ten mov.es

How To Disable Skype ’ s Plug-in Manager

If you’re using Skype on Windows and finding that your computer is slowing down, chances are it’s the Skype Plug-in Manager hogging resources. For some reason the separate program takes over some computers—even if you’ve got no plug-ins installed.

Here’s how to close down and disable the program so it doesn’t bother you again (assuming you’re not using any of the Skype extras.)

Hit Control-Shift-Esc to bring up the Windows Task Manager.

In the Processes tab, check for skypePM.exe. This is what it should look like:

As you can see, it’s taking up nearly half my CPU.

To force it to close, click on it and hit delete. You’ll get a prompt:

Now you just need to make sure it doesn’t open automatically whenever you launch Skype. To do this, go into Options and select Advanced Settings.

In there, uncheck the box marked Automatically start Extras:

That should do it.

How to use Windows 7 Shortcuts

Here’s a list of the best Windows 7 shortcuts, many of them culled from the excellent list at Lifehacker. The full list is here. Maybe there are more?

Taskbar
Win+number	Opens corresponding program on taskbar
Win+Alt+number	Opens tasklist on corresponding program
Shift+Win+number	Opens a new instance of corresponding application
Ctrl+Win+number	Cycles thro open windows of corresponding application
Alt+Win+number	Opens the Jump List for corresponding application
Win+T	Focus and scroll through items on the taskbar
Win+B	Focuses the System Tray icons
Explorer
Ctrl+Shift+N	Creates a new folder
Alt+Up	Goes up a folder level
Alt+P	Toggles the preview pane
Shift+Right-Click on a file	Adds Copy as Path, which copies the path of a file to the clipboard
Shift+Right-Click on a file	Adds extra hidden items to the Send To menu
Screen
Win+P	Adjust presentation settings for your display
Win+(+/-):	Zoom in/out
Win+G	Cycle between the Windows Gadgets on your screen (if you have any)
Win+X	Open Windows Mobility Center (change brightness, sound, power, WiFi settings…
Win+L	Lock your workstation
Windows
Win+ left/right arrow	Move window to right/left half of screen
Win+up/down arrow	Maximise window/return to original size
Win+Shift+up arrow	Stretch window vertically (to top and bottom edges of screen; down arrow reverses)
Win+Shift+left/right arrow	Move window between multiple screens
Win+M	Minimize all windows (+Shift to Maximise?n)
Win+Home	Minimize all but active window (press again to reverse)
Win+D	Display the desktop (press again to reverse)
Win+Spacebar	Preview desktop
Win+Home	Minimize all but active window (press again to reverse)
Programs
Win+E	Open Explorer/Computer
Win+F	Open Search window
Win+R	Run dialog box
Non MS programs
Win+K	Shifts focus to Klips (if installed)
Win+S	Opens clipper in Evernote (in installed)

  You might also be interested in this: How to Search in Windows Seven

 The Master List of New Windows 7 Shortcuts - Windows - Lifehacker

How to Move iTunes from One Computer to Another

For Windows users wanting to keep their playlists etc when they move their music from one computer (or drive) to another, here’s how to do it relatively painlessly.

Tell iTunes where your folder is (in the Advanced tab of the Preferences window):

Close iTunes.

Find the folder in which your iTunes library is. The library is where a list of your music and other settings is kept—not the music itself.

You’ll usually find the library by pasting this into your Windows Explorer:

Drive:\Users\YourUserName\Music\iTunes

Change the Drive letter and YourUserName to whatever is correct for you.

There’ll you see something like this:

Now do the same thing for your target, i.e. new computer. Open a new Windows Explorer window and paste in the following to the address bar:

Drive:\Users\YourUserName\Music\iTunes

Drive will probably be C.

Now drag the four files from the older folder to the new, replacing the existing files.

Now reopen iTunes and you should find your old playlists etc all there. (If some songs have been removed, or can’t be found in the listed folder you might get some errors.)

Sources:

Re: itunes lost?

How to Search in Windows Seven

(This was written in frustration at the lack of useful guide to making searches in Windows Seven. Some of the text is drawn from this Dummies page.) 

These search parameters help you narrow down what you’re looking for in Windows Seven’s Explorer (to jump to the search box in that program hit F3. From anywhere in Windows Seven hit Windows key ( ) + F) to open a new search window.

How to use filters

These filters can be used in conjunction with, or separate from, text search terms. If you just start typing a term, Windows will start looking for all files (and folders) that include that name in the file name, the folder name, the contents of the file and its metadata (tags and whatnot). Although the idea of searching as you type is a good one, it can be frustrating if you need to correct something you’ve written.

Date

Type date: (or one of the options below) and, while it may take a little while, a drop down menu should appear that will allow you to specify the date of the file you’re looking for.

Date Modified: Search for files based on the date they were last modified.

Date Created: Searches according to when the file was created. You can select the date (or a range of dates) from a mini-calendar that appears.

You can also be less specific and choose: A Long Time Ago, Earlier This Year, Earlier This Month, Last Week, Earlier This Week, or Yesterday.

(See also Date taken below.)

Size

Search for a specific file size by typing its KBs or MBs in the search text box. Or, you can search by various size ranges via the drop-down menu:

Kind

Search for files of a specific type as selected from the drop-down list that appears when you click the Kind option. What’s frustrating with this is that there’s only kind of Document file (i.e., you can’t use this filter to narrow it down to spreadsheets, say, or word documents. For that you need to use Type below.)

Type

Searches based on certain file types by extension, such as .pdf, .jpg, or .docx. (Waiting for the computing filter to run on this one takes a while. I wouldn’t bother.)

I don’t know whether this is true or not, but the syntax needs to include an = after the colon, like this:

type:=.doc

Leaving it out seems to include files of other types in the list:

 

Name

Searches by filname. You can enter all or part of the filename in the search text box after the Name filter.

When you don't know all of a filename, you can use the asterisk (*) to stand for one or more wildcard characters in the filename and a question mark (?) to stand for individual wildcard characters.

Tag

This filter lets you search for a file by the tags assigned to it. Enter one or more tags after the Tags filter in the Search text box. If you’re not sure of the tags just wait for the drop down box to appear (it should say something like computing filters… prior to that)

Author

Search for file by a particular author. Enter an author name after the Authors filter in the Search text box or select the name from the drop-down list that appears. (This filter is called Artists when searching audio files. See below for looking for specific songs)

 

Filters specifically for multimedia files

Pictures

Date taken: Searches for photos by the date they were snapped.

If you have added whatever folders you’re using for your photo (or video)  files to the Pictures (or Video)  Library, then it’s probably easier to look for a photo (or video) by first clicking on Library, and then clicking on the search box, now called Search Pictures (or Search Video).

You’ll notice that the drop down menu now includes search filters relevant to photos (or video):

Music

Length: is another parameter you can use to search for an audio or video file by its relative length. You can enter the exact length or select one of the Length options that appear in the drop-down list.

If you have added whatever folder you’re using for your music files to the Music Library, then it’s probably easier to look for a song or artist by first clicking on Library, and then clicking on the search box (now called Search Music). You’ll notice that the drop down menu now includes search filters relevant to music:

Migrating Thunderbird Between Computers

If you want to move your Thunderbird email, settings and plugins to another computer on Windows Vista or Windows Seven, here’s how to do it. (If you’ve got another version of Windows, you may need to tweak the process to locate your Profile folder. Check out details here.)

Set up Thunderbird on your new computer/drive and launch it.

Don’t bother importing anything. But you need to get Thunderbird going to set up the AppData folder. This is where everything gets stored.

Close Thunderbird.

Now find your old Profile folder. The easiest way to do this is to copy the following into your Explorer address bar:

C:\users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming

(clicking on the address bar will change the appearance from

to the more familiar:)

If, like me, you’re moving from one partition on a drive to another, or your old stuff is on an external drive, you may also need to change the driver letter.

And then replace the [User Name] with your old user name (and remove the square brackets.)

This should take you to the following folder:

Go into the Profiles folder and find whatever folder in there has the suffix default:

Now open another Explorer folder (right click on the folder icon in your taskbar and select Windows Explorer:)

Do the same thing as before, pasting in the above text and replacing it with your new Thunderbird location. Find the profile folder. There should be an existing default folder in there.

Now drag the old default profile folder you found above into the new Profile folder. (This should keep a copy of the old profile folder, so long as you’re moving between drives. Otherwise you may want to make a backup copy first.)

You should now have two default folders together in one folder.

Now select the new default folder that Thunderbird has just created, hit F2 and then rename its suffix from default to old:

Now rename your old profile folder to the new profile folder, with the suffix default (you might just want to copy and paste the name by hitting F2 and the selecting the text, hitting Ctrl/c etc):

Now fire up Thunderbird and you should see your old emails, settings, and plugins, all working normally.

How to Make Microsoft Word Wrap

Microsoft Word 2007 has this annoying habit of wrapping text even in draft mode leaving lots of empty screen space:

I’ve fixed this dozens of times but can never remember how, so here it is as much for my sake as anyone else who is having the same problems making the text wrap at the edge of the window:

In Word Options, choose Advanced:

Scroll down to Show Document Content about half way down the boringly long list of options:

Select the second option, Show text wrapped within the document window:

Click OK. You’ll now get that white space back:

Thunderbird Domain Name Mismatch Problem

Another obscure one, but here in case anyone needs it.

If you’re using hosters like Dreamhost you may get a message in Thunderbird if you’re using SSL which says

You have attempted to establish a connection with "www.mydomain.com". However, the security certificate presented belongs to "www.otherdomain.com". It is possible, though unlikely, that someone may be trying to intercept your communication with this web site.

This can be a pain if you’re sending lots of emails because Thunderbird doesn’t offer you a way to disable future messages.

There are two ways around this:

- change the settings of your email server. Here’s the advice at Dreamhost.

- I found that way too complicated as it would mean changing it for each of my domains. So the next option is to install a add-on written by Andrew Lucking, which basically adds a check box to the dialog:

Problem solved.

Sources:

Remember Mismatched Domains

What security settings should I use? (Dreamhost)

Thunderbird Identity SMTP Problem

Obscure one, this, but it might be of use to someone.

Thunderbird’s identify management is a dog’s dinner, in my opinion. One problem with it is that, at least in the present version, there’s a bug preventing you from saving changes from one SMTP server to another. In other words, you’ll think you’ve changed the outgoing server for your email identity, and then find that in  fact you haven’t. Frustration follows.

One solution is to delete the offending identity and start over. I couldn’t figure out how to do that so I just removed the SMTP server that the program was defaulting back to (even if it wasn’t the default, if you follow):

Delete that one and then start over.

How to Override Firefox ’ s “ Secure Updates ” Extension Warning

If you get a message that says an extension can’t be installed in Firefox “”because it does not provide secure updates”, here’s how to work around it:

Start Firefox.

In the Address Bar type “about:config” and press Enter.

Right-click anywhere in the browser window and select New->Boolean.

A box requesting the Preference Name will pop up. Copy and paste the following into the dialog: extensions.checkUpdateSecurity . Press OK.

Select “False” from the next box and press OK again.

From Firefox "Secure Updates" Extension Warning

How to Stop a Print Job

Sometimes Windows XP won’t let you delete a print job even if you try rebooting. Thijs stops you from being able to print anything else.

Here’s how to start over.

Click on the Start menu, and then Run.

In the Run dialog box, type (or copy and paste) the following:

net stop spooler

Hit Enter.

A black window will appear. Ignore it.

Find this folder: C:\Windows\System32\Spool\Printers

(an easy way to do this is to open the Run dialog box again and copy and paste in the above.)

Delete all the files in that folder (but not the folder itself)

Once the spool files are deleted, open the Run dialog box again, and type (or copy and paste) the following:

net start spooler

You should now have an empty print queue.

My thanks to Gizmos Grabowksi for the tip.