02.23.07
Alphabetize Bookmarks in Internet Explorer & Firefox
You can alphabetize your Favorites/Bookmarks by selecting Favorites (IE) or Bookmarks (Firefox), right-click one of the links, and select Sort by Name.
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Change Your Default Outlook Address List
In Outlook when you click on the little book to view your address book, or click on the To button in an e-mail message your default address book is open. If you have more than one address book you have to select it from the drop down menu in the top right corner.
To change your default address book in Outlook use the following:
Tools > Address Book > Tools > Options > select the desired list from ‘Show this address list first’
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Word Attachment Reading Layout
Word uses Reading Layout as the default view whenever it opens email attachments or other non-Word files. The idea is that Reading Layout makes documents easier to view, because the file is repaginated to fit your screen. But repagination can make lists, tables, and other document structures a bit difficult to read.
To prevent Word from automatically using Reading Layout view, click the Tools menu and select Options. In the Options dialog box, select the General tab. Remove the check mark next to Allow Starting In Reading Layout and click OK.
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Outlook Message Delay
If you use Microsoft Exchange Server, you can delay delivery of an individual message using Outlook. Everyone can use rules to delay delivery of all messages by having them held in the Outbox for a specified time after clicking Send.
In the message, click Options.
Under Delivery options, select the Do not deliver before check box, and then click the delivery date and time you want.
This could come in handy if you are leaving the office early: set an e-mail to your coworkers to be delivered around closing time so they think you are still working. 
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02.22.07
Meta Refresh Redirect
One of the easiest ways to redirect one web page to another is through a meta refresh tag. I prefer this method to using javascript as not everyone has javascript enabled.
To redirect visitors from one page to another you can add the meta refresh tag to the page you want to redirect from. Add the tag between the opening and closing head tags.
The important part will look something like this:
<meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”0;url=http://techtips.foundnews.com“>
The relevant parts are the number 0 and the url. The number 0 is the number of seconds before the page is redirected, and the url is where you want the page redirected to. So, adding the above code between the head tags of your web page would make it instantly (in 0 seconds) redirect to http://techtips.foundnews.com. If you want to display a message about the redirect you can add it to the page you are redirecting from and increase the time from 0 seconds to a time, in seconds, long enough for visitors to read the message.
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02.20.07
How to Fix the Firefox Memory Leak
Have you noticed that Firefox can be a memory hog (still not as bad as IE7), especially when you have lots of tabs open? This might help.
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02.09.07
Backup & Delete a Windows XP Profile
Sometimes a Windows profile will get really hosed or even totally corrupted. Deleting the profile will allow a fresh profile to be created the next time the user logs in, clearing up any profile specific problems.
First you must log into the computer with an administrator account that is different than the one you want to delete. If the user with the bad profile is the only administrator you can try logging into their profile and adding yourself as an administrator.
To backup the user profile:
- Open System in Control Panel (Start > Control Panel > System).
- On the Advanced tab, under User Profiles, click Settings.
- Under Profiles stored on this computer, click the user profile you want to backup.
- Click the Copy To button.
- Click on the Browse button, select a location to backup the profile to and click OK.
To delete the user profile:
- From the same User Profiles window click the user profile you want to delete.
- Click the Delete button.
Now have the user log in with their normal credentials and a fresh user profile should be created for them.
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02.08.07
Windows XP Screen Saver Password
Question: Hey Keith, Can you tell me how to make it so that this computer shuts down after, like 30 seconds if you walk away…and then it forces you to put in your password. You had this set up before, and it was great. I think people are using this computer when I am not here, and we need to just block usage…let me know if I can do it, but if not, it can wait until the weekend or so.
Answer: Start > Control Panel > Display > Screen Saver (tab) > set ‘Wait’ to 1 minute, make sure ‘On resume, password protect’ is checked.
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02.07.07
Y2K7 pt. 2
I’m getting a better understand of the Daylight Savings Time issues. There are a couple tools available to deal with the problem. First is a Microsoft Windows XP patch. This patch will update DST on your workstation. I installed it Monday and haven’t had any problems with it. There is also a patch for Windows servers which really should be applied before clients get updated. In an exchange environment the next step is to update Exchange server software. This should happen after Windows is patched on both server and clients.
Patching Windows should prevent new Outlook calendar entries from being messed up, but you still have to deal with ones you have already created (both recurring and individual). Microsoft has released an Office Time Zone Update tool to update existing dates. The problem with this tool is that it can’t tell if individual Outlook (pre-Outlook 2007) calendar entries have been updated already. There is not time zone information on these entries so the tool has no way to tell if they need to be moved an hour or not. Recurring meetings have time zone information and should be correctly updated by the tool. The tool has the option to update both meeting types, or just recurring meetings. Microsoft is urging caution when using the tool to update single instance meetings. Particularly individual meetings created after Windows is patched, but before the server is patched will likely be moved an hour too far if updated by the time zone update tool.
To summarize, here is the suggested update order:
- Patch server OS
- Patch Desktop OS
- Update Exchange (CDO)
- Run TZMOVE to update meetings
- Options:
- Meeting Type
- Recurring & individual meetings
- Recurring meetings only
- Update Point
- Centrally/Server
- Locally/Client/Individually
- Meeting Type
- Options:
On the smart phone front it looks like an update will be available February 12th. Verizon told me that the system time is updated by the network and no software update is needed, but I don’t think I believe that.
I’ll update as more information becomes available.
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02.02.07
Y2K7?
Congress in its infinite wisdom has made a largely arbitrary change to the rather arbitrary Daylight Savings Time system as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. When this law goes into effect in 2007, DST will start three weeks earlier (2:00 A.M. on the second Sunday in March) and will end one week later (2:00 A.M. on the first Sunday in November) than what had traditionally occurred. To accommodate the DST change, most systems must be patched. Otherwise, timestamps will be off, and some applications may fail to work. This could effect a variety of systems including operating systems, servers, cell phones, routers, and databases.
I’ve just begun digging into Microsoft’s documentation on this issue, so more info to come, but there seems to be some nonsense about updating enterprise servers before enterprise workstations. I also am really unclear on how this effects Windows Mobile smart phones. Hopefully I’ll get those parts worked out soon and get back with a follow up post…
More info: edgeblog, Microsoft
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