Since the first day I’ve got Windows 7 installed on my machine, everyday I learn something new.  Sometimes though, I also learn that things that I used to be able to do, with Windows XP or Vista, don’t work in Windows 7 anymore.  More often than not this is due to incompatibility, which usually prompts me to scramble to the Internet to find an alternative solution.

One of this thing that I used to do a lot, is having the convenient to open the Command Window by just right-clicking a folder in Explorer.  This functionality will open the Command Window and will set the path of the command prompt to the path of the folder I am right-clicking on.  It’s a major time-saving for people who use command prompt a lot.  You can of course open the Command Window from the start menu and navigate to the intended path yourself, but this process is tedious and if want to go to a folder several layers deep, it starts to become a hindrance.

This functionality didn’t come as default though, you need to download one of the component of what’s called Microsoft Power Toys.  It’s a collection of small tools created by Microsoft, and one of this tool is the ‘Open Command Window Here’ context menu integration.

Guess what?  It doesn’t work in Windows 7 :)  Which really annoyed me at first.  But after a few search in Google I found the answer.  It turns out that Microsoft has included this functionality in Windows 7 itself!  That’s excellent!  The only thing is, the functionality is not immediately becoming apparent in day to day usage of the system, since a normal right-clicking on a folder in Explorer doesn’t show this functionality.

Here is what you need to do to access this tool:

To show the ‘Open Command Window Here’ context menu in Windows Explorer you need to do ‘Shift + Right-Click’ :)  And you will see the option among other context menu items.  Thanks Microsoft! Sometimes you do make people’s life easier :)

Earlier this morning, I experienced something that I haven’t experienced for a very long time … I got infected by a nasty Trojan …. I couldn’t believe it !

The culprit was a Trojan is called Vundo, or at least that’s what McAffee told me when it caught and tried to remove it.  McAffee failed, obviously, because as soon as I restart the computer, it found yet another one at the same place!

I believe the symptoms when one get infected are different from machine to machine, but on mine, I simply couldn’t connect to the Internet via any browsers, though my Tweetdeck (Twitter client) was still connected and I could still Tweet (at least).

Luckily I had other machine that is connected to the net, so I could look up for ways to remove the bloody thing.

A few Google searches later, I came across some Forum posts with topic indicating that many people had the same problem.  After reading some of the solutions, at the end, in short what I needed to do is to download a small program called ComboFix and run it, make sure that no other Virus Scanner is running in the background, or any other programs in that matter.

On the first pass, ComboFix deleted some files that seem to be the ones that causing the problem.  After a restart, I ran ComboFix again just to make sure.  This time it didn’t report any more deletions.  Restart again, and the moment of truth. I opened my Firefox, and Voila ! It worked !  Thank God.

What I really want to know now is, how the hell I got the Trojan from?

Hope this could help others that are having the same fate as me.

Good luck!

If you’ve just started using Mac, you would be mad if you don’t use Quicksilver, especially if you are a keyboard geek and if you think using a mouse is only for whimps!

Quicksilver, first and foremost, is a ‘keystroke app launcher‘.  Here is a basic explanation of what it does (from the documentation):

When opened, it will create a catalog of applications and some frequently used folders and documents. Activate it, and you can search for and open anything in its catalog instantly. The search is adaptive, so Quicksilver will recognize which items you are searching for based on previous experience. It also supports abbreviations, so you can type entire words, or just fragments of each. When not in use, Quicksilver vanishes, waiting for the next time you summon it.

Typically you would bind the Mac+Space keystroke to open QS small interface. When it opens, you can start typing the first few alphabets from the name of the application that you want to launch. QS will try to ‘guess’ the right application, based upon past experience.  It will also give you a list of all possible applications in a drop-down list, which you could then choose.

Everything is wonderful.  Using QS, I hardly use the Dock, which I set to hidden.

Now, if you are, like me, coming from Windows platform, and still using it for one of other reason (your day job for example), I bet you miss QS functionality so much (I did).

Come Lauchy to the rescue !

Lauchy is an open source application that runs on window and linux.  It works much the same way as QS, and surprisingly (for Windows app) works very well.
It is now one of the Windows Utilities in my permanent list of must-have Windows apps.