Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Is DropBox a usefull tool?

hmm.... In a word, yes! I feel like I am a little late to this party but what a productivity booster DropBox can be. The greatest thing about Dropbox is that it acts like a folder on your drive and everything you put in there gets synced. Now you might not think that is so great since you would have to store all your configuration files in some random folder but all you really have to do is move your important files to the sync folder and then create a symbolic link to them from the original location. Pretty darn simple and very effective. Now I can have one .vimrc file, one plugin directory, one .alias file and all my different machines can use it!

Here is a snippet from my notes that shows you how simple this really is:

SYNCING MY FILES VIA THE CLOUD (DROPBOX)
Once dropbox is installed I ran these commands on my myth box and things were backedup and synced
mv hlp Dropbox/HOME
ln -s ~/Dropbox/HOME/hlp/ hlp
mv bin Dropbox/HOME
ln -s ~/Dropbox/HOME/bin/ bin
mv web Dropbox/HOME
ln -s ~/Dropbox/HOME/web/ web
mv .vimrc Dropbox/HOME
ln -s ~/Dropbox/HOME/.vimrc/ .vimrc
mv .tcshrc Dropbox/HOME
ln -s ~/Dropbox/HOME/.tcshrc/ .tcshrc
mv .alias Dropbox/HOME
ln -s ~/Dropbox/HOME/.alias/ .alias
On other linux machines I will have to diff these files and see if there is any way to easily merge them
tkdiff ~/Dropbox/HOME/hlp/ hlp
tkdiff ~/Dropbox/HOME/bin/ bin
tkdiff ~/Dropbox/HOME/web/ web
tkdiff ~/Dropbox/HOME/.vimrc/ .vimrc
tkdiff ~/Dropbox/HOME/.tcshrc/ .tcshrc
tkdiff ~/Dropbox/HOME/.alias/ .alias

Use this link to sign up and you get an additional 250MB of storage.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Chaning startup programs on windows 7

Through System Configuration

NOTE: Using the Selective Startup option in System Configuration (msconfig), you can enable or disable startup programs. You will need to be logged into an administator account, or provide the administrator password to open System Configuration.
1. Open the Start Menu.
A) In the search line, type msconfig and press Enter. (See screenshot below)
Startup Programs -  Change-start_menu_msconfig.jpg
B) Go to step 3.
OR

2. Open the Control Panel (All items view) and click on the Administrative Tools icon, then click on System Configuration. Close the Control Panel and Administrative Tools windows.

3. If prompted, click on Continue for the UAC prompt, or type in the administrator's password.

4. Click on the Startup tab. (See screenshot below)
Tip Tip
If you look under the Location column for the Start Item, you will see the registry location for it that you can use to remove the startup item using METHOD FOUR below instead.
Startup Programs -  Change-system_configuration_startup_tab.jpg
5. To Disable a Startup Program -
A) Select a listed startup program and uncheck it. (See screenshot above)

B) Repeat to disable anymore listed startup programs.
6. To Enable a Startup Program -
A) Select a listed startup program and check it. (See screenshot below step 4)

B) Repeat to enable anymore listed startup programs.
7. To Disable All Listed Startup Programs -
A) Click on the Disable all button. (See screenshot below step 4)

B) Go to step 9.
8. To Enable All Listed Startup Programs -
A) Click on the Enable all button. (See screenshot below step 4)
9. Click on Apply. (See screenshot below step 4)

10. Click on the Boot tab, then check the Make all boot settings permanent box and click on OK. (See screenshot below)
Startup Programs - Change-boot-1.jpg
11. Click on Yes. (See screenshot below)
Startup Programs - Change-boot-2.jpg
12. Click on the Restart button to apply. (See screenshot below)
WARNING: This will restart your computer immediately. Save and close anything that you are working on first.
Startup Programs - Change-restart.jpg