Posts Tagged ‘Guides’

FAT32 to NTFS

Monday, May 21st, 2007

NTFS is the file system of choice for Windows operating systems based off the NT kernel. It’s popularly used in Windows 2000, XP, and Vista, among others. It replaced FAT32, which was used by previous Windows and MS-DOS operating systems, such as Windows 95 and 98.

Why use NTFS? Well, there are plenty of good reasons, such as metadata and larger file sizes. FAT32 limited filesize to 4 GB, but it’s nigh-unlimited in NTFS. However, FAT32 has a bonus over NTFS in that it is easily read by other operating systems, such as Linux and Mac OS. Both other operating systems can only read NTFS partitions, so special software or drivers must be installed in order to give write access. That’s really the only advantage, but it doesn’t beat the 4 GB filesize limit or the 32 GB partition limit inherent in FAT32, making NTFS the all-around better choice if you just use Windows.

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SendTo folder in Vista

Thursday, April 12th, 2007

So, you just got Windows Vista and you’re looking to trick it out as much as you can. If you’re a power user like me, this includes putting some shortcuts in the SendTo folder. In XP, this was easy. You went to Documents and Settings, your user profile folder, and the SendTo folder was right in there. Alas, it’s nowhere as easy as that in Vista. Yes, the folder exists, but it’s deeper in your User folder. Much deeper. But have no fear! I’ve got the perfect solution for you.

1. Make a shortcut by right-clicking on the program you want a shortcut to and selecting Create Shortcut. Rename it as you see fit.

2. Click the Start orb and click in the quick search box. Type in “shell:sendto” (without the quotes). Press enter.

3. Copy the shortcut made in step 1 to the folder that popped up in step 2 and you’re all done.

Now, if you want to send a file to this program (the program I did this for is Emacs), right click on the file, go to Send To, and select your program. How easy was that? (Don’t answer.)

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Browser sniffing

Tuesday, February 6th, 2007

There are quite a few browsers out there, but they are, for the most part, pretty much the same. The only major differences are in their rendering engines, that is, the code that allows them to display web pages. The most popular one is Gecko, which is used by Firefox, Mozilla, and Netscape. Another is Presto, used by Opera. Finally, there is Trident, the layout engine used by Internet Explorer. Of course there are others, but this isn’t a post about layout engines. You’ve got Wikipedia for that.

Anyways, the rendering (or layout) engine of a browser determines how HTML and CSS are displayed. Most browsers display things similarly, but not Internet Explorer. IE has always been the black sheep of the browser family, preferring proprietary functions (such as ActiveX) to standards. Of course, no browser is completely standards-compliant, but IE is as far off as it can get. The most recent version, IE7, has solved quite a few problems, especially with CSS, but it can still be a hassle to code a website that will work perfectly in all browsers. The problem is that IE is still the most used browser. If your site doesn’t work in IE, you’re going to have a lot of people who will steer clear of it.

The answer? Well, you could just eliminate anything in your site that’s causing problems with IE. Or, you could let web surfers know about Firefox. Chances are that the only reason most people are still using IE is that they don’t know about any alternatives. Read on to see an easy way to let IE users know they should switch to Firefox while allowing non-IE users to continue on with no trouble.

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