Ralph Arvesen

Printing to PDF on Vista

I really missed printing to PDF files since I upgraded to Vista. I don't remember what I had installed on XP that allowed printing to PDF, but I don't have it any longer. The free version of CutePDF appears to work well under Vista. Let me know if you know of problems with CutePDF or know of other alternatives to print to PDF on Vista.

All I want for Christmas... a platypus

The kids and I have been discussing different animals including the duck-billed platypus. This carried over when we saw Santa, he looked confused when Kaitlyn's only request was a stuffed platypus. He appeared more confused when Makayla also asked for a stuffed platypus... he looked at me while talking to the kids and said 'we'll see what I can do'. I don't think it's a common request. Note that stuffed means stuffed toy animal, not a taxidermy-fied animal.

Some various platypus notes.

• Endemic to eastern Australia and Tasmania.
• It is one of the five species of monotremes, the only mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young.
• Usually lays two eggs that are small (less than an inch long) and leathery.
• The newly hatched young are vulnerable, blind, and hairless.
• The mother's milk is released through pores in the skin.
• It is one of the few venomous mammals. Males have spurs on their hind feet that deliver a poisonous venom that can kill small animals, but not lethal to humans.
• It can cause severe pain to humans (I have only read this, I have been stung by various wasps, scorpions, spiders, plants, ants and other insects, but never by a platypus).
• Like some people, the male takes no part caring for its young.
• On the reverse of the Australian 20-cent coin.
• Excellent swimmer and spends much of its time in the water foraging for food (12 hours a day looking for food).
• Eats worms, insect larvae, freshwater shrimp, and freshwater crayfish.
• Digs food from the riverbed with its snout or catches while swimming and carries the food to the surface to eat.
• Eats about 20% of its own weight each day.

.NET Framework for C / C++ developers

Charles Petzold has a free online book called .NET Book Zero : What the C or C++ Programmer Needs to Know About C# and the .NET Framework. I have not read it yet, but Petzold is great, I read Programming Windows 1st Edition extensively when I first started developing Windows 2.0 applications in C in the late 80s.

Winamp freezing

I switch around with music players and decided to try winamp again after upgrading to Vista. I have had intermittent problems with winamp in the past where it would stop responding for 10 seconds or so. It turns out to be an issue with winamp and CA eTrust. To fix this, you can add the winamp process to the Exclude Processes list and installation folder to the Exclude Directories list in eTrust. More information http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?threadid=219871.

I find most skins interesting but not useful, I like this winamp skin.

Lucky hamster

Our kids are raising some hamsters and one of the hamsters (Cookie) had babies. Most babies were doing well but two (Hope and Bear) needed some extra care so we kept these in a box in the kitchen. We nursed them back to health; in fact they were healthy enough to chew a hole in the box that we discovered this morning.

Everyone spent time looking for them and we found Hope but could not find Bear. We checked the garbage disposal in the kitchen sink, and there was Bear looking up at us with scared eyes and wet face. I'm sure he would have been more terrified if he understood how unfortunate of a place he had picked to hide.

Microsoft SyncToy

I have a need to sync files every now and then, I have used various applications in the past and decided to revisit the options when upgrading to Vista. I found the Microsoft SyncToy useful for my needs. You might find Allway Sync useful also.
--
ralph

KGO finally streaming Dr. Dean Edell

KGO finally started streaming the Dr. Dean Edell broadcast. They have streamed other shows, but did not stream Dr. Dean for years due to legal issues. You can listen live or listen to the previous show. I have listened to Dr. Dean for years, not for medial issues, but for objective thinking / science issues.

Copy Path Shell Extension

I created a File Link shell extension in C++ a while back that allows you to copy path-info (full path, location, filename, UNC) for one or more files to the clipboard . I wanted to learn how to create shell extensions in .NET so I rewrote the util which implements the IContextMenu and IShellExtInit interfaces in .NET 2.0. I plan to cleanup the code and create a codeproject article but that task always falls to the bottom, so I'm providing the util without code in case anyone finds it useful.

• Run the Copy Path Setup. This installs the Copy Path shell extension.
   
• Open Explorer and select one or more files. Display the context menu and notice the new Copy Path menu. A preview of the path-info text that will be copied to the clipboard is displayed in the Explorer statusbar. Click a menu to copy the path-info to the clipboard.

• Some find it useful to display the path-info text directly in the context menu. You can do that by selecting Options and checking Display results in menu. The path-info can get quite long and you can truncate the menu text by checking Truncate long paths in menu. Note that the entire path is still copied to the clipboard, just a shorter string is displayed in the menu.

• Now the path-info is displayed directly in the context menu. Note that the info for the first file is used if multiple files are selected.

Let me know if you have any problems or suggestions.

Determine which process has a file locked

I find the util WhoLockMe useful. It's a shell-extension that displays which processes have the file locked.

In code, it's easy to determine how many handles a process has open, but you have to drop down to kernel level to map the handles to processes. Let me know if you have written or use other utils that determine file locks, I'm familiar with Sysinternals Handle and Process Explorer, I like the shell-extension context menu though.

Simple shell context menus

I was going to post a message about creating simple shell context menus, but I decided to create a codeproject article instead. If you have time, let me know if you notice any problems, have suggestions, etc. The idea is to create a shell context menu (really called shortcut menu) without using COM, it's very simple to hookup menus for different file types with a few registry settings. For example, XP Power Toys adds the Open Command Window Here menu to all folders with the following registry script.

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\cmd]
@="Open Command Window Here"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\cmd\command]
@="cmd.exe /k \"cd %L\""

The codeproject sample hooks up a Copy to Grayscale context menu for jpeg images.

 

Bill Nye DVDs

I wanted to buy previous shows of Bill Nye (the science guy) but the DVDs were a little more expensive than I expected… $3249, that seems pretty steep! This does include 100 shows, so $32.49 is a discount from the individual price of $49.95, but still.

Bill Nye the Science Guy Enhanced Classroom Edition DVD Complete Series (DVD)
http://dep.disney.go.com/educational/store/detail?fromsearch=1&product_id=77A09PK00

It does have free shipping though. Note, can get in VHS format for just $1999.

Rattlesnake

Scott sent me a message about snakes so I thought I would post a photo of a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake I came across the other day. He* looks pretty serious, constantly keeping an eye on me as I lay on the ground taking his photo.

Some notes about rattlesnakes:

• The Latin name Crotalus atroc means rattle (or little bell) and savage.
• You cannot determine the age by the number or rattles, a new segment is added each time they shed which can happen 1 - 4 times a year. The segments also break off.
• They don't have eggs like some snakes, instead they have 4 - 25 live young.
• The tongue is used to smell instead of taste.
• They have heat sensing pits on the front of their head that helps them locate warm blooded prey, that's why they are called pit-vipers.
• The venom is more potent in juveniles but they don't inject as much as adults.
• The venom is hemotoxic which damages tissue and affects the circulatory system by destroying blood cells, skin tissues and causing internal hemorrhaging. The venom may also contain neurotoxins which affects the nervous system and breathing.
• Around 25% of bites to humans do not contain any venom, the snake is biting out of self-defensive and saves the venom for their prey. The bad thing is the other 75% of the time.
• Approximately 8,000 people a year are bitten by poisonous snakes in the United States and 9 - 15 victims die.

Here are some photos of a juvenile I came across last year (click thumbnails to see larger photo).

 

* It might be a female, I'm not sure.