Friday 19 August 2011

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.

Wednesday 17 August 2011

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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!