By Matthew Hile on 6/6/2006 4:58 AM

I have used Word's document comparison feature to look at the difference between two documents. However, it has always been somewhat confusing and I have never really felt comfortable with it.

In my use of the beta version of Word 2007 I found a very functional and obvious implementation of the document comparison feature that rocks.



Four useful windows are provided. The main center windown contains a document with all of the changes marked for review, accept or reject as desired. The two windows on the right contain the two documents being compared. Finally the left hand window lists all of the changes. Click on a change to see that change location in each of the other windows.

The process provides all of the information needed in a clear and simple display. Great user interface design.

By Matthew Hile on 3/31/2006 3:18 PM

The scenario

• A computer becomes unresponsive in the middle of an operation.
• The three finger solute (Ctr-Alt-Del) does nothing so I use the power switch.
• The computer refuses to boot giving me the blue screen of death before it restarts. It loops through this over and over.
  
• There are some files on the computer that I NEED.

The solution

I boot the computer with a CD copy of Knoppix (http://www.knoppix.net/) and relatively easily find the files that were placed on my desktop. Remember that I am a LINUX newbie and really know very little about how to use the OS. Now how to move them?

1. Tried using my gmail account to email them to myself. No luck the files were to big.
2. Rebooted after plugging in a USB Zip drive. Knoppix did not recognize it (or equally likely I did not know how to tell it to recognize it).
3. Rebooted after plugging in a USB thumb drive. Still no luck. It recognized the drive but has it marked as read only.
   
4. Logged onto our email system via its web access and added the files as an attachment which I then mailed to myself. Worked like a charm.
5. Mucked around with the flash drive unmounting it and messing with the permissions until finally it allowed me to write to it.

So that is the Good News part of the story. I was able to get the files I needed without any significant difficulty. Knoppix did a great job of with the disk. In fact when I booted with the XP CD it would not even recognize that the drive had been formatted so at this point I was really impressed.

The rub

Then I got to thinking. My computer is secured with a frequently (to frequently for my tastes) password. Yet all I need to do was to slide in a CD and I had access to my files. Not a very pleasant thought for someone who has been accused of being security obsessed. 

Now I do remember seeing somewhere the option to encrypt my NTFS formatted drive. I’m not sure where that was but it sure did not come up in the last few hours as I reformatted the drive and reinstalled XP with all of it’s SPs. So it is not something that the average user will find (or use).

Today, none of the files on the computer was particularly sensitive. No client information, no financial records, no steamy notes to Allison. But that would not always be the case. This would be Bad News. So now I am on the lookout for a good encryption program that will allow me to easily store some files in an encrypted space so that, in a similar situation, I will not be able to retrieve the files.

So that is it - basically your good news – bad news sort of story.

By Matthew Hile on 3/15/2006 8:41 AM

I love Wikis - those supremely easy to create web pages that allow anyone to easily create, format, and save information. I use them extensively to document programming projects in a way that is both richly linked and searchable.

Now just imagine what might happen if you combined wikis with the currently hot approach of giving web pages the sort of interactive features one expects from desktop applications, know as AJAX (Asynchronous Java and XML). Well The other day I stumbled across a web page/application created by Jeremy Ruston. Jeremy imagined the combination in a way that I would not have. He created an entire wiki system in a single HTML file! This takes Marshal McLuhan's notion that the media is the message to a whole new plane.

The page/application, TiddlyWiki, is a fully functional full featured wiki that has all of its code, and all of its content in one single HTML file. This means that to have a wiki you do not need any of the accouterments of the traditional systems - No database, No web server. All that you need is one file and a standard web browser. Firefox is preferred but evidently IE also works (Opera is not recommended).

So what could you do with such a system? You could create a traditional wiki web site. While that is neat, any wiki application could do that, TiddlyWiki with its one file approach lends itself to use in places where the more traditional wikis would not fit.

• Create a log of all of the changes on individual computers
• Create a personal "how to" manual on a thumb drive that would be available to you on any computer.
• Keep a personal blog
• Write reviews (e.g., movies, music, TV shows, restaurants)

The cost of entry is so low both in terms of money (free) and effort (use the 'Save Page as' option on your browser to get your own TiddlyWiki page/application), that you can afford to spend a few minutes to give it a try and see how you might use it.

--- UPDATE ---

If, after saving the TiddlyWiki's file (empty.html) on you computer, you find that IE gives you the message that it can not save your changes you will need to open the file in a text editor (e.g., notepad, EditPad) and save it with a new name. Some times, when it is saved on your computer, IE still thinks that it is in the internet zone and will not allow saving. An alternative to this method is also available.

By Matthew Hile on 3/9/2006 5:56 AM

On the average day, how often do you copy something from one location/application and paste it into a different location/application?

For my part the copy (ctrl-insert for we left handers or ctrl-c for the others) paste (shift-insert or ctrl-v) key combination have moved to the level of unconscious behavior. My fingers just do what I want. Have information you need in a few Excel cells - cut and paste it into word. Have a table returned from a SQL query in Access or SQL-Server - cut and paste it into an Outlook email message.

Ray Ozzie, the creator of Lotus Notes, Groove, and now CTO at Microsoft got to thinking about the power inherent in copying/pasting structured data from one application into another. His question - Why not do the same thing on the web? In a blog post called Wiring the Web Ozzie answers that question with a flourish describing and demonstrating a new clipboard called Live clipboard. The samples demonstrate the ability to copy and paste structured data (think contact information and calendar events) from

• one place on a web page to another
• one web site to another
• a web site to a Windows application
• a Windows application to a web site

Even more importantly he demonstrates how this technology allows users to create mash-ups from various locations to make new information available.

This approach is cross browser compatible using JavaScript, CSS, and XML to work its magic. Most interestingly, and perhaps importantly, Microsoft has licensed this under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License so that others can freely use and build upon this innovative work. But don't stop with my work, check it out.

licensed under the Creative Commons */
/* Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

 

By Matthew Hile on 3/3/2006 1:39 PM

I spend a lot of time on software testing. I test others' work as well as my own. I track problems using FogBUGZ and work pretty obsessively on these tasks (just ask those that work for me).

But how much testing is enough. I just read an article in eWeek by Darryl Taft (Microsoft preps 'Sparkle' kin, eWeek 23(6), 6-Feb-06, p. 14) that reported that "the current Visual Studio 2005 test covers more than 10 million tests, with 9,000 servers in the lab, and a full test pass takes 21 days."

All of that and I am sure users still found problems when they tried to use it. So the answer to my question, How much testing is enough? - There ain't no such thing as enough. You just end when you are worn out.

By Matthew Hile on 3/1/2006 7:13 AM

To save/consume a multidimensional array to a session variable in .NET you use the following steps.

• Store the array
  
• Create the array

Dim aToSave(0, 1) As Integer ' a 10x2 array
' Populate the array with values

• Save it to a session variable

Session("aToSave") = aToSave

• Restore the array
  
• Create an array to hold the saved value

Dim aToSave(0, 1) As Integer ' a 10x2 array

• Convert the saved variable to the appropriate type and assigne it

aToSave= CType(Session("aToSave"), Integer(,))

It was this last step the threw me. The "Integer(,)" converts the session variable to an interger array with two dimensions. If it were a two dimensional character array you would use "Char(,)"

By Matthew Hile on 1/30/2006 6:54 AM

I subscribe to a number of computer tech publications. Some, generally the free ones, ask for information about my job as part of the subscription process. Every year I trade a bit of my time to complete their questionnaires so that I may receive their publications. Others ask for money and every year I trade some of my money to receive their publications. Both of these is OK with me.

However, at least one tech publisher seems to want both my money and my time. I recently sent their support line the following message.

Please stop spamming me! We subscribe to and like a number of your publications and have done so for years. However, I am sick of receiving at least monthly solicitations to extend my subscription. Each month one comes included with the publication - that is OK I can easily pitch it. However each month I also get a mailed message, generally at least one for each publication, exhorting me to renew my subscription. No information is provided on this non “invoice” that would tell me when my subscription is due. I want to keep my subscription so each month I need to have my secretary check to see when we last subscribed to see if we need to resubscribe. This takes my time. This takes her time. This wastes our time. I am about to the point where I will simply drop my subscriptions and pitch all mail from you without opening it. Is this what you want from a loyal reader? How should you treat your subscribers? Send me a real notice three or four months before my subscription is about to expire. If I do not respond, send me a couple of reminders. This would be OK. This would be treating me and my time with respect. I will resubscribe and be happy to recommend your publications to others.

There may be some "marketing science" that says the best way to retain customers is to irritate them. Go figure.