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Can’t type in PyCharm? Try this first.

Dave Farquhar Software October 19, 2020October 3, 2020 0 Comment

PyCharm is a lifesaver for developing in Python, but it has a glitch. Sometimes, after you run a script, you lose the ability to type in the editor and make changes. Loads of web sites offer elaborate suggestions to fix the problem, but frequently, these complex solutions don’t work. Frequently they cause other problems. Try the easy solutions first.

The two easy solutions are to double-click on another file in your project, then double click on your script again. And if that doesn’t work, just exit PyCharm entirely and relaunch it.

Is Windows Unix based?

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing, Software June 9, 2020June 6, 2020 1 Comment

At least two of the most popular operating systems of today are based on Unix. But what about Windows? Is Windows Unix based?

While Windows has some Unix influences, it is not derived or based on Unix. At some points is has contained a small amount of BSD code but the majority of its design came from other operating systems.

RAM Doubler remembered

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing, Software May 11, 2020May 9, 2020 0 Comment

RAM Doubler was a fairly popular product for Macintosh computers in the 1990s. But you can’t buy it today, and if it seems like it’s been a while since you’ve seen or heard of it, there’s a reason for it. Ironically, it was a competing product that didn’t work that brought it down. Here’s what happened to RAM Doubler.

RAM Doubling products worked by setting aside an area of memory and compressing it, then decompressing it when you needed it. It was a form of virtual memory, theoretically faster than traditional virtual memory that used disk space, but less stable.

Openoffice vs Libreoffice

Dave Farquhar Software January 20, 2020January 20, 2020 1 Comment

If you need a free, open source office suite, the leading choices are Openoffice and Libreoffice. And if you’re comparing, the two may seem more alike than different. The apps all have the same names, the user interfaces are really similar, and so are the feature sets. It’s not a coincidence, but there are some differences. Let’s take a look at Openoffice vs Libreoffice.

Libreoffice is derived from Openoffice, so that’s why the tools are so similar. However, there are some minor differences between the two that may be important to you.

Advantages and disadvantages of CLI

Dave Farquhar Software June 25, 2019June 9, 2019 0 Comment

Many people regard command line interfaces as old-fashioned. They’re certainly less friendly and much less intuitive than icons and a mouse. Nevertheless, command line interfaces still exist, and even the Macintosh, the computer that introduced the masses to icons and mice, has one. So what are the advantages and disadvantages of CLI?

Command lines can be cryptic but they can be a whole lot faster, and they make automation and dealing with huge data sets possible. Network administrators, system administrators, security professionals, and data scientists may all spend significant time using a CLI for this reason.

How game cracking works

Dave Farquhar Software March 28, 2019March 3, 2019 0 Comment

Copying software is a problem as old as software itself. Software manufacturers immediately sought to prevent people from copying their products. And it’s been a game of cat and mouse ever since, as people figured out how to crack the software so they could copy it. Here’s how game cracking works.

Cracking games, or any other software, is a matter of making the software stop performing whatever checks the manufacturer put in place to defeat copying. It typically takes some knowledge of machine language, and sometimes encryption, to make it work. But once the check is circumvented, the software generally can be copied freely.

How to accept all changes in Word

Dave Farquhar Office, Software July 15, 2018November 19, 2018markup, microsoft word

Every couple of months or so, we have to collaborate at work on a Microsoft Word document and submit it without all the distracting markup in it. And it seems like it always takes four of us half an hour to re-figure out how to accept all changes in Word and remove the comments. This applies to Word 2007 and all newer versions.

Sometimes I also find the tracked changes and other markup causes weird problems, and the fastest way to make them go away is to get rid of the markup.

So I figured it might help someone. This is something that either takes you 30 seconds or 30 minutes. If you don’t do this every day, it’s likely to take too long. This is for those of you who can’t do it in less than 30 minutes.
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How to create a stacked bar chart in Excel

Dave Farquhar Office, Software July 15, 2018November 19, 2018excel, Plumbing, sprint

My boss’ management is clamoring for metrics. They want to know, at a glance, what we’re doing and how far along we are. Sounds like a job for stacked bar charts in Excel to me. So here’s how to create a stacked bar chart in Excel.

Figuring out a way to track our progress was fairly easy. Figuring out how to make Excel display that chart in a meaningful fashion… Well, that took about five hours. I’ll try to make it easier for you than it was for me.
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What does compressing a file do?

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing, Software June 11, 2018November 16, 2019

What does compressing a file do? There are several ways to describe it, from eliminating redundancy, to just thinking of it as digital shorthand. The goal is to make the file take up less space on disk and in transit. How it works is a bit more complicated.

What is a bot in computer terms?

Dave Farquhar Software May 21, 2018November 24, 2018

You hear the word “bot” thrown around a lot today. It’s in conversations, on the news, and even in stand-up comedians’ routines. So everyone assumes you know what it means. But what is a bot in computer terms?

Don’t be afraid to ask. I’ll explain it.

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