Behold the power of the insensitive feature!

Dear Microsoft,

Tell me why?!:



I mean uh, seriously folks...this should have been a simple move process, yet it had to be stopped dead in its tracks with no clean-up involved! I just said "Here..move this from this drive to this drive." You would think if it had an error due to its own stupidity that it would have had enough care to put things back the way they were. What does it do?

*AHEM* ..it leaves all of the files it did already in their new location, while leaving the rest of the directory and file structure that it hadn't moved still in tact in the original location. Why is this totally frustrating?? Because. You see, I have to now go through the time consuming effort of figuring out which files had been moved and which ones weren't and transfer every thing to the new proper location one at a time because something screwed up somewhere.

Why couldn't it just ask me if I want to rollback what had just been done and if I say yes then it would do just that?

Dear Microsoft,

Please put this ability in your next OS releases.

Dear Microsoft,

Keep up the good work.

P.S. Is there a better way to move files than through this archaic and horrible system which might actually ensure proper file transfer?

P.P.S. I hope so.

An Idea for Admins

Admin Ecstasy

I had another of my clever ideas. Yes, quite fantastic if I do say so myself. I do say so myself, but these ideas have got to have quite a bit of merit because as fun as they sound, they've got to appeal to others about as much as for me.

Right now there are three technologies working separately from themselves. The first is Dual (or multi) Monitor support on a single PC. The second is Remote Desktop (or terminal services). Lastly, but not leastly, the technology developed by Stardock software which allows you to connect several computers to a single workstation, letting you control each computer (which still has its own monitor) as if you were controlling just a single one with multi-monitor support. This is called Multiplicity and is a very cool idea that, lets you take advantage of having more computer hardware to run power-hungry applications or games by running each on a separate workstation, but letting you control it from one keyboard and mouse.

Huh? Ok, you have several pcs on one desk; all the monitors are in front of you side by side; and you sit in the middle controlling whats happening on each computer from the one in front of you....; you move your mouse over to another monitor and voila, you're controlling another computer seamlessly.

Back to the point now. What your ultimate ADMIN setup would consist of in theory is the combination of these ideas to always have a handle on the computers you are keeping care of. Let me describe..

Describing Ecstasy

You have a single computer in front of you. You might have multiple monitors connected to it. Lets say Mary has a serious problem with something on her computer down the hall. Mary's computer is still connected to the network, and ..did we say her computer is accessible through yours? Yeah. You simply look over onto another monitor that shows her computer. You move over to it and make it full screen...or maybe even move it to the primary monitor for seeing better. You press a key to gain full control (so as to not bother that computer while you monitor it), then you take over find the problem and address it in no time flat. Lets say Joe Schmoe in the office next to you is looking through his junk email and is about to open an attachment that you know might not be safe. In most circumstances you wouldn't have known until he came cryin' to you about his computer actin' up. Now...with his computer being monitored constantly on one of your monitors, you simply watch him as he's opening the message and then you butt in just before he clicks yes on the "Are you sure you want to open this potentially unsafe attachment?" window. You could pop up a little chat...or maybe even have a direct voice connection to the pc and talk to him about it.

Now doesn't that sound great? I know it can happen. Its just a matter of time. Just think though, what if you want to do it from your notebook pc or don't have multiple monitors? Well there could be a feature that could use a hot-key to switch back and forth between the other computers and yours, or when you move your mouse over to the edge of your screen it would switch to theirs (like a desktop manager).

The Big Idea..

I'll tell you how I think this can be achieved now. First, you get a Terminal Services/Remote Desktop application to be a bit modified. Make it secure, and make it so that it supports constant monitoring, yet quick re-activation if you decide to let that particular one "sleep" while you make better use of your network bandwidth. Make it so you can have control over several systems all at once. Make it so that it has hot-key support and screen-edge support for single monitor systems, and full-screen support for those multi-monitor admin gurus. Make it FREE, and make it work over the internet and through any firewall....and voila! Its an IT dream. Oh yea, don't forget to make it easy to configure because if its not, then its another IT headache and we don't want that.

So who's up for it? Any takers to the challenge? Right. It'll probably be me, and if any of these fancy ideas actually get developed by myself, I'm probably going to end up world-famous and possibly quit writing in my blog because that would give the world too much insight into the mind of the now famous Jason Cramer. Well...I dunno. We'll see about that.

Dynamic Madness!!

I concur sir, yes I do concur.

Haha...its madness!

I am working on a new in-page web content editor for the company I work for. I have a site that's divided into 3 sections. Its got a left-nav menu, a header, and a content area. Now, it seems simple enough to have a button just above the content area that would switch the layer of the content area to a little content editor with the content already in it. That parts easy.

The hard part.

I've got the div that contains the editor hidden initally, so that when the button is clicked, the first layer is hidden and the editor's layer is revealed. The editor's layer has a dynamically height-adjusted IFRAME that is supposed to increase to the page that it contains. The editor page is in that IFRAME. The EDITOR PAGE is dynamically height-adjusted itself..doesn't it seem like it would naturally work well together??

NO. See, because the problem is this. The function which dynamically adjusts the height of the IFRAME calculates the height of the page within it and then sets the height of the IFRAME accordingly. Still seems straight-forward right? Well, then you remember that the page being calculated is dynamic in height as well....and well, .......you may have guessed: it calculates it as having next to no height at all. AGH..

Any Solution in Sight?

I'm not sure that there's going to be a simple fix for this. I may just stick to what I just now figured out. That is, that if I set the height of the IFRAME when I define it in the HTML code, and set it to 100%, then it will automatically stretch to the height of the table that its in. So if my menu expands to be much longer (which it does if you click on certain items..) then it will expand the IFRAME as well. I would much rather have it adjust according to the actual height of the page within the editor.

Perhaps though, ...perhaps if I set the PRE tag that is replaced with the editor and the page content so that it is 100% height and the overflow is auto, then maybe it will stretch by itself to the full height of the content in the page and therefore automatically adjust the IFRAME to that height. AGH - no that didn't work either.

You know... oh wait a sec..time for a cheesy sub title.

Reconsidering..

On second thought, I really don't want it to go the full length of the content. No, not really at all. You know what I really want? I'm gonna tell you right now.

I want this IFRAME to adjust simply to the height of the window that you have open. That's IT! No more, no less. I want it to just fit in your window. See because I don't want the editor's main buttons to scroll out of view. Now how do I tell google this so that the search results will come up with the solution?

Well, ok...I figured it out. My table just wasn't being set to 100% height. Once I did that, and set the IFRAME height to 100%, then it behaved similar to what I had in mind originally. Now come to think of it....this is more what I want, because if I did the other way, ...how would I make it automatically stretch bigger upon scrolling down if perhaps it were shorter than the rest of the page (like the menu for example)? That would be ..(pardon the pun) a real stretch.

I think I'll leave it at that for now.

And better things to come..

I've got these other cool ideas to implement now. Like:

1. Making the abort button actually switch back to the regular content layer so you don't have to refresh.
2. Making the full screen button ACTUALLY go full-screen...probably by making changes to the layer so that its absolutely positioned 0px by 0px top-left, and making its width and height 100%.
3. Making every link on the menu simply change whats in the content and contentEditor layers rather than going to another page (avoiding refresh..)

I would love it for it to do these things like I want. Then it will really have the feel of an application rather than a life-less site.