Lee.org

This open source tool by  Daniel Kinzler will convert CSV spreadsheet files into Mediawiki tables or HTML tables seamlessly.    The program doesn’t hang on to your your data, it just munges it and spits it out. It works great.  He has it hosted on his site  and now I have it hosted here.

Run  CSV2Mediawiki on Lee.org

(nerd alert)
Ugh. I clicked the shiny “upgrade” button trying  to upgrade from Mediawiki 1.16.something to 1.19.something on one of my private wikis. Now I’m stuck because apparently the <Poem> tag has broken, I can’t fix the problem, I can’t go back to Mediawiki 1.16 and… ARRRGH.

There is probably some stupid setting in the stupidly lengthy and cryptic LocalSettings.php that isn’t compatible with something. All I have to do is learn up on all the changes to Mediawiki in the last 3 years to find out what settings have changed, figure out how to integrate that into my setup and… did I mention arrrgh?

This is why (insert witty defeatist linux truism here)

After reinstalling Windows 7, my Bluetooth dongle (a Kensington Model 33348 Bluetooth USB Adapter 2.0) wouldn’t talk to my Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000. I would try to Add the mouse device but Windows did not see it. I browsed around quite a bit. Here is how I finally fixed the problem: (via)

jetpack1976
Junior Member
Enjoys Windows 7 uForums
Join Date
Nov 2010
Posts
2
Re: MS Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000 not working
Hi Durden,

Went to another site and found a solution that worked. You might want to try it out.

Go to START icon and type in services.msc and select services.

The dialog box that opens has a long list of stuff but look for BLUETOOTH SUPPORT SERVICE. Double click to open. Make sure it is AUTOMATIC. Go to the LOG tab. Choose THIS ACCOUNT and type in LOCAL SERVICE. A list of password (a 15-dot string) would appear. Delete all the password in the PASSWORD and under CONFIRM. Choose Okay.

It will ask you to restart the service. Once restarted, turn on your bluetooth adaptor again. Put your mouse in pairing mode and add the mouse. It works perfectly!!!

Give it a try and see if it helps.

I’ve been fiddling with my Google Chrome startup screen. The Speed Dial extension for Chrome is good. It looks similar to the standard Google New Tab screen but it lets you customize it. (It drives me crazy that you don’t know with certainty what links will be on the New Tab page).

But I got the sense that Speed Dial was slowing my computer down just a tiny bit. So I switched to a more streamlined startup screen.

I open 4 tabs:
Blank Chrome page
Gmail
Gmail Calendar
Gmail Contacts

There are 3 ways I know of to create a blank tab in Chrome.  I’m still not sure which I like the most:

1. You can set the startup page to be about:blank, but the text will highlight incorrectly when you start typing in the omnibox.
2. Or you can set the home page to be: javascript:(“”)
3. Or you can open a Chrome New Tab page with:  chrome://newtab/

Here is how to set the Chrome startup page

1. Click the wrench
2. Click “Settings”
3. Click “Open a specific page or set of pages.”
4. Start adding new pages!

So what’s up with this?

Is this related to the Facebookification of the internet? No matter, I blog so my friends (and I) know what’s up in my world. Still, it’d be nice if I were super-famous and stuff.

I just installed Sonic.net DSL service. So far, it’s going great. I called Customer Support 3 times to hammer out setting things up and they were always quick to answer, very helpful, and nice.

I’m using an SBGGlobal Siemens SpeedStream 4100 ADSL modem. I thought it did ADSL2+ as well but I was wrong. My modem will go up to 8mbps. I ordered a $65 (inclusive) ADSL2+ modem so I should be up to 20mbps in a week.

AT&T = 5mbps down, 0.5mbps up
Sonic = 7mbps down, 0.8mbps up
Sonic with new ADSL2+ modem = 20 mbps down, [??] mbps up

To set up your service:
* Switch your DSL modem to “Bridged Mode (PPPoE is not used)”
* Set your router to DHCP
* Set your router’s DNS to Sonic’s DNS
* * Primary DNS 208.201.224.11
* * Secondary DNS 208.201.224.33

Update 12-11-11: The new modem showed up today. It was plug and play :-)
The speed was limited at 8mbps so I called support. The technical support reps primary suggestion was that the wiring in my building wasn’t good enough. I plugged the DSL modem into the wall right next to my phone jack but that didn’t help.

Then he tried uncapping the line (telling the DSL modem to go as fast as possible even though it didn’t think the line was good enough) and I’m now getting 16mbps down, 0.8mbps up :-). With the uncapping, maybe everything will suddenly go bad when the humidity climbs or when there are sunspots, but then maybe not. Life is a chance.

I want to write my posts in WordPress and have Google+ display them. It looks like this functionality doesn’t exist. Am I correct?

I want to get excited about G+ but I still can’t find any reason to use it. Oh well.

I submitted this to the Gmail team:

Here is a bug in the new version of Gmail. I don’t know if this was a bug in the previous version.

1) Go to your Gmail contacts list
2) Click the checkbox to the left of a contact’s name, let’s call him “Adam”
3) Scroll down to the next page of contacts
4) Click the checkbox to the left of a contact’s name, let’s call him “Bob”
5) Click the “Email” button near the top of the screen
6) Notice that Bob’s email address is in the To: field but Adam’s is not. :-(

I just had a hard drive go bad on me so I had to buy a new drive and reinstall Windows. Here’s the software I put back on my computer immediately, the essential software that makes Windows XP useable for me:

WizMouse – lets you scroll a window without you having to give it focus. Brilliantly simple and useful.

Crashplan – I would have lost data if not for this online backup tool.

EditPad Pro – my text editor of choice. It also comes in a free version that’s fine.

Autohotkey – giving me keyboard controls like Ctrl-Alt-C for Calculator and “..4” to automatically type my phone number.

Google Chrome  – the best, fastest, easiest to use, prettiest browser.

• Google Voice Extension  – Along with my Google Voice account, it’s easier to dial a call with this than picking up my phone
• Screen Capture Extension  – an excellent browser screen capture tool
• Speed Dial Extension  – the best homepage for a browser ever

CCCP – the Combined Community Codec Pack lets Windows Media Player play most every video format automatically

Freecalc – by Moffsoft, a better calculator than the built-in Windows one. Easy, clean.

Picasa – the best home picture viewer

Teracopy – replaces windows file copy… the best feature being if a copy fails, I see what happened and can recover, unlike Windows copy

Rename-It! – lets me rename files en-mass

PureText – strips text formatting when pasting.

Put  Windows Explorer in the Quicklaunch toolbar and change the startup options target to “%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /e,c:\aaa”. More examples.

Set Gmail to be the default email client in Chrome

Disable Windows Search When Searching Windows Explorer

Truecrypt – keeps my passwords safe on my computer.

————————————————–
The second round of essential software

KFC – Kill Flash Cookies
Filezilla
UltraVNC

The Sysinternals tools are amazing. Filemon to see what is slowing down my hard drive, Pagedefrag to defrag your pagefile.sys. Several tools to help find malware

DVD Decrypter (local archive)

Cleartype – absolutely essential for good text quality on Windows XP! You’ll have to run the page using Internet Explorer to install it.

(via TheDailyBuggle.com)

This will work for you if you have Windows XP. For Windows 7 and a bunch of other ways to do it, refer to his page. (one easy way is to use the Send from Gmail extension.

Ever wanted to send an email directly from Gmail when you click a “contact” or “mailto” link in Google Chrome only to have your desktop email client pop open? Firefox has a quick fix for this already baked in its options, but unfortunately for us Chrome users, Google has yet to officially implement this feature. Fortunately, there are few ways to fix this and set Gmail as the default email in Chrome.

Change the “File Type” Settings

This one’s fairly straightforward. Open a Windows Explorer window, then:

1. Go to Tools > Folder Options > File Types
2. Near the top of the list of filetypes, click on “URL:MailTo Protocol”



3. Click on “Advanced”
4. With “open” highlighted, click on “Edit”
5. In the field under “Application used to perform action, enter this:    “C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe” –app=https://mail.google.com/mail?extsrc=mailto&url=%1
6. (where USERNAME is your Windows user name)