If you use Windows Vista/7 then you know that buttons and links which elevate privileges are preceded by a shield icon. This is the way Microsoft decided to inform the user about the effect of clicking that control.

The first idea that might pop up is the reinvention of the wheel (or shield). In other words you could draw the shield on a button. This is OK except that:

1. Is not easy
2. Will require you to recompile the interface if Microsoft decides to change the icon
3. You need the icon in many sizes 16×16, 24×24, 32×32, etc. (extract it from MS’ DLLs)
4. Will create a lot of overhead with layout (position icon relative to text size/position)

The second method is easier, safer and recommended by MS. All you need to do is send a specific message (BCM_SETSHIELD) to the button if the user has limited privileges and pressing that button will trigger the UAC window. Actually there is a second, tricky, thing that must be done: the style of the button must be “System” (in C# “System.Windows.FlatStyle.System”). Without this you will not be able to see the shield.

The code provided in part 1 of this article will be modified in order to display the shield on the two buttons. Moreover, the shield will be displayed only when the user runs under an account with limited privileges or non-elevated administrator.

In order to display the shield one needs to send the BCM_SETSHIELD (=0×0000160C) message to the button. This can be done by using the SendMessage function from user32.dll. This article will not cover what is and how to use SendMessage, if you need more information about it follow the previous link.

To set the shield of the “Elevate this application” button one needs to send the message in the following way:

SendMessage(btnElevate.Handle, BCM_SETSHIELD, 0, 1);

The first parameter is the handle of the button, the second one is the message, the third one is not used and must be ‘0′ and the last argument must be non-zero in order to draw the shield, zero otherwise.

If you try this it will not work :) Remember the ‘tricky’ thing told before? This is the full code to display the shield for btnElevate:

btnElevate.FlatStyle = FlatStyle.System;
SendMessage(btnElevate.Handle, BCM_SETSHIELD, 0, 1);

There is only one thing that must be done in order to work properly. Remove the shield if the user has elevated privileges. I don’t know if this is against MS’ recommendation but in my opinion one must not be shown information that cannot be used in that context; in our case don’t show the elevate shield if there is nothing to elevate.

Part 1 described how to check if a user has full rights. Now we are just using that boolean variable:

if (!hasAdministrativeRight)
    SetUACShields();

Where SetUACShields will send the message to all buttons that require the shield drawn.

The full updated code from Part 1: UAC Code 3 (10.13 KB)

See you in the next year…

1. To show the pages correctly
2. To show as much as possible from a page (to remove the need of scrolling)
3. To provide me with an easy way of accessing pages.

What I don’t like at Firefox

• The search bar is superfluous. I really like what Chrome is doing (and the latest version of Opera?): use the address bar as search bar.
• There is no ad blocker
• There is a lot of wasted space: bookmarks toolbar, menu bar (just think how often you use the top menu), big icons

After a few tweaks I got a browser looking like the one in the picture below that satisfies almost all my needs.

Tweaks applied and how/why to use them

1. Remove the bookmark toolbar. You just don’t need that bar! How often do you click a bookmark? If you need a page opened all the time you just don’t close it. Why do you minimize the working are just to see some buttons that you click them in an infinite small amount of the time you spend in browser? How to apply: right click the menu bar -> Uncheck Bookmarks Toolbar.
2. Remove the menu bar. Just like the bookmark toolbar, you don’t use it to often. If you want to see it just press Alt+F. How to apply: Install the Hide Menubar extension.
3. Merge address bar and search bar. Is not practical to need to think if you want to search or you want to enter an a priori known address. There should be just on input field and the browser should be able to decide if you want to search or go to some specific place. How to apply: First remove the search bar by right clicking the menubar -> Customize and drag the search bar out of the menu. Second navigate to “about:config” and search for “keywork.url”. Replace its value with “http://google.com/search?q=”. This will make Firefox search on Google when it cannot resolve a name.
4. Remove ads. Most of the time you just don’t want to see “Super/Extra/Mega/Ultra discount for X”. Also you don’t want to see links that are on top of the search list just because they paid. How to apply: Install the Adblock Plus extension.
5. Move icons and make them smaller. This is just a personal preference. I want the bookmarks button in the left corner. And in order to maximize working area I want small icons. How to apply: Right click a toolbar -> Customize. Drag/drop the icons you want. For small icons check the appropriate box.
6. Mouse gestures. I like the back button on the toolbar because of the drop down menu but usually I go back by holding the right mouse button and dragging left. The gesture functionality saves a lot of time and movement. How to apply: Install the FireGesture extension.
7. Protect/sync bookmarks. Sometimes one might accidentally delete an important bookmark or, even worse, the entire bookmark collection. Is a good idea to backup bookmarks online. This also gives you the possibility of synchronizing bookmarks across multiple machines. How to apply: Install the Xmarks extension.

Future work

1. Remove the status bar. Currently this cannot be done because there is no other way of knowing where a link is sending. Any suggestion?
2. Remove the tabs bar. The tabs bar should be removed in order to get more space but I have no idea where it could go…

Today books are used to add extra height to different objects ranging from computers and laps to … babies. Books can be also found on shelves. If you find yourself between many shelves with many books it means you are in a library or a book store.

OK, funny enough. I tried to gather, from different sources, the high rated titles (tech and non-tech geeky books). The reading process will take me a few months (years maybe) but it worth.

It is obvious that one cannot enjoy all the books people recommend. Many times I found horrible a book rated by many with five stars. I am sure that from the list of books I want to read at least 10% will be abandoned after the first few pages. Some books just don’t have that… sparkle… that makes you want to continue the lecture.

Each book will get one of the following ratings:

1. “Must read” (these books will get on the Books page)
2. “Good book”
3. “Mediocre”
4. “Bad book”

Currently I am reading the first book in the list and seems to be a good one. Here goes “The List” in random order.

The Inmates are Running the Asylum: Why High-tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity	Practices of an Agile Developer: Working in the Real World	The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change	Cryptonomicon
Working Effectively with Legacy Code	Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid	Coders at work	Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams
“Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman”	The Design of Everyday Things	Nineteen Eighty-Four	Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, 2nd Edition	The Art of Computer Programming: Fundamental Algorithms	The Mythical Man Month and Other Essays on Software Engineering	Code: The Hidden Language

Did you read one of these books? Help me prioritize the list by telling your opinion about that book.

Check the project page for more info.

1^st place (HandyBackup Professional): Timotei Dolean

2^nd place (HandyBackup Standard): tisi, Ursul

Winners: please check your e-mail Inbox and Junk folder.

First Place
(Handy Backup Professional – $99)

Handy Backup Professional is an advanced backup software designed for small and medium businesses. It extends functionality of the Standard edition with the following functions:

• Backup to SFTP servers
• Image backup
• Database backup via ODBC connectivity

2 x Second Place
(Handy Backup Standard – $39)

Handy Backup Standard is a simple PC backup and data synchronization utility for home and small office. It lets you easily back up all specifics of your system and your favorite applications:

• Outlook backup
• My Documents backup
• Desktop backup
• Windows Registry backup
• Individual files and folders backup
• Program settings, playlists, skins, etc.

The rules of the contest are simple:

• Write here (as a comment) or on another site (with link to this post) the most unusual way in which you could lose your data.
• The text must be written in English.

Contest period:

• Starts on October 27^th, 2009 at 11:11 AM GMT
• Ends on November 11^th, 2009 at 11:11 AM GMT

Why 11-11-11-11?

• Because the contest ends on 11/11 at 11:11.

Prizes:

• Handy Backup Professional license
• 2 x Handy Backup Standard license

Winning conditions:

• The best 3 texts win.

Winners will be announced on November 12th.

Reviews of Handy Backup:

• Review 1
• Review 2

Remarks:

• If you post as comment make sure you enter a valid e-mail address so I can contact you in case of winning.
• If you post on another site make sure there are some contact details there.

!!The contest is now closed!!

• Hardware failure
• Software failure
• Accidents (fire, water, earth quake)
• Theft

Handy Backup from Novosoft is a solution that can help in this unfortunate situations (if is used prior to those events :) ). Unlike most other backup software out there, Handy Backup doesn’t treat your data like faceless chunks of memory. It features a complete, extensible plug-in-based system and a variety of plug-ins designed to back up settings, playlists, tweaks and preferences. New plugins care be created with basic XML knowledge.

As expected, Handy Backup can:

• Create backup, restore and synchronization tasks
• Schedule tasks (hourly, daily, monthly)
• Backup of different supports (depending on the version you have): Local Disk, FTP, SFTP, CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, Online Account
• Create full or incremental backup with or without compression and encryption

IT-experts can take advantage of extended feature set including disk image backup and database backup.  There are several plug-ins that can handle backup and restore of most popular DBMS including Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle database, IBM DB2 Data Server, Lotus Domino/Notes environment, and a common Database Backup plug-in that can be used for any ODBC-compatible databases. Also, there is a plug-in for backing up Microsoft Exchange Server stores.

The interface is minimalistic and the application uses ~9 MB of RAM memory. Some might say that the interface is too old-style but I find it pleasant and it is really easy to access any function. However there are some language problems in the GUI – the English is not always correct.

You can see the difference between HandyBackup versions on the official website or you can download a full-featured 30-days trial by clicking the following link download Handy Backup.

In the example pictures you can see that I have a host running Windows 7, a unity windows from a Windows Xp guest and two windows from a Fedora guest (Picture 1). The best part is that you can actually see those windows in your taskbar and manipulate them as regular windows – you can use the Aero switch to switch between applications (Picture 2 & 3). However I found a minor bug, the Aero Peek feature in Windows 7 is not working with the unity windows.

Least but not last you get access to the start menu of the guests (Picture 4).

Don’t worry if you can’t understand it. Is just that you are not geek enough. :)