David Vielmetter

Category: Tips

  • IE9 Script Error when Printing

    Here’s an annoying error in Windows 7 I found recently. Certain printer drivers cause the following script error in IE9 on Windows 7 x64. Some forums mention Canon printers, but my experience involves an HP Color Laserjet 3500. Here’s how I fixed it finally: [problem] When printing any webpage from IE9 the following error is…

  • Windows Update: 403 – Forbidden: Access is denied.

    While cleaning up an older Windows XP system got a 403 – Forbidden error after visiting Windows Update in IE7. Of course I checked the proxy settings and the hosts file to see if anything fishy was going on, but alas everything seemed fine except windows update. Even upgrading to IE8 didn’t help. Here’s how…

  • Dell Latitude with Unknown Device in XP

    The other day someone gave me their Dell Latitude to find a driver for an unknown piece piece of hardware in the device manager. After a bit of searching around I found the tricky bugger. The device was actually the built-in free fall sensor attached to the hard disk (you know to arrest the hard…

  • Banish Live Messenger back to the Notification Area

    Yes I still use Windows Messenger…well now known as “Windows Live Messenger” and I’m not afraid to admit it. There are several benefits I find to using a tangible instant messaging program over browser based apps like Gtalk, Facebook IM, etc. They accurately indicate whether you are busy/away/available, they work with keyboard shortcuts and you…

  • Free 5gigs of cloud storage

    Last week I managed to max out my free 2gb of cloud storage at Dropbox. That got me thinking…should I bite the bullet and sift through 2GB of accumulated crap to clear some space OR should I look for an alternative to continue my reckless cloud based file storage behavior? After looking around a bit,…

  • XML well-formedness checking in TextMate

    I’ve been working with a lot of XML lately and finding out where your document is not well-formed can be a hassle. Imagine having to find an improperly typed closing node in a ten thousand line XML file with thousands of nodes. Talk about your needle and haystack type of situation, right? Well I two…

  • Das DOS to the rescue

    Lets say you’ve got a folder with a bunch of files and subfolders…each subfolder in turn contains a bunch more files of which you are only interested in one with a specific name. You could perform a search in the root folder and quickly find all the files with that name. Copying them from that…

  • Get a Directory up button in Vista/7

    I like a lot of features in Windows 7. Enough in fact, to make 7 the operating system I use in around the house…but there’s always been one thing that’s bothered me. Where did my folder/directory “up” button go on the explorer toolbar? I’d gotten used to it from years of working with Windows 95,98,NT,2000,XP…

  • Access the DCIM folder on your iPhone

    I am updating this article for the first time since 2011 because I get a lot of requests for help on this particular topic. The original article (now crossed out below) is 6 years old and likely doesn’t apply to newer model iPhones. Now then, with that bit out of the way, here’s some updated…