Lee.org

I just had a hard drive go bad on me so I had to buy a new drive and reinstall Windows. Here’s the software I put back on my computer immediately, the essential software that makes Windows XP useable for me:

WizMouse – lets you scroll a window without you having to give it focus. Brilliantly simple and useful.

Crashplan – I would have lost data if not for this online backup tool.

EditPad Pro – my text editor of choice. It also comes in a free version that’s fine.

Autohotkey – giving me keyboard controls like Ctrl-Alt-C for Calculator and “..4” to automatically type my phone number.

Google Chrome  – the best, fastest, easiest to use, prettiest browser.

• Google Voice Extension  – Along with my Google Voice account, it’s easier to dial a call with this than picking up my phone
• Screen Capture Extension  – an excellent browser screen capture tool
• Speed Dial Extension  – the best homepage for a browser ever

CCCP – the Combined Community Codec Pack lets Windows Media Player play most every video format automatically

Freecalc – by Moffsoft, a better calculator than the built-in Windows one. Easy, clean.

Picasa – the best home picture viewer

Teracopy – replaces windows file copy… the best feature being if a copy fails, I see what happened and can recover, unlike Windows copy

Rename-It! – lets me rename files en-mass

PureText – strips text formatting when pasting.

Put  Windows Explorer in the Quicklaunch toolbar and change the startup options target to “%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /e,c:\aaa”. More examples.

Set Gmail to be the default email client in Chrome

Disable Windows Search When Searching Windows Explorer

Truecrypt – keeps my passwords safe on my computer.

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The second round of essential software

KFC – Kill Flash Cookies
Filezilla
UltraVNC

The Sysinternals tools are amazing. Filemon to see what is slowing down my hard drive, Pagedefrag to defrag your pagefile.sys. Several tools to help find malware

DVD Decrypter (local archive)

Cleartype – absolutely essential for good text quality on Windows XP! You’ll have to run the page using Internet Explorer to install it.

Symphony of Science – Onward to the Edge!

local version:

Darn if this isn’t good music.

(via TheDailyBuggle.com)

This will work for you if you have Windows XP. For Windows 7 and a bunch of other ways to do it, refer to his page. (one easy way is to use the Send from Gmail extension.

Ever wanted to send an email directly from Gmail when you click a “contact” or “mailto” link in Google Chrome only to have your desktop email client pop open? Firefox has a quick fix for this already baked in its options, but unfortunately for us Chrome users, Google has yet to officially implement this feature. Fortunately, there are few ways to fix this and set Gmail as the default email in Chrome.

Change the “File Type” Settings

This one’s fairly straightforward. Open a Windows Explorer window, then:

1. Go to Tools > Folder Options > File Types
2. Near the top of the list of filetypes, click on “URL:MailTo Protocol”



3. Click on “Advanced”
4. With “open” highlighted, click on “Edit”
5. In the field under “Application used to perform action, enter this:    “C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe” –app=https://mail.google.com/mail?extsrc=mailto&url=%1
6. (where USERNAME is your Windows user name)

Went to Come Out And Play SF today. Great fun!

Sunday (tomorrow!) is the last day. I highly recommend you go out to play!

A Plea for Legible Flight Reservations
Grrrr!
We’ve been at this whole commercial flight thing for about a hundred years. You would think that the airlines could create a simple, clear flight plan for me. EVERY trip I have made for the last 20 years I have had to translate their gobbly-gook flight reservation into something legible. The relevant data is always the same. Could someone in the airline industry please recognize this? Give me a calendar item that I can copy and paste into my life!

Here is what I put in my calendar. Short. Readable. Useful.

Flight Ref: XXXX

Monday November 21st
depart SFO at 10:35am on AA flight 556
  arrive Chicago ORD at 4:55pm
depart Chicago ORD 8:30pm on AA flight 4308
  arrive Nashville 10:00pm

Friday November 25th
depart Nashville 4:30pm on AA flight 661
  arrive Dallas DFW at 6:40pm
depart Dallas DFW at 9:20pm on AA flight 1575
  arrive SFO at 11:05pm

and here is what American Airlines sent me. It is freaking impossible to read. Sure it contains all the relevant data but I challenge you to understand my flight info in less than 5 minutes!

It doesn’t need to be like this. Make it simple. Make it say what it needs to say. Then put the nitty gritty details at the bottom or something. Bonus points awarded if they put a “Add to Google Calendar” icon next to the reservation so I don’t even have to copy-paste. But hey…

I originally posted this in 2011 and it burns my buns every time I fly that flight reservations are still universally impossible to read. I use parts of this blog post as a template before I fly.

The Clipper Card website wants to be useful and good… but it isn’t. It has lots of ridiculous text like this which is in alarmingly red print:

When you first set up Autoload, change your Autoload setup or update your Autoload funding source using a credit card, it may take up to 3-5 days for your new Autoload order to take effect. If you use a bank account, it may take 5 to 10 business days.

That could have been said far clearer with 60% fewer words:

Any changes to Autoload may take up to 5 days for credit cards and 10 days for bank accounts to complete.

Despite there being very few functions, it is hard to find what you’re looking for. For example, to turn Autoload on, you go to, straightforwardly enough “Set up Autoload” off the main menu. But to disable Autoload, you go to… ugh, I forget, I wandered the site for 5 minutes looking for the button before finding it. I think it was under “Check card value”

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Ah, but the reason I’m writing. Here is a tidbit I got from Customer Service that isn’t on their website anywhere:

My query:

I have autoload on the card and I have some Clipper Cash. I have noticed that the Clipper Cash never gets used, instead, the card autoloads from my credit card when it gets low. How can I used the Clipper Cash on my card?

And the response:

my paraphrasing:

Autoload supersedes Clipper Cash. You need to disable Autoload to use any Clipper Cash on your card.

Their overly wordy response:

In order to use the Clipper cash on your account, you will need to temporarily disable the BART HVD on your account. BART will not deduct from your e-cash balance as long as your autoload is available on the account. If you disable your HVD, BART will continue to deduct from that until the HVD balance is depleted, and then they will begin deducting from the e-cash balance. Once the e-cash balance on your account has been reduced, you may re-activate the BART HVD autoload.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Clipper Card Customer Service Center at 1-877-878-8883 (TDD/TTY 711 or 1-800-735-2929).

My upcoming Flame Effects class in LA topped BoingBoing.net on October 24th :-). Thanks to Mark Frauenfelder for posting and asking me to bring the class to LA in the first place. (The class)

This class has sold out. If you want to be alerted to future flame effects classes, please drop me an email at Lee at Lee dat org.

Learn several awesome things this weekend. Hang out with a coolio maker crowd in the Bay Area!

It’s 2 things: classes and hanging out between classes with people into learning and making. The format kinda reminds me of a science fiction convention.

Here’s the list of classes go look!
– Learn to Solder
– How to use the Arduino Tinker Kit
– Make a Tin Can 2-String / Intro to Instrument Making
– Sewing Circuits
– Build a Camping Stove
– Marble Roller Coasters
– Basic Electroluminescent Wire Workshop
– Flow-Wand
– An Introduction to Poi Spinning
– Going from Idea to Product for the Small Time Maker
– Beginning Web Development with PHP
– Wet Felted Flower Workshop
– Introduction to PCB Layout
– Fusing Plastic Fabric
– Conductive! Sew a Soft Circuit
– Spontaneous Magic
– The Internet & Computer Networks