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The Useful Page

Tricks

How to put a pause into a saved phone number on a Nokia phone
How to stop online mp3s automatically playing within your browser
How to stop menus being half hidden in Windows or MS Office
How to completely uninstall MSN Messenger
How to make your Windows Start Menu as fast as it used to be

The Useful Page

The web is a wonderful place, but it's not perfect. Here are a bunch of odd little tricks I've sometimes had to search like crazy to find.

Hopefully this page will ensure that they won't be as hard to find in the future.

How to put a pause into a saved phone number on a Nokia phone

Ever dialled a saved number and wished that you could save all the automated crap too?

For some time I've dialled a saved number to my international phone scheme and then, once connected, manually dial my international number. I've also dialled into my credit card firm from a saved number only to manually follow the automated system to choose options, put in my card number and password and finally get my balance.

The easy solution to this is to use pauses in your saved numbers. On a Nokia 6210e and possibly other Nokia phones, you can insert a pause by pressing the * key three times quickly. This will show up as a 'p' and will give a two second pause. Now you can add all the keystrokes you need for the automated crap after the pause.

How to stop online mp3s automatically playing within your browser

Within Windows 2000 this is pretty easy to fix. Run any Explorer window (that's Windows Explorer not Internet Explorer). Choose Tools on your top menu bar, then Folder Options. Select File Types and scroll down to the entry for mp3 (or whichever file type you want to disassociate with your browser). Click on Advanced and check the option for 'Confirm open after download'. Now it will ask you if you wish to open or save rather than assume.

How to stop menus being half hidden in Windows or MS Office

In Windows 2000, this is easy. Simply right click on your taskbar (the bar at the bottom of your screen that includes the clock and the Start button) and choose Properties. Untick the box that reads 'Use Personalized Menus'.

In Office 2000, it's slightly harder to find. In any Office 2000 program (Word, Excel, Outlook etc), click on Tools on the top menu, then Customize then choose the Options tab. Untick the box that reads 'Menus show recently used commands first.' Also click on the 'Reset my usage data' button.

How to completely uninstall MSN Messenger

Microsoft has a habit of including uninstall programs for its software packages that don't actually uninstall them. Internet Explorer is a famous example and MSN Messenger is another. Here's how to properly uninstall it.

Close MSN Messenger by right clicking on the taskbar icon and choosing to Exit. Then click on Start, Run and type the following command:

rundll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\inf\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove

%windir% is the directory that Windows is installed in, usually either c:\windows or c:\winnt.

How to make your Windows Start Menu as fast as it used to be

Every time I get to work at a new installation of Windows XP I get quickly annoyed at how slow the Start Menu is. In the old days, when you clicked on Start and worked through the levels of the menu, those levels appeared instantly. Only recently has Microsoft deliberately slowed them down.

To fix this, you need to edit a key in the registry. To run the registry, click Start, Run and type regedit. The Registry Editor should pop up. Click the little + signs to navigate to the following location:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

Here there may or may not be a key called MenuShowDelay. If there isn't, create it by clicking on Edit, New, String Value. Give it a value of 0. If it already exists, just right click on it and change the value from the default of 400 to 0.


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