Managing Useful Scripts and Articles

Question

Managing Useful Scripts and Articles

Ian Scarlett

SSC-Insane

Points: 23197
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August 7, 2009 at 8:02 am

#140582

I frequently discover an article, script, snippet of code or bit of information that I think is useful (many of them from this site), and ought to file away for future reference.
Sometimes this is at work, sometimes at home, sometimes at a customer site etc etc.
This means the information gets fragmented. Some bits are on Favourites on my work machine, some at home, some on a memory stick, some on a piece of paper.
As often as not, I can't find what I'm looking for wherever I happen to be.
I know it's just a question of being a bit more organised and disciplined, but I'm interested to know how others go about keeping/organising this sort of information.

Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)

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matt6288 SSCertifiable Points: 5058 More actions · Answer 1

I actually just started trying to organize all my stuff. I have a local database engine running and just created a table on a new database there. SSMS is up and running all day anyway so when I see something I like I call my stored procedure, give it a short description, and I either add the SQL script text or the url. Here is my little table that I use to track things.

USE [scripts]

GO

/****** Object: Table [dbo].[scripts] Script Date: 08/07/2009 10:24:44 ******/

SET ANSI_NULLS ON

GO

SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON

GO

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[scripts](

[scriptID] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,

[subject] [varchar](140) NULL,

[TEXT] [varchar](max) NULL,

CONSTRAINT [PK_scripts] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED

(

[scriptID] ASC

)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY]

) ON [PRIMARY]

GO

I guess this only works if you always have access to your SQL instance but so far it has worked for me.

Jack Corbett SSC Guru Points: 184394 More actions · Answer 2

Well, for SSC you can add the articles to your briefcase.

I use google bookmarks[/url]. Then you can have them in your google toolbar (if you use it) or just the site.

Jack Corbett
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Lowell SSC Guru Points: 323518 More actions · Answer 3

most decent text editors have syntax highlighting in them; many have a snippet feature as well. t

I use editplus because besides syntax highlighting, it has a nice cliptext feature, where i can put a title to a snippet, paste the detail code to it, so whenever I need a snippet, i double click it and it inserts into whatever document I'm editing.

Also the regex find and replace is so helpful, and the save macro/playback macro save me millions of keystrokes if I ever need to massage text data into a better format.

I have thousands of snippets saved. in the last year or two I started using PortableApps on a USB drive, so I carry my EditPlus installation, plus folders of larger saved scripts and stuff like that on the drive as well.

Yeah i forget my drive sometimes, but i wrote a mini application that merges two EditPlus CTL files, which contain my snippets, so if i added something at work that is not on my drive, it merges the snippets for me.

for files that are not synced, i use the Toucan backup/merge utility that comes with PortableApps,

a screenshot below, where i can select one of the thousands of snippets, and just click it to insert into the editor:

Lowell

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Ian Scarlett SSC-Insane Points: 23197 More actions · Answer 4

Thanks guys 🙂

I hadn't seen PortableApps before... that looks very interesting

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 736188 More actions · Answer 5

I love Edit Plus, using it on a daily basis for HTML and SQL stuff. I'll have to check out Portable Apps.

One other thing I've been doing is collapse things into My Documents as separate folders. So I have one for .sql, one for editorials, one for blogs, etc. If they are small files, Live Mesh works wonderfully, allowing me to keep files in sync on multiple machines.

Rudyx - the Doctor SSC-Forever Points: 43695 More actions · Answer 6

Google docs anybody ???

RegardsRudy KomacsarSenior Database Administrator"Ave Caesar! - Morituri te salutamus."

dbajunior SSCrazy Points: 2307 More actions · Answer 7

I just stick the ones I like in my SSC Briefcase.

Ells SSCrazy Eights Points: 9901 More actions · Answer 8

Windows live Sky Drive.

25GB of space and all you need is a windows live login. Whats on there is all my notes, scripts, projects, docs and a list of internet articles.

Wherever I go its on the internet. Even places that wont let me use a USB key let me go there. 25GB is a fair amount of space really.

I still keep a copy on a USB key just in case..

Ells.

( found out about this from Jamie Thomsons SSIS Nuggets blog)

😎

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 736188 More actions · Answer 9

I've used box.net as well and that's worked well for me. I've even given the login to my brother and been able to "send" him pictures that won't go through email.

Ells SSCrazy Eights Points: 9901 More actions · Answer 10

Should have said 5mb per file limit. BUT there is a fabulous utility called Chainsaw this will chainsaw your file into whatever size chunks you want and produce a bat file to put it all together again (no software required at recieving end).

Ells.:cool:

Andeavour SSCrazy Points: 2600 More actions · Answer 11

There's also a handy add-on for Firefox that allows you to synchronise your bookmarks between different machines running the browser (I think it's called XA). That's been great for me. I can bookmark something at a client site and then get it at home later, and vice versa.

Mark Harrison-282986 SSC Enthusiast Points: 197 More actions · Answer 12

MS OneNote is great but confined to your computer unless you have a Windows Mobile phone.

I used to use Google Notebook for this sort of thing. Unfortunately, Google are not going ahead with this product and it is being phased out.

I now use Evernote and I am extremely happy with this. There is a desktop client (Windows and Mac), a web client and a mobile phone client for iPhone (which is what I have), Windows Mobile, Blackberry and Palm Pre. There is also a Firefox add-on for clipping content and you can email stuff to yourself to be collected and put into Evernote. All of these clients sync and it seems to work very well.

And it is free for the basic service. The fat desktop client does discreetly display advertisments in the lower left corner if you are a basic service customer. I don't think that is a big deal but that is up to you if you are happy with that.

Premium service customers get more service and no ads and cost $5/month. I'm happy with the basic service so far.

No affiliation yada, yada. Just a happy user.

Mark Harrison-282986 SSC Enthusiast Points: 197 More actions · Answer 13

Andeavour (8/24/2009)
There's also a handy add-on for Firefox that allows you to synchronise your bookmarks between different machines running the browser (I think it's called XA). That's been great for me. I can bookmark something at a client site and then get it at home later, and vice versa.

I've gone over completely to using Google bookmarks. That way I can access them anywhere.