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My outlook suddenly gave me the stern warning that I need to shutdown and scan my message boxes with ScanPST. I have a corrupted mailbox file, or files. It didn’t tell me which/where the mailbox file is and where the scanpst.exe or scanost.exe is located.

So to help me and others remember how to locate these files:

“C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12″ is where ScanPst.exe and ScanOst.exe located. I think these two programs are merely links to some other core utilities. You can launch either one and it can scan both types of mailbox files (*.ost or *.pst).

“C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook” is where all your mailbox files are located.

Wouldn’t it be great if Outlook simply launches this tool or provide this functionality as a right-click on the mailbox itself? We should ask Bill that question.

reader.google.com does a good job of adding RSS feeds to your browser friendly iPhone.

So now you can read many news feed on your iPhone.

Adblock is an optional plug-in feature for Firefox users who don’t want to see online ads. However, because of that technology websites may lose advertising revenue. Yahoo! Mail seems to have figured out a way to defeat Adblock. I noticed that lately whenever I want to send an email in Y! Mail, it waits until the large ad unit is loaded before it finalizes the delivery of the mail. If for some reason the ads is not successfully loaded, you’ll get an error message that your mail has not been delivered.

This tactic is similar to other advertising websites where an intermediate advertising step must be completed before the process user is engaged in can continue. For example you must view a short video ad clip before the online streaming TV show can move on to the next segment; or before your search results can display, you must click or skip a page dedicated to advertising. While slower and annoying to some users, this tactic proved to be very effective in advertising as for that moment the ad gets people’s attention like a car crash right in front of your eyes.

Once again, Internet proves nothing is really for free. Well, for now Wikipedia and Craigslist still are, but for how long.

This blog has gone hiatus for a while. I lost and regained the domain name in the process. After some headaches and trial and errors with two domain registrars, I finally got the domain back.

I tried to use superscript/subscript in my Powerpoint presentation with Powerpoint 2007 – you need that often for any technical presentations. The keyboard shortcut for superscript(Ctrl+Shift+=) and subscript(Ctrl+=) still work, however pressing the shortcut key combo again doesn’t cancel the super/subscript as they do in Word 2000, 2003 or any older versions.

This is deeply inconvenient as all subsequent lines of typing all turned into subscript until you reformat them with slow menu-driven commands. Searching Microsoft help leads me to the training on “Ribbon” – the new name Microsoft dreamed up for very (in)flexible toolbars.

The problem becomes worse here. Microsoft stated clearly upfront in FAQ, the first thing you couldn’t do is customizing those ribbons like adding, removing or rearranging buttons. So you are stuck with what Microsoft thinks you should use. Superscript/subscript buttons are only available in Word 2007, not in the same ribbon in Powerpoint. And there’s no way to add them in place of the Bold/Italic/Underline (which I can live without since Ctrl+B/I/U easily takes care those) buttons for example.

So to recap,

1. Microsoft removed some really useful keyboard shortcut capabilities for no good reason (it’s on the same keys) .
2. It forces you to use the slower ribbon driven commands.
3. When your favorite commands are not on the ribbon, you’re screwed since you can’t change anything about the ribbons.

So, why is this a better UI? It feels like the Republicans are running Microsoft these days.

Are we really saving trees by going paperless? Most people think so. But if you think a little harder, it is really not about trees. It is about energy. Paper products can be effectively recycled. It costs energy to recycle and transport.

The alternative is to use electronic version (go paperless). However, that some times means you need to turn on your computer for several hours to stare at a few pages of documents. So what about the energy needed to run the computer? Maybe it is more than the energy needed to recycle a few pages of paper.