Hana & Sarah’s blog

Download from http://launchy.net. It’s a freeware.

Launchy is quite convenient and easy to use. The default shortcut keys are Alt + Space which can be easily changed from the option menu that you can access by right clicking on the border of Launchy.

It provides slick interface design which is skinable. Also, it is easy to add new executable location. You only need to define the parent folder in the Catalog menu and Launchy will scan all sub-folders and index them too. It is smart and self learning so once you executed ‘putty’ ssh by typing ‘pu’, it will show ‘putty’ as default entry next time you type ‘pu’. One thing that I didn’t like was that it consumes about 18 MB of memory. It is little too much for a simple application, but I guess it’s because of the graphic interface. But I couldn’t find better alternative.

Basically I like it because it’s pretty and smart enough to remember my favorite applications.

There are some similar free softwares introduced here at Lifehacker.com site. I did tried recently became freeware Enso. It is less intuitive (with no pretty graphics interface, showing only large bold letters on the left top corner) and hard to learn . Also it uses about 34 MB of memory. It was just not for me.

With the RocketDock and Launchy, I am in full control of my desktop.

So here is my finding. BTC 6100c . I use quite number of desktop applications at work which makes me moving my right hand and arm around alot between Mouse and Keyboard.

I searched some ergonomic keyboard and mouse and realized that there are mini keyboards(88, 89 keys) shorter then the regular Keyboard with 101 keys in length.

Believing that shorter keyboard will help relieve the pain, I searched Internet forums and shopping sites for the best mini keyboards. And BTC 6100c satisfies my requirements.

• The key layout must be similar to the notebook key layout. - Some mini keyboards has very awkward placement of keys for backslash ‘\’ , windows , and control keys. I was able to find some keyboards that has layout exactly very similar to the notebook keys, but they cost more than $100.
• They must be scissor design keys - Just like notebook keys.
• The price must be less than $30. I don’t want to spend fortune on a keyboard.

The price was reasonable $19.99 with extra 7 dollars for shipping and tax. USB, mini, scissor action keys. It’s perfect for me.

However there was a very minor problem with the key layout. You see, I mainly use MS Outlook all day and use the DEL and HOME keys frequently to manage the emails. So the placement of DEL and HOME keys must be located in the most convenient place. And the convenient position is top right corner of the keyboard where I can directly access from the mouse easily.

But there is PAUSE/BREAK key at the perfect location. And the DELETE key is located 2 keys to the left from the PAUSE key. I was trying very hard to get used with the layout, but it was absolutely uncomfortable!

So I began searching the Key Mapping program and forums. But all of the softwares were not able to handle the PAUSE KEY remap.

These freeware keyboard remapping tools are basically showing the registry scan code values in GUI and help you easily edit them.

Some of them are

• KeyTweak - Not bad
• MapKeyboard - Intuitive interface. Simple , but .NET is required (2.0?)
• SharpKeys2 - For me, this is the best since it was showing the correct scan codes so I was able to compare with the actual registry value. Unfortunately, Pause /Break Key remap requires you to actually touch the registry manually.

Ok, I will explain how I got the PAUSE key working as DEL key.
Under the Windows XP, scan code mapping can be stored into the registry and keyboard mapping can be changed easily under

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout

You can find the detailed keyboard scan code layout information from the Microsoft website
(Search scancode.doc in Google Website)

Generally, a scan code can be represented as 2 bytes binary data. Caps Locks scan code is E0_3A. By listing the scancode pairs (original against the new scan code) in the above registry key, windows remap the keyboard layout.

However, it is not true for the PAUSE key.

• Pause Key generates “E1 1D 45 E1 9D C5″ scan code. That is quite long, HUH?
• Also when the PAUSE is pressed with ALT or CTRL , they generate E0_46.

I decided to experiment with the registry scan code mapppings. First I added the conversion using the first 2 bytes from the PAUSE key scan codes (E1 1D) to be converted as DEL key ( E0 53 )

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Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
 
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,53,e0,1d,e1,00,00,00,00

pause_to_del.reg : download and double click to update the scan code entry in your registry. Please not that this file will reset any mappings you already have set.

But strangly, NUM LOCK event is also occuring when I press “Pause”. Since I will not use NUM LOCK KEY at all ( I don’t have number pad anyway), I will add extra mapping entry to convert NUM LOCK event to be converted as “NO EVENT”.
Also I realized that in order to Ctrl + Alt + Del working properly , I need to add conversion for E0_46 => E0_53.

These two additional scan code mapping entries can be added easily with SharpKeys. Make sure you click on the “Write to registry” button and reboot the machine to make the changes effective.

Below is the final output of SharpKeys.

So, basically you will need to give up NUM LOCK function in order to remap PAUSE Key. But it’s possible to remap.

Also this PAUSE key can be used to setup to trigger any two key events for a single key stroke, too.

Here is the final reg entry.

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Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
 
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,04,00,00,00,53,e0,1d,e1,00,00,45,00,\
  53,e0,46,e0,00,00,00,00

And this is the file final.reg.
Try to use right click and select ‘Save Link As’.

Have fun!

You need to copy your most precious DVD movie as a backup.

But when you searched the free CD-DVD copy software , most of them are shareware and functions are limited.

This is my tip on how to copy (copy protected ) DVD using Free Software. Be ware, you need to use two separate software to do this and it’s not easy like a commercial software. But not that hard either. You can do it with a little bit of patience.

First get DVDFAB HD Decryptor from http://www.dvdfab.com/free.htm. As the description says, it is a free software that removes copy-protection and copies the DVD data to Hard Disk. You can only use first two menus from the left menu bar. You can copy complete DVD or select specific movie files to copy.

Second, you will need free software to copy local DVD files stored in HD into a blank DVD. I just can’t remember what it was. I will just find it and update it later.

It is called ImgBurn. Once executed, you need to select the Mode=>Build menu to create an ISO file or write files into DVD directly.

I will update with the details later.

Site: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx

You may already know this package of free system utilities. Originally SysInternals was a website with developers providing free windows system utilities. I guess it was bought by Microsoft at some point.

There are lots of useful utilities in the SysInternal. However, not all utilities are attractive to you since some of these are strictly useful for IT person or Software Developers. There are also many familiar shell utilities if you come from UNIX (du, whois, strings)

But here are the three most interesting utilities to me.

• Process Explorer : Process monitor that shows related files, registry keys, loaded DLL files ,company name and. You can easily see what’s going on in your computer.
• Autoruns : shows complete list of auto startup programs.
• ZoomIt : Powerful presentation tool. You can zoom and draw lines on the screen. Ctrl + 1 will start the screen zoom by default. Zoom In and Out can be done with the mouse wheel.

This is a Process Explorer in action.

There is a fun screen saver too. Blue Screen screen saver simulates the blue screen of Windows System Crash. It is very similar to the real one and it even shows reboot screen!

Few days ago, my friend told me about this simple utility that makes the Internet connection much faster.

I usually don’t believe in these kind of system enhance utilities. They usually are very confusing because of lots of controls and options. And most of the time, it is hard to notice any improvements.

But I decided to give a little try.
When you visit the website(http://www.unblocka.com), there is this statement in his website.

The Windows operating system is not configured by default to take full advantage of modern high speed international high latency broadband connections.

UnBlocka will tune the Windows computer to the optimum values based on the type of internet connection that you have e.g ADSL2+ or Cable

The download is a simple executable that you can execute without installation.
And the options are very simple. You can just select the download and upload speed that you want and click on the “Tune System” button. It doesn’t mean that you can actually obtain that speed indicated since there is physical limitation.

Then, I was required to reboot the system for the changes to be effect.

I did several tests in order to measure the enhancement

• First I did download a large Fedora Linux ISO file into my desktop computer and compared the speed before and after the unblocka execution. It was amazing, the speed was increased by 30 ~ 50 % .
• And then I retried the similar downloading test in the laptop which is using wireless at home. The speed enhancement is clearly visible as it was with desktop. However, at some point, the Internet connection suddenly dropped and I had to reboot the Internet router that I bought few years ago. Maybe my old router was not able to handle the modification. I don’t know what went wrong. I experienced several dead connection afterwards so I had to return the setting to original state.
• You can easily return to the original window settings by click “Microsoft defaults”

Unblocka says that it modifies the TCP related values in windows registry.

In general, unblock is easy to use and actually enhances the Internet speed. However , it appears to be little bit unstable with old devices.
If you are using desktop and cable internet service, I definitely recommend you to try this great utility.

WEBSITE: http://unblocka.com
DOWNLOAD: http://unblocka.com/Default.aspx?tabid=52