Real World Computing

I've just added a link to view this blog on a mobile phone. It's in the top section. This feature will work on all blogger blogs, and probably on other brand blogs too. For full instructions on how to do this on your blog, see this article . I wanted to be sure it would work on Notes/Domino blogs as well, so I used Ed Brill's to test (I hope you don't mind Ed). The RSS Feed for Ed's site is http://www.edbrill.com/ebrill/edbrill.nsf/blog.rss So, the URL for Mobile viewing via Google Reader would be http://www.google.com/reader/m/view/feed/ http://www.edbrill.com/ebrill/edbrill.nsf/blog.rss

I posted this a few days ago on Network World but haven't anything new to add to this blog at the moment so I figured I'd post a link to it. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/24314 Basically, it's a bit of a rant about what Microsoft did around LotusSphere time (again) this year. I try to keep rants off this blog, hence I posted it elsewhere.

This post is probably not strictly on topic (being less serious than usual) however I have just prepared a whole heap of links for someone else and figured why not share them. There are two things that I want to cover today; Obtaining the remakes of old games for free (full game Remakes). Running old games under newer systems (Engine only Remakes). I have a preference for adventure games so while will be covering action games as well, I might be a bit biased. Remakes of old Games A lot of the open source project's have been recreating the old DOS games for free. You can usually find these by typeing the name of the game and the word "remake" into google. I'm going to provide some direct links to save a bit of searching - the links may move over time so if this post is old by the time you read it, try searching. King's Quest 1 and King's Quest 2 http://www.agdinteractive.com/ King's Quest 3 http://www.infamous-adventures.com/index.php?page=kq3vga The Hitch...

Why the Gimp? I've used the Gimp because it's freely available and works on a number of different systems. It's not my favourite graphics program but it will do the job. Where can I get the GIMP? Download it from; http://www.gimp.org/ I'm not going to cover installation since it's mostly a matter of clicking Next a few times then finish. Avatar Size Restrictions Most forums place restrictions on the dimensions of Avatars. You should check your particular board for their rules otherwise you could make an image too small to be clear or too large to be used. For the purposes of this exercise, I'm going to make the following assumptions; Maximum width = 130 pixels Maximum width = 160 pixels Maximum file size = no more than 15.77 Kb. File Formats = JPG or GIF Procedure 1. Start the GIMP 2. On the GIMP window that has a menu, select File, then Open and choose your image. The image should display in a different window (with it's own menu). 3. Now, Back on the mai...

Floppies are so "last week", a lot of computers these days don't even come with floppy drives. I've got a great collection of Boot Disks for various network cards which I use when Ghosting machines across the network. I also had some boot disks which were optimized for various games. So, in anticipation of needing to use one of these on a PC with no floppy drive, I'm posting the instructions for using Nero to convert bootable floppy disks to CDs. I know you can do this with USB drives but if you want a collection of boot disks that work on most computers, CD is the way to go. The Procedure Insert the Floppy Disk into Drive A: Put a Blank CD-ROM into Drive D: (or whatever you CD-RW drive is called). Start Nero In the New Compilation screen, choose CD then CD-ROM (Boot) and click New At the next screen,drag all the files from A: to the new compilation. (this makes your bootable CD the same as the Floppy). You're no longer bound by Floppy size limits. so you can...

Why would you do this? This technique is very useful for archiving users mail files when the user has left the company. It enables you to have a look at the mail file without having to copy it off the CD and back on to the Domino server. I have also used this technique when somebody's mail file got too big to be really useful when traveling. They were able to take their old mail on CD with them while accessing new mail from a fresh database. Regardless of your reasons for choosing this method, make sure that you comply with your local corporate records retention regulations before deleting any databases from your server. Before you begin These instructions are designed for use with the standard Lotus Notes mail template. If you have additions such as archiving or document management facilities built-in, you will probably need to use the load convert command to convert the database back to a standard Lotus Notes mail database before this procedure can be successful. Procedure Lo...

So why would you do this anyway? Initially, it seems like there is no real reason to use a command line utility when you can do everything using File, Database (or application in Notes 8) Replace Design . I used to think that the only reason I would ever want to do this would be if I have a large number of mail files to upgrade. Then I discovered a curious thing, a simple design replace on a single database can often causes issues with the design of folders. The answer to this problem is load convert. How to use it PART 1: Getting to the Server Console via Administrator Open the Domino administrator Open your server, it probably will be already open Click on the tab marked server Click on the tab marked status Into the left-hand navigator, click server console If the server console isn't already live, you might want to click the Green Triangle Position your cursor in the space marked Domino command. This is where you will type the load convert command. PART 2: Load Convert The s...

Well the breaking news at the moment is that when you install Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 3 (SP3), it blocks off a number of file formats. You can read the Microsoft Technote on it here. In particular, Microsoft is preventing office 2003 from saving (and possibly reading - I can't tell yet) a heap of Lotus and Quattro files (including the various flavours of .wk files, which will upset a lot of people who export from Lotus Notes). They're also blocking off versions of Powerpoint older than Powerpoint 97. The official excuse is that these file formats are less secure but I think it has more to do with making sure that people upgrade. How long will it be before they declare Office 97 unsafe in order to force a move to Office 2007 and XML? All this seems to do is put even more weight behind the need for common file interchange standards that are owned and administered by the International Standards Organisation (ISO) rather than by a commercial entity like Microsoft.