Handling oversized spreadsheets

Oh yeah, those log files with hundreds of thousands lines... Apart from the latest Excel release from MS, you can't handle them at all. Being an SAP consultant, I face this problem frequently. With no MS Office on my notebook, I had to find a work around to open and edit log files longer than 65536 lines. Instead of MS Office, I use OpenOffice 3.0, which is available for Linux, too. The solution is easy, but you should keep in mind some small tricks listed below:

• Create an OpenOffice Base database, set it's type to "text database". You will need to select a folder containing the oversized log files as texts. This database will not read data from the text files, but create a reference to them as virtual tables
• Create another OpenOffice Base database, this time with standard type
• Drag and drop the virtual table from the text-type database to the standard one. This will take a while, depending on the size of data in the text file. To my Intel Core 2 Duo with 2GB of RAM, 300k lines in a single column took around 1 minute to copy. Do not change anything at this step (eg the name of the column in the standard table); to me this led to endless calculations
• Once you have the data in the standard table, save the database. Now you can edit eg the column name. It is recommended to add a simple name (no spaces, etc), otherwise you queries might fail later...
• Create a query to remove unnecessary data - maybe you get the net record count under 65536, so that you can swith to a spreadsheet manager, namely OpenOffice Calc. Save the database containing both the data and the query
• Drag and drop the query into the upper left cell (A1) of an empty worksheet in OpenOffice Calc. This might a few minutes again
• And, you are done: edit your data in the spreadsheet as you like!

Athena is back

Campagnolo invites all to say hello to Athena, the youngest groupset equipped with 11-speed gearshift. The name Athena is not new at Campagnolo, earlier there was a predecessor positioned just below Chorus. Being a believer of Campy, I am waiting for hearing more about the latest reicarnation of the legendary racing equipment provider. Pricewise there are not too much info available, however, most likely a Bianchi T-Cube with the new Athena will be available far cheaper than € 4000

Route Planning with Elevation Profile

Did you know, that you can even calculate the elevation profile when planning a route with Google Maps? Isn't it at least as important for a cyclist, as the length of the route? I was surprised to see the elevation graph of a bike trip along the Adriatic seeside, having almost the same amount of total ascent like crossing Switzerland from Bodensee to Zermatt, through some of the highest mountain passes of the Alps...

So, how to get the elevation profile of a route? Today, Google does not provide an integrated solution. However, the information basis is public, called SRTM. We just need some further free web services to complete our latitude and longitude data with altitude values. Let's see the step-by-step guide:

1. Plan the route with Google Maps
2. Export the route to a KML file by copying the URL of the plan using the Link option, than pasting it into the cool and free http://www.nearby.org.uk/multi-to-kml.php
3. Copmlete the KML with altitude data by uploading the KML generated in step 2 into www.gpsvisualizer.com/map?output_googleearth
4. Save the new KML that already holds altitude values for each waypoint of the route

You can visualize the elevation either at gpsvisualizer's, or at www.everytrail.com.

But, how accurate is this SRTM model? Actually, I did a test. I took a GPS track log already containing altitude data, then I let gpsvisualizer.com

overwrite the altitude with data from SRTM. The total elevation of the original file was 1270m, while the one profiled by SRTM shows 1370m.

The difference is less than 8%. That's fair, I believe. See both diagrams above

Social tracklogging with iPhone 3G

The ability to create and share GPS tracklogs has finally arived to iPhone 3G.

The Trails app is avaliable in the iTunes App Store. It will trace your movements in a smart way: you can interrupt the recording anytime, and resume the tracklog when moving on. Finished your trip? Upload the log directly to everytrail.com or bikely.com, or send it in email to whomever you like. You can even take geotagged photos with the standard Camera app, upload them to Flickr.com via email right from your divece, and import them to everytrail.com to illustrate landscape along your way. And it is still not all! You can even browse tracks at everytrail.com, download and use them instantly!

The sample below shows my favourite jogging lap.

Péterhalmi futás

Widget powered by EveryTrail: GPS Geotagging

All your mail in one place

Did you know that Gmail is capable to integrate several mail accounts? Most of us have separate company and private mail addresses, and usually we need to check them at the same time. 

With gmail, you can reach every mail server via POP and SMTP. Apart from having all your mail in one place, you can also benefit from the great accessibility provided by Gmail, eg. the traditional webmail interface, mobile webmail for WAP browsers distributed with cellphones, IMAP and POP protocols for desktop and mobile mail clients, etc. You can even send mail from your integrated mail accounts via any of the above mentioned interfaces of Gmail.

For details, check out the Settings / Accounts tab

The funniest iPhone app ever

It is the first application that I could not reject. While it definitely will not earn money for you or save your life, it is extra ordinary amusing, and delivers high quality every second of usage.
So what is it all about? This app turns your iPhone into a 4-wholed Ocarina. You just blow the air into the mic, and hold 1, 2, 3 or 4 fingers on the virtual wholes displayed on the screen. And that's not all! While you play, your location is determined, and the songs are streamed out to the Internet. Others might listen to your song and see where You played it... Incredible!

Android vs iPhone OS - vol 2

In my last post I was to say that the strongest argument for Android is the total integration with the user's Google Account. Whatever you save on your phone, either an appointment or a contact, is immediately synched with Google Calendar or Gmail. That is extraordinary useful. People may invite you for appointments, and you will promptly be notified. Should you enter an appointment on your handheld, those you authorized to see your Google Calendar will instatly see the new event...
Though not officially, but the same thing works for iPhone, too. There is a free webservice by nuevasync that takes your Google accounts and streams your data as a MS Exchange server does. And this kind of service is already supported by iPhone.
I must say that this feature is my favourite one...