Tag: work

Cross-platform video encoding in HandBrake

Yeah, I don’t do this shit very often, so people who are good at it probably know these things. But I took a screen recording of a tool I developed and was sending it out in an email blast – so, going to be viewed on iPhones, iPads, and Windows 7 laptops.

I first exported it as .m4v (from Quicktime), which did not work on Windows. I asked some of my internet friends for tips:

screen-shot-2016-10-11-at-11-27-21-am

Then I started playing around in HandBrake to see what would work.

Exporting to the Devices->Universal preset got video working, but not audio. HandBrake defaults to two AAC audio tracks, and I figured that might be the issue with the (who knows how up-to-date) Windows 7 laptops some of my colleagues are using.

So I added an MP3 track and an AAC track:
screen-shot-2016-10-11-at-11-19-19-am

Please note that I do not actually know what the hell I am doing, I just made some educated guesses at things I thought might work. And maybe they’ll work for you? Who knows.

Python, Selenium, Cognos, and timeouts

One of the tools I developed and manage for work is populated with data from Cognos on a daily basis. In order to not have to download and upload a file like some sort of IDIOT, I figured it would be good to write a Selenium script to do this for me.

For those of you who and are reading this post because you are my friend from the real world or bike racing or the internet, you might want to stop reading it because it will probably not pertain to you and I’m really writing it so I can remember what the hell I did later on.
Continue reading Python, Selenium, Cognos, and timeouts

An Actual Email I Just Sent

Okay, this craps out because the Input Sheet has “#N/A” in a data cell. This makes Excel really sad and it just explodes.

I can write something to account for this and prevent Excel from becoming depressed and drinking itself into oblivion.

 

“preventing Excel from becoming depressed and drinking itself into oblivion” sounds way better than “Error Handling”