www.stevemorgan.me.uk

IE8 Crashes when viewing large XML Documents

February 25, 2010 – 3:19 pm
Is it just me??   I've searched the web a lot and can't find anybody complaining about this - it drives me mad on a daily basis as I work with an XML based webservice that loves spitting out reams of the stuff.  I'd love to hear if anybody else suffers from this. I'd also love to know how you report bugs to Microsoft about IE8. ....

Posted in Windows | 1 Comment »

The Didsbury Dozen 6th February 2010

February 5, 2010 – 1:19 pm
Tomorrow is our bi-annual Didsbury Dozen.  Previous years have had over 70 people in attendance (though it’s fair to say most aren’t there from the start so haven’t really *done the dozen..). Every year I create  route guide – one because I enjoy doing it and two because it limits the number of phone calls I have to field after 8 pints of ale trying to explain where the bloody Fletcher Moss is. Our route is by no means an authentic route – over the past nine years we’ve adapted it to account for bouncers, trainers (remember when you had to wear shoes to go to a bar!) and pub closures (West Didsbury pubs are not on the original dozen).  We’ve tried to keep it to traditional pubs, only going to the one chain pub – I’m quite proud of the route. The elders will meet and decide when the next one is ...

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Windows 7 – two little tips for screen real estate

December 15, 2009 – 9:47 am
I like Windows 7 – there I’ve said – happy now?    I normally reserve judgement on new Windows OSs until the first service pack.  Vista was a big heap of cack and though I see Windows 7 as only an upgrade (read as 'fix') of Vista it does look like they’ve focused on the right things – namely interface responsiveness and stability. Two little things that I prefer to get back the screen real estate. 1)       Small icons on the desktop -Right click on an empty part of your desktop and go to View | Small Icons 2)      Small icons on the task bar – this frees loads of space up on your screen - Right click on the Task Bar, Properties | check the Use Small Icons

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The Worcester Wassail 2009 – 12th December 2009

December 4, 2009 – 11:20 am
Here it is!  The route guide for the fifth annual Wassail! I moved to Worcester in August 2006. I loved the history and small feel of this lovely city in the West Midlands... but something was missing. Yup - A twelve pub, pub crawl. Luckily my new work colleagues shared this view and Joe come up with the name Worcester Wassail - after quietly looking up what a Wassail was I agreed. So here it is my first, original pub crawl. You can download it in glorious full colour - Worcester Wassail 2009 The Cap ‘n’ Gown  - 45 Upper Tything Established in 1849 and, up until a few years ago, little had changed (except hopefully the odd barrel) now it’s full of smutty seaside postcards (perhaps from Worcester’s Blackpole?) and faux wood panelling.  Turn right out of Foregate Street train station and walk under the railway bridge.  The pub is ten minutes up ...

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Frisbee Discs For Sale!

November 18, 2009 – 3:33 pm
Due to a slight over-ordering issue we've launched an online shop for selling our DUFFA branded frisbees! They are the 'proper' 175 gram Discraft Ultrastars! And just £7 - get yours here! [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="144" caption="Metallic Red DUFFA Disc!"][/caption]

Posted in DUFFA, Ultimate | No Comments »

3G – will it ever work?

November 17, 2009 – 9:43 am
I currently sat on the train coming back from London.  Last night, horror of horrors - there are screaming brats on the train and I realise that I've become so reliant on Spotify and the BBC iPlayer that I've no music in MP3 on my laptop (that and I had to move a load of stuff off for a forthcoming Windows 7 upgrade on my work laptop) and, though capable of acting as an MP3 player, I've still not got around to loading any music on my new phone. So this morning - though there are no children I'm attempting to download a podcast to help me through the journey.  I didn't think to start this off whilst stationary at Euston - so I'm doing it on the move... Is it just me or is mobile internet still not 'quite there' - just like wireless internet it seems flaky and unable to ...

Posted in Humour | 1 Comment »

Very-Good.co.uk is live!

June 24, 2009 – 11:17 am
very-good.co.uk is now live to support our campaign at the Glastonbury festival. We'll be updating this after the festival to include our fav photos. Site was created in a bit of a rush - in fact this post is being written from my friends I-phone as we drive!

Posted in Humour | 1 Comment »

How to make the PRINCE2 course reading more interesting…

February 5, 2009 – 12:59 pm
As part of my job I’m taking the PRINCE2 Practitioners Training and certification course next week.   The prerequisite reading is a supposed 15-20 hours of the book “Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2”.  So dry is the reading I was having real problems concentrating.  Talking about this in the office I came up with the idea that to focus my attention and keep interested I’d mentally swap the word ‘project’ with ‘orgy’ to see if that made it more interesting.  For a start the title becomes “Managing Successful Orgies with PRINCE2” A rather dry section, Chapter 10, pg 153: One of the defining features of a project is that it is finite – it has a start and an end.  If the project loses this distinctiveness, it loses some of its advantages over purely operational management approaches.  A clear end to the project: ·         It is always more successful than the natural tendency to drift ...

Posted in Humour | No Comments »

SQL SERVER 2005 – Profiler – Only show queries from a specific database

November 26, 2008 – 4:23 pm
This was easier in 2000.  This annoyed me for ages but not enough to actually look into why I could no longer filter by Database (well not obviously!). The trick is to click the "Events Selection" on the "Trace Properties" when you create a new trace, and check the "Show all columns" check box, then when you hit the "Column Filters" button the Database Name option will now be present!

Posted in SQL SERVER, Windows | 1 Comment »

Word VBA Macro – Sample of a string for each font installed

September 22, 2008 – 11:45 am
Occassionally I need a quick and dirty look at what a string will look like in various fonts. I use this (quite hacky) VBA macro.  Be warned it can take a while to run on older systems - SAVE YOUR OPEN WORD DOCS FIRST! Sub SampleFonts() ' Output a text string in each font intalled on the system ' Steve Morgan, www.stevemorgan.me.uk 22/09/2008 Dim fnt As Variant Dim strOut As String ' Change this to change outputted string! strOut = "My Sample Text" For Each fnt In Application.FontNames ' MsgBox fnt Selection.Font.Name = fnt Selection.TypeText (strOut + vbTab + vbTab + fnt) + vbCrLf Next End Sub

Posted in VBA, Windows | 2 Comments »