Tag: general

I recently visited my parents. As usual they always have some question regarding some issue they have encountered with their computer. This used to irk me, but anymore, I just bear it and grin as it’s usually something relatively simple (ie can you make that little icon on my desktop that takes me to Gmail again?) This time my mother was looking for a way to organize her pictures based on the date and time they were taken. Windows Explorer sorts alpha/numerically when you sort be name, but the program she used to import the pictures didn’t label them in a fashion that would allow this order to be chronological. Knowing that the file names were arbitrary forced me to rely on the EXIF data stored in the JPEG file. For those of you that don’t know, most all digital cameras these days store date and time information, among other data, inside the jpeg file itself. Assuming the date and time settings on your camera are correct, this information can be used to rename files using certain programs. One program I found online is called Siren.

This program is able to see the EXIF data stored in the photo and uses that to create a new file name based on whatever EXIF data you would like. As I said, I wanted just the date and time. To do this, in Siren, you first browse to the folder that contains the pictures you would like to rename. Next, in the expression box, you enter your file name. This can be anything you want, though to pull the EXIF data you need to use an expression variable. %Xdo%ncs.jpg in the expression box will rename all the pictures in the directory you’ve selected to YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.jpg. With %Xdo meaning to use the pictures’ date and time stored in EXIF and “%ncs” meaning to give a unique name if two pictures were taken in the same second. You can add whatever you would like before the expression variables to even further classify your pictures (ie. Uncle_Bobs_Colorado_%Xdo%ncs.jpg). This would create file names like this: Uncle_Bobs_Colorado_ YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.jpg.

As you can see, Siren can be a pretty powerful tool for renaming files. This was just a taste of what it can do. Extensive information can be found in the help section of Siren regarding all the other expressions that can be used. Hopefully this has equipped you with the knowledge to better tackle the endless help desk requests from family and friends.

(Source: Skynet Solutions)

By Dustin Fry

I’ve used a few editors for various tasks, and each has advantages and disadvantages over the others. Personally, I’ve played with Dreamweaver, Notepad++, Sublime Text, and Eclipse. Some of these are a bit more popular than others. For more information, visit Wikipedia Comparison of HTML Editors.

Notepad++

I love how basic this editor is. I’m probably most familiar with this one since I’ve used it the most. I like the default functionality to duplicate entire lines or line segments. Not many others allow this full functionality. Also, if you highlight a variable or full word, it highlights all its other uses on the same document. This feature is great for when you are checking if you spelled the variable right, or when you are trying to follow along with code that has no comments. There is a nice plug-in manager that allows a few plug-ins. One item I really enjoy is being able to have a “project” which I can upload to a remote server. Currently, I have not found a single plug-in that allows both of these.

Dreamweaver

This one is probably one of the most common editors you will encounter when doing web development. It’s adaptable to multiple languages and usually comes with an Adobe package. The built- in project management is nice; it allows you to set them up with more features than you will ever need. I would like to see the projects be manageable in folders, which helps when you manage over 10 projects. The biggest downfall I found with Dreamweaver is that it slows my computer down quite a bit when I bring it back into focus after a few minutes.

Sublime Text

This is one of the newer editors I’ve encountered, and I still wouldn’t consider myself a pro at using it quite yet. When you open it up, it’s a very light-weight editor with the ability to add plug-ins. The plug-ins I found were extremely easy to develop with all sorts of documentation and code examples. There are already tons of plug-ins available. There is a project manager plug-in which I found very useful, but it doesn’t currently have all the features I’d love. However when speaking with the developer of the plug-in, he did mention he would be adding these features.

Eclipse

This was one of the first editors I used that offered syntax highlighting. Before that I was using… Window’s Notepad. Dreadful, I know. There are a few versions for various languages including Java, PHP, and C/C++. The project management was a very nice feature for me, and still is. It’s not a tiny editor, but so far I’ve never had it slow down my computer.

(Source: Skynet Solutions)

By Blaine Schmeisser

Well this can and has happened to the best of us. We had a new tech working on a server, and he just disconnected instead of logging off. I knew there was a work-around to get in, and it took me longer than I felt it should to figure out. Most of the immediate stuff coming up in Google is all about Windows home server. In order to get in, you simply need to go to Command prompt, and run:

mstsc /v:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx /f -admin

Be sure to replace the xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with your server’s IP Address.

Once in, it is important you go straight to Task Manager and log off the other users. If you disconnect while logged in this way, you will be forced to hook up a keyboard, mouse, and monitor to the physical machine.

(Source: Skynet Solutions)

By Jed Parmenter