Me vs. Windows XP: Setting the default printer

I installed Bullzip PDF printer since I was lacking the built in print-to-pdf functionality that Mac OS X has had since it's first release. After the installation I discovered that the PDF printer now was my deafult printer and there was no way of changing that in the print dialogue (where I expected to find it).

Turns out that you need to open Printers & Faxes in the Start Menu and in that dialogue right click on the printer of your choosing and set it to default in the contextual menu. Nifty!

My next project will be to figure out how to set up profiles for economy printing en full colour printing like you can in Mac OS X, but that's for another day.

Me vs. Windows XP: Stop Outlook 2007 from auto-archiving and more

At work we use Microsoft Outlook. It's a pretty competent mail program although lightyears behind Apple Mail.

Disabling auto-archive in Outlook 2007

After a couple of weeks I noticed that Outlook did strange things to my old emails. They suddenly got a weird symbol and attachments could no longer be viewed. After some googling I found out that this was actually a feature called "auto-archive". I'm sure that it makes sense from a system administrator's perspective but for me as an end-user I suddenly had to open Internet Explorer and connect to the server to view old emails. Needless to say, it was really really really annoying. After some googling I found the answer.

So, if you like me find it a nuisance just:

Go to Tools -> Options -> Other (great name) -> Click the auto-archive button

there you uncheck the first check box and you shall be bothered no more.

Making your emails available offline

Ever since the upgrade to Outlook 2007 I haven't been able to access my emails offline. This too requires mastery of the treacherous Microsoft Outlook menu system.

To make Outlook 2007 download the mails from the server so that you can read them offline repeat the following step for each folder (haven't found a quicker way):

Go to Tools -> Send/Receive Setttings -> Click "Make available offline".

Then click Send/Receive and it will download your emails. Fantastic!

Me vs. Windows XP: Getting rid of the annoying beep

Moving from Mac to Windows can sometimes be bewildering. Since I got my Dell laptop I have been annoyed on a daily basis by the PC speaker "beep" that the computer emits when the volume is changed. The beep is set to increadibly loud no matter the volume. This breaks quite a number of usability principles but also causes me to jump out of my chair when I'm in the middle of editing using headphones as not to disturb my colleagues, and without thinking decide to change the volume.

On Mac OS X the beep that is emitted correlates to the new volume that you set: turning down the volume emits a lower beep and turning up a higher. But not on Windows there the beep is always set to "blast your eardrums out" level (at least on the Dell that I have).

So today after doing the same mistake of changing the volume with headphones on I went searching for a solution and after reading some forum posts by self thought ninjas suggesting that I resort to registry hacking I finally found it.

Basically you need to go into the Device Manger in the Control Panel. Change the View to show all devices, click on the Non-plug and play- drivers and right click on the Beep (yes, that is the name of the device). There in the dialogue you can turn it off by disabling the device.

Surely, a master Information Architecht was used because I cannot even begin to comprehend how someone could have dreamt up such a usable solution.

Redmond I salute thee!

Me vs. Windows XP: Sorting the Programmes menu

Still getting used to having to use Windows XP as my main productivity tool. It is very obvious that it is a 9 year old operating system.

When installing programs they just get appended at the end of the programmes menu. This means that after a while it gets really hard to find anything unless you have fantastic spatial memory. To use the famous bucket metaphor: my bucket finally flowed over and I decided to find a solution.

After some googling it turns out you can sort the program menu alphabetically by right-clicking on an object in the menu when expanded and select "Sort by name". There is a registry hack to enable this permanently but for now I do it every time I do something new and it works reasonably well.

Me vs. Windows XP: Clearing out the temp files

It's very nice to be working at a big mature organisation however there are also drawbacks. One such drawback is the rigorous security of which one part is having to work against a server all the time and the other is having to use Windows XP. When I work from home all my files need to be synced to the server. Since this includes all files it also includes all the temp files (temp files are temporary backup files that applications write and then usually forget to clean up afterwards).

To minimize the wait I have written a small script that removes all the temp files in the Windows\Temp directory as well as my own Temp catalogue.

So if you are in a similar position or just don't like having your computer cluttered with thousands of small abandoned files, fire up Notepad and enter:

del /f /s /q C:\windows\temp\

del /f /s /q "C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Local Settings\Temp\"

Save the file with the ending .bat (you need to select all files in the Save As dialogue) and drop it into your Start up items directory. You'll find it by accessing the start menu and right click explore on it.

Now every time you log in all those files will be a thing of the past. But don't try this if you don't know what you are doing.