The symptoms of the internet hanging also seemed to hang the entire computer. Accessing other applications was slow or inaccessible. We tried multiple browsers, new network cards, and ran the latest anti-malware, anti-spyware, and anti-virus scans all with no success.

In the end we removed Microsoft Security Essentials and our problem went away. There were a few posts regarding problems with Symantec Workspace Virtualization and Microsoft Security Essentials. In our case, we did have the Symantec Workspace Virtualization application installed but needed it for other applications.

Microsoft Security Essentials had worked flawlessly up until this point and is considered a reliable anti-virus application. We chose AVG Free as an alternative anti-virus. This application is also free and allowed us to keep the virtualization software.

Note: There does not seem to be anyway to disable Microsoft Security Essentials. Because of this, you need to uninstall to see if this fixes your problem.

AVG Free, http://free.avg.com/us-en/download-avg-anti-virus-free
Microsoft Security Essentials, http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

Note: This method depends on having descriptions for your images. Obviously, if you do not fill in descriptions then your dropdown menu is going to display blank listings. Manage galleries allows you to edit numerous details of your images including the description.

Open the file in your text editor of choice and navigate to the section that starts with

. There will be a second

at the end of the section.

All we need to do is to change the id and filename to description. Alternatively, you could use the alttext property instead of description ($picture->alttext).

Here is the original code.

Here is the modified code.

Keep in mind that you are editing a plugin directly. This means that you will need to repeat this step whenever you update your NextGen gallery plugin.

Recycler toolbar

After installing the Recycler addin, you will notice two new interface elements in Outlook. You will have a new toolbar to easily create or respond to group emails. You also can edit your settings from this toolbar.

The Recycler views

Easily scales for reading pane on right

The second new element is a new grid view that will show up directly below the header for the folder and directly above the main view. It easily scales whether you prefer your reading pane below your items or to the right.

Option to minimize the Recycler view

The Recycler views can also be easily minimized.

Using the Recycler

Settings dialog

You first need to setup the options in the settings dialog.

After setting up the application, the application will start to clean and categorize your emails. For this application to work properly, you will need to get individual emails from your group rather than the digest form. The application will automatically copy any emails from your recycling group to your desired folder. It should be noted, that any of the default folders are prohibited as a storage location. This is a protection for you since, the application has an auto delete feature. Speaking of which, you can set if and how the application deletes emails on your behalf. We highly recommend using the autodelete feature since the number of emails can easily grow into the tens of thousands.

Creating and Responding to emails

Dialog to enter description of item being offered or wanted.

The most direct and useful feature of our addin is helping you to format your email subject. Most recycling groups require you to submit your emails following a specified format. For most groups, this is Offer Type, Description, and Location. The Recycler only requires a description once you have input your group email address and location in the settings dialog. When you click on an offer or wanted button, an input box will request a description and then open an email with a properly formatted

Views

Just click on your storage folder to view any of your group emails. Outlook’s generous options to configure your view allows you to filter and sort your email in numerous ways,allowing you to see only the information you are interested in.We have added two new fields to your emails to help you sort the conversations. CleanSubject, is the later part of the subject name without the group prefix, offer type prefix, etc. The second field is subjectType. This will be one of the following values, offer, wanted, received, taken or response.

Response view

Let’s assume, you only want to see responses. No problem, just filter the subjectType field to only show “RESPONSE”.

Reply view

How about grouping based on the subjectType? This allows you to collapse any item types that don’t interest you. Outlook’s icons also point out which emails you have responded to.

Other Views

My items view

The other way to view important data is the Recycler grid. We include two views. One view displays only your active items. These are items that you have offered or specified that you were looking for.

Ticker, lists most recent offers

The second view is a ticker feature. This allows you to see the most recent offers in your group without going to your storage folder.

The Watch List

This feature will be very exciting to those users that use recycling groups on a daily basis. This allows you to input any number of items that will be compared to any group emails as they arrive. If a match is found, the Recycler will open a reminder to let you know of the offer. This gives you a better chance at getting something that you desire. “The early bird gets the worm.”

Clive Grace / CC BY 2.0

Using Freecycle is truly simple. The entire mechanism relies on simple email. When you have something to offer, you send an email to the group. See something you want? Just send an email to that person.

First, find your local group. The Freecycle™ web site, has a form to find the nearest group. Once you join your group, you will be notified of the group’s email address. You use this address to communicate with the group.

The most important rule is that absolutely everything must be free. No strings attached.

Emails should be formatted in the following format.

subject: Prefix, item description, location

The prefix, can be:

• Offer: Something you are offering
• Wanted: Something you are looking for
• Taken: A posting that your offer was taken
• Received: A post saying that someone offered what you were looking for

The location is often your zip code in the United States, but many users use simple city names as well.

Your subject should be something like Offer: One gently used backpack 43075

It is up to you to decide who gets the item you are offering. Maybe, first to request it, gets it. Maybe, someone responds who seems like they really need your item. Totally up to you. Expect several emails requesting your item.

That’s essentially it. So, if you find yourself, wishing the ten lamps in your garage could find a new home, look no further. Take a small step and connect with other people in your city to recycle, and reuse items that you no longer need. You may indeed find someone offering something that you really want.

For more information on the Freecycle™ organization, visit their website.

For more information on The Recycler, our Outlook addin to help you manage your network, visit our product page.

Freecycle and the Freecycle logo are trademarks of The Freecycle Network in the United States and/or other countries.

The Leprechaun Works is not affiliated with the Freecycle network.

Different download options highlighted

By having multiple versions installed in different directories, you can use any of them and know that they are isolated from each other. So, you can go grab that nightly build and know that it isn’t going to break your stable development platform. Furthermore, if you follow a couple of simple steps, the platform will also update its plugins.

If you want to try a new build, simply download it and install it. After this, just start the application. The application will then detect and ask if you want to import settings from a previous version. Once the application fully opens, it will then look at any installed plugins from previous versions and ask if you want to import them. It will also warn you if an older plugin isn’t compatible with the new build.

So, in the end all you really need to do is run the new build before you uninstall any previous builds. Eventually, you will need to uninstall old builds, but there really isn’t any rush since they are isolated.

Have fun and go grab the newest build of Netbeans.

spadgy / CC BY 2.0

With the explosion of laptops and netbooks, many of us are tied to a little touch pad to move around our computers. It usually isn’t practical to hook up a mouse even though this makes navigating easier. The alternative is to use your keyboard.

We are still surprised that so few people know the shortcuts for simple tasks such as copying and pasting. We will cover the most common shortcuts and try to cover a few that may be less obvious.

First, what is a keyboard shortcut? It usually involves holding two or more keys are once, although some shortcuts only use a single key.

On Windows based computers, most shortcuts involve holding the control (CTRL) key and the pressing another key in combination. If you are using an Apple computer, then you likely will hold down the Command key. In the past, many of our friends called it the flower key. It looks sort of like a four leaf clover. It also may sometimes have an apple logo on it. On either Windows or Mac OS based computers, the key is usually to the left of your spacebar. Sometimes, you will have more than one Ctrl key on Windows computers.

Let’s get to the meat of this tutorial. From now on, we will use ctrl to describe the shortcut. If you are on an Apple computer, substitute the Apple command key for the Windows ctrl key. We are using the plus symbol to connect the two keys. So, if you see ctrl + c, we want you to hold the ctrl key and the c key at the same time.

Absolutely, MUST know keyboard shortcuts.

All of our copy and paste commands. Obviously, you need to have text selected to use cut and copy.

Ctrl + c: Copy
Ctrl + x: Cut
Ctrl + v: Paste

Some navigation keys

Tab: The tab key will move between controls and will move text to the right in tab increments.
Shift + Tab: This moves backwards through controls and moves text to the left in tab increments.
Ctrl + arrow keys: By holding down the CTRL key and the left or the right arrow, you can skip through sentences, by one word at a time.
Shift: This allows you to select text. If you hold shift with another modifier key(s), you can move through a sentence.
For example, hold Shift and then pressing either the right or left arrow keys will add to or take away letters from a selection
Additionally, hold Shift + ctrl and then pressing your right or left arrow key will add or take away entire words from a selection

Home: Takes you to the beginning of a text line.
Ctrl + home: Takes you to the top of the page and the beginning of the line.

End: Takes you to the end of the line.
Ctrl + End: Takes you to the end of the page and the end of the line.

Some other useful keys

Ctrl + A: Selects all, this might be all text or an entire image.
Ctrl + P: Prints
F1: Open Help. This is the first function key we have covered: Function keys do different things in almost every program. But F1 is usually reserved for accessing Help.

A couple of web browser specific shortcuts

Ctrl + L: Selects all text in the location textbox. This allows you to start typing a new url
Ctrl + E: Jumps to the search Window
Ctrl + Enter: This is an interesting one. If in the location textbox, just type the center portion of your url and the browser will complete the rest.
For example, you want to go to http://www.outlookutilities.com. Simply type, outlookutilities and then hit ctrl + enter. The web browser will fill in the www and com portions for you.

Lastly, if stuck, use your Esc key. It will get you out of most binds. Take the time to learn your shortcuts. They can save a huge amount of time and make your time spent in front of a computer, much more enjoyable.

Check back for future articles in this series.

1. Be the first to use the new software
2. Get discounted prices if you are chosen to participate in the beta.
3. Likely giveaways when we are ready to release.
4. Lastly, and one of the most important, we want your input on how much you think our software is worth. Price our software!

Come and join us. You wont regret it. http://twitter.com/leprechaunworks

For this tutorial, we will assume that you know about NetBeans, and how to create a new project. We are planning a couple of tutorials on using NetBeans for WordPress development in the future. These will cover more basics of using NetBeans.

If you would like to try NetBeans, go to http://netbeans.org/ to download the newest version. They have many different configurations depending on what your needs are. We use the php version.

On top of what comes in the php version of NetBeans, you will need to add the Ant plugin. The plugins dialog is located under the tools menu.

Next, click on the available plugins tab. If you click on the name column head, the plugins will sort alphabetically putting Ant at the top. Simply check the checkbox next to Ant and click the Install button at the bottom of the dialog. That’s it.

All that’s left is to use the file. In Netbeans, you can access the targets in multiple ways. The most common access points for us, is to right click on the file itself in the project window and click run target.

You can also view targets inside of the navigator window. Right clicking on the target you want to run, and selecting run is all there is to it.

You should see the results in your output window. This will also display any errors in your build file if you run into problems.

We simply structure our development code under a single folder and then we map that folder to a drive letter. There is a Windows utility called subst to accomplish this but it doesn’t maintain settings if the computer is turned off. We recently ran across a utility from NTWind that provides a visual GUI for this utility and furthermore, allows the settings to be persistent.

A note to keep in mind: If you need to run another application that needs elevated permissions and also need access to this drive, you will need to elevate the permissions for the Visual Subst utility as well. Just right click on the shortcut, click on the compatibility tab and check the checkbox next to run as administrator.

http://www.ntwind.com/software/utilities/visual-subst.html