Daily Cup of Tech

I’ve been receiving a lot of e-mail lately from people who have continued to follow Daily Cup of Tech, even though there have been very little in the way of updates. I’ve noticed through the feeds and the logs that a lot of you continued to subscribe and check in regularly.

I’d just like to put out a big THANKS to everyone for your loyalty. I’ve gotten settled into my new city, my new house, and my new job. There are still a number of challenges ahead of me and the changes are far from over but I’m going try and put some more effort toward the blog.

I’m also working on a number of new personal projects that I will be talking about in the near future but I’m not ready to release any information about them just yet.

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2008/05/15/yes-im-back/trackback/

If you purchased any Microsoft operating system over the past number of years, you were probably inundated with offers to purchase Microsoft Plus! This product promised to give you even more than was originally provided in your OS.

Personally, I thought it was Microsoft’s attempt to make you part with even more of your hard earned cash than you had already. What Plus! provided was essentially eye candy and it added very little in the way of extra functionality.

But, it looks like Microsoft will no longer me making this product available to the public. According to their website, they believe that they have now built all of the Plus! functionality into their products. My theory is that the public realized that the product wasn’t worth the money and voted with their feet.

Have you had any experience with the Microsoft Plus! products? Did you like them or not? Are you going to miss them? Were they worth the money?

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2008/05/15/plus-subtracted/trackback/

It has been long time since I have watched television like “normal” people. Ever since I found bittorrent, there was no turning back!

The problem that I have is that I am a pack rat! Once I download a TV episode, I don’t want to get rid of it. After all, I used up all that bandwidth!

So, I’ve started organizing my television shows into three categories:

1. Downloaded - these are shows that have just completed downloading and are in their original form from the Internet
2. Unsorted - these shows are in in one central location and should be in playable format. These are all my new shows that I probably have not watched yet
3. Sorted - once I have watched a show, the shows get moved into appropriate folders based on series and season name

The issue that I have run into in the past is that once an episode is downloaded, it may not be in playable format since many shows are archived, typically into RAR files. This means that I needed to manually extract these files or move the playable files to the Unsorted folder so that I could watch them.

I finally got fed up with this and I thought that there had to be a better way. It took me a couple of evenings work but I finally came up with a batch files that does the work for me! I simply have Windows programmed to run the batch file on a regular basis and it extracts all of the RAR files to my preferred location and moves all of the AVI files there as well (without copying the samples).

Here is the contents of that batch file:

@echo off
setlocal
cls

rem Set program variables below:
rem sourcedir - where files are saved once they have been downloaded
set sourcedir=C:\Downloaded

rem destinationdir - where you want all of the playable files to be placed
set destinationdir=C:\Unsorted

rem winrarpath - location of the unrar program
set winrarpath=C:\Program Files\WinRAR\

rem filelist - the name of the file which will store all of the RAR and AVI file names that have been processed
set filelist=FoundFiles.txt

rem tempfile - name of the temporary file that will be created and then deleted during the cleanup process
set tempfile=TempFile.txt

set path="%winrarpath%";%path%

echo Extracting new RAR files...
for /R "%sourcedir%" %%R IN (*.rar) DO find /C "%%R" %filelist% > NUL & if errorlevel 1 call unrar e -o- -y "%%R" *.* %destinationdir%\ & echo %%R>>%filelist%

echo Adding sample AVI files to no copy list...
for /R "%sourcedir%" %%R IN (*sample*.avi) DO find /C "%%R" %filelist% > NUL & if errorlevel 1 echo %%R>>%filelist%

echo Moving new AVI files...
for /R "%sourcedir%" %%R IN (*.avi) DO find /C "%%R" %filelist% > NUL & if errorlevel 1 echo Copying %%R... & copy "%%R" %destinationdir%\ & echo %%R>>%filelist%

echo Cleaning up %filelist%...
for /F %%R IN (%filelist%) DO if exist "%%R" echo %%R>>%tempfile%
del %filelist%
rename %tempfile% %filelist%

All you need to do is copy this file and save it as TorMove.cmd.  Then edit the three variables:

• sourcedir
• destinationdir
• winrarpath
• filelist
• tempfile

Only the first three are critical.  You just need to make sure that the last two do not clash with other files.

Also, you do not need to use WinRAR.  If you do not have this program, UnRAR for Windows will work just fine.

Once you have modified your file, save it and then schedule Windows to run it as often as you want!

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2008/05/14/automatic-torrent-extractormover-script/trackback/

Building forms for your website is a real pain in the backside. There are so many different aspects of the form that you need to know in order to get everything just right.

When a friend from work asked me if I knew of some easier way to create forms, I realized that I didn’t have a quick and easy answer for him. So, a bit of time on Google and some typing later and I have created a nice list of useful form building resources.

• pForm - a really good online form building tool that lets you create a customized form and then download the form for use in your website. Really easy to use and set up.
• JotForm - offers a free and a premium account option. If you are looking at using the forms on your own website, there is very little reason to purchase the premium option. Provides a number of very professional tools that provides you with a maximum of flexibility. It even includes a really nice form building wizard.
• PageBreeze - while this is not an online tool, it is an HTML editor that will allow you to create forms using a simple drag and drop method. You just need to do some basic HTML changes to connect it into your website.
• FormMaker - much like our first two entries, FormMaker is also web based. One of the advantages that it has over the other forms is that it allows you to capture data and store it on their servers for later access. There is no charge for the form maker but it does require an account.
• <STRONG><CONTACT> - An application designed specifically for creating contact forms. It will generate both the PHP and the CSS code required for the contact form to create the look and feel you want.

I know that all of the major IDEs out there have some sort of a form builder in them but if you are looking for a fast and dirty form, this may be a quick alternative.

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2008/05/13/form-building-resources/trackback/

There are a lot of people out there who are sending our e-mail after e-mail and offending everyone on their way, completely oblivious to what they are doing. We all experience them regularly. these are the people who WRITE IN ALL CAPS, > > > > > forward e-mails that have been forwarded several times previously, use REPLY ALL to respond to distribution lists, and attach 50 MB files that clock up our Internet connections.

Here is a great cheat sheet that you can print out and leave on their desk to that they can get the e-mail act together.

Update:  I originally had the pdf embedded in the post but too many people were having problems with it (see comments below).  It is now just a simple link.  That will teach me to try and get fancy.  Sorry about the trouble.  -Tim

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2008/05/12/help-for-the-e-mail-etiquette-challenged/trackback/