DeezPlace, [Techno] Babble and [greenish] opinion.

Naming your computer files for easy referencing

2013-10-08T22:51:00.000+11:00

Housekeeping on computers - File naming.

If you produce a lot of documents you need a consistent naming style that allows for understanding the content of the file without having to open it and for easy sorting should you make multiple editions of a similar file.

One of the environments that I work in produces audio files; some on a weekly basis, monthly, yearly.
Once determined your naming system can apply to most situations and allow for the above conditions to be met, ie. know what's IN the file, ie. what it is, and see easily the different versions/editions.

All consistently regular text should be before the text that modifies it;
eg. dates or sequence numbers ("1", "2" etc).
If the number of files is large and the sequence numbers go beyond single digits then earlier numbers need to be "padded" with zeros eg. "01", "02" ... "10" ... "99"
or "001", "002" ... "999"
This is because "12" would sort before "2" in a list (because the "1" and the "2" are in the same column), but "02" would sort before "12".

For our first example here are two audio files:

Original names:

Promotional AD 1 2013.wav
Promotional AD 2.wav

New names:

Promotional AD 2013 1.wav
Promotional AD 2013 2.wav

A simple rename in this case. Add the year to the second filename and put the sequence number at the end.

Obviously the dates on the files above is simple being a once a year item but if months [and days] are required then always use reverse order for nice chronological sorting in your File Manager (eg. Windows Explorer)
eg. YYYY-MM-DD

So, why do this?
Below is a list of filenames, derived from daily logs, please look through them and find the most recent file:

01-10-2013.txt
02-10-2013.txt
03-09-2013.txt
03-10-2013.txt
04-09-2013.txt
04-10-2013.txt
06-09-2013.txt
07-09-2013.txt
08-10-2013.txt
09-09-2013.txt
10-09-2013.txt
11-09-2013.txt
12-07-2013.txt
12-09-2013.txt
13-09-2013.txt
14-09-2013.txt
15-09-2013.txt
17-09-2013.txt
18-09-2013.txt
26-09-2013.txt
27-09-2013.txt

Now here are some similar filenames but in the YY-MM-DD format, find the most recent one:
13-07-12.txt
13-09-03.txt
13-09-04.txt
13-09-05.txt
13-09-06.txt
13-09-07.txt
13-09-09.txt
13-09-10.txt
13-09-11.txt
13-09-12.txt
13-09-13.txt
13-09-14.txt
13-09-15.txt
13-09-16.txt
13-09-17.txt
13-09-18.txt
13-09-19.txt
13-09-20.txt
13-09-24.txt
13-09-25.txt
13-09-26.txt
13-09-27.txt
13-09-28.txt
13-09-29.txt
13-10-01.txt
13-10-02.txt
13-10-03.txt
13-10-04.txt
13-10-06.txt
13-10-08.txt

Even though this list did not write the date in full form (YYYY) it's still readily apparent, in a long list like this, the chronological order. But if we had less files using the same naming convention it could be harder:
eg.
09-07-12.txt
09-09-03.txt
10-09-04.txt
10-09-05.txt
11-09-06.txt
11-09-07.txt
12-09-09.txt
12-09-10.txt
12-09-11.txt
12-09-12.txt

In the list above which digits are the years and which are the days and which are the months? It's perfectly possible that the first digits are the days meaning this list is sorted first by the value in the days then months then years. You can see, if that were the case, that we have files from 2012 at the top and at the bottom of this 'sorted' list. Not very convenient.
We might deduce that a column doesn't contain months if there were digits above 12 but we also need those digits to be above 14 (as of the writing of this post in 2014) to show that the digits do not represent years. Should we presume the years are the first digits or the last? Even if we presumed they were last, because many people (of the Australian clients I've worked with) DO write DD-MM-YY, how do you *know* for sure? Add to that the different formats other countries use:

For example Australia and America differ in how they write the date (DDMMYY vs MMDDYY) therefor there is the potential for confusion between an Australian date, 03/06 (3rd of June) and an American, 03/06 (March 6th).

So writing the full Year first removes that ambiguity as that implies the reverse order style, and that order is only done one way YYYYMMDD, no 'other' version, at least not in my experience. If it is done it's done very rarely.
Using the reverse date order (YYYYMMDD) the above list would become:

2009-07-12.txt
2009-09-03.txt
2010-09-04.txt
2010-09-05.txt
2011-09-06.txt
2011-09-07.txt
2012-09-09.txt
2012-09-10.txt
2012-09-11.txt
2012-09-12.txt

Adding the hyphens makes the date(s) easier to read than without but it is still relatively easy to discern which digits represent years in the list below:

20090712.txt
20090903.txt
20100904.txt
20100905.txt
20110906.txt
20110907.txt
20120909.txt
20120910.txt
20120911.txt
20120912.txt

Now, why do we want the 'regularly occurring' text before the date or sequence number?
Let's say you produced some documents and the parts were labelled:
1 history of tech.doc
2 history of tech.doc
3 history of tech.doc
4 history of tech.doc

This naming looks reasonable enough at first glance, and kept on their own in a separate folder they will not be confused but should you place them into the same location as another group of documents, similarly labelled:

1 dawn of technology.doc
2 dawn of technology.doc
3 dawn of technology.doc
4 dawn of technology.doc

the end result, when viewed in a file manager (eg. Windows Explorer) would be:

1 dawn of technology.doc
1 history of tech.doc
2 dawn of technology.doc
2 history of tech.doc
3 dawn of technology.doc
3 history of tech.doc
4 dawn of technology.doc
4 history of tech.doc

Now when you want to drag ONE set of documents away from the other it's not as simple as drawing a selection box around the files of one of those sets.
This list only puts two difference 'groups' of files together, imagine this list if a large number of files, of a variety of 'groups', named thus were all dropped into the same folder.

On the other hand; if the sequence numbers, or dates, were at the end (a suffix rather than a prefix), the similarly 'titled' files of each group would 'glob' together and the sequence numbers or dates would sort them:

dawn of technology 1 .doc
dawn of technology 2 .doc
dawn of technology 3 .doc
dawn of technology 4 .doc
history of tech 1 .doc
history of tech 2 .doc
history of tech 3 .doc
history of tech 4 .doc

Also remember that file and folder names can be quite long (256 characters) so unless you have software that reduces the available viewing size of a filename (or somehow squashes it making it hard to read) then you should feel free to write descriptive names; don't limit filenames to one or two words if it creates ambiguity with other files with similar names. If you are restricting the length of the filename for ease of viewing in other software then at least make your folder names more informative.

eg.
in a folder named "dawn of technology" I place files named:

d.o.t-1.doc

d.o.t-2.doc

d.o.t-3.doc

d.o.t-4.doc

There, hopefully that is of some use to someone out there on the webs. Email any questions and if need be I'll edit this post to reflect that which I've [probably] neglected. =)

D

Coalition government wants to ban public right to boycott

2013-09-26T23:14:00.001+10:00

So, I recently received a letter from GetUp discussing the new Coalition governments plan to make boycotting an illegal activity:

"They are considering legislation to remove our right to speak up against companies with poor environmental records. In other words, the Government knows just how powerful our movement can be when we work together – and they want to put a stop to it."

Why would the government, a group of elected individuals supposedly "of the people and for the people" actively seek to end any voice of the people? A voice only raised because the government is obviously failing in its duty to be "for the people".

There's only one reason - the [current] government is FOR the corporations.

A discussion I had with a friend recently touched on the issue that most cultures, communist, socialist, democratic etc are all still 'monetist'. That is they seek to get ahead through gains in paper wealth. This is most obvious in economies that allow money to not only be the main means of trade but also to allow the trading of money to be the most lucrative way to make money.

One difference between, say, communist countries and western-democratic would be that in communist countries the 'state' interferes more in the way business runs. Whilst 'the west' has less of this interference or controlling interest, of late the trend seems to be that business is now dictating *to* the state! Telling the voted representatives what they should, can, must and will do.

At least this, to me, explains why a government would try to suppress the voice of the people, when that voice is discussing what [big] business is doing to the situation of/for humanity.

If the 'job' of politicians is to 'keep' their job, rather than truly speak for the people, there are two main criteria.

1) convince the people they are the one(s) for the job - ie. campaign and

2) find money to finance such a campaign.

So the cycle is, bend over for the corporations that will finance them, ie. promise to make certain things happen for their corporate sponsors; and then bull shit on to the public about who they are and what they will do in their campaign so that the public will vote them to *not* do much of anything for the people.

Rinse and repeat every few years and we have the mess that the western world is in.

A drain hole of corporate design and intention, and of epic proportions now that it is propped atop 7 billion people.

A little info about video codecs

2013-08-09T08:04:00.001+10:00

Always a chore understanding technology as it races along. The commonest one I find is people not understanding the tech around multi media, namely movies and music.

There are a few different formats for both and then different software/hardware [sometimes] required to play them.

But LifeHacker has explained some of the video particulars so I won't reinvent the wheel...

Video stuff explained by LifeHacker

D

Custom Friends Lists in Facebook

2013-08-01T11:16:00.000+10:00

Controlling the "spammy-ness" of your FB news feed is essential for some sort of stress reduction, not to mention getting some hours back in your day.

But Facebook do not make for a very intuitive/user friendly interface.

Here's how to make custom friends lists:

On your home page, ie. NOT your profile page but rather just facebook.com, go down the left sidebar to the [grey] header "Friends"

When you float the mouse over this you should see "more" appear to the right. Click this; the main window/frame should then change to show your Friends' Lists - the default lists being items such as "Close Friends", "Acquaintance", "Family".

Click "+ Create List" and you should be able to enter a name, eg. "Besties", for a new list and add members.

This new list will then be shown in the left sidebar, below the [greyed] Friends header I mentioned above.

If you float your mouse over this title, eg. "Besties" you should see a small 'pen' appear, click this to get the option to "Add to Favourites" or "Delete" the list.

Adding to Favourites will move that list, eg. "Besties" up to the "Favourites" at the top of the sidebar.

g'luck

Removing IPv6 Tunnel Adaptors - Windows 7

2012-05-18T23:00:00.002+10:00

What a bore this is, to have the ipconfig results overloaded with redundant adaptors. Weak effort M$. Possible fix: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistanetworking/thread/32b0c129-fa2d-431a-a275-4288c729605a and/or Control Panel > System > Device Manager > View > Show Hidden Devices > Network adapter>

Locate your (on screen) Mouse

2012-05-17T10:08:00.002+10:00

Sick of losing my mouse (on screen) and finding that cranking the size up created other unpleasantries I opted to install Mouse Locator

Firewalls for OS X, Mac

2011-11-10T13:50:00.000+11:00

Had a recent pang of worry about blocking unwanted intrusions from the net. It's a periodic thing; so I had a quick search:

Found this on Macworld

Which lists such goodies as:

Little Snitch, very good value for money.
NoobProof, for adjusting the settings on the Mac's own built in [Unix like] firewall software.
WaterRoof, as above.

Android Aeroplane mode

2011-10-31T10:15:00.000+11:00

As you may know, Aeroplane mode shuts down all wireless communications for safe[r] air travel.
But there are times when you may wish to only shut down the phone component yet keep the other features (wireless and bluetooth) running.

For example when in another country/location where your phone doesn't work and/or to avoid the excessive battery drain.

I'm currently using a Samsung Galaxy SII with Gingerbread OS. If I go to Settings > About Phone > Battery Usage, I can see that "Cell standby" is the biggest drain on my battery.

To turn off just this feature you can dial "*#*#INFO#*#*" (info being 4636 so - "*#*#4636#*#*" to access a small menu. clicking/tapping on "Phone information" and you'll get a screen which has a "Turn radio off" button. This is the cellular transmission component. Once it's off, you're off the airways, as far as the dialling public are concerned, and saving on all that battery power used trying to talk to phone towers.

You can also install an app called "Any Cut" which will let you make a shortcut to "Phone information" in case you can't remember the dialling sequence above.

hth

G+ Instant Upload, not quite...

2011-10-10T11:17:00.000+11:00

Google+ Instant Upload, less than completely Instantly useful. But that's kewl, these things take iterations of fine tuning.

As I find that most of my photos need cropping at least, if not more elaborate editing having my photos put online immediately doesn't help me much. The online editors are getting better but they leave something to be desired.

The battery and net usage saving features/settings of Instant Upload are nice enough, but what would really nail it, for me, is being able to apply that to a folder that I can then drop in my finished, edited, tweaked, chosen shots to be uploaded either at that instant or when the filter settings allow.

That's my wish list anyhow. O_o

OSX, Applescript - show hidden files in Finder

2011-10-01T22:00:00.000+10:00

A little applescript to toggle the Show Hidden Files setting for Finder.

-- Toggle Show Hidden Folders On Off

set showHiddenStatus to last word of (do shell script "defaults read com.apple.finder | grep AppleShowAllFiles")

if showHiddenStatus is "False" then
do shell script "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles True"
else
do shell script "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles False"
end if

-- kill Finder to make the changes active
do shell script "killall Finder"

Skooby renamer for OS X

2011-07-25T13:23:00.000+10:00

OS X file renamer: Skooby renamer

Quite versatile, also renames mp3s using tags and images using metadata =)

Burning WMV files to DVD movies

2011-07-01T17:25:00.000+10:00

This link at Online Tech helped me out.

Essentially, make the movie (WMV file) then convert to DVD format with DVDFlick then use Image burn to put the Audio_ts and Video_ts files onto a DVD.

FTP Software for OSX Mac, Free

2011-03-17T10:23:00.000+11:00

FileZilla
Installing and trialling today, if it's good this post will stay here...

Found it on http://mac-free.com/

頑張れ日本！

2011-03-15T09:22:00.001+11:00

Image from Blank Studio

Managing updates in Google Software Update - OSX

2011-02-26T01:13:00.000+11:00

Don't know how old this page is but the issue comes up a bit and this is Google's response, at some point in time:
Managing updates in Google Software Update

Show Full Path in Finder, OSX

2011-02-26T01:09:00.000+11:00

Too handy, so simple.
Open up Terminal, enter this line
defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES

OS X Image viewer - Xee

2011-02-25T16:02:00.000+11:00

Well, Sequential is out and Xee is in as my preferred image viewer/browser.
Xee.

Found it at Open Source Mac

D
.

Xcode and iOS SDK download link

2011-02-23T16:58:00.001+11:00

Sheesh, I know I'm losing it ... took me 10 minutes of wandering through Pan's maze to finally find the DL link for Xcode 3.2.5 and iOS SDK 4.2

Probably a sign I shouldn't be bothering with such things ;)

OS X, Keep any window on top

2011-02-23T01:44:00.000+11:00

Handy app. Keep window(s) On Top and allows a hot key drag with the mouse on any part of the window. (Not *every* app though, in my experience, but beats having to find that title bar all the time - esp. for Chrome!)

Afloat
.

Act without doing...

2011-02-17T23:47:00.000+11:00

Act without doing; work without effort. Think of the small as large and the few as many. Confront the difficult while it is still easy; accomplish the great task by a series of small acts.

- Lao-Tze

Gaslands

2011-02-13T23:32:00.000+11:00

Jesus wept.. I just watched Gaslands The Movie and despite knowing about "fracking" it's incredibly depressing to see just how wrong some profit chasing can be.

100s of 1000s of wells built, countless people's lives effected permanently with horrific disease as well as the destruction of the environment around them...

I am of the opinion that making laws that enable anyone [certain corporations being the obvious culprits] to disregard clean air, water & environment laws, as well as empowering them with the right to secrecy about the contaminates they use in abundance, is totally EVIL.

So on that note I would say that the likes of Dick Cheney ought to be heralded as the most despicable, evil and unconscionable persons alive. And the bureaucrats and politicians that are complicit in making these laws, with the likes of *him*... totally unbelievable that they are the ones employed/elected to serve the people.

Just for fun

2011-02-13T11:42:00.000+11:00

Toilet humour can be pretty low, but this one tickles me (with a feather? :)

Toilet Cam

Stop the Internet Kill Switch!

2011-02-10T10:24:00.000+11:00

Add your name to the petition at Access Now Stop The Switch

As online communication becomes an increasingly important part of all aspects of our lives, governments have sought to censor, filter, surveil, and now, shut off access to these vital tools. Just imagine if your government decided to switch your internet -- and you -- off.

In Egypt, using powers granted to Mubarak under emergency law, the government was able to shut off the internet with a couple of phone calls to each of the internet service providers (ISPs) operating in Egypt. Egyptians employed innovative work-arounds to avoid the shutdown like using international dial-up, but do we really want to resort to that? Lets draw a line in the sand as governments around the world race to acquire an "internet kill switch."

Governments habitually put their own survival above the wellbeing of their people. The only real deterrent to the internet kill switch is us -- a global movement for digital freedom; please join the international campaign to “Stop the Switch!”

From Australia to Zimbabwe, we see how vital access to the internet, both on computers and mobile phones, is for people to freely express themselves. An internet kill switch puts your ability to communicate with friends and family online in jeopardy by placing control over the internet firmly into the hands of your government, who may not necessarily have your interests and rights in mind when they flip the switch.

Add your name to the petition at Access Now Stop The Switch

Egypt used it last week, Austria’s already got it, the U.S. has a law drafted to establish it, while other governments across the globe are testing to see how easily they could plunge their country into an information blackout. And they can do it one of two ways: either by creating the legal authority that gives them the power to demand that the internet service providers (ISPs) operating in their country shut down, or by configuring a “switch” that controls their country’s entire internet infrastructure.

Breaking The Great Australian Silence

2011-02-08T11:46:00.001+11:00

All Australians should watch Johy Pilger's address at the Sydney Peace Prize.

What terrifies the agents of power is the awakening of people: of public consciousness; the revelation of a seed beneath the snow.

During the first world war, the British prime minister David Lloyd George confided to the editor of the Manchester Guardian: “If people really knew [the truth], the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don’t know and they can’t know.”

What has changed? Quite a lot actually. As people have become more aware, propaganda has become more sophisticated.

Last July, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said this: “It’s important for us all to remember here in Australia that Afghanistan has been a training ground for terrorists worldwide, a training ground also for terrorists in South-East-Asia, reminding us of the reasons that we are in the field of combat and reaffirming our resolve to remain committed to that cause.”

There is no truth in this statement. It is the equivalent of his predecessor John Howard’s lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

One of the founders of modern propaganda was Edward Bernays, an American who believed that people in free societies could be lied to and regimented without them realising. He invented a euphemism for propaganda - “public relations”, or PR.

When Prime Minister Robert Menzies sent Australian soldiers to Vietnam in the 1960s, he described them as a ‘training team’, requested by a beleaguered government in Saigon. It was a lie. A senior official of the Department of External affairs wrote this secret truth: “Although we have stressed the fact publicly that our assistance was given in response to an invitation by the government of South Vietnam, our offer was in fact made following a request from the United States government.”

Two versions. One for us, one for them.

“It’s time we sang from the world’s rooftops,” said Kevin Rudd in opposition, “[that] despite Iraq, America is an overwhelming force for good in the world [and] I look forward to working with the great American democracy, the arsenal of freedom...”.

Since the second world war, the arsenal of freedom has overthrown 50 governments, including democracies, and crushed some 30 liberation movements. Millions of people all over the world have been driven out of their homes and subjected to crippling embargos. Bombing is as American as apple pie.

The Rudd government justifies its proposals to spend billions on weapons by referring to what the Pentagon calls an “arc of instability” that stretches across the world. Our enemies are apparently everywhere - from China to the Horn of Africa. In fact, an arc of instability does indeed stretch across the world and is maintained by the United States. The US Air Force calls this “full spectrum dominance”. More than 800 American bases are ready for war.

In an essay for The Monthly entitled Faith in Politics, Kevin Rudd wrote this about refugees: “The biblical injunction to care for the stranger in our midst is clear. The parable of the Good Samaritan is but one of many which deal with the matter of how we should respond to a vulnerable stranger in our midst.... We should never forget that the reason we have a UN convention on the protection of refugees is in large part because of the horror of the Holocaust when the West (including Australia) turned its back on the Jewish people of occupied Europe who sought asylum.”

Compare that with Rudd’s words the other day. “I make absolutely no apology whatsoever,” he said, “for taking a hard line on illegal immigration to Australia... a tough line on asylum seekers.”

Are we not fed up with this kind of hypocrisy? The use of the term “illegal immigrants” is both false and cowardly. The few people struggling to reach our shores are not illegal. International law is clear – they are legal. And yet Rudd, like Howard, sends the navy against them and runs what is effectively a concentration camp on Christmas Island. How shaming. Imagine a shipload of white people fleeing a catastrophe being treated like this.

The people in those leaking boats demonstrate the kind of guts Australians are said to admire. But that’s not enough for the Good Samaritan in Canberra, as he plays to the same bigotry which, as he wrote in his essay, “turned its back on the Jewish people of occupied Europe”.

In no other democratic country is public discussion of the brutal occupation of Palestine as limited as in Australia. Are we aware of the sheer scale of the crime against humanity in Gaza? Twenty-nine members of one family - babies, grannies - are gunned down, blown up, buried alive, their home bulldozed. Read the United Nations report, written by an eminent Jewish judge, Richard Goldstone.

Those who speak for the arsenal of freedom are working hard to bury the UN report. For only one nation, Israel, has a “right to exist” in the Middle East. Only one nation has a right to attack others. Only one nation has the impunity to run a racist apartheid regime with the approval of the western world, and with the prime minister and the deputy prime minister of Australia fawning over its leaders.

In Australia, any diversion from this unspoken rule, this impunity, attracts a campaign of craven personal abuse and intimidation usually associated with dictatorships. But we are not a dictatorship. We are a democracy.

Are we?
Or are we a murdochracy.

In Australia, our indifference is different. We have become highly competent at divide and rule: at promoting those black Australians who tell us what we want to hear. At professional conferences their keynote speeches are applauded, especially when they blame their own people and provide the excuses we need. We create boards and commissions on which sit nice, decent liberal people like the prime minister’s wife. And nothing changes.

In August this year, the United Nations once again distinguished Australia with the kind of shaming once associated with South Africa. We discriminate on the basis of race. That’s it in a nutshell. This time the UN blew a whistle on the so-called “intervention”, which began with the Howard government smearing Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory with allegations of sex slavery and paedophile rings in “unthinkable numbers”, according to the minister for indigenous affairs.

In May last year, official figures were released and barely reported.

Out of 7433 Aboriginal children examined by doctors, 39 had been referred to the authorities for suspected abuse. Of those, a maximum of four possible cases were identified. So much for the “unthinkable numbers”. Of course, child abuse does exist, in black Australia and white Australia. The difference is that no soldiers invaded the North Shore suburbs; no white parents were swept aside; no white welfare has been “quarantined”. What the doctors found they already knew: that Aboriginal children are at risk - from the effects of extreme poverty and the denial of resources in one of the world’s richest countries.

In the 1970s, Aboriginal communities were granted comprehensive land rights in the Northern Territory, and John Howard set about clawing back these rights with bribery and bullying. The Labour government is doing the same. You see, there are deals to be done. The Territory contains extraordinary mineral wealth, especially uranium. And Aboriginal land is wanted as a radioactive waste dump. This is very big business, and foreign companies want a piece of the action.

It is a continuation of the darkest side of our colonial history: a land grab.

Where are the influential voices raised against this? Where are the peak legal bodies? Where are those in the media who tell us endlessly how fair-minded we are?

Silence.

US Hypocrisy

2011-02-06T13:37:00.001+11:00

I think this might be what Irony means ...

from the National Times

Lost in the global uproar over Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks horror, there was some good news from Washington. The US will host World Press Freedom Day in May, an exciting event with the catchy slogan "New Frontiers, New Barriers''.

"New media has [sic] empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals' right to freedom of expression.

"At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals and to restrict the free flow of information. We mark events such as World Press Freedom Day in the context of our enduring commitment to support and expand press freedom and the free flow of information in this digital age."