Norse Technologies Knowledge Base Free Knowledge Articles

In a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet cell one can use a custom function to effectively grab all test after the final (last) occurrence of a particular character or string. This is accomplished by simply creating a Custom Function and then using that function in a cell formula. Following is the code and instructions for how to create and then implement the function.


Function PullAfterLast(rCell As Range, strLast As String)
PullAfterLast = Mid(rCell, InStrRev(rCell, strLast) + 1, 256)
End Function


1. Highlight the above code, and copy it to the clipboard by pressing CTRL-C, or by right-clicking on the text and on the resulting popup window left-clicking on Copy.
2. Open Microsoft Excel (or proceed to step 2 if you prefer to open Excel by clicking  the desired existing .xls file directly.).
3. Open the workbook you wish to use the function with, or create a new workbook.
4. Open the Visual Basic Editor window by pressing ALT-F11 on the keyboard, or clicking Tools > Macros > Visual Basic Editor
5. Insert a new module by right-clicking on ThisWorkbook > Insert > Module or on the toolbar clicking Insert > Module
6. Paste the clipboard contents (which is the code above this numbered procedure) into the code window by pressing CTRL-V, or by right-clicking in the code window and on the popup menu clicking on Paste, or by clicking the menu toolbar on Edit and clicking on Paste.
7. Close the Visual Basic Editor by presing CTRL-Q, or by clicking File on the menu toolbar and then clicking Close and Return to Microsoft Excel.

The custom user defined function is now available to be used in the formulas of cells. To use it, the following syntax format is used in the cell’s formula:

=PullAfterLast(A1,"yourstring")

Of course, replace yourstring with the appropriate character or string.

This info was combined from ozgrid.com article about how to make custom functions easily, and vertex42.com article where Dave Hawley gave the universe this function’s code, many thanks!

Posted under Excel, Microsoft, Office

I had a problem pasting text into a rich text editor using Firefox 3.0 on Windows Vista. I found a way to allow it to work.

This may help, however I’m not sure about the security implications involved in changing this setting:

Open a new tab, and go the URL “about:config”
Find the setting “noscript.allowClipboard” and set it to “true”

This worked for me, hopefully it helps for you.

( I posted this originally at http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=624240&p=5356385#p5356385 )

Posted under Browsers

Microsoft makes manual download of update files easily accessible at this link:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=70631

This will download a file called Mpas-fe.exe
Try to save the file in a location that you can get to easily with a command prompt. (ie. C:\ )
Then, open a command prompt and run the program using the -q switch. It looks like this:

Mpas-fe.exe -q

The program will run quickly, and won’t give you any kind of confirmation that it has run or finished.

Open the Microsoft Windows Defender window to see what date your definition files have. This is how you can be sure that the update was successful.

IMPORTANT: The above info applies ONLY to 32-bit Operating Systems. For those of you using 64-bit platforms, see the full scoop here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923159 

Posted under Freeware, Microsoft

Download DVD Shrink 3.2 and Flask MPEG 0.594

This procedure assumes: “Files”-type rip of DVD to decrypted VOB using DVD Decrypter

DVD Shrink

1. Click button Open Files
2. Navigate to the VIDEO_TS subfolder of the directory that holds the DVD’s decrypted VOB files.
3. Click button Re-Author
4. Drag titles from the right-hand pane to the left-hand pane.
5. To trim: on left-hand pane items, right-click and click Set Start/End Frames…
6. Set the beginning and ending frames of the segment that you want to keep.
7. Click button Backup!

Flask MPEG

1. File >> Open DVD. Find your IFO file made when you trimmed the VOBs
2. Select the streams you want to include, click Flask this  DVD!
3. Options >> Global Project Options
1. Video tab
1. Frame Size – This dictated the output resolution of the video, as far as quality goes. It does not dictate the viewing size of the video, since this MPEG-1 video is locked in at 352 x 240 for viewing. What this means is that this setting controls video qulity only.
2. Files tab – set the path and filename for output video.
3. General Tab
1. Compiling Time – you can compile the first n frames/seconds of the project, instead of the whole thing. Good for testing settings.
4. Click OK
4. Options >> Output Format Options
1. Video Stream Settings tab – select MPEG-1 and leave the rest defaulted
2. Program Stream Settings tab – select MPEG-1 and leave the rest defaulted
3. Audio Stream Settings tab – lower Bit Rate to reduce final file size, and leave the rest defaulted
4. Click OK
5. Run… >> Start Conversion
6. Click Start on the bbMPEG screen that pops
7. When finished, click Ok on the bbMPEG screen
8. Test your finished video (segment)

Posted under Freeware, Video Editing