TechChatter

Fixing Accidental Zooming in Chrome

2011-12-10T08:51:00.001-07:00

Working on my Lenovo laptop in the Google Chrome browser, I found that about twice a day I would accidentally change the zoom of the page. It looked like it was occurring with the scroll gestures. After a quick google search, I found it on: Google Support Forum Chrome disable CTRL+Mouse Wheel zoom Pinch Zoom I had to go into control panel, open mouse settings, go to the device settings, then with Synaptics Touchpad V7.5 selected, click the settings button. Another panel comes up, and you uncheck Enable Pinch Zoom

Citrix Remote Desktop with Android

2011-08-20T09:39:00.001-07:00

I was able to get Citrix to work on my Droid 2 yesterday.

I found the Citrix receiver application in the market and installed it. When I tried to get it to connect, it never connected.

I tried logging in with the browser, and it got past the double-password authentication, but then the site said I did not have the software installed. I clicked download and it started to save a linux version of the server. That doesn't sound right.

So I did a search, and found that using the Firefox browser should solve the problem. The reason is that Firefox is supposed to pass the .ica file as a download.

So I downloaded Firefox and did thr double-password login again. Came up to the download software screen again. But there was another option on the screen I didn't try before: the link told it I already have the software, and skip to the next step. I tried that, and it took me to my list of applications!

So I clicked on the remote desktop, and it did a download of the .ica file, and then it let me connect to the remote machine to log on.

However, I kept getting bad password :( At one point, I had to reenter my userid, and that is when I saw that the interface was not respecting the blue-alt to type in numbers from the hard keyboard! It came out as letters even when I thought I was typing numbers.

Eventually I was able to enter my password via the soft-screen keyboard. I don't know if it was Firefox or Citrix that was not respecting the slider shift for numbers, but at least the soft keyboard worked.

I could only see just a small amount of the screen, about 1/12th, but it did give me a way to get on if I had to, and allowed me to confirm access that I use from a regular computer.

Android 2.1 - Droid2- Verizon- Citrix Receiver- Firefox

Quest PK5000 DSL headaches – and a solution!

2011-07-20T22:01:00.003-07:00

This afternoon, I heard from my son that he could not get on the internet (“the Internet is down” - I managed to hold back asking if he was sure the whole internet was down).

When I got home, the DSL light on the DSL modem was off. It is an Actiontec PK5000. I tried a power-cycle. No go. So I looked up the service number with my smart phone. I got the recording that they were already aware of a problem in my area and were working on fixing it.

Dinner goes by, and still no DSL. I try rebooting it again. Still no DSL. I try the number again, same recording. It would be nice to know an estimate of the time when service is expected to be restored.

Another hour or so goes by and at the same time as another roofing salesperson comes to the door, the DSL light comes back on! I was able to connect with my wired computer. But oddly, the laptop doesn't connect.

I log onto the DSL modem with the wired computer. It looks fine. But then I notice that the wireless light is off. I try cycling the wireless wifi off, then back on through the web control page. But the light does not come on. And there is no sign of the SSID (wireless name) with my smart phone.

I try some more settings. I look for troubleshooting options online. I try doing a reset-to-factory from the setting page for the modem. Nothing makes the light turn on.

I check and see that the modem firmware is a few minor versions back, so I read about how to update the firmware. Well, if I get it wrong, the device could well brick (be non-functional), so let me see what other options I have.

I pull up the online chat help with Qwest. First thing they need to tell me is that they are getting a new name. Good for them. What does that mean for me? Worse service? I hope not. I wait about 5 minutes, then start chatting with a nice enough gentleman from Salt Lake.

He said he was going to check the warranty. We didn't spend too much time on twenty questions, as I must have given him enough details to skip most of the annoying and worthless (in this case) troubleshooting steps on his script. Other than asking how I did the factory-reset, he didn't seem to have any useful troubleshooting steps he could have me try.

But what it came down to is that he didn't really have any active solutions for me. He said the modem was out of warranty. I checked, and it was 14 months ago that I bought this one. And it seems manufacturer's warranty is only one year. He said I could buy a new one at Wal-Mart or Best-Buy. He also suggested that I could rent one from them.

Now, there is something interesting about getting a new DSL modem 14 months ago. The old modem was just a few months out of warranty. And that old modem also didn't have a true hardware failure. It was able to talk perfectly well to Qwest's DSL equipment. But it would not authenticate to get onto the internet, and it would net let me update any of the configuration items. As if the modem was hacked or had an incomplete firmware update or perhaps had some sort of command to tell it to misbehave.

Now, here it is, 14 months later, totally different brand of DSL, yet a problem that looks to me to be more configuration than hardware again. And both purchased from Qwest. And both times Qwest is trying to push on me their rental plan instead of standing behind what they sell.

The tech suggested it must be related to the power in my area. Hm, really? Last time I was told that it was because I didn't unplug my DSL when I didn't need it. REALLY?? And when exactly is that? Is that like unplugging you phone when you don't expect a phone call??

I let them know I was very disappointed, and I would be investigating other internet options with other companies. That didn't seem to bother the representative. He thanked me and signed off.

Well, I had a few choices. I could find/buy a cheap wireless hub to add to the router by wire, as the wired part was still working fine. I could buy a new modem from a store or their Kiosk or even from them directly. Or I could agree to pay them every month for the piece of mind that it might just cost me more in the long run, but at least I know it would be their headache for future glitches. Well, more of a shared headache.

But I had one other option first. Unlike the previous modem, where I could not get to the configuration screen, this one was fully operational and cooperative except for the wireless not turning on. As it seemed likely that I would need to buy or rent a new modem, it was worth a shot against bricking the unit to try the firmware upgrade.

I followed the directions for the firmware update. Downloaded the software and directions from the net. I made sure that my wire was plugged in firmly. I hoped and prayed that the power stayed on while I did the update.

I started the update program. First time, my firewall blocked the update. Well, I told it the program was allowed to access the modem through the Ethernet. Then I retried. It told me it could take 4-10 minutes. I watched as the progress bar went across the screen in about 30 seconds. They went across again. And again. And again.

I started to get nervous that it would just do that for hours, and when I gave up, the unit would be a brick. I took a walk to the garage for a soda. I came back, and waited a few more seconds. The screen changed and said the next step as shown in the instructions. A power cycle.

So, I unplugged everything, just to be sure there was no confusing it as it woke up with the new version. The wireless light turned on right away, just like every other power cycle – just to prove that the light was still good – in the same fashion as a check-engine light comes on when you first turn the key in a car.

The wireless light went out as the modem went through the boot process. Lots of flashing lights. Then the DSL light was flashing – of course, as I had that disconnected too.

Then, it happened! The wireless light came back on! Something I had not seen since before dinner. I checked on my smart phone – it could see the wireless default SSID!! I plugged it back in, and worked on reconfiguring the settings back to what I'd had before the reset and firmware update. That took another 20-30 minutes, but then I was back to normal operations!

I am disappointed that the firmware upgrade was not an option that was suggested by the technician.

I am disappointed that Qwest did not stand behind their equipment, and seem to only be interested in how they can squeeze some dollars from my distress and dissatisfaction.

I am concerned that the modem will 'mysteriously' decide to have other configuration errors in the near future. Hopefully it will be at least another 2 months, so I can at least feel I made it to the break-even point on this modem as compared to their 'rental' plan.

I am happy that I was able to solve the situation, especially when the support service was not able to help.

Hopefully this helps other people solve the same issue without having to immediately give into the company's attempt to surcharge for a solvable soft issue. Good luck!

So, a firmware reload solved the issue. That suggests, for whatever reason, there was just a hidden configuration error or bad data in memory.

Driod 2 - Turn On & Off 3G

2010-11-02T06:37:00.002-07:00

I was at home last night, and was in range of my Wifi, but the phone was still using my 3G bandwidth. So I turned it off. But how to turn it back on? In is not in the Wireless section.

Settings -> Data Manager -> Data Delivery -> Data Enabled

Acer Trackpad Unlock

2010-01-01T12:07:00.005-07:00

I was helping out a friend with their new laptop. It was an Acer Aspire.
It went through the windows initial setup. While the mouse pointer was on the screen, the trackpad would not move the mouse.
I managed to get to windows with the keyboard actions, but it was much tougher.
I played with settings and rebooted a few times.

I put on an external USB mouse, and that worked. But we wanted to get the trackpad to work, or know the notebook would have to be returned. IE locked up when I tried to search for a answer. I finally went to my computer to search for answers.

Acer's site was pretty much useless for fixing the problem. So was Synaptics. After a number of searches and pages on the net, I found a number that were talking about using FN-F7 to unlock the trackpad. But this was a 5532 - and the F7 key did not have any special FN on that key. After a bunch more time, I finally found a page that talked about a button to the left of the power switch.

THERE IT WAS! A button just to the left of the power-switch in the middle just above the keyboard. It must have been hit when it was powered on. An easy mistake to make, and a hard one to figure out! It might have been solved by doing a power-cycle instead of a soft reboot.

Shortcut WMP C-S-P

2009-06-10T16:29:00.001-07:00

Found this great shortcut a little while back:
Control-Shift-P

Brings up Windows Media Player

This is a great way to get it from the start bar (especially if you enabled the WMP Toolbar) without having to use the mouse.

I have also found it is the only way on my Vista laptop to get it to show when it is playing, but there is nothing on start bar!

Excel - Keyboard Shortcut between Worksheets

2006-12-13T15:18:00.000-07:00

Cntl-PageUp to go back a document, Cntl-PageDn to go forward a document...

How many times have I cursed excel for not letting me tab between worksheets with cntl-tab? Too many to count.

I happy to be one of those people who likes to learn keyboard shortcuts so I don't have to move my hand off the keyboard to the mouse to do an action. So I've learned a lot. There was one way I knew to switch between open worksheets (and charts or whatever else you had open listed at the bottom of excel) with Alt-W and a number. But this was cumbersome and non-intuitive.

Most multiple document programs (aka MDI), including MS Word, let you switch between open documents with cntl-tab, just like you can rotate through open windows with alt-tab. But for some reason, Excel did not follow that pattern.

I was just working on a document, and went to do the keyboard combination to go to the top of the document cntl-home. But I mis-typed - my finger hit Page-up instead of home. I saw a different version of the worksheet I'd been working on - the earlier version under the 'Sheet1' view. Yet, it took me a minute to understand what happened - I thought I'd some dome something to cause excel to lose changes for the last 10 minutes of work.

Then I finally realized I wasn't in Sheet2 anymore, I was in Sheet1. How did I do that. Another few second of experimenting.

Cntl-PageUp to go back a document, Cntl-PageDn to go forward a document.

"Oh my goodness," I said aloud. I couldn't believe it took me so many years to stumble across something I'd really wanted and needed so many, many times.
I'm sure it was hidden somewhere in the help pages. But why couldn't it be more obvious? Why couldn't I have stumbled across it before? How could I have missed it? It work very nicely! Add it to my list of favorite shortcuts!

Outlook + Outlook Express Archiving

2005-12-21T10:33:00.000-07:00

I was trying to archive emails the other day. I was trying to figure out the best way to do it.
I tried using the save command. But there were naming issues - having to change the file name if the subject was the same. And it was very labor intensive.
I tried including the emails in one larger email and saving that (worked pretty well, but took a lot of time).
I had even looked at a few different programs on the net. Some of them helped. But there were different solutions for Outlook (I use at work) and outlook express (I use at home). And I was hoping for a method that would work for being able to view the emails in the original program or search/extract with a text method.
At work, I could not use an offline folder (*.PST) file, as this is locked out at work :(

Then a couple of weeks ago at work, I found something. Drag-and-drop. DOH!!
If you drag-and-drop from Outlook to a directory, it saves all the messages to .MSG files, and automatically deals with naming issues by appending (1), (2), etc. to the end of messages with duplicate subjects. You can drag-and-drop the emails back into Outlook to recover the messages and order.
The only thing I do is that I reverse the order of my emails before I drag-and-drop, so that the (1), (2), etc. come out in matching date order. While the files have some binary information, they are mostly text, and that works for me.

Then I tried this at home a couple of days ago with Outlook Express. It worked great! Drag-and-drop created files just like Outlook. But it seemed to work faster. And the text files were fully-text, no binary control blocks at the top like Outlook. And I could drag-and-drop back, just like Outlook!

And I noticed something else. Outlook must have a memory leak. When I do a bunch of drag-and-drops with Outlook - it eventually runs out of resources, and will not drag-and-drop any more files. I have to LOG-OFF to clear the problem (just shutting down Outlook is not good enough to clear the resource shortage).

Another thing I do with the messages after I archive them to files - I zip them. But I've found a way to zip them that is more efficient: I zip them twice. First I zip all the files to a zip with *no compression*. Then I go back and compress the zip with full compression. When I use WinZip, I'll have to create an empty text file to add with the zip, otherwise WinZip doesn't want to let me zip the zip, it only wants to do some sort of unzip with the file on right-click.
Why does 2 zips work better than 1? Because when you zip the files with no compression, it puts all this data in one file, and the emails often have a lot of redundant information from file-to-file - and by storing them first (no compression) it allows zip to tag the redundant parts of files that it cannot do when you zip all the files separately. And this method works better with the archive Outlook files as compared to the Outlook Express files.

Slashdot - How to Build a Mainboard: ECS Production Tour

2005-06-21T16:25:00.000-07:00

Slashdot | How to Build a Mainboard: ECS Production Tour

Palm M130 Dim

2005-05-10T06:39:00.000-07:00

After I returned from my recient trip to CA, I noticed my Palm seemed a little dim. I wondered if maybe something burned out - like maybe there were 2 florescent lamps, and one lamp or power supply burned out. I was sad to think something broke, but was glad it was very usable.

Then when going to play my favorite solatare game, Yukon, the OS crashed. A memory locked error came up, with a button saying reset. But the button never works. I always have to use the eyeglass screwdriver from my swiss army knife to reset it.

I worry that one of these days it will crash like that, and won't turn off, and I wont be able to reboot it, and the battery will die.

But when it finished rebooting, it was back to being as bright as before! I guess it was some odd soft-setting that made it dim. Glad it is back to normal!

Windows XP Recovery

2005-04-24T20:52:00.000-07:00

Friends of our asked if they could bring over their computer. They said their laptop was going to the welcome screen, but the logon icons would not come up.
This sounded odd - but it did not sound like a corrupted hard drive, because it did go through the boot-up process.

Well, I tried it. It went through the boot-up, go to the blue welcome screen with the line, and no logon icons. I tried a few keystrokes - Enter; Esc; Ctrl-C; Ctrl-Break; Ctrl-Alt-Delete. Nothing.
I tried rebooting. I tried Alt-Tab at the welcome screen. I was able to Alt-Tab through 2 windows - one was logon - but it didn't help. As soon as I typed anything else, like Enter, then it would stop doing anything useful. Even Alt-Tab wouldn't do anything anymore. But the mouse was still active. So I knew the OS hadn't fully crashed.

I tried a few more things. I did the old F8 trick. I selected safe-mode - but after showing the safe logon - with the words 'safe mode' in all 4 corners - it just went to the blank logon screen.

F8 - boot to command prompt - blank logon screen.
F8 - boot to network safe mode - blank logon screen.
F8 - boot with debug - more messages - but blank logon screen.
F8 - restore to last known good configuration - a message about restoring - but blank logon screen.
I knew they had data - like digital pictures they had not backed up, so I knew it was important to try to get to the data before considering a rebuild of the OS if needed.

The friends did mention they had installed software just before the problem started. They also said they've had problems with blue screens [of death] (BSOD) running The Sims. So it did sounds like a wacky configuration problem.

So I knew I needed to do more work. I hoped I could get it on my network - or at least back-up data via a PCMCIA drive.

I could not get it online. So it was time to try to operating system disk. I knew I had to be extra careful, because XP likes to resinstall the operating system - not help you get back your data.

I pressed a mouse key to boot from the CD. I selected R - repair. This boots to the recovery console.

First time I tried my PCMCIA drive, it did not come up - on reboot it was there. SO I figured I could get to the data.

But as I tried to navigate on the hard drive, I was blocked. IT seems the recovery console did not want me to get to the data. I remember this from when I added recovery console to my laptop's boot selection. There is some special way to open the files up, but I did not remember.

So I googled it. I found a reference to recovering XP. I knew XP liked to keep a lot of backups of configuration information in the "System Volume Information" [hidden] directory on the hard drive.
Looking at the directions on the page: 307545 - How to Recover from a Corrupted Registry that Prevents Windows XP from Starting I was able to know which 5 files I needed to backup and recover from an earlier recovery point than the last. (If the last was good, the F8 use last configuration would have worked).

So I looked at the directories, and picked one a couple up from the bottom - maybe a week ago.
I had already done the backup of the 5 files.
Then I went through and copied the 5 files from the recovery directory back to windows.

Reboot.

ICONS!!! YAY!!!

I logged on. There was a warning message about not being able to find a file. I was pretty sure the app that wanted the file was one that AIM installs, and is considered spyware.
I immediately copied the files to my desktop.

I had finally upgraded the network for my desktop earlier in the day for just such reason. I had found a cheap 10/100 switch and a cheap 10/100 card for the unit - just waiting to be installed. So I swapped out the 10mb hub, and the 10mb ISA card. It took a few tries to get w2k to play nice with the network card. After a few reboots where it kept saying 'new hardware', I deleted all the old network card hardware. Let it search the floppy of the drivers, and it told me that it liked NT4 drivers better than w2k - so I let it take it. In a few seconds it was done. I waited for the reboot. No reboot asked for. Then I figured it would want it when I closed the network config window. Nope, didn't ask to reboot. I figured it forgot to ask to reboot. But then I checked - it looked like the network was configured. I opened up IE - and it was online! No reboot. After being asked to reboot 5 times before! Weird - but I was happy.

So I was able to copy about 2G of data in about 10-15 minutes instead of the much longer time it would have taken at 10mb (especially on the hub, which would have meant even slower for the packet collisions).

I copied the data. Then I decided it was time to do a little hunting.
New version of AdAware, Spybot Search & Destroy and BHODemon.

There were some nasties in the system. A couple of BHOs to go with a bunch of other references.

Kill them all. I'm becoming a PC exterminator.

I'm glad I can help out my friends!

Slashdot - Carbon Nanotube Towers Could Increase Solar Power

2005-03-01T21:18:00.000-07:00

Slashdot | Carbon Nanotube Towers Could Increase Solar Power

Tech-Fu!

2005-02-14T17:24:00.000-07:00

Similar to this blog - another techie blog!
Tech-Fu!

Mapping Google Technology

2005-02-09T21:17:00.000-07:00

as simple as possible, but no simpler: Mapping Google

Found on Slashdot

Firefox 1.1 put on hold

2005-02-02T20:44:00.000-07:00

Net4Nowt :: News Story: Firefox 1.1 put on hold

TiVo’s offers SDK

2005-01-31T21:49:00.000-07:00

TiVo’s offers - engadget.com

Sun Solaris Goes Open Source

2005-01-27T21:41:00.000-07:00

Sun Cracks Open Solaris
Sun is supposed to spawn an opensource version of Solaris 10 to a new web site OpenSolaris.org

Review: Windows cell phone sleek, stacked

2004-11-19T11:25:00.000-07:00

MS Window's based Cellphone.

Just what you need - another place to have a blue-screen-of-death to make you pull out your hair.

BostonHerald.com - Technology: Review: Windows cell phone sleek, stacked

Domain Transfers/Hijackings to Become Easier

2004-11-15T21:54:00.000-07:00

Netcraft: Domain Transfers (and Hijackings) to Become Easier

As found on Looking Out - Lock your domain(s)

The new standard is that someone can take over your domain if you don't actively deny it withing 5 days.
5 days!? - what if you are on vacation for 5 days and don't check your email??
NASTY

Plone - New Blog Interface and More?

2004-11-13T21:30:00.000-07:00

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Learning to Plone isn't hard, but software has a few quirks

Posting Pictures - Hello/BloggerBot Guide

2004-11-10T16:15:00.000-07:00

A visual guide to posting pictures to a Blogger blog with Hello/BloggerBot.
This guide visually cover uploading, common options and a small FAQ.

I hard a hard time figuring out using BloggerBot, and I'm usually very good at figuring out new things - so this is my guide to help you get started and posting pictures the best you can quickly and easily.

Full acknowledgements goes to the owners of Google, Blogger, Hello, Picasa and BloggerBot.
This is for Version 1.0 of Hello. No warranty, etc, etc, Your mileage may vary.

This assumes you have gone through the steps to setup Hello and you blog ID in Hello's application.

Start Hello. This may be in Start->Programs, or on your quick-start area right next to the start button, or Hello's icon may already be running in your system tray.

Normally Hello automatically logs in. If it doesn't, log in until you get to the main Hello screen seen below.

Click on the pictures to see larger, more detailed versions in most cases.

Begin - Hello is loaded - select BloggerBot

To be able to upload pictures to your Blogger Blog, you have to be running BloggerBot, which takes two steps.
Click on the BloggerBog line in the friends frame

The BloggerBot blue daisy icon with now show up in the right, 'Friend Profile' frame.

BloggerBot is selected - Start BloggerBot

Click on the Blue Daisy BloggerBot icon on the right

BloggerBot adds a new tab and becomes the active window, seen below.

If you have only one blog, and you don't need to change any options, you can skip down to Drag and Drop

Setting options Used to select between blogs, and upload format options.
There is a faster way to select which of your blogs to post to, skip down to Blogger Menu.

To get to the settings, select the 'Settings' button
Alternately, you can get to settings from the Blogger Menu, but why use two clicks instead of one, unless you are using keyboard shortcuts.

Select Blog to post to in Settings

At this point you can select which of your blogs to upload a picture entry to by using the 'Use this blog' drop down box

At any point in updating any settings, you can click the save or cancel buttons to go back to the BloggerBot upload screen

Size Settings

Select an inline image size. This is the size of the image that will appear in you blog with the caption you write about the picture. Choices are 200, 320 or 400. If your image is larger, it will be resized down to the chosen size. If it is smaller, it will appear in it's original size, not stretched as it appears in BloggerBot

Select an Archive image size. This is the size of the image that users will see if they click on the inline picture in your blog. Choices are 320, 640 and 1024. Once again larger will be made to size, smaller will stay the same.

I usually post as 400 preview and 1024 archive. This gives the highest quality to my visitors.

You can now scroll down to the next section of settings

Post settings

Caption order - select if you want you caption text to appear above or below your inline picture in your blog entry

Chose the border color, and size to go around your inline picture

You can now scroll down to the last section of settings

Advanced - Attribution Setting

Show how your pictures got to your blog. The default is the BloggerBot Icon.

You can click save to update your settings and go back to the BloggerBot upload screen

Blogger Pull Down Menu

You can use the Blogger pull down menu as a faster way to switch between your different blogs. And a longer way to get to the settings.

Selecting Blog to upload from the pull-down Menu

Selecting my Pictures blog as the upload blog

Getting pictures into BloggerBot

There are a few ways to get picture files into BloggerBot. I find the best way is a version of Drag-and-Drop.

Select a file or files to drop into just about anywhere on the Hello/BloggerBot window.

Upload

Select a picture to upload.

If you dropped a lot of pictures, you may need to scroll to see which picture you want to upload

Enter a caption. Do not hit enter yet. DO NOT HIT ENTER! As soon as you hit enter, you are uploading the picture to your blog. The caption will be taken by blogger as the title for your blog entry.
There isn't really any formating, line-breaks or multiple pictures from this interface.

Uploading

When you hit enter, or click to publish button, the picture begins to upload to a blog entry
The icon for the picture you upload darkens in when you hit enter. This helps you keep track of which pictures you have uploaded

1 - You will normally see this uploading message right away. During this time, you make see a data transfer rate at the bottom of the Hello screen. This process may only take a couple of second, or it may take a couple of minutes if the servers are slow. Remember, it is uploading two pictures and creating a blog entry, with all the web pages associated with a new blog entry.
2 and 3 - You will see these messages after the entry is uploaded. You may not see them long, as every time you upload a picture, a new copy of your web browser will be started in front for each picture uploaded. I usually just close the browser right away, until I've done all in the set

You can not start uploading another picture until 2 previous upload is complete. You can select the next picture and enter the caption, but don't hit enter otherwise you will have to retype the new caption again
You may not see the picture you uploaded right away in the browser window. You may need to wait a minute or three and do a reload
I've seen in some cases, that when uploading multiple pictures, they may not show up in the same order as uploaded in the blog. I do believe this has to do with multiple servers with slightly different time clocks
In some rare cases, using BloggerBot will leave broken links in your blog ('notfound'). Do a Republish Entire Blog (from Posting -- Status) to fix this problem

System Tray Icon

When you exit Hello by using the 'X' box in the upper right corner, Hello doesn't stop. It just hides in the system tray. Right-click and select exit to completely stop it. It will close the instance on the start bar too, if it is still running.
You can double click this system tray icon to restore Hello, or right click and select show

FAQ

How do I upload multiple pictures in a single blog entry?
In this version you cannot do that directly. You have to upload each picture in it's own entry.
If you want, you can take the URLs from the posted pictures and make another entry, or edit an existing entry to put multiple pictures in one entry. Then you can delete the unneeded entries.
In my case, I created a blog just for uploading my pictures. Then I will copy the URLs as I want to my main blog.

How do I put links or special formatting into a picture blog entry?
Upload the picture with BloggerBot. Got into Blogger.Com and edit the entry for all the formatting you want afterwards.

Does the picture upload to the same server as my blog?
No. It uploads to a server known as photos1.blogger.com, which is not directly usable for anything else.

Can I use pictures uploaded by BloggerBot on other web sites or as links in emails?
No. There is special code in the photos1 server that makes sure your photos will only be served with a blog on blogspot.

Can I delete, edit or rename pictures I've uploaded with BloggerBot?
No. Not directly. You can delete the original entry, then there will be no live reference to the uploaded picture. If you try to upload a picture with the same name, BloggerBot/photos1 will rename the uploaded file, with something like adding a .1 to the file name. I believe the unindexed picture is still in the system, and might be linkable from your blog or someone else's blogspot blog, in those cases.

Do I need to index my whole hard drive with Picasa to upload pictures to my blog?
No. You can just Drag-and-drop (above) to BloggerBot.

Something just floated down the screen as I was posting, is my computer infected?
No. Hello has some special little fun animations to go with a few character combinations.

While there are other options, features and challenges with BloggerBot, I think this is the core set for most Blogger users.

Firefox sparks browser battle

2004-11-09T20:44:00.000-07:00

UK Times - Firefox sparks browser battle

Drag-and-Drop Tricks

2004-11-04T16:40:00.000-07:00

I wrote about some shortcut keys a while back.

Now for some drag-and-drop tricks I've learned in windows.

Have you ever wanted to drag something from one window to another application, but the other application is hidden? Well there are a few of tricks to do this.

Of course you can size both windows to allow seeing the edge of the drop-to window, but that can be clumsy, and doesn't always work so well. So there are a couple of other ways I've learned to cheat this situation.

The first one I learned is the start-bar-two-step.
In the Start-bar-two-step, your start dragging a file or files down to the application you want on the start bar. But don't release on the start bar! If you do, you will only get an error that you can't drop on the start bar. Keep holding your mouse button down and leave the cursor on the application in the start bar for a few moments. Then the application will be pulled to the front of the window, and you can move your mouse up and drop in the files.
Of course on windows XP, you might have the application grouping. Then it becomes a three-step. Hover over the application collection, wait for it to pop up as if you had clicked on it, then go up and click on the specific version of the application you want to drop on.

The two-step and three-step is how I've done it for ages. But I just discovered a new one by accident. Drag-and-tab.

It seems you can do the hold drag with alt-tab. The only real trick is that you have to convince windows that you want to start dragging the files. Do this by clicking on the file or files you want to drag-and-drop, then drag them just enough so windows thinks you want to drag-and-drop them in the current window. You may see the cursor change, or an shaded copy of the icon(s) your are copying, as an indicator that the drag-and-drop has started. Then press and hold the alt key (while still holding the mouse key with the other hand) and press the tab button until you find the application you want. (Let go of the alt key now.) Now position the mouse (if you even need to move it at all) and let go of the mouse button to drop
the file in the application. Okay, it sounds complex, but it is pretty fast and easy. I use it to start and email, the drag-and-drop a few pictures to an email.

Another drag-and-drop trick. The common dialog file save box is usually just like windows explorer (for the most of you who just went 'huh?', I explain it better in a second). When you do a save-as in many applications, it comes up with a new box specifically to save the file. This save box is a common bit of code in windows, called by most application. This way saving a file works mostly the same from application to application. But you can do interesting things from this save-as box. You can drag-and-drop from it, and you can right click on files and folders.

So for instance, I might create a small HTML web file on my hard drive with notepad. But if I want to see it in Internet Explorer, I might open Windows Explorer and drill down to the right folder, then double-click on the file. But Sometimes I will cheat: I will do another save-as (alt-F, A) and bring up the save-as dialog box. Then I will go to the file I've already saved, and right-click on the file. Then I will select Open, instead of the default (bolded) Save option. This will bring up the HTML file in my default web browser.
The only thing to remember is that you have to go back to the application that you did the save-as in, and cancel the save-as box.

This technique can also be good if you are not sure where you saved a file to. You can do a save as to fine the folder, or just the specific file you just saved.

Another notepad hint: if you want to save a file without a dot txt (".txt") extension, change the 'Save as type:' to 'All Files'. This will keep notepad from adding the .txt extension.

So give the tricks a shot, and let me know how it works for you!

Good luck with the start-bar-two-step (or start-bar-drag-and-hover) and the drag-and-tab.

Programmers Bury Old Code

2004-11-03T13:35:00.000-07:00

A humorous look at how one place has gotten ride of old programs:
MSNBC - Programmers hold funerals for old code

"Some things die gracefully and other things we've had to kill," Perseghetti said. He said workers had to "drive a stake" through the heart of a poorly performing program named CCI, which received an ignominious burial beneath an emblem of a pig

Bad Spyware Apps

2004-10-26T13:15:00.000-07:00

As found on Floopy: Spy ware removers NOT to use:

Ad-Eliminator http://www.ad-eliminator.com
AdProtector http://www.adprotector.com
AdwareSpy http://www.adwarespy.com
Easy Spyware Killer http://easyspywarekiller.com
InternetAntiSpy http://internetantispy.com
NoAdware http://noadware.com
pcOrion http://www.pcorion.com
PurityScan http://www.purityscan.com
PuritySweep http://www.puritysweep.com
SpyAssault http://www.spyassault.com
SpyBan http://www.spyban.net
SpyBlast http://www.spyblast.com
SpyFerret http://www.onlinepcfix.com
SpyKiller 2004 http://spykiller.com
Spyware This http://www.spywarethis.com
TZ Spyware Adware Remover http://trackzapper.com
ZeroSpyware http://zerospyware.com

-------------------------------------
I still recomend a combination of:
Ad-Aware
SpyBot
and
BHO Demon