Here is SQL and a text list of the towns and cities in New Zealand.

The list is free for all to use for any purpose.

The original data was sourced from Wikipedia on Saturday 31 January 2008.

If you need to modify it further, remember that you can always use The Worlds Simplest Code Generator.

Please post a comment if you find this useful.
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As part of a new project I’m doing, I needed to use hashes.

A good source of information on hashes is available from wikipedia.

SQL has the built in function HASHBYTES but this only supports up to the SHA128 algorithm and I want to use SHA256.

I created myself a CLR in C#.net and in some moment of feeling generous, decided to share the code.

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Following on from my earlier post.

The Mars rover Opportunity has now been successfully on the martian surface for 5 years.

I have information on the Spirit rover on my earlier post (link at top of this one).

Information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MER-B

Here is SQL and a tab delimited list of the States of the USA for all to use.

The original data was sourced from Wikipedia.

Please post a comment if you find this useful.

Edit: I’ve beed advised that although it’s not technically a state, this list needs District of Columbia as most real world scenarios require it. It’s been added to the top of the list.

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The Apple Macintosh was introduced on the 24th January 1984.

Image source: Wikipedia.

Happy 25th birthday, you’ve come a long way.

Here is SQL and a tab delimited list of Countries for all to use.

The original data was sourced from Wikipedia.

Note that some countries have single quotes in their names, these need to be escaped for SQL. The SQL I’m supplying is escaped, but the tab delimited version is not.

Please post a comment if you find this useful.

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I’ve been working on a new project and needed a list of International Dialling Codes to insert into my database.

Here are the results of my work for all to use.
The list is supplied as SQL and then tab delimited.

Note that Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) contains a single quote and as such needs escaping properly. The SQL is escaped, but the tab delimited version is not.

The original list was sourced from Wikipedia.

Please post a comment if you find this useful.

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I use the Microsoft Remote Desktop Client (Version 2.0.0 Beta 3) to connect to a number of Windows machines from my Mac laptop.

There is one very annoying ‘feature’ when using the Remote Desktop Client with a MacBook with a UK Keyboard – Whenever you use shift + arrow to highlight text, the Remote Desktop Client sends a delete signal and deletes one character to the right of the cursor.

I’ve since found a very useful fix for this – Set your keyboard layout to US.

There is only one key combination change which is that hash and pound (As in the currency) are reversed – Shift + 3 will do a hash and Alt + 3 will do a pound. This does have another benefit… when using the RDP Client on a UK Mac keyboard, you do not have access to the hash character.

You have the ability to add an icon to quickly change the layout from the menu bar.

Here is how you do it.

1. Open System Preferences and Select International

2. Select the Input Menu Tab

3. Scroll down the list and tick U.S. and then at the bottom of the window select Show input menu in menu bar (Screen grab below)

4. Close the international tab.

5. You should now have a picture of a flag in your menu bar. If you click it you can quickly change between the UK and US keyboard layouts. (Screen grab below)

As said earlier, the only layout change for common keys is that hash(#) and pound (£) are swapped.

Let me know if this makes your life easier.

The Daily Mail released a few pullout sheets about the moon mission. They were called “Moon Mail”.

Here is the Moon Mail from 11 July 1969.

The Daily Mail released a few pullout sheets about the moon mission. They were called “Moon Mail”.

Here is the Moon Mail from 10 July 1969.