Friday, September 22, 2023

Apple iPhone 15 available worldwide

Apple's new iPhone lineup, which includes iPhone 15, 15 Plus, 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max, hit the markets worldwide today, September 22, 2023. In addition to the above devices, Apple also made available Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Ultra 2, the new Apple Watch SE, and AirPods Pro (2nd generation). [press release]

iPhones on display at Apple Regent Street, London. Credit: apple.com

The iPhone 15, 15 Plus devices were debuted on September 12 with a press release and has been available for pre-order since September 15.

The entry-level iPhone 15 and 15 Plus are available in blue, pink, yellow, green and black with 128GB, 256 GB and 512GB variants. iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max are available in natural titanium, blue titanium, white titanium and black with 128GB, 256 GB, 512GB and 1TB variants.

The listed prices at online Apple Stores in a few countries are below:

Country iPhone 15 iPhone 15 Plus iPhone 15 Pro iPhone 15 Pro Max
United States - carrier locked - excl. taxes $799 $899 $999 $1,199
United States - carrier unlocked - excl. taxes $829 $929 $999 $1,199
Canada - excl. taxes C$1,129 C$1,279 C$1,449 C$1,749
India - incl. taxes ₹79,900 ₹89,900 ₹134,900 ₹159,900
UK - incl. taxes £799 £899 £999 £1,199
Australia - incl. taxes A$1,499 A$1,649 A$1,849 A$2,199
New Zealand - incl. taxes NZ$1,649 NZ$1,849 NZ$2,099 NZ$2,499
Thailand - incl. taxes ฿32,900 ฿37,900 ฿41,900 ฿48,900


Happy shopping.

Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Most NFTs are worthless now

An investigation by dappGambl revealed that out of a sample of 73,257 NFT collections, 69,795 (95%) have a market cap of 0 Ether (ETH). This indicates that around 95% of the investments on NFTs are currently worthless in the market. [report]

Non-fungible Tokens (NFT) had taken a ride along with the cryptocurrency boom and peaked in 2021/22 when it was regularly buzzing in the news with celebrities joining the hype.

An NFT is a data file, stored on a type of digital ledger called a blockchain, which can be sold and traded. The NFT can be associated with a particular asset – digital or physical – such as an image, art, music, or recording of a sports event. [Wikipedia]

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

Using the Windows PowerShell to bulk rename files by stripping a part from the filename

This post demonstrates how to rename files in bulk by stripping off the same part of the filename from each file by using the Windows PowerShell.

For the sake of an example, the below screenshot shows a list of MP3 files from which we want to remove artist names. The part of the filename that we want to remove is marked in red.




This can easily be achieved with the PowerShell by using a command like the one below. Remember to take a backup of the folder just in case you need to restore later. Before executing the command in the PowerShell, change directory to the folder in which the files reside:


get-childitem *.mp3 | foreach { rename-item $_ $_.Name.Replace("Paul Revere & The Raiders - ", "") }


The command executes silently and does a neat job in cleaning up the file names. Here is the result.



Monday, September 11, 2023

Send Your Name to Mars on NASA's next mission

NASA is taking registrations to send names to the next Mars mission. It asks for your name, country, zip code and email to register. You can sign up here.

After registering you will receive a boarding pass that you can download print or embed in your webpage like the one below.



Previously, NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover, which had landed on February 18, 2021, carried names of 10.9 million people embedded into silicon chips. (Source)

Saturday, September 9, 2023

How to count the number of values in a comma separated (CSV) string in SQL

As the title states, this post demonstrates how to count the number of values in a comma separated string in SQL. The method we use here is to count the number of characters in the string minus the number of characters in the string after all the commas are removed, plus 1. This technique would also work if there are empty values in the CSV string.

On SQL Server you can use something like this:

DECLARE @CSVStr NVARCHAR(50);
SET @CSVStr = N'empid,fname,mane,lname,age,addr,dob,doj';

DECLARE @ValueCount INT;

-- Length of string minus length of string after all commas are removed
SET @ValueCount = LEN(@CSVStr) - LEN(REPLACE(@CSVStr, ',', '')) + 1;

SELECT @ValueCount AS ValCount;

Output:

8

To do the same in MySQL use the following (tested on version 8.0.30-0ubuntu0.20.04.2):

SET @CSVStr = 'empid,fname,mane,lname,age,addr,dob,doj';

-- Length of string minus lengh of string after all commas are removed
SET @ValueCount = CHAR_LENGTH(@CSVStr) - CHAR_LENGTH(REPLACE(@CSVStr, ',',
    '')) + 1;

SELECT @ValueCount AS ValCount;

Output:

8

On a proprietary implementation of SQL like the Aspen SQLplus v14, the following would work:

LOCAL CSVStr CHAR(50);
CSVStr = 'empid,fname,mane,lname,age,addr,dob,doj';

LOCAL ValueCount INT;

-- Length of string minus lengh of string after all commas are removed
ValueCount = CHARACTER_LENGTH(CSVStr) -
             CHARACTER_LENGTH(REPLACE(',' WITH '' IN CSVStr)) + 1;

WRITE ValueCount;

Output:

8



Friday, September 8, 2023

SuperWriter article in Wikipedia

A few days ago I created a draft article here in Wikipedia for a word processor that was called SuperWriter which was developed by Sorcim Corporation (later acquired by Computer Associates in 1985). Along with that an image with the application screenshot has also been uploaded at this location.

The submission was rejected for publication because the provided references do not show that the subject qualifies for a Wikipedia article. So I will keep the source of the article here for now:


{{Short description|SuperWriter word processor for Apricot Portable}}

{{Draft topics|literature|media|computing}}

{{AfC topic|other}}


{{Infobox Software

|name                   = SuperWriter

|logo                   = 

|screenshot             = SuperWriter1.03Screenshot.png

|caption                = SuperWriter 1.03 running on MS-DOS

|developer              = [[Sorcim]]

|author             =

|released     = 

|latest_release_version = 

|latest_release_date    = 

|latest_preview_version = 

|latest_preview_date    = 

|operating_system       = [[MS-DOS 2.11]], [[Concurrent CP/M]], [[CP/M-86]]

|genre                  = [[Word processor|Word Processor]]

|license                = [[Proprietary software|Proprietary]]

|website                = 

|discontinued           = yes

}}

'''SuperWriter''' was a [[word processor]] program that came bundled with devices from [[Apricot Computers]], like the [[Apricot Portable]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Apricot Portable |url=https://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=492 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220803190552/https://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=492 |archivedate=2022-08-03 |url-status=live |accessdate=2023-09-05 |website=Old-Computers.com }}</ref> The application was originally written by [[Sorcim]] which was later acquired by [[Computer Associates]] in 1985.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Needle |first=David |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Computer Associates buys Sorcim |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wS4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA11 |page=11 |magazine=[[InfoWorld]] |location= |publisher=[[Popular Computing Inc.]] |date=1984-06-25 |access-date=2023-09-05 |volume=6 |issue=26 }}</ref> It featured a spelling checker and various types of text justification.<ref>{{cite magazine |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=InfoWorld Reviews |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wS4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA69 |page=69 |magazine=[[InfoWorld]] |location= |publisher=[[Popular Computing Inc.]] |date=1984-06-25 |access-date=2023-09-05 |volume=6 |issue=26 }}</ref> SuperWriter was a potential competitor to [[Information Unlimited Software|IUS]]'s [[EasyWriter|EasyWriter II]] program for the [[IBM Personal Computer|IBM PC]] - which was also acquired by Computer Associates a few months before it acquired Sorcim.


==Features==

SuperWriter's user interface was a combination of menu-driven and command-driven experience.<ref>{{cite magazine |last= |first= |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Word Processing: The Latest Word |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wtckANahGXIC&pg=PA120 |page=120 |magazine=[[PC Magazine]] |location= |publisher=[[Ziff Davis|Ziff Davis Publishing Company]] |date=1985-08-20 |access-date=2023-09-06 |volume=4 |issue=17 }}</ref>


Apart from featuring the [[SpellGuard]] spelling checker, SuperWriter also let the user preview the document on screen before sending it to print. Among other formatting options, the application let the user define the length and width of a page, indentation length, header and trailer text and type of text justification. It let the user print the full document or only a part of the document. SuperWriter let the user toggle the case of the letters from lower to upper and vice versa, create tables, find and replace words within a document.


The mail-merge feature in SuperWriter version 1.03 was one of the most powerful around the time but lacked adequate documentation in its user manual. This caused a frustrating experience in getting started with the feature<ref>.{{cite magazine |last= |first= |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Power Performance: Nine Programmable Mail-mergers |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lmtbry-ytXgC&pg=PA181 |page=181 |magazine=[[PC Magazine]] |location= |publisher=[[Ziff Davis|Ziff Davis Publishing Company]] |date=1986-04-29 |access-date=2023-09-05 |volume=5 |issue=8 }}</ref>


==Reception==

SuperWriter never sold in substantial quantities and was limited by its ability to edit only what it could hold in memory. The InfoWorld magazine rated it excellent in error handling.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Satchell |first=Stephen |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Review: SuperWriter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gy4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA51 |page=51 |magazine=[[InfoWorld]] |location= |publisher=[[Popular Computing Inc.]] |date=1984-02-27 |access-date=2023-09-05 |volume=6 |issue=9 }}</ref>


==Pricing==

In the year 1984, the listed price was $295 and was available for the [[IBM Personal Computer|IBM PC]] or [[Compaq]] computer running MS-DOS.


== References ==

<!-- Inline citations added to your article will automatically display here. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:REFB for instructions on how to add citations. -->

{{reflist}}




Friday, September 1, 2023

Microsoft WordPad to be deprecated from Windows

In a new feature note, Microsoft announced that WordPad is being deprecated and would be removed from future releases of Windows.

WordPad 10 running on Windows 11
WordPad, initially released in 1995, is a basic word processor that has been included with almost all versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows 95 onwards. It was the replacement of Microsoft Write, which was the de facto word processor in Windows versions prior to Windows 95.

The application was built in C++ and used MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes). An early archived version of the source code is available here in GitHub.

Microsoft's note, which is available here, stated, "WordPad is no longer being updated and will be removed in a future release of Windows. We recommend Microsoft Word for rich text documents like .doc and .rtf and Windows Notepad for plain text documents like .txt."