NT Registry Settings for a Notes Server
UNIX Utilities for Windows
Automatically Restart Domino When It Crashes
Use ShellExecute to Launch a File
Google from your Internet Explorer Address Bar
Auto-Complete Files and Directories at the DOS Prompt
Fun With Active Desktop
My New Computer Build Settings
NT Registry Settings for a Notes Server
August 31, 2002
Here's a link to some registry settings I usually enable for a new NT Notes server, in .REG file format. To use them, just change the file extension to .REG and double-click to enter the information into your registry.
UNIX Utilities for Windows
October 28, 2002
Did you ever wish you could use those cool Unix/Linux command-line utilities like "sh" and "grep" and "sed" on Windows? Okay, maybe that's a stretch. But sometimes you may end up with a Unix shell script or some set of Unix commands that you want to be able to run without having to convert the whole thing to a DOS batch file.
Well Red Hat has a huge number of Unix utilities that they've ported to Windows, available free at Cygwin.com. There are a lot of neat elements to this package. First, you can choose which components to download/install, and the component list is quite large, including not only the common command-line tools but also things like distributions of Perl and Python. Second, the program sets up a whole Unix-type shell environment, so when you double-click the Cygwin icon you actually end up entering commands just as you would if you were at the command-line of a Unix or Linux box. Third, if you just want to use the commands without having to learn about the whole art of working in a Unix shell, you can just add the Cygwin\bin directory to your PATH, and you can use the commands from a regular DOS prompt.
I've got this installed on both Windows 98 and NT, and it's supposed to support just about all the various versions of Windows. Even if you're not going to use it today, this is a good thing to have installed just in case you need it.
If you only want the command line tools, and you don't care about having a full Unix shell environment, UnxUtils is a great download. It's a large collection of common Unix command line tools (like gzip, tar, uudecode, etc.) that have been ported to Windows, so you can just open a command prompt and run them as native programs.
Automatically Restart Domino When It Crashes
February 20, 2003
This is a batch file you can use to automatically restart a Lotus Notes server on a Windows platform when it crashes. It takes advantage of the aedebug setting in Windows NT, which will call any given debugger when a program crashes. In our case, we're going to have it call a batch file, which will take care of killing Notes for us (if that was the program that crashed). Details of how to set it up are in the comments of the batch file itself.
I chose to use a batch file because it's easy to understand, and you can make changes without having to compile anything. I use this on one of my production Domino servers that crashes intermittently, so it will reboot itself automatically (I've also got a scheduled agent running on that server that checks for the existence of a flag file that gets set by the batch file and alerts me if it finds it -- which means I've had a reboot).
Use ShellExecute to Launch a File
April 22, 2003
Here's a little bit of LotusScript/Visual Basic code that demonstrates how to use the Windows API ShellExecute call to launch a file using the default file association on your machine (for example, calling this function against a file named "test.doc" would open test.doc in Word, if Word is associated with .doc files). It also has an example of how to use the FindExecutable API function, which just finds the name and path of the executable that's used to open a particular file type.
Google from your Internet Explorer Address Bar
April 29, 2003
Here's a registry entry I found that allows you to use Google right from the address bar in Internet Explorer -- you just have to type "google search term" (where "search term" is your search term, of course) and the Google search comes right up. Just download the .reg file below and double-click it to add it to your registry. I found the tip at the Microsoft site here.
Auto-Complete Files and Directories at the DOS Prompt
April 29, 2003
Here's another registry entry I found at the same place that allows you to use the tab key to auto-complete file names and directory names while you're at a DOS prompt. You can type, say, "cd c:\pro" at a DOS prompt and then the tab key, and it will automatically fill in "cd c:\Program Files" for you. And if there are multiple matches, you can cycle through them by pressing tab over and over. Just download the .reg file below and double-click it to add it to your registry.
Fun With Active Desktop
July 15, 2004 (updated July 21)
A lot of people use the Active Desktop feature of Windows to display pictures or websites on their workspace, but you can also use it to add functionality to your desktop without doing any real programming (maybe a little JavaScript or VBScript, but nothing complicated).
Below is a sample file you can play around with to explore a few possibilities. Just save the file to your computer, rename it with a ".htm" extension, and follow the directions outlined in the comments of the file itself (you'll have to open it in a text editor to see the comments). This example just adds a few input boxes that allow you to quickly open web pages and files, and do Google searches, but with a little creativity you might be able to think of some modifications that would make it even more useful for yourself.
(UPDATE: I also added a little JavaScript calendar page below, if you're interested.)
QuickLinks.txt (rename it as a ".htm" file before using it)
QuickCal.txt (rename it as a ".htm" file before using it)
My New Computer Build Settings
June 7, 2005
Last week I got a new laptop at work, which means it was rebuild time. I firmly believe in reloading everything from scratch rather than trying to use images, because a fresh new computer build ends up so clean and fast.
Unfortunately, reloading from scratch takes a huge amount of time. It took me about 2 full days to get it like I wanted it, and there are still things I'll be installing and tweaking over the next few weeks, I'm sure. So I can remember what all the steps are and where all the software came from, I decided to write it all down here for future reference (because I know I'll have to do it again sometime).
My New Computer Build Settings