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Turn off tasbar “Always on top” in Windows 7

I could not live without this hack. Placing the Windows taskbar on the lefthand side, with auto-hide on, gives you more screen real estate AND more taskbar width when it pops out when needed, via Ctrl-Esc. I’ve been configuring Windows this way for decades. How can people stand that little strip at the bottom flashing at them all day? Seems like a little thing… but to me it’s huge. It actually determines who’s in charge – am I sitting at my computer to be told what I should do via little popup notifications, or am I there to get something done, checking on any notifications when I’m ready to address them? Sure, my friends can get annoyed that I take an hour to respond to an instant message, but I’m getting stuff done. Anyway, I’ve gotta keep this thing handy… (or just resist the urge to boot into Windows to play games…) :>

UPDATE: the original hack hasn’t kept pace with Explorer updates, and hasn’t been open sourced so others can do it. On page 17 of that forum post, another hack was provided that seems to be working.

Comments (2) | Tuesday, March 15, 2011 [ annoyances * windows 7 ]

Compiling and debugging your Qt 4.7 phonon app with Visual Studio 2010

Qt’s Phonon library has an awesome goal: abstract video and audio services to simplify cross-platform development. It has worked great for me out of the box using Qt 4.7 on linux and Mac OS X. Windows setup took a bit of elbow grease. Here are the cheatnotes to get you through it quickly.

NOTE: The Qt mingw setup worked fine for me when I was setting up my first Windows development environment, do not hesitate to go that route. All you need is the Qt SDK for Windows. Free is good!

But this time around, I opted for using Visual Studio 2010, since I already had it installed and I wanted to compare. I’ve read that there is no support for using the open-source-licensed Qt with Visual Studio, but the official Qt download page for the Visual Studio Add-In clears things up – it says the add-in “can be used for development together with all Qt licenses”. Let’s fire it up and try it out! (continued…)

Comments (2) | Wednesday, March 2, 2011 [ compiling * debugging * phonon * Qt * visual studio ]

WordPress theme, css and plugins now compatible with IE7

What a horrible trial-and-error life web designers lead! After too much hair-pulling, this site now looks as it should on IE7. Issues:

IE7 does not like div tags between li tags – so I reworked everything to oblige
IE7 requires some hacking with padding and margin to get my rounded corners css to work

I hope I never have to touch it again (but I will).

This site now has pretty valid CSS and XHTML, and resizes pretty well too. Try it out with Ctrl+ to increase text size, Ctrl- to decrease. Change the resolution. Stretch it, pull it, bend it – better than Stretch Armstrong! (sorry, no green goo though…)

Comments | Saturday, August 30, 2008 [ css * liquid html * rounded corners * wordpress ]

IBM Rational Clearcase keyboard shortcuts from Visual Studio

I’ll repeat this as often as I get the chance:

The mouse is for CONSUMERS.
The keyboard is for PRODUCERS.
The only exception is for ARTISTS, who should be using TABLETS anyway.

Get your hand off that mouse! 😛

Here’s how to stay mouse-free using Clearcase version control in Visual Studio. To get to the place where you can set up your own “tools” to fire off via the keyboard, for VS2008, use Tools->External Tools, and if you’re still chugging happily along with VC6, use Tools->Customize->Tools.

Purpose	Command	Version	Arguments	Initial dir
Compare with previous version	#ccpath#\bin\cleardlg.exe	VS 2008 FP1	/diffpred “$(ItemPath)”	$(ItemDir)
Compare with previous version	#ccpath#\bin\cleardlg.exe	VS 6.0 SP6	/diffpred “$(FilePath)”	$(FileDir)
Show the version tree	#ccpath#\bin\clearvtree.exe	VS 2008 FP1	“$(ItemPath)”	$(ItemDir)
Show the version tree	#ccpath#\bin\clearvtree.exe	VS 6.0 SP6	“$(FilePath)”	$(FileDir)
Show checkouts (from 2 levels up)	#ccpath#\bin\clearfindco.exe	VS 2008 FP1	“$(SolutionDir)\..\..\”
Show checkouts (from 2 levels up)	#ccpath#\bin\clearfindco.exe	VS 6.0 SP6	“$(WkspDir)\..\..\”
Update view (from 2 levels up)	#ccpath#\bin\clearviewupdate.exe	VS 2008 FP1	“$(SolutionDir)\..\..\”	#ccpath#\bin
Update view (from 2 levels up)	#ccpath#\bin\clearviewupdate.exe	VS 6.0 SP6	“$(WkspDir)\..\..\”	#ccpath#\bin

Then add keyboard shortcuts for the tools, and you’ll be that much farther from reaching for the mouse.

Comments | Thursday, August 7, 2008

Music streaming on linux Part 1: Ampache

It’s time to move another step into the digital age.

I’ve worked for years on my HangTheDJ mp3 player, and it’s provided me with countless hours of pure bliss, playing a constant stream of mp3’s just right for the mood I happen to be in. But it’s time for a reassessment.

The problem: information organization. In the digital age, get organized or drown. The only practical solution to getting organized is to store all digital media in a central location. Then stream what you need from the central store to where you are. (continued…)