Category: Software
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Exporting iTunes and Windows Media Player playlists to .m3u-format.
Windows Media Player and iTunes do not use standard formats, such as .m3u, to store the playlists that users create. This can be a problem for users migrating to other players such as MediaMonkey, WinAmp etc. Luckily, all is not lost; Windows Media Player has functionality for exporting playlists built in, and there are tools…
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Outlook "disappears" when minimized
A user called me up, telling me that whenever she’d minimize Outlook, it would shut down in stead of minimizing. Accessing her computer remotely, I easily saw that Outlook wasn’t closed, it was minimized to tray. To avoid this problem reappearing, I did the following: I located and right clicked the Outlook icon…
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Outlook runs slowly
I was contacted by a user telling me that Outlook was running slowly on his computer, especially when switching between Mail and Contacts, etc. He also reported that when he had Outlook open, he didn’t get the speed he was supposed to while surfing the web. The problem was simply that Outlook was set…
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Where old software goes to pasture
Ever needed a specific version of a specific program? I sure have. An example of this is the fact that the application that many of my users use to report sales is dependent on an obscure and out-dated version of Java (1.4.09) to be able to run at all. Another example is when you need…
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Firefox – Copy tabs
One of the reasons why I absolutely love Mozilla Firefox is the fact that the system of tabs is so excellently implemented. At times I want to be able to copy a tab. There are two simple ways of doing this: Method one: mouse By simply holding down the Ctrl-button on our keyboard while…
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Spacemonger – find out what’s clogging up your hard drive
Ever seen that your hard drive is nearing full, and been unsure what files are to blame? In my job as a desktop service technician, I’ve many times been called upon to find out what is causing a client’s computer to be running slowly, or simply what’s making a software install fail. One of the…
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A quicker PDF reader
A while ago a good friend of mine introduced me to a nifty little program. We were talking about the fact that both of us had a plethora of pdf-files, and were annoyed at the fact that Adobe Reader not only takes very long to load, but also takes time to render the files. …
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Reducing memory usage in Mozilla Firefox
If you’re like me, you use Mozilla Firefox as your preferred web browser. However, Firefox has one great weakness; its great love of RAM. I browsed around the web a bit, and found this workaround, which should help a bit at least. I have tried it, and it worked nicely for me. What this…
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FileZilla – the only FTP client you’ll ever need.
In managing two websites of my own, and one for an organisation I’m involved with, not to mention just to upload all the pictures I use in this blog, I use an excellent little application called FileZilla. Simply put, it’s an FTP client, a program designed to upload and download files using the File Transfer…
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Syncronising Lotus Notes Calendar with Google Calendar
At work, I use IBM’s Lotus Notes as my primary email and calendar client. It works well enough, but there are some issues. My main problem with it though, is that syncronising calendar data with Google Calendar is nigh on impossible, at least out of the box. Finding this annoying, I talked to a…
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Identifying unknown devices – SIW
Part of my job is setting up new computers. Part of the routine is to make sure all hardware devices have been installed. Now, this can be easier said than done, when all the information I have to go on is that the device in question is called “USB Device”… Now, a while ago,…