JOEL LIPMAN Systems / Automation / AI

Knowledge base / Since 1999

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Practical solutions and technical notes from CRM platforms, workflow automation, APIs, databases and the systems around them.

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Copy a table with structure and data into a temporary table
Transact-SQL

Copy a table with structure and data into a temporary table

This will copy a given table into a temporary table all the while maintaining the structure and data. Thinking inside of the box I think everyone suggests the following (or at least the idea of): SELECT * INTO #MyTempTable FROM @GivenTable If @GivenTable is a parameter then the above will simply return an error. Also...

Read note 35,814 hits
Drop If Object Exists
Transact-SQL

Drop If Object Exists

Some people have been suggesting you can use "CREATE OR REPLACE ... VIEW ... FUNCTION" but my SQL Server 2008 Management Studio doesn't like this and refuses to understand what I'm trying to do.

Read note 32,734 hits
DataJumble - Shuffling characters in a data value
Transact-SQL

DataJumble - Shuffling characters in a data value

This was called a Data-Scrambling Function but it depends on what you mean by "scrambling". This is a function which merely uses the same characters but switches their order randomly, so I've renamed it DataJumble as opposed to my article on Data-Scrambling. Why? We want to scramble sensitive data that we send to suppl...

Read note 44,132 hits
Prefix Line Numbers in a Text File
MS-DOS

Prefix Line Numbers in a Text File

Change contents of "original_file.txt" The first line of my code The second line of my code The third line of my code To "results_file.txt" 1: The first line of my code 2: The second line of my code 3: The third line of my code How?

Read note 49,820 hits
Select unique values in Microsoft Excel column
Excel

Select unique values in Microsoft Excel column

Thought I'd put a quick note here, I tried a fair few solutions that didn't work and then found this hidden away in a forum: Quick Count =INT(SUMPRODUCT((A3:A1000<>"")/COUNTIF(A3:A1000,A3:A1000&""))) This returns the number of unique values in the range A3 to A1000 and excludes the blank/empty cells. Display all Unique...

Read note 21,280 hits
Migrate JComments from Joomla 1.5.x to Joomla 2.5.x
Joomla

Migrate JComments from Joomla 1.5.x to Joomla 2.5.x

Thought I'd add the migration script I've been using to test my JComments migration from my Joomla CMS site version 1.5.20 to Joomla CMS site version 2.5.6. DISCLAIMER I do not work for either Joomla or JoomlaTune (Jcomments) This script is provided as is without warranty If you do not understand what this script is do...

Read note 295,794 hits
MySQL: Display Users and Duration in Matrix Timesheet
MySQL

MySQL: Display Users and Duration in Matrix Timesheet

Given Data Activities by employees with start dates and end dates in a mySQL database. Objective User Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Total --------------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- --------- Me 09:00 07:30 08:00 07:00 06:00 00:00 02:00 36:00 Myself 07:30 07:30 07:30 07:30 07:00 00:00 00:00 37...

Read note 37,573 hits
How to change local folder for TFS
Team Foundation Server

How to change local folder for TFS

I installed Business Intelligence Development Studio 2008 (BIDS) and connected it to a Team Foundation Server 2010 (TFS) instance and set my working local folder to my home directory. When the rest of my colleagues installed it however, they decided to use a common local directory for all workstations so configuration...

Read note 59,860 hits

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