blog.the-erm.com

I’m not sure what this is … maybe it’s a brag post.

Or maybe I’m just doing an inventory of all the crap I’ve done involving computers.

I guess I should go back to the past, and work my way forward.

I’ve:

Really Old Stuff. – 8/16-bit 286/386 type computer stuff.

• Ran A BBS – Bulletin board service
  • Piggie Backed on a local fidonet connection.
  • Operation Overkill 2 – Door Game
  • Tradewars 2k – Door Game
  • Wrote various ANSI welcome messages and what not.
• Programmed A Dragonraid Character Generator in Modula-2
• Various scripts for 4dos. Some of which extracted .arj files into a temp folder when you needed them. Packed it back up when done. I think a friend (Wil Mason) came up with the idea, and I refined it.
• One of those scripts actually rewrote my autoexec.bat, and config.sys file so I had extra memory to play commander keen.
• A script that displayed various messages/affirmations. To go into my ‘subconscious mind.’ Now I’m an eternal pessimist. So much for a positive mental attitude.

Windows 98 Type stuff.

• Programmed some weird system tray rating plugin for longplayer. – The start of my rating obsession. Using Visual C++
• Started my own .com (Remotely hosted)
• Wrote some flash pages for fun. All of which have been lost. Due to the recent deletion of /var … It’s gotta be backed up somewhere.

The Good Stuff

Linux Stuff

• Run my own .com *FROM HOME*
• Run several friends’/family members’ .com *FROM HOME*
• Set up -and maintain- the following servers
  • http – Apache 2
  • DNS – bind
  • mail – postfix
  • ssh – openssh

Buisness Stuff

99% of this was programmed in 2 weeks. – Minus firefox plugin.

• Grab case number/work order/address/city/state/zip from third party sight via firefox plugin. Add it to our database, -and- highlight the case numbers based on who’s in charge of them.
• Auto surf third party sight to grab all the work orders # of properties we’ve visited in the last 45 days. (Open or Closed)
• Add a header to a pdf document. Understand we used to use M$ mail merge to do the same thing, and it took 2 people 4 hours (8 man hours) to do this every week. I can now do it in less than 1 hour by myself. My script does all of this after I upload a ‘raw’ pdf. Here’s the process:
  1. Convert pdf to html – pdftohtml
  2. strpos/preg_match by page — figure out what pages you need to pull from the pdf. (We don’t need the whole document.) – Grab case number while we’re at it.
  3. Extract the pages we need from the pdf. – pdftk
  4. Create a pdf header with address,city,state zip. Based on the case numbers/pages.
  5. Add the header to the pages – pdftk
  6. Put new pdf in proper folders based on the date accepted, who the agent is.
  7. Combine all the new pdfs with headers to make 1 pdf like … agent_name.pdf and also all.pdf. So it can be printed all at once.
• Picture Labeling System
  Before you think this is a minor thing … it does the following WITHOUT RELOADING THE PAGE.
  • Searches for case number/address click the link populates the form.
  • Grabs all previous picture descriptions for that property. Displays them. If you click one of them it populates the picture description, and saves it.
  • Can search *all* previous pictures for a pattern, saves when clicked. It picks the 10 most likely to display based on how many other pictures are in the database with that description.
  • When you save it if there are pictures that are ’empty’ (no case number or address city state etc. assigned to them) it auto populates those pictures forms as well – doesn’t save them just populates them. So all you have left to do is assign a description of the picture, and click save.
  • Resize/rotate Pictures
• Generate .doc files from those pictures, and email them to the right people based on state.
• Nice little calender that shows how many pictures were taken on that date, and if you click the number of pictures, it gets the first match. The picture page has 3 modes. 1 goes off of case number, the other goes off of month on a per user basis, and the third does a month view for all users. All showing a calender. — nice for navigation.
• A trip planner system that helps the agents plot routes, and you can print out a picture log with your last visits’ description so all you have to do is add a date, and kodak number on your property if the problem hasn’t been fixed. Or you can download the picture log in .csv format and edit it with excell.
• In case mode you can see all the work orders, and the pdfs associated with them – if I have them on the system. You can even look at them.

That’s not all of it, but most of my major accomplishments are there.