Active X and VBA (from Excel from example) are SOOOOO cheap to design and debug, but on a more corporate level, VBA is shunned by IT as “impossible to manage” … and, it can be but I am using git to manage everything and it works fine. Agreed though, all the cool people are using .NET so I will too. Here is a custom list of my own resources I used to re-aquaint myself. I did this once before and noticed that it would cost the customer much more to do .NET and they advised me that VBA would be just fine. Alas … I get paid to do what I am told. I will be using c# (the only thing cooler would be node … but that is there too:-)) Continue reading →

Here are some links for ripping Word Docs apart and storing bits here and there in a sql database to be later retrieved and re-glued.

• c# – How to store formatted snippets of Microsoft Word documents in sql server – Stack Overflow
• How to Store, Read & Delete a Word Document in Database Using .NET code snippet and examples
• Frespire .net tools that might make this easier
• One thing I think that is key is inline metadata (data attached to an Heading 2 or Heading 3 etc.)
  • This helps mark up docs TO BE RIPPED APART. Once ripped apart, the data will be stored, later to be cobbled together
  • One way to get these inline meta-data keys injected is to use citekeys. Here is a practical how-to in word.

Some similar systems

• Phrase Express
• Pandoc – an open source project to convert one format to another (usually a quite normal->geek level)
• c# code for finding start and end placeholders in word

So, a friend has gotten the $150 CDN survey done on his house, but I wanted to take a crack at it on my own being an engineer. However, I have already booked a master electrician doing an analysis of how large or small a system I can put in and he will look at my Electrical Panel and do the fnal tie-in (see my city’s permit checklist). This will help me know how many solar panels I can get, even if I don’t buy them all but buy a few a year. Using the Solar Handbook from my previous article, I used those formula and tables to calculate a real live solar installation on MY HOUSE. Here a pdf with all the math and discussion – my own engineering analysis.I am publishing a draft of it as it is the discussion point and my notes to write on tomorrow with the electrician..

There was a calculation missing from the handbook, that is the efficiency Continue reading →

Lets put some context on this article as I live in Calgary, however, I live somewhere and so do you and it does matter. For example, I am doing a Grid Tie because that is what the power companies will allow me to do with permits etc. That totally affects the price. I will organize the links in the order that matters to get designing.

Books you should read

• Solar Electricity Handbook: 2016 Edition: A simple, practical guide to solar energy – designing and installing solar PV systems (here is a free sample of the 1st chapters)
• Top 30 Costly Mistakes Solar Newbies Make: Your Smart Guide to Solar Powered Home and Business

First Analysis Steps

• Get you energy bills and look at the chart or get the last 12 of them.
  • Do the online assessment for where you live. The system will ask for your email and  is not going to spam you- these are the tools that belong to the book you bought or sampled above
• pay a master electrician to tell you how big of a system you can build
• one company in calgary, you pay $150 (CDN) and they come out and do an assessment. The cost of that is 100% refundable IF YOU GO WITH THEM – but is $150 that expensive for education of the $5000-$15000 you will be paying?

Continue reading →

• manual settings (older)
• up to date exchange or office365
• server settings from Microsoft
• useful resource but a little outdated

Why Microsoft? Why? Just leave what is working … working.

If you switch apps, and you triple click the home button, this SUPER ANNOYING and loud voice tells you everything about the buttons and icons on your iPhone that are very obvious. Well – that is if you are not visually impaired which is what the feature is intended to assist with. Otherwise, it is annoying and mostly embarrassing when your phone starts talking loudly to you and everyone around you in your office or the dead quiet movie theatre (sorry – yes, I check texts when I am watching movies at the theatre cause it might be my kids phoning).

Here is an article that finally says – turn off every feature and most of all- there is a selection for what the triple click does – that is the key – uncheck all options. Settings > General > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut >…. turn all those checks off. Goodbye Voice Over On forever. I have been looking for this setting ever since I got my iPhone5s after my 4s and I went swimming together.

I am using nodejs as my language, but the examples I was given to hack and understand our project always loaded the Selenium Webdriver. What is this beast? Here is a great starter article to get going. Here is the real McCoy but harder to understand. If you want a click-and-record version like in Excel-VBA – Selenium IDE which is a plug in for Firefox and might be a great option. Continue reading →

Did you know that you don’t have to use online tools to do xpath on webpages? Chrome has this built in in the developer tools (F12) and Firefox has it in FirePath and Firebug. This is where I found this tip at stack overflow. I was looking for a match for a node name like this.

I started here – this gave most the tips . This command

sudo pear channel-discover pear.phpunit.de

fails though … so Tamra on another site mentioned to install that part another way. Then finish the above commands.

• wget https://phar.phpunit.de/phpunit.phar
• chmod +x phpunit.phar
• sudo mv phpunit.phar /usr/local/bin/phpunit
• phpunit –version

Continue reading →

Here is a tutorial I was using that gets to the point quick. I had a my friend (my contract) tell me the one-two. This then shored things up REALLY quickly. Then I proceeded here which taught me more.