I hate Snapshots™ popups. Snapshots™ seem very proud of their creation, however I have never seen any possible reason you'd want these intrusive fucking things on your website:

All they do is get in the bloody way. Now, you might think why get angry? just click the handy-dandy little "disable" button! Then you realise the bloody thing doesn't work. The moment you clear cookies, sneeze or look away for five seconds the sods are back.

If you have ad blocking software you might be able to get rid of them that way; but I prefer to get medieval on Snapshots™ arse. I don't want to see them again just because I installed a new browser or something (I do that a bit, I'm a web developer and have at minimum five browsers installed at any one time).

blocking Snapshots™ using the hosts file

Let's block these suckers at the hosts file level. First, find and edit %WINDIR%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts ... Commonly the directory is C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc and hosts is a text file. You may need to edit the properties to turn off "read only" (you can switch it back to read only when you're done).

Once you're in the hosts file, add these lines (of course you can edit the comment to taste):

# fuck off snapshots
127.0.0.1 shots.snap.com
127.0.0.1 spa.snap.com
127.0.0.1 snap.com
127.0.0.1 ixnp.com
127.0.0.1 direct.shots.snap.com

Save the file, happy days. As far as I know this works in Windows XP, Vista, 2000... probably all versions of Windows. The Mac equivalent has to be done on the command line, because apparently Apple thinks inside every GUI-loving Machead there's a UNIX geek trying to get out.

So anyway, get on in to your hosts file and consign Snapshots™ to the oblivion it so richly deserves.

Labels: windows xp

One thing in Windows XP really shits me - the Find prompt in Windows Explorer. In Win2k it's utilitarian and quick to use. In XP it's a bunch of extra clicks and an overexcited animated dog.

But, thankfully, you can get the Win2k style back. I happened to find this today... wish I'd had a look sooner!

Get Tweak UI - http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx. Then run Tweak UI → Explorer → Use classic search in Explorer. While you're there, check out the Group Policy editor.

Update 2009.05.01: if you want to get rid of Windows Search and get classic search ("search companion") back...

1. Start → Run
2. regsvr32 /u "%programfiles%\Windows Desktop Search\wdsShell.dll"
3. hit OK

After a restart you should be back to normal.

Labels: windows xp

I've just got a new work computer and have been shifted to Windows XP after years of happy Win2k use. The autorun thing shits me to tears - what a waste of time, reading an entire CD and then asking me what to do with it...just in general. Gahh!

Thankfully you can disable it!

Method one:

1. Download and install Tweak UI via the Powertoys page
2. Run Tweak UI
3. My Computer → Autoplay → Types
4. Deselect all drive types in the 'autoplay drive types' box.
5. Apply, and you're done.

Method two:

1. Start → Run
2. gpedit.msc [enter]
3. Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates → System
4. Double-click the item "Turn off autoplay"
5. Select "Enable"
6. Select which drives from the dropdown, I went for "all drives" since I don't want it to search the entirety of our office's 20gig external hard drive whenever I use it.
7. Click OK

Done! Windows preference handling really needs some work. It still can't handle font sizes in any sensible manner, nor does it display unicode characters out of the box.

Labels: windows xp