Doing some VBA stuff; I want a link to open two windows, in two specific locations on the screen. Firstly, a explorer.exe window, to open in the left half of the screen, and an FTP window to open in the second half.

Getting the two windows to open is easy (Shell explorer.exe), but, I can't find a way of controlling their position and size.

Know any methods?

Tags: geeky, programming, vba
Current Location: Tower of London, UK

I want to introduce everyone to Ziggy. Ziggy is a MS Access/VBA application that I write and improve, which manages my websites, academic notes on books, lists and manages book quotations and reviews, and writes the Bibliography portion of my HTML file. It is highly searchable, meaning it takes second for me to search for where I've used a particular quote, and seconds to (for example) list all the books I've quoted from on a particular page.

It can list all the "unused" notes I've made on books, so, I can see where I've made notes on something or quoted from the book, but I haven't implemented the quote in any text of my own yet. It has a "random quote" function that shows me a random unused quote from a book... so when I'm not inspired, I click "random quote" and have a look to see if it's anything I feel like writing about.

It also manages Notes... organised into topics, so, I have a series of notes pages on politics. It means I don't have to remember where I've left any .txt files around my computer when I'm trying to remember where I left an essay plan!

Oh, it writes http://www22.brinkster.com/vexen/site_index.html whenever I press on the "Sites... Make Index" button. And then opens it for me to preview.

Last few days I've programmed it to understand some FTP, so after doing an update I can tell it to open the local folder and remote FTP folder for the site I just tweeked. Handy.

When I'm inserting links into comments, I can tap "Sites... Search mine" and type in a quick keyword like "zombies" and it will list all my relevant pages, I can click on one and it places a "biblio" link into the clipboard ready for me to insert into the discussion. Example: "The Biology and Neurology of Zombies" by Vexen Crabtree (2006)

Ziggy will, over time, actually become self-aware. It will become knowledgeable enough to carry on writing my webpages, even once I'm dead. I just need to carry on and program it with everything I know, and press "Go". Ergo, world domination. Via HTML.

Tags: books, geeky, programming, vba, vexen, ziggy
Current Location: Salisbury, UK

Spent the morning doing housework. Then I ate pie and beans, which was yummy.

I've been upgrading my Notepad program:

It has Multiline search and replace now. So you can, for example, search through all open files and replace with multiple lines, or replace multiple lines with a single line, etc. This is invaluable for HTML editting where you might be editting twenty or thirty pages and want to change a part of the layout on all the pages.

It also has Prepend / Append functionality. So you can tell it to add certain text to the beginning, or end, of all open files.

Fixed a few bugs, so when you're doing multiple file searches when it has gone through all occurances, the Find & Replace form doesn't jump to the center of screen (which is always an annoying place for it to be).

Updated Favorites list, so when a file is missing it gives me an option of removing the file from the list, or of editting it. Previously I'd have to go to Options -> Favorites, but now it goes there automatically if I click.

I still couldn't fix the font selection option. When I ask windows to bring up the Common Dialogue Control for font selection, it complains that there are no fonts installed. In reality, there are many. I've had this problem for several years, and have given up trying to fix it. If I want to change font, I recompile!

In my Notepad's favorites list is markup.html where I store lots of useful blocks of HTML. So if I want to do one of my standard tricks (full-height table with top tr aligned top, and bottom tr aligned bottom with a disclaimer notice in it), I can do it in seconds.

I've also updated my New File > html document.html template file, removing the meta keywords header, because search engines don't use it any more, and adding lang="en" to opening HTML tag.

Tags: geek, html, notepad, programming
Current Mood: geeky
Listening To: "Temple of love" by Sisters of Mercy

Productive:
The more code you write and resuse the faster everything gets done! Especially when you're an organisation-freak like me... and can find all those bits of code with speed!
theoptimist has proved to be the fast learner I hoped he would... he's on a big project now, and doing it all on his own, and well! I didn't have to train him much at all! Kieran and Opto (the 2 guys I'm training ATM) are both developing skills of their own (beyond mind)... Kieran in databases and clever SQL magic, and Opto in design/GUI.


Current issue in life: Living arrangements.

Current Sleep Status: I'm sleep deprived but for very good reasons! The current Demon-Of-Not-Sleep is an angel! Happy Vexen :-)
On that confusing note... bye!

Tags: nocturnal, programming, work, workmates
Current Mood: loved
Listening To: Wumpscut - "Black Death"

Jogged 3 miles back from work... yay! I stopped jogging for a while because I wasn't sure if it was bad for my back. I'm still not sure, but it might be _good_ as long as I keep good posture while doing it.

And was excited and bouncy whlist going to work too, because I get to walk through a large park with a lake and a cathedral in it, and it was VERY foggy, which is exciting and happy-inspiring.

And I had a productive day at work! My fingers were posessed! Writing code that works all the time, first time round... my mind and fingers are at one with computers.

I'm gradually learning other things at work... like managing our email server. I'm bad at network stuff... I just don't learn as fast or think in quite the right way when in comes to IP numbers, firewalls, networks... all that stuff!

And it's dead lucky because I've been very busy lately! I'm so pleased that Kieran, an ex student and friend from Hertfordshire University who I am training, is naturally productive and keen to keep learning.

Tags: fitness, fog, programming, workmates
Current Mood: Fit
Listening To: "Aquarello" by Ataraxia