Bands what I have seen live and that
Whilst my alcohol-addled brain allows, I thought it worthy to take stock of some of the fantastic (and not so fantastic) live music which I have been fortunate enough to see over the years. There are probably loads missing but I'll try and keep this list up-to-date as time goes on or memories come back to me...
Google on Elections
Google's whole business is built on deep analysis of data. Google's blog did an interesting review of search during the election debate last night with some pretty neat insights, but what's more interesting is what Google Suggest thinks...
Aptly(?) Nick Clegg doesn't appear to be popular enough to have his own suggestion list!
So, vote for the hot, rich, judaeo-christian freemason David Camerson; or the one eyed autistic shepherd Gordon Brown (or the guy Google hasn't heard of). The choice is yours...
Exporting Contacts from the Durham Uni Database
Quick bit of example php code to pull people's details out of the Durham University user database (not LDAP, this is a separate database with slightly different details) - this database is just sitting on the mysql server without a password!
The applications of this database are endless, in this simple example the script grabs everyone from one college and turns it into a handy CSV file you could import into your address book, etc...
Iris Exchequer Fails to Install
Had a strange problem with a machine at work failing to do a clean install of the latest version (v6.01.223) of Iris Exchequer (Pervasive edition) running on Windows XP... Windows reported the installer as not responding in its final stages and it crashed out.
Running the installer to upgrade other machines to the latest worked fine, but I couldn't get it to clean install. Couldn't find any support for this on the internet but after some investigation it turns out those 'final stages' are making changes to the registry -- the solution it turns out is to manually override the permissions of the Exchequer registry key in HKLM and give all users full access. (Run regsvr, browse to HKEY_LocalMachine->Software->Exchequer, right click->Permissions).
Working with MDI Window Backgrounds in .NET
Its not unreasonable to want to work with the background of an MDI container area; in a project I'm working on I thought it would be neat to have a custom background image in the container rather than the boring SystemColors.AppWorkspace gray. Turns out this isn't all that straightforward, especially if you want to be a little bit cleverer than just a static image... There's very little help floating around for this so I thought I'd document how I got it working.
Iconbase is Restocked!
In a long overdue move I've wiped out my icon collection - iconbase - and started again from scratch, this time with everything in lovely 32bit translucent glory and saved as individual PNG files for each icon size (working with .ico files was too much of a pain).
Iconbase now allows you to browse and download a wide range of 'real' (i.e. not replicas in the same style) of Microsoft Windows Icons and other product icons. I've imported all the 'Standard' Windows XP and Windows Vista icons (as extracted and acquired from a range of sources) as well as some others from commonly used applications such as Quicktime, iTunes, Microsoft Office 2003, Microsoft Office 2007 and others. When I get round to it I'll upload some older styles from Windows 9x just for completeness.
You can use the icons to create a professional and intuitive user interface quickly, maintaining consistency with your target operating system. They're available to browse, download and link to online through a shimmie powered gallery, if anyone wants them all as a pack let me know...
Disclaimer, don't forget that re-use and distribution of these icons may or may not be restricted depending on what they are and what you do with them...