Some time ago, I came across Kidlin’s law – a problem written down is a problem halved. This tracks well with my own experience, but why is that the case? In a nutshell, in order to write something down, you must understand it well enough to write it down. I often find that, when describing a problem in writing, I add details that I knew – but weren’t conscious of.
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Verify what RSAT features are installed
Before summer, I showed you how to install ADUC using PowerShell. ADUC, however, is not the only tool in the RSAT toolbox. Here, then, is how you can get an overview of all of them, as well as whether or not they are installed on the computer:
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State of the Blog 2023
True to tradition, I’m writing a summer retrospective post. Meant to be the summer counterpart to my end-of-year roundup series, some information will naturally be duplicated across the two series of posts.
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Installing ADUC from PowerShell
With some frequency, I have users contacting me to have ADUC (Active Directory Users and Computers) installed on their computers. While you can simply install RSAT from Apps & Features, doing so would be overkill and a half. Much better, then, to simply install ADUC and be done with it. This is easily done using PowerShell. Here’s how:
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Excel: Defining parametric names for cells
It should come as no surprise to anyone who has read my blog for a while that I use Excel on a relatively regular basis. Wherever possible, I like using parameters, rather than addressing something directly. There are a few reasons for this. It makes a formula shorter, more user friendly, and quicker to write. I have a small spreadsheet, which shows some currencies and their relative exchange rates. I want to define an addressing parameter, rather than using the cell address. Here’s how:
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Pride once more
It is June, which means that Pride month is here again. My post last year soon took another turn as a terrorist attacked a pair of pubs in downtown Oslo. Two people were killed, and a further twenty-one were wounded. As a result, Oslo Pride was largely cancelled. More recently, the organization Save the Children cancelled a Pride-event due to threats and harassment.
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the Hacker attitude
Guiding principles for IT work
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Specific search sites for better* results
I’ve been a user of computers and the internet for long enough to remember the first browser war. It used to be that I’d regularly use multiple search engines in order to ensure that I got the best* results. My defaults would be Yahoo, AltaVista, and Kvasir, but others were certainly in the mix, too. Over time, however, most of these were replaced by Google. As a student, my exprience was that Google usually provided “more or less close enough”, rather than “exactly what I need”, and as your search gets more specialized, Googles results tend to get less useful.
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Excel: Looking up data continued
Last week, I showed you the simplest form of the
(more…)XLOOKUPfunction. Though highly useful, it’s only really useful if you find exact matches. If you’re looking at an array of data – e.g. pay averages for age groups instead of specific ages – you need to help it a little. To this end, the function has a further three arguments. In order, the ones I’ve found useful are: -
Excel: Looking up data
A while back, I showed you how I go about creating tables if average values using the
(more…)UNIQUEandAVERAGEIFfunctions. While those tables are valuable in and of themselves, I use them to compare the pay an individual in my group gets with people in the same part of the organization. -
Mac: Lock your computer
There are a number of security best practices out there. The most basic include password-protecting your devices and limiting administrative privileges. Password protection is only effective when your device is locked. While I’ve mostly been a Windows user at work, at home I tend to prefer a Mac.
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