Category Archives: Uncategorized

FileBrowsa – A Groovy File Explorer for Windows

FileBrowsa

I’ve created a simple Windows app to browse files in a folder, much like Windows Explorer. One big thing about this utility is that it supports command line parameters when launching the app so you can pass the initial starting folder, and a filter or file mask expression to apply to the file list.

Inside the app, you can double-click on any filename to launch the default Windows app to open or edit the file.

The source code for this app is open-source on my GitHub account. It is a WinForms app written in C#. You can get the source code here:

https://github.com/mattslay/FileBrowsa

Once you copy the exe to a folder on your computer, you can just double-click to launch the app, but it also supports command line parameters allowing you to specify the starting folder and an optional filter expression if you want to apply a file mask to limit which files are displayed.

Command Line example:

FileBrowsa "C:\MyPath" "*.pdf"
Tags:

File Browser

File Explorer

Credit: Note: the original starting point for this app was a project I found on Code Project written by Russell Mangel.

File Explorer

https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/2316/Windows-Explorer-in-C

What percentage of the Sun’s energy hits the Earth?

This is a purely geometric-based solution of light emitting from a source and spreading out in all directions and contacting another sphere some distance away. This does not account for any fancy "scientific" stuff that I am no expert at, such as the energy getting absorbed by the Earth’s atmosphere, or other factors that may be at work in this matter.

Here are some other sources I found that address some of the scientific issues of this matter, as well as other mathematical approaches to estimating this value:

https://www.quora.com/What-percent-of-heat-from-the-sun-reaches-the-earth

https://web.extension.illinois.edu/world/energy.cfm

  • Step 1

    Surface area of a sphere: A = 4πr^2

    r is the distance of the Earth from the Sun = 92,960,000 miles (92.96 million miles)

    Surface area of the "sphere" formed by this distance:

    Area = 1.09×10 ^ 17 square miles
    
  • Step 2:

    Cross-sectional area of a sphere: A = πr^2

    r = radius of earth
    r = 3,958.8 miles
    A = 4.92×10 ^ 7 square miles
    
  • Step 3:

    Divide Area of Earth by Area of Sphere:

    (4.92×10 ^ 7) / ( 1.09×10 ^ 17 )
    
    = 4.5137615e-10   =  4.5292×10^-10
    

    For reference, "1 Billionth" is 1e-9, so 4.51e-10 is even less than this…

    Basically, it’s "Less than 1 billionth"

    It could also be stated as 4.5 "10 billionths"

    = 0.00000000045137615  =   0.000000045137615 %
    

Find the coolest fisherman on Earth

Humans are amazing. With years of dedicated practice and training they can become nearly perfect at any discipline they set their minds to. Take something like computer programming, golf, or even fishing… Many people would consider themselves experts in these areas, but I hate to disappoint them with today’s news that one man in particular, from all the billions of humans alive on earth today, has indeed unanimously risen above all others to become the the coolest fisherman on Earth.

Who is it? His name is Craig Tucker, and his website says that he is the Coolest Fisherman on Earth and I believe it. If *you* don’t believe it, just take a look at his website and you’ll see that I am right. And so is he.

My Compuserve ID

I was able to dig up my old Compuserve ID:  76463,431

I first used this some time around late 1992 or early 1993.  I shared this user id with our company’s owner at the time, Jerry Edwards, but he rarely ever used, so most activity under this account was almost always me. At the time, I also was heavily into AutoLISP programming for AutoCAD, so that’s what most of my activity was focused on. Sadly, I was not even aware that FoxPro had an active presence on Compuserve, and I really wish I had known that.