Software

Recently, at work, we have faced an issue where we want to resurrect one of the old Excel files and we found out that, when a file on its own can be opened without any problem, some options, like Workbook Structure or individual Sheets been protected with a password.

The problem was that the person, who initially create the file, was no longer with the company and nobody knew what password was used. As we were able to open the file on its own, as it wasn’t protected, knowing about how XLSX files are constructed, I decided to use the brute method to remove restrictions.

Here’s how it goes…

Privacy is the key and it’s not only in our private life but also in business. If you using Gmail (Google Workplace) for your business, something called read receipt is an odd thing.

Many businesses however are using solutions from Microsoft called Microsoft 365 Business (in various plans).

Microsoft, in their subscription service, provides a lot of useful functionalities, but there are some functions, that are heading back to times when Microsoft Outlook started gaining popularity (Microsoft Office 97).

Through these functionalities there was one, requesting a receipt sent back to the sender when the recipient read an email.

Do you watch YouTube a lot? Are you addicted to it, or just need it for your work?

Do the ads cause you a headache?

There is nothing better than suddenly showing an Ad in the middle of streaming from YouTube to a bigger audience (possibly on a bigger screen and using bigger, much louder audio equipment). This may ruin a lot and put distraction in time when you need people to concentrate on presented material (either video or just audio).

This may annoy you and others to the extent that you will think to pay this £11.99 per month for YouTube Premium only to get rid of this annoyance.

But what if I will tell you there is a better (and cheaper) way?

There are a couple of things that I cannot imagine doing when surfing around the internet. One is RSS/Atom to stay on top of new things on websites that I am watching (I wrote about it in a post: Why RSS still matters in 2021?). The other important thing is a virtual place where I can save a website to come back to it or to read it later.

When I started working for my employer, they used an on-site server and file storage with overnight backup to external drives. All been limited by the internet speed (which in England is quite crazy that business parks rarely got access to an inexpensive fibre connection, whereas at home you can have cheap Full Fibre), but when things change (or rather the company need to invest in change), we moved it into the cloud.

We chose Microsoft 365 as our provider.

Once the migration was completed and people were used to using the new way of accessing their files (which haven’t been different with the integration of the OneDrive app and Windows 10, apart from links to files), I needed to find a method, how to have a backup of all files in case of emergency (or accidental removal of important files by an employee).

Despite that Microsoft provides an option to restore files for a short period (typically 30 days), sometimes it may be too short and before you notice that files are missing it will be too late. It’s better to have a backup (even an old version of the file) than don’t have it at all.

Without going into costly online backup solutions I decided to build my backup system and I made it.

I like SAP Crystal Reports. Why? Because it helps gather the information needed and present them as I would like to, with just basic crystal reports design knowledge.

If you are looking for a good solution for emails and file storage for your business, independently how big or how small it is, the Microsoft 365 (was Office 365) is the best solution on the market. If you are not a big company, probably you don’t want to burden to many costs, the Microsoft 365 Business Basic (formerly Office 365 Essentials) is something that you shall look forward.

Even if your business is trying to migrate from on-premises Windows Server into the cloud, in most cases, you can achieve what you need for just £3.80 per month per user. The money well spent. Let me show you why.

Some time ago I prepared a simple iPhone Ringtone Converter for Windows. This time it was a time for a modification na preparation version for macOS.

Recently I have been looking for a simple and easy method to convert ringtone or a song from MP3 to M4R, a ringtone format used widely in iPhones.

The conversion from MP3 to M4A and later change of file extension to M4R is not something difficult for myself, however less experienced users this can be challenging.

Because of that, using various methods I decided to prepare something, that till be working on just dropping MP3 file and double-click on specified file to ret in short moment ready ringtone for use on our phone.

I have prepared couple batch files and used for this purpose FFmpeg converter. This is the final product from my work.