You are responsible for one or more Windows web servers and you have all these IIS log files that you want to make some sense out of. If you have some basic SQL skills Microsoft is making available a utility called LogParser which does a great job getting in there and allowing you to query the files directly using some … Read More
Outlook 2007 Preview Pane made useful…
I finally had upgraded to Outlook 2007 about a month ago and one of the features I found myself using a lot was the Preview feature for attachments. It was great for the PDF and the typical office documents, but there were no preview handlers for files such as WAV. I have a VOIP line that emails me the voice … Read More
Command Line FTP Client with PASV support
I ran into a problem scheduling the transfer of a file via FTP today. The server was behind a firewall that required me to use PASV FTP support. Unfortunately the command line version of FTP that comes with Windows 2003 was not able to support this configuration (at least I could not figure out how to make it support it). … Read More
Easy method to download a portion of a web site
I have this client that posted several hundred files on their internal web site that I needed to download to my laptop for testing purposes. I started downloading them one by one and thought that there must be a better way without installing some big application to do this. With a little Google searching I found a great open source … Read More
Helping block spam with T-SQL
Found a great article on blocking spam using T-SQL code. It is especially useful for blog posts and other community related sites that accept user input. Could even be used on form comments to help block all those guys that submit endless forms on your sites.
Oops… Forgot to add the attachment to your email?
You know you have done it before. The second you hit send you realized you forgot to attach the all important photo, spreadsheet or document. Here is a way to delay the sending of the email so you can grab it before it goes out to everyone you sent it to. We are going to assume you are using Outlook, … Read More
Pivots with Dynamic Columns in SQL Server 2005
Found a great article at www.simple-talk.com which described how to create pivot queries with dynamic column names. It seems simple at first until you try to adjust your columns manually and then discover that you really need to implement some special code to accomplish the task. The article Pivots with Dynamic Columns in SQL Server 2005 provides just the right information to … Read More
Some more command line fun – sending email
After all the work I did with the dates in the environment variable I had a need to email the files I was working with. Found a really GREAT command line utility that allows for sending email from a batch file. It has nearly endless options and took about 2 minutes to setup and get working in our environment. It’s … Read More
Need to make screen captures for documentation?
I have been tired of trying to copy and paste sections of the screen for all the documentation that needs to be written for our software solutions. The solution we have come up with is to use a great product from TechSmith called SnagIt. It provides a simple way to easily capture portions of the screen or windows and then … Read More