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I’ve set up SMS Server Tools on my Mac Mini so that I can send text messages from my PC and I thought someone might be able to use the Applescript I’ve created or even suggest a better way of doing things.

If you’re not familiar with SMS Server Tools it’s a really great utility for sending text messages from your PC (I use the term generically) it works on (almost?) all UNIXs and Windows too. It works by having folders which it monitors for text message files and then sending them via the phone. It was very easy to set up just download the source, make, make install, edit the config file and away you go.

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You may or may not know that Windows and Unix end lines in text files differently. Windows uses both a line feed and carriage return characters whereas Unix uses only the line feed character. This can be annoying if you’re working with documents on both systems interchangeably and you need to preserve a lot of indentation . One example for me is xml files I like writing them in a plain text editor because I cannot find an xml editor I get on with.

The solution is to use PERL:

• To convert Unix style line endings to Windows style
  • perl -p -e ’s/\n/\r\n/’ < unixfile.txt > winfile.txt
• To Convert Windows style line endings to Unix style
  • perl -p -e ’s/\r$//’ < winfile.txt > unixfile.txt

The use of single quotation marks in both command lines is important because it prevents the shell from trying to evaluate anything inside.

That’s it. A simple way to quicky convert line endings letting you get on with the job.

I’ve been doing a bit of web design in my spare time lately and before long I came across the issue of using margin: auto; in my stylesheet not working in internet explorer. Meeehhhh! I couldn’t be doing with that and given that the best way to attack an unknown problem is to search for knowledge I hit google (not literally of course).

Turns out, that you can force Internet Explorer (and other browsers) to parse your cascading style sheets strictly by using a strict doctype definition. I used the one below for my project;
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I dual boot a couple of my machines and whilst I was looking for a way to reapportion the size between two partitions I came across Gparted. It’s a Gnome based GUI for the GNU Parted program for creating, destroying, resizing, checking, and copying partitions, and the file systems on them.

What I really liked is there’s a linux livecd available so all you have to do is burn the disk image stick it in and aside from a few simple commands to boot the cd correctly it loads and starts Gparted.

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This is a good one,

For some reason loads of people are having trouble installing Office 2007 SP1 an update windows considers not optional, nor recommended, but important. Until now I was one of those people. There are loads of forum posts knocking about that recommend reinstalling, repairing the installation and most agree that you need to do these things with the office cd in the drive else you’re screwed. They’d be wrong.

Apparently, you do need a disc in the drive but it doesn’t matter what it is! I actually had ‘Gattaca’ in the drive (a damn good movie).

After a couple of failed attempts I couldn’t believe how simple and bizzare the solution turned out to be. I found the solution here and now I find the fact that it installed without a hitch because I had a DVD in my drive hilarious. There were some forum posts where people claimed to have attempted to install the service pack up to nine times. I think they need to learn how to use search engines better.