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So last night, the actions taken by my script caused a problem with Outlook’s storage file. Just to review, what the script did was: a) execute the Outlook.Application.Quit method to instruct Outlook to shut down; b) wait until outlook.exe dropped off the process list; and then c) execute a SyncToy folder pair that backs up [...]

So a couple of days ago I wrote a post on the subject of Outlook and how it locks its PST file, making it impossible for SyncToy to copy it in my nightly backup. I don’t know what Outlook does to put such a bear hug on this file. Lots of other stuff is running [...]

I suspect that children are losing track of where stuff is. Not things like socks and backpacks, which they have never been able to locate reliably, but counties, states, nations, rivers, mountains, hemispheres. I already knew that my own kids have no sense of where stuff is in our locality. How could they? They never [...]

I use Microsoft’s SyncToy for nightly backups. In the past I’ve used many different solutions, from custom xcopy scripts to robocopy to the built-in backup program that started shipping with Windows back in the NT days. I also keep complete disk images for those rare occasions when a full recovery is needed. But for making [...]

In the 34 years or so since I was introduced to computers there have been a few moments that really grabbed my attention, and that formed lasting memories. One was the first time I loaded up buttfish.gif on my 12 mhz. 286 with it’s shiny new Orchid graphics card, and saw 640 x 480 pixels [...]

Ok, this one has been driving me nuts for a couple of weeks now, ever since I rebuilt my system and installed Windows 7 64-bit. I have been using 7-zip for years, and kept on using it long after Windows gained excellent in-shell support for .ZIP folders, because 7-zip handles RAR, TAR and other formats, and unlike [...]

Despite the fact that there is every possibility I am uniquely imperceptive, I thought I would throw this out there on the off chance that there is at least one other person who was stumbling around in the Vista user interface looking for a way to adjust channel levels in a 5.1 or 7.1 channel [...]

I hate Windows Vista, and in this post I’m going to tell you why. But before I do I want to say that I am a long-time admirer of Microsoft, most particularly in the way that they have managed to continually update their operating system while retaining backward compatibility with almost everything ever written for it. [...]

The New York Times had a little technology piece today about the waning popularity of voice mail, and it struck a chord with me. If voice mail isn’t the 8-track tape of the early 21st century communications industry then I don’t know why not. It should be. Voice mail is one of those strange devolving [...]

If you use Foxit Reader, an excellent lightweight PDF file viewer from Foxit Software, then this tip might be of value to you sometime. I’ve been using the software for years as an alternative to Adobe’s bloated offering. It has always worked well for me, and continued to work well after I migrated my home [...]