Peter's Blog

MSN Desktop Search has been updated: the new name for it is "MSN Search Toolbar with Windows Desktop Search". I am only interested in the Windows Desktop Search bit.

• Installed it and it says it needs to reindex everything, i.e. it will be offline for a few hours.
• The options page now lets you specify file extensions to be indexed as text files so I have added .py and .pyw.
• The options also let you edit the list of file extensions that are not indexed: now you do not need to hack the registry to search for .exe and .dll files, you just remove them from the list.
• I'm not sure if it did this before but you can specify a different web search engine to MSN. I set it to:

  http://www.google.com/search?q=$w
  

  Switching from desktop search results to web search on the same search term it now goes to google.

Conclusion: useful upgrade.

..to change the year in your copyright notice?

Happy new year.

Sorted my mum out with a 17" LCD monitor with built-in TV tuner:

• Nice solid built.
• It has SCART, TV Aerial, SVideo, PC (15 pin D-type) and Stereo audio inputs (from PC to speakers).
• 1280x1024 pixel best resolution, at other resolutions the fonts look odd as columns of pixels get chopped out.
• Picture is very bright, characters look kind of thin and spindly as I had to set large fonts for mum's eyesight. Wasn't bowled over by the picture.
• TV works fine, auto-tuned itself in ok. Tee'd into a loop aerial on old portable TV it had a noisy picture but good sound. With a decent aerial feed I think it would be a very good bedroom TV.
• Comes with remote control (with batteries).
• There is a button on the remote and front panel to step between the various inputs (PC, TV, SVideo, EXT3) and it takes a while to switch from TV to PC, as you have to step through three or four other blue screens and it takes a couple of seconds for the picture to appear at each step. This was a bit annoying.
• Has teletext for nostalgia victims.
• I realise that I am typing this on my notebook with a 1400x1050 resolution 15" TFT display. I would say it was a slightly better picture, letters look crisp and smoothly detailed.

I think in conclusion that if I was buying myself a Monitor/TV I would look around to see what else was available before buying myself one of these Samsungs. It's OK but not breathtaking.

I try to put only original stuff on this site, I don't simply link to other posts I find interesting or partake in the blogosphere as such. Seems like lazy blogging to me. If I do find interesting links then I put them in my Furl profile. Furl is a handy place to store links where I can find them on laptop, home desktop or work pc and I don't clutter my bookmark folders up with stuff I rarely look at.

As wishing you a merry christmas is not an original sentiment I won't do so. Happpy boxing day.

Here is a festive picture of my daughter in her christmas pudding outfit. Parental cruelty?

It was bugging me that I could not find .exe files with MSN Desktop Search.

A quick look through the registry found the key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\RSSearch\Gather\RSApp\MyIndex\Extensions\ExtensionList

This contains a list of numbers and file extensions, e.g.:

Value 0
  Name:            0
  Type:            REG_SZ
  Data:            386
Value 1
  Name:            1
  Type:            REG_SZ
  Data:            aps
Value 2
  Name:            10
  Type:            REG_SZ
  Data:            chk
Value 3
  Name:            11
  Type:            REG_SZ
  Data:            ci
Value 4
  Name:            12
  Type:            REG_SZ
  Data:            crwl
Value 5
  Name:            13
  Type:            REG_SZ
  Data:            dbg
Value 6
  Name:            14
  Type:            REG_SZ
  Data:            dct
Value 7
  Name:            15
  Type:            REG_SZ
  Data:            DeskLink
Value 8
  Name:            16
  Type:            REG_SZ
  Data:            dir
Value 9
  Name:            17
  Type:            REG_SZ
  Data:            dl_
Value 10
  Name:            18
  Type:            REG_SZ
  Data:            dll
Value 11
  Name:            19
  Type:            REG_SZ
  Data:            drv
Value 12
  Name:            2
  Type:            REG_SZ
  Data:            AudioCD
Value 13
  Name:            20
  Type:            REG_SZ
  Data:            dvd
Value 14
  Name:            21
  Type:            REG_SZ
  Data:            evt
Value 15
  Name:            22
  Type:            REG_SZ
  Data:            ex_
Value 16
  Name:            23
  Type:            REG_SZ
  Data:            exe
Value 17
  Name:            24
  Type:            REG_SZ
  Data:            exp

I changed the entry for 'exe' (value 16) to 'exex' to hide it from the list (I didn't delete it to avoid breaking the numbering of the keys and to make it easier to change it back). I also changed the entry for 'dll' in case I want to search for a dll file (I do strange things).

I rebooted desktop search (right click on the toolbar item and exit, then launch again from start menu) and told it to index. In a minute or two I could search for *.exe and get executables! Clicking on them ran them! Bliss, happy, waiting for something bad to happen.

My justification for this being reasonable is that desktop seach can find zip files but does not try to index the contents and the zip file extension is not found in the list above so hopefully it has enough brains to just list the executable files but not look for strings inside them.

I've finally got my paint shop photo album registration problems.

• I emailed Jasc customer services and got no reply
• I emailed Digital River (the licensing people) and was asked for order number etc
• I replied with the order number and they emailed back to say they couldn't help
• I got a reply from Jasc customer support giving me a key number and password
• I tried the key and password and it gave me a Paint Shop Pro download instead of Photo Album
• I emailed to tell them this and they asked for my PSPA order number. They gave me a PSP link because I had already bought that and they found this in their database.
• I gave them the number and they emailed me another download link.

It is now installed and running with no nag screen. I tried installing it over the trial edition but InstallShield wouldn't let me, I had to uninstall the trial edition first.

This took 8 days to sort out, so if you are on the 30 day free trial, it may be advisable not to leave buying it to the last minute.

I would say that Sourceforge was the least reliable site that I regularly frequent. I'd really like to download the latest development snapshot of the libusb-win32 filter driver but I cannot connect to SourceForge. When I tried it a few days ago, I just got a message telling me the site was down for maintenance.

I'm not complaining, it's all free, I'm just frustrated.

Moral: while Sourceforge is up, grab all the files you might even need.

Hey, I'm writing a sentence per paragraph.

Been reading too much scoble (aka the dark side).

Top of today's tech issues is the news that I am now a daddy:

Victoria Jean Wilkinson, born 20th November 2004, 8lbs.

I read that there is a worry that children will sue their parents for blogging about them and infringing upon their privacy. Victoria, if you are reading this, take pity on your poor dad.

Trying to get an IoTech ADAC IO card to do something. Installing it on my pc, my network card stopped working as it had used up the last free IRQ. To get around this I pulled the sound card as I never use that anyway.

As a simple test to whether the card works I tried running the PlotterX and PlotterXPlus applications that come with it. Both die with access violations when I try to open the configuration files. I've messed around with this all morning, pulling cards, disabling drivers that use the same IRQ, reinstalling, all to no avail.

I've installed the diagnostics programs with variable results. The main diagnostics program generates lots of errors but it is not clear whether this is because it needs loopback connections.

Peeves:

• The IOTech website takes the novel approach of having no FAQ or knowledgebase, just email tech support. If I want help next week I'll give it a try.
• I have to register to download anything (documents, lastest software) which violates my privacy. Why should I register to read a sales brochure?
• All the documents are in lovable pdf format, much loved by people who never have to use them.
• The documents prattle on about DMA setup without actually saying how to set it up.
• The software is all vintage 2002.
• The vb sample programs appear to be in VB4 and won't load in VB6 as they need a message hook library that is not supplied.
• They have an out-of-the-box (tm) slogan that erroneously and annoyingly implies it will take less that a day to get the thing going.

These cards are not cheap and I've wasted a whole morning with this and it still doesn't work. My big fear is that the hardware engineers will keep specifying them.

Monday morning

Update: Downloaded latest version of PlotterX software from IOTech and installed it. I also installed the latest drivers and ADLIB software development libraries. PlotterX installed itself in a different program group (or the XP equivalent) to the original one. It still crashes when opening the .con file. BUT PlotterXPlus now works! The diagnostics still fail the power up tests.

Update 2: Message hook ocx is in the C:\Adlib\AlWdm\Vbasic folder and needs registering on the command line with:

regsvr32 MSGHoo32.ocx

Then examples run in VB6.

Monday morning is over, now we are rolling.

Now that the bayesian filter has kicked in, spamassassin is looking much more effective. 6 spams this morning, mostly caught with a 99.9% spam probability, one false negative.

After a couple of months I've finally had 200 items of ham mail (ham = not spam) and the bayesian filter in spamassassin has kicked in (actually I cheated a bit and sent myself 5 emails to tip it over the edge). It has already started finding m0rtg@ge applications.

Someone in the IT department has been messing around and I am getting more rubbish than ever: bounces of email bounces are not the most stimulating reading. I'm fed up with fine tuning .procmail rules, let the bayes filter deal with it.

The question is whether the features of the Access Developers Edition make it worth buying compared to plain Access.

The Access Development Edition contains tools for:

• Controlling licencing of access applications you develop
• Packaging shippable access applications
• Searching through all the properties in your applications
• Creating templates for new databases
• Source code for sample applications

I don't think it will be of any use to me. If I was to develop any database applications I would use Visual Basic rather than Access.

If I wanted to search through all properties of all controls I would grep through the source files. I guess that is not an option if your source code is embedded in your mdb file in some grizzly proprietary fashion.

I don't have a motorbike any more but here's a motorbike tip anyway. Winter is approaching and bikes are going into hibernation till next spring. This is England and around this time of year being in a safe warm car is preferable to sliding down the road beside your motorbike.

The first year I had my old CBR600fx I left it in the garage all winter. By spring the battery was knackered and refused to hold a charge. The factory fitted immobilizer had drained the battery all winter and ruined it. I had to buy a new one.

I did't want to buy a new battery every year so I bought a trickle charger designed to keep motorbike or car batteries healthy. Just plug it in and leave it for however many months. The one I bought was by a company called oxford, I think it was called an Oximiser. It came with connecters to permanently wire to the bike so it could be plugged in whenever it was needed without having to take the battery out. It was a wonder, in the last year I had the bike I didn't ride it yet it started quite easily when I got around to selling it.

Added a favicon to the site. I did it like this:

1. Created a 100x100 gif file with my design using Paint Shop Pro.
2. Used this site to convert the gif into a .ico file.
3. Uploaded the favicon to my web site.
4. Edited my xtemplate.xhtml file to add the following lines to the <head>:

  <link rel="shortcut icon" href="peterfavicon.ico" >

There is one little problem in that the transparency information does not seem to be used: the favicon should not have a white background.

Update: I edited the favicon in Visual Studio and now I'm happy.

Update 2: above mentioned site is down for maintenance so forget it. I downloaded a plugin for Paint Shop Pro (actually it's for Photoshop but it works in PSP) from here which works nicely. It only stores a single image in the icon file so is not suitable for program icons but would be ok for 16x16 favicons. Transparency works well.

Microsoft Word started showing odd stuff like {EMBED MSDraw \* mergeformat}. This turned out to be because field code display was turned on. It can be toggled with ALT-F9. I might have pressed this while trying to get an index to update (SHIFT-F9).

Found a neat program for generating buttons and wallpapers.

After a frustrating day at work I decided to have a game of Doom, vintage Doom 1 that is, I don't have the hardware for Doom 3. I haven't played a 3ps for over a year and now I feel quite sick. I can still circle-straff though.

I furled it but I've also gotta blogplug this site which is great for generating custom wallpaper.

I furled it but I've also gotta blogplug this site which is great for generating custom wallpaper.

Signed up for furl. It's a kind of online bookmark thing, it allows you to store interesting web pages, search them etc. The server is a bit sluggish but it might help me with my todo list of things to investigate. Being online I can use it at home and work.

Itunes was released in the uk while I was away on holiday so now I've had my first try. The price looks good to me: 80p for just the tracks I want and I can listen to 30 second previews of any track to make sure I am not buying filler material.

It's kinda fun exploring the archive, seeing how comprehensive it is. It only has 'partial albums' of some old 70's stuff from my youth (Jeff Wayne's 'War of the Worlds'?), some are pretty much absent (Steeleye Span) but there are some comprehensive back catalogues (Queen, Tangerine Dream). I have never bought a Slipknot CD but I can dip into tracks like 'People = s**t'.

I don't have an IPod but apparently I can blow CD's so I am not tied to listening to music while sitting at a pc.

Looks good to me. It's also the first time I've ever used any Apple product.

This isn't an advert but I have decided to sell my 1999 Honda CBR600FX motorbike. I haven't ridden it for a year, not even starting the motor. The battery has been on a trickle charger for most of the time that the bike has been off the road in the garage.
This afternoon I rolled it out to see if it would start. It took a few goes but it was running in under two minutes. I said this wasn't an advert but I hope it says something for Honda build quality. My wife wants a Honda car which here in england are considered quite boring (maybe they are boring everywhere) but I would be happy to buy her one if it means low maintenance.

I modified my firstBelowCalendar nugget as follows to provide some links to wiki entries:

It seems nuggets can contain macros but not structured text markup.

Tip for the day: SilverCity does not seem to support HTML so I used XML above.

Some changes to source highlighting:

• The overflow: auto; trick seems to screw up in Mozilla 1.6 meaning my WebLog page would not show

• Scintilla expands tabstops to 8 spaces. Cannot find where this is defined in the Scintilla or SilverCity source, so edited all code to change tabs to 2 spaces.

• Changes code-block CSS to a font size of 8.

The reformatting is aimed at stopping the web page becoming too wide. I use Mozilla with a Sidebar open all the time and I don't like web sites that make me scroll horizontally.

This was submitted via the MetaWeblogApi

Not quite the last post

• These

• Are

• Bullet

• Points

This was submitted via the MetaWeblogApi, with a new pubtime element added by peter

Bought a Sony DCR TRV 14E Camcorder for £280. I'm very pleased with it, a bargain, on sale elsewhere for £450. It's small but fat, won't fit in a pocket.

It has USB and firewire ports. I tried the USB but it is very poor so I have to buy a firewire card.

Put bulbs in new ceiling light and one of them refused to work. Turned out to be loose connector on bayonet. Ran fan with bulbs in and it buzzed. I fiddled with the bulbs a bit and it stopped buzzing, hope the buzz does not return. At top speed the fan is a little unnerving, hope I can sleep underneath it.

Put up ceiling light/fan in bedroom. Bought in B&Q for £20 but wekll worth it. Nice downdraught and very quiet. Roll on summer.