Like most bloggers, I see a fair share of comment spam. This used to be a problem, as I didn’t have a good way of filtering them out, meaning I set the comment option to Approve all. After I moved from Blogger to WordPress, I was tipped off about a plugin called Akismet.
The lovely thing about it is that it checks incoming comments against a blacklist created by the entire community of people using Akismet, meaning that, whenever someone marks something as spam, the central blacklist is updated. Having run on WordPress for three months, the current tally is 668 spam comments caught, six false positives, and one spam comment not caught.
Akismet is simple, quick to set up, and, most importantly, it just works.
Blog
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Suppressing email addresses
A few months ago, I was asked about the possibility to suppress what email addresses an email had been sent to. The case was as follows: we needed to send out an invitation to a list of over 50 recipients, but didn’t necessarily want them to get everyone elses email address.
Simply put; there are two ways. The first one is rather obvious, and also rather time consuming. It involves sending a separate email to each recipient. Now, while it would solve our problem, it would take way, way, way too much time.
BCC to the rescue! Wikipedia defines BCC as: (more…) -
Windows 7: Problem Step Recorder
As a support technician, I have often needed to see how a problem occurs, or show someone how to do something, but the person I need info from, or need to teach, is not available so that it can be done face to face, or over the phone.
A lot of my users are getting better at using screendumps, but the screendumps have one major drawback; they are static. They don’t show any sort of detail as to what happens between dumps. The same is true when I create a tutorial for my user; they simply don’t always see every step.
Problem Step Recorder to the rescue. By typingpsr.exein the search box in the Start menu and hitting Enter, PSR is started. From here, simply click “Start Record”, and go through the steps in the resolution or problem.
PSR is simple and efficient, and will be especially helpful to those of us who, from time to time, create tutorials and the like. -
Windows 7: Run as administrator
Like in Windows Vista, users don’t usually run programs as administrators, even if they have administrative rights on their computer. While there has been a lot of talk about whether or not User Account Control (UAC) is a good idea (which I think it is, although the implementation in Windows Vista was less than intuitive), most users will have it enabled.
Like in Windows Vista, you can run a program under elevated rights by right-clicking it and selecting “Run as administrator”. This has now been given a keyboard shortcut. Simply hold CTRL+Shift when starting the program, an it will be startet with elevated rights. You will still get the UAC prompt. -
Windows 7: Restoring the QuickLaunch bar
The new taskbar in Windows 7 does its job admirably. Even so, many users complain that they can’t find the QuickLaunch bar. This option is not available by default in Windows 7, but if you want it, it is simple enough to recreate:
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Windows 7: Empty the desktop
Most users use their desktops as their primary workspace, saving everything they work on to the desktop. While practical, this has a nasty tendency to become rather cluttered.
In Windows 7, you can opt not to display desktop icons on the desktop itself. To do so, simply right-click your desktop, click “View”, and uncheck “Show Desktop Icons”. Should you need to access your files, they are still available under the Desktop heading in Windows Explorer. Also, this is a temporary fix, as, apparently the icons will return after a reboot. To prevent this, simply save the current theme, and you’re good to go.
The same option is available for gadgets, all you need to do is uncheck “Show Desktop Gadgets” as well, then save the theme if you want that change too to be permanent. -
Windows 7: Shrink the taskbar
The Windows 7 taskbar looks good, but some users complain that it takes up too much desktop real estate. Luckily, there is a simple solution for this problem:
Simply right-click the taskbar, and select Properties. In properties, check the box for “Use small icons”, like so:
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Windows 7: Shake the windows away
Many of the innovations in Windows 7 are more about estetics and eye-candy than anything else. Some of them are downright silly; such as this one:
You’re working on your computer, and you have a lot of windows open. You then need to focus on a specific window, and minimize all the others. That’s done by clicking the title-line of a window, and shaking it, which will make the other windows minimize.
You can still use the keyboard shortcut Win+d to achieve the same result. -
Windows 7: Using libraries (part 2)
In addition to using libraries to see files from several places on your computer, you can also use it to display files sorted by meta-data, such as the date the files was edited last, or tags.
Libraries have an arrange-by option, which, by default, is set to Folder. By clicking it, you get the option to arrange by day, month rating or tag. The music library can be arranged by album, artist, song, genre, or rating. -
Windows 7: Using libraries
Windows 7 takes a new approach to file management, which they have called libraries. Simply put, you library will show files from any and all folders you choose. There are libraries for documents, videos, pictures and music.
You can create folders in the libraries, the same way that you would create a folder elsewhere on your computer. You can also have your library display folders from different locations on the computer. There are two ways:
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Windows 7: Windows side-by-side
When working with two windows at the same time, you can have them aligned so that they take up half the screen each. Simply click and drag the title line of the window to the left or right hand side of the screen, and you’ll see the window autmatically adjust to fit half the screen’s width.
There’s also the option of doing this through a keyboard shortcut. Win+left arrow will align the window to the left hand side, while Win+right arrow will align the window to the right hand side. To maximize the window, use Win+up arrow, and to minimize, use Win+down arrow.
Note: Comments disabled due to massive amounts of comment spam