For the Nth Time

I created this blog to serve as a repository for my MIS-related stuff from UPOU. Back then, my intent was to keep updating this as often as I can. My purpose was a blend of it to be a time-capsule of sort and to be of aid to others who would wish to pursue the post-grad degree themselves.

Being one comfortable with blogging, I thought I could actually live up to that. What I never anticipated was that real life would have its way with the blogger from time to time.

So the hiatus was mainly about:

• Work. Of course this trumps almost everything in the list and with the way deadlines and expectations pile up, this time of the year, it shouldn't be surprising if I end up silent here again.
• School. While this is mostly about school, the IS238-IS272 combo the previous sem, actually bore down on most of my free time. So much that the weeks actually felt like I had coffee for blood in my veins. Add to that taking the program's comprehensive exam, (of which I will write about soon), and that pretty much pictures how hectic school was.
• Family. While the family ranks among the top of my priorities, affairs tend to become more demanding as the family ends up becoming bigger. My brother, for instance, had his wedding last Saturday.
• Health. Given hectic schedules and busy routines, (not to mention a crazy typhoon experience,) it's always easy to neglect one of rest and a healthy lifestyle. So it wasn't really surprising that around the middle of the month, I had to be treated for something before I get down with full-blown pneumonia or tuberculosis. I'm alright now and I'm on my way to getting rid of the cancer stick from my routine forever.

I hope to be able to write again here soon before I ride off into the sunset though.

IS238 - Quiz 1

Yup. I'm done... and relieved...


For now that is.

Over OCR

I've never given a thought on OCR stuff much before because I never thought of a situation I would end up actually needing it.

Just early this day, I actually needed to find a solution towards that direction.

More specifically, I have a PDF in IS238 with lengthy code in it and I need to have both server and client codes running. While the intuitive step of having the program files is to copy and paste everything, it turned out that things won't be easy as that. It turned out that the text turned out garbled when pasted in Notepad++.

As a previous endeavor has shown, my tinkering inclination actually had me try to have the garbage figured out--how values map to the other. After a while I gave up though. I thought I should have ended up typing the 6 page mammoth instead of ending up having to spend an entire day decyphering the thing.

The only thing left for me to try was the OCR solution. Not wanting to have additional software installed though, I spent a few clicks at Google and found a surprising solution. Surprising in the sense that I never thought I'd find something of actual use for MS Office's OneNote, its Copy Text from Picture functionality was literally a lifesaver here.

OneNote's Copy Text from Picture

So after a few clicks on Adobe Reader's Snapshot tool before getting the text from OneNote, I got what my codes. Well, sort of since there were a few glitches in the translation that I had to correct still.

I'll happily take that over straining these fingers having to retype everything though.