Jun 23
I live in (or near, rather) Minneapolis, MN. The city recently imploded the Lowry Bridge and InteractiveAngle posted some great high-speed shots of the detonation on Flickr.
Click image to view all
Jun 16
This trick works in Windows XP, Vista, and 7 (to my knowledge—it might work in earlier versions, too).
I thought this was a newbie tip, but a lot of people come into my office and point to my shortcut folders on my taskbar, wondering how the heck I did it. Here’s how.
- Create one or more folders on your desktop (actually they can go anywhere but the desktop seems to be the easiest way to do this). Give them fairly short names (I use ‘Apps’ and ‘Games’).
- Right click on an empty area of your taskbar, and choose Toolbars > New Toolbar.
- Browse to one of the folders you just created on your desktop and click Select Folder.
- You can repeat this process as many times as you want.
Now you can start placing shortcuts to all of your frequently used applications & games in your newly-created folders. These shortcuts will automatically show up in your new shortcut menus.
Ahhhh…only nine icons on my desktop. It’s a beautiful thing.
You can also add sub-folders (like I did; see my first image above) to further organize your shortcut menus. This keeps your desktop clean and … let’s just face it, takes your nerdiness to the next level.
Jun 08
The original post about this is here, so I won’t go into all the background.
Since Microsoft has released Vista SP2, this hack has stopped working for some people. Here are all the files I have; right now I do not have the x86 SP2 version.
SP2 x64 only:
rdp-vista-x64-sp2
SP1 x64 & x86:
remotedesktop_vista_sp1.zip
Enjoy.
May 13
BootVis, a free, unsupported tool that Microsoft released a while back (and no longer offers for download), is a utility that is becoming increasingly harder to find. So, I thought I’d offer it for download on andrewblock.net. BootVis is a tool that analyzes your PC’s boot process and can then perform optimizations so your system boots faster. To my knowledge it only works on XP.
You can download it here. For a visual walkthrough on how to use the program, check out this image (source).
May 01
I have a 4GB PNY flash drive (currently FAT32) that I wanted to convert to NTFS. Right clicking on the drive in My Computer and choosing “Format…” only resulted in one choice: FAT32. Yuck.
The solution? Open a command prompt (Start > Run > cmd > OK) and type:
Convert x: /FS:NTFS
Obviously, replace “x:” with the letter of your Flash drive, so if your flash drive is “e:” then you’d type: Convert e: /FS:NTFS.
This got my drive converted to NTFS with no hassle.
Note: This doesn’t appear to delete the files on the drive, but I’d recommend backing them up, in case.
Apr 26
You won’t be able to notice the vast improvement in Ubuntu’s desktop experience over the past six months by browsing screenshot galleries of 9.04 or looking at new feature lists. What I’m talking about is that elusive slick-and-speedy feel you get from applications launching fast, windows moving around without jerkiness, and everything simply being where it should be in the user interface (read the full article).
I am definitely going to be downloading Ubuntu 9.04 tonight (also for more info on the features of Ubuntu 9.04, click here).
Apr 25
Let me preface this by telling you I’m not a car guy. I can change a tire, check tire pressure, wash the thing, replace wiper blades, fill up my windshield washer fluid, and maybe change my oil. That’s about it. When mechanics explain things to me about my car, I usually nod and grunt so as to appear manly. But on the inside I feel more like your typical soccer mom, thinking to myself—Like, what does that mean?—while sipping on my venti low-fat, no-whip, double shot caramel macchiato. Well, maybe not that girly, but you get the idea. I’m not a guy car—in fact, I’d say I find car guys slightly intimidating. I’ll admit it.
So when I go to places like Welle Auto Supply, or NAPA Auto Parts, I expect to be a little looked down upon. Do you know what I mean? I’m sure you’ve come across the IT guy who makes you feel two feet tall for not understanding what a startup script is, or the do-it-yourself guy who scoffs at you because you can’t put on a new roof by yourself, or the right-wing nutjob who grunts his disapproval at you because you don’t know the difference between an AK-47 and a .357 magnum. You know the feeling.
So…my point. The other night I had to go into NAPA Auto Parts because my bulb went dead on my left headlight. I approached the guy at the counter, and, the conversation went like this:
Me—”I need a headlamp for a 2005 Mitsubishi Galant.”
NAPA guy—”High-beams or low-beams, sir?”
Me—”Low beams,” I responded quickly, pleasantly surprised at being called “sir.”
At this point he taps around on his computer for a while, and then asks, “Do you know if it has one bulb or two?”
I have no idea, really, and I sheepishly admit it.
“No problem, sir,” the guy says. “I’ll go check.” So he goes outside (it was raining, I might add) and checks for me, and discovers that, yes, it is only one bulb. Not only did the guy save me the hassle of potentially buying the wrong thing, but he also did it without making me feel dumb. I was—again—pleasantly surprised. He then told me to have a great night, and thanked me for shopping at NAPA.
Sometimes it’s the little things that make or break a customer experience—in the case of the friendly NAPA guy, it was probably no huge deal to him, but it left a big impact on me. I left the store a satisfied customer, and I’ll definitely go back—maybe even touting a venti low-fat, no-whip, double shot caramel macchiato.
Apr 22
He makes Bush look like a penny-pincher!
Apr 13
Did you know that you can move objects with the arrow keys more precisely (one pixel at a time) in Excel 2003 by holding down Shift + the arrow keys? Am I a total noob for just figuring this out now?
Seriously. You have no idea how excited this makes me.
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