Keep Outlook from Stealing Focus

Outlook steals focus and brings itself to the front multiple times when starting up. It's highly annoying, but it can be stopped. The villain is the /recycle switch that is added to the default shortcut for Microsoft Office Outlook in the Quick Launch toolbar. Removing the switch will make Outlook more behaved when it's starting.

However, you can get multiple Outlook windows if you use the shortcut to activate Outlook when it is already running. Replacing that shortcut to Outlook with the following AutoHotkey script will prevent a multiple window side-effect:

#NoEnv ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases.
SendMode Input ; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed and reliability.
SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir% ; Ensures a consistent starting directory.
IfWinExist, ahk_class rctrl_renwnd32
WinActivate
Else Run, C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\OUTLOOK.EXE

Internet Time Sync - Reset to Fix Error on Vista

Internet Time sync using NTP servers causes frustration for a lot of Windows users. The following instructions will reset the NTP run-time and adjust the NTP server setting. Make sure you haven't set conflicting settings in Group Policy.

1. The default server, time.windows.com, is just not as reliable as some other NTP servers publicly available. However, the best practice now is to sync to a NTP pool and/or your local university's or ISP's NTP servers. Get the list of servers for your location at the NTP Pool Directory. Example: 0.us.pool.ntp.org 1.us.pool.ntp.org 2.us.pool.ntp.org 3.us.pool.ntp.org


2. Run the following commands from an Administrator command prompt:

net stop w32time
w32tm /unregister
w32tm /unregister (yes, again)
w32tm /register
net start w32time
w32tm /config "/manualpeerlist:0.us.pool.ntp.org 1.us.pool.ntp.org 2.us.pool.ntp.org 3.us.pool.ntp.org" /syncfromflags:MANUAL
w32tm /config /update

3. Now you can check to see which server you are currenly connected to:

w32tm /query /source
w32tm /query /peers

4. To sync your PC's clock to the time server's manually at this point (it will update according to the default schedule):

w32tm /resync

That should do it!

Make Yahoo! Day Planner Widget Work with Google Calendar

[Updated Aug 3]

The Day Planner widget that comes with the Yahoo! Widget Engine (a.k.a. Konfabulator) can work with iCalendar (ICAL) files, but this feature has been hidden in the Windows platform since Mozilla Sunbird stopped using iCalendar files (.ics) for storing calendar data.

Google Calendar makes a private link to your calendars, in various formats, including ICAL. To use it with Yahoo! Day Planner widget (which looks a lot better than Google Desktop Gadgets, IMO), you have to do 2 things:

1. Find a way to periodically download the GCal .ics file from the Internet to a file on your computer.
2. Hack the widget to use the .ics file for calender info.

There are several ways (I presume) of handling step 1, but for step 2: quit Yahoo! Widget Engine and then go to the following key in the Registry and change the value with the name source to the string icalendar

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Yahoo\WidgetEngine\Widgets\Day Planner

Now, to periodically download the .ics file... You can get your private URL for the .ics file under Settings in Google Calendar (more info). I made an AutoHotkey script to download it periodically, but I imagine there are a lot of little utilities that can periodically download a file from the Internet. Whatever you set up, when you start Yahoo Widgets again, you'll be prompted for the directory where the .ics file you want to use is located.

Update: I modified the Day Planner widget to make it more friendly to iCalendar files. I used the Widget Converter widget to convert the Day Planner.widget to a folder. I then edited PIMp.kon in Wordpad.

Recommended Firefox Extensions!

Now updated as a Collection: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collection/wtf

An Easy Way to Improve Security in IE

The Hazards of MIME Sniffing

Bottom line:

As a user you can go into security settings for the Internet Zone and switch off the “Open files based on content, not extension” option.

Outlook Junk Email Filtering with Non-Cached Exchange Account

Junk Email filtering in Outlook only works when there is a default PST or OST data file, and then it works only on email delivered to the Inbox. Therefore, if you have a server rule that moves mail to other folders, spam will not be filtered. Instead, have rules that move messages be client-based by including the condition, "On this machine only". That way, Outlook's Junk Email filtering will be active before rules to move messages from the default Inbox take effect.

In addition (or alternatively), you can enable server-based Junk Email filtering within Options of Outlook Web Access.