sprignaturemoves

If you are like me and often have a lot of apps open in Windows, here’s an easy way to get more room in your taskbar. If you’re wondering why my taskbar is dark gray, I’m using the Zune theme for Windows XP.

®= right-click, © = click, © © = double-click

1. ® on an empty place on the taskbar, © Properties

2. © Customize next to the “Hide inactive icons” checkbox

3. Note the Behavior column

4. Next to each “Hide when inactive” entry change it to “Always Hide”

5. © OK twice and you’re done. Voila. Nice, huh?

I have time tracking worksheet that I use at work. It looks something like this:

Since I don’t work on Saturday or Sunday, I’d like to hide all columns that have a date that’s a Saturday or Sunday.

Here’s a little VB macro that will do the trick:

Sub header()

Dim eCol As Integer
Dim i As Integer

eCol = Cells(1, Columns.Count).End(xlToLeft).Column

For i = 1 To eCol

With Cells(1, i)

If IsDate(.Value) Then
If (Weekday(.Value) = vbSunday) Or _
(Weekday(.Value) = vbSaturday) Then
.EntireColumn.Hidden = True
End If
End If

End With

Next i

End Sub

h/t Rowan

Just bought a new Dell SK-8135 keyboard off of eBay.  I have one at work and like it a lot.

It has some buttons on it that are sorta configurable — if you don’t mind poking around in the Windows Registry.

Start -> Run -> regedit

Browse to:  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AppKey

• 7 =  Browser home button – this will launch the default browser
• 15 = Mail button  – this will launch the default mail app.
• 16 = Music note button – this will launch the application associated with the .cda extension.  I changed this one to .mp3
• 17 = My Computer button
• 8 =  Calculator button

Make your changes, reboot and you’re good to go.

NOTE: I did this in Windows XP.  Not sure if this works in Windows Vista and Windows 7.   Anyone tried it?

Spriglet #5: Have a print job in Windows that just won’t go away? Here’s how to fix it:

®= right-click, © = click, © © = double-click

1. ® on My Computer and choose “Manage”
2. © on “Services” in the left pane
3. © © on “Print Spooler” in the right pane
4. © the “Stop” button
5. Leave this window open and hit Windows-E to bring up an Explorer window
6. Drill down to c:\windows\system32\printers\spool
7. Highlight and delete all of the files in here
8. Back on the Print Spooler Properties window, © Start
9. © Start, © Settings, © Printers and Faxes, © © the printer with the stuck job
10. Hit F5 to refresh. All of the print jobs should now be gone.

UPDATE: Check out the shorter batch file method in the comments below. Thanks, White Panther.