Using SSH with Git on Windows mostly works out of the box. The .gitignore file allows a lot of additional configuration. The sshCommand in the core section allows you to specify the path and arguments for the ssh.exe command. However, specifying a path there is mostly asking for trouble.
Window snapping was first introduced in Windows 10, but I found the 2x2 grid too limiting, especially since there is no way to resize snapped windows with the keyboard. Keyboard controls for PowerToys FancyZones were also very limited at the time. So I came up with my own solution for keyboard-controlled positioning of windows using AutoHotKey. In Windows 11, the window snapping was greatly improved. That encouraged me to try it again and see if it worked better for me than my own solution.
When looking for a way to quickly position an application window at an exact predefined position, I chose AutoHotkey as the best tool for the job. The ability to create a script that moves a window and assign it to a keyboard shortcut was exactly what I needed. It still required some tweaking before it worked well enough for my needs.
Although Git can be used over HTTPS with username and password authentication, it's much more convenient to use over SSH. Now that OpenSSH client is included in Windows 10, SSH can be easily set up without any third-party clients.
The Safari browser has a tendency to render pages differently than Chrome. Troubleshooting such cases in Ionic apps and testing potential fixes can be time consuming, especially when developing on Windows. Building the app on the build server and having it deployed via TestFlight can make the feedback loop really long. I managed to make it shorter by opening the page served from my development machine in the mobile Safari browser.
With the SportTracks 3 end of life just around the corner and no assurances that the application will still work after that, it's time to export old data from it and start using other applications and services. While the application makes it easy to export activity data, there doesn't seem to be any built-in feature for exporting the weight data.
Windows 10 by default doesn't come with .NET Framework 3.5 installed, however some older applications still require it. You can install it by enabling the corresponding Windows feature, however you need to be online for this to work. Fortunately you can use DISM.exe to work around that requirement.
I recently broke my streak of 3 Windows 10 upgrades without any issues whatsoever, when I needed to upgrade my new Lenovo laptop. I downloaded MediaCreationTool to create a bootable USB stick for a clean Windows 10 installation. After the download got stuck at around 30 %, I killed the MediaCreationTool process. When I tried to start it again, it failed with the following error: Setup couldn't start properly. Please reboot your PC and try running Windows 10 Setup again.
Npm packages need not only be written in JavaScript, they can also include native Node.js modules. Their sources need to be compiled when the package is installed on the local computer. Making that work in Windows can be a bit challenging.
When an application starts misbehaving in production, attaching a debugger to alive process is out of the question. Creating a memory dump and analyzing it in WinDbg is the way to go. Most of us are required to do this on rare occasions only. To make it easier for me in the time of crisis, I created a short cheat sheet.
For some reason display drivers for both NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards have a tendency to scale image to full panel size instead of keeping the default aspect ratio. If you don't like to see your image stretched, you can change the behavior in the corresponding control panel. After recent driver updates both control panel applications got broken somehow on two desktop machines I'm taking care of.
Canon's LiDE series of scanners has no official support for years and there are no official drivers for recent versions of Windows. Nevertheless, it's still possible to make them work perfectly and avoid buying a replacement for a still functioning device.
Windows 8.1 doesn't seem to always ask for location (public or private) when connecting to a new network for the first time, instead it often defaults to public. While this certainly is more secure than the opposite option, it can cause difficulties when trying to take advantage of features that are by default disabled on private networks, such as network discovery and remote access. Since enabling them for public networks would be insecure, the only option to use them on such a network is to change the location to private as it should be.
It seems that Visual Studio 11 Beta works better and more reliable in Windows 7 than it does in Windows 8 Consumer Preview. In Windows 7 I've been running it without problems, using Slovenian regional settings. In Windows 8 Consumer Preview on the other hand it doesn't even start properly when regional settings are set to Slovenian.
There is a away to identify an unrecognized device from the information available in Device Manager.
After taking my new hand-held GPS device for a test run, I decided to use Microsoft Pro Photo Tools which have just been released with geotagging as its main feature. Unfortunately it had problems loading my GPS data from GPX XML format.
The Xbox 360 Dashboard update released on 4th December 2007 added support for playing DivX and XviD videos natively. Unfortunately this only works for media played directly from the dashboard and not within Media Center Extender. The only thing left to do was to setup Windows Media Player media sharing.
Windows Vista unlike the previous versions doesn't have an option to enable or disable hibernation in the Power Option of Control Panel. If you end up with disabled hibernation, the only way to turn it back on is from a command prompt.
One of the first tasks on my to-do list after buying a new computer with Vista Home Premium edition was setting up Media Center Extender for Xbox 360 along with Transcode 360 to make my Xbox 360 a true multimedia device. Unfortunately the problems started immediately after setting up the Media Center Extender on my PC: MPEG streaming resulted in errors.
There seems to be a problem with updating Windows Defender when using Microsoft Update instead of Windows Update in Windows Vista. The problem becomes apparent when Windows Defender puts up a warning in the system tray that its signatures are not up to date.
The functionality of the Run as context menu item is often an invaluable tool. The downside of this command is that unless you want to use the administrator's account, you have to enter the desired username every single time which quickly becomes tedious.
Microsoft Office 2007 applications (at least Outlook and OneNote in particular) require Windows Desktop Search 3.0 to be installed for their built-in search capabilities to work fully.
Since my last posting two new gadgets have been released: Slovenian Portfolio provides information from Ljubljana Stock Exchange, Slovenian Rates provides information on exchange rates from 4 Slovenian banks.
We have just released our first Sidebar Gadget – Slovenian Radio. The gadget features a centralized list of radio stations (retrieved from our server) and basic controls for selecting the station and adjusting the volume.
Since gadgets are HTML applications and the Windows Sidebar uses Internet Explorer 7 to render them, I prefer running their code directly in IE7 during development.
I wrote my own sample with clearly separated HTML structure, CSS styles and JavaScript code to showcase development of Windows Sidebar Gadgets.
I though I'd gather in one place all the useful links I found with information on development of Windows Sidebar gadgets.
I've gathered few issues that could be covered better in the documentation since I've been struggling with them for some time before I got everything to work as expected.
If you want to view EPS images with IrfanView you need to have Ghostscript installed.
The default port number 3389 for RDP (Remote Desktop and Terminal Services) can be changed through a registry value.
Either as a user or as a developer you have certainly noticed that sometimes the application just flashes in the taskbar instead of actually coming to the foreground when the SetForegroundWindow function is called. What you might not know is why and when this happens.
By default the Windows XP Welcome screen shows the users created through the control panel applet. You can change all that by setting up the correct values in the registry.
Due to tightened default security in Windows 2003 the file shares cannot be accessed without logon in a domainless environment even if both shares and folders are set up to allow access to Everyone. Many different suggestions for solving the problem can be found, I'm just adding my two cents to this confusion.
Simple file sharing hides Security tabs on all Properties dialogs. You need to disable this feature to explicitly set permissions on any object in Windows Explorer.
Yesterday my TortoiseCVS client just kept performing the command for several minutes without failing until I canceled it. The program responsible turned out to be NOD32 IMON service. In the end I had to exclude the CVSNT executable from the monitoring.
Security update 896358 prevents viewing HTML help (CHM) files from network drives. To avoid the repetitive tedious task of copying files to your local disk, you can set the maximum trusted zone in the registry to avoid the problem.
I wrote my own application for managing the personal recipe collection. It features nice printouts, extensive search capabilities and simple entering of new recipes. It's only available with a Slovenian user interface.