Software utilities

Recently I had to modify the header and footer of a word document. I didn’t notice it before, but it was edit protected, so all the options in word, such as cut and paste, where grayed out. I found out a simple way to remove document protection from a Word 2007 document, but not for a .doc document. Well, it’s really simple! Just convert the Word XP/2003 document to the new .docx format and then open it as a zip file (just rename it to .zip), edit the settings.xml file, removing the attributes of the <w:documentProtection> tag, update the zip file, rename it to .docx and opne it! You’re done!

Inprivate ^TM is a new feature available with the upcoming Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 (beta 2 available), which guarantees a much safer navigation on the Internet. The main goal is to make sure that when you surf the internet using someone’s else PC you won’t leave any hint of where you have been: this could be useful for surfing on public spots. Also, it could prevent websites and advertisers to track users navigation. You’re wondering how do they track you? Well, for example, when you navigate on two sites, both having Google adwords or other forms of ads, you can be tracked, in the sense that in this case Google knows that you navigated on those two sites. This is also a useful info for advertisers, since they use this to deliver advertisement to match users (supposed) interests.

What do you think? Will you use this feature?

I know this might be pretty straightforward for some people to do, but for others, it isn’t. And there’s no shame in that. We all have to start somewhere, after all.

So here are step-by-step instructions on how to convert information from a spreadsheet (in Excel) to a database (on Access).
 
1] Open Access

2] Create a new database (by clicking File then New;  Give the database a name. Then click Create.)

3] Click on File, scroll down to External Data and click on Import

4] A search window will open.

(You’ll need to choose from the dropdown menu ‘Files of Type’ either *.csv or *.xls for the files of that extension to show)

Then search for the spreadsheet you want to import

5] Click Import

6] A wizard will open to guide you through the rest of the Import process

At the bottom half of the window, you’ll see a sample of the table you want to import.

If there are headings in the spreadsheet you’re importing, click the box that says ‘First Row Contains Column Headings’.

7] Click Next

8] Click ‘In a New Table’ (this will probably already be chosen by default)

9] Click Next

10] If there are no headings in the spreadsheet, this section asks you what headings you want to give each column. By default, these columns are called Field 1, Field 2, Field 3, etc by Access. Change these names to something more appropriate.

To name each column, just click on the column you want to rename, then type in your chosen name in the Field Name box.

11] When you’ve finished naming each column, click Next.

12] It will ask you if you want to create a primary key. Leave it at the default option ‘Let Access Add Primary Key’.

13] Click Next

14] Give the table a name – do this in the ‘Import to Table’ text box.

15] Press Finish and a message confirming that the import is finished will appear.

16] Once you click on OK, you will see the imported table. Double-click on it to take a look.

And that’s it! You’re done!

Poor poor thing. I almost feel like singing him a lullaby and rocking him ever-so gently ‘til he falls asleep with his thumb in his mouth and a drool a mile long.

But I won’t.

‘cos …well….I think he’s got a gazillion million millions stuffed in his pillow for comfort.

You made the decision to leave, Billy Boy, so what’s with the choked-up speech and the misty eyes? You’re not dying, you’re just leaving, moving on. Change is necessary as you very-well know, Billy. All you have to do is look at all the different versions of Windows, Office, yadda-yadda-yawn, you’ve piled out to know that what I’m saying is true. One minute, it’s Windows 2000, then it’s XP, then it’s Vista. If we can live through those dramatic versions/changes, then you, my friend, can live with the almighty big one you’re about to embark on.

Imagine all the things you’ll have more time to do now. You could go on a holiday. Ever heard of that, Billy Boy? Hol-i-day?

No, not the song by Madonna, dufus.

Well, a holiday is when you jump on a plane (erm, in your case, I guess it would be one of your private jets) and go to a place where you can leave the world behind, relax, reflect and have fun. I heard the mangoes are really good in the Caribbean. Greece is heaven on earth. And Brazil will make you smile all over.

So how about it, Billy Boy? Go on a holiday and thank the heavens that you still have enough of your life (and your money) to enjoy the journey ahead (whichever path you choose to take).

It’s not the end, old man – it’s just the beginning.

You’ll be fine, Billy Boy. We’ll miss ya, but you’ll be fine.

Just fine.

.

While trying to transfer an application created using VS2005 to an embedded PC (VIA C3 M 10000 embedded PC), I run into this very annoying problem. First, I got a slightly different exception, which was due to the msvcr80.dll file missing. So, I used the VS20005 redistributable to deploy the application. But my journey through the DLL hell was only at the beginning, because I got this very strange error. I got this only in the release version of the application, while the debug one worked fine. Using dependency walker, I could check that all the necessary DLLs were there, so I didn’t know what was this. After a couple of days of googling, and an incredible number of rebuild and solution clean, I finally found out that it was due to a DLL (created by me) being compiled in release mode with support for SSE2 istruction set, which was not available in the VIA CPU (it seems that it only supports 3DNow! ones). After removing the SSE/SSE2 optimization, everything worked fine!