Thoughts on many things

  • Describing a problem is half the battle

    Some time ago, I came across Kidlin’s law – a problem written down is a problem halved. This tracks well with my own experience, but why is that the case? In a nutshell, in order to write something down, you must understand it well enough to write it down. I often find that, when describing…

  • Verify what RSAT features are installed

    Before summer, I showed you how to install ADUC using PowerShell. ADUC, however, is not the only tool in the RSAT toolbox. Here, then, is how you can get an overview of all of them, as well as whether or not they are installed on the computer:

  • State of the Blog 2023

    True to tradition, I’m writing a summer retrospective post. Meant to be the summer counterpart to my end-of-year roundup series, some information will naturally be duplicated across the two series of posts. The first full year (as in period of 365 days, rather than a calendar year) of more or less normalcy have come and gone with very little…

  • Installing ADUC from PowerShell

    With some frequency, I have users contacting me to have ADUC (Active Directory Users and Computers) installed on their computers. While you can simply install RSAT from Apps & Features, doing so would be overkill and a half. Much better, then, to simply install ADUC and be done with it. This is easily done using…

  • Excel: Defining parametric names for cells

    It should come as no surprise to anyone who has read my blog for a while that I use Excel on a relatively regular basis. Wherever possible, I like using parameters, rather than addressing something directly. There are a few reasons for this. It makes a formula shorter, more user friendly, and quicker to write.…

  • Pride once more

    It is June, which means that Pride month is here again. My post last year soon took another turn as a terrorist attacked a pair of pubs in downtown Oslo. Two people were killed, and a further twenty-one were wounded. As a result, Oslo Pride was largely cancelled. More recently, the organization Save the Children…

  • the Hacker attitude

    Guiding principles for IT work For as long as I can remember, I have had the Hacker attitude as part of my about-box on LinkedIn. Originally minted by Eric S. Raymond, the Hacker attitude is described in terms of five principles: These five have been part of my guiding principles in what I do. In…

  • Specific search sites for better* results

    I’ve been a user of computers and the internet for long enough to remember the first browser war. It used to be that I’d regularly use multiple search engines in order to ensure that I got the best* results. My defaults would be Yahoo, AltaVista, and Kvasir, but others were certainly in the mix, too.…

  • Excel: Looking up data continued

    Last week, I showed you the simplest form of the XLOOKUP function. Though highly useful, it’s only really useful if you find exact matches. If you’re looking at an array of data – e.g. pay averages for age groups instead of specific ages – you need to help it a little. To this end, the…

  • Excel: Looking up data

    This time, I show you how I look up data in a table using the XLOOKUP function.

  • Mac: Lock your computer

    There are a number of security best practices out there. The most basic include password-protecting your devices and limiting administrative privileges. Password protection is only effective when your device is locked. While I’ve mostly been a Windows user at work, at home I tend to prefer a Mac. I recently reworked my home office so…