Archives

Archives / 2009 / May
  • Machine Setup: SourceGear DiffMerge

    Another tool I always have on my development machine in SourceGear’s free DiffMerge tool (http://sourcegear.com/diffmerge/)

    Not only is this the diff/merge tool from Visual Studio or SourceGear Vault but it also adds some very nice and useful context menus to Windows Explorer for being able to quickly compare two files (or folders):

    SourceGear DiffMerge Context Menu

    This comes in very handy and since it has a great price (free!) it is one of the tools that gets added to my machine at the beginning.

    -Jeff

  • Machine Setup: OneNote Sort Pages Powertoy

    I use Microsoft OneNote a lot for notes, tasks, projects, reference, etc.  One of the addins that I recommend for OneNote is Daniel Escapa’s Sort Pages powertoy

    Just run the setup application that you can get from his blog, close and reopen OneNote, and you will end up with a new button in OneNote:

    image

    Clicking this will alphabetically sort the page in the current notebook.  (NOTE: As Daniel mentions in his blog there is no undo and no confirmation, so be careful when hitting this button.)

    -Jeff

    EDIT (2011-01-25): There is now a OneNote 2010 version: http://weblogs.asp.net/jeffwids/archive/2011/01/25/machine-setup-onenote-2010-sort-pages-powertoy.aspx

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  • Mindjet MindManager stops mouse from working

    I recently upgraded my development machine to not only a new computer but also Windows Server 2008.  I also chose to go with Windows Server 2008 64-bit to take advantage of the 8GB RAM that my new computer can handle. 

    The upgrade went very smoothly but over the weekend I discovered that one of my tools, MindManager 8, caused issues on my computer.  Installation of MindManager was no problem and activation with my license key also was successful but when MindManager went to open the first tutorial MindMap, my mouse stopped working.  I tried several different things to get my mouse functionality to work including closing MindManager and installing an updated mouse driver but nothing worked.  Whenever MindManager would open a MindMap the mouse would freeze and never come back.

    Today I was able to find a work around.  Apparently this issue has to do with Tablet PC Input Service. Not exactly sure why but stopping and restarting the service will free up your mouse. Unfortunately you need to do this with each MindMap that you open.

    • Open MindMap
    • Mouse becomes frozen
    • Stop/Start Tablet PC Input Service
    • Mouse now works again

    You can also use these commands from a command prompt window instead of the Services mmc (which really helps when your mouse is not working :D ).

    net stop "tablet pc input service"
    net start "tablet pc input service"

    UPDATE (2009-05-18): Having the Hyper-V feature enabled causes this work-around not to work.  I had enabled Hyper-V and then my mouse became frozen again after opening a MindMap and stopping and starting the Tablet PC Input Service did not free up my mouse.  Not sure why and I did not look into what was going on but just turned off the Hyper-V feature and my work-around above works again.

    UPDATE (2009-05-22): I have found that I do not need to stop and start the Tablet PC Input Service after opening each MindMap but only at first.  Right now my work-around at the beginning of each day is (yes, I shut my computer down each night :) ):

    • Open MindManager (which opens the startup mind map)
    • Mouse becomes frozen
    • Stop/Start Tablet PC Input Service
    • Mouse now works again
    • Open MindMap from MindJet Connect Workspace
    • Mouse becomes frozen
    • Stop/Start Tablet PC Input Service
    • Mouse now work again (and opening any other MindMaps will not cause my mouse to freeze)

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    -Jeff