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Opening Windows PowerShell in the current directory

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:03:23 GMT

I came across this little trick on tripledot.be and thought I’d share it here, too.

I’ve been using the Shift + Right-click > Open command window here shortcut for years, but there isn’t such a link for starting PowerShell in the same fashion. Or so I thought…

As it turns out, you can do it by simply typing powershell into the address bar and pressing enter. It’s as simple as that!

Browse to a folder

Type powershell, press Enter

Job’s a good’n!

This also works for a regular command prompt by typing cmd instead. Makes you wonder what else there could be hidden away…

Source: Tripledot – Starting PowerShell in the current directory

What's wrong with Google's numbers?

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 14:01:15 GMT

I noticed recently that Google shows a massive amount of results, even for searches that you’d think are fairly uncommon. I also noticed that the number of results seems to change a lot in the same search. Are they up to something? Are these numbers made-up? Is there a difference between a result of the search and a result that’s shown to the user?

The first search

For the first test, I used something very similar to a real search I made today. I entered the term, SharePoint InfoPath “form not visible” (including the quotation marks) – I had created a custom form for a SharePoint list using InfoPath, but the page was showing nothing at all for certain users. Now, remember; we’re not here to judge how badly-crafted my search terms may or may not be!

The first page of results popped up and, unsurprisingly, boasted an enormous number of results – “about” 60,700 here.

But, as I started going through the results page by page, I noticed there’re only 9 pages of results. Clicking on the link to page 9 actually took me to page 3. At the bottom of this page was the message below, saying that Google was not showing results “very similar” to the 28 already displayed.

28 is a considerably smaller number than “about” 60,700, no matter what school you went to. Perhaps these omitted results account for the remaining 60,672 results? Let’s see – I clicked on the link to show the omitted results, and got this:

Not only did it make up for the missing 60,672 results, it added another 52,300 results. There should be a lot more than 9 (or 3) pages this time, then. Wrong – only 12.

And, what’s more (or less, in this case), there’re now only 118 results.

To recap, we started off with “about” 60,700 results, which turned out to be 28, then re-ran the search with omitted results to get 113,000 results, which turned out to be 118.

The second search

Just to look into this a bit more, I’ve done two more searches for this post. For the second search, I entered "IIS 7.5" "server error in application" PHP. The first page of results told me there were about 103,000 results.

Page 22 turned out to be the final page of 211 results with similar results omitted. After re-running the search with the omitted results included, it still showed 103,000. The final page of results in this case is page 57, but this time it still said there were 103,000 results. However, 57 * 10 (results per page) is 570 which, again, is nowhere near 103,000.

The third search

For the final search I entered "iPhone 4S" "battery life" "when using GPS" to match a variety of sentences. The first page showed there were 50,900 results. On page 10, I reached the end of the results – 98 in total, apparently.

I re-ran the search with omitted results included and this time there were an extra 100 results bringing the total up to 51,000. Page 13 was the end of the results this time, showing just 130 results. There are about 50,900 results unaccounted for.

So, is there something wrong with Google’s calculator?

I know some results have links to “show more results from xyz.com”, but, using the first example above, this would mean that each result, on average, would need to have almost 1000 extra results from the same site for this to add up – not likely.

So what is with these massive differences in numbers? My only theory is that a “result” is just a match to a word in the search terms, but the ones Google show you are only “relevant” results. For example, this blog post should match "iPhone 4S" "battery life" "when using GPS" but it’s completely irrelevant to someone wondering why their iPhone 4S has battery life problems when using GPS (I’d be more worried about it burning up, but I digress).

Yes, they use the word “about” before every number, but I don’t go round telling people I’m “about 30,000 years old.”

Some ideas for film/book-based games

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 21:29:28 GMT

Here’s a few ideas for some new games that some friends on Live and I came up with a couple of days ago. They’re nothing serious, but they could actually work pretty well if made by the right people (i.e., not EA).

A Harry Potter RPG

A role-playing game based around the school life of Mr Potter. Perhaps start out pre-Hogwarts, being collected by Hagrid. As the player progresses through the game, he/she will level up and increase their skills in various areas such as spell casting, sneaking, and potion making (it’s very similar to The Elder Scrolls, so far), and gradually follow the story line of the 7 books and/or films.

The main quests would follow the plot of the story, of course. Side quests can include all sorts of things from the books and films; anything that got even the slightest mention in the storyline can be expanded on in the game. Starter quests could include things like, “Follow Hagrid to Platform 9¾",” or, “Find Filch’s cat.” There’s a great opportunity for a Quidditch mini-game, as well.

The player won’t necessarily have to play as Harry, either – perhaps let the Sorting Hat choose for itself, based on actions in the opening quests before you arrive at Hogwarts (something to do on the train, maybe?). This way, the player’s traits and skills can be adjusted depending on their house, with exclusive side-quests or the same quests but with tweaks (“Find Filch’s cat” could come with an optional objective of, “Turn the cat into a toad,” for Slytherin members).

As for the game world itself, it will need to be centred around Hogwarts. Villages and towns like Hogsmead and Godric’s Hollow should feature, as well as areas like Diagon Alley and the Ministry of Magic. Due to the distance between a lot of these places, it won’t quite be a traditional single open world, but multiple mini-worlds linked by the Hogwarts Express or ‘portkeys’, etc..

Endless possibilities!

A Star Wars-themed RTS

Something along the lines of Age of Empires but with Star Wars locations, characters, weapons, etc.. Probably won’t be much of a story line, and it would be quite limited. It would probably have to be just land-based battles like the one for Theed, Hoth, or Endor. In fact, along with Geonosis, that’s probably all there is from the films…? But that’s where all those other Star Wars games come into play with the endless number of planets they use. Think back to the Star Wars Battlefront games – loads of different locations that weren’t main features in the films.

As for ‘teams’, there are plenty of different factions in the hexalogy. All the main ones would feature: the Trade Federation’s droid army, the Republic/Empire (at various stages), the Rebel Alliance, and even the Wookies, why not?

A massive Lord of the Rings RPG

This is just crying out for some sort of RPG game. Again, it would follow the main story of Frodo and the Ring and feature all the main characters, but it could expand on it further with all kinds of side-quests and a large open world to travel around in, on foot or horseback, or even use the Buckleberry Ferry! The player could travel to all the major locations: Minas Tirith, the Shire, Rivendell, and so on.

Middle earth is a vast land, perfect for this type of game (especially if Oblivion and Skyrim are anything to go by). Just a glance at Middle Earth’s Wikipedia page proves that! Each village has the potential for large amount of side quests to help build up the player’s level in traditional RPG style. They could witness or even take part in the enormous battle scenes.

Grand Theft Auto: Coruscant

Finally, this is a bit of a silly one that probably wouldn’t work but would be a laugh regardless. A GTA-styled game based in Coruscant, the galactic capital from the Star Wars saga. Life is a lot different on the planet’s surface than it is up at the top of the skyscrapers.

Places like the Uscru Entertainment District are perfect examples of locations that could be used in-game. I’m sure there could be lots of criminal deals and people in corrupt authorities for the storyline to take advantage of. Instead of jacking cars, you’d be jacking speeders (of all shapes and sizes, of course!). There’s a large selection of weapons available, as well – fits in perfectly!

Someone hire this guy!

No, no, just kidding; these are pretty bad, I must admit. Although to be fair, the LOTR and Harry Potter ones do actually sound feasible… Got any ideas yourself? Leave them below in the comments!

Change Password module for Orchard

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 22:00:03 GMT

I’ve created a module for Orchard that will add a link to the ‘Change Password’ page so you don’t have to browse manually to ~/Users/Account/ChangePassword.

Install it from the gallery (link) to add the link which will appear at the bottom of your admin menu (at position 100, which is more than likely the bottom).

I was trying to decide which was the best method of adding this link: editing a view/shape file, or this module. In the end, as you can see, I went with the module, simply because not everyone is interested in editing code files – some, if not most, Orchard users will just want to turn thing on and off using modules, so releasing it this way lets them do that. Developers can, of course, still edit the source code of this module once it’s installed – everybody’s happy!

Please leave feedback below.

Add 'Developer Mode' to the Orchard Disqus module

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 14:55:43 GMT

I’ve recently started using Orchard and one of the first modules I installed was the Disqus comment module (also on CodePlex) for its centralised commenting and trackback system. Version 1.0 of the module was released earlier this year, on April 15 2011, and doesn’t look like it’s had much attention since then. However, it still works fine, as it is essentially just a placeholder for an external service (which is being maintained).

Even so, one thing was missing that I think is fairly important, especially for someone like me: developer mode. Described here on the Disqus support pages, the disqus_developer variable:

Tells the Disqus service that you are testing the system on an inaccessible website, e.g. secured staging server or a local environment.

[…]

Usage: Specify 1 for on and 0 for off. If undefined, disqus_developer is off.

So, for production environments, you’re going to want this off, and that’s where this post comes in!

Please be aware that I am still learning Orchard and MVC 3/Razor/C# in general so, for you veterans out there, it’s more than likely you’ll see bits of my code and think, “…the chuff is he doing!?” Feel free to pass on any criticism in the comments, though!

The module available in the Orchard gallery has the development variable hard-coded into the View file as always on, var disqus_developer = '1', even on your public site (it’s the same module). Now, the quick fix for anyone just using Orchard as-is would be to change that 1 to a 0 so that developer mode is off. If this applies to you, I suggest you do that. If not, or you’d like to ‘learn by doing’ as I like to do, read on and I’ll go through adding a new option to the Disqus settings page to turn development mode on or off as needed.

As an overview of what needs to be changed, here’s what we’ll be doing:

Creating a ‘DevMode’ option in the module’s model files
Adding an update method to the migration file to alter the database
Telling the controller how to handle the new option
Modifying the views to show the new option in the settings

Note: before we start, I’m assuming you have opened the “Disqus.Comments” module project in Visual Studio or similar. All folder/file paths refer to locations inside the module’s folder.

Models

We will be adding a bool to various model files in the module which can either be on (1) or off (0). We’ll start with DisqusSettingsRecord.cs in the Models folder. Add the following line into the DisqusSettingsRecord class:

public bool DevMode { get; set; }

Next, open DisqusSettingsPart.cs from the same folder and add the following code block in the DisqusSettingsPart class:

public bool DevMode { get { return Record.DevMode; } set { Record.DevMode = value; } }

By adding these two code sections, we’ve added a new property, DevMode, to the module. In the next file we will pass this property to the Settings page so that we can change the setting. Open DisqusSettingsViewModel.cs from the ViewModels folder and add the following to the DisqusSettingsViewModel class:

[Display(Name = "Developer mode")] public bool DevMode { get; set; }

Data migration

That’s all the model-related files done so now would be a good time to update the migration file, I thought. Open Migration.cs from the module’s root folder. Add a new method into the Migrations class which returns an integer as shown:

public int UpdateFrom1() { SchemaBuilder.AlterTable("DisqusSettingsRecord", table => table.AddColumn("DevMode", DbType.Boolean)); return 2; }

This method will add a “DevMode” column to the database table for this module without erasing any existing data, meaning we can simply upgrade the already installed module without having to remove it first. For more information on data migration, or any of the files we’ve covered so far, have a look at the Orchard documentation.

The controller

The next file is a big-ish one. Open AdminController.cs from the Controllers folder. There are 3 ActionResult methods we are interested in: Index(), Settings(), and SaveSettings(). You will see each one is getting or setting the variables that were specified in the model files. We need to add our new DevMode property to the list like so:

public ActionResult Index() { … var viewModel = new DisqusSettingsViewModel { ShortName = settings.ShortName, SecretKey = settings.SecretKey, SyncComments = settings.SyncComments, SyncInterval = settings.SyncInterval, DevMode = settings.DevMode };

public ActionResult Settings() { // Same as above }

public ActionResult SaveSettings(string returnUrl) { … settings.SyncComments = viewModel.SyncComments; settings.SyncInterval = viewModel.SyncInterval; settings.DevMode = viewModel.DevMode; }

Views

The Settings page will now have access to the DevMode property. Open Settings.cshtml from the Views\Admin folder. We need to add a control that will allow us to set our DevMode setting to on/off – a checkbox is the perfect choice. How and where you add your option is entirely up to you, but I will share the code I used (this exert is from the top of the file):

<fieldset> <label for="ShortName"> … </div> <label for="DevMode"> @T("Developer Mode") </label> <div class="editor-field"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.DevMode) Turn developer mode ON @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.DevMode) <span class="hint"> @T("Turn developer mode on for development/staging environments") </span> </div> </fieldset>

This adds a checkbox with a label and a hint, as shown below:

Finally, we move on to the view that actually shows the Disqus thread. From the Views folder, open CommentsWrapper.cshtml. You will see the 3 existing variables (permalink, uniqeId, and shortName) being declared towards the top of the file. Add the DevMode variable underneath like so:

var DevMode = Model.DisqusSettings.DevMode;

Scroll down to the Disqus Javascript code. You should see a line reading, “var disqus_developer = 1;” – we need to change this to use the value of our DevMode Boolean. Change the assignment of the variable to the following:

var disqus_developer = '@(devMode ? 1 : 0)';

I have used a shorthand if-then-else statement here to make sure our true or false value is returned as a 1 or 0. In English, it basically reads “if devMode is true, put a 1, otherwise put a 0” (remember the description from the Disqus support page that said the variable must be 1 or 0, not true or false, or yes or no).

Note: your theme may use its own view for the comment threads (mine did), so make sure you check in your current theme’s Views folder for a CommentsWrapper.cshtml and adjust it accordingly (it should be very similar to the one we changed above).

All done – time for tea

Build the module then browse to the modules admin page on your Orchard site. You should have a notification informing you that a module needs to be updated – just click Update. Browse to the Settings page of the Disqus module and you should see the checkbox we added. For your development site, leave it ticked, but for your production site, un-tick it and click Save.

I recommend a quick check to make sure the module is working properly – search for the disqus_developer variable in the page source and verify the value matches what you’ve set (ticked = 1, un-ticked = 0).

That’s all, folks! I hope that’s helped at least some of you. If you need any more help, leave me a comment below, or, as I mentioned earlier, have a look at the Orchard documentation.

The source code for this module, with the changes above, is available here: Download [zip, 3.2MB]

Update Microsoft Security Essentials on a schedule

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 08:05:46 GMT

Those of you with Microsoft’s new-ish anti-virus program, Security Essentials, will probably know that it updates itself according to your Windows Update settings. For most people, this is fine as it will be set to automatic daily updates; but for those with other settings, this could cause problems.

Update: I have updated and re-posted this post to cater for file path changes in the recently released version 2 of MSE. Also, since the reloaction of the site, I've had to remove the screenshot as I went and lost the images *facepalm*

MSE comes with a command line application, MpCmdRun.exe, located in the installation folder (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Security Client\Antimalware default). Running this program with the -SignatureUpdate argument will update MSE to the latest virus definitions. “Scheduled task” comes to mind!

If you’re new to scheduled tasks in Windows then you’ll find them very useful from now on! If you’re already using them then you’ve probably gone to make a task already. Either way, here’s how to set up a schedule to update MSE every 3 hours (in Windows 7 – may differ in older versions).

Click the Start orb, type “task scheduler”, then click on Task Scheduler in the search results.
In the left pane, click on Task Scheduler Library.
In the right pane, click Create Task…
Give the task a name and description to suit its purpose. Change the user account to System (this runs the task as the System account, which means, among other things, it won’t pop-up in a command prompt on your account while you work). To change the user account, click Change User or Group. Type System in the text area and click OK. Tick the box that says “Run with highest privileges”.
Now move to the Triggers tab. Click New. From the drop-down menu at the top, select “At startup”. You can choose to delay the task if you wish, but the important part is “Repeat task every” – choose or type a value in here (e.g., 3 hours) and make sure the checkbox is ticked. Set the duration to “indefinitely” – this will run the task until you shut down the computer. Click OK to add the trigger.
Move to the Actions tab. Click New. The action is to start a program, so leave the drop-down menu as it is (assuming it’s on “Start a program”). In the Program/script textbox, either browser to MpCmdRun.exe or type in the path:
"%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Security Client\AntiMalware\MpCmdRun.exe".
In the “Add arguments” textbox, type “-SignatureUpdate”.
For the Conditions and Settings tabs, those options are pretty much all down to your personal preference, so go through those to your liking.
Click OK when you’re all done, and that should be it! Keep an eye out for the updating MSE icon in the system tray the next time your task is triggered.

Hope that helps! Any questions, post them as a comment and I’ll see what I can do :)

Know the keyboard "shortcuts" in Windows Phone 7 [updated for Mango]

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 08:04:23 GMT

I’m not talking about your regular Ctrl+C, Alt+F4, etc. shortcuts here, but more the “shorter route” meaning of shortcut. Those of you who got a new #Windows_Phone phone for Christmas (or before) are probably now aware of the different keyboards available. These are as follows:

Main keyboard – standard characters
Symbols – two pages of symbols
Emoticons – two pages (!) of various emoticons

The long way round

For those who don’t read around for hints and tips, when inserting a smiley face you’re probably still tapping the emoticon key, tapping on a smiley face, then tapping the emoticon key again to return to the main keyboard. Sure, it’s not that long, but there is a quicker (with a bit of practice) way.

The quick way

This method is fairly similar to how the HTC Keyboard worked on Windows Mobile 6.x. I will give an example: to quickly enter a number 3, tap and hold the number button [123], then drag your finger (or sausage) to the number 3 key [3], then let go. A 3 will be inserted, and the keyboard will return to the main keyboard.

As it is, this method only works for numbers and symbols on the first page of characters. The same can be applied for emoticons.

And now something extra…

It’s not just the extra keyboards that this works on. There are certain keys (quite a few actually) that offer extra characters when held down. For example, the period key [.] – hold this down and it will pop up with a dash [-], exclamation mark [!], colon [:], question mark [?], and the period [.]. This saves you having to go into the symbols page (though, in this case, they’re all on the first page of symbols anyway). Some letters offer up accented versions of themselves.

It’s not just characters on the main keyboard that have this function – try the [£] key on the symbols page (or [$], or [€], etc., depending on your main keyboard language). Holding it down will bring up the other currency characters, dollar [$], cent [¢], pound [£], Euro, [€], yen [¥], and the generic currency symbol [¤].

The list

Update: Found some more! See the [.com] and [.] keys at the bottom of the list. I’ve also discovered a couple of new characters since the Mango update – these are marked in this lovely shade of green.

Here’s a (hopefully) complete list of which key offers which symbols. These are all taken from the standard English (United States) keyboard, and should be fairly standard – the differences lie with letter arrangement and the default currency symbol.

In the table below, the key shown in the Key column refers to the regular key; i.e., not the pop-up version of it (there are no pop-ups within a pop-up… this isn’t Inception). Note that upper case letters offer upper case versions of other characters (e > é, E > É).

Main keyboard

Key	Available characters	Key	Available characters
e	e ë é ê è	E	E Ë É Ê È
t	t þ	T	T Þ
y	y ÿ ý	Y	Y Ÿ Ý
u	u ù û ú ü	U	U Ù Û Ú Ü
i	i ì î í ï	I	I Ì Î Í Ï
o	o œ ø ò ô ó ö	O	O Œ Ø Ò Ô Ó Ö
a	a ä á â à å æ	A	A Ä Á Â À Å Æ
s	s ß §	S	S ß §
d	d ð	D	D Ð
c	c ç ©	C	C Ç ©
n	n ñ	N	N Ñ
m	m μ	M	M μ
.	- ! : ? .

Symbols keyboard (both pages)

Key	Available characters
1	1 ½ ⅓ ¼
2	2 ⅔ ²
3	3 ¾ ³
0	0 °
$^†	$ ¢ £ € ¥ ¤ ₹
%	% ‰
(	( < { [
)	) > } ]
-	- · ¬ ~ _
!	! ¡
‘	' ` ‛ ’
"	" « » ‟ ”
?	? ¿

^	^ √
<	< ≤
>	> ≥
-	[as above]
+	+ ±
=	= ≠
\|	\| ¦

URL mode (when entering a web address)

Key	Available characters
.com	.com .org .edu [.net / .co.uk / .fr / .ch / .ca / .it / .es]^†
.	. / : " & + -

Email mode (when entering an email address)

Key	Available characters
.com	.com .org .edu [.net / .co.uk / .fr / .ch / .ca / .it / .es]^†
.	. - _ , ;

† – Depending on your selected keyboard language.

Why do DVDs come loaded with so much extra stuff?

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 22:06:00 GMT

No doubt you’ve noticed the recent buzz around Arnold Schwarzenegger’s audio commentary for the 1990 film Total Recall (IMDB) – if you haven’t, I’ve embedded it at the end of this post. While it is rather amusing and entertaining, it has raised a good point regarding DVD extras.

According to the Huffington Post, this audio track was recorded ten years ago. Ten years.

Now, I have (probably) never watched any kind of bonus feature on a DVD or Blu-Ray, except out-takes. I always thought, “there must be someone who watches all these bonus features," but, as it turns out, there isn’t.

With all this extra time and money put in to recording extra features, I’d have thought they’d be there for a reason. I’ve always seen deleted scenes as pretty pointless, for example – they were deleted for a reason. I suppose the ‘behind the scenes’ videos can be interesting in terms of set design and CGI animations, but the main features that really puzzle me most are the commentary tracks.

There’s nothing I hate more than someone talking over a film while I’m trying to watch it, so why I would deliberately sit through 2 hours of someone talking over the film, God only knows. That’s why I’m writing this post – I’m clearly not the only one who thinks this way.

Ten years it’s taken for this audio commentary to surface. Has it really taken this long for someone to watch it and think, “hang on, this is pretty funny! I know who’ll love this – the internet!”?

Thinking about it a bit more, I suppose it has more of an appeal these days since the Governator has had a shift in career since the film was made. An actor doing an audio commentary – not uncommon; a former governor for California doing one – fairly rare. Perhaps this was popular at the initial release time, as well…

I’ve never actually seen Total Recall (I know, I know…), but here’s the clip everyone’s talking about:

How to install a new video card

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 21:49:20 GMT

This is probably one of the most common things for PC owners to do, along with RAM upgrades and adding additional hard disks, yet can be one of the most fiddly and time-consuming. Whereas RAM and HDDs come in standard physical sizes, video card come in a range of heights, widths, and depths. Some are “low profile”, designed for slimmer cases; some take up two or more slots on the motherboard (or at least the space above them); some are short at around 24cm, and some are long and can be up to 30cm or more. As such, you can never be sure whether they’ll fit in your PC case without taking some measurements and eventually trying it for size.

3D Blu-Ray

The PC I’ll be installing this new card in is my HTPC. It’s currently using a fairly low-end Intel Core i3-540 CPU, using the integrated video functionalities. It copes fine with all my DVDs and Blu-Rays, but cannot output native 3D from new 3D Blu-Ray discs, and having just bought a 3D TV I like to have the choice of 3D or 2D.

The Radeon HD 6750 supports AMD’s “HD3D” technology, meaning this thing will play 3D Blu-Rays as they were meant to be played – good news for me. This card also happens to be a reasonably good card for gaming, so I might use this PC for one or two games now.

The Installation

First things first: RTFM. It doesn’t matter how experienced you are, there could always be something different waiting for you to miss out, which could end up badly for your new card. In the case of the 6750, it’s a slightly beefed-up card, so it needs extra power. This is supplied by a cable direct from the PC’s power supply – forget this, and it won’t work.

Once you’ve given the manual a read over, make sure you’ve got everything you need for the procedure. I suppose it doesn’t really matter if you don’t, as you can fetch it mid-process, but it’s always nice to have things at hand. Some good tips: leave the card inside its anti-static bag until you’re ready to install it, and try to get hold of an anti-static wrist strap to ground any electrical charge you have on you. You don’t want to fry your card before it’s even been turned on!

Now we’re ready to open up the PC. Every case is different, so you’ll have to work out how to open your own case. They usually have 2 or 3 screws on the back to hold one side on – undo these and the panel they were holding should slide or lift off.

While I had the case open, I took the opportunity to give everything a quick clean. Use a can of compressed air to blow off the loose dust from heat sinks and fans – build-up of dust leads to higher temperatures, meaning higher fan speeds, leading to more noise which, for a HTPC, we don’t want.

Take the card out of the wrapper now if you haven’t already. Give it a test run over or in the case to check it will fit. You’ll probably need to move some cables and maybe even some other hardware to get the card in. In my case, I had to remove the power supply to get the card in to place. Feel free to unplug some devices if their cables are in the way; just remember to connect them back up afterwards!

You will probably also need to remove one or more of the space-filler slides (I’m sure they have a proper name…) from the back of the case – you’ll see when you try putting the card in that these are clearly in the way. Once there’s enough room for the card, try slotting it into place gently then press down on it until you hear a click (assuming your PCIe x16 slot has a lock on it – most do).

Attach any required power cables to the back of the card as detailed in the card’s manual (hopefully). For this 6750, there was just the one 6-pin PCIe power connector needed.

Before putting the case back together, make sure everything is still connected as it should and that there aren’t any cables touching any of the fans. If you can, try to avoid any cables touching heat sinks, too, as these can become quite hot.

This photo I’m sticking on here just for fun because I thought it looked cool.

Put the case back together by doing the same thing you did to take it apart, only in reverse. No prizes given out for that one, I’m afraid.

Plug it all back in to your TV or monitor and hit the on switch! Get ready on those F2 buttons, though, as you might need to change a BIOS setting to use the new card instead of on-board graphics. In my case, it worked it out for itself. It’s easy to tell if it didn’t – a blank screen will welcome you.

Finally, it’s time to install drivers. My top tip here: don’t use the CD that came with the card – yes, they’re the right drivers, but they’ll more than likely be out of date. Your best bet is to head to the card manufacturer’s website and search for the latest driver download from there. These are usually simple enough to install, but, again, they’re all different, so I can’t give a detailed walkthrough. If you’re using Windows, chances are the installer is just a “next, next, next” wizard; Linux, on the other hand, well… best get comfy. (Zing!)

Wrap-up

Once the drivers are installed and all the necessary (if any) reboots are finished, job’s a good’n! Mine’s working nicely, as I found by testing out Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt.2 in 3D …which works. I do need to play around with some settings on the TV to get it perfect, though – I’m fussy like that.

Ticker-style Skin for Windows Media Player

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:01:29 GMT

Like many WMP users, I got annoyed with the removal of the taskbar toolbar after the upgrade to Windows 7 or Media Player 12. It was a very useful toolbar to have on when listening to music, as it gave you access to the standard playback controls and let you know what was playing. There is no toolbar available with WMP 12, however.

Instead, I made a skin (yes, you can still use them!) which gives me the info I wanted from the toolbar and, so it didn’t get in the way, made it a mere 20px high. This allows me to set it to “Always on top” and place it up in the title bar near the Minimise and Close buttons, nicely out of the way (see below).[more]

If the title of the song is longer than the text area it will scroll (right to left) at what I consider a good speed. The buttons are all working: a “return to full view” button on the left, with the normal “Play/Pause”, “Stop”, “Previous”, “Next” buttons on the right. The elapsed time is shown next to the title and does not scroll.

I have not yet added switches for Shuffle or Repeat, or a volume slider, and I may change the “Play/Pause” button to a ‘toggle’ button that changes icon depending on its action. Also, I might improve the graphics – while they are fairly dull, they serve their purpose.

Download the files from here: Ticker Skin v1.0.zip (3.78 kb)

Alternatively, download all the source files in this ZIP: Ticker Skin v1.0 Source.zip (7.52 kb). It contains all the images, the .wms file, and the JavaScript that go with the skin. It also has the compiled skin in there (.wmz).

Customised Version of the BreakPost Extension

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:01:24 GMT

Those of you using BlogEngine will most likely be using the BreakPost extension which is included as standard. However, not everyone with a blog is a nerdy web developer! What if you don’t want your links to say More?

You can easily (if you know what you’re doing) change the extension code to say whatever you want it to say, but if you don’t know what you’re doing you’re stuck with More….

…until now.[more]

I have modified the extension so it can now be configured in the Extensions page when you’re logged in as an admin. Just put in whatever you want it to say (like Continue… or Read on…), click save, and it’s done!

Download the new version of from here: BreakPost_1.4.1.zip (1.76 kb)

To install, just copy the un-zipped file to your Extensions folder, overwriting the existing BreakPost.cs.

Abbreviation Inserter v1.2

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:01:10 GMT

Another update! Lunch got postponed while I fixed this.

After finding a word in v1.1 and before, the extension ‘gave up’ and ignored everything else, including ‘escaped’ words. This meant that if you had more than a few escaped words in your post, the ones after a non-escaped word will be left with a backslash showing.

This has now been fixed – you can have all but one occurrence of a word with a backslash, and ALL the remaining backslashes will be removed.

Download the new version here: AbbreviationInserter.zip (1.44 kb)

Please leave any comments or feedback below! :)

Hash Tags Extension v1.2 – Supports Multi-Word Tags

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:00:44 GMT

I’ve been reading up on some #regular_expressions and managed to get the Hash Tags extension working with multi-word tags, and here it is in version 1.1 1.2.

The input method is the same as before (put a hash “#” in front of the tag), but for multi-word tags such as “hash tags”, you must replace the space “ ” with an underscore character “_”, as shown: \#hash_tags. This will give a link to the “hash tags” posts page.

Something that’s just popped up while writing this post… an escape sequence! I can’t write an example for hash tag linking if it just turns into one! Bear with me…

…there we go. The escape character is, as usual, a backslash “\”. Putting a backslash in front of the hash tag will escape it, like so: \\\#hash_tags. I suppose this would count as v1.2 then really?

Also note that, just as before, the hash tag will only become a link if said tag exists in your blog somewhere.

Download link: HashTags.zip (1.40 kb)

My thoughts on the Halo: Reach Beta

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:00:06 GMT

The public multiplayer beta test period for Halo: Reach has now come to an end. I’m just going to share my (brief) thoughts on it in terms of game play, originality, graphics, maps, and sound.

I am aware that it was a beta, and that (hopefully) some things will be changed/fixed before the game’s final release.[more]

Game Play

From what I played, it all seemed very Halo-ish… like I’d already played the game before. Most of the game was spent emptying clips into the opponent’s shields, although grenades seem to do a lot more damage than before. Of course, in Team Swat games, this was different as there were no shields, but the maps caused issues in this area (see below).

Originality

None at all. Yes, you could argue that it’s part of a series of similar games, but there could at least have some innovation between them. The biggest change in how you play is probably the power-ups/abilities your armour can carry, such as sprinting, camouflage, or the jet pack. Yeh, pretty original! Apart from that, this is pretty much the same Halo you’ve been playing since the system link days on the first Xbox, just with better graphics… or so you’d think…

Graphics

While the graphics are smooth and clear, and the frame rate is also smooth, something makes it look bad. I think it’s the lighting. Again, it doesn’t seem to have improved at all since Halo 3, and even that was a small leap from Halo 2. It seems that the game has been designed to ‘look good bad’ – where some games try to get curves and end up with the occasional square edge, Bungie seem to have designed their models with square edges already, but made sure they were very well defined edges, bringing me on to…

Maps

Not since Halo 2’s Headlong, Waterworks, or Containment has the Halo series seen a really good map. The maps offered up in the Reach beta have done nothing to change that. They were far too small, and as such resulted in every game being a run-and-gun game, whether it was Slayer or not. Even the largest map used for Invasion (the name escapes me) was poorly designed. There was hardly any cover, meaning attacking any section meant gunning down anyone who saw you, while they were also gunning you down. This process was fairly repetitive as it was usually whoever started shooting first that got the kill, unless they missed a shot while taking down their opponent’s shields.

Sound

Now, this is where Reach really shone! The sound of the weapons and especially the grenades has been much improved. Grenade explosions have a lot more ‘oomph’ and sound a lot more dangerous than the little pops we had before. I think Bungie have just turned up the bass a bit, but it certainly made a difference. Ambient sounds, however, are still lacking slightly.

Conclusion

Apart from the fact that I’m a crap reviewer, I think the Reach beta deserves a pretty solid “meh”. Unfortunately, the title starts with “Halo”, so it’ll sell like sex and you’ll have to buy it because all your friends have. Even if they hate it too, you’ll all have to play it because everyone else is, and that’s where the action will be on Xbox Live… until the new Call of Duty comes along… which is another ‘seen it all before’ game now, which is a shame.

Windows 7 Backup Problem - Not Enough Space!?

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 09:56:55 GMT

There I was, trying to make a system image the easy way (i.e., clicking “Create system image” instead of booting up in some Linux LiveCD and faffing around with programs in a command line) and Windows threw a wobbler:

There is not enough space to create the volume shadow copy on the storage location. Make sure that, for all volumes to be backup up*, the minimum required disk space for shadow copy creation is available. This applies to both the back up storage destination and volumes included in the back up. Minimum requirement: For volumes less than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 50 megabytes of free space. For volumes more than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 320 megabytes of free space. Recommended: At least 1 gigabyte of free disk space on each volume if volume size is more than 1 gigabyte (0x80780119).

*- I found a typo!

I had a look at my hard drive partitions – both had at least 100GB free. Then I remembered that Windows 7 creates a non-lettered partition of 100MB which it calls “System Reserved”. This partition had 78MB in it, leaving only 22MB free. The error message states that “volumes less than 500 megabytes … [need] 50 megabytes of free space”. There was the problem!

After some searching around, I found that I needed to use fsutil to fix the problem as follows:

Assign a letter to the System Reserved partition (see here).
Open an elevated command prompt (cmd.exe, run as administrator).
Use the following command:
fsutil usn deletejournal /N /D <drive>:
where <drive> is the letter you gave in Step 1 plus the colon (e.g., F:)
This will free up some space in the partition. It left mine at 48MB used, 52MB free – more than the minimum 50MB.
Finish off by removing the drive letter from the System Reserved partition (see Step 1 again).

Now, assuming there aren’t any other errors, the backup should run nicely!

Use the Snipping Tool to capture parts of your screen

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 09:55:33 GMT

Remember pressing print-screen, opening Paint, pasting, cropping/resizing, labelling, selecting it all, copying, and finally pasting somewhere? Forget it!

Since Vista, in fact, Windows has had a little application called Snipping Tool hidden away in the Start Menu. Luckily for us, it’s easy to find – just start typing ‘snipping’ in the Start Menu search and it’ll pop up in the results.

It’s really simple to use. Upon opening it, you’re good to go grab a portion of the screen already! Just drag a box around what you want. The image gets placed into the clipboard, ready for pasting somewhere straight away. You can also annotate it with a ‘pen’ or highlighter before pasting. Any scribbles you make are automatically updated into the clipboard, so you can literally just drag a box, highlight, paste.

There are a couple of options and other functions to the tool, so have a look round. When you only need a quick snip of a screen for a note or showing someone something, this tool is the most useful tool I’ve found in Windows so far.

10 of My Favourite Windows Phone 7 Tips [updated for Mango]

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 09:54:15 GMT

I’ve seen lists of tips from 5 to 100 items, but most are filled with fairly standard things that I consider obvious (e.g., “create a new text message by pressing New Message”). So here’s a list of the tips and tricks that I have found most useful but aren’t obvious at first glance.

In no particular order:

1. Keyboard shortcuts for quick access to symbols and accents

In my last post, I detailed all the different keys available (that I’ve found so far) in keyboard pop-ups.

2. View the ‘system tray’

You may have noticed that the icons at the top of the screen (battery, Wi-Fi, reception strength, etc.) are only visible when they need to be noticed; when the battery is low or you have no signal, for example. To show all the icons, tap anywhere on that top bar and the icons will slide down for a couple of seconds. I usually aim for the clock.

3. Select multiple emails

If you have a lot of emails that you want to delete, move, or mark as read, it can be a time-consuming task to do them one at a time. Instead, tap on the very left of the email link in the inbox (or other folder) and a column of checkboxes will appear with the current email ticked. Add to the selection like you usually would with checkboxes, then delete, move, or mark as read, etc., as needed.

4. Quickly navigate through contacts or applications

If you have a lot of contacts (I don’t, but this is still useful), scrolling all the way to ‘T’ can take a while. The easy way: tap on a letter in the list (‘A’ would be a good start) and an alphabet will appear. Tap on the letter you want to scroll to, and it will take you there. Note that letters that have no contacts are disabled. As of Mango, this same method works for applications once you have around 30 or so.

5. Switch between ringer/vibrate with 2 button presses

Press the Volume Down or Up button (when the phone is on), then tap the bell icon on the right. This will switch the phone to vibrate (or silent if vibration is disabled). You can also access the Zune playback controls (previous, pause, next) this way when a song is playing.

6. Use a carat when typing or correcting text

Sometimes the word suggestion feature doesn’t quite ‘get it’ and you'll need to correct a word manually. This can be annoying when you have to type out the whole word again. Instead, tap and hold in the text area and a carat will appear above your finger (where you can see it – logical!). Drag your finger around to move it where you need it then let go to ‘drop’. It will snap to spaces where it can be placed, so you don’t have to be super precise.

7. View photos as a filmstrip

When viewing a photo, pinch to zoom out as far as it will go. The photos in that folder will now be shown as a filmstrip, allowing you to quickly scroll through multiple photos with one swipe. Tap on a photo to return to regular viewing.

8. Change the background in the Pictures hub

The background does change itself occasionally, but if you want to change it manually, here’s how. Open the Pictures hub, tap and hold an empty space (I prefer the title text at the top) tap or drag the 3-dots-menu up from the bottom-right, then tap either change background to pick your own photo, or change it for me to have a random photo chosen. From Mango onwards, you can now choose shuffle background which cycles through your favourite photos.

9. Silence a call

If you’ve forgotten to put your phone on vibrate and need to silence a call in a hurry, just press the power button while the phone is ringing. The ringer will stop and the screen will turn off, but the call will continue calling. Press the power button again to turn the screen back on to answer the call. Alternatively, press one of the volume controls to silence the call without turning the screen off.

10. Save a picture from a web page

If you ever see a photo on a website you want to keep, just tap and hold and press save picture. You can now set that photo as your lock screen background from your saved pictures folder.

If you have any other tips that aren’t obvious, feel free to post them in the comments below (which are working properly now, by the way!).