The people on the Browncoats discussion board just proposed a Firefly-based fast food restaurant. I’m SarekOfVulcan in the below.

Looks like Julie had as much fun at the Central library as we did.

Jeremy Zawodny fills us in on the latest posted chapters from High Performance MySQL. Nice of the MySQL folks to help us out like this. :-)

On the Google blog, Peter Norvig, their director of search quality, tells us about one of his own searches: for the longest palindrome ever!

Cory links to an interesting document outlining exactly what photographers can and can’t take pictures of.

As I mentioned before, I set up a mailing list to forward blog posts to members of my family who currently didn’t read here. I also set it up as moderated, since I didn’t want to spam people.

Since my family seems to have a resounding lack of interest in technical posts, I’ll only approve the non-technical ones in the future. Sound good?

Camwyn, author of “The Silmarillion in 1000 words”, has turned the same skills that served her so well there to explaining U.S. elections.

NEBRASKA AND COMPANY: Fine, whatever. *votes*
EVERYONE ELSE: *also votes*
BOARDS: Okay, who won?
VOTERS: Dunno, you tell us.
BOARDS: *count votes*
VOTERS: So who’s president?
BOARDS: No one yet.
VOTERS: But- but-
ELECTORS: Hi! We’re your representatives.
VOTERS: To WHAT?
ELECTORS: The Electoral College.
VOTERS: Buh?
ELECTORS: It’s in the Constitution. Article Two, Section One.
VOTERS: . . .

Yesterday, I needed to test something involving zooming in on a VFP9 report.

I came up with the following code after reviewing a post Lisa Slater Nicholls made on the UT explaining how to do it.

*!* Create a quick report
USE home(1) + "labels"
create report labels from labels

*!* Show the preview form
oForm = CREATEOBJECT("frmPreview")
oForm.Show()

*!* Add a shape for the actual preview
oForm.AddObject("shpPreview", "Shape")
WITH oForm.shpPreview as Shape
    .Height = 550 && get the proportions correct
    .Width = 425  && for 8.5x11
.Visible = .T.
ENDWITH

*!* Create a preview listener
oPreview = CREATEOBJECT("ReportListener")
oPreview.ListenerType = 3
oPreview.PreviewContainer = oForm

*!* Run the report. Nothing will display, since that's
*!* the listener type we chose above.
REPORT FORM labels OBJECT oPreview
DoSleep(2)

*!* Output the page at the current zoom level (smaller
*!* than 100, but I haven't computed the exact value)
oPreview.OutputPage(1, oForm.shpPreview, 2)
MESSAGEBOX("Hit OK to continue")

*!* Make the preview shape 4 times bigger...
oForm.shpPreview.Height = oForm.shpPreview.Height * 4
oForm.shpPreview.Width = oForm.shpPreview.Width * 4
DoSleep(.1)

*!* ...and re-render the preview.
oPreview.OutputPage(1, oForm.shpPreview, 2)

MESSAGEBOX("Hit OK to close")

oForm.Release()

*!* Wait for any needed windows events to get through
PROCEDURE DoSleep

LPARAMETERS tnSeconds
LOCAL lnSeconds

lnSeconds = SECONDS()
DO WHILE SECONDS() - lnSeconds < tnSeconds
    DOEVENTS
ENDDO

DEFINE CLASS frmPreview as Form
    AllowOutput = .F.
    WindowState = 2

    PROCEDURE Release
        oPreview.PreviewContainer = .NULL.
    ENDPROC
ENDDEFINE

I’d just like to remind any local readers that we’re trying to get a Bothell Blogger Bash together next Tuesday, July 6, at 7:00 at the Lyons’ Den. See you there!

Last night, I stopped by the library on the way home. I picked up Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Happy Valentine’s Day, Charlie Brown!, and one disc from Connections 2, by James Burke. This is a show that shows connections between technologies — how we got from pumping water to Apollo 11, for example. After a while, Erin started getting antsy, but Ael shushed her, saying something to the effect of “I want to watch this, this is educational” — which is a word I did not use to her about it. :-) I just presented it as one of the three discs mentioned above, and popped it in over dinner.

I so pwoud of my wittle gull…. :-)