ASTDan

I just started using Tortoise SVN. I like it a lot. It took me a couple days of reading the manuals, but now I have a basic understanding. I use it for all my files that need revision control not just LabVIEW and so far I am very happy. The documentation is good and I really like the price! Dan

QUOTE (crelf @ Jan 4 2009, 08:22 PM) It scares me personally. I like having my data where I can see it.

QUOTE (crelf @ Jan 4 2009, 01:30 PM) I did imagine. Lots of swear words and violent fist shaking came to mind. QUOTE Anyway - I'm glad to hear that you survived the crash with little pain :thumbup: Thanks! I don't want to go through it again. Surprisingly it took longer to figure out what was wrong with my computer than to recover. I have a Dell and it comes with a diagnostic CD. What a great tool! Of course I didn't know about this at first so I had to spend a few days wondering what was going on.

Here is a good presentation on mastering the NI certification exams http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/6510

Well it happened. My hard drive crashed and I got to experience how good my backup strategy was. I was able to recover all my data that I backed up on my external hard drive no problem. I used the windows back up utility. The problem I did have was my laptop hard drive crashed while I was traveling. It was working intermittently so I was able to back up everything when I got back to my office, and recover. What I learned is to have a backup strategy while traveling. So what I am going to do know is get a flash drive (32 GB or so) to back up to while I am traveling. An off-site storage solution would also work, however if you are in areas with limited access to the internet (which I was) what do you do? I wanted to pass this use case along. Dan

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/6510 Here is a presentation on mastering the Certification Exams. Dan

On this day of Festivus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festivus I would like to begin with the the Airing of Grievances! The Report Generation Toolkit making 80 thousand files when you make an EXE! ARRRGGGG

QUOTE (Minh Pham @ Dec 20 2008, 01:51 AM) You need a relay that can handle the current draw of your light. i.e. If you have a 100W light and are supplying it with 240V it will draw .42A.(P=VI). I would also make sure you follow your local electrical code when wiring it up. Dan

I would strongly recommend getting some training. It will save you a lot of time. The training offered by NI is excellent. If you are on a budget and are disciplined the NI course books are great! Dan

I have been using this to stop VI's http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?message.uid=760429 Dan

QUOTE (Michael_Aivaliotis @ Dec 11 2008, 04:09 AM) Great.... What next. Santa asking for a bailout? Times are tough.

QUOTE (Tomi Maila @ Dec 11 2008, 09:22 AM) Educating customers how YOU do a software project. I don't know about everybody else but for most of my customers they have limited experience specicifing software requiremtents. I think part of my job is to help them help me get a good requirements. That means asking good questions and writing requirements. It also means comuncating with your customer along the way. Managing expectations I feel is very important. Usually I am developing CUSTOM software. There will be bugs and problems. It is smart to be clear with your customers about this up front. Remember most people's interface with technology is with mature products and their expectations are very high. Managing those expectaions is very important. Dan

This is what God looks like. I saw it in a movie so I know it's true.

QUOTE (crelf @ Dec 5 2008, 03:30 PM) Just a note buying these specifications from IEEE can be expensive. What I did is go to my local University Library. They had a subscription to every standard you could think of. I was able to get these standards at no cost! Libraries are a very good thing! Dan

I have my own business, and I couldn't agree with you more regarding requirements. Having good requirements/specifications=good software. The LabVIEW style Guide, and The LabVIEW training classes are great places to start regarding the format of you specification documents. My current philosophy on getting good requirements is trying to involve the customer as much as possible. I recently purchased Microsoft Live meeting and I can prototype user interfaces to my customers in real time. This helps explain ideas in a way the customer can see and touch instead of a vague intangible idea. This has helped me immensely in writing better code, and I think my customers like being more involved in the process as well. I also just read a book that said your time on a software (or any engineering project) should be 1/3 specification, 1/3 programming, and 1/3 testing. What jumped out at me initially was how much time is spent on specification. What I have come to learn is that is time very well spent. I also think recognizing and embracing that requirements gathering, software specification development, and engineering in general is an iterative process. Try as I might sh*& happens. Having a method in your process to adapt to changing requirements (within reason) is I think very important and just good sense. My advice on building a business is recognizing it is an iterative process also. It is tempting to try to get the perfect business model on the first shot, but that I think is very difficult to do. The best advise I got in building a business was "Hard woods grow slow" i.e. something that sticks around for a long time and can take the slings and arrows of the market takes a long time to build. Dan

QUOTE (crelf @ Dec 1 2008, 03:24 PM) I use the Windows Backup Utility. I like it.

QUOTE (PaulG. @ Nov 16 2008, 08:57 PM) I think the Report Generation Tookit is extensive. I think the base Report Generation that installs with LabVIEW is limited. It would be nice if the Report Generation with LabVIEW had more functionality i.e. that ability to manipulate tables (change fonts, change columns, etc) and a better method to place control images, pictures, and tables where you want them in the report. Someting in between Report Generation Toolkit and basic Report Generation. The problem I have sometimes is my customers don't want to install Microsoft Office on their test machine. I too have found developing reports to be time consuming. I also don't think that will go away anytime soon. Just becasue of what is involved. It is always like this "Oh could you move this over a little, bold this, change the font of that, and when I am not in a good mood change the background to red!"

QUOTE (Justin Goeres @ Nov 14 2008, 12:33 PM) :worship:

Hello, I was wondering if out there somewhere some there are some additions to NI's Report Generation VI's that come with LabVIEW; not the Report Generation toolkit just the basic Report Generation VI's. Specifically is there a way to control the size of individual columns, and change the font of text on individual cells in a table? Thanks Dan

QUOTE (crelf @ Nov 11 2008, 01:17 PM) I don't know. Just make sure if you go down this path make sure it is waterproof. Hopefully some good natured folks would put out the fire, and they use water. When I was looking into this I found a lot of fireproof safes, but not a lot of water and fire proof safes.

QUOTE (crelf @ Nov 8 2008, 01:40 AM) Here is a link to a fireproof/waterproof external hard drive. http://www.keenzo.com/showproduct.asp?M=SE...5107&ref=GB QUOTE Offsite backup still seems like the way to go to me, but current broadband connections can hamper people from taking advantage of the capability of offsite backups. I would agree that off site would be safer from fire or some other natural disaster. However the main failure mode I am worried about is my hard drive crashing. In my opinion recovering from an external hard drive or a personal server would be faster/eaiser than an off site backup facility in the event of a hard drive crash. It is also comforting to have my data where I can see it. Kinda like keeping your cash under your mattress.

I like using VISA events. You can create a VISA event on a carriage return. When a carriage return happens (or another event of interest) you can read all available data on the buffer. I have found this a very stable way of reading serial data Hope this helps Dan

You have peaked my interest in a server. What are some good resources to look into this? I know absolutely nothing about a server, so I need something on my level. We're talking single cell organism here. Dan

QUOTE (Justin Goeres @ Nov 4 2008, 09:46 AM) Wow thank you for sharing you journey. I just have an external drive I back up all my critical data and store it in a waterproof/fireproof safe. You have given me a lot to think about. :worship:

Hello all Michigan LAVA folks We have some LabVIEW user group meetings coming up you might be interested in. http://www.autosofttech.net/semlug.html http://www.autosofttech.net/West_Michigan_LVUG.htm The topic in Livonia is "What is new in LabVIEW 8.6". There will be some new hardware that will be available to oogle. The topic in Grand Rapids is "Mastering the NI certification exams" 11/06/2008 11:30 a.m.Livonia, MI 11/13/2008 05:30 p.m.Grand Rapids, MI Hope to see you there!