Have you ever had an Error Dialog that you wish you could copy the text so you could search it in Google?

I learned this trick from some Russian friends I worked with a while back. In reality it's not a trick but an old school way to copy and paste. 

See the dialog on the right? If you wanted to search for that you would have to type all that out, instead of Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to copy and paste do the following:

- Select the dialog you want to copy
- Try Ctrl+Insert to copy
- Open up your favorite Text Editor and paste to see your results
- You should get something like this:
--------------------------- 
Intel(R) Network Connections 
--------------------------- 
This package is not supported on this platform or operating system. 

- To install software on this system, download the correct package from support.intel.com. 
- To install this software on a supported system, run this package on that system. 
- To extract the contents of this package on this system for use on a supported system, use the /e parameter. 
--------------------------- 
OK   
---------------------------

Why does this work? Back in the day the shortcut to copy and paste were Ctrl+Insert and Shift+Insert to copy and paste respectively. 

I hope you find this informative and useful. I always try it to see if I can copy the text from the dialog. If it doesn't work, no worries, at least I tried; but when it works it's that little extra that can help you debug something.

And that my friends is how you do it!

NOTE: This may not work on all dialogs but Microsoft has been way better at being able to copy text from their dialogs. I've seen in SQL dialogs that have a Copy button so you can copy the text and basically get the same results. 

I love Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection client. As a Network Admin I use this on a daily basis. An improvement that comes with remoting into Windows 7 and Server 2008 machines is that you can use both of your monitors to work on a Remote Machine. 

I don't use this all the time but it's nice to know how to do it: Go to Run (windows button + R) and you type mstsc /span. Put the computer name that you'll want to remote into (make sure the  "Use all my monitors for the remote session" box is checked under the Display tab) and you'll be able span your Remote Session on both your monitors. 

I'm going a step further here since I usually save a .rdp file that I'll be using a lot so I don't have to type the server I'll connect to. So this is the easiest way to do it (at least for me). 

1. Open Remote Desktop Connection (Run> mstsc)
2. Click on the Save As... button and save this .rdp file to whatever you like. For me I'll use work.rdp so I can RDP into my work machine.
3. Right-click on the .rdp file and open it with Notepad
4. Make sure these two lines appear on the file:
5. use multimon:i:1 (this is the same as checking the  "Use all my monitors for the remote session" box)
6. span monitors:i:1 (this is the same as the /span parameter)
7. Save your file and when you connect to the Remote machine you'll have the Remote Desktop span on both your monitors. 

And that's how you do it!

The day after the iOS 4 came out I downloaded it on my iPhone 3GS. I really was looking for all the features that the new iPhone 4 has to offer but without the hardware upgrade price. 

Loved how I could organize my Apps but hated my battery life. I blame the multitasking. It's wasn't completely thought out in my opinion. It leaves all the Apps you recently used open forever unless you close them specifically which is a PITA! An option to minimize or quit would be ideal.

So finally I was tired and I wanted my old phone back, I don't need all this fancy features if I don't have a battery to run it! I tried everything I could find on how to revert to my old firmware 3.1.2 and I couldn't do it since Apple no longer signs the old firmware. So I gave up and in the end found something interesting... 

Someone, sorry I don't recall where I read it, mentioned that you should reboot your iPhone to handle this. They basically mentioned this:

1. Charge your phone fully overnight (This give time for the iPhone to index all the files)
2. Unplug your phone
3. Hold the Home and Lock button together for 10 seconds. (This is basically forcing the phone to turns off)
4. Wait 10 seconds
5. Turn the phone on (Leave the Lock button pressed until it turns on)
6. That's it! 

After this I've noticed an improvement on my battery life. Before after closing all Apps before going to bed I'd wake up to 20% less in my battery. Now I've noticed a 5% decrease which is normal for the phone just being on all night. 

And that folks is how you do it!

Office 2007 is a nice upgrade but there was something that it would drive me nuts every time I'd make a new Word Document; the default line spacing and default paragraph spacing in Word 2007 differ from the default spacing in earlier versions of Word.

Every time I'd press enter it would be as if I would press it double and I couldn't write on that line. No biggie, I could always select the second style and it would fix it but it was proving to be a PITA for every new Document I would make.

I finally found an article by Microsoft (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/921174) and it works really simple, there's even a Fix this Problem download that you can get from there to fix it. To fix the line spacing and paragraph spacing in Word 2007 so that it is the same as in earlier versions of Word, you have to change the Style Set option.

To do this, follow these steps:
1.   Click the Home tab.
2.   Click Change Styles in the Styles group, point to Style Set, and then click the style set that you want to use.

To change the default formatting of your document, such as the line spacing and paragraph spacing, to the default formatting that is used in earlier versions of Word, click Word 2003.

3.   To set the style set as the default style set in Word 2007, click Change Styles in the Styles group, and then click Set as Default.

And that my friends is how you do it! Hope this helps someone to keep their sanity, I know mine was in question a couple of times due to this.

Here's something that I've run into many times. You need to Remote Desktop to a machine so then you can Remote Desktop to another machine because it's safer to keep some machines this way. Only problem with this is that you end up with the Remote Desktop Bar (where you can Minimize, Restore or Close the session) right in the middle where you can't get to the second Remote Session you started. 

Remote Desktop in Windows 7 now allows you to move the bar out of the way, this is great feature if you want to minimize the second Remote Desktop session so you can work on the first session you were working on. To do this simply click on the bar with your mouse and drag it to your left so you can see the other Remote Desktop bar.

And that my friends is how you do it!


Here's some Examples:

I've been using Dropbox for a while now and I'm really enjoying it but it wasn't until yesterday that I found out that you can sync folders that don't live inside the My Dropbox folder. This is a huge advantage if you already have a structure in place and don't want to change it.  

I find this useful if you have a folder, for example Important Docs under C:\Users\Alex\My Documents\Important Docs, I don't have to create a batch to copy these files onto the Dropbox folder for it to be backed up. I can work on my usual My Document folder and the Dropbox has an exact copy at all times and is synching all the time.

To do this in Vista and Win 7 all you have to do is something like this on a command prompt:

mklink /D "C:\My Dropbox\Important Documents" "C:\Users\Alex\My Documents\Important Docs"

NOTE: The first path is the Link Folder you'd like to create and the second one is the Target folder where it'll be linked to. You'll need the quotes in the path if there's any space such as C:\My Dropbox\Test won't work you need "C:\My Dropbox\Test"

Happy Backups everyone!

Today I had to install Windows 7 on a new machine I put together for the office. I've installed Windows many times, XP, Vista and more recently 7 countless times. Every time had gone smoothly and no issue at all. This time though, the machine would get stuck on Setup is Starting. This was very unusual and I thought if I'd leave it like that while I had to build the other machine it would go away. No dice, it was still there stuck on the beautiful page that said "Setup is Starting".
So I searched as always in Google and there were a couple of solutions floating around. Disconnect all USB, disable USB in the BIOS, etc. In the end it's all about the Legacy Floppy drive. I found my answer here.

On the ASUS motherboards I bought they were both enabled by default and this is what made it hang up. As soon as I disabled the Floppy Drive on the BIOS all issues went away. So if you're building your machine with an ASUS motherboard make sure you disable the Floppy and you're good to go.  

Hope this saves someone a headache.