Chad's News

Internet Explorer has a feature where you can open desktop shortcuts from within the browser by typing the shortcut name. Interestingly enough, IE doesn’t differentiate between the various types of shortcuts (internet, executable, directory). So if you have a desktop shortcut named “Word” that runs MS Word, typing “Word” in IE’s address bar will bring up MS Word. This opens up some interesting possibilities.

http://www.infoworld.com/…
(via F-Secure via Digg)

Some useful tips for selling on eBay, and they parallel my own experience. Another trick I’ve seen is to set the price at $0.01 with “Buy It Now” and set the shipping fairly high. This drastically lowers the fees you pay to eBay, but you still make the same amount of money.

http://www.collegev2.com/…

These guys put six common gas-saving driving tips to the test. There were some surprises, and they claim you can increase fuel economy by up to 37%, just by changing the way you drive.

http://www.edmunds.com/…

A video (in Japanese, yes I know…) that clearly demonstrates how to apply a band-aid so that it stays on. This is one of a series of instructional videos.

http://www.youtube.com/…

I’ve been using Windows since before version 3.0, and already knew most of these shortcuts—but there were a few new ones. The ones I use most are CTRL-A, CTRL-C, CTRL-V, CTRL-S, and CTRL-Z, which are all conveniently placed for my left hand to easily press. One (non-keyboard) shortcut that isn’t documented but many people find by accident: double-click on the top bar of a window to maximize/restore it. This saves having to click on the little button on the top right.

http://www.intelliadmin.com/…

An informative article on how to get the most out of the rechargeable batteries used in electronic devices.

http://www.komando.com/…

“Back in the day,” I remember running a debugger with one screen showing the debugger and the other showing the program that I was debugging. Very convenient. Apparently there is a 20-30% productivity benefit to having dual monitors on your computer—no matter what it is you’re doing.

On the other hand, Ars Technica has a dissenting opinion.

http://www.nytimes.com/…

If you purchased or received a qualifying Epson inkjet printer between April 8, 1999 and May 8, 2006 and also purchased an Epson ink cartridge for the printer, then you are eligible to receive one of the following (your choice) as part of a class-action settlement:

• $45 Epson e-store credit.
• $25 check and $20 Epson e-store credit.
• 25% off an Epson e-store purchase (max $100).

This settlement is for each printer purchased during the period, so if you bought 10 printers, you can get $250 cash. Note also that the cutoff date is in the future (May 8th)—as far as I can tell, you could purchase a qualifying printer now and treat this settlement as a form of mail-in rebate.

http://www.epsonsettlement.com/

I know a good bit about how to use Linux, but I’m completely lost when the discussion turns to the merits of the various “flavors” that are available (Debian vs. Slackware anyone?). In the past, I just went with Red Hat because I knew it was a good choice, but that particular distribution has been discontinued. This article compares ten of the most popular Linux distributions. It’s an easy read, good for non-experts.

http://www.linuxforums.org/…

Good thing I’ve got a shredder. Of course, I don’t get many credit card applications because I’ve registered with the Direct Marketing Association.

http://www.cockeyed.com/…

You can buy one of those expensive CD-repair kits, or you can polish away the scratch with toothpaste.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/…

I used to have problems playing video clips on my computer. Every so often I’d get a video file in a format that wasn’t recognized, or the audio track would not sync up with the video. I’d try it with different players: Quicktime, Real, Windows Media, VLC—all to no avail. It turned out to be a problem with codecs. If I didn’t have the right codec installed, it didn’t matter which player I used. (“Codecs?” you ask, “What are codecs?” Essentially they are plugins for media players that allow them to understand various formats. More info here.) Enter the K-Lite Codec Pack, which contains every known codec. Since I’ve installed K-Lite, I haven’t had any problems playing various media formats.

http://www.free-codecs.com/…

Note that the “official” site requires you to register with a pay service, but the codec pack is available for free at the link above.