----------------------------
    
    'Empty the Deleted Items folder in Outlook so that when you quit the Outlook application you bypass the prompt: Are you sure you want to permanently delete all the items and subfolders in the "Deleted Items" folder?
    
    'set the default Deleted Items folder:
'    'The numerical value of olFolderDeletedItems is 3. The following code has replaced the Outlook's built-in constant olFolderDeletedItems by its numerical value 3.
'    Set oDelFolder = oNsOutlook.GetDefaultFolder(3)
'    'set the items collection:
'    Set oDelItems = oDelFolder.Items
'
'    'determine number of items in the collection:
'    c = oDelItems.Count
'    'start deleting from the last item:
'    For n = c To 1 Step -1
'        oDelItems(n).Delete
'    Next n
'
    '----------------------------
    
    'set reference to the default Contact Items folder:
    'The numerical value of olFolderContacts is 10. The following code has replaced the Outlook's built-in constant olFolderContacts by its numerical value 10.
    Set oCFolder = oNsOutlook.GetDefaultFolder(10)
'    Set olItems = oCFolder.Items.Restrict("[MessageClass]='IPM.Contact'")
    
    'Find contact to update, if not found add a new contact item
    
    
    'post each row's data on a separate contact item form:
    For i = firstRowToProcess To lLastRow
    'restrict info: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vba/outlook-vba/articles/items-restrict-method-outlook
    'folder items info: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vba/outlook-vba/articles/folder-items-property-outlook
        Set olItems = oCFolder.Items.Restrict("[MessageClass]='IPM.Contact' And [Email1Address] = '" & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("email").Value) & "'")
        
        itemsFound = 0
        For Each olContactItem In olItems
            
            Application.StatusBar = "Updating Outlook contact " + olContactItem.FullName & ", " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("pnr").Value)
            'matching contact found in Outlook and Excel
			'web pictures should be stored in a local folder
            fullFilePath = Replace(Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("pictureurl").Value), "http://someimageurl", "C:\Users\username\Documents\Pictures\profilephotos\")
            If FileExists(fullFilePath) Then
                olContactItem.AddPicture (fullFilePath)
            Else
                'MsgBox ("Missing picture: " + fullFilePath + ", for member: " + olContactItem.firstName + " " + olContactItem.lastname)
                Debug.Print ("Missing picture: " & fullFilePath & ", for member: " & olContactItem.firstName & " " & olContactItem.lastName)
            End If
            If updateExistingContacts = True Then
                With olContactItem
                    'update existing contact fields https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.office.interop.outlook._contactitem_properties.aspx
                    .firstName = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("first_name").Value)
                    .lastName = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("last_name").Value)
                    If (Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("birthdate").Value) <> "") Then
                        .Birthday = DateValue(Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("birthdate").Value))
                    End If
                    .BusinessAddressStreet = "BusinessStreet 100"
                    .BusinessAddressCity = "BusinessCity"
                    .BusinessAddressCountry = "BusinessCountry"
                    .BusinessAddressPostalCode = "BusinessPostal"
                    .BusinessHomePage = "http://www.company.com"
                    'do not remove or duplicate existing categories, set some desired category when not yet set
                    If (InStr(.Categories, "Business") = 0) Then
                        .Categories = .Categories & ",Business"
                    End If
                    .CompanyName = "Company"
                    .Email1DisplayName = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("email").Value)
                    .FullName = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("first_name").Value) & " " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("last_name").Value)
                    .FileAs = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("first_name").Value) & " " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("last_name").Value)
                    '.gender = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("gender").Value)
'                    If (Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("gender").Value) = "M") Then
'                        .gender = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.OlGender.olMale
'                    ElseIf (Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("gender").Value) = "F") Then
'                        .gender = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.OlGender.olFemale
'                    Else
'                        .gender = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.OlGender.olUnspecified
'                    End If
                    .HomeAddressCity = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("city").Value)
                    .HomeAddressCountry = "DefaultCountry"
                    .HomeAddressPostalCode = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("postcode").Value)
                    .HomeAddressStreet = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("street").Value) & " " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("street_number").Value)
                    .JobTitle = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("current_function").Value)
                    '.Language = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("speaking_language_info_list").Value)
                    .MobileTelephoneNumber = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("mobile").Value)
                    .BusinessTelephoneNumber = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("phone").Value)
                    .BusinessFaxNumber = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("fax").Value)
                    .Department = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("division").Value)
                    .ManagerName = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("manager").Value)
                    .WebPage = "http://www.company.com"
                    If (InStr(.body, "Staff number: ") = 0) Then
                        .body = "Staff number: " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("pnr").Value) & vbCrLf
                        .body = .body & "Recruitment date: " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("recruitment_date").Value) & vbCrLf
                        .body = .body & "Education: " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("educations").Value) & vbCrLf
                        .body = .body & "Languages: " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("speaking_language_info_list").Value) & vbCrLf
                        .body = .body & "Specialty skills: " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("specialty_skills").Value) & vbCrLf
'                    Else
' keeps original body note, but duplicates all data if run mulitple times
'                        originalBody = .body
'                        .body = "Staff number: " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("pnr").Value) & vbCrLf
'                        .body = .body & "Recruitment date: " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("recruitment_date").Value) & vbCrLf
'                        .body = .body & "Education: " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("educations").Value) & vbCrLf
'                        .body = .body & "Languages: " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("speaking_language_info_list").Value) & vbCrLf
'                        .body = .body & "Specialty skills: " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("specialty_skills").Value) & vbCrLf
'                        .body = .body & vbCrLf & originalBody
                    End If
                End With
                                        
            End If
            Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("processed").Value).Value = "OK"
            olContactItem.Save
            itemsFound = itemsFound + 1
        Next
        
        If itemsFound = 0 Then
            Application.StatusBar = "Adding Outlook contact " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("first_name").Value) & " " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("last_name").Value) & ", " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("pnr").Value)
            'Using the Items.Add Method to create a new Outlook contact item in the default Contacts folder.
            Set oCItem = oCFolder.Items.Add
            'display the new contact item form:
            'oCItem.Display
            'set properties of the new contact item:
            With oCItem
                    'update existing contact fields https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.office.interop.outlook._contactitem_properties.aspx
                    .firstName = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("first_name").Value)
                    .lastName = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("last_name").Value)
                    If (Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("birthdate").Value) <> "") Then
                        .Birthday = DateValue(Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("birthdate").Value))
                    End If
                    .BusinessAddressStreet = "BusinessStreet 100"
                    .BusinessAddressCity = "BusinessCity"
                    .BusinessAddressCountry = "BusinessCountry"
                    .BusinessAddressPostalCode = "BusinessPostal"
                    .BusinessHomePage = "http://www.company.com"
                    'do not remove or duplicate existing categories, set some desired category when not yet set
                    If (InStr(.Categories, "Business") = 0) Then
                        .Categories = .Categories & ",Business"
                    End If
                    .CompanyName = "Company"
                    .Email1DisplayName = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("email").Value)
                    .FullName = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("first_name").Value) & " " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("last_name").Value)
                    .FileAs = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("first_name").Value) & " " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("last_name").Value)
                    '.gender = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("gender").Value)
'                    If (Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("gender").Value) = "M") Then
'                        .gender = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.OlGender.olMale
'                    ElseIf (Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("gender").Value) = "F") Then
'                        .gender = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.OlGender.olFemale
'                    Else
'                        .gender = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Outlook.OlGender.olUnspecified
'                    End If
                    .HomeAddressCity = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("city").Value)
                    .HomeAddressCountry = "DefaultCountry"
                    .HomeAddressPostalCode = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("postcode").Value)
                    .HomeAddressStreet = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("street").Value) & " " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("street_number").Value)
                    .JobTitle = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("current_function").Value)
                    '.Language = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("speaking_language_info_list").Value)
                    .MobileTelephoneNumber = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("mobile").Value)
                    .BusinessTelephoneNumber = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("phone").Value)
                    .BusinessFaxNumber = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("fax").Value)
                    .Department = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("division").Value)
                    .ManagerName = Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("manager").Value)
                    .WebPage = "http://www.company.com"
                    If (InStr(.body, "Staff number: ") = 0) Then
                        .body = "Staff number: " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("pnr").Value) & vbCrLf
                        .body = .body & "Recruitment date: " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("recruitment_date").Value) & vbCrLf
                        .body = .body & "Education: " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("educations").Value) & vbCrLf
                        .body = .body & "Languages: " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("speaking_language_info_list").Value) & vbCrLf
                        .body = .body & "Specialty skills: " & Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("specialty_skills").Value) & vbCrLf
                    End If
            End With
                
                'mark as done
                Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("processed").Value).Value = "OK"
            fullFilePath = Replace(Sheets(sheetName).Cells(i, Sheets("References").Range("pictureurl").Value), "http://someimageurl", "C:\Users\username\Documents\Pictures\profilephotos\")
            If FileExists(fullFilePath) Then
                oCItem.AddPicture (fullFilePath)
            Else
                'MsgBox ("Missing picture: " + fullFilePath + ", for member: " + oCItem.firstName + " " + oCItem.lastname)
                Debug.Print ("Missing picture: " & fullFilePath + ", for member: " & oCItem.firstName & " " & oCItem.lastName)
            End If
            'close the new contact item form after saving:
            'The numerical value of olSave is 0. The following code has replaced the Outlook's built-in constant olSave by its numerical value 0.
            oCItem.Close 0
        End If
    Next i
    
    'quit the Oulook application:
    oApplOutlook.Quit
    
    Application.StatusBar = "Outlook " & lLastRow & " contacts exported"
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
    
    'clear the variables:
    Set oApplOutlook = Nothing
    Set oNsOutlook = Nothing
    Set oCFolder = Nothing
    Set oDelFolder = Nothing
    Set oCItem = Nothing
    Set oDelItems = Nothing
    Set olContactItem = Nothing
    Set olItems = Nothing
    
    MsgBox "Successfully Exported Worksheet Data to the Default Outlook Contacts Folder."
    
     

End Sub

Function FileExists(fullFileName As String) As Boolean
    FileExists = VBA.Len(VBA.Dir(fullFileName)) > 0
End Function

iTop running on Windows portable PHP/MySQL MoWeS

Based on my previous topic informing about the nice functionalities of MoWeS to get easily and quickly a PHP/MySQL environment, I did set up an iTop environment in order to discover and play with the CMDB/ITIL ticketing service desk tool.

While doing so, I also discovered the MoWeS Mixer is not available any longer. Apparently the company Chsoftware behind this tools has stopped in 2012. But the MoWeS tool still works very well on Windows 7 x64 and new packages can easily be added by updating the mowes.ini and packages.ini files manually.

In order to get iTop running, some other parameters had to be updated as well: extra memory allocation is to be allowed in php.ini by changing the memory_limit from 32M to 64M. The php_soap.dll extension needs to be loaded as well by uncommenting it in the php.ini file. For mysql, the allowed packets needed to be extended by adding a parameter max_allowed_packet=500M within the [mysqld] section of the my.ini file.

I’ve created an archive containing a clean MoWeS environment with clean iTop. The iTop still needs to be configured using the web wizard upon first connection to the iTop site (localhost/itop) (mysql username: root, password: <empty>. I’ve also a MoWeS environment with base demo iTop installed (itop username: admin, password: itop).

vCard contact export from Excel contact list

Recently I needed a way to easily convert a list with contact information into a vCard file, respecting the vCard syntax, in order to import this vCard contact information into a phone.

After some quick Google lookup I ended with this nice Excel created and shared by Savas Geivanidis.

After entering all the contact information into the sheet as instructed, the export macro started executing it’s work and I ended with a vCard file as I wanted. But the process took very long (more than 4 minutes), even if my contact list only contained 100 contacts.

Since Savas was so kind to keep his VBS macro unprotected, I analyzed it and optimized it. The main performance issues I detected was the multiple loops and the cell deletions used in the code. A loop was set up to run over the contact data, and copy all data it into a new sheet. Next a loop was used to run through the data and delete all cell containing the value ‘no data’. Next the new sheet was saved into a text .vcf file.

After rewriting the VBS macro I ended up with one loop, running through the data and saving the information immediately into a text file. The same list of 100 contacts now takes less than 1sec to export instead of more than 4 minutes. Some tests with 1000 contacts were positive as it took only 4sec or less to export. I ended up cleaning up the full sheet and creating a template of it to allow easy reuse. Feel free to use this version 1.0 of vCard Exporter for any purpose.

The optimized source code is shown below for illustration:

Sub Create_vCard() 
  
'

' This Macro creates a vCard from an existing phonebook Excel list

'__________________________________________________________________

' Based on DesktopContacts v0.8 by Savas Geivanidis (savas@mycosmos.gr) egnatia.ee.auth.gr/~aki/dc/DesktopContacts0.8.xls

' Major performance improvements by myT in vCardExporter v1.0

'___________________________________________________________________

    
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False

    ' turns off screen updating

    Application.DisplayStatusBar = True

    ' makes sure that the statusbar is visible

    
    'detect number of data contacts provided

    'mainsheet = ActiveSheet.Name

    mainsheet = "PhoneBook"

    Range("A30000").Select

    Selection.End(xlUp).Select

    nod = ActiveCell.Row

    Range("B30000").Select

    Selection.End(xlUp).Select

    nod1 = ActiveCell.Row

    If nod1 > nod Then

        nod = nod1

    End If

    
    'Check if data is provided

    If nod <= 2 Then

        popup = MsgBox("No contact data could be found. Fill in the contact data in the 'PhoneBook' sheet and provide at least a first or last name for each contact." & vbLf & "See the 'Information' sheet and http://myTselection.blogpsot.com for more information", vbExclamation + vbOKOnly + vbMsgBoxSetForeground, "vCard Exporter: No data found")

        Application.ScreenUpdating = True

        Exit Sub

    End If

    
    'request target filename

    vcardname = Application.GetSaveAsFilename("", "vCard Files (*.vcf), *.vcf", , "Please select the name of the vCard to export")

    If vcardname = False Then

        Application.ScreenUpdating = True

        Exit Sub

    End If

    start_time = Now()

    Application.StatusBar = "Preparing VCARD data"

    
    
    Set vcardFileSystemObject = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

    Set vcardFile = vcardFileSystemObject.CreateTextFile(vcardname, True)

    
    
    'copy formula for VCARD syntax to all rows with contact data

    Range(Cells(1, 61), Cells(1, 101)).Copy

    Range(Cells(3, 61), Cells(nod, 101)).PasteSpecial Paste:=xlPasteFormulas

    Application.CutCopyMode = False

    Range("A3").Select

    
    Application.StatusBar = "Processing contact data..."

    
    vcardFile.writeline ("")

    For iRow = 3 To nod

        For iColumn = 61 To 101

            currentValue = Worksheets(mainsheet).Cells(iRow, iColumn).Value

            Application.StatusBar = "Processing contact data " & Round(((iRow - 2) / (nod - 2)) * 100) & "%" '&" on row " & iRow & ", column " & iColumn & ", value: " & currentValue

            If (currentValue <> "no data") Then

                vcardFile.writeline (currentValue)

            End If

            If currentValue = "END:VCARD" Then

                vcardFile.writeline ("")

            End If

        Next iColumn

    Next iRow

    vcardFile.Close

    Application.StatusBar = "All " & nod - 2 & " contact data processed"

    
    Worksheets(mainsheet).Range(Cells(2, 61), Cells(nod, 101)).ClearContents

    Worksheets(mainsheet).Range("A3").Select

    end_time = Now()

    'DateDiff("s", start_time, end_time)

    Application.StatusBar = "vCard export in " & PrintHrMinSec(DateDiff("s", start_time, end_time)) & "sec done into file: " & vcardname

    Application.ScreenUpdating = True

    
    If (nod - 2 = 1) Then

        popup = MsgBox(nod - 2 & " contact is exported to:" & vbLf & "'" & vcardname & "'" & vbLf & vbLf & "Please send this file to your phone and run it in order to add this contact into it." & vbLf & vbLf & "Original development 'Desktop Contacts v0.8' by Savas Geivanidis (aki@egnatia.ee.auth.gr)" & vbLf & vbLf & "Major layout and performance improvements myT in 'vCard Exporter v1.0' - http://myTselection.blogpsot.com", vbInformation + vbOKOnly + vbMsgBoxSetForeground, "vCard Exporter: data exported")

    Else

        popup = MsgBox(nod - 2 & " contacts were exported to:" & vbLf & "'" & vcardname & "'" & vbLf & vbLf & "Please send this file to your phone and run it in order to add these contacts into it." & vbLf & vbLf & "Original development 'Desktop Contacts v0.8' by Savas Geivanidis (aki@egnatia.ee.auth.gr)" & vbLf & vbLf & "Major layout and performance improvements myT in 'vCard Exporter v1.0' - http://myTselection.blogpsot.com"", vbInformation + vbOKOnly + vbMsgBoxSetForeground, "vCard Exporter: data exported")

    End If

    Application.DisplayStatusBar = True

End Sub

'*********************** 
  
'* This function calculates hours, minutes

'* and seconds based on how many seconds

'* are passed in and returns a nice format

Public Function PrintHrMinSec(elap)

  Dim hr

  Dim min

  Dim sec

  Dim remainder

  
  elap = Int(elap) 'Just use the INTeger portion of the variable

  
  'Using "\" returns just the integer portion of a quotient

  hr = elap \ 3600 '1 hour = 3600 seconds

  remainder = elap - hr * 3600

  min = remainder \ 60

  remainder = remainder - min * 60

  sec = remainder

  
  'Prepend leading zeroes if necessary

  If Len(sec) = 1 Then sec = "0" & sec

  If Len(min) = 1 Then min = "0" & min

  
  'Only show the Hours field if it's non-zero

  If hr = 0 Then

     PrintHrMinSec = min & ":" & sec

  Else

     PrintHrMinSec = hr & ":" & min & ":" & sec

  End If

  
End Function

Salling Clicker - Windows Mobile

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

InstantRails + Redmine

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

Exam point counter (Excel)

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

Recovery tools boot USB stick

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

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

Hibernate subquery join using Criteria

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();
}

Cobol data + Cobol copybook + Java conversion

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

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

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

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