How do I fix this?
Is it Possible to Live by Best Practices?
If there can be Christmas in July then I guess another round of New Years’ resolutions in August isn’t too far off. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been trying to live by best practices in a few key areas: following the principle of least privilege, using strong passwords that aren’t reused across multiple sites, and using No-Script in my web browser to protect against malicious scripts.
Let’s say we’ve already got all the low hanging fruits covered like regularly backing up our important files, running an antivirus program (Avast! recommended), and running our systems off a UPS (battery backup) so let’s try to mature and take our lifestyle to following the next level of best practices.
Resolve Internet Explorer Slowly Opening New Tabs
Internet Explorer introduced tabs with version 7 but one of the many reasons I prefer Firefox and increasingly Chrome is that they handle tabs better. To open a new tab, you can hit the key combo Ctrl+T or click the button near the current tab in any of those browsers. The problem with Internet Explorer, both version 7 and 8, is that it takes a noticeable amount of time for the new tab to open even if it is just going to the about:blank page.
Disabling Stationery in Outlook 2007 & 2010
This post is brought to you by that person (or persons) who use the stationery in Outlook to gussy up their e-mail messages. I’m sure you all know one or two. So, here’s how they can turn it off and how we can prevent Outlook from showing it to us. Stationery in your e-mail looks something like a hideous 80s wallpaper is on the background of your e-mail, like this:
Some stationery is just annoying and some makes it a lot more difficult to read the message. To be courteous to your e-mail’s recipients, turn it off and don’t force this upon them. Office 2007 and Office 2010 have different ways of getting to the same screen where you can disable the theme.
Onto the Next Theme
All weekend, I’ve been tinkering with a new theme here at 404 Tech Support. If you’ve visited over the course of the weekend, you’ve definitely seen it (and I apologize if my tinkering disrupted your visit). I’ve still got a small handful of changes I’d like to make but the majority of the installation is done. I’m enjoying it because it has made my site more responsive and introduced new features. For a reminder of what the old theme looked like, here’s your reminder.
Good in Theory, Poor Execution: A/C in the Home Office
This is one of those occasions where I get to tell you that I was wrong. I tried something and it failed. In theory it was sound, would have saved energy, and improved comfort. The plan was to add a window air conditioner in my office at home. With the weather we’ve already had before even getting to the hot summer months, it sounded like an ideal setup. Unfortunately, like other things in IT, it was riddled with bugs.
How to Remove the Google Background Image
Google has added an image background to www.Google.com and people are not happy about it, judging by the quick climb of the query ‘remove google background’ in Google Trends.
Google allows you to set the background to an image as announced on the Official Google Blog and if you don’t set it to something, starting last night, Google sets it to random images for you with no option to go without. Google Help has some details about the new “feature”: “Images must be at least 800 x 600 pixels and in one of the following formats: .jpeg, .tif, .tiff, .bmp, .gif, .psd (Photoshop), .png, .tga, and selected RAW formats.”
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