Category: Geek Stuff

You might run in to this annoyance in newer versions of Windows: you open a My Computer or Windows Explorer window, then navigate to a folder. But Explorer becomes unresponsive, and a green bar slowly makes its way across the address bar:

The green bar might take anywhere from 30 seconds to a couple of hours to complete its journey across the address bar, and Explorer won’t respond until it does.

What gives?

It’s a design decision made by Microsoft. Windows wants to “customize” folders which are predominantly populated by one type of file. So if you have a folder full of MP3s, Windows will read the metadata from each one and display the artist, song name, album name, etc. of each file, along with the file name. Or the dimensions of photographs and videos. It’s a bunch of information that’s sometimes helpful for most folks, but only rarely. And when you have a folder full of 11,000 pictures or 3,000 MP3s, it’s going to take Windows a long time to read all that data, which is why Explorer becomes unresponsive,

The worst thing is, it seems to happen at random. I have a downloads folder (not the official “Downloads” folder, but a different one I created). 99% of the time, Explorer will cheerfully open that folder with no problem. But sometimes – like, once every 4-6 months or so – it will choke, and I’ll get the green bar.

The fastest way to “fix” this is to open Task Manager (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC), end the EXPLORER.EXE process, and then click File > New Task, type EXPLORER.EXE and press ENTER. This restarts the shell and fixes the problem 99% of the time.

But for a more permanent fix, you need to turn off customization for that folder. In Explorer, right-click the problematic folder and choose “Properties”. Click the “Customize” tab and look for the “Optimize this folder for:” drop-down box near the top of the window. Change the setting from “Music”, “Videos”, “Documents”, or “Pictures” to “General Items”. Make sure the “Also apply this template to all subfolders” box is checked, then click “OK”.

You may revert back at any time by repeating the process and changing it back to “Music”, “Videos”, “Documents”, or “Pictures”.

Chrome has (what’s supposed to be) a nifty feature under the hood: each tab runs as its own Windows process. This means – in theory – that if one tab were to crash, it won’t take down the rest of your open tabs. You should – in theory – be able to close the misbehaving tab and go on about your business.

But what happens when Chrome itself stops responding? You could try using the “X” (close) button in the upper right corner of the Chrome window, or you could try CTRL+SHIFT+Q to exit Chrome. But what if Chrome doesn’t respond to mouse clicks or keyboard sequences? You could always open Task Manager and kill the Chrome processes… but remember, each tab is its own process. If you have 30+ tabs open, your Task Manager will probably look like this:

Do you HAVE to right-click on each process and choose “End Process”?

Of course not… if you’re using Windows XP or later. Just open a command prompt and type the following:

TASKKILL /IM chrome.exe /F

Taskkill, which is built in to Windows, does exactly what it says on the tin: kills any process you want. The /IM switch tells Taskkill to use “image name” (or process name) instead of the numerical “process ID”. The /F switch tells Taskkill to kill all instances of the image name. By the way, Taskkill works on any Windows process, not just Chrome. You can use it to kill all instances of IEXPLORE.EXE or FIREFOX.EXE or WINWORD.EXE… or anything else you need killed. Just change “chrome.exe” to whatever process you want.

I recently decided to move my Documents folder from Windows 7’s default location to a cloud storage provider. So what had been:

c:\users\jim\documents

was now

c:\users\jim\dropbox\documents

When I opened Outlook, I was told that my default PST file could not be located. This wasn’t totally unexpected. but it was still kinda surprising. The user’s %DOCUMENTS% folder is stored as a variable in Windows, and software is supposed to request the %DOCUMENTS% folder, rather than an absolute path like c:\users\user\documents. This is so that If you move the folder to a server or a different partition, third-party software won’t freak out and say that it couldn’t find the folder. And It would seem that Microsoft isn’t following its own guidelines!

But anyway… no big deal, right? I clicked in the “Browse” dialog box and found the PST at the new location. Problem solved, right? Well, no. Everything seemed OK: I could send and receive email, RSS feeds and tweets – but the send\receive operation would return a 0x8004010F error:

This means that the PST file could not be located… even though Outlook in all other respects seemed to be working normally.

So… how to fix? Well, you have to create a new (temporary) PST, and tell Outlook to deliver mail there, then change the delivery location back to the original (moved) PST.

Step-by-step instructions for Outlook 2010 follow:

1) Click File > Account Settings > Account Settings.

2) Select the first email account on the list, then click “Change Folder”.

3) Click “New Outlook Data File”.

4) Create a new data file. This can be any name you like, in any location you’d like.

5) In the new PST, click the + to expand the folder tree, choose “Inbox”, and then click “OK”.

6) Click “Change Folder” again, and navigate to the original PST file in the new location. Click the + to expand the folder tree, choose “Inbox”, and then click “OK”.

7) Repeat the process for any additional email accounts.

8) Close the Account Settings window. You might want to also close Outlook and delete the temporary PST file you created in steps 3-4.

A couple years back, my girlfriend bought a 2002 PT Cruiser from her brother. It’s the car I usually drive when I’m by myself. Despite all the guff the car gets in pop culture (“PT Loser!”), it’s actually a fun little car to drive.

But there are a couple of issues when it comes to using a GPS with the Cruiser.

The first is a design issue: the windshield is so far way from the driver’s seat that if I use Garmin’s windshield mount I almost have to squint to read the GPS, and if I want to interact with it, I have to lean all the way forward in my seat and fully extend my arm.

The second problem is a defect in the plastic used in the PT Cruiser’s dash. There’s a vent at the bottom of the dash, near the windshield, for the defroster. The plastic used to make the dash becomes extremely brittle with age, and can crack; when it does, it’s usually around that vent. And, like a crack in a windshield, the crack can grow over time. We have a crack in our dash, and it goes all the way from the vent to the front of the dash by the passenger seat, effectively splitting the dash into two pieces (here’s a Google Image search for “PT Cruiser dash crack”; here’s just one company that offers various plastic and carpet covers to hide the cracks). Anyway, the point is, because of the crack I don’t want to use a dash mount, for fear of making the crack worse.

So… how to mount a GPS or smartphone in the Cruiser that doesn’t involve a windshield or dash mount? Mountek has you covered! Ladies and gentlemen, here is the “nGroove Universal CD Slot Mount for Cell Phones and GPS Devices”:

As the name suggests, the mount fits in to the CD slot of your car stereo. There’s a screw you turn on the underside of the unit which expands the mount in the CD slot, locking it in place. You then put your phone or GPS into the unit and squeeze the two sides to close it. The device mount swivels, so you can use your phone\GPS in portrait or landscape position (and, if you look closely, you can see that the side on the “bottom” of the unit is open, allowing you to charge your phone\GPS if that’s where the charging port is). To free your device, just press the rounded button on the top of the base and the sides pop open.

It’s a good solution to the problem of where to mount a device in my car, and it’s especially cool because it works really well with my Samsung Galaxy phone. We have a dedicated GPS unit (a Garmin Nuvi), but Google Maps on my phone gives much better directions 9 times out of 10, so I’ve come to prefer using my phone over the Garmin.

Of course, this mount makes it impossible to listen to CDs in the car; this isn’t a problem for me: thanks to iPods and smartphones and tablets, I haven’t listened to a CD in a car in at least 5 years. In fact, I’m almost certain that I’ve never even tried playing a CD in the Cruiser!

One minor annoyance is that the mount covers up the clock. Of course, if I have my phone in the mount then it’s not a problem, since I can see the time on my phone. But if I’m running a routine errand – like going to the grocery store – then I normally don’t mount my phone. And while taking the mount down isn’t a big hassle, it is too much work just to see what time it is. So I have to get out my phone and check there [note to self: take watches to get the batteries replaced!]

I also wish the mount was able to tilt “up” more. In the picture, the mount is titled upwards as much as it will go. It’s not a “bad” angle, but it is a bit more “straight out” than “up towards me” than I’d like.

Still these are minor quibbles. The mount is really pretty cool, and easily solves the problem of where (and how) to mount a device in my car. The mount is around $24.95 and is available from Amazon.

If you own a Samsung Galaxy device, you might have noticed an annoying “bug”: duplicate entries in your calendar, especially for recurring events like birthdays and anniversaries. You might also have noticed that these duplicate entries seem to exist only on your phone and not your Outlook calendar (if using Google Calendar Sync) or the Google Calendar itself.

What’s happening is that the calendar app Samsung includes with their phones has a local calendar (“My Calendar”), but the app also syncs to other calendars, like Google Calendar, Facebook Calendar, etc. I’m not exactly sure what happens, but I think when you sync a third-party calendar, like Google Calendar, to your phone, “My Calendar” sees these recurring events and copies them to your phone. Which would be one thing, except the app doesn’t hide those same recurring events from your other calendars, so you get duplicate entries.

If you’re the inquisitive type, you might go to the calendar’s settings. There you’d find checkboxes for each calendar which allow you to toggle each one on or off. One of those checkboxes is for “My Calendar”, so you’d think it’d just be a matter of unchecking the box and going on about your day. But no: although you can uncheck the “My Calendar” box, it will always automatically “re-check” itself. It would appear that you cannot disable “My Calendar”, but Samsung has put a non-working “disable” checkbox in the settings panel, which is always a great UI design.

So… is there a way to fix this? There is if you: a) use Google Calendar; b) have Android 4.0.3 or higher; and c) don’t have any other data in “My Calendar”:

1) Go to Settings > Application Manager > All.

2) Scroll down to “Calendar” and touch it to select. Once at the app’s property page, click “Disable”, then choose “OK” to any warning messages you may see. This step disables Samsung’s crappy calendar.

3) Back at the Application Manager > All page, scroll down and choose “Calendar Storage”. Click “Clear Data” and “Clear Cache” (if your cache is listed as anything other than 0.00B). This step deletes all your existing calendar data.

4) Go to the Play Store and install Google Calendar.

5) You can then go to Settings > Accounts > Google > [Google User Name] and force your phone to re-sync your Google Calendar. Or you can just wait and let it happen automatically in the background.

6) Reboot your phone. This step removes the icon for the old Calendar app from your Apps screen (“Start menu”).

Of course, if you’re a heavy user of the calendar app on your phone, you might want to double-check that there’s nothing on the “My Calendar” app before you clear the data (step 3). You can do that by going to the Calendar’s settings and unchecking all third-party calendars and seeing what data remains. In my case, “My Calendar” contained nothing but duplicated recurring events.

This might sound completely obvious to some, but if you’re upgrading a perfectly functional electronic device, put all the electric adapters and cables in a gallon size Ziploc bag immediately after taking it apart.

For example, you might have a perfectly good 802.11n router that you’ve decided to replace with a brand-new 802.11ac router. Maybe you want faster wireless speeds from 802.11ac, or maybe 802.11ac will provide better range and speed with your home’s construction. Whatever the reason, you still have a router that works, you just want something better. So when you set up the new router, put the old router in a large Ziploc bag along with its power brick and any cable(s).

The reason I mention this is because I’m often amazed by how many people have a big box of adapters and cables, and in most cases have no idea which adapter goes with which device. I suppose they’re used to the “old days”, when companies actually went to the trouble to put their logos on things like power bricks. Nowadays, this is somewhat rare. Of the last two routers I owned, one had the name of the adapter’s manufacturer on it, while the other one had no manufacturer name at all, just the legally-required electrical info. And the power brick for my Dell netbook is actually branded by LiteOn.

There’s another benefit to doing this if you are your family’s “IT Guy”. Having a router or switch ready to go in a plastic bag means you can just “grab it and go” if there’s some kind of IT emergency that needs your help. More than once I’ve had to reach in my closet and get my trusty old Linksys WRT54GL to help a neighbor or family member diagnose a connectivity issue!