Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Close chip bags without the clip

Disable Caps Lock

http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuff/disable_caps_lock/

Now you can disable your Caps Lock key in Windows... without any special software, and without having to pry the key off with a screwdriver. Read on to find out how. I also have a page on how to disable the Windows key.

Background

Accidentally hitting the Caps Lock key when typing up an email or coding can be maddening. Most people never use it anyway, so why not disable it? In Windows, you can by adding some keyboard scancode mapping information to your Windows registry. The complete details are at annoyances.org. To make it even easier, I decided to add some .REG files so you can disable your shift key yourself without needing to muck around with the registry.

Compatibility

This method of disabling the Caps Lock key works with all modern Windows variants: Windows 2000, Windows XP Pro & Home and Windows 2003. It will not work with older versions.

Warnings

  • These files are provided without warranty. Use them at your own risk.
  • These files will overwrite any keyboard mappings you currently have.
  • .REG files update your Windows registry. Incorrect changes to the registry may damage Windows or other installed software. Be sure you know what a given .REG file contains before merging it into the registry.
  • These files are unsupported, please do not contact me with questions on their use.

Installation / Files

The following files are .reg files. They modify the Windows registry directly. You should download them to your PC and then double-click them to add them to your registry. After saying YES to the message box, reboot your machine and enjoy freedom from Caps Lock annoyances.

Note: You cannot combine this with my method for disabling the Windows key as it will replace those scancode mappings.

How to unlock a car + find a car


Blondie Unlocks Car - video powered by Metacafe
Boost Car Remote With Skull - video powered by Metacafe

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Disable Notification Balloons in XP

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced Source

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Shortcuts for Special Gmail Labels

In Gmail every built-in view (e.g.: inbox, trash, read mail) is actually a label. So if you want to view all the unread messages from the inbox, you could search for: label:inbox label:unread. You can combine these built-in labels with your labels and create interesting queries. But these queries can become long and hard to write. Fortunately, you can replace label with l and everything with still work fine. The previous query will become: l:inbox l:unread. If you still think the query is too long, Gmail has shortcuts for the special labels. ^b chats ^f sent mail ^i inbox ^k trash ^r draft ^s spam ^t starred messages ^u unread mail That means our query could become: l:^i l:^u. What about all the unread messages that aren't in the inbox? Search for: -l:^i l:^u. Source

Friday, May 11, 2007

mute the conversation with the Gmail keyboard shortcut "m"

The message is immediately removed from the Inbox view and all future messages (with similar subject line) will be archived automatically. You can search for muted messages using the search operator - is:muted And unless your email address is in the To: or CC: field, that email thread will never touch your Gmail inbox again. Muted unread mail, search using this query "label:^g is:unread"

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

ImageChef.com

At ImageChef.com, you can put your own text into hundreds of fun image templates. ImageChef.com - Create custom images thumbsup

Saturday, May 5, 2007

BackgroundWorker Component

MSDN Best Example example1 example2

The System.Threading Namespace

The System.Threading namespace provides classes and interfaces that enables multithreaded programming. This namespace includes a ThreadPool class that manages groups of threads, a Timer class that enables a delegate to be called after a specified amount of time, and a Mutex Class for synchronizing mutually-exclusive threads. System.Threading also provides classes for thread scheduling, wait notification, and deadlock resolution.

Some of the important classes in System.Threading namespace is discussed below.

Thread - Represents threads that execute within the runtime, to create and control threads.

ThreadPool - Posts work items to the thread pool. Queue work items for execution on the first available thread from the thread pool. One OS thread pool per process. Efficient use of thread resources.

Timeout - Contains timeout values for the system

Times - Specifies a delegate to be called at a specified time. The wait operation is performed by a thread in the thread pool.

Monitor - Provides the synchronization of threading objects using locks and wait/signals.

Mutex - A synchronization primitive that can also be used for interprocess synchronization. Wait can be used to request ownership of the mutex. The state of the mutex is signaled if no thread owns it.

The thread that owns a mutex can specify the same mutex in repeated wait function calls without blocking its executions. It must release the mutex as many times ti release ownership. If a thread terminates normally while owning a mutex, the state of the mutex is set to signaled and the next waiting thread gets ownership.

Life Cycle Methods

Starting a Thread

The thread class of System.Threading Namespace represents a thread object. By using class object, we can create new threads, delete, pause and resume threads. The thread class creates a new thread and Thread.Start method starts a thread.

thread = new Thread(new TreadStart( writeData )); thread.start();

where writeData is a function which will be executed by the program.

Killing a Thread

Thread class's Abort method is called to kill a thread permanently. Make sure IsAlive is called before Abort.

if(thread.IsAlive)

{

thread.Abort();

}

Pausing a Thread

Thread.Sleep method can be used to pause a thread for a fixed period of time.

thread.Sleep();

Suspending a Thread

The Suspend method of the thread class suspends a thread. The thread is suspended until Resume method is called.

if( thread.ThreadState == ThreadState.Running) { thread.Suspend(); }

Resume a suspended Thread

The Resume method is called to resume a suspended thread. If the thread is not suspended, there will be no effect of Resume method.

if(thread.ThreadState == ThreadState.Suspended) { thread.Resume(); } Source

Flash Cookies explained

Flash cookies are a new way of tracing your movement and storing a lot more information about you than with normal cookies. One major disadvantage of flash cookies is that you can’t locate them in your browser. They are not shown in the list of cookies that you can see when you take a look at the cookies that are currently saved in your web browser. Normal HTTP cookies can’t save more than 4 Kilobyte of data while Flash cookies can save up to 100 Kilobyte. If you want to try out how they work you could do the following.

Go to Youtube, increase or decrease the volume of the videos and delete all cookies afterwards. You will notice that the volume level is still at the same level when you close your browser and open it again. This is done with so called Local Shared Objects, better known as Flash cookies. The main question is of course how a computer can be checked for Flash cookies and how it would be possible to delete those cookies again.

This is actually a very tricky thing. I was searching for a way to check them on my computer but could not find it. After reading some information on the Adobe Flash Player website I was able to realize that the only possibility to check them was to open a page on the Adobe site which would show them.

flash cookies

The so called Settings Manager can be accessed from the Adobe website but is running locally on your computer. The Website Storage Settings display all Flash cookies that are currently saved on your computer. You can delete flash cookies from individual sites or all at once. It is also possible to increase or decrease the Kilobyte size of all information that are stored on your computer.

Adobe does not have access to the settings that you see in the Settings Manager or to personal information on your computer.

flash cookies explained

No Flash Cookies will be saved if you go into Global Storage Settings and disable the option “Allow third-party Flash content to store data on your computer”.

47 websites did store Flash cookies on my computer and I decided to delete all of them and disable the feature to be on the safe site. Did you know about Flash cookies ? How many did you find on your pc ?

Comments:

I found them in: C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys\ C:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\43S5PKP9

Source