I Can’t Complain


But I can’t complain
I can’t complain
Every days too short to let it go to waste

Now I can’t complain
I can’t complain
You gotta treat every day like a holiday

And I’m telling you
That I know some days I’m gonna stumble
And I know the cookie’s gonna crumble
And I know that life is gonna suck some days
But I can’t complain

~ Relient K (Can’t Complain on Collapsible Lung)

Relient-K

Connect USB thumb drive to new Nexus 7

NexusImporter

I was curious as to whether or not I could connect a USB thumb drive to the new (2013 model) Nexus 7 tablet.  I have a cheap micro USB to USB connector I bought from Amazon.  The initial test of the thumb drive came up empty, it lit up but I couldn’t access files.  I then tested a USB mouse with the connector and it worked fine.  I had used a thumb drive in the past with the previous Nexus 7 but that solution required the device to be rooted which I didn’t want to mess with this time.  After some poking around I found the Nexus Media Importer that claimed to allow you to connect a thumb drive and copy files.  The app costs $3.99 and I didn’t want to waste money if it didn’t work.  Luckily the developer has another app called Nexus Photo Viewer that is free.  It just can’t be used to copy files to the device.  I installed the photo viewer, plugged in a thumb drive and was able to view images on the drive.  With that assurance I purchased the media importer app and it works great.
There might be a way to use a thumb drive with the tablet without paying $3.99 but for me this was quick and easy.

Outlook won’t open Internet links – Operation cancelled due to restrictions…

outlook-logo

Microsoft Outlook started displaying the following error message when clicking on links within emails on one of my PCs.

restrictions-error

“This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator.”

So I get “contacted” but have no idea why it’s doing that!  So a Bing search later and I find a registry fix.
It has something to do with Google Chrome being uninstalled from a PC and it doesn’t set the links back to the right defaults.

The following instructions (found here) fixed the issue for me:

If you received this error after uninstalling any application that takes over the HTML open command (including, but not limited to, Chrome & Firefox browsers) you may also need to change the HTM/HTML association in the registry.

  1. Start, click Run, type Regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
  2. Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.html
  3. Right click the value for the .html key and select Modify…
  4. Change the value from “ChromeHTML” to “htmlfile” (or from FireFoxHTML to htmlfile)
  5. Repeat for .htm, shtml, .xht, .xhtml, .xhtm keys

Error trying to create virtual machine on Windows 8 – Failed to add device Microsoft Synthetic Ethernet port

logo_hyperv

I received the following error message trying to create a Windows 7 virtual machine on Windows 8:
Failed to add device ‘Microsoft Synthetic Ethernet port’

I found people saying to disable your anti-virus which I did and still received the error.
On a whim I renamed the title of the Windows 7 virtual machine from Windows 7 to Windows7 with no space.
For some reason that fixed it and it created the virtual machine.  Weird, but easy fix.

Turn off Defender on Windows RT

Windows RT Logo

The Surface tablet includes Windows Defender as a service which causes a slight performance hit.  Not major but it’s something that doesn’t need to be running (in my opinion).

To turn it off:

1. Open regedit. Find HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Defender
2. Take ownership of the key and add write permissions to yourself (Right click Windows Defender key, click Permissions, click Additional settings, click Owner, type your username and accept. Now on the Permissions window click Add, type your username and check Full Access and click OK)
3. Change the value of DisableAntispyware to 1
4. Reboot

 

Stop Firefox from scanning files at the end of a download

I don’t like the pause that occurs at the end of a download in Firefox.  It’s some sort of security or virus scan but it’s annoying.
I have anti-virus installed and running all the time so I don’t need it.  It’s never actually stopped anything anyways.

To turn it off type about:config in the address bar.
Answer yes to the question warning you about messing up your computer.

In the search bar type “browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone”Change the setting to false and there you go.  No more pausing.

Security is such a pain sometimes.