Paradigm Architectural Control Processor Compact Flash (CF) card not found

Hi everyone,

Just a little update on this error: CF Card not found. They say this can be the result of a bad compact flash card. But I just noticed that plugging in a new/blank/used card that has not been formatted by the Paradigm system can cause this as well.

What do you need to do to fix it? Just FORMAT the new/used CF card on the system itself. I hope this helps someone out there save some trouble. I formatted up several used and new CF cards, and they worked just fine. We had the original card get corrupted due to power issues when our building switched from regular power to generator power, causing a likely power surge and damaging the old CF card.

Follow the instructions for physically pulling the old CF card, and replacing with the different one. (see link below, under more info)

With the new card installed, now do the following:

1. Upon booting you'll be met with an "Arch Config Failed to Load" and/or a "Unassigned Processor" error.

2. Press the check mark to enter the Main Menu

3. Scroll to Restricted Access and press the check

4. Scroll to Login and press the check

5. Enter 4116 and press the check. This put you back in the Restricted Access menu

6. Press the back button ONCE to return to the Main Menu -- NOTE: If you accidentally press the back button twice, this takes you out of the Main Menu and you must follow steps 2 through 6 again to re-login

7. Scroll down to ETC Only and press the check

8. Scroll to Format Media and press the check

9. Format Compact Flash should already be selected on the screen. Press the check to begin the process.

10. During the format the screen will remain backlit, but will otherwise be blank. This is normal. After as little as a couple minutes (it could be longer if it's a larger CF card) the P-ACP will reboot, and you should see the standard Paradigm logo along with "Booting...." below it.

11. After the P-ACP finishes booting you'll be met with the "Arch Config Failed to Load" and "Unassigned Processor" errors, or even the "CF Card not found". Now load the desired config file, either from LightDesigner, from the another P-ACP or P-CCS on the network, or via USB/SD.

More info:  Replace CF Card

Find bad or corrupted PDF files

Hi everyone,

 I work with several thousand PDF files and wanted a good way to find which ones are bad or corrupted due to various issues. I came up with this batch script that will work well on windows. It uses CPDF, which must be downloaded separately, and installed. Then my batch file will call the CPDF.exe file and proceed appropriately. Download here: https://www.coherentpdf.com/

NOTE:

 You will need access to the location of CPDF in the filesystem. I chose to place it in the C:\Windows\System32 directory. You may choose to place it somewhere else. You may need to add the DOS path to the location of CPDF, in order for the batch script to correctly run, or you could probably place the path in the script itself, for example:

 REPLACE THE LINE: for /f "delims=?" %%W in ('cpdf -page-info "%%Z" 2^>^&1 ^| find /c "error"') do set NumberOfErrors=%%W

 WITH SOMETHING LIKE THIS: for /f "delims=?" %%W in ('c:\windows\system32\cpdf -page-info "%%Z" 2^>^&1 ^| find /c "error"') do set NumberOfErrors=%%W

 USAGE: Copy the script below and save in a .bat file, and then run in the folder that has all your PDF files... =============================================================================================================

 Here is the actual Batch script:


:: This will cycle through PDF files and if any have errors or are corrupted

:: it will rename the problem files with a prefix.

:: EXAMPLE: myFile.pdf will be renamed to _BadPDF_myFile.pdf

:: Uses the CPDF application, which must be downloaded...

 setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
 for /f "delims=?" %%Z in ('dir /b *.pdf') do (
   
     rem @echo "%%Z"
     for /f "delims=?" %%W in ('cpdf -page-info "%%Z" 2^>^&1 ^| find /c "error"') do set NumberOfErrors=%%W
     rem @echo !NumberOfErrors!
     if !NumberOfErrors! GTR 0 ren "%%Z" "_BadPDF_%%Z"

)

timeout /T 15

exit

Drop SQL tables based on table name

Here is a little SQL snippet for Microsoft SQL Server to drop (delete) tables based on their name. I have the custom of prefixing all old tables I don't use with a Z, so they drop to the bottom of the list. I finally wanted to delete them all, so here is a nice script that accomplished that. You must specify the specific database by changing 'YourDatabaseName.'



-- Drop all tables based on a specific name
-- Currently set to drop all tables starting with z
-- This likely won't work for tables that have foreign keys...

DECLARE @TABLE_NAME varchar(255)
declare @SQL varchar(255)

DECLARE CUR CURSOR FOR

SELECT TABLE_NAME
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
WHERE TABLE_TYPE = 'BASE TABLE' AND TABLE_CATALOG='YourDatabaseName'
and TABLE_NAME like 'z%'
order by TABLE_NAME


OPEN CUR

FETCH NEXT FROM CUR INTO @TABLE_NAME

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
BEGIN
SET @SQL = 'drop table if exists ['+@TABLE_NAME + ']'

PRINT @SQL
--EXEC (@SQL) -- uncomment this line to actually delete your tables

FETCH NEXT FROM CUR INTO @TABLE_NAME
END

CLOSE CUR

DEALLOCATE CUR


A MS Word Macro for Auto Footer Generation

Here is a Microsoft Word macro that I worked up for a situation where I was trying to print a large number of .rtf files that didn't have any footer, but I wanted a footer that contained the filename, the print date and time, and the current page (of the total pages). It should work for printing other types of files, such as .doc, .docx, .txt, or possibly whatever you can open with word.

In my case, I didn't want to save the footer, so I wrote a second macro that calls the first one, to print the file and exit without saving the file.


Sub GenerateFooterAndInfo()
'
'
    If ActiveWindow.View.SplitSpecial <> wdPaneNone Then
        ActiveWindow.Panes(2).Close
    End If
    If ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Type = wdNormalView Or ActiveWindow. _
        ActivePane.View.Type = wdOutlineView Then
        ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Type = wdPrintView
    End If
    ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.SeekView = wdSeekCurrentPageFooter
 
    'add filename to left side of footer
    Selection.Fields.Add Range:=Selection.Range, Type:=wdFieldEmpty, Text:= _
        "FILENAME  ", PreserveFormatting:=True
    Selection.TypeText Text:=vbTab
 
    'add date to center of footer
    Selection.InsertDateTime DateTimeFormat:="M/d/yyyy h:mm:ss am/pm", _
        InsertAsField:=True, DateLanguage:=wdEnglishUS, CalendarType:= _
        wdCalendarWestern, InsertAsFullWidth:=False
    Selection.TypeText Text:=vbTab
 
    'add page of pagecount to right side of footer
    Selection.TypeText Text:="Page "
    Selection.Fields.Add Range:=Selection.Range, Type:=wdFieldEmpty, Text:= _
        "PAGE  ", PreserveFormatting:=True
    Selection.TypeText Text:=" of "
    Selection.Fields.Add Range:=Selection.Range, Type:=wdFieldEmpty, Text:= _
        "NUMPAGES  ", PreserveFormatting:=True
    ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.SeekView = wdSeekMainDocument

End Sub



And here is the second macro that avoids saving the changes:




Sub CreateTempFooterThenPrintAndExit()
'
'
    GenerateFooterAndInfo
 
    ActiveDocument.PrintOut
 
    'close document without saving autogenerated footer
    ActiveWindow.Close (False)
    Application.Quit
 
End Sub

These macros make it easy to open a file and immediately print it, without changing the file, and yet having the information about the file easily at hand. These could be easily modified to print the path to the filename, etc. for either headers or footers in Word documents.

Hope this helps someone out there.

Add a TAB character to a Microsoft Access column directly

I was trying to add a tab character directly into a column in Microsoft Access in the same way ALT+CODE works for other types of characters. For example, ALT+0169 produces the Copyright symbol (©) just fine. But not for TAB, and probably other standard ASCII non-printable characters less than 128...

So...

Open Notepad and enter a tab, COPY it, and go to your cell in Microsoft Access, and add the tab wherever you want it.

You won't be able to see it though...

But not to worry, just copy the whole cell, and then past it back into Notepad and you will see it show up.

Not sure why you may want a tab in your data, but if you do, this will work...

I was using SQL Server 2005 and Access 2013 for this

Clean Every SQL Table Column of Unwanted Data

Here is a simple T-SQL snippet for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (and probably other editions) that you can use to clean up the strings in the columns of your table by removing extra spaces, tabs, carriage returns, and newlines. This is useful when you have imported data from somewhere and need to do some cleaning on it...

/***************************************************************

DESCRIPTION:  This TSQL Code snippet will perform data cleaning on every varchar
column and nvarchar column in the specified table, except for varchar(max) and
nvarchar(max) columns.

PURPOSE:  This is useful for removing extra spaces, tabs, carriage returns, new lines, and
trimming the front and end of the strings in all your columns. Add other cleaning
routines if you would like, or combine multiple cleaning activities in one statement.

WARNING:  DATA LOSS WILL LIKELY RESULT
    Every [n]varchar column with a length less than max will be affected.

RECOMMENDED:  Test on a COPY of the desired table before use to determine data loss.



***************************************************************/


declare @sql as varchar(2000)
declare @Table as varchar(250)
declare @Column as varchar(250)
declare @Count as int
declare @x as int

set @Table = 'Authors'         --  ENTER YOUR TABLE NAME HERE
set @Column = ''
set @Count = 0
set @x = 1


-- delete the temp table if it exists
IF OBJECT_ID(N'tempdb..#aTempTable') IS NOT NULL drop table #aTempTable


-- get valid column names in a temp table
SELECT
     row_number() over (order by ordinal_position) as ROW
     ,COLUMN_NAME
into #aTempTable
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE
     data_type like '%varchar'            /* find all varchar and nvarchar columns */
     and table_name like @Table
     and character_maximum_length > 0    /* avoid varchar(max) columns which are -1 character_maximum_length */


-- how many columns are in the table?
set @Count = (select max(row) from #aTempTable)


while @x <= @Count          -- Loop through the column names, and perform data cleaning
begin

     -- get the column name for this iteration
     set @Column = (select column_name from #aTempTable where row = @x)

     -- notify user what is happening (on the messages tab in SQL Server Managment Studio)
     print ''
     print ''
     print cast(@x as varchar(20)) + '.  Cleaning ' + @Column



     -- perform various data cleaning activities on each column of the data in a given table


     -- replace tabs, carriage returns, and newlines with spaces
     set @sql = 'update ' + @Table + ' set [' + @Column + '] = replace(replace(replace([' + @Column +'],char(10),'' ''), char(13), '' ''),char(9),'' '')'
     --select (@sql)
     exec (@sql)


     -- replace two spaces with one
     set @sql = 'update ' + @Table + ' set [' + @Column + '] = replace(replace([' + @Column +'],''  '','' ''), ''  '', '' '')'
     --select (@sql)
     exec (@sql)


     -- trim everything, removing beginning and trailing spaces
     set @sql = 'update ' + @Table + ' set [' + @Column + '] = ltrim(rtrim([' + @Column +']))'
     --select (@sql)
     exec (@sql)



     -- add your specialized cleaning code here...




     -- go to next column name
     set @x = @x + 1



end


drop table #aTempTable

go


/* Sample Output -- that would be run by the exec (@sql) statements

update Author set [AuthorName] = replace(replace([AuthorName],char(10),' '), char(13), ' ')

*/


Add the column Description property to the table designer view in SQL Server Management Studio 2012

Wouldn't it be nice to see the column Description property right beside the Allow Nulls column for the columns in your table? This seems like a no-brainer, but it is not that easy to do in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). Unfortunately, you have to edit the registry. But if you do it correctly (be careful), you can take your table designer view from looking like this:

SQL Server Management Studio before Description property is added...

to this:

SQL Server Management Studio after Description property is added...

This looks so much more useful!

Follow these instructions for how to do this for SQL Server Management Studio 2012. See the bottom for a link that should work for older versions of SSMS.

USE CAUTION BELOW.

REGEDIT, if not used correctly, can really mess up your computer. I recommend backing up your registry BEFORE trying this. Be sure to back up the WHOLE registry, and not just a portion of it when using File>Export. Notice that at the bottom of the save dialog you can choose the Export Range. You should choose All, so you save the whole registry and not just a portion of it…

Using regedit, modify your registry by going to the following location (for SQL Server Management Studio 2012)

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\SQL Server Management Studio\11.0\DataProject

Find and modify the following keys:
• SSVPropViewColumnsSQL70
• SSVPropViewColumnsSQL80

Modify the values of these keys from    1,2,6;    to    1,2,6,17;    which is effectively just adding 17, which is the value for the table column Description property. You could add probably add other properties as well, as noted below, but I haven’t tried it…

Once you have made the changes, exit Regedit, and restart SQL Server Management Studio. Then you should see the Description column as shown above.

If you wanted to add other columns, you probably could... see the corresponding numbers below...

Property sequence:
1. Column Name
2. Data Type
3. Length
4. Precision
5. Scale
6. Allow Nulls
7. Default Value
8. Identity
9. Identity Seed
10. Identity Increment
11. Row GUID
12. Nullable
13. Condensed Type
14. Not for Replication
15. Formula
16. Collation
17. Description


For older versions of SQL Server Management Studio, see this link…

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10537610/how-do-i-add-the-description-property-to-the-table-designer-view-in-ssms
Go there >