Color Palette and the 56 Excel ColorIndex Colors

Color Palette and the 56 Excel ColorIndex Colors:

almost everything you ever ever ever wanted to know about colours in MS Excel.

Force cells in Excel to use Text format rather than Number format - delphi

Force cells in Excel to use Text format rather than Number format - delphi

Obvious solution is obvious. Except for me.

I'm reading in test case values from MS Excel for an automation framework, so many values are coming across as floats, irrespective if I try and reformat them in my code. A simple prefix of a ' and everything is working. So simple yet this has eluded me for weeks.

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Well I have had a fun day. I've made it outside only once to pick up a parcel; a Concept 2 Model E rowing machine, which I put together whilst going through a brain-acher posed by a friend.

The problem is from OS X Address Book no longer playing nicely with GMail contacts.

I'm probably on a red herring, but the log file shows...

2011-08-17 13:23:22:941|AddressBookSync|772|111430|ISyncSession|Error| Unresolved reference encountered during push for client com.apple.AddressBook

2011-08-17 13:23:22:941|AddressBookSync|772|111430|ISyncSession|Error| Relationships causing error:

2011-08-17 13:23:22:942|AddressBookSync|772|111430|ISyncSession|Error|

Record 'A51D87CA-7388-4F9B-BE56-14364B80ED75'(com.apple.contacts.Group) refers to record '1CF84336-07C5-4AA8-8AF0-AD8CD76A3BCD' in relationship 'distribution email addresses'


Apart from stating the obvious that relationships cause error, I'm wondering how to analyse the Address Book DB. The previous post was how to get to the Address Book now that Lion had set the Library folder to hidden by default. 


Once you have access you need to be able to see it. Fortunately we have a number of ways it seems. Address Book uses SQLite for storage. Open Office can view this natively just by opening the database and selecting to connect to an existing database as type 'Mac OS X Address Book'.


Otherwise we need to set up a ODBC connection. Fortunately we have some options.


Within /usr/lib/ there looks to be some suitable files (libsqlite3.0.dylib and libsqlite3.dylib) but I probably didn't set things up correctly. I did find Actual's ODBC drivers, but they wanted $$$ for something that I was sure someone had worked out how to do before. Fortunately www.ch-werner.de/sqliteodbc/ has exactly what you need. Install sqlite0odbc-0.83 and you 're nearly there.


The final step is to ensure the database is associated with the driver to be viewable as a data source.

1. Open up ODBC Administrator as the link above suggests, specifying the location of the driver.
2. Open the  /Users//Library/ODBC/odbc.ini file 
3. Add the location of the database you're trying to access. Database =
4. Open OpenOffice, Select Database -> Connect to an existing database -> browse
5. You can select the data source you have just created.

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Updated to Lion? Must be missing user Library, here is how to get it back. « TechnoCraz!

This has been doing my head in all day. Apple have decided to hide the user's library folder from us. I can understand most people don't want to see it, but if you do, there is a simple fix:

1. open a term window.

2. $> chflags nohidden /Users//Library

3. .....

4. PROFIT!!!

Updated to Lion? Must be missing user Library, here is how to get it back. « TechnoCraz!

Maturity Models Have It Backwards « Developsense Blog

Maturity Models Have It Backwards « Developsense Blog

Happened to stumble on this whilst searching for TPI® NEXT information. I think the key point is most organisations stop once they get to the low to middle stages of models (the 'defined' or 'repeatable' level and miss the point of getting to the higher levels ('optimising') which is where the most benefit is achieved. At that point, the clever analogy that Michael uses starts to come true.

Continuing on the same theme, it's as if the organisation has gone to school, learnt their times tables, but haven't grown up. It's probably a fault of most models and most organisations using them (I know I've been guilty of this) that once the teenage level of maturity (strict process adherence) are reached, then 'mission accomplished'.

There really needs to be greater emphasis on models and consultants to push to get to the truly high levels of maturity; where the organisation 'thinks' on how to approach different projects and processes are adaptable and chosen according to the conditions and goals. Scott Duncan's comment alsostruck a chord.

RDoc cheatsheet

Lovely handy RDoc cheatsheet. Should make sure I actually bother writing handover documentation for the keyword driven framework I'm building.

Test Driving Your Code with OCUnit

I'm liking development in XCode. Tools are so intuitive. OCUnit is built into XCode, with near identical syntax to other XUnit frameworks. HW simulation available which while obvious, isn't always done well for many devices. I'm not sure the arguments of a 'closed platform' hold completely against Apple; they have made it very simple to develop apps, and if you want your app available for your enterprise only, you can do that (it seems). Sure, it's filtered.

I'm keen to look at Android. It's obviously easier to get tools out there, so I'm eager to see the maturity of the dev and unit test tools themselves.

Test Driving Your Code with OCUnit

Zennaware » Home of Cornerstone Subversion Client for Mac OS X

Finally got sorted installing dev tools on my mac. Looked at Git but for the meantime I'm happy with SVN. Set up an account with Assembla, and have crawled around the interwebs dowloading potentially useful tools. It's not too strange coming back to development on a Nix box but all this pretty GUI stuff is rather nice.

Zennaware » Home of Cornerstone Subversion Client for Mac OS X

Great comparison on hosted SCM services here

http://www.svnhostingcomparison.com/