Manage WordPress Comments From Your Windows Desktop

Wp-comment-notifier is a small free app for Windows that lets you easily view, approve, reply to, and delete comments from your WordPress blog. Whether you have a free WordPress.com blog or are running WordPress on your own server, this tool can keep you connected to your comments. Unfortunately it only lets you manage comments at one blog, so if manage multiple WordPress-powered sites you may find this a downside. Otherwise, it works great and helps you stay on top of the conversation at your blog.

Unfortunately it only lets you manage comments at one blog, so if manage multiple WordPress-powered sites you may find this a downside. Otherwise, it works great and helps you stay on top of the conversation at your blog.
Get notified with wp-comment-notifier, Download the wp-comment-notifier and install as usual.

Run it once it’s installed. Enter your blog address, username, and password when prompted.

Wp-comment-notifier will automatically setup your account and download recent comments.

Finally, enter your blog’s name, and click Finish.

Review Comments with wp-comment-notifier, You can now review your comments directly by double-clicking the new WordPress icon in your system tray.
The window has 3 tabs…comments, pending, and spam.
Select a comment to reply, edit, spam, or delete it directly from your desktop.
If you select Edit, then you can edit the HTML of the comment (including links) directly from within the notifier.

You can approve or permanently delete any spam messages that are caught by your blog’s spam filter.

Whenever new comments come in, you’ll see a tray popup letting you know how many comments are waiting to be approved or are in the spam folder.
Click the popup to open the editor.

Now, you can directly approve that pending comment without going to your WordPress admin page.....

Read The Full Article HERE

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Install IIS on Windows 7 or Vista

If You use ASP.NET, one of the first things you’ll want to install on Windows 7 or Vista is IIS (internet information server). Keep in mind that your version of Windows may not come with IIS. I’m using Windows 7 Ultimate edition.
First, go to Control Panel, and then click on Programs. You’ll see a link for “Turn Windows features on or off”

If you expand the Internet Information Services tree node, you can see that there are a lot of options beneath it. You will probably want to explore these options, because even if you click on IIS, some of the necessary options for doing development aren’t checked.

Read The Full Article HERE

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Clean Up Your Messy Windows Context Menu

Learn How to Clean Up Your Messy Windows Context Menu, Because One of the most irritating things about Windows is the context menu clutter that you have to deal with once you install a bunch of applications. It seems like every application is fighting for a piece of your context menu, and it’s not like you even use half of them.

Read The Full Article HERE

Download ShellExView from nirsoft.net

Download ShellMenuView from nirsoft.net

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How To Block Third-Party Cookies in IE7

you are worried about privacy!?? you will probably be worried about Third party cookies, Those are the cookies placed on your computer by doubleclick and all those nefarious places. Internet Explorer makes it easy to block them.

To get to this setting, go to Tools \ Options \ Privacy and then click on Advanced.

check the box for Override automatic cookie handling, and then select Block on the Third-party cookies radio button.
Note: This should also work for IE6.

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Add Run option in the Windows Vista Start menu

The Run option in the menu of Windows XP is a handy way to access various features of the operating system. Windows Vista Versions do not have that option because it have a search box on the Start menu, where you just enter the name of the desired option or for the results to appear.

In general, the option to search in Windows Vista is more practical, but it does not record a history of words, terms and commands searched. Therefore, many users do not like to use the menu of modern and sophisticated operating system from Microsoft.

The good news is that you can add a much desired option Run in the Start menu of Windows Vista and best of all is that you will not need to change registration or administrative settings. Follow the instructions below and see how easy it is.

1) Clicking the right mouse button over the symbol of the Start menu, choose "Properties."

2) In the properties window that opens, go to the "Start Menu" and click "Customize ...".

3) Now just check the option "Run Command" to implement the changes made, click "OK" and on "Apply" then


4) There, the Run command is within reach of your mouse.

If you from some reason need to remove this Run command from start menu simply repeat above steps but at the last step you have to uncheck file "Run Command".

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Disable unnecessary features in Windows Vista

Windows Vista is automatically installed with many features, not always useful for the use of your computer. You can optimize your system and win a few seconds to start disabling the functionality you're not using. Here is how...

1. Click the Start button and then click Control Panel.

2. Click on the Programs icon.

3. Then click the Enable or disable Windows features of the Programs and Features heading.

4. Click the Continue button.

5. The list of features of the system is displayed. Uncheck the boxes just before the features you do not and you want to disable. For example, you can uncheck the box in front of optional components for Tablet PC if you do not have a Tablet PC, before games if you do not use Windows games before DFS Replication Service Windows if you do not need to synchronize files between multiple computers, etc..

6. Finally, click on the OK button at any time you can re-checking features and return them in their previous state.

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Place IE7 Menu Bar Back On Top

Do you wish the IE7 Menu bar was located where it was in IE6? Here is how to quickly create a registry fix to move it back to the top.

After you install IE7 you have to make the menu bar appear. Right click an empty spot on the tool bar and place a checkmark next to Menu Bar. It will also show up temporarily if you hold down the Alt key.

You will see that IE 7 puts the Menu Bar underneath the Address Bar which we
don't want.

Open up notepad by clicking Start \ Run, type in notepad and click OK.

Copy and paste the following script into notepad. You do not need to modify the code at all. Just copy and paste it into notepad.

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\WebBrowser\]

"ITBar7Position"=dword:00000001

Here is how we turn it into a reg key fix. Click on File \ Save As, but don't
click on Save until you read the next step.

Change your notepad Save as type to "All Files" and name the file something like IE7_Toolbar_fix.reg. Naming the file with the .reg extension is the key for this to work. Now you can click on Save.

You have just created a registry fix! Now double click the file you just created.

You will get the following confirmation screen. Click Yes.

The next screen will be confirming the registry key was added.

Close out of Internet Explorer if it is open and relaunch it. The Menu Bar
is now on top!

Uninstall

To change the Menu bar back to the original position, use this registry script instead:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\WebBrowser\]
"ITBar7Position"=dword:00000000

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New Vista Syntax for Opening Control Panel Items

In prior versions of Windows before Vista, you could always open control panel items by passing control.exe the name of the *.cpl file that represented the item you were trying to open. For instance, if you wanted to open the display properties you could run the command "control.exe desk.cpl".

In Windows Vista, there's a new syntax for opening control panel items - you can use the /name switch to pass the friendly name to control.exe instead of the difficult syntax.

For instance, if you want to open the Power Options panel you could run the following command from either the command line or the start menu search box:

control.exe /name Microsoft.PowerOptions

Here's a table of all the names that should work, which you can use in shortcuts or batch files.

Microsoft.AddHardware Microsoft.PenAndInputDevices
Microsoft.AdministrativeTools Microsoft.PeopleNearMe
Microsoft.AudioDevicesAndSoundThemes Microsoft.PerformaceInformationAndTools
Microsoft.AutoPlay Microsoft.Personalization
Microsoft.BackupAndRestoreCenter Microsoft.PhoneAndModemOptions
Microsoft.BitLockerDriveEncryption Microsoft.PowerOptions
Microsoft.Bluetooth Microsoft.Printers
Microsoft.CardSpace Microsoft.ProblemReportsAndSolutions
Microsoft.ColorManagement Microsoft.ProgramsAndFeatures
Microsoft.DateAndTime Microsoft.RegionalAndLanguageOptions
Microsoft.DefaultPrograms Microsoft.ScannersAndCameras
Microsoft.DeviceManager Microsoft.SecurityCenter
Microsoft.EaseOfAccessCenter Microsoft.SpeechRecognitionOptions
Microsoft.FolderOptions Microsoft.SyncCenter
Microsoft.Fonts Microsoft.System
Microsoft.GameControllers Microsoft.TabletPCSettings
Microsoft.GetPrograms Microsoft.TaskbarAndStartMenu
Microsoft.GetProgramsOnline Microsoft.TextToSpeech
Microsoft.IndexingOptions Microsoft.UserAccounts
Microsoft.Infrared Microsoft.WelcomeCenter
Microsoft.InternetOptions Microsoft.WindowsAnytimeUpgrade
Microsoft.iSCSIInitiator Microsoft.WindowsDefender
Microsoft.Keyboard Microsoft.WindowsFirewall
Microsoft.MobilityCenter Microsoft.WindowsSideShow
Microsoft.Mouse Microsoft.WindowsSidebarProperties
Microsoft.NetworkAndSharingCenter Microsoft.WindowsUpdate
Microsoft.OfflineFiles Microsoft.ParentalControls

You should note that you can also create shortcuts to control panel items by
just right-click dragging the link in Control Panel to the folder you want to
create the shortcut in.

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Move the Public Folder in Windows Vista

The Public folder in Windows Vista is used for sharing folders and files with people on the same computer or the same network. The normal location for the public folder is C:\Users\Public, but this isn't necessarily the best location for it, especially if you don't have enough space on your C: drive. With some registry editing, we can move the location of the folder.

Important Note: This change should not be done lightly, as a number of readers have encountered issues with this tweak. You'll want to carefully check file permissions and make sure you have a backup before even attempting this

If you click the Public link on the Favorite Links, you'll see the list of
folders. You can copy them to a new location.

For the sake of this example, we're going to move the C:\Users\Public folder
to D:\Public. First copy all the folders inside of the current Public folder
into the new D:\Public folder.

Update - Important

You should turn on the option to show hidden files and folders in order to make sure you copy all the folders. There are hidden Public Desktop and Favorites folders that need to be copied as well. (thanks to steve in the comments for this)

Now we'll open up the registry editor by typing regedit into the start menu search box.

Browse down to this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

You should see a key called Public. Double-click it to open it and change it to D:\Public, or whatever location you want to move the public folder to.

Reboot, and your public folder will now be moved. You should be able to remove the old public folder if you want to. (Make sure you verify the location of the new public folder before you do)

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Mount an ISO image in Windows Vista

The freeware utility from Microsoft to mount ISO Images doesn't work in Windows Vista. Thankfully there's another utility that does.

The utility that we will use is called Virtual Clone Drive. This utility will let you mount .ISO, .CCD, .DVD, .IMG, .UDF and .BIN files. Download the utility and start the setup process.

Select Yes or OK at the hardware prompt and continue. You might have to
restart your computer. Now you should be able to mount any ISO image by just
double-clicking on the file. Note: If you are going to reinstall this utility,
make sure you uninstall it first, or you'll BSOD yourself repeatedly.

This utility does not work on Windows Vista 64 bit edition.

Alternatives

• Virtual CD-ROM (Microsoft) - This utility does not work in Windows Vista


• MagicDisk - This is a nice, free utility, but it isn't very easy to install in Vista64.


• Alcohol 52% - Free version of Alcohol 120, but it bundles
  a browser toolbar that they claim isn't spyware. It's unacceptable.


• Daemon Tools - Well known tool, but the latest version
  installs spyware on your computer, and the old version doesn't work in Vista.

At this point, Virtual CloneDrive is by far my favorite free utility.

Download Virtual CloneDrive from slysoft.com

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Make Explorer Show Window Titles in Windows Vista

Nobody is really sure why Microsoft decided that explorer windows shouldn't have a title anymore, but that's the way things are. You can still look in the address bar to see what folder you are looking at, but there's another option.

This option comes in the form of a small utility called AeroBar which does nothing else other than add titles to your Explorer windows based on the current folder.

You can see the utility in action here:

All you need to do is download and run the executable, and if you like the effect then add the utility to your startup group.

If you want to stop this application from running you will need to use Task Manager, find the Aerobar.exe process in the list, and then click on End Process.

Note: There's no reason to install every single utility we write about, just
install the ones that fix your pet peeves.

Download AeroBar.exe from psscript.net [direct download]

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Mac OSX Expose Clone for Windows Vista

Expose is an application on Mac OSX that tiles all the open windows with the press of a key, letting you quickly choose between them. Now there is finally a Mac OSX Expose clone application for Windows Vista that runs great! Not only that, but it's open source, so you can improve it if you wanted to.

To install this application, you'll have to run the setup application as well as the Visual C++ redistributable package, unless you have visual studio installed, which you probably don't.

Download:
http://blogs.labo-dotnet.com/simon/archive/2006/11/08/11485.aspx

Visual C++ 2005 Redist package
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=32BC1BEE-A3F9-4C13-9C99-220B62A191EE&displaylang=en
Once you have it installed, you can just press the F9 key, and you'll immediately be presented with a tiled view. If you have a video playing, it will continue to play in the tiled view.

If you move your mouse to the upper left hand corner of the screen, it will
immediately tile all the windows. You can configure the hotspot or the hotkey
with the tray icon, although it's not the most user friendly dialog.

There is one feature that MyExpose does not have from the Mac version, and
that's to tile only the open windows of a particular application.

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Hotkey for Creating New Folder in Windows Explorer

There's actually a couple of solutions to this problem: You can use the built-in accelerator keys, or download and install a small freeware app called bxNewFolder to assign the hotkey.

Using the Keyboard Accelerator Keys

You can use the keyboard accelerator keys: Alt+F to bring up the file menu, and then for the New menu, and then for new folder. So your shortcut key sequence ends up being F+W+F with the Alt key held down. (Try it out)

We've found that this works pretty well once you get used to it, and it doesn't require any additional software.

Install bxNewFolder

This freeware plugin uses F12 as the new folder hotkey, which unfortunately isn't changeable. If you are using this in Windows XP, you'll get the benefit of the new toolbar button that it adds, though. There's no visible UI in Windows Vista, but it works perfectly.

To install this properly, you need to close all Windows Explorer windows and then choose Run as administrator from the right-click menu.

Once installed, it should immediately start working… just hit F12 to open the new folder dialog. If you hold down the Shift key and hit enter after typing the folder name it will immediately navigate into the folder, which I find very useful.

In Windows XP, you'll also get a New Folder button.

You'll have to scroll nearly to the bottom of the page to find the installer download.

Download bxNewFolder from Baxbex.com

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Hide the Recycle Bin Icon Text on Windows Vista

The recycle bin is really obvious. We've been seeing the same thing since Windows 95, so having text on the icon to tell us what it is seems a little unnecessary. With a little registry patch, we can easily remove the text.

Just download the registry patch, unzip, and then double-click on the file. You'll get a bunch of UAC prompts asking if you really want to do this.

After the patch has been added, right click on the desktop and choose Refresh, and you should see your new Recycle Bin icon without the text:

This is pretty sweet.

If you want to restore the Recycle Bin icon text, you can download this registry patch instead, unzip, and then double-click on the file. Your recycle bin text will go back to normal.

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Hide Drives from Your Computer in Windows Vista

If you've got drives in My Computer that you never access, such as a USB Flash drive that you are using solely for ReadyBoost, a floppy drive, or a network drive only used for a particular piece of software, then you might want to simply hide the drive from your computer.

This tip will only hide the drive from being displayed, applications and the command prompt will still have access to it, and you can still manually browse to the folder if you type in the path.

Now what's that floppy drive doing there?

Configure the Hidden Drives

Open up regedit.exe by using the start menu search box, and then browse down to the following key.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

If the Explorer key does not exist, you can right-click on Policies, select New Key and name it Explorer.

The NoDrives key most likely does not exist by default, so you'll need to create it with right-click \ new 32-bit DWORD and name it NoDrives.

Converting 100001 to decimal we end up with a decimal value of 33 or a hex
value of 0×21, so if you double-click on the key in the registry editor, choose
Decimal and then enter 33 into the value field.

In order to see these changes, you'll need to restart explorer.exe, which you
can do easily from Task Manager or the longer way by just logging off and back
on.

Uninstall Tweak

To disable this tweak, simply remove the NoDrives registry key entirely.

If you want to hide multiple drives, you'll need to use the table of all the drive letters to figure out the correct binary code, and then convert that to decimal or hex. (hint: you can use the calculator in scientific mode)

Look, now that worthless floppy drive is gone!

Naturally it would be better to disable the floppy drive in your BIOS, but this tip is still valid for other types of drives.

Note that this also works on Windows XP.

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Get Vista Taskbar Thumbnail Previews in Windows XP

It was only a matter of time before people started cloning Windows Vista features and adding them into Windows XP. One of my favorite Vista features is the thumbnails that popup when you mouse over the taskbar. And now I can use them in XP as well.
The utility we'll use is called Visual Tooltip, which is a hybrid dock / thumbnail applicaton. With a few tweaks to the settings, we can make it work just like Vista thumbnails.

To make your thumbnails look the same as mine, just follow these couple of steps. Download and start the application, and open up the options from the tray icon.

Increase the size of the sliders to make the thumbnail bigger, and then uncheck the option for "Size proportional to the target window".

Click on the Display tab, and then uncheck the "Show window title"

That's all there is to it.

Download Visual Tooltip 2.1

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Fix for COM Surrogate Has Stopped Working Error in Vista

If you've been getting the error COM Surrogate has stopped working whenever
you browse folders containing video or media files, you have come to a good
place for some possible solutions. This problem is caused because of codecs and
other COM components installed by various softwares that aren't fully
Vista-compatible, like some versions of DivX or Nero.

Here's the error message:

There are a number of possible solutions to this problem, and the right
solution depends greatly on what software is actually causing the problem. Some
of the most well-known problem causing softwares are DivX and Nero, but there
are others that cause the problem as well.

Possible Solutions

• If you are using DivX, you should be upgraded to the very latest version (6.5+)
  
• If you are using Nero, you can try upgrading to the latest version (7.7.5.1+)


• If you’ve upgraded Nero and Divx and still have the problem, you can try
  renaming the file C:\Program Files\Common Files\Ahead\DSFilter\NeVideo.ax to
  NeVideo.ax.bak. You may also need to rename NeVideoHD.ax to NeVideoHD.bak
  
  This will break Nero Showtime, however. (thanks to dugi in the comments for
  this one)


• You can disable Thumbnail previews, which should make the problem go away, but
  isn't the optimal solution.


• The older ffdshow codec pack has been known to cause some problems. The
  ffdshow tryouts codec pack seems to work better. Might want to try using this
  one: http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net/
  
• If you'd like to uninstall Nero entirely, there is a utility that they
  provide to help with complete uninstall that helps a lot in instances where
  you have a bad installation of an older version.
  http://www.nero.com/nero7/eng/FAQs_Nero7_NeroVision.html


• Some users have recommended installing the Vista Codec Package in order to update all your codecs to the correct
  versions. I can't confirm that this works because I have not tried it myself.
  As always, be careful when installing unknown components and create a restore
  point.


• You can use the very useful MMCompView free utility from Nirsoft to disable any codecs on the system. This is very useful to help troubleshoot exactly which component is causing the problem.


• There's another possible solution below of turning off DEP for dllhost,
  which might not work for everybody. You may have to add divx+nero executables
  to the DEP ignore list.

Alan McC wrote in with this fix that might solve the problem in a much easier
way. Essentially, turning off Data Execution Prevention on dllhost (the COM
surrogate) can fix this problem for some people. This solution is detailed below.

Right click on Computer, and choose Properties

Click on Advanced System Settings, and then under Advanced, click Settings

Select the "Data Execution Protection" tab, and then click “Turn on DEP for
all programs and services except those I select�

Click on the Add button, and then browse to C:\Windows\System32\dllhost.exe
as shown

Click Open, and then OK.

Here's what you should see…

Now you can browse video folders without problems!

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Enable Run Command on Windows Vista Start Menu

A number of people have asked me how to enable the old Run dialog that existed on every other version of Windows until Vista. One of the nice features of the old Run dialog was that it saved the history of what you had typed in.
We should note first that you can always get to the run dialog by just hitting Win + R on the keyboard, which is the simplest way to do so, and would probably be worth getting used to.

Otherwise, you can re-enable the run dialog by right-clicking on the Start
Button, selecting Properties, and then clicking Customize on the ensuing dialog
window. You'll be taken to the Customize Start Menu screen.

Check the "Run command" checkbox in the list, and you should now be in
business:

Note the addition of the Run… button.

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Enable Military Time in Windows Vista

It's really very simple to enable the system clock to show military time in Windows Vista, but the setting is not in an obvious place, so you might not have found it.

To change this setting, we'll need to get to the Regional and Language Options screen. The easiest way to do so is just enter intl.cpl into the Start menu search box and hit enter. You could locate it in control panel if you prefer, though.

From the Regional and Language Options dialog, click the "Customize this format" button, and then select the Time tab.

Change the time format dropdown as shown:

You'll notice from the key that the capital letter H means 24 hour time, and
a single letter means that it won't display the leading zero.

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Enable Hidden BootScreen in Windows Vista

The Windows Vista BootScreen is pointless, but Microsoft decided to hide a
more visually appealing boot screen that can easily be enabled with very little
trouble. I'm not sure why they didn't make the boot screen better.

If you really want a better boot screen, you can check out my article on creating a custom boot logo.

Here's the default boot screen:

And here's the hidden one, called "Aurora"

All you have to do is type msconfig into the start menu search box,
and hit enter.

Click the Boot tab, and then check the "No GUI boot" checkbox.

Hit OK and reboot the computer. You should see the new boot screen
immediately.

Note: You may get a Windows Defender error on the next startup. You can
enable the system config utility using the tray icon and this error will go
away.

Read more!