I don’t go off-topic much, but this article is one I thought worthwhile.  It is because I am constantly amazed at how little value people put on their time (or their employee’s time) when making decisions.  Maybe because I am self employed and bill by the hour I am more sensitive to wasted time than most people.

This article from the Boston Globe covers a study that shows that sometimes the security measures we are forced to follow aren’t worth the time they cost us, which is probably why compliance isn’t always complete.

I had surgery on Friday 12/18.  Nothing serious, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to shovel any snow for a week or so after my surgery. So I intentionally scheduled the procedure before winter snow was likely to be serious.  Heavy snow isn’t common in Virginia in mid-December   Well, as many of you know, this area was hit with a record setting snowfall that started Friday night.  Here is a shot of the snow piled up on my deck.  I think the table (or the “birthday cake” according to my kids) is about 18″ deep.  Fortunately the driveway is  ‘only’ at about 13″.

==========
Added 2/6/2010:

We got another one, and this one is literally twice as deep as the one above.  It may be the all time record snowstorm for many areas here.  I shoveled  three times today while it was snowing and was able to bring the driveway down from 22 inches to about 4 inches but it was still coming down when I quit.

Our deck is even deeper than last time, with a 27″  birthday cake.  The funny part is the hand rail you see behind it.  This is only a few inches wide yet it has a 20″ wedge of snow balanced on it, making little walls on 2 sides of the deck.

I recently stumbled on an article on the site “Joel on Software” that I found interesting.  He lists 12 questions to help you rate the quality of a software team.  It is in response to what he considers the overly complex, time consuming methods that are often used to try and measure quality.   I thought some of you would find it interesting.

This article isn’t about Crystal Reports, but instead is for all of you who are doing your taxes this week.  I have a simple exercise you can do while you have your tax forms out.  And then the next time you read about a federal outlay in the billions or trillions, you will be able to calculate your exact share as easily as calculating a tip on a dinner check.

All you need to know is how much your tax bill was for last year.  It doesn’t matter if you got a refund or had to Continue Reading »
Calculate your share of a billion dollar expenditure

I am surprised at how many of these get forwarded to me. They are easy to spot because they usually:
1) Arrive with a half page of CC Email addresses at top.
2) Urge you to forward the message to all of your contacts.
3) Describes some emergency or noble cause that needs everyone’s immediate attention.

I can assure you that ANY message that asks to be forwarded to everyone on your contact list is a hoax. (So is every request for UPC codes, pull tabs, post cards, etc – but that is another story.) So if you are ever tempted to click “forward”, first copy the key phrase from the message and Google it along with the word “hoax”. There are lists of hoaxes out there just for this purpose.

This has nothing to do with Crystal Reports directly but I think it is important for my customers and other consultants to be aware of. Before you give your next fixed price quote to a large organization, ask them what paperwork and fees (if any) are involved in becoming a new vendor. Normally a w-9 tax form is all I am asked for. Some customers require an insurance certificate and a few have a special form to fill out.

But some companies are starting to have all of their vendors managed through a new and rapidly growing company called Vendormate. Continue Reading »
“Free” vendor management from Vendormate

Samuel Santos of USA Today pointed me to a service that sends you an Email whenever an update is posted to your favorite BLOG. The service, provided by r-mail.org, is free and works with any BLOG that supports RSS. Although the terms of service do leave an opening for sending you messages for “new services, and special offers”, Samuel hasn’t seen any significant SPAM originating from the service.

So if you would like to be notified whenever I post a new entry you can sign up at R-Mail.org

I do quite a bit of Crystal Reports consulting by phone. I find that making a remote connection to my customer’s PC is rarely needed, but is sometimes helpful. So I did some research on current options for desktop sharing.

My current favorite is Crossloop. It is a free program that any two people can download and install. Within a few minutes either user can take control of the other’s PC.

No registration is required, it has no adware/spyware, no time limits, it is secure and free. All session traffic is encrypted end-to-end. The person whose PC is being shared has to initiate the connection by giving the user a random 12 digit key generated by the program. When the remote user attempts to connect, the host must also allow the connection at that point. Once allowed, the remote user has shared control of the desktop host desktop.

Or, if you like Webex you might also look at the new AOL/Webex collaboration called AIM Pro. It includes free 2-person Webex sessions and several other nice features.

Often subreports are used in Crystal Reports to retrieve an unrelated value from a different table or data source. In many of these cases you do not want to see the subreport at all. You just want to retrieve your value and use it. You soon realize, however, that if you suppress the subreport object, or if you suppress the section that contains the subreport, the subreport will simply not run.

To make a subreport run but be completely invisible you suppress Continue Reading »
The Stealth Subreport

I just found this link in the past week and I wish I had found it long ago.

I have been impressed several times, just in the past month, by free software. I know that there is plenty of bad ‘free’ software that contains advertising, spyware or even worse junk. It takes time to sort the good from the bad. So when I found a site dedicated to evaluating and comparing these products, I couldn’t resist. Continue Reading »
Best FREE utilities recommended by Ian “Gizmo” Richards