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Monthly Archives: September 2012

Easily rename downloaded movies using powershell

07 Sep

Context

As most people, I often complain about not having sufficient time. It also doesn’t help that I have a lot of hobbies and interests. Because of this I decided to combine my hobbies and interests in such a way it would eventually save me time.

Basically I decided to learn powershell scripting by automating the task of renaming downloaded movies. These need to be in a specific format for reliable use with the movie jukebox called Yet Another Movie Jukebox (YAMJ). As a result this will save me a lot of time in the future.

Concept for the script

The file names of most movies I download are mostly in the following format:
The.Devils.Advocate.1997.UNRATED.DC.720p.BluRay.X264-AMIABLE.mkv
<movie.name>.<movie release year>.<metadata>.<metadata>…..<last.metadata>.<file extension>

What is important for YAMJ to work correctly is basically the movie name and the year (just in case there are movies with the same name, but released in a different year). So basically my preferred output would be:
The Devils Advocate 1997.mkv

To realise this, conceptually the following will be done for all files in a specific folder:

  1. Determine the current file extension and save it to a variable.
  2. Remove all dots “.” from the file name.
  3. Determine if there is a year notation in the file name (by example 1997).
  4. If there is no year notation found, don’t do anything else (file does not meet the expected format).
  5. If the year notation is found, remove everything from the file name after the year notation and re-add the file extension.

The script itself

The script itself can be found on my sharepoint list :
http://bjornhouben-web.sharepoint.com/Lists/Scripts/

Closing thoughts

I hope this will help home users to see the advantages of scripts, use them and benefit from it. For ICT professionals I also hope that it will help them get a better understanding of Powershell. Because in my opinion Powershell is getting increasingly important both for Microsoft and non Microsoft products (by example VMware).

I’d love to get feedback about this post and hope to receive some replies.

 
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Posted by on September 7, 2012 in Entertainment, ICT, Learning, Microsoft, Movies, Powershell, Windows

 

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Provide anonymous access to sharepoint lists on Office 365 (Sharepoint online)

06 Sep

Office 365 introduction

Office 365 basically provides you with collaboration services consisting of the following components:

  • E-mail (Exchange online)
  • Instant messaging (Lync online)
  • Internal and external websites (Sharepoint online)
  • Office (either locally installed or through web apps).

I really like this service offering because of the following reasons:

  • All services (and servers) are hosted by Microsoft. This means you don’t have to invest in servers, software. You also don’t have to do the initial setup nor do you have to maintain the servers, operating system and software. This all helps you to be able to focus on your core business.
  • You pay monthly fees, which are predictable.
  • Since you are using a cloud based service, the functionality is continuously being improved and newer versions are being provided at no additional cost. Currently Office 2013 Preview is available for testing only on Office 365, but when it is released it will probably also find its way to the current Office 365 users.

But don’t take my word for it, just try it for yourself and see if and how you can benefit from it.

Configuring anonymous access to sharepoint lists on Office 365 (Sharepoint online) 

Even though I like Office 365, it is far from perfect. For example, one of the reasons for me to get and Office 365 subscription was because (I thought) it would let me easily share website links, applications, scripts using sharepoints lists to the internet.

In reality however, the public facing sharepoint site was very limited and did not provide an easy way to do this. Another option was to create these lists on my “internal” sharepoint site and then provide access to people by inviting them by e-mail. This would however limit my audience / knowledge sharing potential.

After searching for people with similar issues, I came across a workaround that would help me accomplish my goals: http://anonymous365.codeplex.com

Steps to configure a sharepoint list on my public facing sharepoint site that is accessible for anonymous users:

  1. Download the anonymous365 sharepoint solution from http://anonymous365.codeplex.com
  2. Go to the “Site Settings” of your public facing site using by example :
    http://bjornhouben-web.sharepoint.com/_layouts/settings.aspx
  3. Go to the “Galleries” section and go to “Solutions“.
  4. Click under the “Name” colume and in the ribbon interface under the “Solutions” tab choose “Upload Solution“.
  5. Browse to the previously downloaded anonymous365 sharepoint solution : “Wsp365.Anonymous.wsp” and press “OK“.
  6. Check the checkbox of the uploaded “Wsp365.Anonymous.wsp” and in the ribbon interface under the “Solutions” tab choose “Activate“.
  7. The go to the “All Site Content” of your public facing site using by example:
    http://bjornhouben-web.sharepoint.com/_layouts/viewlsts.aspx
  8. Press “Create“
  9. Choose the list type you want, enter a name and press “Create“.
  10. Then in the ribbon interface under “List Tools” and “List” press the button “Anonymous Access“
  11. Choose what access you want to give anonymous users for this specific list and press “OK”.

PS: You can also use a list to share files using the attachments.

Closing thoughts

I hope this explanation was helpful and I love to get feedback. Because the groundwork is done now, I can focus on the actual knowledge sharing by populating the lists with content. So you can expect some major updates soon on both my blog posts and the lists below:

 
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Posted by on September 6, 2012 in Cloud, ICT, Learning, Microsoft, Office 365, Public Cloud, Sharepoint Online, Tutorials

 

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The Hunger Games (books and movie)

03 Sep

Some months ago I heard about the movie The Hunger Games (2012). The concept reminded me of Battle Royale (2000) that I liked very much as well.

When it was available in the movie theatres, many people I know told me they really liked the movie. This made me want to see it even more. I found out however that this movie was based on a book series and that this was only the first part of the trilogy. This was a bit disappointing since I personally do not like having to wait a long time to know the complete story.

So instead of watching the movie, I started reading the books and ended up reading all  three books in less than a week. I really loved it because it provided a lot more depth than I initially expected and I was also able to really connect with the characters and feel for them.

Because I really loved the books, I could not help but watch the first movie, even if it meant having to wait a long time for the next one. I liked the movie, but in my opinion it lacked depth/background and should have been a lot darker, threatening/menacing. I hope this will be the case for the remaining movies:

 
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Posted by on September 3, 2012 in Books, Entertainment, Movies

 

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