Update to “Solving Boggle-type word games in Python”
I recently updated the code in my post “Solving Boggle-type word games in Python” to run under Python 3.1.  The previous code ran under 2.6 and there were a few breaking changes between versions. The breaking changes I encountered: print is now a function call raw_input replaced with input No more .has_key() in dictionary objects, instead use in sorted parameters change I also wanted to share a link to a good word list that I found.  I found that if you look for word lists for Scrabble...Solving Boggle-type word games in Python
An update to this post using Python 3.1 is available Recently I’ve been spending a lot of my spare time learning the Python computer programming language. This all began because of an interest in the Google App Engine, which uses Python as the primary language. I decided that it’d been a while since I picked up a new programming language (the last being C#) and I knew I’d have some spare time over the holidays. Anyhow, there are a number of excellent learning resources for Python, but I...
Posted by Aaron on Sep 27, 2008 | 0 comments
Testing custom SpamAssassi...
As I was writing and testing my custom SpamAssassin rules, I often tried to figure out how to make sure my rule was running in production. I could easily test it locally by using the SpamAssassin command-line. But for production, I couldn’t use the command line. Perhaps there is a better way, but I decided to send a test spam message into the system and see how SpamAssassin handled it. The easiest...
Posted by Aaron on Sep 26, 2008 | 0 comments
SharePoint calculated fiel...
If you ever use calculated fields (a.k.a. calculated columns) in SharePoint 2007 (WSS 3.0), there is an excellent set of examples from Microsoft WSS 2.0. There is also a newer set of examples for WSS 3.0, but they haven’t deprecated any of the formulas, so everything still applies. Update: I also found a basic SharePoint calculated field reference, if examples aren’t your...
Posted by Aaron on Sep 25, 2008 | 21 comments
Easy multi-value parameter...
I recently came across an application where I needed to use a multi-value parameter in SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). Â I always seemed to have trouble with these in the past. Â This time I found them very easy to use because I found (re-discovered?) a simple way. The basic idea is to set up a parameter as if it were going to be a single value parameter with the topmost row selected by default. Â I...
Posted by Aaron on Sep 24, 2008 | 2 comments
CAML queries, SSRS, and da...
I’ve been using Enesys Software’s product RS Data Extension to query data out of SharePoint 2007 lists in SQL Server (2005) Reporting Services. One quirk with the queries is that they use CAML and the dates must be in a particular format, ISO8601. I wanted users to use the standard date-picker, but there is no way to format the date inside the query. My work-around is a classic Reporting...
Posted by Aaron on Aug 6, 2008 | 0 comments
SharePoint “User not...
I encountered an error the other day while trying to get a SharePoint 2007 (WSS 3.0) site running with SQL Server Reporting Services 2005 in integrated mode. While trying to access any report .RDL files inside a document library, I got the “User not found” error from SharePoint. After looking in the logs, I could not find anything. What I did note, was that the development site worked, but...
Posted by Aaron on Mar 17, 2008 | 1 comment
How to enable the XPS view...
When you are running Firefox as the default browser in either Windows Server 2008 & Vista, it is impossible to view XPS files without some work. Windows opts to always open XPS files in a browser. Firefox doesn’t know how to handle XPS, so it opts to open them with the registered app: XPSViewer, which happens to open the file in a browser. Thus, you get a never-ending loop. I searched for some...
Posted by Aaron on Feb 6, 2008 | 0 comments