Geoffrey DeFilippi

Sadie Jane DeFilippi.

Allison and I are proud to announce the birth of our first child; our daughter Sadie Jane DeFilippi. She was born @ 6:44 AM on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 weighing 6 pounds and 13.3 ounces. She measured 19 and 1/2 inches long.

It was an exciting birth and we couldn’t be happier!

Thank you for all the well wishes, cards, flowers and presents, and most of all the support and love!

Pictures are posted in the following location:

http://www.geoffreydefilippi.com/gallery2/v/sadie/

I’ve recently discovered the hard way the phone numbers that use the helpful syntax: 1 (800) YOU CALL are very difficult to deal with when using a phone with a qwerty keyboard.

I’ve got a blackjack phone and the keys don’t have the good old keyboard mapping to help determine which key is which number. So this helpful trick falls out of favor in my opinion. It appears that blackberries with full keyboard probably have this same issue. I know that the obvious solution is to remember the keypad association after all how hard is it.

The problem is I never do and there is nothing quick and easy to look at with a QWERTY keyboard where my numbers correspond with the QWERTY keyboard:

As you can see this make it very confusing to dial a number where the digits associated with the letters are not also listed. I understand that having a catching phase that is a number is a useful way to make the number memorable, but why not put the digits next to in in parenthesis.

The other part of the new keyboard is that voice activated systems that ask you to type something in based on the keypad mapping are almost impossible for me to do. For instance when asked to type in the first for letters of my birthplace I have no way to quickly respond other than running to find a “regular” phone. I’m becoming a bigger fan by the day of talking to the voice activated system.

Here is a sample VBScript that add / deletes an entry from a hosts file.  If you aren’t aware the host file will force a domain name to resolve to a set IP address without a DNS lookup.

result = MsgBox("Add or remove (site.example.com) from your Host file?", 
    vbYesNo + vbQuestion, "Input Required")
 
Const ForReading = 1 ' Open file read only
Const ForWriting = 2 ' Open file read write
 
Dim objFso, objFile, strFileName, strText, strNewText
 
' It might be nice at some point to get this via the environment variables
strFileName = "C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts" 
 
Set objFso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
 
' Open the File and read into string
Set objFile = objFso.OpenTextFile(strFileName, ForReading) 
strText = objFile.ReadAll 
objFile.Close ' close the file
 
' Create a regular expression
Dim re
Set re = New RegExp 
re.Pattern = ".*site\.example\.com.*\n" 
re.IgnoreCase = True
re.Global = True
 
' Remove the entry if found
strNewText = re.Replace(strText, "") 
 
'  If user requests add entry
If result = vbYes Then
    strNewText = strNewText + "172.16.1.1 site.example.com" 
End If
 
' Write out file (deletes old file)
Set ObjFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(strFileName, ForWriting) 
objFile.WriteLine strNewText ' Write out the string contents
objFile.Close
 
' Flush the DNS Cache so change will take effect
Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") 
WshShell.Run "ipconfig /flushdns"

File Scripting credit to:
How Can I Read a Text File on a Remote Computer?

Happy Coding

It may be that I alone am the only person who has experienced this weird and slightly irritating problem:

The Scenario:  I use a Dell Laptop (ATG) with a docking station at my office.  I commute with my laptop as I use it at home and or on the train.  My docking station consists of a D/Port replicator and a Dell Flat Panel monitor.  I really like to put my computer in standby as it loads up much more quickly than a full boot.

The Problem: If I’ve had the computer running and been using the panel on the computer itself and then put it in standby, then dock the computer and use it with my regular aspect display the status bar of a full screen window will be hidden in part behind the XP Taskbar.

The Fix: Toggling the lock the Taskbar from the Taskbar context menu seems to fix this problem without rebooting.

Happy Hunting!

I’m no expert on CVS (concurrent versions system), but thought I would share as it was painful for me to get this up and running:

Here is my scenario.  I’m looking at adopting a version system to keep my source code and perhaps documents in.  I need something that is free and easy to use.  After reading a decent amount of information online I opt for CVSNT (which is the windows port of the Linux CVS program).  I decide to get a nice shell integration package for it (why use the command line if you don’t have to?) so I opt for TortoiseCVS.  I go to the various site do a little reading and download the latest stable releases.

My install scenario is going to be a local repository which will hold the version information for my various files and projects that I am going to commit to the version system.  I just want a local setup so I can keep up to date with my changes and perhaps roll back if needed, but not worry about creating an obscure set of folders with lots of archiving.

So I install CVSNT using the pre-built installer and reboot as requested.  I’ve stumbled across a nice FAQ from mobile fish on how to get CVSNT installed and configured.  I run through these steps and everything seems to be going well.

Trouble enters paradise when I begin to try and test the command line before installing the TortoiseCVS front end.

On my first attempt to import a folder into the CVS repository I get this error:

cvs import: No CVSROOT specified! Please use the `-d’ option cvs [import aborted]: or set the CVSROOT environment variable.

Unfortunately for me I have no idea what the CVSRoot option is or how to apply it to my scenario for the import.  After about 5 hours of reading I’ve come across the solution (which is mindless) to my problem specific to my installation:

Here is how I have CVSNT configured:

• Windows XP Pro SP2 Fully patched as of 7/24/2007
• Installed to c:\program files\cvsnt
• My Repository is on a different disk e:\cvsrepository
• I currently have one repository which is marked as the default.

I open command prompt and type in the following

set cvsroot=:local:e:\repository

No wasn’t that easy.  For my instance I don’t require logins or other protocols to access my local server as it is local; hence the local keyword; after that the drive just needs to be specified.

This works in the TortoiseCVS make module command as well where you are asked to specify the protocol pick local and then in the repository folder put the path in to the folder.  Much easier than this text would indicate.

As an addendum, I’m not familiar with CVS or its usage as this is my first foray into the concept, but hopefully this will help me (and anyone else who is curious) remember how to set this up in the future.

Happy hunting!