Computing desk
< February 10	<< Jan \| February \| Mar >>	February 12 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

February 11

Using custom icons in XP

I'm having trouble finding out how to use custom icons in XP. Here's the deal: I have some .ico files on my desktop. I want to use them for shortcuts (to folders) on my quicklaunch bar. The problem comes when I try to change an icon by right-clicking -> properties -> shortcut -> change icon. The list only presents a few icons embedded in SHELL32.dll. When I try to browse to my .ico files, it complains that they "don't contain any icon files". What is the simplest method of using custom icons in the manner I have described? Thanks in advance, 82.46.44.59 11:26, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps your .ico files are invalid or corrupted. Are you sure they're actually valid .ico files? Jibjibjib 07:42, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Display encrypted email in Outlook 2003's "Reading Pane"

Folks -

I've just setup Outlook 2003 to work with encrypted (S/MIME) email backed by a digital certificate. It all works fine, but I'm annoyed that I can't view encrypted emails in Outlook's "reading pane" (A message This encrypted e-mail cannot be displayed in the Reading Pane is displayed). I've had a quick search on Google and not been unable to come up with a solution. Anyone know if this is this possible and how?

Thanks, _└^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 14:26, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Firefox "confirm close" extension?

I just spent about an hour composing an answer over at RD/S, and then I accidentally closed the tab, losing my work forever. Is there a way (perhaps via an extension) to get Firefox to prompt for confirmation before closing a tab (or window) containing an unsubmitted form?

[Note 1. How did I "accidentally close the tab"? What was I thinking? It really was an accident -- I was using my trackpad to move the mouse pointer to check something in another tab, and the mouse pointer happened to pass over the "close tab" button, and I've got that oh-so-convenient but oh-so-risky "tap touchpad for mouse clicks" option turned on, and at just the wrong instant, a wiggle in my finger or a glitch in the touchpad driver got registered as an unintended click.]

[Note 2. It took a long time, but text editors and word processors eventually got pretty good about not losing your work. They'd prompt you if you tried to close without saving. They took steps to save -- and let you recover -- your work if they crashed out from underneath you. Now that so much editing and other "real work" is done via web forms, web browsers really, really need to work as hard at protecting the unsubmitted contents of HTML forms against accidental loss.]

—Steve Summit (talk) 15:34, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No need to prompt for confirmation. If you close a tab by accident, just unclose it (History > Last closed tabs). This is one of the most useful new features on Firefox 2.0. I just tested, and it does not lose the form contents. --cesarb 16:02, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You can get firefox to warn you when you close tabs but i turned it off it was annoying me Jackacon 20:35, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cesar: thanks for the tip; that'll be another reason to move to FF 2.0 soon. (If only I'd been running it yesterday!)

Jackacon: I assume you're referring to the warning about closing a window containing multiple tabs. As it happens, I've already got that option turned on (and like it), but it wouldn't have helped in this case; what I'm imagining is a specific warning when closing a tab or window containing an unsubmitted form, which is quite a bit more destructive than closing any old other window or tab. —Steve Summit (talk) 20:29, 12 February 2007 (EST)

Firefox 3.0 alpha 2 has the unclose tab feature, but allows you to reopen many closed tabs, not just one. It will give you the option if you right-click (option-click) on an open tab and select "Undo Close Tab." Clicking multiple times reopens the tabs in reverse order than they were deleted Freedomlinux 03:52, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Tab Mix Plus extension has provided this and other features with Firefox 1.5 for at least a year. --anon —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.150.79.157 (talk) 13:26, 17 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]

cross-platform encrypted subdirectories?

Background: I've got a USB thumb drive which I'd like to carry some of my files around on. I'll be connecting it to Linux machines, Mac OS X machines, and sometimes even Windows machines. Some of the files contain personal information, so I'd like to keep those files encrypted, in case the thumb drive is lost. Not all of the machines I might be connecting the drive to will be "mine", so I'd like to carry the necessary decryption software (for all platforms) on the drive itself. And, of course, I'd like this all to be reasonably convenient.

At the very least, I could just encrypt the sensitive files using PGP, and then keep Linux, Mac, and Windows copies of PGP on the thumb drive, so that I could manually decrypt and reencrypt the files as necessary. But what I'd really like is a way to mount the directory containing the sensitive files as an encrypted filesystem.

I know that there are packages that can encrypt an entire drive or partition, and then let you mount them as a filesystem with convenient on-the-fly encryption and decryption (i.e. so that you can access the files using any application, without having to perform explicit decrypt steps before viewing and explicit re-encrypt steps after editing). I think there might be packages that let you do the same for individual files and directories. I'm hoping there's such a package that's cross-platform, but I've never heard of one (but I haven't exhaustively looked).

Anybody know of any crypto filesystem packages that might do what I want? —Steve Summit (talk) 15:50, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I do not think there's any package that does it (it would either need filesystem support for encryption, which does not exist on the FAT filesystem used on USB thumb drives, or something like union mount). A simpler alternative would be a loopback-mounted filesystem; TrueCrypt is one option which is able to do that. With that you would have a large encrypted file (containing the filesystem) on your thumb drive, instead of encrypting the whole thumb drive. --cesarb 16:13, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How about just zipping up your directory with a file archiver like WinZip or whatever, and storing that on the drive? This comparison of file archivers will tell you which ones have both encryption and the platform support you require. --TotoBaggins 01:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good idea, and I thank you for it, but: manually unzipping (or otherwise unarchiving) before I can get at my files, and remembering to delete them when I'm done, and remembering to re-archive if I modified any of them, is precisely as inconvenient as decrypting and re-encrypting them with, say, PGP. I'm really tired of that kind of nuisance; I really want a transparent mount. (This isn't out of the question -- Linux has LUFS, and I'm pretty sure MacOS has something similar.) It looks like TrueCrypt might be just what I'm looking for; thanks, Cesar! —Steve Summit (talk) 01:26, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Images blocked on my computer

Further to my query regarding image changes on my web page. I'm using a purchased template for my web site and transferring my own images for the ones shown, following the instructions. The new images showed on the "pics" page but not on the previewed web page. Becoming very frustrated I copied the pages onto a CD to send to a friend to ask her advice and when I checked the CD to see if it opened OK, there were all my pictures in the right places. So I guess there is something in my computer which is blocking these images. I'm using Norton Anti Virus. Does this block images from one place to another internally, without being online? If so how can I change it? Does it also mean that my finished web pages will show the images when put online or not? Thank you to anyone with helpful suggestions.Sue latham 16:49, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's norton (if anything, Norton should be more strict for CDs). Can you open one of the HTML files which has images on it in notepad or a similar program. Do Edit, Find (or Edit, Search) and search for "D:" or "E:" - I'll bet that it'll find it in some text saying "<IMG src="D:\something\pics\something.jpg" ..." or "<IMG src="file://D:/something/pics/something.jpg" ...". If this is the case, do a Edit, Replace to replace all "D:\something\pics\" (or whatever) with "pics/" - see Path (computing) for what this is all about. If that doesn't come up with anything, then please say so, and say what format are the images in (.jpeg, .png, .gif, &c...)? --h2g2bob 18:09, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I checked the text you mention and the section regarding one of the photos says:- </td></tr><tr><td width="720"> <IMG SRC="picts/home.jpg" border="0" width="720" height="80"><br> </td><td bgcolor="#000000" width="1"> There is no "D" or "E" because all the HTML files are within the template folder. I also tried on my computer at work and all the images (.jpegs) are visible! Sue latham 08:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

recovering deleted files after formatting?

I accidentally deleted some files 4 months ago and after that i formatted my PC. is there any way to recover them? I know there are s/w available to recover files after they have been removed from recycle bin but is it possible even after formatting?

After the format: possibly; but after 4 months: not really much of a chance. Try an undelete program anyway, there's nothing to lose - I've never come across a good one, so I'll be interested in what the others have to say. --h2g2bob 17:50, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try PhotoRec, but it probably will not find much. --cesarb 21:25, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Neither deletion or formatting by themselves are fatal, but your chances decrease significantly when they go together. Add in four months of usage since, and it is very likely that the computer has written over your files. Freedomlinux 03:54, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You might try mounting the drive on a Unix box and use the -strings- commmand; it looks for printable words on the drive. Todd W. Floyd 20:51, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Deleting Document History in MS Word - Office Professional

I use MS Office Professional at home and whenever I open MS WORD I see a column on the RHS that lists a selection of previous documents that I may not want other household users to view. How can I empty or remove that list of saved or archived documents please? Thanks in anticipation. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.145.241.59 (talk • contribs).

You can disable the list. Go to Tools --> Options, select the General tab, and uncheck the Recent Files option. SubSeven 21:41, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the actual list is saved in the registry, so to really get rid of the information you would need to either edit the registry manually, or write/find a script to remove the data. --Worm 16:48, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Spreedsheet

Does anybody know a way to put the spreadsheet right onto a domain (ex:www.domain.com)?

You might see if your spreadsheet software has a "save as HTML" option, then copy that HTML to your web page. --TotoBaggins 22:46, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As TotoBaggins suggests, most spreadsheet software (including MS Excel) have the option to "save as HTML" or "save as webpage". If you upload that to the web, it will display the spreadsheet in a web browser. If you want to keep the spreadsheet as an actual spreadsheet there's no reason why you can't upload that to the web. People viewing your website under Internet Explorer for Windows, with MS Excel installed will even see the spreadsheet loaded within their web browser, other users will need to download the spreadsheet and open it elsewhere. Unless you've got a particular reason not to, the first choice would be my preferred option, since it has much better cross browser/platform support, and makes life easier for your visitors. _└^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 20:59, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Auto Full-Screen When Connected to TV

I like to keep my laptop connected to my TV (Samsung LNS3251D) in order to play videos on the TV. Problem is when I open a video when I'm connected to the television, they automatically take over the entire TV screen. I'm unable to remove the full-screen mode in order to do things like minimize the window, exit the video, move forward in the video, etc; its quite annoying. I'm just wondering if there is something I can do to remove this feature. Perhaps I'm missing something simple, but thus far I've been unable to fix it by tweaking any of the video card (ATI 9600 PRO) display settings. Anyhow, thanks in advance for your help.