I need some help repairing some text files. I don't really understand regular expressions and so on enough. [more inside]
posted by yesno on Nov 2, 2009 - 14 answers

DonatingTextbooksInAustraliaFilter: How would I go about donating a heap of recent secondary school textbooks to worthy causes. I'm in Melbourne, Australia. [more inside]
posted by micklaw on Aug 25, 2009 - 6 answers

Web filter filter: I seem to remember a link to an NYT article that just contained the full text of the article in nice big letters, with no graphics, banners, or ads. It was fully attributed, with links to the original, but it was much more pleasant to read, especially for a long article. Is there a website that will filter out the clutter and provide links that can be forwarded?
posted by jpg15 on Jul 1, 2009 - 6 answers

My boyfriend Skype-IMed his mother a very dirty greeting that was meant for me. It still shows the circling icon that I think happens when you try to send a user a message when the user does not have Skype running at the time. Is there any way to delete this before she gets it? He's freaking out, as you would too, if I told you what he just told his mother.
posted by anthropomorphic on Jun 30, 2009 - 12 answers

[MomFilter] Looking for a reasonably cheap, reliable printer (for printing text) for an iMac. Leaning towards laser as the experiences with inkjets have been that bouts of little use lead to still full, yet dry and thus worthless ink cartridges. [more inside]
posted by blueberry on Jun 21, 2009 - 21 answers

PrepaidCellFilter: Two questions about prepaid cell plans: 1. Can I use a phone I buy off eBay with one of these plans, or is it essential to use the phones provided by the carrier? 2. If I'm mostly interested in texting, which prepaid cell provider would be the best for me? [more inside]
posted by reenum on May 21, 2009 - 10 answers

I'm giving a big presentation in a couple of weeks and it has to be impressive. I have a fabulous idea for a graphic, inspired by the facebook friend wheel, where I want to wrap perhaps 100 words around a circle and draw lines to connect them in illustrative ways. The drawing lines part is easy, but the wrapping text around a circle part is hard (without doing it one element at a time, rotating and aligning each one just so). I *know* there's an easy way to do this, but am not quite smart enough to figure it out in omnigraffle or find another program that can do it. I can use Mac or PC. If you point me to a workable solution, you'll get your name in lights (if you wish) in addition to my unending gratitude.
posted by ezola on Apr 21, 2009 - 12 answers

Back in the 80's I played a text based college basketball game on the PC. Anyone remember it? [more inside]
posted by unceman on Mar 17, 2009 - 3 answers

I have hundreds of text strings entered through a form in a Google Spreadsheets which look like 4*3 9*2 17*3 22 37*4 52. I can easily substitute " " for "+" and concatenate a "=" in front =4*3+9*2+17*3+22+37*4+52. Now I have a text string which looks like a formula but isn't one. How can I make Google Spreadsheets interpret this string as a formula? [more inside]
posted by Akeem on Mar 12, 2009 - 3 answers

I did a dumb thing. I put together a book list in this format: first-name last-name (tab) book-title Note that there *isn't* a comma between the author's first and last name. Is there any "computer magic" I can perform to change it to this format: last-name first-name (tab) book-title The list is just in text format, for what it's worth. I'm on a Mac but also have access to a PC. I'd rather not have to cut-n-paste the last names, it's a pretty long list.
posted by edjusted on Feb 17, 2009 - 16 answers

I'm writing a shell script to take a webpage and convert it into a text file. I'd appreciate tips as to how to store URLs, save the file with the URL's title as its name, and also just general tips as to how to improve the script and/or achieve the process better. Specific questions inside. [more inside]
posted by WCityMike on Jan 30, 2009 - 17 answers

What color text on what color background maximizes screen readability while minimizing eyestrain? [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Jan 19, 2009 - 19 answers

How can I follow election results on my cell phone? [more inside]
posted by Amanda B on Nov 3, 2008 - 8 answers

I recently switched over to a plain text file as my to-do list; I can structure it the way I want, it is an absolute cinch to access in any one of a hundred zillion different ways, it's crossplatform, and so on. However, I am running into one methodology I can't figure out how to translate into the "plain text" world, and that is repeating tasks. [more inside]
posted by WCityMike on Jul 7, 2008 - 23 answers

Best way to rotate an image or text into 3d space? [more inside]
posted by Malor on Aug 19, 2006 - 6 answers

What's an easy way to append to a text file in Windows XP, like Quicksilver does in OS X? I know about the solution for ActiveWords, but I'd rather not shell out for what seems like basic functionality.
posted by monju_bosatsu on Dec 12, 2005 - 11 answers