Matt Refghi

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

UPDATE: Soon after I wrote this article, Michael Koenig of IntenseDebate posted a comment with an offer to help me via his personal address. I appreciated the gesture, and made some modifications to the article below to reflect that. I think for the time being I will be keeping the default WordPress comments, but will not completely rule out IntenseDebate for the future. In the beginning of April, I became aware that my blog was corrupt – no articles were visible, and the visuals weren’t right. I promptly contacted my web host pair Networks, and after an hour of trying different things – their agent (who was extremely helpful), told me it was likely a problem within WordPress. He tried … Read more

I’ve always preferred cats over dogs for one simple reason: independence. Still, I find myself wanting to enforce certain behaviors that are, well, dog-like. Whenever I grabbed the bag of food to feed my cat, he would get really excited, sometimes even blocking my ability to pour the food by sticking his head in the bowl. This eventually started to bother me, so I decided to train him how to behave when I’m giving him food. I decided he shouldn’t be sticking his head in the bowl – he should be patiently waiting until I pour the food, and also wait for my command before he begins eating. I felt this would help cover cases where I wanted to add … Read more

Due to my choice of profession, I tend to spend a lot of time using computers. Consequently, I work with a lot of applications – that means I see lots of different user interfaces. Some are good, some are bad – but every now and then, I find something in between. Sometimes, it perfectly showcases the developer’s sense of humor. For example, here’s what the “Go To” dialog looks like in Notepad++. You can access it by pressing CTRL+G. Not sure that’s the best design for the dialog – but I appreciated the humor.  🙂