EXCEL 2007 TIP #1: Conditional formatting using due dates based on a start date, a submission date and an end date.

December 22, 2011 Leave a Comment

In order to follow along Download the Conditional formatting excel doc on the right, to get the password just leave me a comment.

If you are forced to use outdated sofware to create rosters and databases like I am at work.  You have one option Excel, I would love to use sharepoint  Sometimes I find my self in a bit of a bind picking up after someone elses work, trying to fix things they left undone. This happened yesterday as I was trying to use conditional formatting on an EDATE… Needless to say this did not work.

If you are trying tomake a table with employees, their info, START DATE, EVAL DATE (4 MONTHS) AND END DATE…

You may also want the cell to automatically turn red when the date is passed due. Well if you use =EDATE()4) to get the EVAL DATE, then guess what no dice, you will not be able to use the conditional formating button to simply hightlight the cell when the date is passed due. Unless you do some excel time consuming date conversion on another tab…

I have an easier better way, I found versions of this on other pages but not in this format and none that worked. Yes you can use the IF formula to simply state that the date is either true or false, that creates too many columns and too many problems.

I took the doc home after our christmas party, drank a bottle of wine and deleted everything.

Setting up the spread sheet.

  1. Create table with your required data.
  2. Highlight your column titles and click Data>Filter
  3. Create Drop down menus using the Data>Data Validation
  4. Select list and then create your lists somewhere else on the page way out of range.
  5. On the top row A1 Type Date, then highlight A2. Go to the top bar and click Formulas>Date&Time>NOW, select that from the drop down. This will be used as a reference for ouur conditional formatting later on.
  6. Input a test start date like this 1/1/2011 in F3 (for me at least, yours can vary)
  7. now in f4 select the cell and type [ =Table1[[#This Row],[BEGIN DATE]]+120 ] without the brackets
  8. the +120 is the amount of days you would like to add to the start date.

Conditional Formatting

  1. Select the G5 - G100 column (or however many entries you need.)
  2. Left Click the Home>Conditional formating
  3. Navigate to Highlight Rules>Less Than
  4. Once the dialogue box that opens presents you with two input boxes, for the one on the left select the cell where you put the NOW formula.

 

To be continued..

If you are in a hurry like I am at the moment, just download the excel doc titled Conditional Formatting.

The template is password protected, just comment to get the password.

If you have any questions contact me @ jthrash84@gmail.com 

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Firefox 9 gets a face lift, and more horsepower

December 21, 2011 Leave a Comment

                                     

  Download Firefox 9                                                                                   As I type I am downloading the new Firefox 9 on my Meego Netbook. The claim to fame is the new look on Android and Java improvements. Notably Mozilla has renewed there search provider contract with Google. Mozilla will definitley be starting the new year off right in 2012.

The Java fixes and the new look were much needed, Mozilla 7 and 8 seemed a little on the clunky side and even internet explorer was looking like a better choice just for a second there. Just kidding.

Chrome or Epiphany, Opera, etc…  There are many to choose from, all have there strengths and weaknesses. I use most of them and honestly do not prefer one over the other. I just love the speed of it all. Things have come a long way since I was dialing up with my ultra-secure Earthlink, and browsing on my Netscape Navigator. Or hacking AOL for free service for months on end. All those colorful CDs were ridiculous. I am emensley happy with the browsing experience provided today, and I believe that it can only become more intuitive and blazingly fast.

Interesting enough the Google search contract provided 84% of Mozillas revenue in 2010. Without that contract there might not be a Firefox 9. Whew good thing they got that contract. Otherwise I might be stuck with Chrome, which isn’t bad, I am liking it on my net book.

Once I get some time with the the new Firefox I will post my experience.

 

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Hacker testifies against Manning.

December 21, 2011 Leave a Comment

Lamo testifies against manning

In case you have been hiding under a rock for the last few years, a young Private First Class leaked thousands of classified documents to the popular website wikileaks.

Today CNN reports that a hacker came forward to testifie that Manning had been on a chat forumn, most likely irc which is commonly used on government computers to communicate. They did not release the medium used. The messages were simple in that the hacker was falsely trying to obtain information about the illegal activities of the soldier.

The young man could possibly see the death penalty. The question is “How dumb could this kid be?” My God, this kid copied thousands of classified documents and then went on line to talk about his great accomplishment! Essentially he aconplished nothing. Anyone with a secret clearance can so what he did. It took no skill, yet he thought that he deserved recognition for his accomplishment. The sheer stupidity of this character amazes me.

Amazing feats of programming magic deserve recognition. If this guy had hacked the SIPR from an outside source I’d say wow that’s impressive, treasoness and stupid but something to possibly boast about.

Its very sad that we spend millions possibly billions on defense network security. We hire the most intelligent mathmeticians and programmers in the world to work at the NSA and the Pentagon. Yet it only took one Army PFC and a few CDRs to accomplish the largest security leak in history.

Filed under internet, Security, Tech, Technology, web Tagged with , , , , , ,

Apple goes for the throat taking down htc, or did they?

December 20, 2011 Leave a Comment

wo corporate giants go head to head striking blows at one another Apple vs. htc. Ding, ding, ding. Apple comes in swinging claiming htc used proprietary source code from Apples coveted ios. The U S Trade Commission ruled in favor of apple, giving htc until April 2012 To pull its prized models from US distribution.

Taking sides!

                vs

There is still hope for htc, The President still has 60 days to veto the ruling. Will our commander in chief exercise his veto right and save htc?

More Importantly, now that Apple has the ball rolling will it roll over Google? I would assume that if given the opportunity, Apple may just try and knock out the competition all together. That will have profound impact on market prices and freedom of choice.

I will definitely take sides and say that I enjoy the experience of Android on an htc device. I have owned an iphone 4 and the htc incredible. I am much happier with the freedom I have using my Android device.

That seems to be a common thread for apple, closed, proprietary, greedy.  DOnt take me the wrong way I respect what Apple’s products are robust, refined and user friendly. They put out quality before quantity and stay on the edge of the their game.

I prefer a more open development, i.e. android+Google. I have to say I will be very disappointed to see htc devices taken off the shelves.

My theory is Apple will not stop and they will continue and try to take android out of the fight!

also see Redmond Pie

Filed under Phones, Software, Tech, Technology, web Tagged with , , , , ,

MeeGo v 1.2 Netbook Operating System Review

December 18, 2011 Leave a Comment

MeeGo?

So, been hunting for a great netbook OS for some time now for my NB205:

Specs from lspci command, no lshw to be found.

Make: Toshiba

Model Name nb205

vendor_id : Genuine Intel

model name : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N280 @ 1.66GHz

cpu MHz : 1667.000

cache size : 512 KB

Memory: 2Gb

 

Did I find the netbook OS I have been looking for?

The answer is Im not sure yet. The only way to figure it out is lay out the Pros and cons and come to a conclusion. I can just tell you what I like and what I don’t like. This might aid you in making a decision. The content below is for my own research, I am in no way affiliated with the Linux Foundation or Tizen.org.

How to get MeeGo v. 1.2? Click here.

How to install? Click here for Windows install instructions, or here for Linux Instructions.

Pros:

  1. Clean look
  2. Easy to install
  3. intuitive navigation set up
  4. Good documentation and “How to”

Cons

  1. Surprisingly laggy
  2. Limited functionality.
  3. Clunky package management, doesn’t work! A bug fix has been implemented, unfortunately your first update will take a really long time.
  4. Slow Boot up time
  5. Easily bogged down interface during heavy usage
  6. No copy and paste between apps
  7. No right click for more options
Package Management
Zypper is the default package management application for this version of MeeGo. I prefer apt ot yum because I am more familiar with those applications. But I am excited to learn a new command line package management system. Luckily for everyone that may not be too excited there is an easy to use front end grapgical user interface that simplifies the whole process.
I was first impressed by the extremely clean and web based interface. There were a few usability issues such as not being able to copy and paste from Chrome to the Facebook app. Switching back and forth between apps and windows is a bit clunky using the zones tab, ALT+TAB works just as well. There is no right clicking for more options, Windows users beware.
Hardware support for my net book and a whole host of others is very good. If you are looking for a simple net book os with minimal clutter and cloud based functionality this MeeGo might  before, the rest is just my opinion.

New to Linux?

If you are coming from Ubuntu and are not too familiar with Linux, or if you are coming from Windows and not too familiar with Linux, You are in luck this is just point and click, if you never want to use or see a command line you can do that. I strongly recommend users familiarize them selves with the terminal and bash shell, it may come in handy one day.

Filed under Android, internet, Laptops, Linux, Netbooks, Operating System, Review, Software, Windows Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Back Track Linux Version 5 on a Toshiba NB205

December 17, 2011 Leave a Comment

I recently spent a few hours scanning and cleaning a Windows Vista Toshiba Satellite l505.  This task was painful, slow, and agonizing. After about hour four of svcanning and cleaning using various methods. I decided to sit down with the owner of the infected machine. We spoke about his computing needs. The conversation was brief and a I recieved a verbal snapshot of what sort of operating system my client needed. Usually I don’t advocate Linux for non computer savvy clients but in this case with his love for browsing and downloading torrents, I assumed I could set it up for him and all would be well. I explained the benefits of Linux security, and the lack of virus in the wild for most Linux and BSD kernels. Now I dont want to go around installing linux on everyones computer that I fix, simply because I might be out of a job at that point. Answering questions like do I need an anti virus is all i would be good for. Lets face it I have never had a Linux or BSD question I couldnt find in a forum.

All this talk about security and viruses made me hungry, no really it opens up my next project BackTrack on a Toshiba NB205 for network security and penetration testing. I belive this little netbook will be perfect and Backtrack looks interesting. IF you need an install tutorial I will not be doing one because they already have perfectly good instruction here.

I will be installing via a usb thumb drive, considering my netbook has no cdrom drive. Here goes nothing Ive got the USB…. will post results in the future.

Filed under bsd, firewall, How To, internet, Security, Technology, web

Fedora 16 install

December 17, 2011 Leave a Comment

I Like to try out as many flavors of Linux as I can download, Fedora 16 is no different. So I something about Fedora 16 and I had to try it.The download was quick and I fired up my virtual box and got ready for the install. Firs things first, Fedora has one of the best LIVECD environments out there. It is fast and robust and with the gnome version very easy to navigate for anyone. But. Yes there is a but right off the bat there was a problem with gnome 3 and the virtual environment, I’m not surprised this was probably because there is no 3d rendering etc. etc

After I went through the short and very easy to use installer and it wouldn’t copy over the image to my virtual hard drive. I am going to have to take a break from Fedora, even though  it has beautifully done live cd. Ubuntu is just easier and it works. I may be a little biased, I am just more comfortable with apt.

So i went back and tried again with no changes, and again will not copy the image over to my virtual drive. Oh well, I will not waist anymore time on this today Ill come back to it later and post about it. Back to PHP and MYSQL.

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xampp

December 17, 2011 Leave a Comment

Recently I set out to learn PHP and MYSQL, so far I made great headway in the 24 hours since I started <p?echo “Hello World”; ?> I have gotten a litle passed that stage and have started to guild a website. I found that configuring a LAMP server from scratch a bit time consuming on s debian based server and I have left windows behind all together. The only time I deal with a Windows PC these days is at work and to fix them.

So linux was the obvious choice for me, but I also didnt want to spend all afternoon setting up my LAMP server like I have done in the past. I did a little search and found a few alternatives; foxserve, triad, xampp etc etc. xampp was most definitely the easiest to download and install. So thats why I whent with it. After all this is for the speed of install and ease of use while learning a new programming language. Documentation can be found easily with friends of apache. During the point and click days of Ubuntu Linux and software that just works this is perfect for a novice or a professional who doesn’t have the time to sort through con fig files. I enjoy using it, Its on my Ubuntu desktop, on my debian squeezw server and on a xubuntu laptop that just died the other day : {.

the installation is simple just follow the Link for Documenttaion I posted earlier and you will have a working LAMP server with 5 minutes no Joke. Enjoy.

Filed under How To, Tech, Technology, web

My Ubuntu 11.10 Server: a work in progress.

December 10, 2011 Leave a Comment

Up and running again, this time I used Ubuntu 11.10 and this tutorial. I am a little on the fence about ISP Config but the server set up works alright. The hesitation regarding the ISP Config 3 is the documentation costs 5 euros or you must subscribe to sourceforge. I dont ike these types of shady sales tactics. Its like a mechanic replacing your oil for free and then charging you $50.00 for the oil filter. Or like when Cox cable gets you all set up for free HBO but doesn’t tell you that its only free for 90 days, at the end of that 90 days the full price is $45 a month.  This is OK I choose the cheaper more time consuming and difficult route. I choose to just figure it out on my own, with the pay to play documentation.  I will probably have many posts in the future about this learning experience. For now I present just a couple of quick tips. Instead of invoking init.d scripts which have been converted to upstart jobs:

instead of

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Use 

sudo service apache2 restart

or sudo service ssh restart

Y

The tutorial for ISPconfig 3 is in depth and very well put together, even if you have very little experience with Linux, you can copy and paste the commands using favorite Terminal Emulator and an ssh connection to the remote host. Also using multiple monitors helps the ease of reading the instructions and the output from the terminal.

There is an initial problem with squirrel mail log in, I have yet to explore the issue, but I will at a further date and I will post.

My Ubuntu server is behind a Smooth wall express firewall “smoothie” which provides the dns and DHCP for my internal lan. Acompanied by a couple of netgear switches, and I have a rock solid LAN, for dirt cheap. I just used an old Compag presario, upgraded the ram to 512 mb, picked up a few nic cards for 4.99 each, because a firewall has to have more than one network interface. Once the hardware was ready I just followed the official installation guide. Installation was simple and painless.You can follow the two hyper links to the installation guides.

First I logged into my smoothie admin portal by typing 192.168.1.1.:81 then I navigate to Services>static dns

Next you just input the ip address of the server you would like to access, then a short memorable name, check enabled and click add

thats it now try it out.

,

static dns entries

Open up your faviorite web browser: type the shortname you chose for me it looks like this

check out the url. This makes things super quick. this only works in your home lan obviously you cannot just go to the internet cafe and access your home vpn with your static dns entry. for that you can use something like no-ip or any other dynamic dns.

This makes it incredibly easy for ssh access or sftp access which I use frequently.

Hope this might help someone out and I will post more about the dynamic dns set up I use at a later date.

* in reguards to the ISPconfig “Copyright © 2011 Falko Timme
All Rights Reserved. “

Filed under bsd, firewall, How To, internet, Security, Tech, Technology, web Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hisaces.com DOWN, rebuilding network infrastucture.

November 22, 2011 Leave a Comment

I am currently implementing a new firewall into my network, and removing nat redundancy. This was slowing down my network and causes service outages. I now use a single DHCP server. and have converted my routers to basic switches.

The web/email server will now sit behind the firewall, and all traffic will flow through a dedicated linux firewall I built:

  • Processor: 800 mhz AMD
  • Ram: 512 MB
  • Hard Drive: 250 G
  • Network Cards: 2x gigabyte
  • Operating system: SmoothWall Express

The processor is a little much for a home network application.  the ram on the other hand could use a bit of an upgrade. I have qos, snort, and the web proxy enabled and I am already at 40% load on the 512mb of ram. Thats average load, and it spikes under high traffic.

The hard drive I just yanked out of another box and thats why its way over the top.

After switching the ClearOS box to standalone and putting on the switch behind the smoothwall. I quickly did a bandwidth speed test at speedtest.net and was pleased with the results.

  • ClearOS – down 17mbps, up 4.3 mbps
  • Smoothwall -  down 22 mbps, up 5.4mbps

THe ClearOS server will still be utilized and now that I have broken down all the NAT walls I managed to get a data transfer rate of 10 megabytes per second down from the ClearOS server. great for backing up and sharing files at home.

That isn’t too great but for a simple cable connection thats pretty good. I have alot more testing to do but so far this configuration should be good.

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