Money Saving Tips #1

Save money on rubbish bags by using those plastic bags that you get through the letter box from charities as bin liners/rubbish bags.

Goomarks reaches 100 users

I am pleased to announce that my extension for the Chrome web browser to allow you to access your Google Bookmarks, called Goomarks, has now got over 100 users. It is good to know that so many people find it useful.

If you want to use it, it can be downloaded from the Chrome Web Store at https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/oknllbfkmapccinochelgmcdjhlgfnik . You can't miss it, it's the one with the purple icon!

Hope you enjoy using it.

Chrome Extension to access Google Bookmarks

I have produced an extension for the Chrome web browser to allow you to access your Google Bookmarks.   It is called Goomarks and can be downloaded from the Chrome Web Store at https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/oknllbfkmapccinochelgmcdjhlgfnik . You can't miss it, it's the one with the purple icon!

Hope you enjoy using it.

Improved link to add Google Bookmark

Here is some code to add a bookmark in Google Bookmarks, just drag and drop this on your bookmarks toolbar:

Add to Google Bookmarks

This link differs from others you may find in that it will try and pre-populate the Notes field with the description contained in the head section of the web page. Also it automatically tags new bookmarks with the label *New to make it easier to identify new additions.

How to change the default search in Chrome to use google.co.uk

1. Open the "Options" window;
2. Go to the "Basics" tab;
3. Next to "Default search", click on "Manage";
4. On the "Search Engines" window, click on "Add";
5. In the "Edit Search Engine" pop up, enter:
   • Name: Google UK
   • Keyword: google.co.uk
   • URL: http://google.co.uk/search?{google:RLZ}{google:acceptedSuggestion}{google:originalQueryForSuggestion}sourceid=chrome&ie={inputEncoding}&q=%s
6. Then OK to save the changes, and close the pop up boxes, and it is all done.

Boot from USB for PCs that can't

After lengthy searching the internet trying to find a way to get my PC to boot from a USB memory stick , I finally come across a useful utility called the PLoP Boot Manager.

It is useful because, although my PC can use USB devices, the BIOS does have an option to boot from them. If you search the web you can find lots of references where people have provided ways of booting specific (mainly) versions of linux from USB by copying the kernel and various other files to a hard disk partition and using them to boot the USB stick. However, using PloP allows you to boot anything from the USB stick without the need for specific files to be copied the the hard disk. It also allows you to boot from other devices such as CD/DVD drives etc.

You can find out more at its homepage: http://www.plop.at/

Chrome View Source Problem

There is problem with the view source option in the Chrome browser, in that if the page has been generated as a result of a form submit then view source won't pick this up if it was via a post. It seems that to get the source Chrome just resubmits the URL as it is complete with query string.

HTTP Server Variable Gotcha

If you need to get the URL of the referring page that has submitted a form you need to look at the server variable "HTTP-REFERER" not "HTTP-REFERRER". It appears that a spelling mistake early on in the web has stuck.

I have been programming a web page using ASP which submitted a form, processed the details and redirected to a confirmation page. However, the form could be submitted from two different sites (an intranet site and a corresponding interent site) but both sites had to submit to the same site (it was updating an MS Access database). So I was looking at the referring page to determine which site to redirect back to. Doing some research had suggested getting the value of Request.ServerVariables("HTTP-REFERRER"), however after some time trying to figure out why it wasn't working I found out that it should be Request.ServerVariables("HTTP-REFERER").

Resetting PatientLine Terminals

When visiting my wife in hospital, we had been use of the internet facility available via the PatientLine service. However, after a while the browser (actually Internet Explorer 6) was becoming very slow, and so we exitted it. Even going back to the TV resulted in a message about low memory to keep appearing, and the phone didn't appear to be working very well.

So I thought, if it is using Internet Explorer then it is probably running a version of MSWindows (Embedded XP), and sure enough pressing ctl+alt+del on the attached miniature keyboard brought up the usual reset dialog. From there it is possible to select Reset and therefore reboot the terminal. I wouldn't recommend using the shutdown option as the is no obvious way to restart the system, and you would have to get someone to come out and restart it for you.

Anyway after a few minutes watching the system shutdown, restart, boot from the network, start up xp, and waiting for all the applications to start up, the terminal was again working at full speed.

Updating Posted Date/Time on del.icio.us

If you need to update the when an item was posted to del.icio.us, for example if you want it to reflect the last time the post was updated etc. Then there are 2 ways this can be performed.

The first, official way is to use the official API (see http://del.icio.us/help/api/posts )and use https://api.del.icio.us/v1/posts/add? and use the &dt argument to set the date and time.

The second way is to use the FireFox browser when the "Web Developer" add-in and doing:
1. click on "edit" in the list of your bookmarks and select "full-screen edit";
2. on the web developer's toolbar select "Forms | Display Form Details", which displays the hidden fields.
3. find the hidden text in a box "<input name="date">", the field to the right of this is the posted date
4. retype this date, ensuring it is in the same format (yyyy-mm-ddThh-mm-ssZ)
5. sumbit the form in the usual way by clicking on "save"

p.s.

Now that del.icio.us has upgraded its site and become delicious.com this second method no longer works, and the only way is to use the API.

My first post

Finally got around to setting up my web log, and here it is!