New Fun Blog – Scott Bilas

I installed IE8 yesterday. Not that I use it but <shrug> Windows Update.

Anyway, today I found that my Windows Explorer is suddenly opening a new window every time I double-click a folder on the right pane. It was driving me nuts until a quick Google found the answer.

Open cmd.exe as admin, and run this:

regsvr32 actxprxy.dll

That’s it! For me it fixed it instantly, no restart of Explorer required.

(Thanks to the article here for the info.)

I just figured out the right way to set up Gmail on an iPod Touch or iPhone. The right way is not to set up Gmail using the built-in Gmail template. It’s to use the “Other” option – no mail template.

I’ve been wondering why stuff has mysteriously been showing up in my Trash on Gmail. Items in the trash get permanently deleted after 30 days. Maybe you want that, but I don’t. On all my other mail apps I’ve set “delete” up to do the same as Gmail’s “archive” feature. Just move stuff into Gmail/All Mail.

The problem is that on the iPod it ignores you when you try to configure where the Trash goes. When I select All Mail it actually just sets it back to Trash underneath. The text in the advanced config says All Mail, yet if you hit it, it turns out it’s really pointing at Trash.

Weird. Bug, Apple?

Anyway, the solution is just to set up Gmail as a vanilla IMAP server (the “Other” option at the bottom of the list of Exchange, MobileMe, Gmail, and so on), and not using the built-in Gmail template on the phone. Then tell Drafts, Sent Items, and Trash to all go to Drafts, Sent Items, and All Mail. If you do this, then the iPod actually obeys your wishes and does not lose your settings.

Now, I want to move all the stuff the iPod has trashed (at least the last 30 days’ worth that are remaining) back out of the trash. And I don’t know what’s wrong with me but I can’t figure it out. All I can do is empty the trash or delete items in it. Gmail Help says to hit “Move to Inbox” but there’s no such button for me. Am I blind?

This has been driving me nuts. I’m typing along, and somehow all my Google gadgets come to the top and I lose focus. It’s the shift-shift shortcut. Google’s page on this describes it but has no info on how to disable it. They talk about the other shortcuts of course… Searching the web found a ton of people with the same problem all begging for help. I finally found the answer!

1. Go to your Google Desktop prefs (right-click its icon in the tray and do Options)
2. On the Display panel at the bottom for the Taskbar Gadgets Button section choose “Show icon only” and save your prefs. I bet you had this thing hidden like me, right? To save space in your taskbar?
3. Click on the down arrow button in the new Google icon (looks like four colored boxes stuck together) and there it is! Choose Enable Hotkey to disable the damn thing.
4. Now you can go back to prefs and hide the button again.

So to disable all the Google Desktop hotkeys, you need to (a) turn off ctrl-ctrl in Options, (b) (via the above Google link), edit the registry and reboot to disable the ctrl-alt-G, and (c) do the instructions I have above to disable shift-shift.

Hey Google, want to make this a little more consistent in a future release?