Windows Explorer in Windows 7 has a Preview mode that will attempt to display the contents in a right pane of the currently selected file. It uses the current font size of the Notepad program. To turn on file preview you select the icon in the toolbar area just to the left of the Help icon. It is a small square divided into 3 rectangles.
Five years ago I recommended THESE programs to install on a fresh Windows install.
My recommended list has changed to this:
Filezilla
Beyond Compare
WinZip
7-Zip (for RAR files)
Skype
Sony Movie Studio HD Platinum
Picassa
SumatraPDF (Blazingly fast, no annoying ads or requirements to upgrade or requirements to install Adobe Air)
CutePDF
Who says you can’t have it all? I’ll be leaving my current job soon and with it the use of a Windows laptop and MacBook Pro. Last week I decided to go all in and spend the $2000 plus on a new MacBook Pro and install Windows 7 on it. The installation of Windows 7 using Bootcamp went smoothly. Windows 7 runs great and looks great on it! I used the free copy of Windows 7 Ultimate I received in the mail. I now have some great hardware that I can boot Mac OSX or Windows 7 on and do my Mac or Windows development from a single laptop. The MacBook is fast and I have Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 10 installed to do video editing. I can render out a video from Vegas and playback video real-time at the same time!
I have to discover and get use to how to do things in Windows from the MacBook. Here are some items of note:
forward delete: <fn><delete>
Start of line: <fn><left arrow>
End of line: <fn><right arrow>
Next word: <control><right arrow>
Previous word: <control><left arrow>
PageUp: <fn><arrow up>
PageDn: <fn><arrow dn>
Scroll Line Up: <fn><arrow up>
Scroll Line Down: <fn><arrow down>
Move cursor to top of screen: <control><fn><arrow up>
Move cursor to bottom of screen: <control><fn><arrow down>
<fn><Enter> Insert
PrintScreen on Windows using Macbook Pro keyboard:
You can find all the Mac hotkeys here.
Print Screen on Mac
The basic functionality of taking a screen capture of a window or desktop in Mac OS X takes an image and dumps it to a file on the Mac desktop. Each uses the pressing of Command and Shift keys concurrently as the basis for execution, followed by a number:
This functions a lot more like Print Screen in the Windows world. If you want to do the equivalent of Print Screen to the clipboard so that you can paste it into another app, these are the commands you’d want to use:
If you have a PayPal account you may be receiving emails from PayPal partners. Here is how to stop it. BTW, I was alerted to this from PayPal themselves. I decided to actually read their email titled PayPal Annual Privacy and Error Resolution Notice.
If you do not want PayPal to share your personal information with eBay companies for the purpose of marketing their products or with other financial institutions for the purpose of marketing our jointly offered products to you, please log in to your account and uncheck the box in the Information Sharing section of the Notifications and Information Sharing page. This page can be accessed by going to the Profile subtab under the My Account tab.
Personally, I think it should be criminal to automatically opt in someone and require them to jump through hoops to opt-out.
This week, Facebook opted everyone into a new feature they call Places. It allows you to easily post to your wall where you are. It also allows others to post that they saw you at a particular location. I’m recommending you Opt-Out of this feature and I have created this webpage to show you how. If you’re wondering why this is a bad idea, check out this PleaseRobMe website.
The best and most reliable way to speed up your computer is to reinstall the operating system. Yes, I know it is a hassle and an extreme option but it’s the best option. You can try to manually cleanup your computer and you can make improvements but this is time consuming and no gaurantee you will fix the biggest problems. Reinstalling the OS requires that you back everything up which is a good thing to get in the habit of. Your computer could crash one day and you should be prepared for this anyway.
Reinstalling the OS takes a few hours but it runs pretty much unattended. The most work will be preparing for the reinstallation.
But if reinstalling the OS isn’t an option, here are the things you can do to improve performance:
Logins for some common routers:
| Router | Address | Username | Password |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3Com | http://192.168.1.1 | admin | admin |
| D-Link | http://192.168.0.1 | admin | |
| Linksys | http://192.168.1.1 | admin | admin |
| Microsoft Broadband | http://192.168.2.1 | admin | admin |
| Netgear | http://192.168.0.1 | admin | password |
I had my first bad experience with Google software which has been remedied but it was enough for me to reevaluate my level of commitment using their websites and software. Everyone knows it’s not good to rely on just one company for ANYTHING. Over time I have become more reliant on Google for mail and documents. I use their Calendering and Picassa/Web Albums, Blogger, and Google Voice service. I also use GMAIL for my company’s tech support and we share documents at work.
This week when I attempted to create a new document, I got a message that I may be in violation of their terms of service. I was locked out from ALL accounts which was tied to my Google GMAIL account. I couldn’t check GMAIL or use Google Docs. Soon after that, I received a message that a blog I had setup (http://pcbestpractices.blogspot.com) had been flagged as a possible SPAM site. Ironically, that blog I started which has 2 lengthy posts attempting to inform about the proper use of BCC, and how to manage photos is probably the two most USEFUL posts I’ve ever created! Here is the text of the email I received:
Hello,
Your blog at: http://pcbestpractices.blogspot.com/ has been identified as a potential spam blog. To correct this, please request a review by filling out the form at [linked removed]
Your blog will be deleted in 20 days if it isn’t reviewed, and your readers will see a warning page during this time. After we receive your request, we’ll review your blog and unlock it within two business days. Once we have reviewed and determined your blog is not spam, the blog will be unlocked and the message in your Blogger dashboard will no longer be displayed. If this blog doesn’t belong to you, you don’t have to do anything, and any other blogs you may have won’t be affected.
We find spam by using an automated classifier. Automatic spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and occasionally a blog like yours is flagged incorrectly. We sincerely apologize for this error. By using this kind of system, however, we can dedicate more storage, bandwidth, and engineering resources to bloggers like you instead of to spammers. For more information, please see Blogger Help: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42577
Thank you for your understanding and for your help with our spam-fighting efforts.
Sincerely,
The Blogger Team
P.S. Just one more reminder: Unless you request a review, your blog will be deleted in 20 days. Click this link to request the review: [link removed]
The only thing I can think of is that the fact my blog was flagged as a potential spam site, triggered the lockout of all my other google accounts.
It’s one thing to suspect wrong doing and I accept that there are false positives, but to turn off EVERYTHING associated with an account until it is proven an error doesn’t strike me as not Doing Evil. It’s like the policy of shooting first and asking questions later.
I’m not going to stop using Google properties, but I’ve got my foot on the brake and I will no longer recommend them as enthusastically, or without warnings. I will post a Google Best Practices ;-) at a later time.
Here are a few other stories related to being “Google Owned”
The blogging experience has two parts. The first part is creating and maintaining a weblog. The second part is reading and keeping track of multiple weblogs using a dedicated program that works similar to a mail program. Often referred to as RSS readers, feed readers, feed aggregators, news readers, or search aggregators, these programs allows you to “subscribe” to various weblogs and not have to worry about what new information has been posted to each blog. The information will be pulled down and ready to read in the Newsreader at regular intervals, just like a mail program. A special program is not required to read a weblog. A weblog is always available through a browser. But a specialized program is highly recommended.
I recommend:
FeedDemon for Windows
NetNewsWire for Mac
GoogleReader for a web-based reader.
The latest versions of mail clients like Outlook or Mac Mail have built in support for RSS as do many browsers. There are also RSS readers for tablets and smartphones.
(Updated Aug 10, 2011)
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I want one. I did not run out and buy an iPhone. I never thought it was worth the price of the monthly cell + data plan. For sometime now, I have been watching TV shows and movies on my MacBook Pro; Cassidy has too. She is always borrowing it on weekends to catch up on the network shows she doesn’t have time during the week to watch. We settle in, in our favorite place on the coach, or in our bedroom, put on some headphones and have a close-up immersible experience on the laptop. So the iPad is in effect, our second “laptop” but in a form factor that is better tailored to that personal intimate experience on the coach. It’s not a small laptop, it’s a big iPod Touch (oh, we have 3 of those in the house). It does not run Mac desktop software, but instead runs iPod apps plus the software that comes on it.
A pleasant surprise was the price! I feared it would start at $1000 but the WiFi-only model starts at $500 for the 8gig model, $600 for 16gig and $700 for 32gig. It will be available in March. In April the Wi-Fi + 3G version comes out and will be priced $629, $729, and $829. Again there’s that data plan for 3G which I feel I can live without.