Volcanic Ash and Snowy Winters

OK, so over the past week, I’ve been reading about sunspots (or lack thereof) causing us to have cold winters for the foreseeable and volcanic eruptions in Iceland that are sending volcanic ash over the northern European countries.

Somewhere between the volcanic winter and the jet stream being diverted by our sun spot shortage, I’m not going to be throwing my coat in the wardrobe just yet.

Of course, as I write this its blazing hot outside with a clear (yes clear of clouds – volcanic or otherwise) blue sky. Good job we’ve got scientists to tell us we’re all in trouble. I would never have known! 🙂

Cat’s Eye Relocation

Over the Christmas period, Her Majesty moved sites from the Forest of Dean to Brockworth. This sounds like an easy enough job right? Wrong! Her Majesty is a stonemason/sculptor so the raw materials she uses are a little on the heavy side.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, yesterday was the official opening of Cat’s Eye Carving at its new site. There were plenty of people in attendance and the entire afternoon and evening were a roaring success.

Can I send out a big thank you to everyone who managed to make it (including a few who made it to the craft centre but couldn’t find Cat’s Eye!!). It was fantastic to see so many people wishing Her Majesty luck. I know she truly appreciated it.

Anyhow, that was pretty much what I came on here to say. If you were there, you’ll remember it as I did, if you weren’t, you missed one hell of a party! 😀

Do I or Don’t I?

I’ve been thinking for ages whether I’d like to build myself a nice swanky new PC and I’m in a very interesting quandary about it. Right now, I’m merrily using my little Revo R3600 or iPhone to do my blogging and other general IT stuff at home.

Although I had plans to use the Revo as a little quiet media centre, that all went for a walk when I realised we were using the TV pretty much all the time meaning the computer attached to it wasn’t being used. Needless to say, its now attached to the back of my monitor taking up zero space and making hardly a sound. Blogging was never going to overheat the little guy.

OK, so here’s the question and try to remember who’s asking it.
Would building a PC actually achieve anything?
Sure, I’d have the fun of putting one together, getting all the software up and running (maybe even using it to teach myself some other OS’s other than Windows ones) and generally enjoying the whole “roll your own” experience I’ve had on numerous occasions before.

But in the longer run, would it be worth it? Couldn’t I justify the cash spent and the hours gobbled up by such a hobby/project? I’m not sure and that’s where its all getting complicated. If nothing else, her majesty would be thrilled to see yet more kit in our little nest!!

I think I’ve just talked myself out of it…… Maybe if I just pop by ebuyer again and have a look at that case I liked…… 😀

Support your local (or International) Plugin Developers!

Scott Ellis, who runs vsellis.com came up with the brillaint idea of having a day dedicated to the appreciation of the WordPress community’s brillaint plugin developers. I know I’ll be playing my part and chucking the minimum five bucks at the developers that have helped me. If you’re a WordPresser, maybe even if you’re not. Why not donate to those fabulous people who’ve been giving us GPL and shareware titles and plugins to help us get by.

Please see Scott’s post at http://www.vsellis.com/scott-recommends/make-a-donation-to-your-favorite-wordpress-plugin-developer-on-march-1st/ for the genius himself to let you know how to get involved.

What a brilliant idea. I for one had practically forgotten that I could and should donate if I’m using someone else’s efforts to ease my own blog needs. I heard some developers count themselves a success if they get to 1,000,000 downloads and have been paid 300 bucks! That’s hardly a fair rate of exchange for all that work!! They do this becuase they want to give to their particular blog’s community, maybe its time we gave back. 🙂

March 1st, put it in your diary!

Back up Network Connected Printers via a VBScript

The following script can be used to back up all network printers connected to Windows. Its been tested on Windows XP (SP2 and SP3) and Windows 7.

The script simply outputs to the command window the syntax for a restoration script. Running this script from the command line, you’ll be able to control where this output goes rather than just being stuck with wherever I guess you want it.

Simply paste the following code to a vbs file of your choice then run it using the following command:
cscript <scriptname>.vbs //nologo > <target-filename>.vbs

Its a bit of a fiddle but it does mean this script is fire and forget. You’ll never need to change it if you server changes its name etc.

'Script to automatically generate a printer recreation script.
'The output of this script should be piped out to a .vbs file
'using the //nologo switch

Dim strDefaultPrinter

Wscript.Echo "'Automatically generated script to restore printers"
Wscript.Echo "'This script should be executed to recreate network printers only"
Wscript.Echo ""
Wscript.Echo "Set objNetwork = CreateObject(""WScript.Network"")"

strComputer = "."
strDefaultPrinter = "NotSet"

Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set colPrinters = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * From Win32_Printer")

For Each objPrinter in colPrinters
  If objPrinter.Attributes And 64 Then
    Wscript.Echo "' ** Local printer included for information only: " & objPrinter.Name
  Else
    strPrinterType = "objNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "
    Wscript.Echo strPrinterType & """" & objPrinter.Name & """"
    If objprinter.Default = True then
      StrDefaultPrinter = objPrinter.Name
    End If
  End If
Next

If StrDefaultPrinter <> "NotSet" then
  Wscript.Echo ""
  Wscript.Echo "objNetwork.SetDefaultPrinter " & """" & StrDefaultPrinter & """"
End If

Well, that’s a bit of a mouthful. Let’s break this script down so we know what’s going on.

The first portion of the script (I’m ignoring the preamble comment lines) is all about setting up variable and strDefaultPrinter which will be used later to set a default printer if its needed. We also make sure the script’s pointing at the current PC.
Next, we call the GetObject function to climb into the guts of Windows and set ourselves up for asking it a question.
The next line simply asks for a list of all installed printers.

The rest of the script steps through the list (For Each…. Next) and runs a couple of “If” statements to work out if the printer’s local (add a comment line) or networked (add a line to recreate the printer) then finally if it is a network printer, is it the default one.

When we’ve finished the loop, we drop out to a final If statement, this simply checks if the default printer was set by one of the network printers triggering the change. If not, it does nothing, if there is a default printer set, it adds the line.

Well, that’s it for now. Please slap a comment on the post if there’s any part you’d like walking through. As usual, this script represents a collection from  a number of sources being skimmed for various lines of code.