2 Comments Windows

[Windows][Troubleshoot] Jump List entries not working.

ISSUE:

  • Jump list entries does not work.
  • It quickly open and close a process in the task bar.

CONDITIONS TO REPRODUCE THE PROBLEM:

  • OS: Windows 7 64 bits (may apply to other versions of Windows 7).
  • Launch any program.
  • Right click on the application in the task bar.
  • Select any entry in the jump list.

FIX:

  • Uninstall WinRAR and try to reinstall the latest / a more recent version of WinRAR.

OTHER FIXES:

  • Erase the content of those folders (but you will lose your history!).
    • %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations
    • %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\CustomDestinations
  • Disable / uninstall applications like:
    • a-squared
    • ATItray tools
  • Perform a clean boot by enabling the startup services one after the others.

Some comments

I spent a whole morning to fix this bug. I crawled over the net but the provided solutions (those in “OTHER FIXES”) did not work for me.

I could notice that every program were launching a “mysterious program” when I was left clicking any jump list entry. So I installed system explorer, a task manager alternative, to sort the processes by “Start Time” and then to deduce what was this program. Then I could found out it was “RarExtLoader.exe”, that is to say WinRAR. I uninstalled it and I was done!

2 Comments IT, Tuning

[Tuning] Overriding your explorer!

When I’m working, I often have several explorers opened. When you have a double (or triple) screen config, that’s ok but when you are only with your tiny laptop screen, it quickly becomes a pain to handle all your explorer and other applications windows!

So I searched for an explorer alternative and I found Explorer++. It handles tabs, shows directory size and some other stuffs I’m currently discovering. There may be better explorer alternatives so don’t hesitate to put a comment about that…  but here is the idea, whatever the explorer you are choosing.

  • Installing your custom explorer => Explorer++
  • Bind the Windows+E shortcut with the custom explorer => AutoHotkey
  1. Install and unzip Explorer++ somewhere on your hard drive.
  2. Launch Explorer++ and in Tools > Options, choose “Replace Explorer for all folders (Vista and later)”.
  3. Install AutoHotkey.
  4. Go in your Explorer++ directory > Right Click > New > AutoHotkey Script.
  5. Paste this code inside and replace “PathTo” with your Explorer++ path. It will bind Explorer++ with the Windows+E shortcut:

    #e::Run "C:\Path\To\explorer++.exe"

  6. Right click your AutoHotkey Script, “Create shortcut”.
  7. Cut and paste the shortcut to the startup directory. In Windows 7, it is located in “C:/programdata/microsoft/windows/start menu/programs/startup”

You’re done! Now you can create explorer tabs in the same window, like in Chrome or Firefox (or IE now)!

1 Comment IT, Social Network, Web

Facebook Like button

To dive again into the blog code was not a bed of roses, as I’m not really fund of web code. But it was worth to be done, now there is a “Like” Facebook button in every post of the blog. The integration is quite easy, you just have to copy / paste the generated code from this page.

If you wonder what to put into the href field and you are also doing a WordPress blog, have a look to these functions:

// URI of current post:
the_permalink();

//URI of the current page:
<?php
$Path=$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
$URI='http://www.sourigna.com'.$Path;
?>

No Comments IT

Received my RIACup price!

Archos 70

I just received my Archos 70 (won the 1st price during the Adobe RIACup national contest) a few days before coming here in Portugal. That’s great, now I’ll be able to develop for Android!

No Comments video games, Wii

[Wii] Dance games

Yesterday, I just tried some dance games on Wii, including “Just Dance 2” and “Michael Jackson: The Experience”. I am not originally a fan of that kind of games, but if I can share a good time with friends, why not? And I really enjoyed it! So here are some feedbacks after this really exhausting but cool night:

  • If you are a hardcore gamer who can’t stand to move from your chair, be on your way, these games are not for you. Yeah it is more weary than you could think…
  • Casual gamers should enjoy these games, the moves are not too hard to do. Some more hardcore gamers might find these games are not difficult enough (in one night, we could reach 4 stars on Thriller of Michael Jackson, and it was the first time we were playing this game…)
  • It is definitely a party game, you should not expect to have as much fun alone as if you were 4 players
  • Thanks to / because of the lack of precision of the WiiMote, I suspect the devs of having made a really tolerant gesture recognition code. Indeed I could play and do a lot of points even if I was laying down on the ground (yes, it can be that exhausting…)
  • Some choregraphies are really girly (Toxic of Britney Spears for example), but it shall not refrains you to play. You are here to play and laugh, so don’t be ashamed!
  • The songs in “Michael Jackson: The Experience” are really long, so you should really plan to have some drinks and food as you were doing sport…
  • The lyrics of the songs displayed while in game is a really good idea for spectators.

The next step should be to test these kind of games on Kinect. On Wii, only the right hand is recognized, so you don’t have to move your feet if you really aim to have a big score (but it’s less funny). Maybe with Kinect, the both hands and the feet are taken into account?

To conclude, I really enjoyed myself at this party. So bring at least 4 friends and have fun!

No Comments FlashDevelop, IDE, IT

[FlashDevelop] Waiting for flash player to connect to debugger

I’ve just done a fresh install on my new laptop, and I got stuck with this error when launching a flash project in FlashDevelop (no debug trace, no breakpoints…). If you have the same problem, you may try this:

Check that you have the localhost declared in your hosts file (C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts). Add this line if you don’t have it:

127.0.0.1 localhost

No Comments IT

Archives compression methods

http://tinyurl.com/2dy59t

Even if we cannot generalize this quick test, it is interesting to see the difference between 7zip / gz / bz2. I used to mainly compress in bz2 but I think I will use 7z more often now…

No Comments AS3, IT

[AS3] Overloading methods

http://flexblog.faratasystems.com/2006/10/16/actionscript-3-overloading-constructors-with-rest

Have a look to this article about rest parameter. It is used to simulate method overloading. If you are from C++ / Java worlds, it will remind you variadic methods.

Like some AS3 tricks (e.g.: Singleton), this one is particularly hacky… ActionScript would really need to natively include this kind of features.

No Comments IT, MS Project, Project Management

[MS Project][HowTo] Total duration of a task

MS Project is really cool to organize your tasks and to do some project management stuff, but sometimes, speaking with “work days” is not really understandable for lambda people. Especially when you have some strange calendars (people working one day on two, full-time, night-shift, 40h/week, 35h/week…) it quickly become a mess.

To have a better view of our tasks, we will see how to show the Total Duration in days.

We will define the Total Duration as the number of days between “Start” and “Finish”, including non-working days. I tried with DataDiff and ProjDataDiff functions but they seem to use the project calendar, and I really wanted the raw number of days. So here the (dirty) trick:

  • Right click on a column > “Customize fields”
  • Choose “Text”
  • Name it “Total Duration”
  • Select “Formula” radio button in “Custom attributes”
  • Say “Yes” if a popup annoys you (we are creating a new field, so we do not care about what is in)
  • Click “Formula” button
  • Enter this:

Str(DateValue([Finish])-DateValue([Start]))+" days"

  • OK
  • Select “Use formula” in “Calculation for task and group summary rows”
  • OK
  • Add the field you just created (Right click on a column > “Insert Column…”)

Here you done!

—————————————————

Here are some details about how MS Project calculate things:

  • Work: Number of hours spent on a task.
  • Duration: Number of days spent on a task. It is the work divided by the number of hours per day specified in the options (Tools > Options > Calendar).

You will notice that Duration do not use the resource calendar!
e.g.:

  • resource based on 4h / day
  • project hours per day setting: 8h/day
  • task work: 8h

Task duration: 1 day (and not 2 days, as 4h is counted as a half day).

No Comments video games, Xbox 360

TODO: Kinect programming

Now that I have a kinect, I’ll try some Funny things on it. Even if the Microsoft sdk is not free, I may play with my kinect with this open sdk.

But I shall get a true computer, and not one with a nearly dead graphic card like mine… And also, I shall go to sleep, yeah it’s already 7 o’clock in the morning here…

Good night!