Free QR code generator

These QR codes you see popping up everywhere, you can easily generate your own.

Also Wasp Barcode has a blog suggesting 5 ways to use them.

Rats, had to switch from Open Office to Excel

I became A big fan of Star Office then Open Office while I was at Sun Microsytems.

I am a firm beleiver it's better to use Open source software rather than pirate from Microsoft.

However some Vendor's software is tightly coupled to Micro$oft. It would be nice to see more vendor agnostic software.

Case in point:

My wife was working on converting a client from Simply Accounting to Quickbooks. Quickbooks has a feature to allow you to import customers and vendors via Excel spreadsheet.

We had the spreadsheet exported in Open Office calc and went into Quickbooks (QB) import utility.

Then QB complained we did not have Excel installed....

Long story (even longer) we then downloaded MS Office 2010. At least M$ is getting less greedy for the Home & Student edition. 25% discount until Jan 6, 2011. It $119 CDN.

Did I just give a free plug for Microsoft??

After finally getting Windows XP service pack 3 (required) then the 35 windows updates that followed it works.

We started the Office download and the Windows update in 2010 (New years eve) and finished in 2011.

Price:

• MS Office Upgrade -$ 119. (30 minutes download)


• Downloading & install Service pack3 - time overnight


• 35 windows updates - 2 hours

Time saved retyping 3600 customers & several suppliers: Priceless.

My wife reports her last conversion took about 60 hours of rekeying data.

Optical illusion colour or Black and white?

I just came across this really cool website that show those brain tricking optical illusions.

Try this on. Is the castle colour or black and white?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6ccBwnc5KU&feature=player_embedded

Lots of other great tricks at this site .

http://io9.com/5690012/the-webs-best-optical-illusion-videosand-how-they-trick-your-brain?ref=nf

Sunray to replace a KVM console.

I have had an idea to use a decomissioned IBM console with a Sunray to provide a replacement for our old KVM.


The KVM's time has gone and updating it did not seem like a good use of money.


The screen was a rack mount 17 inch vga screen and the keyboard & mouse /touchpad. (IBM/Lenovo laptop style.)





Here are the issues I overcame to provide this solution.


Issues:

1. Video: Our Sunray uses DVI connectors. IBM screen uses VGA.


2. Keyboard/ Mouse: The Sunray uses only USB. Our Console keyboard has PS2 connectors for both mouse and Keyboard.


3. A standard PS/2 to USB adapter did not work well on the Sunray.

Solutions:

1. Video: no problem the Sunray 2FS ships with a DVi to VGA adapter.


2. KB/Mouse- PS/2 : I acquired 2 Cables to go brand USB to PS/2 Y adapters from Tiger Direct.


3. Despite being a Y adapter, these adapters would not allow both keyboard and mouse connected to one USB port. In fact the first one I got (model # 27225 $12 CDN) would not even allow you to type normally. The mouse works fine with this one. The second one I got worked fine with the keyboard (model # 32185 $32.99 CDN) but not with the mouse. Note also I had to connect both devices to the port labeled mouse, not the labeled keyboard port. The IBM keyboard /mouse comination device was labled SK-8840 part number PN 89P8500

So by combining these 2 adapters and using the 2 rear USB ports on the SunRay I was able to make this solution work.

It seemed a bit expensive $32 for the Sun compatible USB to PS/2 adapter but i wanted the nice rackmount IBM keyboard to work.

A cheaper solutiion might have been to find a narrower USB keboard , a flatscreen monitor and put it on a shelf in the rack but not nearly as elegant and not foldable.

Diagnosing Solaris disk errors with diskinfo.sparc

Just read a good troubleshooting document fron Sun - Oracle . " How to identify io errors for failing device on Sun SPARC systems." Doc ID 1005520.1

It demonstrates how to determine a failing disk.

it mentions use of " iostat -En " , format , and /var/adm/messages "

It does also refer to a Doc 1017741.1 High hard error value in iostat -E. It fails to metion that iostat is not updated until a reboot.

This means that if you hotswap a disk iostat doesn't change. It doesn't update the error state, but even worse it doesn't update the disk model or serial number. (No evidence the disk was ever replaced!)

Great tool.

Sun Explorer installs a utility that does update the disk model, serial number and firmware version of the disk. It can be run alone without running the full explorer.

It is called diskinfo.sparc.

output looks like this.

# /opt/SUNWexplo/bin/diskinfo.sparc

AVALABLE SCSI DEVICES

Location Vendor Product Rev Serial #

c0t0d0 TEAC DV-W28SS-R 10C -

c1t0d0 SEAGATE ST930003SSUN300G 0868 095371xxxxx

c1t1d0 SEAGATE ST930003SSUN300G 0868 10012xxxxx

Very helpful especially if you need to verify a model for later service.

Also has an executable diskinfo.i386 for any Solaris x86 users

You need to install Sun explorer to use this.

Making Windows Search companion Forget a search

I log my SecureCRT terminal sessions in text files so I can see what I have done later (or done wrong.)

The Problem:

Sometimes I accidentally type a password in the wrong spot. Then it ends up showing in plain text instead of concealed behind asterisks (******.)

Now this is written to my plain text terminal logs!

The Fix

To hide this I use windows (XP) search companion to find the password text in the logs and edit it out.

This works well except ...

The Problem:

When I go back into Search companion it now remembers it's last search (MY PASSWORD!) when I type the first letter of the last search it shows it in a pull down.

I couldnt find how to make seach companion forget my password now. after searching I gave up and then figured it out on my own.

The Fix:

I'ts simple after typing the first letter the pulldown appear with the password. Move the mouse over the pulldown of previous searches and hit the delete key.

Done. The last search (aka password) is forgotten.

Floorplanner.com Design a 3D blueprint Free!

I have been playing with Floorplanner.com
It's a well done website that allows you to draw your own plan in 2D then view it in 3D.
The learning curve is not to bad, even if you have never used a CAD program before.
It had even improved since the first time I tried it to draw my basement floor plan.
I managed to draw a computer lab to show concepts to my colleagues.
Create an account to try it free.
If you really like it you can pay for "Plus accounts" and get more space for more plans.
Check out a diagram I did here, be sure to click 3D. I used the Green telephone booth's to represent server racks. As with many 3D flash websites, it really helps if you have a fast CPU and lots of Ram.