Right after you logon to your computer, have you ever just wished you could pause everything else that seems to be going on, just for 10 seconds so you could fire up your internet browser and start surfing the web before your computer chugs along for an extra 5 minutes – sometimes completely unresponsive – while it tries to load up everything else all at once?
Or maybe you just want a way to control the order and delay for your startup programs. A company by the name of r2 Studios has the solution.
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Perry’s Batch Outlook Item Property Editor can be used to edit the properties of multiple items in Microsoft Outlook. I find it most useful when I create a custom Outlook form and I need to change the MessageClass property on a group of items so the items can use the new custom form.
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Screenshot from a live test run of the iosys Game Engine.
The iosys Game Engine is a 3D video game engine that I was developing in my earlier days of programming with DirectX. I’ve moved on from DirectX for the time being, but I still consider this to be one of my greatest programming achievements ever. I started learning DirectX with a few decent books, some documentation on the web, and an invaluable tutorial series by Jack Hoxley titled DirectX4VB. My experience with DirectX and programming evolved quickly during this time and as a result, the engine went through several recodings.
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Folder Options
This tutorial explains how to code a simple, reusable Shell Icon Manager component in VB.NET. Windows maintains registered file types and associated icons as seen in the Folder Options dialog box, but there is no way to access them through managed (.NET) code, so we must use Win32 API functions to access them through the Windows shell.
This shell icon manager is useful if you need to:
- Produce a list of file type / icon associations similar to the “Registered file types” in Windows XP.
- Get a file’s real icon instead of using icons that look similar, so you can develop an interface that is more streamlined with the native Windows interface.
- Create a file browser similar to Windows Explorer by tapping into the same icons that Windows Explorer uses. Pair this idea with my other article titled How to Create a TreeView File Browser Component in VB.NET and you’ll have a file browser that closely resembles Windows Explorer.
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If the Connect a fingerprint sensor fiasco wasn’t enough…
We needed a new way to backup our remote users’ files who regularly work on their laptops in the field. The USB thumb drives we assigned to those users no longer work since we discovered they were full of unecessary files and basically not being used since the backup process was not automagic.
Enter Offline Files, included as a standard feature in Windows XP Professional or better. Offline Files is not without it’s own quirks though. I quickly discovered how temperamental it can actually be, behaving normally one minute and totally out of whack the next minute. After completing several run-throughs with Offline Files in my test environment, we concluded that it would be highly beneficial to the company not only for backup purposes, but since the remote users’ files were now being stored on our server, we could integrate those files with our project management software and cut down on email usage.
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We were hiring an employee for our sales staff, so I had the privilege of purchasing a much nicer laptop than usual due to a reduced wear and tear factor for our field staff. We buy all of our computer systems through Dell, so I browsed the business section on Dell’s website until I found the perfect match for our new employee: a Dell Latitude E6400 with solid state disk.
Booting up Windows XP on this laptop was an absolute dream. The solid state disk eliminated that immense 5-15 minutes of sluggishness one experiences while all of the startup programs are loading, checking for updates, etc. It seemed like the solid state disk alone doubled the system’s responsiveness. So far, I was impressed.
My final task would be to enroll the new employee’s fingerprints so he could log on by swiping his finger rather than typing a password. Every attempt I made at doing this failed. All it said was Connect a fingerprint sensor, even though the damn fingerprint sensor was built into the palm rest. So I called Dell Support, and this is where things got a little out of control.
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Perry’s Batch File Rename Utility can be used to rename several files at once based on your specifications. Files will be renamed according to the Rename Sequence that you specify, which is based on one or more Filters. Available Filters include Serial Number, Insert Text, Replace Text, Trim Start, Trim End, Original Filename, Original Extension, Date Created, Date Modified, and Date Accessed.
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Too many hackers and robots were trying to access my WordPress data, so I took the installation offline and deployed a new backend platform: Joomla!
Please bare with me while I get this new website backend running smoothly and my old website content added.
Right after you logon to your computer, have you ever just wished you could pause everything else that seems to be going on, just for 10 seconds so you could fire up your internet browser and start surfing the web before your computer chugs along for an extra 5 minutes – sometimes completely unresponsive – while it tries to load up everything else all at once?
Glass Ocean is Perry Butler's Blog, Music Productions, Services, and Software Development.