Recent Posts

326

Living Room / Re: Game developer laments gaming industry marketing/psychological warfare

« Last post by Target on December 14, 2015, 05:10 PM »

That bias in this case can be summed up very well:

“Hi, I’m from the games industry. Governments, please regulate my more successful competitors.”

Always remember:

“The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.”

-wraith808 (December 14, 2015, 04:21 PM)

both of these are valid viewpoints

with respect to the first, successful doesn't mean better (or even good), which is what I think was the nub of his complaint (I know nothing about star citizen, but the voice in my head was screaming duke nukem!!)

and with respect to the latter there's another quote about if you tell a lie for long enough it becomes the truth.  Seems to me that we could well be filling the world with fools, simply because all we're giving them is lies advertising

327

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by Target on November 12, 2015, 03:33 PM »

or for those who are more 'hands on'...

328

Living Room / Re: Is Excel the most dangerous software in the world?

« Last post by Target on November 11, 2015, 06:44 PM »

I'm reminded of that old truism about a poor tradesman always blaming his tools

329

General Software Discussion / Re: excel tool - cloud or home base?

« Last post by Target on November 05, 2015, 03:22 PM »

you do know that excel will import from a web page. 

Without knowing some more of the specifics its hard to say if this is useful or not, but worth considering

330

General Software Discussion / Re: macro to edit a .txt file?

« Last post by Target on October 01, 2015, 12:52 AM »

see 4WD's screeny, otherwise you can select all numbers (digits) using the multiple digit button (look across the top).  I was able to fumble the " in by appending with a pipe in the regex field (eg append |" to the multi digit regex)

331

General Software Discussion / Re: macro to edit a .txt file?

« Last post by Target on September 30, 2015, 06:25 PM »

I'm a bit surprised no ones mentioned wild gem - it doesn't do batches (as far as I can see) but I had a bit of a game this morning and it handled a 40K line text file no prob's (if I could remember even a little bit of the regex syntax I'm sure this would be a very handy tool)

FWIW it's portable and green!!

332

Living Room / Re: The business of web ads - fraudulent at its core

« Last post by Target on September 26, 2015, 02:02 AM »

Interesting read, but the thing that stood out for me was that the ad business was shocked to discover there's no truth in advertising

there's an old saying about what goes around...

333

DC Gamer Club / Re: Amnesia: The Dark Descent for free during the next 24 hours (Sep. 15, 2015)

« Last post by Target on September 16, 2015, 12:17 AM »

not exactly my genre, but I had a look at one of the trailers - almost P'd myself when the person opened a door, then ran away and hid in a cupboard!!

perhaps that's a testimony to the game

334

General Software Discussion / Re: Test cell value for BLANK in Excel and take action (or not) based on it

« Last post by Target on September 11, 2015, 01:38 AM »

OK, let see what we can do here....

the simple answer is to substitute the formulas in columns C and D for the XXXX so the formula now becomes

   C3=if(trim(a3&B3) = "","",(LEFT(md5hash(A3&B3),8))

of course this doesn't cater for the situation where the (damn!!) user enters the same value twice, so

   C3=if(trim(a3&B3) = "","",if(trim(A3) = trim(B3), "GODAMMIT, I TOLD YOU NOT TO PUT THE SAME VALUE IN BOTH FIELDS, NOW GO BACK AND DO IT PROPERLY",(LEFT(md5hash(A3&B3),8))

this will test if the fields match (and prompt the user), or are empty, and do nothing).  Match this up with some conditional formatting and you've got a pretty good flag

Of course as IanB pointed out data quality is a key consideration, eg what are the criteria for generating the values in Ax and Bx?  Do they have to be numeric, or alpha, or alphanumeric?  Do they have to be a certain length, or within a set length (ie 6 to 8 chars), and so on.  Answering those questions in as much detail as possible will enable you too better refine the rulesets

335

General Software Discussion / Re: Test cell value for BLANK in Excel and take action (or not) based on it

« Last post by Target on September 10, 2015, 12:00 AM »

=if(trim(a3&B3) = "","",XXXX)?

this will check both Ax AND Bx for a value, and return nothing if true, or XXXX if false

still too many variables for me to say with any certainty (I can still think of several possible scenarios/solutions).

To work correctly, both A and B have to be a "real" value of some kind and if either one is empty it means somebody didn't fill in the sheet correctly

this infers some sort of some sort of data validation rules could be applied which might solve some (if not all) of your data quality issues.

336

Post New Requests Here / Re: I input a CSV file and you tell me if X is within the range of Y.

« Last post by Target on September 09, 2015, 04:36 PM »

can you provide some dummy data sets? and the 'matching' criteria?

337

Official Announcements / Re: Forum Upgraded August 30, 2015 - Report issues here

« Last post by Target on September 08, 2015, 06:00 PM »

I find that there isn't enough contrast between pinned threads and everything else (eg the living room) particularly when viewed on a small device (like my 10" netbook).  Did the old format have a dedicated icon (I can't remember, but it was quite plain)

-Target (September 07, 2015, 07:15 PM)

Check again now please (make sure to F5 to reload css).

-mouser (September 08, 2015, 05:58 AM)

contrast is the same, but the pins are quite plain

many thanks!!

338

Official Announcements / Re: Forum Upgraded August 30, 2015 - Report issues here

« Last post by Target on September 07, 2015, 07:15 PM »

could be this has already been discussed but I couldn't see it

I find that there isn't enough contrast between pinned threads and everything else (eg the living room) particularly when viewed on a small device (like my 10" netbook).  Did the old format have a dedicated icon (I can't remember, but it was quite plain)

Not a biggy by any means, it just takes me a bit longer to get to the 'current' threads

339

General Software Discussion / Re: HELP! AMD Catalyst update broke my PC - How best to reinstall Windows 7?

« Last post by Target on September 06, 2015, 11:59 PM »

If you can boot into Safe Mode see if you can remove the AMD Catalyst drivers and your AV program, (to stop it interfering in any other operation - the AV will cease to function after an In Place Upgrade anyway.)  This might allow the system to boot normally and you'd only need to reinstall any necessary drivers and your AV.

-4wd (September 06, 2015, 11:26 PM)

+1 for this

I've had experience with both AVG and Catalyst borking updates so I'd try this first.

and as a rule I just install the video drivers instead of the entire catalyst suite

340

General Software Discussion / Re: Test cell value for BLANK in Excel and take action (or not) based on it

« Last post by Target on September 03, 2015, 12:35 AM »

there are probably dozens of ways to do this, but without knowing more about your particular case you can try this (obviously this is for cell Cx)

=if(aX = "","",XXXX)

341

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Context Note

« Last post by Target on August 26, 2015, 05:36 PM »

And there are subtle issues when you do like it so much you create like 400 stickies over time.

-TaoPhoenix (August 26, 2015, 04:53 PM)

I think you might have misunderstood the term 'subtle'

342

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extensions: Your favorite or most useful

« Last post by Target on August 25, 2015, 11:14 PM »

trying it now - interesting experience actually.  Tried 2 separate downloads from sourceforge on 2 different machines and while they 'installed' they wouldn't run.  After a bit of hunting around sourced from the cyberfox site and it's running (with onetab installed!!).  Time will tell if it's any better than native FF I suppose

-Target (August 25, 2015, 06:18 PM)

so this is getting bizarre - been running cyberfox today with onetab and noscript only.  Onetab was there this morning but has since vanished.  It's still installed, but no functionality is exposed.  wtf?

343

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extensions: Your favorite or most useful

« Last post by Target on August 25, 2015, 06:18 PM »

Perhaps give Cyberfox Portable a go, I just copied my profile from PM and then installed OneTab and everything worked, (except PM specific add-ons, to be expected).

https://cyberfox.8pecxstudios.com/

-4wd (August 25, 2015, 04:32 AM)

trying it now - interesting experience actually.  Tried 2 separate downloads from sourceforge on 2 different machines and while they 'installed' they wouldn't run.  After a bit of hunting around sourced from the cyberfox site and it's running (with onetab installed!!).  Time will tell if it's any better than native FF I suppose

344

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extensions: Your favorite or most useful

« Last post by Target on August 25, 2015, 02:04 AM »

To add insult to injury, I just installed FF 40.0.2 as a test and OneTab installed fine

-4wd (August 24, 2015, 08:41 PM)

maybe it's the portable part - just setup a fresh copy and it still doesn't work 

and FWIW I can't use a full install in this situation

345

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extensions: Your favorite or most useful

« Last post by Target on August 24, 2015, 08:11 PM »

ok, I already had that setting in config, and I installed the tester tools app - net result was nil

seems like that addin might be a bit flakey (then again, FF might be being over zealous)

given the increasingly unstable nature of firefox it's looking like I'm going to have to change browsers.  trouble is, FF is the only one that seems to match some significant parts of my work flow 

346

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by Target on August 24, 2015, 04:43 PM »

Details seem missing from the story.

I agree.  Details seem a bit sketchy.

He was quick on the draw.
 

-cranioscopical (August 23, 2015, 12:26 PM)

It was only penciled in at the time.

-wraith808 (August 23, 2015, 02:07 PM)

Canvasing the comments has proven quite interesting.

-MilesAhead (August 23, 2015, 04:47 PM)

I still wouldn't draw any conclusions from it. I'd wait until we get the complete picture.

-x16wda (August 23, 2015, 05:34 PM)

I see the fountain of wisdom in that penning.

-wraith808 (August 23, 2015, 06:10 PM)

I think it's time that somebody here took the lead.
 

-cranioscopical (August 23, 2015, 11:18 PM)

All is well that pens well.

-MilesAhead (August 24, 2015, 06:51 AM)

That's penning review.

-wraith808 (August 24, 2015, 07:19 AM)

where there's a quill there's a way

347

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extensions: Your favorite or most useful

« Last post by Target on August 24, 2015, 01:34 AM »

huh, it seems onetab won't work for me no way no how (FF40.0.2 portable).

it seems to install ok, but no controls or menus are exposed so if it is there I can't interact with it.

Tried disabling ALL addins, changing to the default appearance, etc, and no go 

sure would like to recover some resources...

348

General Software Discussion / Re: win update issues

« Last post by Target on August 20, 2015, 01:27 AM »

These may help you get back on track -

https://support.micr...67#/en-us/kb/2700567

http://pcsupport.abo...ws-update-frozen.htm

The Microsoft Fix It (first link) worked for my Vista Home Premium update freezes.

-crabby3 (August 20, 2015, 01:08 AM)

nope, the fixit tool...didn't.  And FWIW there are apparently 2 versions, one of which can be more 'aggressive' in its actions

349

General Software Discussion / Re: win update issues

« Last post by Target on August 20, 2015, 12:38 AM »

it never fails... within about 30 mins of posting this it started to update 

that said, i'm not at all confident that the issue has resolved itself 

350

General Software Discussion / win update issues

« Last post by Target on August 19, 2015, 11:55 PM »

looking for assistance in resolving a win update problem (essentially it doesn't)

On my win7 SE netbook windows update performance (?) has deteriorated over time, such that it hasn't displayed progress for some time, and has now refused to download or apply updates altogether.

I've googled and it appears to be a relatively common issue, but none of the common fixes seem to work in this case (ie it's been sitting on the desk for the last 6+ hours 'updating' without change - no progress, no change)

Anyone here got any suggestions (other than a rebuild)