Polite note to couriers

Dear couriers,
I have come to accept that you are not the brainiest bunch on the planet (in fact when they were handing out intelligence I suspect that you weren't at the back of the queue but actually not in the queue at all as you couldn't find the queue and were riding around in your garish van looking for the queue (probably driving dangerously)) but please can you note the following:

1. I work in a school. Our school is not open on a Saturday. Therefore claiming that a package was successfully delivered on a Saturday is a lie. Do not argue this fact, accept that you have been caught out, sort the delivery out and we can both move on. Do not continue to argue until the package is delivered the following week. DO answer my complaint.
2. Sometimes we are open during holidays and I am onsite. If I order something to be delivered during a holiday then I will be there to collect it. Don't assume that we are closed and don't both to attempt delivery and claim the school was locked up. See above about being caught out.
3. If the school is closed and I ask for a delivery to be made at the start of term, do not attempt to deliver during the holiday and wonder why the school is shut.
4. If the school is closed and I ask for a delivery to be made the first day of term, I mean the coming term, I don't mean term after that, or next year or ten years time. I certainly don't mean a random date plucked out the air to suit you.

Thanks,

sparkeh

Google Sketchup 8 on CC4

So if you have tried to install Sketchup 8 on CC4 you might have come across the following problems:

1. Annoying auto update
2. Setting the default template for students
3. Annoying welcome screen
4. Probably the most important: it crashes if a non-admin user is the first to run it.

1 and 2 are easily solved with the following reg frag:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\SketchUp8\Preferences]
"DefaultTemplate"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Google\\Google SketchUp 8\\Resources\\en-US\\Templates\\Temp01b - Simple.skp"
"CheckForUpdates"=dword:00000000

and 3 is easily solved with this one:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
"ShowOnStartup"=dword:00000000
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\SketchUp8\WelcomeDialog]

The reason for the non-admin crash is that on the first run of Sketchup a folder is created at   c:\programdata\google\google sketchup8 which non-admins are not permitted to do. To solve this I just created a package that adds the right folder after the Sketchup install.

Smeared memory loss?

So I just bought a new Android tablet and naturally scoured the instructions before turning it on. However I am worried after reading this warning:

For the smeared memory loss that is caused by product damage, repair or other causes of product damage, repair, the company is not responsible for it, so please follow the user's guide and timely backup.

I don't want to risk smeared memory!

Amusing error messages #1

The first in this series comes from an RM CC4 computer build:

Ummmm......

SIMS treats you like a lady

If this message from the Local Authority is to be believed it seems the good people at Capita have even more influence than previously believed and are now handing out honours!

Following the recent SIMS.net upgrade the Staff Title displayed on the 'Todays Register Report' shows either 'Lady' or 'Dame' (Reports/Attendance(Lesson Monitor)/Whole Group Pupil Reports/Todays Register Report.  This will be corrected in the Summer 2011 Release

Auto reloading Chrome tabs

One of the things that I wished Chrome did as standard was the auto reloading of tabs. This is handy for a number of scenarios but I wish to keep myself logged into our Local Authority portal so I get the correct Internet filtering level all the time without having to keep logging in again when the timeout period expires.

There are extensions out there that will do this for you (eg Auto-Reload) but I was alarmed at how all these extensions have access to your website and navigation data. Then I stumbled on a handy hint on a forum that pointed me toward a much better solution. I didn't know this but you can include Javascript in the URL field of a favourite. Therefore you can do the following:

1) Create a new favourite with the URL below:

javascript: timeout=prompt("Set timeout [s]"); current=location.href; if(timeout>0)   setTimeout('reload()',1000*timeout); else   location.replace(current); function reload(){   setTimeout('reload()',1000*timeout);   fr4me='\n';   fr4me+='';   with(document){write(fr4me);void(close())}; }

2) Select the tab you wish to reload, then click on the favourite you just created
3) Enter the number of seconds you wish to refresh the page in.

Et Volia! Refreshed tabs in Chrome!

Stopping Installshield reboots

Just an update on my post "Making Installshield deployments silent"

After making a package using the above method I found that the machine was rebooting after installation even after attempting to suppress reboot.

Natually I thought that there must be something in setup.iss that was causing this and I was correct. If you need to stop a reboot in this situation, open up setup.iss, scroll to the bottom and change "BootOption=3" to "BootOption=0" and voila, no more reboot.