Here’s a quick rundown on how to get rid of unused / old / hidden device drivers in windows (on Windows 7, but should work pretty much on any other version).
Anytime you add a device and windows asks you for a driver, or looks on the internet and finds the driver for you, once installed, chances are it will stay around for good. And what happens at times is that when you connect some other device, the wrong driver gets picked up automatically among the ones you have already installed.
Typical scenario? You connect an android phone or tablet via usb to your pc, the device has “usb debugging” enabled, but despite what you try out, “adb devices” won’t show. Chances are the wrong adb interface driver is being used for your device.
So here’s how to get rid of unused drivers (i.e. devices not shown when disconnected):
- Add the environment variable devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices to your user or system variables, and set its value to 1 (command prompt -> control.exe sysdm.cpl,System,3 then press “Environment Variables” to get to the dialog where to add what above).
- Launch the device manager (command prompt -> devmgmt.msc) then menu -> view -> show hidden devices. At that point you’ll be able to see any previously connected device, right click on it, and select “uninstall”. In the dialog that appears make sure to check “delete the driver software for this device”.
Happen to live quite a few miles (or quite a few thousand miles) away from the nearest froyo place and don’t have an easy way to get your hands on some frozen yogurt? Or perhaps you realized the frozen yogurt you get at the various PinkBerry, Yogurtland (my favorite btw), RedMango, YogoFactory, and the other hundreds of froyo franchises doesn’t see a whole lot of yogurt? Then you can make it yourself, and here’s what I use to prep up some froyo in 15 mins or less.
What you’ll need, in addition to the ingredients, is an ice cream maker (the “place bin in the fridge for 12 hours before using” type is just fine, no need for bigger ones with built-in freezing capability).
And here are a few recipes I came up with so far. According to who enjoyed the result, the best so far is the “Orange- Chocolate-Cinnamon” flavor.
- Fruit flavor (Orange, Strawberry, Blueberry, etc.) frozen yogurt:
- 500 g plain low-fat or fat free yogurt
- 200 ml fat free soy milk or low-fat milk (personally I prefer the soymilk)
- 20 g sugar substitute (splenda, sweet & low, or equivalent)
- one packet Hawaiian Punch single drink mix sugar free (or equivalent) — here you have plenty of choices, my favorite are the Orange, raspberry, and grapefruit flavors
- Orange Chocolate Cinnamon frozen yogurt:
- 500 g plain low-fat or fat free yogurt
- 200 ml fat free soy milk or low-fat milk (personally I prefer the soymilk)
- 20 g sugar substitute (splenda, sweet & low, or equivalent)
- 10 g chocolate powder no sugars added
- half packet Hawaiian Punch Single Orange Ocean drink mix sugar free
- 3 g cinnamon powder
- Preparation
- place the yoghurt in a mid-size bowl and stir it a bit
- warm up the milk for 2 – 3 minutes in the microwave
- once the milk is ready add do it the sugar substitute and the flavor powder (chocholate, etc.)
- mix the milk until the powders have blended in
- get the milk w/flavors in the bowl where you have previously placed the yogurt
- mix till everything has nicely blended, then let it stand for 15 minutes or so till reaches ambient temperature
- put the mix in the ice-cream machine, let it go for 30 minutes
- enjoy your fresh home-made frozen yogurt!
Fastest way to get some sort of integration between Toodledo and Thunderbird to handle your tasks and emails within the same app:
1- Bring up the Thunderbird error console
2- Copy the code below and paste it in the “Code” textbox of the error console:
<pre lang="javascript" escaped="true">
Components.classes[‘@mozilla.org/appshell/window-mediator;1′].getService(Components.interfaces.nsIWindowMediator).getMostRecentWindow("mail:3pane").document.getElementById("tabmail").openTab("contentTab", {contentPage: "http://www.toodledo.com/views/folder.php"});
</pre>
Press “Evaluate”
Done — a new tab with your Toodledo task list will appear next to the “Inbox” tab.
An “hidden” feature in Thunderbird, makes the email client queue the message and send it in the background, one of the neat Outlook functionalities I’ve been missing since I switched to Thunderbird years ago.
The “send in background” capability is not exposed in the preferences (at least as of TB 3.1.1) — to enable the it, go into Preferences -> Advanced -> General -> Config Editor, change
mailnews.sendInBackground
to
true
and restart Thunderbird.
According to the Mozilla Wiki:
The following parts are implemented:
- Basic send in background.
- Sending a message will temporarily (for about a second) put it in the Outbox in Local Folders, and then Thunderbird will attempt to send it.
- Activity Manager progress and notifications
- The activity manager will echo progress and notifications of sending messages in the background (or via Send Later).
- Partial shut down support.
- Sending a message and attempting to quit should bring up a dialog which is retained until the message is sent. On Windows and Linux this will only happen if File -> Quit is used not the ‘x’ on the window.
Not implemented:
- If there is an error, Thunderbird won’t attempt to automatically send the message a second time (until another message is sent).
- If there are multiple messages queued, Thunderbird won’t attempt to automatically send other messages that are queued.
- Thunderbird won’t notify the user if messages are being sent during shutdown.
Here’s a quick rundown of a few Firefox settings which I found rather effective in sensibly reducing page load time. In order to access the parameters below you’ll have to type about:config in your browser’s address bar.
Once you get to the list the fastest way to find them is to narrow down the results using the search field at the very top.
- network.http.keep-alive -> true
– network.http.version -> 1.1
– network.http.pipelining -> true
- network.http.pipelining.maxrequests ->8
- network.http.proxy.pipelining -> true
- network.dns.disableIPv6 -> true
- content.interrupt.parsing (new boolean) -> true
- content.max.tokenizing.time (new integer) -> 2250000
- content.notify.interval (new integer) -> 750000
- content.notify.ontimer (new boolean) -> true
- content.notify.backoffcount (new integer) -> 5
- content.switch.threshold (new integer) -> 750000
- nglayout.initialpaint.delay (new integer) -> 0
You might not have all the settings above, if any is missing you can create it as new entry. As far as how much all these tweaks will benefit the page load time, it much depends on your specific Firefox setup, and particularly on the number of add-ons. I found them quite effective in my (rather lean — 15 or so add-ons) Firefox. Your mileage may vary.
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