Category Archives: Geek Stuff

Playing with tables again

It took a while, but I did it. Wasn’t sure it would work in wordpress

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Playing with tables again

This time I have set up the template in a spreadsheet and set up the row data elements in a row so it goes .tr..td..X../td..td.X../td..td..X../td…………./tr. and copied in the original table to the same spreadsheet. I then link each data element (.X.) of the html data back to the original table data element and then C&P the html parts from the spreadsheet into wordpress.

It seems to work. And next week I can just copy the original table into the same R/C and that will produce next week’s table. All I need to do is C&P. (The Total column is for the Season, the +/- column is point delta since Monday)

06.30.05
TeamName HR R RBI AVG SB W SV SO ERA WHIP TOTAL +/-
Budchuggers 7.5 10 10 9 2 7.5 7 8 8 9 78 2
Rocky Coloradans 7.5 9 8 8 9 9 3 7 9 5 74.5 -3.5
Dingleberries 10 5.5 6.5 1 8 1 10 1 10 10 63 0
Pork Pirates 6 7 6.5 5 1 10 4 10 7 6 62.5 2.5
Indians 4 5.5 4 3 7 5 6 6 6 7 53.5 2
GANYFs 1 2 5 10 3 7.5 9 5 5 4 51.5 -0.5
Shamu Whales 9 8 9 7 4 6 1 2 1 1 48 0
Boston Ballbusters 5 3 2 2 6 3.5 2 9 4 8 44.5 0.5
Homestead Grays 2 4 3 6 5 2 8 4 2 3 39 4
Rangers 3 1 1 4 10 3.5 5 3 3 2 35.5 -7

Number with space

Summary Totals for the Week in UBL
Self/League/Pts HR R RBI AVG SB W S K ERA WHIP
UBL Averages 8.5 36.7 35.9 0.288 3.8 4.2 2.0 37.7 3.30 1.23
Rocky Coloradans 7 40 31 0.288 5 4 1 35 3.38 1.28
Points 8 10 9 9 9 9 3 6 9 5

I’m getting somewhere. I’ll continue to play with it.

Summary Totals for the Week in UBL
Self/League/Pts HR R RBI AVG SB W S K ERA WHIP
UBL Averages 8.5 36.7 35.9 0.288 3.8 4.2 2.0 37.7 3.30 1.23
Rocky Coloradans 7 40 31 0.288 5 4 1 35 3.38 1.28
Points 8 10 9 9 9 9 3 6 9 5

Ahh, looks like the frame and padding info have to go on the same line as the border info. Not sure why, I though it would read table attributes until it saw a”>”

Summary Totals for the Week in UBL
Self/League/Pts HR R RBI AVG SB W S K ERA WHIP
UBL Averages 8.5 36.7 35.9 0.288 3.8 4.2 2.0 37.7 3.30 1.23
Rocky Coloradans 7 40 31 0.288 5 4 1 35 3.38 1.28
Points 8 10 9 9 9 9 3 6 9 5

Reduced the padding and set the align to center. I think it looks good for now.

The Number Table

Summary Point totals for the week in UBL
Self/League/Pts HR R RBI AVG SB W S K ERA WHIP
UBL Averages 8.5 36.7 35.9 0.288 3.8 4.2 2.0 37.7 3.30 1.23
Rocky Coloradans 7 40 31 0.288 5 4 1 35 3.38 1.28
Points 8 10 9 9 9 9 3 6 9 5

I seem to have the table concept down. Now I need to work on spacing.

Tinkering with tables

Common Usenet Abbreviations
Abbreviation Long Form
AFAIK As Far As I Know
IMHO In My Humble Opinion
OTOH On The Other Hand

OK, I have set up a spreadsheet where the col A and Col C cells have the start and stop tags for the table elements. Then I can just C&P my data elements into column B and C&P the entire table into Word Press to get a nice tabulated look. Next I’ll see how it works with my weekly number summary.

Security Fix

Security Fix

This one I consider scary. Being able to spoof Caller ID completely negates one of the primary security mechanisms that someone is where they say they are, and, to a lesser extent, that they are who they say they are.

If someone steals a new credit card out of my mailbox, they can activate it and go on a spending spree without me knowing anything about it until the first bill arrives. Even the credit card company may not realize there is a problem with the spending pattern.

Another reason to keep the credit limits on your cards low.

I wonder if the credit card company will treat the spending spree as theft? The confirmation came from you home phone number? Presumably the signature on the back of the card matched how whoever stole the card signed it.

How are they spoofing the caller ID? Caller ID (ANI) is generated by the local switch and is passed on through the phone network when a call is made. Presumably the spoofers are acting as a local switch and passing whatever ANI on to one of the main carriers, like the baby Bells or MCI. These carriers just pass the ANI field on without looking at it. I think the main carriers are going to have to start monitoring the ANI coming from outside their systems and drop it if it doesn’t conform to standards. An MCI switch in Colorado Springs wouldn’t pass an ANI from a local switch that didn’t have a 719 or cell-phone area code. And they shouldn’t accept ANI from known Spoofers.

The FCC may need to set up stricter rules on area code conformity. I thinkthat all area codes starting with “9” should be caller pays. All Area Codes starting with “8” should be callee pays. And since they got rid of the ‘”0″ and “1” restriction for second digit, all the residential/landline area codes should be moved to the lower range of numbers and the cell phone, IP and non-land-line area codes should start at 799 and work down. This would give some assurance to the network switches that the ANI they are routing is reasonably accurate. And more importantly that the recieving phone can trust the information provided by the network.

Bad things happen when trust is lost, or is it more appropriate to say that good things don’t happen when trust is lost?

Wherefore Art Thou, Smart Homes?

Column from PC Magazine: Wherefore Art Thou, Smart Homes?

I once had high hopes of creating a ‘smart’ house. I have a bunch of X10 remotely controlled light switches and plug-ins and IR motion detectors and remote camera monitoring modules. I even got some software to control them all.

And it didn’t provide a very satisfactory environment, for two reasons. First, when you are walking from room to room, it is easier to turn the lights on and off as you walk by the switch rather than trying to find the remote control that isn’t where you usually leave it. Second, I am trying to migrate to compact flourescent lighting and the X10 modules don’t work with flourescents.

So all my remote lighting control is down to my being able to turn the lights in the TV room on and off from my chair.

The remote camera is still up in the barn to monitor the horses, but the only time you want to monitor them is when it is too dark to see anything and those cameras weren’t very good anyway. You could tell if there as a horse in frame and if it was standing or laying down. I don’t think you could tell which horse it was.

I never found the need to try remote HVAC controls. We don’t have a zoned house and the thermostat is outside the bedroom door.

I can see that a ‘smart ‘ building is an energy efficient method for office buildings and other large structures that have energy zones. In the standard home, it seems like a lot of overkill.

Why do I need a tool to turn off all the lights in the house at one time. 99% of the time the only lights in the house to be turned off are the ones in the room I am in. We usually turnoff lights when we leave rooms and a final walkthrough the house in the evening catches any lingering lights.

So the upshot for ‘smart’ homes is they aren’t worth the time, money and effort unless you want to really geek out.