David McDonald

Tech enthusiasm from down-under

  • Recent posts

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    How much does it cost to power your electronics?
    Published 06 Nov 2024
    I've often wondered how much of the power bill was my gaming PC, or my smart home gear, or even an air-conditioner, but I keep forgetting the math. Let me write some of this cool stuff down.
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    How to retire or deactivate location data in ServiceNow
    Published 23 Oct 2024
    What should you do with old location data in ServiceNow? Locations come and go through the life of an organisation. Moving offices, renting warehouses, and field service contracts change all the time. You still want the data, but you don't want anyone to use those old locations for anything new. Here's some recommendations on how to safely retire those old locations in ServiceNow.
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    How to safely modify SLAs in ServiceNow
    Published 14 Oct 2024
    It's not safe to modify SLA definitions in ServiceNow when there are active SLAs running for it. It can cause unpredictable behaviour, maybe even ruin your measurements entirely. Here's a quick guide on how to modify SLAs safely, as well as exploring what happens if you do.
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    How to get g_form on Service Portal pages
    Published 09 Oct 2024
    Using g_form in your browser console is a great way to debug forms in ServiceNow, but what if you want get at it from a Service Portal page? Here's how you can easily use g_form on a Service Portal page in yor browser developer tool console easy peasy lemon squeezy.
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    What is a Principal CI class in ServiceNow anyway?
    Published 24 Jun 2024
    You are having fun in the CI Class Manager and you spot a checkbox that says "Principal CI". What does it do? Could it be the answer to overly crowded auto-complete results when trying to set the Configuration Item on tasks?
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    DIY Datalogger For My Solar Panels - Part 1
    Published 11 Jun 2024
    My new home came with some solar panels and a Delta Solivia inverter. I'm envious of new inverters that give you cool graphs and statistics on your phone. Can I make my own wifi bridge to push solar power data to my Home Assistant controller?
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    Why your ServiceNow transform logging doesn't work
    Published 10 May 2024
    You feel like you're going mad. You've used log.info in your transform scripts, but there's no messages getting logged. Here's why it does that and how to change it.
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    Non-Production Instance Theming Part 7 - Custom Window Title
    Published 04 Mar 2024
    Are you developing in production without realising? Did you accidentally delete that production data, or load test data into your live instance? It's easy to forget which ServiceNow instance you are in. Giving each instance a custom window title can help guide users through a sea of browser tabs.
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    Non-Production Instance Theming Part 6 - Using Announcements
    Published 04 Mar 2024
    Are you developing in production without realising? Did you accidentally delete that production data, or load test data into your live instance? It's easy to forget which ServiceNow instance you are in. Adding an announcement to each instance can be a constant reminder of which instance you are in.
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About me

I'm David McDonald, an Australian with a taste for:

  • Software development
  • Electronic engineering
  • The nerdy lifestyle

My career focus is in the ServiceNow platform, but I'm also interested in C#, web design, and C++ for programming Arduinos in my spare time.