Never Argue With An Idiot

MS Excel flag challenge

2010-10-01T14:54:00.005+01:00

I came across to this challenge on Chandoo’s website. “The flag project is very simple. Just take your country flag and make it using only Excel Charts.” - Chandoo. So, here(jpeg) and here(xlsx) is my version of Uzbekistan flag made using MS Excel 2007. The colours and size are from the flag that is displayed at Wikipedia. I used PS CS3 to get RGB values. The flag is made up from four

NHS Number validator for Oracle

2010-02-20T20:59:00.008Z

Everyone registered with the NHS in England and Wales has their own NHS Number. Following function validates the NHS Number. It will return 1 if it is valid NHS number. The rules for validation is based on NHS DATA MODEL AND DICTIONARY. CREATE OR replace FUNCTION Is_nhsnumber(newnhsno VARCHAR2) RETURN NUMBER IS check_digit NUMBER; my_nhsnumber VARCHAR2(20) := Trim(newnhsno); BEGIN IF

Valid postcode generator for Oracle

2010-02-20T20:42:00.006Z

Lately I have been looking at validation rules of the UK postcodes and came up with a function for Oracle that validates any UK postcode. While at it I decide to create another function that would return valid postcode. The only use for this function could be to generate dummy data. There are six types of valid postcodes: TYPE_1 AN NAA M1 1AA TYPE_2 ANN NAA M60 1NW TYPE_3 AAN NAA CR2 6XH

Postcode validator for Oracle

2010-02-20T20:15:00.007Z

Here is another function for Oracle that validates the UK postcodes. The function will return 1 if the postcode is valid. Although valid doesn’t mean it exists, it is only valid in accordance with CabinetOffice.gov.uk validation rules. CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION Is_postcode (postcode VARCHAR2) RETURN NUMBER IS BEGIN IF (postcode IS NOT NULL AND (Regexp_like(postcode,'[ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPRSTUWYZ]{1

IS_NUMERIC and IS_DATE for Oracle

2010-02-20T19:33:00.006Z

Switchover from MS to Oracle SQL syntax takes some time. Suddenly all simple queries start to punish you with syntax error messages. Suddenly familiar very useful functions seize to exist. Some Googling will show that it is better to create your own functions. That is why I created/replicated some of MS functions for Oracle. This function will return 1 if the string is numeric (0-9). CREATE OR

SQL Problem Solving #2

2010-01-19T20:04:00.005Z

Problem: Some of the records have either NULL or blank strings (''). Need to count the ones which are not NULL and not blanks string. Combined use of COUNT and NULLIF. Solution: DECLARE @table TABLE(X NVARCHAR) INSERT INTO @table VALUES ('') INSERT INTO @table VALUES (NULL) INSERT INTO @table VALUES ('') INSERT INTO @table VALUES (NULL) INSERT INTO @table VALUES ('y')

SQL Problem Solving #1

2009-09-11T19:46:00.007+01:00

Problem: I have a table with field values in double quotes, like: “blabla”. Those quotes need to be removed for every field value, desired result: blabla Solution: DECLARE @I INT DECLARE @MAX INT DECLARE @STMT NVARCHAR(MAX) DECLARE @TABLE NVARCHAR(MAX) SET @TABLE = 'table_name' SET @MAX = NUMBER_OF_COLUMNS SET @I = 0 WHILE @I <= @MAX BEGIN SET @STMT = ' UPDATE ' + @TABLE + ' SET [COLUMN '

National Express Coach Driver Announcement

2009-09-07T19:08:00.005+01:00

The bus moves off from Victoria Coach Station in London and the driver in a very lazy dire voice:“Ping pong! This bus is to Liverpool and Manchester.” Pause…Passengers are puzzled and getting uncomfortable in their seats.“I am only joking this bus is to Leeds. Now I have your attention, can I please quickly tell you about safety rules? Wear you seatbelt, it is for your own safety. There are

CitySpace 2.0

2009-06-11T09:01:00.005+01:00

It is important to recognize that the emergence of the Web 2.0 is not a technological revolution, it is a social revolution, it is about how we use and perceive the Web. "Here's my take on it: Web 2.0 is an attitude not a technology. It's about enabling and encouraging participation through open applications and services. By open I mean technically open with appropriate APIs but also, more

Home by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

2009-06-10T14:42:00.005+01:00

Home is free 2009 documentary by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. It is made up of aerial shots of various places around the world. Strongly recommend to watch the movie, click here to watch. I especially recommend watching the movie to ignorant-pessimistic-skeptics for the sake of HD quality of beautiful aerial shots.Here are some stats from the movie.20% of the world’s population consumes 80% of its

What is Мой мир?

2009-06-10T09:07:00.006+01:00

I have been using it for a long time to keep in touch with my friends from ex-USSR countries. Мой мир is a part of Mail.ru – the largest free e-mail service owned by Runet since 2001, but it was launched in 1997 by Port.ru. In 2005, the number of users reached 30 million, and 25 million emails were sent every day.“Мой мир — is a place where finally all old friends could be brought together, and

WolframAlfa is my friend

2009-06-02T11:50:00.006+01:00

It has been a long two weeks with exhausting exam revisions, hopeless attempts to memorise every slide of lectures, every book and every note. This again proved Student Syndrome Effect. Whole term one does nothing until the deadline is close, and then tries to cram everything in ever shrinking temporary memory with enough lifecycle to get through the exams.Anyway, so far three of exams are over,

After Databases exam

2009-06-02T11:25:00.003+01:00

It is such a relief...but still cannot shift away the SQL queries from my head, need a holiday!SELECT vacation, locationFROM worldWHERE sky LIKE '%blue%'AND beach NOT IN ('England')AND exams='over'AND balance NOT NULLGROUP BY locationHAVING AVG(temperature)>30;

El Cártel

2009-05-15T12:29:00.008+01:00

Not the best movie. Storyline is shallow, and to say the least, actors fail to impress, nevertheless I liked the way they tied every little story in the movie to some powerful principles.They appear in reverse order in the movie. 12th principle is my favourite.Principles:1. You can’t succeed unless you try. 2. Always have an exit strategy.3. When you’ve got the right strategy, execute.4. There’s

Wolfram Alfa

2009-05-01T09:14:00.002+01:00

It is new type of search engine that does mathematical computation based on the input and based on data available on the Internet, and “tries” to generate useful information to display. I have been waiting for the launch of Wolfram Alfa for a long time now, today is the May! Alas, the website is still not working, and doesn’t mention what date on May they will launch. You can see the Wolfram Alfa

Discounted Cash Flow Example

2009-04-24T17:45:00.004+01:00

Discounted cash flow is used to anticipate the value of future returns on investment in terms of present value. Simple fact is today’s value of the money worth more than tomorrow’s.The techniques used to calculate discounted cash flow begins with calculating the Net Cash Flow which is simply the difference for each year between the costs and the benefits. Multiplying Net Cash Flow with Discount

Project Management vs. Line Management

2009-04-24T17:24:00.002+01:00

Main difference between project management and line (general) management is the former one has a limited life time. It goes through a certain life cycle of proposal, approval, scheduling, implementation and completion. Project management operates within structures which exist only for the life of the project with ‘fuzzy’ lines of authority. It is about innovation.Project management involves very

Critical path vs. Critical chain

2009-04-24T17:05:00.008+01:00

Critical path is the sequence of tasks from beginning to completion of the project where total duration of sequenced tasks is higher than any other path. It is worked out by using activity on arrow diagram. Every activity in a diagram starts and ends at an event. For every event the needs Earliest Event Time and Latest Event Time needs to be calculated. EET identifies the earliest date the

Spam emails

2009-04-11T22:10:00.003+01:00

We all have some way of fighting them. Temporary email addresses provided by Yahoo Mail and Google Mail, using many different email addresses for different purposes: for personal emails, for business, for online application forms, for shopping. Domain email addresses or purpose created one-off email addresses.The solution suggested by Mr Conrad at slashdot.com is the best!“I just handle

Google Street View

2009-04-10T16:42:00.009+01:00

I have tried to refrain from writing this post for a long time but could not resist voicing my opinion anymore.Google Street View another brilliant idea. Finally, it reached the streets of the UK! Isn’t it amazing to be able to see places before actually going there? There are almost endless list of how it could be helpful in everyday life as well as in business terms. Yet again we have some

Anthology – saddest show ever

2009-03-31T12:34:00.006+01:00

Anthology – Comedians Tell Stories from Life – which is organised and presented by Andrew J Lederer.I do not know much about stand up comedy shows as it was my first experience, but I am pretty much sure it was one of the worst shows ever! The location: 69 Stoke Newington High St, Hackney! The audience: Me, my girlfriend… and after longest ever 30 minutes other unlucky two couples arrived.There

Stop moaning

2009-03-20T09:32:00.007Z

Came across this article Twenty reasons never to fly Ryanair. The biggest moaner ever!I have used Ryanair quite a few times. Honestly, this airline will not leave you with smiles. But the quality is way above for the price you pay! It does the job!Stop moaning.Extra hidden charges? You have to plan ahead, keep your eyes open and read some small print, and stop moaning about hidden charges. The

New words

2009-03-13T06:50:00.009Z

Does it happen to you? Thoughts are rushing through your mind and your speech organs (the lips, teeth, tongue, alveolar ridge, hard palate, velum – soft palate, uvula and glottis) fail to catch up and you end up swallowing some words and creating new words. Some of them even sound like real words. Here are some of I came up with: Briefly roughly = broughly Definitely have to = defto Much more

Hints and Tips for SAP TERP10/1e

2009-03-09T23:23:00.006Z

Here are some of the hints and tips for exam on SAP TERP10 or TERP1e from the lecturer who occasionally makes fun of SAP which makes the lecture worth attending. I will try to give you the essence of four pages of hints. I do not think the lecturer minds me sharing these as he didn’t wish to put his name on these hints. Manuals: go through the manuals and remove any blank pages – there are a

Alternatives to capital punishment

2009-03-05T23:30:00.006Z