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Moving PowerShell data into Excel

2013 Aug 15, 10:04
PowerShell nicely includes ConvertTo-CSV and ConvertFrom-CSV which allow you to serialize and deserialize your PowerShell objects to and from CSV. Unfortunately the CSV produced by ConvertTo-CSV is not easily opened by Excel which expects by default different sets of delimiters and such. Looking online you'll find folks who recommend using automation via COM to create a new Excel instance and copy over the data in that fashion. This turns out to be very slow and impractical if you have large sets of data. However you can use automation to open CSV files with not the default set of delimiters. So the following isn't the best but it gets Excel to open a CSV file produced via ConvertTo-CSV and is faster than the other options:
Param([Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][string]$Path);

$excel = New-Object -ComObject Excel.Application

$xlWindows=2
$xlDelimited=1 # 1 = delimited, 2 = fixed width
$xlTextQualifierDoubleQuote=1 # 1= doublt quote, -4142 = no delim, 2 = single quote
$consequitiveDelim = $False;
$tabDelim = $False;
$semicolonDelim = $False;
$commaDelim = $True;
$StartRow=1
$Semicolon=$True

$excel.visible=$true
$excel.workbooks.OpenText($Path,$xlWindows,$StartRow,$xlDelimited,$xlTextQualifierDoubleQuote,$consequitiveDelim,$tabDelim,$semicolonDelim, $commaDelim);
See Workbooks.OpenText documentation for more information.
PermalinkCommentscsv excel powershell programming technical

Serializing JavaScript Promise Execution

2013 Aug 10, 3:07
Occasionally I have need to run a set of unrelated promises in series, for instance an object dealing with a WinRT camera API that can only execute one async operation at a time, or an object handling postMessage message events and must resolve associated async operations in the same order it received the requests. The solution is very simply to keep track of the last promise and when adding a new promise in serial add a continuation of the last promise to execute the new promise and point the last promise at the result. I encapsulate the simple solution in a simple constructor:

    function PromiseExecutionSerializer() {
var lastPromise = WinJS.Promise.wrap(); // Start with an empty fulfilled promise.

this.addPromiseForSerializedExecution = function(promiseFunction) {
lastPromise = lastPromise.then(function () {
// Don't call directly so next promise doesn't get previous result parameter.
return promiseFunction();
});
}
}

The only thing to watch out for is to ensure you don't pass the result of a previous promise onto a subsequent promise that is unrelated.
PermalinkCommentsasync javascript promise technical

draft-ietf-websec-origin-01 - The Web Origin Concept

2011 Jun 21, 1:22"This document defines the concept of an "origin", which is often used
as the scope of authority or privilege by user agents. Typically,
user agents isolate content retrieved from different origins to
prevent malicious web site operators from interfering with the
operation of benign web sites. In addition to outlining the
principles that underly the origin concept, this document defines how
to determine the origin of a URI, how to serialize an origin into a
string, and an HTTP header, named "Origin", that indicates which
origins are associated with an HTTP request."PermalinkCommentsietf reference technical web browser user-agent webbrowser origin

Android eBook Reader And Makers

2009 Dec 13, 1:27

I was reading Makers, Cory Doctorow's latest novel, as it was serialized on Tor's website but with no ability to save my place within a page I set out to find a book reading app for my G1 Android phone. I stopped looking once I found Aldiko. Its got bookmarks within chapters, configurable fonts, you can look-up words in a dictionary, and has an easy method to download public domain and creative common books. I was able to take advantage of Aldiko's in-app book download system to get Makers onto my phone so I didn't have to bother with any conversion programs etc, and I didn't have to worry about spacing or layout, the book had the correct cover art, and chapter delimiters. I'm very happy with this app and finished reading Makers on it.

Makers is set in the near future and features teams of inventors, networked 3d printers, IP contention, body modifications, and Disney -- just the sort of thing you'd expect from a Cory Doctorow novel. The tale seems to be an allegory for the Internet including displacing existing businesses and the conflict between the existing big entertainment IP owners and the plethora of fans and minor content producers. The story is engaging and the characters filled out and believable. I recommend Makers and as always its Creative Commons so go take a look right now.

PermalinkCommentstor aldiko cory doctorow g1 makers ebook android book

HIMAGELIST Stream Size

2008 Jan 12, 2:26If you're like me you need to serialize an object that contains an HIMAGELIST via IMarshal for COM's marshalling. I could use ImageList_Write to actually write the HIMAGELIST to a stream for IMarshal::MarshalInterface, but I needed to know the size of the data that I was going to write for IMarshal::GetMarshalSizeMax. I thought I'd use HIMAGELIST_QueryInterface to get an IPersistStream pointer which works, but alas its implementation of IPersistStream::GetMaxSize just returns E_NOTIMPL. Ultimately I called ImageList_Write on a special stream that ignores the data passed to it and just records how much data is written to it. In this fashion I could get the size the HIMAGELIST would require when written to a stream.PermalinkCommentstechnical himagelist boring serialize imarshal com
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