Found a great wave editor to my toolkit

For some projects I need to edit wavefiles and on my own computer I have more professional tools. However I am working a lot with virtual machines and also need to deploy tools to customers. For some reason Audacity couldn't start on an old Windows XP installation which felt a bit frustrating since it was the only tool I knew that would fit. However after a bit of searching online I found Wavosaur and tried it out. Wow! It has a small footprint, fast and easy to use and it has already taken it's place as the default wave editor that I will use. Try it out!

http://www.wavosaur.com/

Excel and functionnames

While working with the Swedish edition of Excel we are constantly punished by having translated functionnames that is quite pointless. Finding the right one is like a needle in the haystack since they are probably translated by a non-Swede or just of the dictionary or something. Anyway I needed a substring and  the function is mid in Excel and after a bit of searching I found this resource: http://www.piuha.fi/excel-function-name-translation/index.php?page=svenska-english.html

It's just what I needed! I just wonder who thought up the "great" idea of translating functionnames! At least they could allow us to use the English version side by side. As a developer I can't see that would be too hard to implement... Anyway, back to work!

Paint.net and transparent background

I quite often have the need to remove a white background and make it transparent. I haven't really had time to dig into it but found a quite easy way using my favorite free image-tool (Paint.net).

Make sure you have Paint.net installed and then download the alpha mask plugin: http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/1854-alpha-mask-import-plugin-20/

Then follow these simple steps (originally found on http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/19110-white-background-removal-preserve-transparency-2-steps/ ):

1. Open the image with a white background.
2. CTRL+A to select All.
3. CTRL+C to copy
4. Open Effect menu and click Alpha mask
5. Check the boxes Invert Mask, Mix Alpha and Paste from clipboard.
6. Click OK
7. The image should now be pasted into your image
8. Save as new file or overwrite the old one.

Sweet! Thanks to the original authors.

How to remove Sharepoint from default site

I have started to play around with Sharepoint a bit and it was frustrated that it for some reason took control over my default website. I Googled around a bit and couldn't find any simple "this is how you do it". Doh! It as so easy! Just enter the Central Administration - Application Management and click "Remove Sharepoint from IIS website". Then select your default IIS website and make sure you don't delete it and click OK. Sharepoint is now removed from your site and all is ok! Simple! :)

Remote debugging with Delphi 5

I am a longtime Delphi 5 user and the main reason of why I haven't upgraded to the latest Delphi-version is that I have som many 3rd party components that need to be upgraded as well. Unfortunately one of the key component pack I have without source and the supplier seem to be out of business. Big mistake I made back then but anyway. Since I have upgraded to Windows 7 and 64-bit it's not optimal to run Delphi 5 on it due to the fact that Delphi 5 breaks some of the security thoughts implemented in Windows. There are ways to fix it but I figured that it was about time to try out and work with Delphi 5 in a VMWare instance of Windows XP with Delphi 5 installed. And it's working like a charm. VMWare starts a lot faster than my old computer used to do and now I have some instances of Delphi 5 already running so I just can start code instantaneously.

Now to my key issue - remote debugging. It has been there for 10 - 12 years (at least) and I have never even tried it! What I have done is installed the Borland Remote Debugger on my Windows 7 PC and then I add the remote debugger symbols and flag that the project should be run remotely. Very nice! Now I can try the application out in Windows 7 and sort out any compability issues while still coding in my good old Delphi 5.

As a sidenote.. I am working on migrating to Delphi 2007 and then to the latest edition... but it takes time... :)

Migrating IBExpert to a new computer

I have got a new computer that I will run Windows 7, 64-bit on and I am using IBExpert frequently. I have also several databases already registered so this is how I went about to fix it.

1. Rename the new computer to the name the old computer had (the license is tied to computer name).
2. Locate the files in file://oldcomputer/c$/Documents and Settings\\Application Data\HK-Software\IBExpert
3. Copy the files to C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\HK-Software\IBExpert
4. Done!

Pretty simple when you know how. :)

X-marks to the rescue!

I have been using X-marks from http://www.xmarks.com/ for about a year now or so and I am quite happy with it. I haven't really mentioned it to anyone but today I have to shout it. I am working on a new computer and will be using IE and Firefox simultaneously so I installed X-Marks to work with both browsers. Unfortunately my sync got messed up so it removed all my quick links! I was a bit shocked but fortunately X-marks has a feature that allows you to go back and use older revisions of your bookmarks. Brilliant! So if you aren't using it.. get it now! :)