VONAGE IS A FRAUD

Just an FYI, don't expect to get back a rebate from the purchase of a Vonage device in a Best Buy Store. Vonage will defraud you.  I received a card in the mail saying that my rebate was declined because "Purchase was made outside of the qualifying period." even though it was made weeks after the start date and months prior to the end date.

I tried to call the customer service number on the rebate card, but the number was disconnected. How shady is that?!?!

How To Fix Vista Hard Drive That Runs Constantly

If you're one of the large numbers of people who have noticed that Windows Vista often makes your poor harddrive crank on relentlessly, I may have a solution for you. While there are potentially numerous reasons as to why one system or another my be churning things out in the background, for me it came down to one service. 

Of course, you should check first in Windows Task Manager to see if you have any processes chewing up resources that would make your Vista machine's hard drive run non-stop (P2P, virus scan, autostart components, etc.). If you do find a resource hog that you can identify as being a non-essential Windows component, I'd start there.

As for me, I had trimmed my machine of most other fat, but my hard drive indicator light was still a constant blue. I suspected that possibly there was some network activity to it and I decided to dig into Windows Services a little bit. I popped open Vista's task manager, clicked on the Services tab and sorted by status to view the running services. Immediately I noticed one service that both looked non-essential and as thought it would run constantly in the background.

That service was the WebClient service. The description is that it "Enables Windows-based programs to create, access, and modify Internet-based files." Basically I think this boils down to a service that enables features in certain web development suites like the Sharepoint Designer or Frontpage. It might also be used to access a web development or storage directory from certain ISPs. I don't think it's a large number of people to whom this applies, but please don't try it unless you know exactly what you're doing and are proficient with Windows Vista.

To disable the WebClient service:

1. Open the Vista computer managment console (right click My Computer, select Manage) 

2. Under Services and Applications, select Services

3. Scroll through the services list until you find "WebClient".

4. Right-click on the WebClient service and select Properties.

5. Under Service Status,  if it says "Running", click "Stop".

6. Change the Startup type to "Manual". 

7. Click OK.

It could be some strange and massive coincidence, but as soon as I stopped the WebClient service, the hard drive indicator light on my Vista machine went dark. Again, please don't try this unless you're very proficient with Windows. If you do try this and it works for you, I'd love to hear from you.

Trouble embedding YouTube videos in Wordpress blogs

Embedding YouTube videos in Wordpress blogs can be somewhat problematic at times. Often times the video will break page alignment and structure, or the video simply won't appear.

This is typically caused by the way the Wordpress WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor manages the

Open browser links in a new tab with a scroll wheel

I've mentioned continually that I'm a huge fan of tabbed web browsing, usually using 5-7 tabs at a time. If I'm reading a content and link-rich page, I simply open interesting links in a new tab and continue reading.

The normal manner in which I do this is to right-click on the link of interests and select "Open Link in New Tab" (Firefox) or "Open in New Tab" (IE7). However, there is a quicker way using the scroll wheel on a standard Windows two-button scroll mouse.

To open a new tab using the scroll wheel, simply click the scroll wheel on the link you wish to open, and the target will appear in a new browsing tab.

A very easy power-user move to speed up your tabbed browsing. This works in both Firefox and IE7+. You can also close tabs with the scroll wheel, as well.

Use your mouse scroll wheel to close browser tabs

I typically have a half-dozen browser tabs open during any given browsing sessions, frequently opening and closing new ones. When I have even more open the tab size shrinks and I often end up fat-clicking the x button on a tab, thereby switching tabs rather than closing one.

Well a quick and easy way to close a tab (without misclicking) is to use the scroll wheel on a standard mouse. Simply mouse over the tab you wish to close in the browser tab row and click the scroll wheel. It works in both Firefox and IE7, the two most popular tabbed browsers.

It may not be a huge time saver, but it's a cool little power user trick and nice complement to the scroll wheel's ability to open new tabs.

Gmail adding storage space

I make no hesitation about making it known that I love Google. One more reason to love Google is that their email system, Gmail, is increasing the amount of space available to users.

Gmail is known for it's ticker-style display on the login page which tells you how much storage you have available. Of late, it's taken rather large jumps rather than trickling steps. My personal space is now at 4.7 gigabytes, where it was less than 3 gigabytes of email storage within the past two months.

Yahoo! has claimed unlimited email storage, but there are practical limits to that. I'd much prefer to know exactly where I stand and not hit an imaginary wall at an inopportune time. Either way, I doubt I'll ever come close to using 4.7 gigabytes.

"No to all" keyboard shortcut

When you copy, move or delete a group of files you often receive prompts that ask if you're sure you want to take a specific action; Are you sure you want to move that read only file? This folder already contains a file named 'abc'. Would you like to replace the existing file? If you notice in the dialogue prompt that Windows shows, there is an option for 'Yes to All', but not an option for 'No to All'. However, although Windows does not display this option, it still exists in quasi-keyboard shortcut form. When a Yes to All/No prompt appears,

holding the Shift key and clicking no has the same effect as 'No to All'.

This means that across the board Windows will not overwrite, copy or delete any file in that particular operation for which you have opted 'No to All'. Windows will prompt you for each type of operation, once for move a read only, once for overwrite confirmation, but only once for that particular action. It behaves the same as the 'Yes to All' option presented in the standard Windows dialog with a 'no' instead of a 'yes.'