----------------------------------------------------------------------
TOURBUS Volume 10, Number 38 -- 02 Dec 2004
Tourbus Home - http://www.TOURBUS.com
Tourbus Forums - http://forums.TOURBUS.com
[ For best results view this with a monospace font like Courier. ]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Today's Tourbus Stops: Updates from the Left Coast
Howdy, y'all, and greetings once again from deep behind the orange
curtain in beautiful Irvine, California, the national theatre of
Bulgaria.
+-----------------------* * * ZipBackup * * *----------------------+
As a Tourbus reader, you know you need to be careful about viruses
and other nasties, but being careful is not enough! ZipBackup's
Wizard makes backing up to CDs or DVDs a snap for beginners and
ZipBackup is a powerful tool for experts. Download ZipBackup and
try it for free. You won't want to use a computer without it.
Get 25% off the ZipBackup regular price at
http://www.zipbackup.com/partners/tourbus
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
Before we begin, let me say a special thank you to everyone at the
Georgia Educational Technology Conference, the Virginia Educational
Technology Leadership Conference, and the North Carolina Educational
Technology Conference for inviting me to speak at their conferences
over the past few weeks. Not only did I rack up some serious frequent
flyer miles, I also had a *wonderful* time. If you were unable to
attend, SHAME ON YOU! You missed out. But, don't fret. You can find
all of my PowerPoint presentations on my website at
http://netsquirrel.com/classroom/
In addition to spending the past few weeks eating airline food [which,
like "Microsoft Works," is a contradiction in terms] I also changed
jobs. I am now the Faculty Training and Support Coordinator for the
California State University, Long Beach, home of the Dirtbags. [No,
really. How can you NOT like a university whose baseball team is
named the DIRTBAGS?!] Anyway, my new boss [who is not a dirtbag] is
a long-time reader of Tourbus, so y'all have to promise to be on
your best behavior from here on out. :P
------------------
Update: Java
Audience: Everyone
------------------
Martin asks:
In late Spring or Early Summer in Tourbus, you wrote about the
Java situation where Microsoft would be dropping Java support.
Has that happened?
Not exactly. Shortly after I wrote that post, Microsoft paid Sun
just shy of two billion US dollars [1.5 billion EUR or 53 moose and
12 geese Canadian] in return for Sun's settling antitrust lawsuits
against Microsoft. So Microsoft's Java Virtual Machine isn't going
away anytime soon [or at least not until December 31, 2007.]
But, I still stand by what I said back on January 6th: Sun's Java is
better [and safer] than Microsoft's. To find out why and to learn how
to get the official version of Java on your PC or Mac, check out
http://www.tourbus.com/A010604-Update_Your_Java.html
RELATED NEWS - http://www.tourbus.com/java-sun-news.html
Once you get the latest version of Sun's Java, how do you uninstall
Microsoft's buggy Java Virtual Machine? Well, the honest answer is
you can't, not without a whole bunch of unnecessary and potentially
dangerous steps. Fortunately, Sun's Java removes any pointers to
Microsoft's Java Virtual Machine, so you can safely abandon it in
place.
---------------------------------------------------
Firefox v. Mozilla v. Netscape v. Internet Explorer
Audience: Everyone
---------------------------------------------------
Angela writes:
I have a quick question about Netscape. You recommend ditching
Internet Explorer, but what about Netscape? Do you recommend
Firefox over Netscape as well and why? Should Microsoft Outlook
be avoided too for the same reasons?
The answer to all of your questions, Angela, is "yes." I hope this
helps. Actually, the following email from my dad, the Rev. Bob "Bob"
Crispen [not to be confused with Dr. Bob Rankin who isn't my father]
sums up the whole browser war quite nicely.
Firefox is just a web browser. Thunderbird is the corresponding
email program (and it's a dandy). At one time they called their
calendar Sunbird, but now it's just called Mozilla Calendar, and
it's a plugin for either Firefox or Thunderbird. [See
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/ ]
RELATED NEWS - http://www.tourbus.com/firefox-news.html
Mozilla is Firefox plus Thunderbird plus an IRC client and a web
page editor, all tied up in one pretty bundle.
If you want to replace The World's Most Dangerous Web Browser
(Microsoft Internet Explorer) just get Firefox. If you want to
replace The World's Most Dangerous Email Program (there's a tie
between Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Outlook Express), just
get Thunderbird. If you want to replace both of them at one fell
swoop, get Mozilla.
However... there's no law against getting Thunderbird and
Firebird instead of Mozilla. In fact, that's what I use at home.
I never use IRC, and I don't like their HTML editor. Small is
beautiful.
Netscape gives some money to mozilla.org, the lovely folks who
are responsible for Firefox and Thunderbird (and Camino for Mac
OS-X). So they take the results and integrate them into their
browser. Generally Netscape is a revision or two behind the
Mozilla products.
Rough edges:
(1) Mozilla's calendar can't read Outlook's calendar. That's
because the Mozilla calendar uses a standard calendar format and
Microsoft doesn't.
(2) Firefox and Thunderbird each have calendar plugins. It looks
like the same calendar, so why there's two of them is a mystery.
And what's a calendar doing on a web browser?
(3) Both Firefox and Thunderbird have plugins for reading RSS
feeds, neither of them very satisfactory. Firefox treats RSS
feeds as bookmark folders and Thunderbird treats them as message
threads. For now if you're heavily into RSS, you still need
a separate RSS feed reader like FeedDemon.
(4) Last I looked, Mozilla's HTML editor was pretty wretched.
It won't produce valid XHTML Strict, and it's only a little
better than Netscape 4's HTML editor. On the other hand, it's
free, and it beats the pants off FrontPage.
(5) There are people who love the way Netscape handled USENET
news. If you were one of them, you'll love the way Thunderbird
does it. If not, you probably already use Xnews, and Xnews is
still the most flexible, feature-packed free news reader out
there.
One thing Tourbus riders want to know: Are Firefox and
Thunderbird (or Mozilla) ready for prime time? Absolutely. Not
only that, they're miles ahead of Internet Explorer and the
Outlooks. The spam filter and message sorting on Thunderbird are
grown-up examples of their genres. The filtering on the Outlooks
is a toy. And Firefox even has that favorite feature of Opera
fans, tabbed browsing, plus a rendering engine that's fast and
bulletproof.
More importantly, while Internet Explorer and the Outlooks were
designed to be dangerous--and have a grim history to prove it--
Firefox and Thunderbird are designed to be safe. The most
effective thing the average computer user can do to improve the
security of her computer is to stop using Internet Explorer and
the Outlooks and start using Firefox/Thunderbird, Mozilla, or
Netscape's new suite.
I hope that clears things up a bit. If you have any questions or
comments, or if you just want to see a list of hyperlinks to the tools
my dad mentioned in his email, feel free to join us in the Tourbus
forums here:
Tourbus Forums - http://forums.tourbus.com
I'd love to hear YOUR comments on this whole Firefox v. Mozilla v.
Netscape v. Internet Explorer mess.
+------- SIX YEAR ANNIVERSARY JAMBOREE SPECIAL: InkJetsRus -------+
Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, hang on to
your hat! We are NOW offering you "3 for the price of 1" on all
NEW equivalent EPSON and CANON Inkjet Cartridges. Prices from
$6.75 for 3 black and $10.50 for 3 color.
---> http://www.InkJetsRus.net/tourbus <---
NEW FREE CANON PRINTER. Three Models to Choose. Phone toll free
for details 888-429-9373 (M-F 8:30 to 5:00)
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
That's it for today. Have a safe and happy week, and we'll talk again soon.
=====================[ Tourbus Rider Information ]===================
The Internet Tourbus - U.S. Library of Congress ISSN #1094-2238
Copyright 1995-2004, Rankin & Crispen - All rights reserved
Tourbus News Service - http://tourbus.com/news.html
The Best of Everything - http://tourbus.com/best.html
Subscribe, Signoff, Archives, Free Stuff and More at the
Tourbus Website - http://www.TOURBUS.com
====================================================================
.~~~. ))
(\__/) .' ) )) Patrick Douglas Crispen
/o o \/ .~
{o_, \ { [EMAIL PROTECTED]
/ , , ) \ http://www.netsquirrel.com/
`~ -' \ } )) AOL Instant Messenger: Squirrel2K
_( ( )_.'
---..{____} Warning: squirrels
Content-description: Mail message body
While reviewing some of my older e-mail I ran across this thread from the first
third of May 2006. Since the issue was not resolved at that time but I have
since learned how to accomplish the desired result, I decided to post my
findings.
Here is the original post from me on 05 May 2006:
I want to display the filename within a CALC document. I do not want to
include the path or the filename extension.
I have only been able to find one way to obtain the name of the CALC document
file using standard functions. That is 'cell("filename")' but that gives me
a whole lot of extra text that I don't need or want.
Is there a cleaner way? If not, then how can I parse the text generated by
this function to strip the path and everything starting with the filename
extension? I see no way to search a text string from right to left for a
sub-string. I find it hard to believe that this is an extremely rare
requirement.
I do not want to write a function in Basic to accomplish this task since I
would like this to be compatible with Excel.
I am using OOo version 2.0 (Build 2.0.0.1). I downloaded version 2.0.2
yesterday and will be upgrading to it extremely soon.
I have since upgraded to version 2.1.
For what it is worth, my Linux file is ~/Documents/Puzzles/Templates/SuDoku.ots
and I save initialized puzzles in Linux files such as
~/Documents/Puzzles/Initialized/puzzleid.ods.
Here are the six formulas that I have constructed in cells B1 through G1 to
resolve the issue.
B1:
=T(COUNT(B2:AK37)+COUNTA(AX7:BN15))&CELL("filename")
Explanation:
The T() function forces the CELL() function to be evaluated whenever data is
changed in the puzzle. If the puzzle has not yet been saved then the resultant
string in B1 is ''#$Sheet1. On the other hand once the puzzle has been saved
the resultant string in B1 is
'file:///home/jelly/Documents/Puzzles/Initialized/puzzleid.ods'#$Sheet1. The #
separates the path and file name from the sheet name and the sheet name begins
with the $.
C1:
=SUBSTITUTE(MID(B1;2;FIND("'#$";B1)-2);"%20";" ")
Explanation:
The FIND() function identifies where '#$ begins in cell B1. The MID() function
strips out the leading single quote and everything from the '#$ through the end
of the string in cell B1. Finally, the SUBSTITUTE() function changes each
occurrence of %20 into a space character. Thus, if the initialized puzzle has
not yet been saved this cell contains a null string. On the other hand once it
has been saved this cell contains a string such as
file:///home/jelly/Documents/Puzzles/Initialized/puzzleid.ods.
D1:
=IF(LEN(C1)=0;"";SUBSTITUTE(C1;"/";"!";LEN(C1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(C1;"/";""))))
Explanation:
The second SUBSTITUTE() function shortens the string that is found in cell C1
by the number of slashes in the path and the difference between the two LEN()
functions is that count of slashes. This is used by the first SUBSTITUTE()
function to change the last slash into an exclamation point which will be used
by the next formula.
E1:
=IF(LEN(D1)=0;"";RIGHT(D1;LEN(D1)-FIND("!";D1)))
Explanation:
This formula strips the path from the content of the string in cell D1. Thus
all that is left are the filename and the extension(s). According to my
original post, I also wanted to strip the final extension which is what the
next two formulas accomplish. The final extension is generally .ods or .ots.
F1:
=IF(LEN(E1)=0;"";SUBSTITUTE(E1;".";"!";LEN(E1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(E1;".";""))))
Explanation:
This formula locates the last dot just as the formula in D1 located the last
slash.
G1:
=IF(LEN(F1)=0;"";LEFT(F1;FIND("!";F1)-1))
Explanation:
This formula strips off the final extension in a manner analogous to that
employed in cell E1 to strip off the path.
