Matt Refghi

So, I installed the Trillian 5 Public Beta today, and was particularly amused when I encountered one of their new features: It lets you know when someone is preparing to send you a message, even if you weren’t having a conversation with them. My initial reaction was that it was pretty creepy, but at the same time, I could see some interesting possibilities. First, if you see an incoming message that you’re not interested in answering, you can choose to make yourself scarce, thereby granting yourself the possibility of pleading ignorance. Certainly not something I condone, but I still found it intriguing. Second, you can send a message to the person before they finish theirs. That way, you’re exploiting the … Read more

On May 21, 2010, Google announced the release of their new SSL Search service. This new search service behaves almost exactly like Google Search – the main difference being that it uses SSL for security. Wondering what SSL is? In the words of Google: SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a protocol that helps provide secure Internet communications for services like web browsing, e-mail, instant messaging, and other data transfers. When you search over SSL, your search queries and search traffic are encrypted so they can’t be read by any intermediary party such as employers and internet service providers (ISPs). Source: Google SSL Search Help So, put simply, the announcement was great news for privacy and security enthusiasts everywhere. As one … Read more

I’m constantly on the lookout for quicker ways to perform everyday tasks in Windows. That said, when I needed to create multiple empty folders at different folder depths, I questioned how I would do so with keyboard shortcuts. Windows 7 already facilitates the process of creating new folders, but most of the visible options are mouse-powered: Despite these mouse-powered shortcuts, I’ve always felt that keyboard shortcuts were faster. With that in mind, I took my search to Google, and eventually and found what I was looking for: CTRL + SHIFT + N Great shortcut… after you press it, you can immediately start typing the folder name. No need to use the mouse in between creating the folder, and typing the name. There’s … Read more

I was downloading the game client for StarCraft 2, in anticipation of the July 27, 2010 release – when the Blizzard Downloader started to complain. It claimed it couldn’t write a file properly, after already having written 2GB of data. Given that it was downloading straight to an external hard drive, I wasn’t completely surprised. I decided to scrap whatever I had already downloaded, change the download directory to my internal hard drive, and start anew. I couldn’t find a way to change the download directory from within the Blizzard Downloader, so I instead deleted the download directory, hoping it would realize it – and prompt me for a new directory. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that intelligent: Clicking OK would just … Read more

As you may know, I sometimes use Jing to take screenshots. Usually, this is when Snipping Tool stops working, and my kill the process trick doesn’t revive it. Lately, when I booted my machine, I saw this dialog appear: Learn Jing Now? No thanks, I already know how to use Jing. So… what other options do I have? “Replay” “Sign Up Now” That’s it. The usual Minimize-Maximize-Close buttons from Windows aren’t there, and I don’t see a Close button. Replay just starts the tutorial video again, and Sign Up Now sounds like I have to register for something . I already created a Screencast account – I remember doing that specifically to satisfy Jing. So, as far as I know, I don’t … Read more

One college semester, long ago, I had an English class that ended with one very unfortunate event. It left me accused for something that I did not intend to do, forever changing the way I approach my written works. Back then, it took me up to 2 1/2 hours of travel time to get to school, and 2 1/2 hours to return home. I did this every day, and so I didn’t have much time to relax when I got home. Think about it, I left home – it was dark out. I get home, dark – the only sunlight I saw was during my breaks at school. I’ll likely focus on my transport stories in another post – it’s … Read more

I’ve been playing All Points Bulletin as of late, and have had a good time doing so. Despite numerous flaws, it has by far the best customization tools I have ever seen. The company that created the game is called Realtime Worlds, which was founded by David Jones, who is most commonly known for creating the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Below is a video on the GameSpot YouTube channel, in which Jones describes some of the customization tools available in the game. The video does a decent job at giving you a quick overview, but you really have to use the tools to fully understand. You can make stuff that looks like it was made in Photoshop, that’s how advanced the … Read more

Yesterday, as I was writing an e-mail to one of my employer’s clients, I encountered a strange bug with Excel. The e-mail I was writing included instructions that the client should perform, and one of the steps actually involved creating a CSV file, which would then be opened in Excel. Before sending the e-mail, I decided to step through the instructions myself, and make sure everything worked as I expected. When I reached the CSV step, I found that while I could export it fine – I couldn’t open it in Excel. I’ll guide you through what followed using a really simple example CSV: ID,NAME 1,KARA 2,GAIUS 3,SAUL As you can see, the above CSV contents are completely valid. However, … Read more

There’s a particular feature I’ve always liked in Opera. I’ve seen it implemented in slightly different ways within other browsers. Let’s say I wanted to download my blog’s sitemap.xml file, and I wanted to do this strictly from within the browser. When I visit the link: https://mattrefghi.com/sitemap.xml My browser doesn’t download the file, it merely displays it. This happens because browsers know how to display XML, and they figure it makes more sense to show you the content – rather than initiate a download. The behavior is different with “.zip” files, for example. Browsers usually initiate a download when they are pointed to a URL that ends in “.zip”. Downloading the physical XML is therefore slightly trickier. In Opera, I … Read more