blog

Zazzle Categories

Thu, 03 May 2012 08:32:38 -0700

Zazzle has many categories you can choose from, unfortunately when creating products there is no easy way of searching the list of categories. I wanted to add a knitting related design and ended up choosing Hobbies > Achievement > Crafts. I've gone through all Zazzle categories and put them into this single flat list below. You can use your browsers search (ctrl + F) to search for keywords. Doing a quick search for 'knit', it turns out I should have choosen Art > Other Art Forms > Textile > Knitting & Crocheting.

As it's a long long list I've created separate pages:

If you haven't created a Zazzle account yet, please support this website by clicking on the affiliate link for your country:

Please note I'm not affiliated with Zazzle in any way, I've created this section as I'm running several shops with them.

Search Multiple Files

Tue, 01 May 2012 06:38:06 -0700

Search for multiple files names in Windows in only one search

In Windows XP you can separating multiple occurences of filename patterns by semi colons (;) to search for multiple files in one search.

For example: SX22054;SX22025;SX22057;SX22088 searches for filenames including the text "SX22054", "SX22025", "SX22057" or "SX22088".

ÃÂÃÂ

Pagebreaks printing Excel

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 04:46:21 -0800

When printing multiple sheets from an Excel workbook to a PDF file, seemingly random page breaks can be introduced which force some PDF writers to split the printed pages over multiple files. The solution is here.

How to remove unwanted page breaks when printing Excel sheets

The page breaks are caused by changes in 'Print quality' settings. Excel seems to randomly adjust these on certain actions. To fix the issues set the same print quality dpi number for all pages.

Select the sheets you want to print
In the menu go to File > Print Preview
For each page individual page
- Click 'Setup...' button
- Set 'Print quality' to the same number as the other pages.

I've found that it's often only the first page on a sheet where the Print quality changes, so you may not need to check the settings for each individual page of each sheet.

You should now be able to print the collection of all Excel sheets into a single PDF using a PDF writer (affiliate link).

Word Strikethrough Shortcut

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 04:05:48 -0800

Create a Word Strikethrough Keyboard Shortcut

In Microsoft Excel you can use the Ctrl+5 keyboard shortcut to make a text strikethrough. Word doesn't have this feature out of the box, but it is easy to setup.

In the Tools Menu select the Customize option.
Select the Commands Tab and click the Keyboard button
In 'Categories' select 'Format' and in 'Commands' scroll down to 'Strikethrough'
Enter a new shortcut key (e.g. Ctrl+5) and click 'Assign' button.

You can now use the Ctrl+5 shortcut to make a selection strikethrough (or toggle it back to normal again).

Use the same instructions to setup/change custom shortcuts for: Double Strikethrough, Superscript (Ctrl++), Subscript (Ctrl+=), Small caps (Ctrl+Shift+K), All caps (Ctrl+Shift_A), Hidden (Ctrl+Shift_H), Font size, Font colour.

Open File Dialog

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 02:52:07 -0800

Reset sort order in File Open and File Save dialog box (Windows XP)

I've had a couple of times that the sort order of 'Open File(s)' and 'Save As' dialog boxes in Windows XP got all messed up. Instead of showing files and folders alphabetically it sorted them on Modified date instead.

There is a really easy solution:

Open either a 'Open File(s)' or 'Save As' dialog box.
You can do this in any program you like (Word, Excel, Notepad, Firefox, Internet Explorer)
Set the sort order to how you like it.
(Right click anywhere that isn't a file and select 'Arrange Icons By' > Name / Size / Type / Modified
Hold the Ctrl key and close the dialog box by clicking on the Red cross on the top right corner.

Next time you open any 'Open File(s)' or 'Save As' dialog box you should see your preferred sort order.

Unfortunately it doesn't work to set 'View Menu', as I would often like to use 'Detailed view' instead of 'List'. If you find a solution for this please give me a shout!

Solution found in comments on this thread posted here for my future reference as I'm sure it will happen again, and I'll have to start scratching my head again to figure out how to get it back.

Popcorn Movie Reviews

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 09:53:34 -0700

Presenting: Popcorn Movie Reviews.com

I'm proud to present a new website Popcorn Movie Reviews. It will focus on reviews of DVD's, mainly action movie reviews, but the movies reviewed will range from comedies to dramas.

Batch files variables

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 09:09:28 -0700

How to pass variables between dos batch files

I spend a couple of hours today figuring out how to get the result from a DOS batch as a variable in another DOS batch file. I.e. you have a batch file A which calls another batch file B, which return sa variable you can use in bath file A.
Here is the solution I came up with:

My original called batch file calculated yesterdays date. I've been using a slightly modified version of Yesterday.bat from Rob van der Woude's Scripting Pages..

To keep this example simple I'll simulate the result of the called batch file with a simple file as:

outputVariable.bat

:: Lots of complicated calculations which result in:
set yesterday = 20-01-2006
echo %yesterday%

readVariableFromOutput.bat

:: Copy the output from executing another batch file into a variable

:: Execute outputVariable.bat and store batch files result in
:: variable yesterday

@FOR /F "tokens=*" %%i IN ('outputVariable.bat') DO set yesterday=%%i

echo %yesterday%

If you run readVariableFromOutput.bat it will show the value of %yesterday% which is now available for further processing. That's all there is too it.

If you are looking to pass a variable the other way. I.e. you have a batch file and want to call another batch file passing a variable instead of getting the returned value. Here is how to do that:

caller.bat

@echo off
cls
set vara="Hello There"
set varb=67890

echo Variables set in caller.bat:
echo %vara%
echo %varb%

echo Calling passTo.bat
call passTo.bat %vara% %varb%

passTo.bat

@echo off
echo.
echo Inside passTo.bat
set vara=%1
set varb=%2

echo vara: %vara%
echo varb: %varb%

Note:

Avoid using any spaces in the code to set the variables:

set vara="Hello There"

works whereas

set vara = "Hello There"

does not work.

I haven't looked into the possibilies of passing variables back and forth, but that can be easy figured out from these two examples.

Copyright

You may republish this page as long as this message and an active link to http://www.marijn.org/archive/2006/batch-files-variables is included.

Brownie recipe

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 10:23:18 -0700

Charlie's Chocolate brownie recipe - Easy and simple to make (secret) brownies recipe

Ingredients

Ingredients: good dark cholcolate (at least 70% coca solids), butter, caster sugar, light muscovado sugar, vanilla extracts, eggs, plain flower and cocoa powder.

Measurements		Ingredient
85 g	3 oz	Dark chocolate (at least 70% coca solids)
100 g	3.5 oz	Butter
125 g	4.5 oz	Caster sugar
100 g	3.5 oz	Light muscovado sugar
100 g	3.5 oz	Plain flour
1 tsp		Vanilla extracts
3 tbsp		Cocoa powder
3 eggs		2 whole eggs + 1 egg yolk mixed together

ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂ

Preparation time:	10 to 15 mintues
Cooking time:	30 minutes
Oven temprature	180ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂ°C / 350ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂ°F / Gas mark 4

Instructions

Pre heat oven to 180ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂ°C / 350ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂ°F / Gas mark 4
Grease an 18cm square shallow tin and line with baking paper

Break up chocolate and put in heat proof bowl with the butter
Place in pan of boiling water, leave till melted then remove from heat and cool

Stir in sugars into chocolate mixture with vanilla
Then beat in egg mixture and gradually add sifted flour and cocoa powder, stir until evenly blended

Pour mixture into tin
Bake for 30 minutes until risen but slightly soft in middle, skewer should come out with a few moist crumbs sticking to it

Leave in tin for 5 minutes then turn out on to a wire rack to cool
Peel off the paper and cut into squares, wrap in foil and leave until next day before eating (if possible)
If coleague of Marijn don't forget the next essential step: bring into work and share!

Charlie's Chocolate Brownies Recipe

The recipe is the secret recipe from my girlfriends' sister (so don't tell anyone). Although she did say I could put it on my website as long as I said hi to her bunny Charlie. Hi Charlie.

Diggers of Destruction

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:45:45 -0700

Diggers of Destruction: Demolition of old office / university building

I've been meaning to put this movie online, pretty much since I recorded it in 2004. Here it finally is after some editing to get only the good bits!

Short 30 second movie of two diggers demolishing a 5 storey building.

Garden shed

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:54:08 -0700

Timelapse movie of building a garden shed in one minute

I haven't posted anything on my site for ages as I've been busy moving house - and due to general laziness. Fear not however, here is a timelapse movie of how to build a garden shed in 1 minute.

PS. For all the folks back home I'll try to add some pictures of our new place soon!

Google Gadget

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 07:43:58 -0700

Example Google Gadget

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Emoticons Google Gadget by Emofaces

abScreensavers.com

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 07:02:48 -0700

New site: Free screen savers at abScreensavers.com

Working self employed has given me more time to work on my own projects. My first project that is ready for its initial release is abScreensavers.com

It features a collection of free screen savers. The current screen saver selection is sport related, but hopefully the website will soon be expanded with additional screen savers with different subjects. Check it out and let me know what you think of my logo for it!

HijackThis

Thu, 13 Jul 2006 19:07:32 -0700

If you are looking for information on the program HijackThis, you are looking on the wrong website. This is marijn.org not merijn.org!

I haven't tested any of merijn's software myself, but it seems to have a good cause.

Of course you are welcome to have a look around here.

Download Picasa

Thu, 29 Jun 2006 18:05:00 -0700

Download Google Picassa 2 Free - Google Picasa photo software

I've been using Picasa 2.0 software for over a year now to help me organise my photos. I've got a large collection (20.000+) of photographs which I made with my digital camera. I've given all the pictures a sensible name and stored them in a directory structure ordered by occasion.

Organise pictures with Picasa

Picassa 2 from Google is a great free program that lets you organise and quickly find pictures. The program easily lets you find a pictures by searching for part of a filename or folder name. It has a very good thumbnail overview. If you search for a filename it automatically shows thumbnails of all the files. Best of all it updates the selection while you are typing your search words. It also has the option of adding labels to your photos so you can easily categorise them.

Picassa screenshot

Editing pictures with Picasa without worry

Picasa has some basic features to edit pictures. It easy to try all the options, all changes you make are stored but are not directly applied to your original pictures. You can easily undo any changes. Picasa automatically stores all your edits to your pictures.

Crop: Make a cut out of an interesting section
Straighten: Easily fix pictures which are at an angle
Red eye: Remove those werewolf eyes
Auto contrast: Quick fix for better contrast
Auto colour: Quick fix to improve on colour
I'm Feeling Lucky: Automatically apply optimisation filters on the picture. See the image below.

Quick fix example

Before I'm Feeling Luck

After I'm Feeling Lucky

Tuning options

Fill light
High lights
Shadows
Colour temperature

Edit effects

Picassa has a number of built in effects you can apply to your pictures. The main ones are:

Sepia
Sharpen
B&W
Graduated Tint

I can only say, why don't you try the free picassa 2 download for yourself. It's free so you won't loose any money on it!

PS. I'm wondering where Google got the name for the new Picasa download, it sounds very similar to Picaso / Picasso as in the famous painter.

Boterkoek recipe

Wed, 10 May 2006 18:02:02 -0700

Boterkoek recipe aka Traditional Dutch shortbread recipe

Ingredients

Ingredients: flour, butter, caster sugar, vanilla essence, salt and one teaspoon of milk.

Diameter baking tin	Flour	Butter	Caster sugar
24 cm	250 g	225 g	150 g
19 cm	185 g	170 g	110 g

Instructions

Preparation time:	10 to 15 minutes
Cooking time:	25 to 30 minutes
Oven temperature	200 C / 400 F / Gas mark 5

Pre heat the oven
Grease the baking tin
Put all ingredients except the milk in a bowl
Cut the butter with two knifes into small bits and knead the dough with cold hands into a smooth ball
Press the dough in the greased tin
Spread the milk over the dough
Bake the Boterkoek in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes on 200 C / 400 F / Gas mark 5

Tip: cover the top of the Boterkoek with some tin foil for the first 15 minutes and finish baking for another 10 minutes.

Boterkoek / Dutch shortbread

This recipe for Boterkoek comes from a Dutch cook book which my mom sent to me because I miss eating it while living in Wales. I don't know whether it's a traditional Dutch shortbread recipe, but it's definately a traditional recipe handed from mother to son (i.e. me) in my family :)

Enjoy

Emofaces.com

Fri, 06 Jan 2006 16:19:39 -0800

New website Emofaces.com launched

I'm proud to present my Emoticons, Buddy Icons and Smilies site. It's finally ready to present to a larger audience. You will be able to find thousands of funny Emofaces for use in e-mail, forums, etc. Emofaces.com replaced my old sites smiley -faces.com and smiling-faces.com. Check out the cool graphics now!

Er is ook een Nederlandse versie: Emofaces.nl (Also in Dutch).

NedStat

Wed, 28 Dec 2005 15:19:17 -0800

I've had a NedStat counter installed on Marijn.org for almost 6 years, but since they changed to www.webstats4u.com they have decided to add pop up and pop under adds without any form of notification. I've decided to remove the NedStat counters from my pages. It's to bad I won't be able to track any historical data, but pop ups are one of the most annoying things on the internet and I find it a wee bit rude that they add them without any form of notification.

I recommend using Google Analytics. They are not accepting any new subscriptions at the moment, but there analytics are way much more detailed and free so far.

Google Maps

Wed, 21 Dec 2005 02:28:00 -0800

Google Maps: Summer and Autumn in Central Park, New York

While browsing Google maps I found that half of central park it is summer in the other half it's autumn. Have a look for yourself.

View on Google Maps

Download FireFox

Tue, 29 Nov 2005 07:20:00 -0800

Mozilla FireFox: download the free Mozzila FireFox web browser

Click on the link above to download FireFox (Affiliate link) then come back to this page using FireFox to install the useful plugins.

I've been using the Mozilla FireFox for some time now and I can recommend it to all internet surfers out there.

The only problem I had is having to install all the plugins I like on my work and home computer. That's why I made a quick list of the plugins I use below. Now I can download FireFox and the plugins I need from one easy page. Hopefully you'll find this page useful.

Plugins

I'm running my Mozzila FireFox with the following plugins installed:

Google Toolbar. Excellent tool, to search directly from your browser. If you've use the banner above to download FireFox, the Google toolbar is included.
WebDeveloper. Provides quick access to a number of settings in FireFox. En/Disable JavaScript, CSS options, Re-size the browser window and much more useful stuff.
Clone Window. One of the Internet Explorer features I missed in Mozilla FireFox was that I didn't get a new version of the current window when opening a new window. Fortunately this plugin solved that problem. I haven't tried it (it's on my todo list) is to test the Duplicate Tab extension, it looks promising.
User Agent Switcher. Let's you pretend to be any browser, for sites that require Internet Explorer. From the same developer as the WebDeveloper toolbar above.
Switch Proxy. Quickly change proxies, ideal for checking whether other people see your websites the same as you do.
The following entries are more Web Development / Search Engine related and might not be relevent for all.
- Live HTTP Headers. View which status headers are send back to your browser.
- Fangs: The Screen Reader Emulator. Emulates the pages as if you are looking at it with a screen reader. Will help you create accessible pages. Which reminds me, I should probably test my pages to see whether they are still ok.
- Search Status. Gives quick access to some the number of pages indexed and the number of backwards links for the three major search engines. (Google, MSN and Yahoo)

Mozzila FireFox, MozzillaÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂ FireFox or Modzilla FireFox?

The official spelling of the web browser is: Mozilla FireFox. I've come across some obvious and some entertaining misspellings of my favourite browser on the internet. They are listed in increasing silliness:

Mozzila FireFox
Mozzilla FireFox
Mozila FireFox
Mozill FireFox
Monzilla FireFox
Moxilla FireFox
Mozella FireFox
Morzilla FireFox
Motzilla FireFox
Modzilla FireFox
Mazilla FireFox
Mozzarella FireFox

I *so* think the last one should have been the official name :)

Also have a look at my separate Modzilla site as there is more information including loads of tips & tricks, comparison between versions and other info there.

Thingyish

Tue, 29 Nov 2005 06:51:00 -0800

Thingy and -ish: The two most useful English words I didn't learn in school

I've lived in the UK for bits spread out over a couple of years and I've been living here for over a year in all now. One of the things I noticed is that the English I learned in school* is not quite as practical as the English I learned while I've been living here. They forget to teach you two of the most useful words in the English vocabulary.

-ish

When I made an appointment with my lecture he said to meet him at 9ish. I went what time? He said around 9 o'clock that is. I quickly found out that -ish can be stuck to almost any word you like to create an approximation. Since I'm not always a very exact guy I quickly started to like -ish and now stick it to almost any word I use.

Thingy

English not being my first language, I sometimes have difficulties thinking of the appropriate word to say - especially when I get tired. Luckily the most versatile word in the English language is always ready to come to the rescue: thingy! Thingy can mean absolutely anyone and anything, and you can construct entire sentences where every other word is thingy. "Did you remember to buy the thingy?" "Did thingy give you the thingy so you can thingy it in the thingy, when thingy is at thingy."

Makes perfect sense doesn't it?

Thingy-ish

I was talking to some people about speaking English as a second language and the words of the English language. Then it dawned on me, the single most useful word for if thingy is to specific: thingy-ish.

That thingy concludes today's English lessons for foreigners in the UK. I hope it wasn't to educational.

* Another reason could of course be that I wasn't paying enough attention during English classes.