Posts

At work I use an Agilent 34401A Multimeter. It’s a great device, with a serial RS232 output, which can be connected to a PC. The problem is the software for this is a nightmare (I’m sure it works better on newer Keysight branded models with USB). The official download is Keysight BenchVue, which requires a separate licence, and also doesn’t seem to work. There is some talk of version 3.7 being a version that works and has a free multimeter mode, however I couldn’t get that to work with the serial meter at all. ...

Replacement patterns To use a numbered capture group, surround the group with parentheses in the regular expression pattern. Use $number, where number is an integer starting at 1, to specify a specific, numbered group in a replacement pattern. For example, the grouped regular expression (\d)([a-z]) defines two groups: the first group contains a single decimal digit, and the second group contains a single character between a and z. The expression finds four matches in the following string: 1a 2b 3c 4d. The replacement string z$1 references the first group only, and converts the string to z1 z2 z3 z4. ...

Create your own visited countries map or check out the JavaScript Charts.

BIOS Battery Replacement I’ve been having some problems recently where the laptop would power on (the power LED is lit), but nothing appeared on the screen, and no boot sound was played. After accidentally leaving it in this state I noticed that it had managed to limp into the BIOS with a funny rainbow coloured logo in place of the usual white one. At this point I rebooted it and it came up with the usual BIOS logo and a message stating that the CMOS battery was running low. Excellent I thought, I’ll just go and change that and the problem will be solved. ...

I’ve recently set up a small Windows Server 2008 R2 domain for a non-profit. I made some notes as there’s nothing really basic on the internet that skips the 90% of information you don’t need, and concentrates on the 10% you do need. Hopefully this will be helpful to someone trying to do something similar. It will start out pretty basic, but I will flesh it out with plenty of details when I have a few minutes. ...

Do you own an HP Proliant ML115? Looking for a bit more power than the official specifications say you can have? Want to play games on it? If so this is the post for you. WARNING: You could do irreversible damage by following any of the information on this page. You are obviously on your own if you try anything here. I offer no guarantees, however I have personally tried everything here and it all worked for me. CPU Upgrade The CPU originally supplied with my Proliant was an AMD Opteron 1214 2.2Ghz Dual Core model. As I now use the machine for gaming I wanted something a bit faster. After some research I found a site (in Japanese) which seemed to be listing compatible CPUs. It’s not obvious what any of it means though (I think O means working, and X means not, with - meaning not sure), so I knew I may have to just take a bit of a chance. ...

This site is now running on Pico CMS, which is hopefully a nice easy to update CMS, which I can customise to fit what I want to do here.

Have you ever wanted to do the opposite of everyone else and have a Microsoft Word document open directly inside Internet Explorer (in the Word ActiveX control), without the Open, Save, Cancel dialog box? If you have then this might be the trick for you. Make a registry file by copying the below into a text file and saving it with the .reg extension: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\AttachmentExecute{0002DF01-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}] “Word.Document.12”=hex(0): “Word.Document.8”=hex(0): Now run that reg file to add the changes to the registry, and hey-presto, no more annoying popup prompts. This works on IE8 on Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. Your mileage may vary on other operating systems.

Return to live TV: Press Sky when in any of the Sky Guide menus to return to live TV. Return to a viewed recording: After watching a recording in the Planner and switching back to live TV, you can return to the point you left the recording by pressing the play button three times. View and restore deleted recordings: If you’ve deleted a programme from your Planner by mistake, there’s no need to worry. Enter your Planner, then press the left arrow button to navigate to the Deleted tab. Press the down arrow button to select a recording, then press the green button to restore the recording to your Planner. ...