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Crystal reports processes different parts of the report in a fixed order that one must understand [to some degree] to understand what you can't do in Crystal.

Crystal reports is lacking a great deal of functionality which seems like an obviously desirable addition. One of these items is the ability to display report results with lines whose background colors alternate, much like the fanfold computer paper of old, or for that matter a check register or just about any other traditional method of rendering data in rows. Business Objects provides a document that tells you how to go about this (C2014182) but for some report types, especially those with nested groups, this doesn't necessarily work properly.

When writing a report, the first thing to consider is what you're trying to report on. That tells you what tables you will need to include in your report. The Second thing is to figure out what to filter. Sometimes the answer is nothing, when you want to work with all records. Usually, though, you want to filter out some records. Maybe you only want to look at records pertaining to this year - this would typically require only a single item.

Crystal Reports is a database reporting tool that has over time become the standard for reporting. It is by far the most used tool to perform this task, in spite of the fact that it sucks eggs. Crystal has so many failings it's hard to know where to start talking about them; but I think I'll manage somehow.

quotefilter is a simple drupal module that wraps blockquotes up in pretty quotation marks. It utilizes GIF images by default because IE (even version 7!) does not properly handle PNG transparency, and while I give not a fig if IE users can see my site (obviously - right now the navbar ends up in the middle of the window) someone else might. Below is a sample of what it looks like:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Etiam sit amet quam quis metus posuere gravida. Fusce sed justo id libero dignissim fermentum. Sed molestie purus vel enim. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. In tortor. Aliquam sapien ante, sagittis et, tincidunt non, vulputate ac, odio. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos. Donec hendrerit nunc et felis. Nulla nec sapien. Nulla sit amet ipsum id orci facilisis convallis. Vestibulum vitae quam. Sed ac est. Suspendisse volutpat leo non massa.

Synergy is an application for OSX, Unix, and Windows that allows you to share a mouse and keyboard across any number of these systems. The Unix version uses the XTEST extension, and as such should work on any Unix system whose X server features this extension. It is licensed under the GPLv2.

Herein lies a plain text version of the GNU GPL, version 2. I wanted a copy of the GPLv2 to link to, so that when v3 comes out, I won't be linking to it. Note that this site is NOT licensed under the GPL, LGPL, or any similar license, although the engine used to implement this site, Drupal is Free Open Source Software. This license should not be construed as applying to any content to which I hold copyright.

Since submarine patent pilots and all-around rat bastards Eolas managed to nail Microsoft over the use of plug-in technology, which has scads and scads of very obviously applicable prior art, internet explorer is no longer permitted to simply load plugins in response to content on a static page. The lawsuit does not however prevent loading that same content dynamically.

A recent discussion on Slashdot outlines the issue of photographers' rights. The short form is that if you are not violating privacy, you have the right to publish pretty much any photograph you like. The long form? Download the PDF.

This document is distributed by Bert P. Krages II, Attorney at Law. He explicitly grants permission to redistribute this document:

Outlook, in typical Microsoft head-in-the-sand fashion, does not import mail from thunderbird. This is particularly pathetic because Thunderbird uses the Unix mbox format with only minor modifications which are limited to additional headers that Thunderbird uses to keep track of message status. Yes, it is a sad day when you are importing mail from an Open standards-based file (Mozilla-based mail programs have always used mbox format with an additional status header) to a proprietary Microsoft format. I had to do it, and if you are reading this, you probably have to do it too.