Oh no! More boring computer problems! Oh no!

'versions of the files'? what do you mean? the image files? (they are only stored as database entries, the actual files are elsewhere.) the raw db files?

the problem isn't really the binary nature of the data. the binary stuff makes it more difficult but the main problem is just getting db info into and out of svn the same way you would with code. it strikes me as an obvious thing to want to do but i can't find much in the way of solutions (googling 'svn database' gets you the wrong stuff). we've written our own scripts 3 or 4 times now over the years and are fed up of wheel reinvention.

Oh, I misread, what you were saying! (not even 8am here) I thought you meant that the DB dumps were some mysterious binary format.

re: paragraph 2. It doesn't seem like THAT huge of a task.

rather than getting them to e-mail you attachments and work out how to divvy them out to folders, i'd set up an anon FTP "drop box" (i.e. one you can't see in but can upload to) for ppl to upload stuff to, and use agreed prefixes in the file name to redistribute. that would be a doddle to write - poll folder, move files into place (poss renaming). tho that does depend on ppl being able to use simple FTP. or with a little more work use an "upload" web form

Andy,

I've never heard anyone ask for this before but you could try using DBUnit, which is really an application for extracting data (as XML) and reloading it into a database to clear it back to a known state prior to running unit tests; however, it would probably work for what you need it to do.

http://dbunit.sourceforge.net/

It's quite clever in that it looks at RI constraints and extracts in the right order so that you can reload without dropping relationships.

new question: I frequently have problems DLing streaming media on winXP with media player 10. It works better on certain sites than other, but is generally flaky and never works 100% of the time.

I've messed around with my internet security settings as well as the MP "network" settings for streaming media, and while sometimes i get something to work, it's never consistent. also, I do have windows firewall working.

I'll click the DL button on a given webpage, MP will open up, but then i'll get an "unable to open file" popup. what gives? what could this problem be, and how do i go about fixing it?

I want to be able to consistently DL ABBA's video of the day, dammit!

ah, mr W. apparently that was what he was looking into this morning when the discussion came up and he says it looks quite handy (and being java / ant based it slips right into what we are doing). cheers.

(why, when i cut and paste from firefox into outlook does it paste my buffer as an attachment rather than just pasting the text straight into the email? think it might be a character set thing but it's most annoying.)

um, i have a file: link on a page but firefox is refusing to show me the target when i click on it.

it works ok as a file: link from a html document stored locally (even though the file: link goes to a box elsewhere on the network), it doesn't work when same link in the same html document is served up over http from a third box (our wiki). why? seems to be a firefox specific feature because it's fine in IE.

security.

What a great security feature!

I wonder if Firefox's security could be improved by not letting you browse the web. Or Microsoft could 'beef up' their security by not letting you boot into Windows...

I might try an experiment soon. Given that I've suffered from two, insignificant viruses in the last 26 years, during which I've been running a virus killer/firewall etc. for say 18 months, I might just turn all the security features off and see if anything bad happens. I suspect it won't.

a colleague came in on tuesday and said that his sister had accidently plugged her laptop into the internet with no firewall and only SP1. said it was overrun by the end of the day.

those file: links always used to work - there are older links in the wiki that i'd been using fine (for firefox there needed to be 5 /s after the http: for some reason). they have stopped, i guess since the upgrade to FF1.5

I think you're the only person I know that's had bad stuff done to by a virus, when you sent me an email on Friday 13th, 1997 or so to ask why a computer at work had broken!

my lsptop seems to have DIED! oh noes! ok so the screen has been cracked for ages but the actual computer worked fine. recently the screen's been going a bit woozy brighter-darker-brighter-darker but i thought it was to do with the power lead because it also sometimes thinks it's on battery power when the power lead is actually plugged in (this is v recent development, like a couple of weeks). last time i used it (thurs night) it was woozy but working. last night i switched it on EXCEPT I DIDN'T! help! it made a noise like click-click-click like it was TRYING to switch on but it couldn't. nothing appeared on the screen, but the three little green lights (one next to a battery sign, one a power sign, the other i can't remember) lit up.

what can i try plz? even working for teh corporate devil i STILL has no £££.

can you plug it into an external monitor? my first thought is that the screen has finally popped its clogs.

i thought that too - my housemate has my old monitor but i dunno where! the strange noise is a bit of a worry too though..

The click could be the sound of the hard drive struggling to turn on...

In other words, I think emsk's problem is more likely to be a bad power supply. Is this a Dell laptop by any chance?

I'm half expecting this to sink to the bottom of the page without trace, but its worth a try:

My printer no longer spools the paper into it properly, it doesn't get far enough into the printer for the printing to actually take place. It keeps telling me there's a paper jam when I pull the paper out, but it doesn't register that until after its already tried to print (i.e. I'm pretty sure there isn't a scrap of paper stuck in it) ---anyway, the point is, this has all happened since I tried to print some camera pics for the first time (didn't work, crappy Lexmark shite) and I haven't been able to print anything since. I'm wondering if there is any residue or chemical on some photo paper (probably the cheap sort) that might get onto the spool and stop it working... It does only appear to have stopped working on one side - might be a coincidence.

yeah, so... maybe you can help me, maybe you can't..

is there any way to recover emptied trash in OSX? unlike the PC world, there seem to be a dearth of "undelete" type programs for macs.

Norton Utilities has Unerase in it.

YSI?

totally unrelated, but saves starting a whole new thread - what's the website that helps fill in passwords if i want to read teh paper?

bugmenot.com

thx!

but 403 :(

hmm, it seems to be working for me.

finally works in opera, but not in safari - thanks again Forest Pines!

ok so poor henry is still not working. i took him to a repair shop where we established that the problem is definitely not the power supply (or not the actual lead, anyway, what's inside might be a different matter) but to find out anything beyond that would have cost me £55, and that might just be for them to say "sorry, you are FUCKED. ha ha ha!" someone had told me the flashing lights on the front (that usually indicate if you're running off mains or battery power and if your battery's about to die) were a service code or error code and all i had to do was figure out what it meant, then it would be sortable without taking it to a repair shop where they would charge me £100 for 20 minutes' work. so i looked around the interweb and on the dell site (it is dell yes, an inspiron 1150) and did find some stuff about error codes, but nothing that seemed to match up to what my laptop's doing. there's a troubleshooting thing on the dell site and i went through all the steps there (try this, unplug that, take out the battery, take out the hard drive, wait 7 minutes, hop around the computer widdershins singing the national anthem) and none of it worked. there was some stuff about error codes but they were referring to the leds for the caps lock, number lock etc which are at the top right of the keyboard (which are totally inactive on mine), not the ones that are on the front.

if anyone can help me solve this i will do you a big favour in return! i don't know what but if it's in my power i will do it. paint a room in your house. proofread your 1000 page stream-of-consciousness novel. carry something heavy up a hill. feed your cat.

if not has anyone ever used these guys? - www.millteccomputers.co.uk - they have something called a bronze service (which seems to differ from silver and gold in that it takes a week rather than 72 or 24 hours) which costs £65, which i can pay if it means i get a working laptop back at the end.

...teach you to fix punctures on your bike? fix your punctures for you?

clear up after your party?

No no, I get it. I wouldn't be a lot of use even if I did have the internet is the thing, and I won't have it for ages anyway. I mean, I can follow directions on help sites, but it sounds like you've tried a fair bit of that.

That sounds nasty, It might be the power distribution board which only a proper service engineer can replace. It's likely to cost over an above the £65 though. I can help with data rescue, but the laptop sounds fucked.

:_(

how much? ish? *steels self*

You could end up paying a couple of hundred I reckon.

I can rescue you enough bits from the dump pile at work to make you a desktop. What apps do you need to run?

I HAVE A QUESTION!

what are people using to tag and organise their digiphotos? Picasa seems to be surprisingly crappy. i know it's free and all, but really...

adobe bridge is great for professional use, i think.

I installed Adobe Photoshop Album (which seems perfect and easy to use).

Now i just need to decide what sort of tags are sensible to use. People in the shot, place taken and year for starters...

Okay ILX, help me from tossing my laptop out the computer. Anyone know Excel?

I have a file with three sets of scores that are from 3-15. I would like to highlight any score that is more than 4 points from the other scores to get a list of ones that deviate highly.

I have gotten as far as knowing that I need to do Conditional Formatting and select Formula, but I cannot for the life of me get a formula that works. The ranges of the scores are C3:C300, D3:D300, and E3:E300.

Can anyone help puhleaze???

Why is Excel designed to only be used by people with engineering degrees? Eff you Bill Gates. I'm glad you're stepping down!!

Hint: people with engineering degrees don't use excel

Dammit I thought you were going to tell me how to set this up. Yeah, but if I did have an engineering degree I could figure out how to create a super simple formula.

aaron w, have you tried conditional formatting? i use it on a "scorecard" that measures different performance measures at our facilities.

aaron w, obviously i have a reading comprehension problem.

ok, you're looking to highlight any score that is more than 4 points from the other scores. what other scores? what are the baseline scores? i'm not sure what you're comparing.

Thanks in advance for the help.

So, there are three sets of scores, and I'd like to highlight any that are +/- 4 points away from the other scores... Kind of a real basic standard deviation analysis.

Here's as far as I have got, but I have a feeling I'm a long way off. For the C2:C300 range, I am using...

=NOT(D2:D300+3)OR(D2:D300-3)OR(E2:E300+3)OR(E2:E300-3)

Of course this doesn't work.

I went with 3 instead of 4 away, but hopefully you get the drift.

yeah i'm trying and can get it work in a single cell but it logic takes a step out the fucking window when i try to apply it to a range of cells. more as it develops.

Thanks for your help. I'm still playing around with it as well. Of course, with all the time I've spent on this I could've just manually gone through all the scores. Blurgh!!

this isn't even my stuff but i know i've done this before but it was so long ago i forget. i don't think i used a formula, i think i used cell value is equal to/does not equal but whatever. this is pissing me off and i have to figure it out.

Well at least I've ruined two people's days.

i can get it to work on a single cell but it won't let me do a range. when i use the format painter to copy the formatting it applys the formatting of the original range. so wile for cell C3 i have for condition one cell value is not between =$D$3-3 and +D$3+3 (then i have it set to format it with a bright green cell fill) then condition 2 cell value is not between =$E$3-3 and =$e$3+3 it will work in c3. but when i use the format painter to apply the formatting to cells c3:c9 it still uses D3 and E3 in the formatting.

fuck this i need a goddamn drink. 52 minutes til quitting time, i can be in a bar in 90 minutes.

Oh don't waste any more time with it! Thanks for your help, and please do go have a drink!!