I remember calling MS support, vaguely related to this project.
For example, if the Edmonton office needed to send a welcome letter to a new client, the flow might look like this:
1. Create a new file based on X:\Templates\EdmontonLetterhead.dot
2. Insert the contents of X:\Templates\A01-ClientOnboarding.doc
3. Fill in fields. Usually stuff like client name, caseworker name, etc.
4. Click the links in the file (e.g., there'd be a link to X:\Templates\EdmontonContactNumbers.doc), printing each document and deleting the link from the final document.
5. Save the file to the client's folder (e.g., S:\Clients\000123-Jane Smith).
6. Print a copy for the paper file, a copy to mail out, and an envelope.
We called Microsoft Support because when changes were made to the template documents it would update the links to relative paths. These don't work with our flow because the document either isn't saved, or is saved on a different network drive.
Microsoft Support wasn't able to help us. They understood exactly what we were doing, exactly what the problem is, but they weren't able to fix it. That's just how Word works, it didn't have a setting to force absolute links.
I ended up writing another VB6 program, using OLE Automation to get Word to do the work, which opened each document, saved it to a local drive (which turned the relative links into absolute links), then copied it back to the shared drive.
It was amazingly easy to interact with other apps via OLE Automation (aka, COM Automation).
About 25 years ago I wrote a program that would look for requests (in the form of XML files) from the custom software on our Solaris system, then based on the contents of the request it would fire up Word, load up the appropriate letterhead and body template, fill in the required information (e.g., client name/address, caseworker name, etc), print two copies (one for the file, one with an envelope to send out), and store the completed document in the client's folder on the fileserver.
This program saved an incredible amount of time and let the office typing pool concentrate on typing dictated letters instead of filling out templates.
Without the magic of OLE Automation letting me use Word programmatically from my application, creating this would have been basically impossible.
I'm surprised that Canada doesn't seem to be talking about doing this.
We've already got a strong payment processing brand with Interac, it's used daily for millions of debit transactions, and supports all the features you'd expect (in Canada) from a payment card (tap, chip&pin). There's also the MasterCard Debit and Visa Debit branding which seem to bridge debit transactions to the MasterCard and Visa networks. And there's already Interac-capable terminals basically everywhere that Visa and MC are accepted.
My thought is that Interac should launch a credit card brand called "Interac Credit". The actual credit would be via the banks, just like it is with Visa and MC. Interac already has the relationships with merchants and banks to make this happen, and it has the mindshare with consumers to make it successful.
Running two Lenovo ThinkVision displays off of my work MacBook Pro.
On the MBP built-in display, the upper-left and upper-right corners are rounded. I believe this is due to the shape of the display. The bottom corners are not rounded.
On the external displays, the corners are all square.
Honestly, the big thing that the Pi has is the support and mindshare. Compared to many equivalents (e.g., the Banana Pi) you'll find much better documentation and have a much more polished experience with a Raspberry Pi.
The only question, for me anyway, is how much value I put on that experience and whether the increased cost is worth it.
Yup, this is exactly where I get to when I try and fail to get UniVerse.
What's the trick to making that form work? It won't accept my @gmail.com address, and I don't really want to use my work email address and potentially mis-represent things. Especially since my work used to use one of Rocket's products.
My first job involved working on a Pick system. The system started life on a Prime mainframe and was migrated to UniVerse on Solaris.
I seriously miss it.
Every once in a while I try to get back into it. Usually it takes the form of trying (and failing) to get a demo/personal version of UniVerse, but lately I've been poking at ScarletDME a little bit. I'd even pay money (not much since this is just hobby stuff, but some) for UniVerse, but even the cost of it seems to be a closely guarded secret.
I've been using Banktivity[0] for a while and generally like it.
Their subscription model is interesting. If you decide to cancel your subscription everything still works, but you don't get access to the connected services. The only thing I don't like is that you need to take a step to cancel the subscription, so if you want the software but don't want the connected services it's a bit of friction. I'd rather pay one price for the software (and I'm fine with doing this for every major version) with a separate subscription for the services set up separately.
That said, every piece of personal finance software I've tried has some bit of friction with how I want it to work.
/r/homelab, which is where I heard about it, seems to like it.
I've had UniFi equipment for a while now and am generally happy with it, though I'm not doing anything terribly crazy. Well, maybe crazy for a home user, but not nearly as crazy as some of the /r/homelab folks get.
I've got multiple VLANs, firewall rules controlling traffic, multiple WiFi networks. I'm using 2 switches (8 port 150W PoE, 24 port non-PoE), a USG, and an AP AC Pro. It all works fine.
My only complaint is that the new version of the controller software rearranged all of the settings and I haven't figured out where everything lives.
What sorts of features does btrfs offer home users that ZFS lacks?
My experiences with btrfs have been somewhat mixed. On OpenSuse, I've found snapper to be an amazing lifesaver, but the regular system-crippling maintenance process[0] to be very frustrating.
> Booting from ZFS seemed like a hassle, without clear benefits.
On FreeBSD, ZFS is a first-class citizen. Root-on-ZFS is something that the installer can do and the bootloader understands. I've used root-on-ZFS through five FreeBSD versions (plus numerous minor versions), all upgraded using freebsd-update, with no issues.
On Linux, ZFS seems to be an addon, so hassles are to be expected.
As for benefits, Boot Environments[0][1] are a great reason for having root-on-ZFS. While I don't personally do this, I can definitely see the appeal of being able to roll back a major OS upgrade.
For example, if the Edmonton office needed to send a welcome letter to a new client, the flow might look like this:
1. Create a new file based on X:\Templates\EdmontonLetterhead.dot
2. Insert the contents of X:\Templates\A01-ClientOnboarding.doc
3. Fill in fields. Usually stuff like client name, caseworker name, etc.
4. Click the links in the file (e.g., there'd be a link to X:\Templates\EdmontonContactNumbers.doc), printing each document and deleting the link from the final document.
5. Save the file to the client's folder (e.g., S:\Clients\000123-Jane Smith).
6. Print a copy for the paper file, a copy to mail out, and an envelope.
We called Microsoft Support because when changes were made to the template documents it would update the links to relative paths. These don't work with our flow because the document either isn't saved, or is saved on a different network drive.
Microsoft Support wasn't able to help us. They understood exactly what we were doing, exactly what the problem is, but they weren't able to fix it. That's just how Word works, it didn't have a setting to force absolute links.
I ended up writing another VB6 program, using OLE Automation to get Word to do the work, which opened each document, saved it to a local drive (which turned the relative links into absolute links), then copied it back to the shared drive.