I’ve downloaded and installed the new Google Desktop. It seems to be very good.

It will index the following file types.

• Outlook / Outlook Express
• Word, Excel, PowerPoint
• AOL Instant Messenger
• Internet Explorer
• Plain Text

Apparently more are to follow.

Like the Google toolbar it’s limited to a Windows platform so yet again Mac and Linux users lose out.

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I have a Kryptonite cylinder lock for my Bike. So you can imagine by disbelief when I read this. Basically the lock can be opened using a BIC pen!

This from a company that claims

"Since 1971 Kryptonite has been the innovator of the best bicycle locks in the world. We make the toughest lock on the street."

Robert Scoble is using it as an example of the power of Weblogs. You can read about that here.

Personally I’m more concerned that some little git’s going to pinch my bike with nothing more sophisticated then a bloody pen!

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I’ve now got a GMail account. I doubt it will change my life but I’ll have to come up with some creative ways of using that 1gb of off site storage!

The advantage of the limited release was that I could choose a decent address. jimprince@gmail.com was the obvious choice.

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We’ve just setup the Remote Desktop Web Part in SharePoint Portal Server. On accessing the page you get the following warning.

"Internet Explorer has blocked this site from using an ActiveX control in an unsafe manner. As a result this page may not display correctly."

So what does the help page say?

"To avoid possible damage to your computer, you should not try to work around this. You should leave the Web site."

This is classic Microsoft, recommending you don’t visit sites containing their own software! Of course reducing the security around Active X controls for the Intranet zone sorts the problem, but that’s not the point is it?

I’m not convinced that this particular Web Part is much use. We’ll probably remove it any way.

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Thanks, Linux

An entertaining, but completely inaccurate take on the Linux Vs Microsoft debate.

He’s wrong a nice card at Christmas would never do.

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I started looking at SharePoint Portal Server today. I’ll be doing a training course towards the end of the month, but initial reactions are favourable.

Hopefully this tool will allow us to bring all our resources together and allow better information sharing.

It’s not the most user friendly piece of software but it has lots of potential and on the surface looks very powerful.

I’m hoping to spend some time getting to grips with the SharePoint SDK over the next few months.

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Every now and again I have to cut and paste text between MS Word and my Terminal Emulator. The problem is that the AutoFormat facility changes quotes to ‘Smart Quotes’ and hyphens to en-dashes.

So why don’t I turn AutoFormat off? Well I have but because the documents are shared the minute someone else opens them they’re changed back.

Click on "Tools -> AutoCorrect… -> AutoFormat As You Type" to turn this annoying feature off.

The solution was to write a Word macro to convert smart quotes back to regular quotes and en-dashes back to hyphens.

This is the source code.
Sub Quotefix()

With Selection.Find

' Take care of double quotes

.ClearFormatting

.Replacement.ClearFormatting

.Text = ChrW(8220)

.Replacement.Text = """"

.Forward = True

.Wrap = wdFindContinue

.Format = False

.MatchWholeWord = False

.MatchWildcards = False

.MatchSoundsLike = False

.MatchAllWordForms = False

.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll

.Text = ChrW(8221)

.Replacement.Text = """"

.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll

' Now for the single quotes

.Text = ChrW(8216)

.Replacement.Text = "'"

.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll

.Text = ChrW(8217)

.Replacement.Text = "'"

.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll

' and finally the hyphen

.Text = ChrW(8211)

.Replacement.Text = "-"

.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll

End With

End SubThe ChrW() funtion returns the character identified by its unicode value.

8220 and 8221 are opening and closing double quotes. 8216 and 8217 are opening and closing single quotes and last but not least 8211 is the value for the en-dash character.

To read more about Unicode and why it’s important check out their website.

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I think the family pets have the wrong idea!

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Sun have just released two SUN Servers based on their UltraSPARC iV Processors. The v890 and v490 are basically replacements for the existing v880 and v480.

It will be interesting to see how much better they perform with the next gen CPUs. v880’s were one of our most popular hardware platforms for Talis customers. Hopefully the v890 will blow it out of the water.

You can read about them here and here.

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