Xagronaut

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Heroes aren’t born–they volunteer!

I’m posting this entry through my MSN Messenger account via the IMified service (see http://www.imified.com/index.htm). They offer a lot of widgets that allow you to access functionality from many of your online services by using your IM client. Very cool, but isn’t this old school terminal window interfaces all over again?

Fun with mini golf on our 10th anniversary

Justus, the band

Yet another seminar photo

Need an ID for the heat??!!

SyncToy is a “power toy” from Microsoft. Although it is officially an unsupported product, I’ve found that the quality of the tool is sufficient to depend on it for some critical file synchronization operations.

I’ve been using SyncToy to backup and synchronize files on the SD card I use in my Palm Zire 72. The synchronizations that I have set up include documents (Microsoft Office—Word and Excel) as well as pictures and videos taken with the PDA’s camera.

Sometimes it’s a pain to launch the SyncToy application when I insert the memory card into my Dell PC’s internal card reader. I saved some time by “pinning” SyncToy to the Start menu. That works very well, and I recommend you do likewise.

However, the thought occurred to me—why can’t I make SyncToy be a choice in the Windows dialog that automatically launches when I insert the memory card? Well, it turns out that you can.

I did some initial digging in the registry to isolate the branch containing the text of the choices that display, and I found this key:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AutoplayHandlers]

It turns out that this branch has all kinds of goodies in it, all related to how the Autoplay feature works.

After more experimentation and Googling, I came across a few important related articles:

• U3 vs. PortableApps | PortableApps.com - Portable software for USB drives
• Implement an Autoplay Handler - The Code Project - System Programming
• MSDN Library on Autoplay handlers

Ultimately, I created a registry script based on the first of the three links above that looks like this:

 

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAutoplayHandlersEventHandlersMixedContentOnArrival]
"SyncToyHandler"="" 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAutoplayHandlersEventHandlersGenericVolumeOnArrival]
"SyncToyHandler"="" 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAutoplayHandlersEventHandlersShowPicturesOnArrival]
"SyncToyHandler"="" 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAutoplayHandlersEventHandlersPlayMusicFilesOnArrival]
"SyncToyHandler"="" 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAutoplayHandlersHandlersSyncToyHandler]
"Action"="Synchronize with SyncToy"
"DefaultIcon"="\"C:\Program Files\Microsoft\SyncToy\SyncToy.exe\",0"
"InvokeProgID"="SyncToyHandler"
"InvokeVerb"="open"
"Provider"="SyncToy" 

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTSyncToyHandler]
@="SyncToy"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTSyncToyHandlerDefaultIcon]
@="\"C:\Program Files\Microsoft\SyncToy\SyncToy.exe\",0" 

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTSyncToyHandlershell] 

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTSyncToyHandlershellopen]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTSyncToyHandlershellopencommand]
@="\"C:\Program Files\Microsoft\SyncToy\SyncToy.exe\""


It works great! Now, when I insert my memory card, SyncToy displays as an option in the list!

It seems a little strange, but I’m actually blogging using Word as a client for WordPress. This is actually kind of cool! I was considering investing in a rich-client Windows blog editor. I’ve had WordPress on the backburner for a while, but I may be marching forward now that Word supports blogging. In fact, this opens up some new possibilities for using Word as a client for more than just blogging. Here’s a thought: how about Word as a Journal client?

Imagine journaling in your “favorite” (maybe) word processor and posting to a blog that serves as a personal, private journal. Nobody says that every blog has to be public—you can have private entries too. Just be careful to make sure they stay that way because Google has very prying eyes, finding things you might not suspect. I know, because I have found some things that probably weren’t intended for general public consumption. You’ve been warned.

Nonetheless, it tickles the brain with new possibilities. I wonder how hard it is to write addins for Word 2007 in .NET.

By the way, upgrading to Office 2007 with Outlook 2007 has broken the synchronization with my Palm Zire 72. My version of HotSync with the Outlook conduits does not support Outlook 2007. No support information was available on Palm’s website. Interestingly enough, Palm claims that the latest version (for the Zire 72 anyway) of their Palm Desktop software is not compatible with Windows XP Media Center Edition. Now, maybe I’m not running the exact same version (I have version 4.1.4 rather than 4.1.4E), but I’m skeptical about the claim about incompatibility since I am indeed running the software on Windows XP Media Center.

I do have a solution to my synchronization problem, however. It is Chapura’s PocketMirror software, which claims to be compatible with Outlook 2007 and Windows Vista. I’ll probably be dropping the $29.99 for the software soon.