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Recent Posts
- Bublick, the Name
- Alvin’s Ashes
- A Tale of Two Houses
- The Daring Mr. Melling
- An Unlikely Farmer
- Julia Swedish Was Not Swedish!
- Finding the Family Farm
- Kay’s 48 in Gay Paree
- Happy Great-Grandmother’s Day
- Love, Yorkshire Style
- Nat Griffin’s Draft Card
- Finding Grandma
- The Irish Connection, Part 2
- The Irish Connection
- Private Frank Elliott, 1897-1917
- The Family That Almost Was
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Author Archives: Fred Coulson
Removing a collar from a feral cat
I recently got a feral cat (Max) from a shelter in Brooklyn to be integrated into my local cat colony. Unfortunately Max came with a plastic ID collar that the shelter people had put on him during his incarceration at … Continue reading
Posted in Cats
3 Comments
Catfud Revisited
Since I started making my own catfood back in August, I have refined my procedure somewhat. For one thing, I’ve become more skilled at carving up a chicken carcass. With a good heavy santoku knife and sharp kitchen scissors I … Continue reading
Posted in Cats
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Oracle Error Messages
I’ve got a script that runs through the alert logs for all the Oracle databases I manage every 10 minutes or so and sends me a text message containing the error number if it finds an error. Sometimes, when the … Continue reading
Posted in Databases
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Catfud
Back when the tainted petfood scandal broke earlier this year, I resolved to make my own catfood. (Which is to say, I would continue to eat my own regular food, but I would make catfood for my cats). It wasn’t … Continue reading
Posted in Cats
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Renaming your Windows XP user account
Someone recently asked me how to rename their C:\Documents and Settings\mysername folder but they didn’t leave a correct email address so my reply bounced. So here, for the benefit of all, is my answer. Under the Documents and Settings is … Continue reading
Posted in Computers
11 Comments
Three Normal Forms tutorial revised
After two months in the wilderness, my tutorial on the Three Normal Forms is back online. I took it down because in the original, it had some serious flaws. While not factually inaccurate, the section pertaining to NF1 was vague … Continue reading
Posted in Databases
2 Comments
Gigantic Sea Turtle on Staten Island
Saturday morning I was jogging down South Beach a little south of the Verrazanno Bridge when I came upon a stupefying sight: a huge sea turtle had crawled up on the beach and died. It was a little awe-inspiring, because … Continue reading
Posted in Miscellaneous
4 Comments
E-Z Putty Tunnelling
Putty is a great if you only have a handful of servers that you connect to on a regular basis. But as a consultant with a growing list of clients you can rapidly find yourself having to deal with a … Continue reading
Posted in Computers
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3 Normal Forms
At long last, and after repeated fan requests, I have gotten around to converting my 3 Normal Forms tutorial into a printable PDF, which can be downloaded here. This tutorial, targeted at beginners who are trying to learn the basics … Continue reading
Posted in Computers
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Back in the olden days
My first contact with computers came in 1977 or ’78 when I was in grade 5 or 6. Because I was smart, I got to spend a half-day a week in the computer lab at the University of Alberta with … Continue reading