Health Bulletin

So, we here at Just Two Nerds have news from a “credible source” that there is a “cockroach” “problem” at Duquesne University. Of course the university said the problem is under control, but our “credible source” suggests otherwise with this photo:

Freddy the Cockroach

^We like to call him “Freddy”^

edit: Unfortunately, Freddy has passed on since the posting of this blog. RIP Freddy, it was probably for the best.

pardon me, do you have any walnuts?

Squirrel Outside Window

^bug eyed little varmit^

It’s an epic struggle between man and beast, and it’s taking place in and around my apartment. Like many places throughout the U.S., there are squirrels in CO. Some of these squirrels happen to live outside my apartment. However, there is one squirrel that is different.

Last Wednesday morning before school I heard a scratching noise coming from the bedroom. I went to investigate, and saw a squirrel about 3′ from my window. It turned around, and we had a good old-fashioned stare-down. I won. Or so I thought. I went to school and thought nothing more of that morning’s events.

Later that night I came home after Tony. He called me to see where I was, and I asked him if he had dinner started. He said, “No, I’ve been cleaning up poop.” Since we don’t have pets, I knew this was a bad thing. Apparently the squirrel had retaliated, chewed through two of my screen windows, and run all over my apartment, pooping as it went. Lovely. *addendum* We just noticed that the squirrel climbed about 3 feet UP the one screen window, in order to chew through it and get into / out of our apartment. This squirrel is crazy. And it was staring us down again, this morning. Interesting. *end addendum*

Fast forward to this morning. We hear pounding noises outside our window. It’s the squirrel, frantically running between the bedroom and kitchen window, trying to find a way to chew inside. Again. Even though the windows were closed. And we were home.

It’s a really healthy looking squirrel, great coat, bushy tail, so it doesn’t have the plague. It is a little crazed in the eyes, though. My boss suggested that I charge it rent. Honestly, though, I’d rather just shoot it. Anyone have a .22 (edit: though a shottie sounds good, too) I can borrow for a few days?

Restoring Broken Pictures with Word-Generated HTML

When pasting a Word document with graphics to Sharepoint Designer/Expressions Web, it is advisable to test the document in IE 7 to make sure that graphics are appearing. For some reason, the markup that Sharepoint/Word creates causes issues when using documents with photos. If these are not appearing, the Word vml tags must be removed. For the record, I really don’t like designing web pages with Sharepoint, but it is great for quickly posting Word documents to the net in HTML.

If you copy Word documents to Sharepoint Designer or Expressions Web, follow these steps to remove the VML markup causing graphics to fail:

  1. First, paste your Word document into Sharepoint as normal.
  2. Select the Split or Code view to enable the source code replacement feature.
  3. Open the Replace dialog box.
  4. In the Find box, paste the following text: [<]!–[if gte vml 1(.*n)#.#vml][>]
  5. Make sure that Regular Expressions and source code are checked, and that the Replace box is blank (we will be erasing the vector graphics).
  6. Click Replace All to replace the text.
  7. Next, uncheck the Regular Expressions box, erase the text in the Find field, and paste the following: <![endif]>
  8. Click Replace All to erase the text.

One note with this method: if you use conditions elsewhere in your document, make sure that you replace each item individually instead of Replace All. This should not be needed in most cases. For more information about regular expressions, check out these sites: