Serving businesses throughout North America since 1998

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Scott Johnston Inc. provides data management consulting, Oracle and Linux systems support, and general programming services to businesses large and small throughout North America. The Seedpak Lims by LabVantage Solutions (formerly ACS) is one of our specialties as is Oracle Forms and Reports programming. Designing and implementing custom software automation solutions to fit your unique needs is what we do best.

We engineer innovative solutions to your data processing challenges.

Easy way to get data from a spreadsheet to Oracle

Posted Fri, 08/26/2011 - 13:33 by LimsGuy

I've got a new tip I found on the net that I just had to share with everyone. It's a quick and easy way to get data from a spreadsheet into Oracle without the hassle of writing code.

Save the coded solutions, and there are many good ones, for the larger or repeating jobs. For those smaller or one-off jobs, this is the way to go. (My thanks go out to whomever first thought of this method, where ever you are.)

So basically, all we are going to do is use the spreadsheet to create a series of insert statements for us, then copy and paste those into our sql tool of choice.

Using Lims to Enhance Productivity and Improve Quality

Posted Tue, 10/27/2009 - 20:13 by LimsGuy

Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) have become standard equipment in todays high volume production analytical laboratory. These computer systems increase laboratory productivity by automating the data collection, calculation, quality control and reporting processes that consume much of a chemist's work day. In addition, LIMS provides laboratory management with the real time sample status and financial reports required to more effectively manage laboratory operations in a competitive marketplace.

Foreign Keys

Posted Sat, 09/12/2009 - 00:15 by LimsGuy

Ok, so I recently got burned by not having a foreign key defined on a table. I know, bad practice, but it happens. Anyway, without the foreign key a user was able to remove a record from the shipping methods table which caused the Oracle Form to not display a specific client account. Wondering how that could be? Yeah, so did I, for hours. Turns out the shipping method field in the accounts block is a pop-list which is pre-filled from the shipping table and when the form queried the record, it didn't display because the value wasn't in the pop-list.

Updated to Drupal 6

Posted Sat, 09/12/2009 - 00:04 by LimsGuy

Finally got around to updating the site to Drupal 6 and using a better theme. Next task is to migrate my personal site from Joomla to Drupal, which should be quite the task.

Don't Use Windows Without Them

Posted Mon, 05/05/2008 - 21:18 by LimsGuy

There are 3 freeware and opensource Windows applications I can't live without on my XP box (actually, XP Vmware virtual machine is more precise, but that's a topic for a different time). They are

New site

Posted Wed, 12/05/2007 - 18:13 by LimsGuy

Well the new site is finally up and running. I've chosen the open source Drupal content management system (CMS) with the Deco theme to construct the site, and as you can see, it turned out pretty well. Still need to get a decent logo, but that can wait for now.

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