Serial Manager by Shadow Productions has been publicly released!

Designed with ease-of-use in mind, Serial Manager will be able to manage all your product serial numbers in a consolidated location. While being simple, it is also expansive in the range of options it provides to make managing those pesky long numbers easier!

Serial Manager contains many features to make managing your serials simply and securely. The following list represents some of the features Serial Manager has to offer:

• Ability to secure your precious serials with password protection and file encryption.
• Portable/Standalone ability for use over networks or on USB memory sticks.
• Ability to find serial numbers already installed on your computer.
• Ability to print a hard copy reference of all your important serial numbers.
• Ability to export your serial numbers into various file formats.
• Smart catagorisation system.
• Customizable fonts and colours of various aspects of the program.
• Fast, Automatic Updates.
• Community/Web based serial serach database system.

Download Serial Manager!

Click the screen shots below to make yourself familiar with the program user interface.

Sometimes it may be required in your program that you need to alter the right click menu, otherwise known as context menu. With this following code snippit, you can completley yet simply change the entire menu to your own liking…

The theroy behind this code is that when a user right clicks on the program item, a ‘message’ is sent by the Windows UI to your program. Normally your program handles this message itself however we can ‘override’ this, and place our own actions there instead.

Private Const WMessageRightClickTaskbar As Integer = &H313
 
Protected Overloads Overrides Sub WndProc(ByRef m As Message)
 
        ' Check if the intercepted 'message' is a 'right click on taskbar'
        If m.Msg = WMessageRightClickTaskbar Then
 
            ' It is possible to change the action that occurs.
            ' In this case, a context menu is shown at the cursor position
            ContextMenuStrip1.Show(Cursor.Position)
 
            ' If you change the above event to something other
            ' than a context menu, remove the 'Exit Sub' below
            ' to restore the context menu and make it appear also.
            Exit Sub
 
        End If
 
        ' If it isnt, then handle it normally
        MyBase.WndProc(m)
 
End Sub

private const int WMessageRightClickTaskbar = 0x313;
 
protected override void WndProc(ref Message m)
{
 
    // Check if the intercepted 'message' is a 'right click on taskbar'
    if (m.Msg == WMessageRightClickTaskbar) {
 
        // It is possible to change the action that occurs.
        // In this case, a context menu is shown at the cursor position
        ContextMenuStrip1.Show(Cursor.Position);
 
        // If you change the above event to something other
        // than a context menu, remove the 'return' below
        // to restore the context menu and make it appear also.
        return;
 
       }
 
// If it isnt, then handle it normally
base.WndProc(m);
 
}

I received an email alerting me to the release of a ‘Critical’ patch to address a vulnerability in all currently supported versions of Windows. This includes Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Server 2003 and 2008. The update patch, due to it critical nature for 2000, XP and 2003, has been released outside the usual monthly cycle to patch the issues ASAP.

Click the image below to view the bulletin table included in the notification email sent to subscribed TechNet users.

To view the full security bulletin visit the following website: 
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms08-oct.mspx

A blog entry was also released earlier to the notification to provide advance notification for the patch release. You can view it using the following link:
http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2008/10/22/advance-notification-for-out-of-band-release.aspx

This one still makes me laugh

From http://xkcd.com/327/

A PDA or Pocket PC screen is most infuriating when the alignment goes ‘out of whack’.

I own a Dell Axim x51 and found after its year of use, the screen started to become unresponsive to my clicks, or click something on the other side of the screen – it was not fun. I used the hardware controls to run the re-allignment program and managed to get the screen in working order however this only lasted about 5 taps before the original problem returned.

After searching and searching, I discovered a well hidden post describing how the touch screen worked and possible causes of screen misalignment. As I use my PDA everyday, it usually sits in my pocket. Over the year since I first purchased it, the tiny gap between the screen and the casing filled up with ‘pocket lint’. It was described on this post that this ‘lint’ can cause the ‘digitizer’ (the hardware that reads the taps) to misinterpret a tap and report it incorrectly to the Mobile OS.

There is a solution!

The post suggested getting a piece of paper, then place one of the corners into the gap between the screen and the case, to literally push out the ‘lint’ that had built up. I was careful not to get the paper caught as a loose piece of paper would just cause more problems. Once I had gone around the entire screen, I re-run the calibration program and it worked like a charm.

Epic…

~8:40… Lol

Ever needed to convert a maths equation to its Reverse Polish Notation (RPN) form?

Now you can with the simple utility by Shadow Productions.

 Download Infix2RPN

SP1 for Visual Studio 2008 has progressed from the Beta workbench. It is now publicly available for download from Microsoft.

Download Visual Studio 2008 SP1

If you have installed the Service Pack beta you will need to install the following Service Pack Preparation tool before installing SP1. Note: With the preparation tool you may be required to insert your original Visual Studio 2008 installation disk.

The only issue I had was while performing the preparation tool where an MSI file ‘rdbg_std.msi’ was ‘missing’. I found out that it was ‘Remote Debugger’ related, then looked for the relevant file on the Visual Studio installation disk. It was under <cd>\Remote Debugger\x86 (or x64)\rdbgsetup.exe. I had WinRAR installed so I right clicked, and extracted the file which resulted in the creation of a ‘rdbg_std.msi’. I pointed the installation to that file and all was good.

Should you have any other issues installing the Service Pack, take a look at the read me. It contains some troubleshooting material and installation details.

I knew that Google Maps were ‘street-viewing’ Australia however I had no clue that it was going to be released so soon.

Google Maps has been driving around majority of Victoria, the area surrounding Brisbane, Sydney, South Australia and Perth taking 360 degree images of those locations… from street/pedestrian perspective. This raises some privacy issues however I’m not writing to discuss them now

Show your friends a picture of their house using Google Maps; its funny to watch their reaction of suprise and awe of such a feat – some describing it as ‘scary’ or ‘just amazing’. And the world comes together, even closer, once again.

There are still patches within the blue areas which still need to be mapped however im sure it wont be long before the next ‘batch’ of pictures are released to the internet.

Sometimes you may have all your DVD’s stored locally on your computer harddrive, this means you can easily play any of your DVD’s without having to insert the disk.

If you have a Vista Media Center, and follow the routine described above, this Media Center addition may fit that niche – creating a synergy between TV, Music and Pictures and now all DVDs.

To enable the DVD Library function in Vista Media Center, you need to perform a simple registry modifcation as outlined in the Microsoft Support Knowlegebase Article 930526. I have copied the instructions inline for your convenience.

To enable the DVD Gallery, follow these steps:

1. Exit Windows Media Center if it is running.

2. Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then click regedit in the Programs list.
If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type your password, or click Continue. 

3. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\DvdSettings

4. In the right pane, right-click the value ShowGallery, and then click Modify.

5. Delete the contents that appear in the Value data box, type Gallery in the Value data box, and then click OK.

6. Exit Registry Editor then restart Windows Media Center.

Once you re-enter Windows Media Center you should see a new option in the TV & Movies category. See the picture at the top of this post.

Make sure you have the Media Center library with an entry pointing to your DVD collection. You may notice that no images appear with the title of your DVD. If you get a copy of the movie cover (Google Images) and rename it to folder.jpg it will appear in place of the default icon. See the picture below for an example (thanks Channel 8)