Netbook versus Laptop

  I have been asked a lot recently about the worth of "those $200.00 - $300.00 Laptops". For the most part they are (and for simplicity I shall refer to them as) Netbooks.  


   To be honest, Intel© describes what one needs to know, in it's simplest form, at the following:
http://www.intel.com/consumer/learn/netbook.htm  

Peer 2 Peer

I just wanted to say a word on Peer to Peer (P2P) file sharing.

It itself is not illegal and evil! It is a great tool that users abuse for ill purpose.

Somebody like myself invented this ingenious method of transferring and sharing files over an internet connection; it wasn't designed to break any laws. It is the users that choose to share legally protected files that give this excellent tool a bad name.

Cool feature!

I am testing out for the first time the email to blog posting option. If all goes well, this post will have been generated by an email sent from a mobile.

If anyone wants to try it, just visit the "Email & Mobile" section in Settings.

Happy Mobility.

Start Windows Task Manager at login

Do you like to have your task manager up and running all the time? I usually do! It provides that handy little graph in the task tray showing my CPU usage.

Because I could not find a built in method of having it start when the machine turns on, I turned to VB.NET coding and created a module that starts it for me at login.

Most of you won't have, or even want to have, the tools to create a VB.NET app to do this job, so let me describe a simple way of doing it with notepad.

Create a new .txt document, remember what you have named it (ex. MyTaskManagerStarter.txt)

Inside, type the next two lines:

taskmgr.exe

exit

Now, save and close it.

What we have to do now is change the file extension; this is done by right clicking the file, select rename and change the .txt to .bat (may need to turn off 'hide known file extensions' in folder options to be able to see the extension)

Note: .bat files can harm your machine, do not play around with them unless you know what your doing. (on that note, our example will be safe)

Now all you have to do is drag and drop this file into Startup in the Start Menu.

Alternatively, you could create a task using the task schedular that runs it for you at login. This would also allow you to 'run as administrator'. (post a comment asking for directions if interested.)

Happy Manipulating

VB.NET MsgBox, adding extra buttons

I have heard a lot of people ask how they can place custom buttons on a VB.NET msgBox, you know, "YES", "NO" and "WELL, MAYBE!". Often you'll see yes, no, cancel with directions on what each response means, but that just isn't what the programmer wants.

The fact of the matter is that there is no practicle way to change up the msgbox to do your bidding! Your best bet is to create your own msgbox.

I have used 2 techniques; First is to set up my own newmsgbox class to accept an array of commands. When my newmsgbox class is 'called' it dynamically creates the necessary buttons and reports back the button chosen when clicked.

Second technique is to use a static newmsgbox class with the amount of buttons already chosen. Now I can set up an enumeration for the response, I can set default text and actions for the buttons, and rename the buttons in the call, as follows:

Dim mr As MyMsgResult

mr = MyMsgBox.ShowMyMsg("msgbox Message" , "button1 text", "button2 text", "button3 text", "Title").response

'Where message is required, btnText and Title optional.

I too wish it was not this difficult to add an extra button, but I assume we are suppost to ask ourselves whether or not we actually still want to use a msgbox if we're adding so many options.

Happy coding.