Vista: Create FTP shortcut with login details

Warnings and Disclaimers:

• Do not do this on a public computer.
• Be aware that putting your username and password into any saved setting may compromise your computer security.

Do you need to quickly upload a file to your website or an FTP site, but don’t want the hassle of opening your FTP program, going through the connection steps, etc.? Well, you can set up a shortcut in Vista — with your credentials already populated — so all you have to do is click the link on your desktop and you’re in.

Here’s how:

1. Open the Computer folder (Start > Computer [on the right panel]).
2. Right-click anywhere in a blank space, then select Add a Network Location.
3. Click Next on the first page of the Add Network Location wizard.
4. Select Choose a custom network location, then click Next.
5. Enter the following into the Internet or Network Address field, substituting your own username, password and FTP address as appropriate:

   ftp://username:password@ftp.myserver.com

6. Click Next. Give the FTP address a more meaningful name, if required, then click Next.
7. Click Finish.

This network location will now appear in your Computer folder.

You can create a desktop shortcut for it too — just right-click on the new network location, then select Send to > Desktop (create shortcut).

Now, if you need to quickly upload a file, you just need to double-click on the shortcut and you’re in!

Note: This trick probably works in Windows 7 too (I don’t have Windows 7 installed on any of my computers yet), but I couldn’t get it to work in Windows XP.

[Thanks to Australian Personal Computer, October 2009 for alerting me to this shortcut trick.]

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Install multiple free applications at once

You’ve had to reformat your computer, you’ve upgraded your existing one, or you’ve got a new one. Now you have to install all the applications (apps) you use on a daily basis, including downloading the latest and greatest of the freebies you use all the time, like Firefox, iTunes or Skype.

Be prepared to add several hours to your installation time — finding the apps’ websites, determining which is the latest version, waiting for them to download, installing them…

There has to be an easier way! And there is. Enter Ninite (http://www.ninite.com). You choose the freeware and open source apps you want to install from a single web page and Ninite does the rest while you go off and do something else.

Neat.

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Windows Help Viewer for Windows 7

Microsoft have made a Windows Help (WinHlp) viewer available for Windows 7.

You can download it from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=258AA5EC-E3D9-4228-8844-008E02B32A2C&displaylang=en

[Link last checked November 2009; thanks to Rob Cavicchio [Microsoft MVP] who alerted the Help authoring community of this new resource]

Internet connection issues?

In a previous post I talked about using commands like ping and tracert to test your internet connection and its speed.

Here are some more things you can use — SpeedTest and DownForJustMe.

SpeedTest

SpeedTest (http://www.speedtest.net/)  lets you test your connection speed and shows you the results compared to your ISP’s average and compared to other places in your state, country and the world.

Snapshot of my results

Australia compared to other countries

You can also view and download a CSV file of your results over time if you need to ‘prove’ that your connection is doing strange things (the screen shot below shows my results over a few hours — the red box is the slowest speed and the green box the fastest).

Results over time

Down for everyone or just me?

Another tool for checking a slow or non-responsive connection to a website is the Down For Everyone or Just Me? website (http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/).

You enter the URL you’re having trouble with, then press Enter or click the link.

Enter the URL in the box

After a very short time (less than one second?), you’ll get your answer:

Looks like there's nothing wrong -- it must be at my end

If there is something wrong, they’ll tell you that too. You don’t get a lot of information, but you get enough to ‘prove’ that it’s not something at your end. (In the example below I entered a fake URL just to see what the response would be.)

And if it's not working, you get this

[Links last checked August 2009]

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Change the keyboard shortcut for an application

My HP laptop has an application on it called HP Health Check — it’s a diagnostic thing. How do I know this? Because whenever I tried to copy formatting in Word using Ctrl+Shift+C the formatting wouldn’t copy and HP Health Check opened!

At first I thought HP Health Check was scheduled to open, then I realized that Ctrl+Shift+C was opening it. No wonder I couldn’t copy formatting!

To add, change or remove a keyboard shortcut from an application:

1. Right-click on the application’s name, then select Properties.
2. Go to the Shortcut tab.
3. In the Shortcut key field, you can:
   • Enter a new key combination if one isn’t associated with this application
   • Change the existing key combination to something that doesn’t conflict with your existing commands
   • Delete the existing key combination (it will then display as None).
4. Click OK.

Add, edit or delete a keyboard shortcut for an application

BTW, I put in a call to HP Support before finding this solution. Their answer? “You must have assigned this keyboard combination in Word” (no, it’s a default!), and here’s how to disable the Word keyboard shortcut (but I don’t WANT to do that — it’s a shortcut I use ALL the time as I mentioned in my support call!). How arrogant of them — most other programs do not have a keyboard shortcut assigned to them, let alone one that’s a standard in an Office program.

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Bypassing the server to get to the internet

Recently, my server went into meltdown (the hard drive fan failed causing the hard drives to overheat and shut down without warning). I had to send it to my PC Guru guys to diagnose and fix (new fan, one new hard drive — the other was OK). But I still needed to work, which meant I still needed internet access.

Here’s what I had to do to get internet access on all my computers without using the DHCP settings on the now-out-of-action server:

1. On each computer, open Network Connections (Start > Control Panel > Network Connections).
2. Right-click on Local Area Connection then select Properties.
3. On the General tab, scroll down to Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) (TCP/IP v4 on Vista) and click on it.
4. Click Properties to open the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) dialog box. My settings were all set to obtain an IP address and DNS server address automatically — these are what I had to change.
   

   Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) dialog box

5. Select the Use the following IP address option.
6. In the IP address field, enter an unused IP address for this computer (for example, I used 192.168.0.250 for one machine, 192.168.0.249 for another, 192.168.0.248 for yet another etc.).
7. The Subnet mask field should populate automatically with 255.255.255.0 after you finish entering the IP address. Leave these settings as they are.
8. In the Default gateway field, enter the IP address allocated to your modem/router — e.g. 192.168.0.1 (Note: your modem/router IP address will probably be different to this).
9. Select the Use the following DNS server addresses option.
10. In the Preferred DNS server field, enter the IP address allocated to your modem/router — e.g. 192.168.0.1 (Note: your modem/router IP address will probably be different to this).
11. Click OK.
12. Click Close to close the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) dialog box.

You should now be able to connect to the internet directly.

When I got my server back and all connected and powered up, I just had to set these settings on each computer back to Obtain an IP address automatically and Obtain DNS server address automatically and that was it — I was back connected to the internet and to the files on my server.

Thanks to the PC Guru guys for walking me through what to do.

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Windows: No to all

If you copy multiple files to another location and files with those names already exist, you get asked to overwrite the existing files. Typically, you have the options of Yes, Yes to All, No, and Cancel.

But there’s usually not a No to All option, yet there are times when that option is exactly what you want. Sure, Cancel works fine in many of these situations, but not always. Sometimes you just want a No to All option.

The good news is that you can get it! It’s a hidden ‘feature’ in Windows. All you have to do is hold down the Shift key as you click No and Windows behaves as though you clicked the (non-existent) No to All button.

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Vista: Rebuild indexes

If you can’t find recent emails etc. when doing a search in Vista, it’s possible that the Vista indexing service has not caught up with the newer items. You can force Vista to rebuild the index, which should solve this problem.

1. Click the Start button, then type indexing options in the Start Search box.
2. On the Indexing Options window, click  the Advanced button. Click Continue if you are asked for permission to access this area.
3. On the Index Settings tab, click Rebuild in the Troubleshooting section.

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Vista: Classic Windows Explorer view

One of the things I’m still trying to get used to in Vista is the way that files and folders are displayed. I don’t find there’s enough space for deeply nested folders on the left so I have to resize the ‘Explorer’ window regularly. And I’m not sure I like everything under ‘Desktop’ — including all my network connections. I’ll persevere.

But if you’re not the persevering type and really want your Vista ‘Explorer’ to look like it did in Windows XP, then you can. Here’s how:

1. Click the Start button, then click Computer to open Vista’s ‘Explorer’
2. Click Organize > Folder and Search Options (OR press Alt to display the menu bar — yes, it’s hidden by default! — then go to Tools > Folder Options).
3. Go to the General tab.
4. Select the Use Windows classic folders option.
5. If you want to always display menus go to the View tab and select the Always show menus check box.
6. Click OK.

Setting classic folder view in Vista

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Vista: Setting TXT file association for EditPlus

I use EditPlus as my text editor. I needed to associate TXT files with EditPlus so that they also opened in EditPlus. But this is not quite so simple in Vista, until you know how!

1. Click the Start button and find EditPlus — do not open it.
2. Right-click on EditPlus and select Run as Administrator.
3. Click Continue if asked about permissions.
4. Go to Tools > Preferences on the EditPlus menu.
5. Under File, select Settings & Syntax.
6. Select Text in the list of File types.
7. Select the Associate with Explorer check box.
8. Click OK.