You start typing only to realize 10 seconds later that the focus is on the wrong window. You see a Windows notification pop out of the taskbar only to have it fade away before you can figure out what it means. You get distracted by all of Windows' pointless animations. You miss seeing keyboard-shortcut hints on menu entries and elsewhere in Windows dialog boxes.
You could spend hours hunting for the settings that will do away with these four Windows annoyances. At least Vista collects them all in the Ease of Access Center. These usability settings are spread far and wide in XP.
Mouse over a window to make it the focus
About once or twice a week I find myself happily typing away only to discover after crafting the perfect memo opener or e-mail retort that the focus had switched to another open window. Not only have I lost the data I thought I was entering, I might inadvertently purchase a Winnebago if I press Enter while focused on the wrong page in my browser.
You can set Vista to change the focus to whichever window you mouse over via the Ease of Access Center. Press the Windows key and U to open it.
I described the top four options (all carryovers from XP's Accessibility Control Panel applet) in a previous post. To change focus by hovering, click "Make the mouse easier to use" and check "Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse" near the bottom of the dialog box. Click Save or Apply to activate the change.
The simplest way I know of to change this setting in XP is to use the free Tweak UI utility. After you download and install the program, open it and double-click Mouse in the left pane. Choose X-Mouse among the entries that appear, and check "Activation follows X-Mouse" in the right window.
Bonus tip: To keep programs from stealing the focus, choose Focus under General in the left pane, click "Prevent applications from stealing focus" in the right pane, and choose the number of times you want the window to flash when this happens.
Set Vista notification pop-ups to stay on screen longer
Sometimes the little windows that pop out of the taskbar to notify you of some event, such as a USB device you just plugged in being ready to use, disappear too quickly. To extend the duration of notification windows in Vista, click "Make it easier to focus on tasks" in the Ease of Access Center, scroll to the bottom of the resulting dialog box, and change the setting under "How long should Windows notification boxes stay open?" The default setting is 7 seconds, and the available options let you change this to 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, or 5 minutes. When you're done, click Save or Apply.
Extend the time Vista's notification windows stay visible via this setting in the Ease of Access Center.
(Credit: Microsoft)The only way I know of to change the duration of notification windows in XP is to tweak the Registry. This is also how you disable notifications altogether. I'll describe the procedure in a future post.
Knock off the frivolous animations
Save some CPU cycles--and maybe your tired eyeballs--by telling Windows to do without the fancy-schmancy animations. In Vista, click "Make it easier to focus on tasks" in the Ease of Access Center (the same dialog I described above for tweaking notifications), check "Turn off all unnecessary animations (when possible)" under "Adjust time limits and flashing visuals," and click Save or Apply.
To tone down the animations in XP, right-click My Computer, choose Properties > Advanced, and click Settings in the Performance section. Under the Visual Effects tab, click "Adjust for best performance," or choose Custom and select the options you do and don't want in the window below. When you're done, click OK twice.
Show shortcut keys on menu items
Microsoft doesn't always make it easy for people who prefer to navigate around Windows and their applications using keyboard shortcuts. To make the key hints visible on menus in Vista, click "Make the keyboard easier to use" in the Ease of Access Center, check "Underline keyboard shortcuts and access keys" under "Make it easier to use keyboard shortcuts," and click Save or Apply.
See hints for shortcut keys on Vista menus by choosing this option in the Ease of Access Center.
(Credit: Microsoft)Add the shortcut-key hints to XP by right-clicking the desktop (or pressing Shift-F10 while on the desktop), choosing Properties, clicking Appearance > Effects, unchecking "Hide underlined letters for keyboard navigation until I press the Alt key," and clicking OK twice.
Over the years, CNET News.com senior writer Ina Fried has had around a dozen one-on-one interviews with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. She just returned from Redmond, Wash., with her latest (I won't say last, because you never know!) interview, and I sit down with her in Tuesday's edition of the Daily Debrief and talk about his imminent departure from the company.
As everyone has suspected, and as Ina reiterates, Gates will, despite his retirement, continue to play a part-time role at Microsoft, lending his expertise and vision where he sees fit. One particular pet project is the continued development of the company's search technologies. Friday is Gates' last day with Microsoft, and while I imagine the departure will be imperceptible to the general public, it will no doubt be fascinating to see how Gates' baby takes its first few steps without him.
About a year ago I tested a Sony GPS device. The device is long gone, but a shortcut to the product's personal My Documents folder remained among the Send To options on my context (right-click) menu.
Getting rid of this useless entry was as easy as opening Windows' Send To folder and removing its shortcut. Press the Windows key and R, type Shell:sendto, and press Enter to open the Send To folder. In the right pane, right-click the shortcut associated with the item you want to remove and choose Delete > Yes.
Remove an unwanted entry from the Send To menu by deleting its shortcut.
(Credit: Microsoft)Adding an entry to your Send To menu is just as easy. Right-click in the right pane and select New > Shortcut. Enter the path to the folder you want to create a Send To shortcut for, or click Browse, navigate to it, and click Next. Enter a name for the shortcut, and click Finish.
Enter the path to the folder you want to access from the Send To menu.
(Credit: Microsoft)Note that just dragging a shortcut from the Start menu or elsewhere into this window and dropping it there may not work. You have to enter the exact path, particularly if you want to add a shortcut to Notepad or another application.
Tomorrow: an antivirus-software buyer's guide.
Microsoft on Tuesday said it's set to release near-final versions of its key database server and other business-oriented software.
The company announced a "release candidate" of SQL Server 2008, along with test versions of security and identity management software, at its TechEd conference in Orlando, Fla.
Also on tap for later this month is a release candidate of Microsoft Application Virtualization, version 4.5, the company said. Microsoft also announced a server-virtualization validation program, which lets software developers test and validate their code running against Windows Server 2008 and previous versions of the operating system.
Microsoft Senior Vice President Bob Muglia said Identity Lifecycle Manager 2, beta 3, a tool for configuring and managing identification on corporate networks, is now available.
Also released in beta testing is Forefront Security for Office Communications Server, beta 1, a tool that helps prevent instant messaging-based malicious software, the company said. In the first half of next year, Microsoft plans to incorporate within Forefront support for virtualization.
Muglia said the announcements are part of Microsoft's overarching Dynamic IT initiative for automating enterprise technology to make it more flexible.
What I really want to do is add a link to Google Docs on the right-click (context) menu in Windows Explorer. That way, I could open a file in Google Docs by right-clicking it in Explorer and choosing Send To > Google Docs.
Well, I wasn't able to figure out how to do this. So instead, I created a shortcut to open Google Docs, and then I browsed to the file and opened it the old-fashioned way.
This won't save you a lot of time, but at least Google Docs makes it easy for you to transmit the file to the service as an e-mail attachment. And, of course, you can send the file to other e-mail recipients at the same time.
To create the shortcut to Google Docs, log in to the service, copy the URL in the address bar, right-click the desktop or any folder window, choose New > Shortcut, paste the URL in the Location field, click Next, type Google Docs (or the name of your choice), and press Enter (or click Finish).
Now navigate to the shortcut you just created, right-click it, and choose Properties. Click in the "Shortcut key" box, and type your preferred keyboard shortcut (I chose Ctrl-Alt-G).
Give your Google Docs shortcut a keyboard sequence to open the service in a flash.
(Credit: Microsoft)Now you can open the service by pressing the keyboard shortcut you just entered. Once it opens, choose Upload in the top-left corner of the window, browse to and select the file, give it a name (or use the existing file name), and click Upload File.
Alternatively, you can copy the unique e-mail address Google Docs generated for you under E-mail Your Documents and Files, open your e-mail program, paste the address in the To: field, and add any other recipients you want to send the file to. The file will be attached to the message automatically.
Google Docs limits your HTML and text files (including Word's .doc and .rtf) to 500KB, presentations to 10MB from your computer, and 2MB from a Web site (500KB as e-mail attachments), and spreadsheets to 1MB (spreadsheets can't be uploaded as e-mail attachments).
I'll keep looking for a way to add Google Docs to my right-click menu (either via the Open With or Send To submenus, or directly on the context menu), and when I find it, I'll let you know.
Tomorrow: remove unwanted items from your Send To menu.
Microsoft has already made its case for consumer adoption of Vista. Now, it's aiming its PR offensive at business customers.
The company on Wednesday released a white paper paper targeted at the many businesses that have chosen to stick with Windows XP instead of moving to Vista. Microsoft argues that Vista is more secure, reliable, and can save companies money when it comes to management and deployment.
"We have tried to close gaps for consumers, and we're doing the same for enterprises," Mike Nash, vice president of Windows Client Product Management at Microsoft, told CNET News.com.
Why should businesses deploy now? Nash says the release of Vista Service Pack 1 has improved Windows security, improved driver support, and minimized application compatibility issues, for starters.
Compared with Windows XP, Vista has had fewer vulnerabilities (45 for Vista versus 56 for XP); fewer critical vulnerabilities (17 as opposed to 35); and 60 percent fewer malicious software infections than XP SP2, Nash said.
Microsoft's Mike Nash
(Credit: Microsoft)The big bonus for companies may come in cost savings versus XP when it comes to deployment and management of Vista across multiple machines, Nash said.
Tom Norton, the worldwide Microsoft services practice lead for Hewlett-Packard, said that a majority of HP's top 500 customers globally "are looking at this (Vista) as a way to save money on support of client environments."
As for application compatibility, the move from Internet Explorer 6 to Internet Explorer 7 was more traumatic than the Windows upgrade, said Norton.
Still, despite the statistics and reassurances, initial impressions tend to last. And the initial Vista experience for many people was less than stellar, a point which Microsoft concedes. Nash says that, yes, the company made a lot of changes with Vista that have taken time for customers to get used to, and initial driver and application support was lacking. But, "there is a huge gap between what is possible with Vista and the perception that is out there," he said.
Nash, who will soon celebrate his 17th anniversary with Microsoft, said that he has seen similar customer trepidation in the past when it comes to new Windows releases. "There has always been a version of Windows that is new that people don't know what to do with; there has always been the incumbent version; and there is always a new version on the horizon. It's not a new phenomenon," Nash said.
This time around, the X factor is Windows 7. Microsoft has said precious little about the planned Windows release, except that it will come in 2009 and will include a touch interface. Still, with companies just getting around to Vista deployment, does it make sense to wait for 7?
"I have heard that with every release (of Windows)," Nash said. "What I will say: back when I worked on security at Microsoft, a lot of customers said they would never deploy XP. Initially they were waiting for better security, then they were waiting for XP SP2. Then they were waiting for Longhorn (the code name used during Vista's development)."
Microsoft's message to customers is that Vista introduced a fair amount of new code in the operating system kernel and in device-level software. Sure, it's been a rough transition from XP to Vista. But Vista and Windows 7 will be largely compatible in those areas, according to the white paper release on Wednesday, meaning that customers will eventually need to bite the bullet and make the switch.
"There is always some level of evaluation that customers will want to go through. Five minutes for some; 12 to 18 months for others. The question is: what is the right time for you as a customer?" Nash said.
For whatever reason, the last time I booted my Vista laptop the network icon was missing from its usual spot next to the clock in the system tray.
I right-clicked the Start button, chose Properties, and clicked the Notification Area tab to recheck this option under "System icons," but it was grayed out.
I found the solution on Colin Cochrane's blog. Here are the steps in a nutshell:
Back up the Registry by creating a restore point.
Press the Windows key, type regedit, and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.
Navigate to and select HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify.
Delete both IconStreams and PastIconStream in the right pane.
Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete and select Start Task Manager.
Select the Processes tab, choose explorer.exe, and click End Process.
Choose the Applications tab, click New Task, enter explorer.exe in the text box, and press Enter.
Your icons should reappear.
Return missing icons to Vista's system tray by editing the Registry, stopping explorer.exe, and restarting the process via Task Manager.
(Credit: Microsoft)Another option for taskbar problems is the free Taskbar Repair Tool Plus, which I found on Kelly Theriot's Kelly's Korner.
Tomorrow: the best OpenOffice.org templates and clipart.
Microsoft is launching a revamped test version of its Silverlight software that is designed to broaden the appeal of the company's answer to Adobe Systems' Flash.
Chairman Bill Gates was set to announce Silverlight 2 beta 2 on Tuesday morning at Microsoft's TechEd conference in Orlando, Fla. Gates was also slated to unveil a partnership with IBM to make it easier to build DB2 database applications using Microsoft's tools, as well as updates to other Microsoft tools.
Bill Gates speaking in Redmond, Wash. last month.
(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET News.com)The new release of Silverlight, which will be available for download on Tuesday, includes support for Microsoft's .Net Framework, the company's programming model for building Windows applications, which will likely make it more appealing to established Windows programmers, said Jonathan Perera, general manager of Microsoft's Application Platform Division.
"If Silverlight 1.0 was about what people could do on their Web sites, Silverlight 2.0 is about what people can do on their interactive applications," Perera said.
The initial release of Silverlight, a browser plug-in for rich interactive applications such as audio-video playback and animation, has yet to diminish the popularity of Flash, though the revamped release could fare better thanks to the .Net support. Microsoft estimates that there are about 4 million .Net developers worldwide.
Microsoft also debuted a technology preview of software code named Velocity that makes it easier to build Web applications that include an in-memory data cache, such as Web commerce applications. For programmers, Velocity can ease the burden of application memory management and other complex tasks, said Perera.
On Monday, I described Vaita's free Outlook Duplicate Items Remover, an add-on that finds duplicate copies of Outlook messages, contacts, calendar entries, and tasks. Now, I'll continue to trim my bloated Outlook in-box by using another freebie: the Kopf Outlook Attachment Remover created by Bruno Marotta.
After you download the program and restart Outlook, you see a floating Attachment Remover toolbar that you can drag and dock at the top of the screen along with all the other toolbars to keep it from blocking your view. Click the toolbar's one-and-only button to open the program's one-and-only dialog box.
The Kopf Outlook Attachment Remover shrinks your in-box by storing attachments in a separate folder and placing links to the files in the original messages.
(Credit: Kopf/Bruno Marotta)You can choose the folder to scan for attachments, the type of files to remove, the size limit (the default setting is to remove all file attachments more than 10KB in size), the folder to place the attachments in, and whether to replace the file with a link or text message, or to simply remove it.
The add-on will recreate the structure of the folders and subfolders you scan, but I wish it offered a way to separate attachments by file type or by sender prior to the scan. This would let me detach all the PDFs from my boss, for example.
Since Outlook Attachment Remover is donationware, be sure to drop a couple of bills in the hat if you find the program beneficial.
Wednesday: tweak the Registry to return missing icons to the system tray.
Sometimes I wish I was one of those people who manages to keep their e-mail inbox empty by assigning the messages they need to keep appropriately named folders and deleting the mail they don't need.
Most of my inboxes have thousands of entries dating back years. And since I've combined my ISP's POP mail account with my Gmail account, the inbox-overflow problem has gotten out of hand.
Rather than spending half a day manually removing the duplicates, I installed Vaita's free Outlook Duplicate Items Remover. The program places an "ODIR" entry on Outlook's standard toolbar. Click it and choose "Remove duplicate items" (or press Alt-O, R) to open the add-on's window showing your Outlook folders. Select one of the folders and click the "Remove duplicate items" button at the bottom of the window.
The free Outlook Duplicate Items Remover add-on makes finding and removing duplicate Outlook entries a breeze.
(Credit: Vaita)In just a few minutes, I watched the number of items in my inbox shrink from 4,081 to a more reasonable 2,656 (and counting). The program places the duplicate messages in a folder named ODIR_Duplicate_Files. I looked through this folder for non-duplicates erroneously identified by the add-on but didn't spot any.
If you trust the program's ability to tell duplicates from singles, you can simply delete the contents of the ODIR_Duplicate_Files folder. I played it safe by moving the folder's files to compressed folder on a thumb drive before deleting them.
I may not save a ton of time or hard-drive storage space by ridding myself of duplicate Outlook files, but every little bit helps.
Tomorrow: pare Outlook further by removing the attachments from your messages.
