CHRISdotTODD

Occasionally I have the need to display umlauts or other non-standard Latin and Kanji characters in my HTML, JavaScript, and as a URL parameter. Each form have their own rules for encoding the characters to display correctly. HTML: Use the HTML name or HTML number. For example & and " for ampersand and quote, respectively. JavaScript: Use the Unicode equivalent. For example \u00E4 and \u00FC to add an umlaut over an 'a' or 'u', respectively. URL Parameter: Use HEX codes. For example, %20 and %2F for a space and forward slash, respectively. Here's a great reference from ascii.cl for the necessary codes.

Excel can be rather confusing. If you try a Print Preview , and then Page Setup , you are unable to set either "Rows to repeat at top" or "Columns to repeat at left". Yet you can set other Page Setup items from this dialog box. To set your row(s) and/or column(s), you need to select Print Titles from the Page Layout ribbon. This will bring up the same dialog box, but now you can choose the row(s) and/or column(s).

Dec 17, 2010: I finally received the email to claim my gift card -- it took 7 emails to Wavee in all before this occurred. On the 7th email, a representative who had not previously responded provided all the necessary information. This was the service I expected with my first email. As far as the gift card itself, many are electronic only. I did order one that had to be mailed -- I'm still waiting for it to arrive. Some of you may be familiar with a new service, Wavee . You bid on items of interest, $0.01 at a time. The highest bidder wins, and gets to purchase the product for the bid price. Sounds good? Well, each bid you make costs $0.75. But consider, an item that sells for $300 took in $22,500 (30000 * $0.75) -- there's 30,000 bids at $0.75 each on an item that sells for $300. So while you spend your money to be the single winner, Wavee's raking in the dough. You can also buy items that are up for auction. In some cases, they offer a discount based on the money already

My Thunderbird email client quit opening up links when I clicked them, regardless if they were in an email or from an RSS feed. Turns out the issue was with my web browser. I switched from Firefox as my default to Internet Explorer and it worked again. I then reset my default to Firefox, restarted Firefox, and it responded again, too.

I recently had to make a minor edit to an old PDF that I no longer had the source for. For large edits, there are PDF to DOC converters, but for minor edits I just use Acrobat. With this particular file I got an unexpected error message. All or part of the selection has no available system font. You cannot add or delete text using the currently selected font. Through a little searching I discovered that by selecting and then right-clicking the text, and entering the Properties dialog, I could change the font being used. In this particular case though, there were no system fonts embedded in the document and the only choices were from the original computer that created it -- a Mac. Since I was using Windows, this failed too. Fortunately for me I have Adobe Illustrator. With Adobe Illustrator you can open individual pages of a PDF and using the text tool you can make changes. If you don't have Acrobat or Illustrator and need to edit a PDF, PDFEscape -- a browser-based applet -- will

Updated Feb 18, 2011: I've received a few comments from people about the cost to upgrade from RoboForm version 6 to version 7. The issue is that apparently their original purchase was for a lifetime of upgrades. The RoboForm website indicated that any version 6 purchases made after Sep 1, 2010 are eligible for free upgrades to version 7. I don't have my original purchase receipt, so I can't verify the legitimacy of the claim myself. That being said, I cannot imagine a company surviving by charging a 1-time fee of $30. Regardless, the RoboForm product is one of the few products I would pay for again over using any of the current open source solutions available. (BTW: I'm still using version 6, as I have not ran into a situation that requires me to move to version 7.) I've been a user of RoboForm for nearly 4 years, and its allowed me to have secure and unique passwords for all my websites, while only requiring me to remember one. In January 2007, I wrote a post on

In my last post, " Our search sucks! Why can't it work just like Google? ", I told you to also consider your content when improving your search. Poor titles and multiple articles on a single subject will impact success. I want to expand on content a bit more. First, consider the search results again. If your search engine displays the first part of the content underneath the title, is the information helpful? Next, when the user does click-through on a search result, can they quickly reassure themselves that the content presented is what they're looking for? I believe if you follow the advice of Tim Ash in his article " Fix Your Writing or Suffer Lower Conversion Rates ," you will be able to satisfy these two issues in regards to your content. Whether you're trying to convert a user to buy your product or you're trying to help a customer fix his problem with your product, the principles still apply. Tim begins, "The vast majority of Internet use

"Why can't I find what I'm looking for on my own companies website? I know the document/content is there -- I wrote it. When I use Google I don't have troubles finding what I'm searching for. Why can't we have Google for our website?" (This is a topic I would not typically post on this blog, but it's an often misunderstood issue that is raised frequently within companies -- an issue I've had to address many times.) The short answer, whether searching your companies (public) website or intranet (website), is that your company websites are not like the Internet and therefore the same technology that Google has developed for you to search the Internet will not work for your company. "But Google sells a search appliance for the Enterprise -- why can't I just use that?" Well, you can use Google's Search Appliance, and it may even be better than your current solution, but it wont live up to using Google to search the Internet. I have

I've been using Belarc Advisor , a free personal tool for analyzing your Windows computer, for some time now. It will provide a detailed analysis of several items: Installed hardware Installed software and version number Windows Updates, and indicate if any are missing Checks for virus protection and last scan Software keys Software usage (frequency) User accounts and last login What I like best is that it reports the software keys of my installed software. While it doesn't appear to grab all software keys on my personal computer, it lists all of them from my work computer including Microsoft, Adobe, Corel and TechSmith. I recently used it before rebuilding my Dad's computer. In addition to being certain to have his software license keys, I was able to also view what programs he hadn't used in sometime -- therefore I didn't reinstall them. Considering adding more RAM to your PC? Instead of taking the cover off to do a visual inspection, use Belarc Advisor to identi

I noticed this morning that my McAfee On Access-Scan was disabled. (The shield in the system tray had a red-crossed circle.) When I opened McAfee, it was performing a scan, so it wasn't clear what was occurring. After some research, I found that the settings may have become corrupt. Here's the steps to correct: Go to VirusScan Console >> Help >> Repair Installation. Check the fist check-box to reset to the default settings. Click OK. This should do the trick.