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Welcome to my blog. This is mainly about IT, information management and Cyber Security with occasional forays into general technology, science and maybe even politics and beliefs.
I welcome feedback on this site and its content. Please use the contact form if you spot anything amiss with the site and use Disqus to talk about any of the articles.
There are 301 pages currently on this site. 235 blog posts, 60 knowledgebase pages, 6 about pages and 0 project pages.
Latest posts and knowledgebase articles
New Comments System
I’ve moved my comments over to [Disqus][1] from the default Blogger comments. It means that you don’t have to log in to comment and you get much better tracking of discussions. My other blog “[Much Ado About IT][2]” has had this for a while and it seems to work really well. Unfortunately, it does mean that I’ve lost any existing comments – sorry to those who have commented in the past.
How-to use WebDAV on Windows Vista and Windows 7
Windows is supposed to have a built-in WebDAV client. However, it doesn’t ever seem to have been especially robust and certainly since Vista a lot of people (myself included) have found that it simply doesn’t work on many supposedly WebDAV enabled sites. Thankfully there are a couple of free (and some not free) options that, while not as nicely integrated into Windows Explorer, do enable you to transfer files back and forth.
Keeping Control: File and Folder Links for Windows Users
A good backup strategy for any computer involves keeping control of where stuff is stored. The fewer locations that contain files that change, the fewer locations have to be maintained. UNIX users have always had the ability to keep things wherever they wanted and then to LINK that information into the required location. Basically, links create a link or tunnel between one file or folder and another. Most of the time, you will not notice that you’ve entered a tunnel and you are not interested really.
Version Control for Mortals
[Version control systems][1] (VCS, or Revision Control Systems or Source Control Systems) are designed for software developers. They enable one or more people to work on source code, annotate changes, split and merge the code, link to bug tracking systems and a number of other things that are interesting to developers but not to most people! Indeed then, for most people, you might expect that version control systems are not interesting at all.
Copy and Paste to OneNote (AutoHotKey script)
After yesterdays OneNote tool post, I thought I’d do another while I think about it. Another annoyance of OneNote is it’s lack of control over pasting information from the clipboard. I’ve raised a suggestion with MS to improve this; you can see my comment in the newsgroup. To ease things a little if you need to copy and paste lots of stuff to OneNote, here is an AutoHotKey script to help.
📖 Posts | 📎 Development, Microsoft, Windows | 🔖 AutoHotKey, Configuration, Office, OneNote, Scripting
Setting list item gaps in Microsoft OneNote (AutoHotKey script)
Although I like Microsoft OneNote and use it continuously, it does have a few failings. One of these is the inability to set the default styles and layout for text. In particular, when you create a new paragraph or list entry in OneNote, the default – non-changeable – setting is to have no white space between the paragraphs. This is very poor design and makes more than a small amount of text quite unreadable.
Quick test of new comments system (using DISQUS)
Just testing a new commenting system – Disqus. Looks like it works OK so I’ll keep it online for now. Currently, you no longer need to be logged in (previously you needed to present either a Blogger, Google or OpenID credential to comment because of spam) since Disqus is supposed to handle this better. However, if the spam starts to reappear, I’ll have to restrict it again. For blog authors, check out [Psolonoid][1] as well.
Changing system environment variables from the Windows command line
There are several ways to change global or user environment variables manually in Windows. Most are well known so I wont repeat them here (e.g. in Vista or Windows 7, Control Panel/User Accounts, Change my environment variables). However, sometimes you want to do this from a command (aka script or batch) file. This is not as straightforwards as it might seem. That’s because if you simply set the variable – e.
Windows 7 (Build 7000) still my main desktop OS
A quick update on Windows 7. I’m still using the version from MSDN, Build 7000. Unfortunately, it will not let me report bugs for some reason, the “Send Feedback” link always fails to authenticate my Windows Live login. However, I do have a few issues and a few likes. Issues with Windows 7 Possibly Windows 7 Beta Issues Power options only shows 2 out of 3 std options Creating new folder in all users (in explorer), creates new folder but doesn’t allow rename (says folder already in use) yet allows delete Screen resolution seems to randomly reset to something lower (NVIDIA WDM driver).
How to get and use your local IP address in a Windows 7 (and Vista) batch command file
If, like me, you spend a lot of time on a variety of customer sites, you will probably be familiar with the issues around swapping networks. I’ve already blogged about the problems with Windows 7, Vista and Firefox proxy settings and I will do some more articles on getting on with problematic proxies later. However, I wanted to let people know how to get hold of your IP address from within a batch (command) file.
Critical Bug in Outlook 2007
I’ve recently stumbled on a bug in Outlook 2007. Apparently it is quite well known and the only reason that I hadn’t found it was that I don’t use Outlook as my main email client. In fact I only use email on it to handle meeting requests. The bug is that Outlook 2007 ignores the setting regarding sending reply requests for IMAP accounts. If this seems rather irrellivant to you, you might want to think again.
Sun’s VirtualBox gets on with it!
Yep, I keep being amazed by the quality of VirtualBox which is now owned by Sun. I need to set up a virtual machine to test and demo Sun’s Identity Management (IdM) suite and it needs to be usable with VMware too. So I headed over to the VMware Appliances web site and downloaded a pre-canned Debian 5 server. This is recognised fine by VirtualBox! I gave the VM a Host Networked connection to the network and with no further configuration, fired up the VM.
Easier posting to Blogger Blogs (Zoundry Raven)
Just a quick note to recommend some software that makes writing blog entries very much easier. The software is called [Zoundry Raven][1] and I’m using the latest beta (under Windows 7 beta). The editor is WYSIWYG and has a much more sensible set of standards than the built-in Blogger editor (including the beta version). It also allows you to publish the same entry to multiple blogs if needed. It has image, link and tag handling too and it makes blogging rather more pleasurable.
proxy.pac files, Mozilla (Firefox & Thunderbird) and Vista or Windows 7
I’ve found a problem with Mozilla based products and proxy settings. To automatically configure a proxy for use by Internet browsers, you can use a file called “proxy.pac“. This is a JavaScript function that is loaded into the browser when it starts and redirects requests via a proxy where required. All of the descriptions for this file you will find on the Internet will provide the following example of checking your current IP address.
Windows 7 Beta – Now my main OS
I’m now using Windows 7 Beta (Build 7000) as my day-to-day operating system. It is generally very well behaved I have to say and appears to be what Vista should have been from the start. Vista reminds me a lot of Windows/ME, anyone remember that? Another failed Windows build. In reality, Vista was the Windows 7 beta. Of course, there are a few rough edges and I’ll do a post about them shortly.
