From time to time I need to quickly write a guide for my users (e.g. to explain how to perform a task in an application). For this purpose screenshots are very good at explaining the steps instead of writing them in text. In the old days I just used Paint to get the job done, but the Windows Snipping Tool feature in Windows 7 is much better.

Open the Windows Start Menu and type "Snipping", the Snipping Tool program menu item will appear.

The Snipping Tool opens as a little window and immediatly lets you drag a box around the area of the screen of which you need a screenshot. When you are done, it will allow you to highlight details in the screenshot using a highlighter or a pen tool to draw stuff on the screenshot.

When you are done with your screenshot, simply save it and use it in your guide or blog post or whatever you are up to. The Snipping Tool defaults to saving images as Capture.PNG. You can of course change this to your liking.

The finished image:

Happy Snippin'

Whenever I leave my computer, I tend to put it in sleep or hibernate mode. I almost never shut it down. Today I noticed that updates were available for my Windows 7, but when I went to check them out, they were hidden from the list of available updates. Check the screenshots below.

The Solution

What worked for me was to simply restart my computer. Yup, da good olde trick, worked once again. NOTE: It did not help to simply restart the Windows Update service.

I hope this problem will be fixed in later versions, because it is really frustrating, now at least I know of a workaround. Even though I would like to know what caused this issue in the first place.

Happy Programming

Today I determined to find out if there is a way to have Internet Explorer 9 update its feeds a bit more often than the default once a day. It turns out that there is a way. :-)

1. From the menu bar, select the menu item "Tools" and select "Internet Options".
2. The dialog "Internet Options" appears. Select the tab "Content".
3. On the tab "Content" go to the section "Feeds and Web Slices" and select the button "Settings".
4. The dialog "Feeds and Web Slices Settings" appears.
5. In the section "Default Schedule" change the value of the drop down box to a value that suits your needs. My schedule is currently every 15 minutes.
   

   

Please have in mind that the default schedule is overridden if a publisher has a recommended frequency larger than the frequency you have selected.

Happy reading your feeds! :-)

I do not know about you, but it really annoyed me that subscribing to feeds in Internet Explorer 9 is such a pain with the default UI settings. IE team, please put a feed button in the main toolbar.

Anyway, until then, the trick is to have IE show the "Command Bar" as well, even though this clutters the neat look of the UI, it does give you the possibility to subscribe to feeds with a few (as always) mouse clicks.

Right click near the home icon and select the menu item "Command Bar". The command bar will now show up. Do the same thing again and select the menu item "Favorites Bar".

Now find a web page of your choice and subscribe to its feed using the RSS button on the Command Bar.

On the feed web page click the link "Subscribe to this feed".

A dialog will pop up, select the check box "Add to Favorites Bar" and click the button "Subscribe".

That is it! You can now access your feed from the Favorites Bar the same way you do in Firefox.

Now I enjoy IE 9 a bit more. :-)

Happy surfin' the web! :-)

A policy definition file is located in the SYSVOL folder. Simply place the file in:

\\<domain>\SYSVOL\<domain>\Policies\PolicyDefinitions

Simple as that. Remember to restart your Group Policy Management Console.

Happy Managing