JoelPadot.com

C# Code to Help Identify a Computer

2007 11 21 – 8:14 am
A few weeks ago, I was looking over the shoulder of one of security analysts at work getting the low down on some of the stuff he does to help protect the PC's on our network when he mentioned it would be nice to have an app that would identify a computer and their IP address for the helpdesk and the network. Immediately I thought, "give me a break. We don't already have access to something like that?" He went on to explain that a previous employee said something like that couldn't be created. So, I accepted the challenge and discovered that it wasn't much of a challenge at all. First, lets look at what we needed to accomplish. Presently, our helpdesk has to talk many users through the whole right-click on My Computer select properties, etc. thing. Having worked helpdesk before, I know that ...

Posted in Programming | No Comments »

Training and my Discovery

2007 09 19 – 9:05 pm
How about that title for ambiguity? Today I was in SQL Server Programming training. I was attending the class, referred to as "mentored learning" where you sit behind a computer and watch instructional videos while being babysat by a person who makes a living scouring the content of various training courses so as to complete certification tests in order to gain a reputable credential that will qualify him to instruct the course material in exchange for enough money to buy an A.S. degree, (love this sentence huh?), picking up some interesting information and filling the holes in my self-taught/on-the-job knowledge of SQL server programming when I had the urge to pause the monotoned recorded video and make a quick search for some good database ideas. I stumbled upon a library of free data models from databaseanswers.org.  Please keep in mind that when I say "library," I mean it.  There ...

Posted in SQL | No Comments »

C# Snippet that Always has a Place in Business

2007 09 07 – 7:33 am
With a title so profound you probably think that this is going to be an enormously complicated little slice of code. We'll see... In business one thing nearly every analyst type, accounting type and manager type needs to see quantitative data represented in table format. Often times, they even want to manipulate that data through their analysis of it. As a developer, you must report data to the user (those types mentioned above) and how better to do that than to give them the ability to save a file off in Excel format containing the record set they need? Enter my snippet... protected void ExcelExport() { Response.Clear(); Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment;filename=caberecsearch.xls"); Response.Charset = ""; Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.Public); Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.xls"; System.IO.StringWriter stringWrite = new System.IO.StringWriter(); System.Web.UI.HtmlTextWriter htmlWrite = new HtmlTextWriter(stringWrite); // Set formatting to something Excel friendly GridView1.RowStyle.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.WhiteSmoke; GridView1.RowStyle.HorizontalAlign = HorizontalAlign.NotSet; ...

Posted in Programming | No Comments »

Ah, the move…

2007 09 04 – 9:18 pm
Greetings and welcome to joelpadot.com 2.2. whatever...  After more than a year since the release of the wordpress 2.x version blog software, I've finally made the upgrade from 1.5.  While I was at it, I also moved it to a different server.  Regardless, this little beauty will likely undergo numerous changes until I've got it done up the way I want it.  Welcome and thanks for reading.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Search is Cool!

2007 08 29 – 9:51 am
Wow! Its been a long time... I apologize for the hidas, I've been swamped with graduating college, starting a new job and chasing an ever increasingly mobile baby. But, enough of that. Today I'd like to talk about Search. Over the last few months, I've found myself doing more and more database programming. One thing I was challenged with was the development of a search engine for a very large project I'm involved in at work. Having read on the subject before, I new immediately that I wanted to have an indexed search engine that used a porter stemming algorithm to stem words down to their natural form and then compare the stemmed version of each word in the query against a table that mapped words to their record ids (more information on the porter stemmer algorithm). Long story short, I managed to make a pretty effective ...

Posted in Programming, SQL | No Comments »

Dear Portable Apps: I love you.

2007 05 15 – 6:37 am
Recently I've been on a quest to not only secure my data while I transport it from point A to point B, but also ways to transport useful applications that aren't necessarily capable of being used over the web. A web browser, for example. I've found the solution I've been looking for. PortableApps is a package of portable applications that you can install to a USB flash drive, a compact flash card, or an portable mountable device. I'm currently running it on a pocket 6GB Seagate hard drive. It's a real blessing. The package comes with a mobile version of Firefox, Thunderbird, Open Office.org, your choice of messengers and others. What makes this product even better is the fact that you can add other applications developed for PortableApps like Putty. All-in-all, I consider this a great find and I've been using it ...

Posted in General Computers | No Comments »

TrueCrypt

2007 04 29 – 6:36 am
I lost my cell phone last week. Unfortunately, I had a 2GB mini-SD card loaded with somewhere between 400 and 600 photos of my infant daughter and other less important, but nevertheless private, experiences. In addition, I had a few notes that were for my eyes only. I was unable to recover my lost phone, and was forced to file an insurance claim to have it replaced. I bring this whole thing up because I also carry around portable storage devices that tend to also store sensitive information. I never worried about it because they were always on my person. The reality is that you will probably lose a portable storage device. And Murphy states that you will lose it at the worst possible time. With this truth in mind, I went searching for a method to protect my crap in the event I ...

Posted in General Computers | No Comments »