Managed Solutions » Quicktips

Windows 7 Video Tip – Adding new items to the sendto menu

Joe Hackman — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 17:33:28 +0000

Typical Sendto Menu

When you right click a file or folder on your Windows 7 computer there are several menus available, one of them is the “sendto” menu. This allows you to easily send that file or folder to that program or folder. One important option that is missing in this menu is the notepad program. In this video I demonstrate how to add new items to the sendto menu or specifically the notepad program in the example. You can use it for almost anything a program, network drive even an FTP server.

How to add valuable information to your Windows desktop background (Video)

Joe Hackman — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 16:00:13 +0000

It seems as though basic system information is often needed but not always easy to get. This video demonstrates how to use the BGinfo program by Sysinternals to display important information on the desktop background of your windows PC. The first couple of minutes show how to edit and use the program then a demonstration showing how to add it to a login script follows that for network admin types.

Here is a screenshot example of the output on one of our test machines:

Have an idea you’d like to see a video demonstration of? If it’s not already here, let us know via comments, contact form or Facebook and we’ll try to get it added to our library.

How to refresh your DNS Cache

Joe Hackman — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 20:02:53 +0000

You may have found yourself in this predicament – you or your ISP have changed some of your domain name server settings for your website, email or similar service and you cannot yet access the new resource when you try. Part of the process you can control and part you cannot. These changes when well planned will occur very quickly on the internet side of things but your local computer may need some help to recognize the new settings. That is the purpose of this article.

Who is it for specifically?

This information will be very useful for anyone running Windows who has recently made changes to their website or email server DNS settings. The instructions are written for Windows 7, but the commands work on NT and above.

Accessing an administrative command (cmd) prompt

There are three commands total but to access them you first need a cmd prompt running as administrator. To do that go into the start menu/all programs/accessories and find Command Prompt. Right click Command prompt and choose “run as administrator” this may require some account credentials of an administrative user on the machine or domain.

Running the commands to refresh all of your local DNS cache

Once you are in the administrative cmd window you will need to type the following three commands:

ipconfig /flushdns
net stop “dns client”
net start “dns client”

Close and re-open your browser and test

Once that is done, you can try to access the resource where the changes were being made. If it still doesn’t resolve it is not on your computer. Simply run the commands again periodically and test. This will ensure that you will get updated dns settings each time.

Questions? Comments? Leave them in the comment section below.

Outlook Tip Drag and Drop Scheduling (Video)

Joe Hackman — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 11:02:41 +0000

This video demonstrates drag and drop scheduling in Outlook 2010. I’ve been using the Outlook Calendar feature and stopped using tasks all together for the most part. If you’re looking to improve your scheduling efficiency check out this video.

Powerpoint Tip Slideshow in a Window (Video)

Joe Hackman — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:36:34 +0000

Ever try to record a screencast of a Powerpoint presentation? If you have you may have noticed like I did that you cannot easily run the presentation slideshow within a window small enough for a practical screencast. After doing some research I discovered that there are some not so well documented features for Powerpoint 2007/2010 that will allow you to run your presentation in a window. This would be particularly useful if you were doing some kind of mashup.

Using the proper Importance Flag with Email

Joe Hackman — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:19:54 +0000

I received an Email Friday from a friend, I receive a lot of Email so sometimes I don’t get a chance to review non critical business Email until I have some free time. This morning while responding from the message I realized that part of the message involved a timely issue for Friday evening. The title did not indicate it and the message was flagged normally. This incident was a reminder to me of the usefulness and etiquette of the Importance options with Email correspondence. Here is my interpretation of the three options:

Low Importance

I recommend using this flag when sending Emails to people who you know to be very busy that are not time critical. Chances are busy people will respond promptly to all most messages anyway but it is a nice way to say “Hey I know your time is valuable, there is no rush here.”

Not Flagged or Normal Importance

Most Email fits in this category, most people don’t flag messages at all or use the subject line of the Email to indicate the nature of the message.

High Importance

This option is sometimes over utilized, I’ve seen some Email users that seem to flag a large percentage of their messages as high importance. This is acceptable if it is factual. I recommend using this option for messages where the response required is timely or the information will be considered urgent by the recipient. In conjunction with some carefully crafted subjects you can provide a range of urgency to the recipient.

Here is the location of this tag in Microsoft Outlook 2010:

Check out more Quick Tips.

Quick Tip MrFixit for Windows Update Issues

Joe Hackman — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 17:44:04 +0000

Have you ever encountered errors with Windows Update or had it just stop prompting you all-together? This might be the solution to your problem. Either way it is a web page at Microsoft that will provide the right tool depending on what Operating system you are running.

To run the utility navigate to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971058 and click on the Microsoft Fix It icon or link:

You will have one option that can be selected, only use this option if the first attempt without it checked was not successful:

After running the utility in either mode an additional screen will pop up with other options:

If after a restart you still experience issues, you can run the utility again to access the help links in the utility. Microsoft does provide free support for windows update issues.

PCI Slots A Quick Visual Guide

Joe Hackman — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 05:55:51 +0000

This will no doubt be valuable to someone one day. I often neglect to save older data and when I come across something it’s off to Google I go to search for information.

Variations of PCI Slots

Windows 7 Quicktip Aero Snap Feature

Joe Hackman — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 04:58:23 +0000

The Aero snap feature on Windows 7 is really useful. You can use it to maximize a window by left clicking and dragging that window to the top of the screen or drag left or right to have the active program use that half of the screen. This is what you might see in the Microsoft commercial. There is a small problem, what if you have 2 or more monitors? It doesn’t work unless you drag it all the way to the right, left or top most screen edge. You can actually use this feature even with multiple screens by using the windows key + arrow keys, these are the affects:

Winkey + L/R Arrow cycles the active window through all available visible options (Right Half, Left Half, Normal, Maximize)
Winkey + Up Arrow Maximizes the active window
Winkey + Down Arrow Minimizes the active window

These are must know keyboard shortcuts for Windows 7 users with 2 or more monitors and I like them even on single screens. Please note this does require the Aero interface to be enabled and not all computers support it. For a demonstration of this feature check out this video:

Quick Tip Email Sorting

Joe Hackman — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:30:38 +0000

Use the “from” and “subject” fields to sort Emails while you are cleaning up your inbox. You should find it easier to get through your back log of messages by addressing issues with certain individual(s)… or certain subjects all at once. Quite often the most recent Email of a certain subject contains all the prior information and the older ones can be deleted.