Greasy Blog: Search, 3 column template, Blogrush etc

As you can see I've started messing around with more features for the blog. I won't try to be too meta about blogging about my blog, but they are tweaks that elevate one's blog from being the stock blog.

Search Bar

This isn't too useful for now, but as we expand with more and more articles, it'll come in handy. I found the article on Widgetbox , which I guess has a bunch of widgets for your blog. The cool thing about it is that the widgets are as simple to install as just inputting your blog url and the width of your search bar, and basically it'll install on its own.

My only gripe is it doesn't make it easy to tweak once you've already installed, unless you sign up for a (free) membership. When I had to tweak the search width I just ended up deleting the old one and installing a new one.

Still, the search bar seems to work like a charm.

3 Column Blogger Layout

I usually try to design all my sites to be viewable on an 800x600 monitor, but my stats show monitor resolutions that small only account for 2% of the views on this blog so far. Most are either 1280x1024 or 1024x768. So that means it's okay to expand a little.

Blogger's default layouts are perfectly functional, but they don't offer 3 columns by default. Luckily, you can tackle the layout template yourself, if you want to get your feet soaking wet in HTML, XML, and CSS.

I found a blog (Tips for New Bloggers) that takes the guesswork out of it by showing you exactly what values to edit to get a 3 column blog. I still want to alter it so the two thin columns are on the right, and to widen the main reading area a little, but that'll be for a later time (I already spent an hour trying to get it to work, but I couldn't get it perfectly right).

Update: I ended up switching to a completely self-contained template I found at Finalsense, simply called Keyboard. It's a 3 column template that has that gaming keyboard image that I haven't gotten around to changing yet. It looks cool and appropriate, but unfortunately I actually don't have such a keyboard (though I've got a perfectly fine Labtec wireless keyboard and mouse).

BlogRush

Blogrush is a widget that's kind of an RSS exchange for blogs. You build credits based on your traffic, that shows your article headlines on other blogs that use the widget. You can filter what category of blogs will be shown on your widget, and it seems to be working well so far.

I'm still prioritizing content over traffic promotion right now, but slowly but surely I will be putting more effort into driving traffic into the site. There are plenty of articles out there that are all about driving traffic, and it's all a matter of what you take advantage of.

Update: I've also now signed up with Feedburner, BlogExplosion, and BlogCatalog, as that article suggested.

Out with the Floppy Drive

I bought my MITSUMI black floppy drive back when I originally built my computer in August of 2002, and I'd kept it in my system for the past five and a half years. It's always worked... for the four or five times I'd needed to use it.

Image courtesy of Newegg.com , where I had bought this drive and many other computer parts.

That being said, I realized I hadn't owned a floppy disk in years. So when I swapped out my busted DVD drive, I decided to take my screwdriver to the floppy drive and take it out once and for all.

You know the drill... first the power cable, then the interface cable, then screws out and pull the sucker out. Luckily I hadn't thrown out the original cover to that empty slot from my Ultra case (though I did have a tough time finding it), so soon my computer looked super sleek.

Postmortem: the drive didn't really speed up the boot process, and I did have to go into my BIOS to tell it that there's absolutely no floppy drive anywhere. Still, that slowdown (and chugging sound) whenever you accidentally click on the floppy drive (A:\) and it tries to read what's in there (nothing), is now gone.

And finally, there's a tiny reduction in power usage, and better air flow and less heat from the machine.

Now to figure out what I want to do with my trusty floppy drive...

My Samsung 18x DVD Burner from 3btech is Here

As you might recall, my trusty AOpen 16x DVD Burner finally bit the dust after languishing for over a year. For a replacement, I went for a Samsung SH-S182D 18x Double Layer DVD Burner from 3btech, the cheapest burner I could find online for 29.99 shipped.

I ordered it on January 20th, and received it on the 25th via UPS ground that I was able to track online. The package was a cardboard box that was filled with styrofoam peanuts and the drive wrapped in an anti-static bag. Along with the CD audio cable (unnecessary), that was all that came in the package. There wasn't even an IDE cable (unless I wasn't paying attention) or any software. In fact, there seemed to be evidence that the drive wasn't new, and had at the very least been installed as a test in a previous computer...

Anyway, installation was a snap, if you know how to install IDE drives at all. I just opened the computer case, unscrewed the drive that was in there, and unplugged the power cable and IDE cable. And then I put in the new drive just as I did.

Here are some photos I took of the project. Unfortunately, I was the only one around so I couldn't take too many photos while working. It's all pretty uninteresting anyway.



Installed, I booted up with no problems. The only odd thing was the drive was identified as TSSTCorp SH-S182D. The part number was correct, but it was not labeled as Samsung. I looked it up online, though, and it seemed to line up with other peoples' accounts. It is labeled as Samsung in the case itself.

The best parts were that normal drive functions performed flawlessly, and burned a 16x single layer DVD just fine. I don't have dual layer media, so I couldn't test those. Playing DVD's using VLC media player worked just fine. The drive didn't come with any software, but luckily the Nero Smartstart software that came with my previous drive still worked fine.

And most of all, the drive now opens without the use of a paperclip!

Overall, so far so good. 3btech was good about notifying me of my order's status, and the drive works perfectly so far. I was a little disappointed by the lack of usually included stuff in the package, like software, and an IDE cable, but I assume that's what I get for the price (plus I didn't need them anyway). But for more novice users that would need these materials, I would highly recommend spending a little more.

I'm more concerned by the fact that it doesn't seem that the drive is new. 3btech offers a 90 day warranty, and I'd be very surprised to have this drive fail in that little time. Still, if it fails in 91 days, I'd be pretty pissed.

Selectively Start and Stop Services with sc.exe and AutoHotkey

I recently got a copy of Corel Painter X and noticed that after installing, there was a new Windows service that kept starting up called ProtexisLicensing. Looking online confirmed that it was required to validate your copy of Painter. The problem is Painter needs to be validated by ProtexisLicensing every time it starts up, and if ProtexisLicensing isn't running when you start up Painter, Painter won't load up at all.

I don't use Painter enough to be fine with this background process taking up several megabytes to load every time I start Windows. Luckily, with the help of a utility called sc.exe and Autohotkey, we can tweak the Painter shortcut to start up Protexis Licensing before running Painter, and then turning it off when Painter is closed.

First, download sc.exe . I can't find a specific download location right now, but just google for it and you should find it eventually. It's a Service Controller that lets you start and stop your installed Windows services, among other useful features that I haven't gotten to learn about yet.

Next, create an autohotkey script. Mine is called painter.ahk. The code looks like this:

Run C:\Documents and Settings\Arvin\My Documents\scripts\sc.exe start ProtexisLicensing

Sleep, 1000

Runwait C:\Program Files\Corel\Corel Painter X\Painter X.exe

Run C:\Documents and Settings\Arvin\My Documents\scripts\sc.exe stop ProtexisLicensing

The paths of these files might differ depending on where you put your downloaded sc.exe and installed Painter, so alter as necessary.

What this script does is calls sc.exe to first start the Windows service ProtexisLicensing. Then it waits 1000 ms (1 second), and then runs Painter. RunWait is a command that basically means "run, then pause the script until such and such file is closed." So once Painter is shut down, it runs the next line, which stops ProtexisLicensing.

Then, you can change your start menu or Desktop shortcut for Painter to point to this script instead of running Painter X.exe.

To do this right click on the shortcut, and click Properties. Then change the target to point to the new Autohotkey file. Change "start in" to the folder in which the script is located.

Likely once you fix this the icon will change to the Autohotkey icon. To change this, go to the properties of the shortcut again and hit "Change icon." Then go to to location of the installed Painter.exe file and select it, with its proper icon.

Finally, hit Windows>run>services.msc to load the Services control window. Find the ProtexisLicensing service and set it to disabled (you can also stop it right then). From here on out ProtexisLicensing will no longer run at startup, or ever with the exception of when you call it.

And that's it! Save yourself some RAM space!

Of course, you can use sc.exe and Autohotkey to do this for any other Windows service you have that doesn't need to run every time. Just be sure you know exactly what those particular services affect. For more information, see how I took command of my Windows services.

DeFraggler - awesome Defrag alternative

In principle I prefer to use the pre-installed Windows options when it comes to system utilities like scandisk, defrag, and even Notepad. I'd just rather not be installing other redundant programs even if they're better. That being said, I was turned onto DeFraggler by the same MakeUseOf article I referenced last time, and I must say it's quite impressive.

(image from the Defraggler website)

What makes DeFraggler work so well is that it identifies the fragmented files and only defragments the parts of the hard drive involved, instead of the whole drive like Windows does. Much faster. For someone like me who's automated defrag, this makes it even more painless to defrag frequently (in this case, every Sunday).

Now if there was only a way to uninstall the default windows Disk Defragmenter utility...

Firefox Quick Find with Next/Previous, and Chromedit Plus!

There isn't much of a difference between hitting CTRL-F and hitting "/" (forward-slash), but appropriately, CTRL-F brings up Firefox's Find tool, while / brings up Quick Find. I don't see much of a difference between either one, other than normal find having extra options like Next, Previous, Highlight All, and Match Case, while Quick Find only has the search field.

Well, now you can have it both ways with this simple edit of Firefox's Chrome settings, which I found in a Mozilla Links article:

Open userChrome.css and add this line:

#FindToolbar > * {display: -moz-box; }

I just wish there was an equally simple way to close the find bar as just hitting / again. I have to move my hand all the way over to the ESC key to shut it down via keyboard.

Simple enough, if you know how to edit userChrome.css. If not, I'd just highly recommend getting the ChromeEdit Plus Firefox extension, like I do.

Edit "Send to" and "Open With" right click entries

MakeUseOf.com recently had an article entitled "10 Quick Fixes to Make your Windows Computer Faster" and while a bunch of the tips were ones I'd already implemented, I learned about how to alter the right click "Send to" menu. I was able to remove all but the "Compressed folder" option, which lets you immediately create a zip file of the file you've right-clicked.

To remove, just enter "sendto" in your run dialog (Win-R), and delete the entries you don't want. Do NOT delete the desktop.ini file.

This also got me thinking about how to edit the "Open With" right click context menu. MakeUseOf did not have the answer to that, but I did search and found this Tech Republic discussion that does just that. Unfortunately it involves editing the entries for each and every known file extension, so I think it's too much to handle for now, but I look forward to coming back to that in the near future.