Microsoft Word 2007 slow to alt+tab

Just found this happy little gem that fixed a problem with tabbing back and forth between Word documents. Thanks to author Anthony Curreri.

Here's the text of his post (just to make sure I don't loose it).

1. Log in as Administrator.
2. Open Microsoft Office 2007.
3. Click the Office Button in the upper left.
4. Click Word Options in the lower right.
5. Click Add-Ins on the left.
6. At the bottom, make sure ‘Com Add-ins’ is selected in the Manage: drop down and click Go…
7. Un-check ‘Acrobat PDFMaker Office COM Addin’ (Or whatever you think might be making Word 2007 slow).
8. Click Ok.
9. Close Word.
10. Open Two Word Windows. Now you can switch back and forth instantly!

To append to his post, he does indicate that you need to log in as an administrator. In Vista, for some reason, you cannot right click Word and choose "Run as Administrator". Instead, I opened a command prompt that way, navigated to "c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12" and then ran WINWORD.EXE. That should allow you to change the add-in settings.

My prefered SubVersion client for XCode is ...

At first, I thought that the integrated tools for XCode were pretty good. Then I started working with Ben on the project. Yeah, they blow. We have switched over to Versions. It seems to work very well.

Renaming an iPhone App

Renaming an iPhone app can appear to be a pretty clunky deal the first few times. It is particularly irksome that Apple explicitly states that once you generate an AppID in your developer program portal, you cannot delete it.

This graphic is helpful in navigating the change in XCode.



Also, I have learned the hard way to make sure that the URL in your info.plist "InfoDictionary version" property matches your AppID. So, for instance, you generate a new AppID like "WER4ERF4.net.framewreck.tehdumbapp" then make sure your info.plist value is "net.framewreck.${PRODUCT_NAME:identifier}"

Eats, Shoots & Leaves

I am writing some use cases right now. I found a good site for quick grammar checkups. Incidentally, the title of this post comes from this book that my wife has around the house.

Microsoft Certification

It has been quite a while since I have been out to the Microsoft Certification site. At first glance, it looks like it has changed a lot. A little deeper digging shows me that I am not yet in danger of having completely outdated letters after my name. There is an interesting new tier of certification, "Microsoft Certified Master".



Oops! I meant this one:



Looked cool, but I dunno if I am interested in the specializations available at the Master level. There is a new MCPD for .NET 3.5, though. Looks like the upgrade tests are not ready.

I vacilate on upgrade tests. I did the upgrade test from Windows NT 4.0 to Windows 2000 MCSE. Man! What a nightmare. It was basically taking all 4 or 5 of the normal tests, except all at once. What is the benefit of that? When upgrading from Visual Studio 6 to .NET 1.1 MCSD, I just did all the normal tests, and then again from that to .NET 2.0 MCPD. But ... I have heard that the new upgrade tests aren't as much of a kick in the head. Maybe I'll try them again when the time comes.

Monostate

Spent a little bit today learning about Monostate and why some folks think the Singletons are the really bad.

1. http://jeremyjarrell.com/archive/2008/04/21/88.aspx
2. http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller/archive/2005/08/04/130302.aspx
3. http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?MonostatePattern

Today I came across two Jeremy Miller posts (second one in list) concerning two completely different things. I think I will keep track of this dude. His comments about the Singleton constructor pattern make me chuckle. I wish I had known about it when he wrote it. At almost exactly the same time, my more aggressive peers at a former employer demanded that many particular types of services MUST be implemented as singletons and the instantiation pattern MUST follow exactly the code that Jeremy is deriding in his post. I won't go so far as to say that only a Sith speaks in absolutes, but I will say that the words MUST and ALWAYS when applied to software architecture tend to make me bristle.

The thing I hate the most about Windows

I absolutely hate the experience of attempting to shut down Windows only to have it complain that, "Windows cannot shut down because one or more programs are not responding." The worst is when I am in a hurry. I issue the shut down command, close the lid, throw it in my backpack and go. Hours later, I figure out that the thing has spent hours in the backpack, generating enough heat to melt itself. I think the shut down commands should have the following options:

• Restart
  
• Sleep
• Hibernate
• Shut Down
• Shut the F@#$ Down

Here's a photo of what this looks like on Vista. Seriously! A developer spent a day or two composing this slick, nice looking screen instead of fixing the real problem.

Incidentally, you can recreate this problem simply by opening Notepad, open a modal dialog (like the save dialog) and then attempt to shut down.

Thump

This happened last weekend, and I am just now getting around to posing about it. I dropped my PC laptop. it was sitting on a coffee table. I was stretching the power cord to plug into a wall. It pulled the lappy off the coffee table and made a horrific, crackling thud as it hit the hardwood floor. CRAP! Fortunately, the damage appears to be only cosmetic. It dented the floor and bent some plastic on the lappy. I decided to take it apart and try to bend the plastic back. The end result is that it is pretty much fixed. But not until I disassembled/reassembled the thing three times. The first time I put it back together only to find that it wouldn't power up. I had quite the case of cold sweats then. I took it apart to find that a cable had come loose. Then when I put it back together the second time, despite my meticulous attempts to keep track of all the screws, one of them got down in the guts. I didn't figure that out until I lifted the fully assembled (and working) device off the counter to hear a little metal rattle. The third time worked. By that time I felt like such an old pro that I decided to monkey around and see what it would take to replace the lid and the wireless network card. The network card I would like to upgrade from 802.11g to 802.11n. That turns out to be very easy to replace. I also would like to replace the lid. I got a big, bright yellow lid (it's an Inspiron 1720). I really like the yellow, but Dell was having a lot of problems with paint at the time they manufactured mine. Mine got worn and faded spots within a few weeks of purchase. Dell support doesn't want to replace it for me for free. I looked today and found that replacing the lid would cost $55. Probably not worth it since there is no guarantee that a new lid wouldn't be just as bad. I'll tuck that money away and use it in a year or two on a big MacBook Pro that I can dual boot.

OK, anyway, here is some open motherboard surgery pics.

F'ing NDA

Good news that the NDA is lifting! I will try to resurrect some old posts once the coast is clear.

http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/