Compare text files with ExamDiff
Have you ever needed to find the differences between two text files? You may not need to everyday, but if/when you ever do, ExamDiff really makes it easy. ExamDiff is a freeware Windows tool for visual file comparison. It has a number of simple and convenient features that many users have been asking for a long time from a file comparison tool.
As soon as you run the program, you will see the following window:
For my first example I’ve used a php file that is used on this site. I copied the file and then made a minor change to the second one. I replaced a semicolon for a colon at the end of line #45 and it picked it up right away.
My second example uses a normal text file. Unfortunatly, the free version doesn’t support wordwrap so it only shows you the line in which the difference takes place.
Once you scroll to the right (both sides simultaneously), you can see the difference.
In all my examples, the highlighted text is a bright green color. That’s not the default color. To change the color of the highlighted lines go to options > display.
Custom LED Lighting
Years ago when I started building my computer, case lighting wasn’t as popular as it is now. There are so many options now for illuminating the inside of your case. Anyways, I purchased a blue cold cathode for my case. I liked the color and everything looked great until I came across this article about one exploding inside a case. After reading that, I pulled it from my case, but I still wanted to have the inside lights. I decided to create a custom LED light bar. Keep in mind that this was about four years ago, so I’m not going to go into every minor detail about this project.
To make the front part of the project, I cut a piece of pvc long ways as shown here. This gave it a nice rounded edge where the LEDs would be mounted. I only used 1/4 of the pvc, but depending on your design, you could do whatever you want. For the back, bottom and sides I used plexiglass, but that step comes after all the wiring is done.
Once I got that piece cut, I drilled 10 holes about an inch apart for the 5mm LED clips in each hole. After those were inserted and the LEDs were installed, it was time for the wiring. Below is rough wiring diagram showing how I did it.
For all the LEDs, I cut the positive lead (longer one) down to shorten it and then soldered the resistor to the newly shortened lead. Then I cut the negative lead (shorter one) down and soldered a short wire to each one. After that, I connected all wires with a long wire, covering each soldered joint with heat shrink tubing. I used an old molex connector to easily provide power. (yellow = 12v / red = 5v / black = ground)
That was about four years ago and they’re still shining bright!
If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment.
Useful Links:
Resistor Calculator for LEDs
Frozen CPU – LED Lighting
LED Light Bars
Firefox 3 – Bookmarks Menu
In order to help set a world record, I downloaded and installed Firefox 3 today. Once it was installed, I immediately started customizing options and tweaking things. I never use the bookmarks toolbar in Firefox, so I normally just rename the folder and treat it like a normal folder on the bookmarks menu. With Firefox 3, this didn’t look like an option. Things like this drive me nuts!
Here’s the fix:
1. Locate your userChrome.css or userChrome-example.css file
(Finding the profile folder on Windows)
2. If your’s is named “userChrome-example.css” then rename it to “userChrome.css”
3. Open it in a text editor
4. Paste the code below to the bottom of the page
5. Save the file and restart Firefox
#bookmarksToolbarFolderMenu, #bookmarksToolbarFolderMenu+menuseparator {display: none !important;} |
You should no longer see the Bookmarks Toolbar in your Bookmarks menu! If you want, you can delete the “Recently Bookmarked” and “Recent Tags” folders by going to “Organize Bookmarks…” and then right-click > delete.
This got me to thinking though… Can I remove the “Subscribe To This Page…” and “Bookmark All Tabs…” menu options? The answer is no… I can’t, but that’s not to say it can’t be done. While I was searching for the answer, I found this add-on: Menu Editor. It allows you to customize every menu EXCEPT the Bookmarks menu. I posted a thread in the forum about this, so we’ll see what happens.
Wordpress Plugin – AdServe
I was just looking in to a better way to deliver the banner that you see at the top of the page. I started my search at the WordPress plugin page. I found the plugin “AdServe”. It looked like it would do just what I wanted.
AdServe is the advertising server for WordPress. You could setup your banner campaigns using different sized banners, set available impressions and count resulting clicks! Optionally AdServe links ads to blog users so that one could check the campaign results within the Dashboard!
* Unlimited number of advertisers, banners and zones.
* Advertisers have web access to real-time reports for their specific campaign.
* Launch a new browser when user clicks an ad, making it simple for them to return to your site.
The installation was easy just like most of the Wordpress plugins. After you activate the plugin, you can manage ads by going to “Manage > Ads”. Imagine that! LOL
After you have an ad setup, you’ll need to setup an ad zone. This is done by adding code into your template. The code in the instructions didn’t work for me. After doing some searching, I’ve found that the code below actually works.
<?php AdServe("zone_name"); ?> |
If you have a blog, this is an easy way to display banners with added features.
WordPress Version: 2.5.1
AdServe Version: 0.3
Welcome
Hello and welcome to my new blog. My nickname is Big Fish and I admit that I’m a bit of a geek. As my full-time job, I run the help desk at a local college. As a hobby/part-time job, I work on computers and build web sites.
I’ve built my computer (pictured below) from the ground up and I’m always upgrading or tweaking something. Just recently I upgraded from two 200GB ATA hard drives to two 500GB SATA hard drives. So far, I’m extremely happy with the upgrade. I use one drive for Windows and all my programs and files. The second drive is strictly for backup purposes. I run scheduled backups with SyncBackSE every Sunday. I like that program because it will synchronize specific files/folders without compressing them. If I accidentally delete a picture of my dog, I can just go to my other drive and copy it over.
As I said before, I’m also a part-time webmaster. I run a handful of sites and I love experimenting with new methods of design and promotion. There’s so many aspects about developing web sites that it boggles my mind. I love the thought of “owning” part of the internet and having people see my sites. Obviously, this is my newest creation.
I’m always learning and this will be my new place to document some of things that I think are worth mentioning. I’m going to leave you with a recent picture of my computer…
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