Categories
Dogs

Finney settling in

It’s been a while since we had a dog and this past summer Paula and I started researching greyhounds. It took us a while to be ready to get a new dog, but this past weekend Paula and I adopted an ex racer from from a local greyhound rescue organization.

Ex-racers are very used to competing with other dogs for human attention, so they tend to be very attentive. They do, however, need some time to get used to being a member of a family and living in a new environment. So right now, he just sleeps most of the time. 

Our new family member has a number of Irish ancestors, and since we had been in Ireland for a while we decided on an Irish name for him. Finian (pronounced fin-yan) is Irish for “white haired”.

Categories
Weird

Raggedy Ann Gets Lit

Discovering that Raggedy Andy liked playing with dolls more than girls, Raggedy Ann went on a 3 day bender, heading to rehab only after making a scene for the paparazzi.

Categories
Tips

Getting a list of files for a directory

Ever had a folder full of files and needed a text listing of all those files? Here’s a quick n’ dirty way to do it.

image I have a whole folder full of new icons for the next version of SharePoint and need to check them into source control. The big pain here is that I’ll need to go into source control and type in each file name to unlock it for editing, copy in the new file, then type in each file name to check it in. If, however, I had a list of all the files I could make a quick batch file to do it for me.

  1. Open your command prompt (on Vista, type cmd then right-click and run as administrator)
  2. Change directories to where you need a listing
  3. On the command line type: dir /b > filename.txt

Windows will create a new text file named “filename.txt” (you can name it anything you like on the command line). One thing to note: your text file will be included in the list, you may want to remove that line before using it to do any bulk operations. Enjoy!

Edit: A good reference for directory listings: http://www.computerhope.com/dirhlp.htm

Categories
Video Games

Won’t be long now

After setting it aside to prepare for Christmas, I finally shipped off my Xbox for [free] repair of the three rings of death. It’s now in the hands of the hardware pixies and I hope to have it back soon!

Fortunately I haven’t been completely without fraggy goodness, I do have a second Xbox. It is, however, a European Xbox so won’t play some titles. I don’t think I’ll get to see Trina online again until I can play Rock Band.

Categories
Life

Washington’s been buried!

There was a snowstorm predicted for Wednesday… but it waited until Thursday instead.


I went into work in the morning for a bit to get some work done, the remote connection servers are swamped by everyone trying to WAH (work at home).  To make sure I didn’t get trapped at the office I left at lunch time.  All the stranded cars and the continued snow assured me I made the right decision.


Other than peaceful white coating, the weather has another fun benefit: wildlife. Our bird feeder has a constant crowd of patrons and our hummingbird feeders are helping the littlest customers stay warm (yeah, who knew that hummingbirds stayed here year round?). The cold also brought us a brand new visitor: a pair of coyotes. They must have come up from the park at the end of our street looking for food.


I was able to get some quick pictures of the hummingbirds, quail and coyote, they’re in our big snow gallery.


With the fierce competition for connectivity to Microsoft I won’t get much work done… but that does free me up to watch the show.



Categories
Friends

Congratulations Mike and Bunny!

The newlyweds after their beach wedding this morning:

Categories
Life

Farewell to a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend

My parents were in town for Thanksgiving and I’ve been enjoying Thanksgiving dinner for four days now, but it all started with Thursday’s spread.

 

(Before and after… yum)

Categories
Weird

Is there a canine equivalent of catnip?

I think this dog found some.

Categories
SharePoint

My first SharePoint post is up: Linking images in SharePoint

Building the next version of a product is great fun, but being able to help existing users makes me feel like I’m doing more than building a product and tossing it over the wall.

If you’ve ever tried to hyperlink an image in Windows SharePoint using the rich text editor you’ll know that you can’t do it.  SharePoint Server 2007 (the one that ties in more closely with Office 2007) has a slightly different text editor and you can link an image the same way you’d expect in other apps (click the image then click the link button). WSS, however, doesn’t make it that easy.  If you’ve ever struggled with it you should check out my post: Linking images in SharePoint.

You want the quick summary? Create a hyperlink then insert your image in the middle (remove the extra text when you’re done).

 

Categories
Software

Election results widget

I went looking for a Vista Sidebar Gadget to watch election results but didn’t find any in the Live Gallery.  I figured I’d just have to be “Old Fashioned” and refresh a web page so went to MSNBC (after finding CNN appeared to be melting) and found they have gadgets for all kinds of interfaces (FaceBook, MySpace, etc.) including a sidebar gadget and blog embed code.  If you’re biting your nails waiting for results, you may want to go pick up one in your favorite flavor.

Edit: Removed live gadget and inserted image for posterity.