g7uk » windows

Enhancing the Windows file dialog

GS — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:19:25 +0000

If you’re opening files from one location and then saving them somewhere else on your drive, Windows makes you browse to the new destination each time. It’s annoying and can end up being a huge waste of time if you have lots of files to work on.

Luckily there are several utilities that can enhance the standard Windows file dialog.

Traditionally, File-Ex (for $19.95) was one of the best. It adds lists of favourite and recently used locations to the bottom of the file window. But sadly it doesn’t work with Vista and there’s no sign it will be updated to do so.

FileBox Extender, which is free, adds some extra buttons to the title bar at the top of the open and save windows, giving a selection of favourite and last-used locations. These are remembered automatically and you can configure favourites yourself.

Two other buttons let you roll up a window to just the title bar — which is handy if you want a quick look at something behind — and another ‘pins’ the window so it’s always on top. Also FileBox Extender can be set to open the dialogs at a much larger size than standard.

Folder Guide is more basic, but still very useful. It appears in the menu when you right-click in the open or save window and you can choose from a list of destinations which you have set yourself.

I use FileBox Extender and Folder Guide and there seem to be no problems running both.

Conditional server side includes and cookies

GS — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:24:36 +0000

I can’t write PHP or Javascript. I could learn, but I don’t have much interest. Most of my websites are good old-fashioned static HTML and I use server-side-includes a lot.

I thought I would write, in simple terms, about some of ways I’ve used them.
Read more...

Blag Linux

GS — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 02:54:45 +0000

I would dearly love not to have to use Windows and absolutely dread the day when I may have to use Vista. For a long time now I’ve had my eye on Linux, trying different distros now and again. The most promising of these has always been Blag from the Brixton Linux Action Group.

I tried the latest version recently and the few niggles I had previously have all have been ironed out. I can honestly say that if I used my PC for writing letters and running my business, surfing and chatting, watching videos and listening to music, there’s absolutely no doubt I’d be on Blag right now and saying goodbye to Microsoft.

The sad fact is that Linux has nothing to match Vegas Video for video editing and Dreamweaver for web development. Two tools I simply can’t do without.

I know some Linux enthusiasts will point to NVU for HTML and CineLerra for video, but I’ve looked at those and they simply aren’t up to the job for one reason or another.

Safari for Windows

GS — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 08:50:41 +0000

Safari is the web browser for Mac users and Apple just brought out a version for Windows.

As I remember the horribly invasive player that is Apple Quicktime for Windows, I was in two minds about whether to try Safari. But I did…

Well it’s a piece of junk so far. When I start it, the top menus have white text on a white background, so I can’t see or do anything.

OK so it’s a beta. It may be fixed next time. Maybe it’s some quirk of my system. But I can’t remember the last time I tried beta software and it presented me with a bug as stupid as this one.

So safari has been uninstalled. I’ll stick with Opera and Firefox.

Other reviews say it seems like a ‘rushed if not a botched’ job.

Posterior Vitreous Detachment — update

GS — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 12:33:04 +0000

A surprising number of people have found my blog when searching for ‘posterior vitreous detachment’, after I wrote about what had happened to me. So I thought I would do an update. I’ll tell you up front that it is relatively good news.

The loss of more trees and historic buildings in Manchester city centre

GS — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 23:51:06 +0000

There has been a big drama lately about the area of land on the corner of Princess Street and Whitworth Street, which is just across the canal from the New Union pub in the gay village.

Resource-hungry websites

GS — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 10:11:01 +0000

The animated Flash advertisements on some websites can hog an extraordinary amount of your computer’s processing power.

Free painting software

GS — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 09:58:42 +0000

I’ve been looking at some free painting programs. In particular I wanted something that had realistic natural-painting tools (oil, watercolour, crayon, pencil, airbrush, pastels) to use with my graphics tablet.

Free Download Manager

GS — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 17:35:57 +0000

I’m using Free Download Manager with RSS Bandit.

Life is good. It’s the most painless method I’ve found for grabbing file enclosures from my favourite vlogs… RSS Bandit presents the enclosure link nice and clearly. Just right-click > copy link location (shortcut), Free Download Manager pops up, hit OK and the file is saved in my downloads folder.

Windows always seems to offer the wrong file location when I save a file the usual way. The worst is when you are opening from one location and saving to another.

However, for years I’ve been using a little utility called File-Ex, which enhances the file dialog with lists of favourite and recently-used files and folders. A big timesaver.

Great RSS feed reader

GS — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 03:33:20 +0000

For quite a while I’ve been looking around for a good feed reader. I was using the one that is built into Opera, but the slow-down while it updated the feeds every so often bugged me when I was busy looking at web pages at the same time. Sadly this is just one of the problems with Opera lately. I’m using Firefox much more these days.

I tried quite a few RSS programs then, finally, found the humorously named RSS Bandit. It’s open source (free).

I like the way it presents the feeds and file enclosures and it has a nice integrated, tabbed, web browser.