Macros live in Access 2007

I've found Microsoft's VBA strategy to be just about incomprehensible. I don't know how anyone gets Access VBA apps to run, particularly given the profusion of obsolete class libraries, obsolete and partly implemented object models, etc. (Does 2007 have a VBA action based code generator? I can't recall. If so that would help ..)

On the other hand, Access 2003 has an incredibly archaic, and non-VBA related, "macro" facility that does work -- though it's little changed from the 1980s. To my surprise, the same facility was retained in Access 2007, and Microsoft has an article on it: Automate applications with macros in Access 2007. I use Access 2007 for some work projects, so I'll probably try these out.

What to do when a drive shows some flakiness

A friend asked what I do when a drive throws a sector error. Do I junk the drive?

The answer is "no", but I do torture it. I did a lighter version of this recently when I started hearing suspicious "whirrrrrrr - tick" sounds from a laptop drive (seek error sounds). Here's the full OS X regimen; the XP response is pretty similar (scandisk instead of Disk Utility, etc).

1. Do a mirror backup (Carbon Copy Cloner, etc) and a Retrospect backup (that's what I use routinely).
2. Test with Disk Utility.
3. Run Apple's drive diagnostic in loop mode (hardware test).
4. Reformat using a secure format (write 0s, so it write tests every sector).
5. Test with Disk Utility.
6. Restore from mirror backup.
7. Test with Disk Utility.
   

If you start in the morning you can probably get it done within a day. Replacing the drive takes longer than a day, so even if a replacement were free this is worth doing. If the drive passes step 2 it will likely pass all the tests, so the chance of wasting a lot of time is pretty low.

See also (XP centric): Gordon's Tech: Lessons from another XP disk crash

Power a digital camera when outlets are unpredictable

Ben Long has written a good essay on remote power solutions for a dSLR, including solar options. I've asked him (comments) how he approaches backup in these settings. Does he use a battery operated CF to CF copying solution?

FriendFeed: what's the point?!

I tried FriendFeed:

Keep Track of Your Friends' Shared Items: "FriendFeed is a start-up that wants to solve this issue by letting you enter your usernames from different sites and combining all the data in a single feed that could be easily shared with someone. You can also invite your friends and subscribe to their data. The service makes a lot of sense if you use it from a social network like Facebook, so FriendFeed has a Facebook application."

I don't get it. I was able to add one of my blogs as a feed, but I could only see how to add a single blogger feed. I don't see how to delete a FriendFeed account, once you have one it's there forever.

There's probably more than I can see, but if there is more then they have serious usability problem.

Don't bother.

Making the gmail POP migration - tricky settings

My local ISP is visi.com, I've used their email services for many years. They changed management recently however, and I don't care for their new procedures. I've decided to move away from their services; that meant my pop services needed to migrate to gmail.

Gmail is already my primary email workplace, I use Eudora primarily for maintaining a local archive. So this migration was really more sensible than my old forward from Gmail setup.

It took me a while to get Eudora working with gmail -- I kept getting timeout errors. I had no trouble with OS X Mail.app, so I figured I was missing something in my configuration. Turns out I had two errors:

1. I had to require eudora use its "alternate" port (be nice if Eudora simply let me set the port address) for both send and receive.
2. Leave mail on server must be unchecked.

I like how it works. In particular:

1. It doesn't matter whether I archive email or leave it in the inbox - it comes across when I access the pop service.
2. If I send mail from eudora it's saved as sent email both in eudora and gmail.
   

If I send email from Gmail, it's not picked up by Eudora. So when I want to save a copy in my home archive I send it to my old visi account, there a redirect sends back to my Gmail inbox. The next time I do a pop check the message is saved to my home archive.

Overall it's a nice improvement. I mostly use Gmail and delete whatever I don't care to keep, so this will reduce the amount I store in my home archive.

OS X "character palette" - use symbols in OS X

Years ago I put the character palette on my OS X menu bar ...

To activate this, open the International preference pane and click on the Input Menu tab. Select the check boxes next to Character Palette and Keyboard Viewer. Then select the Show Input Menu In Menu Bar option. Your region’s flag should appear in the menu bar. Click on this flag to access a menu where you can choose to open the Character Palette or the Keyboard Viewer.

I've not done much with it though. For example, if I put α into this Firefox post box, will it display properly in XP? How about ❝fancier quotes❞? Could I start writing café?

I guess I'll find out when I view this post tomorrow. Carleton college, btw, explains how to use the "favorites" feature, but it does look like I can only add favorites one character at a time.

Keyboards for Macs - don't toss the old ones

Keyboards, a longstanding Macintouch report thread, is a great source of info on Apple keyboards. Years ago I tossed out some superb old-style Mac kbs thinking they were worthless. I didn't know about the Griffin USB to ADB converter. It pains me to recall how great they were.

I don't like any of Apple's desktop keyboards at all. Sooner or later I'll bite the bullet and make do with a PC keyboard.