I've recently run into some space issues on my primary partition on my home Mac Mini. Not really problems, since I've got 200GB of additional storage attached to it, but you never want to have a primary partition wanting for space (on any system, as you need that "free space" for the page file/virtual memory).

On Windows machines, I recommend using a tool like SpaceMonger to profile your hard drive(s) and delete unwanted files, etc. (Note - NEVER DELETE a file unless you know what it is, what it does, and that it's unnecessary or redundant)

On my Mac, I had already analyzed my disk, moved or deleted things that didn't belong on my system drive, but I still didn't have as much free space as I'd like. And that's when I discovered Xslimmer.

Most (90%) of Mac programs are now "Universal Binary" programs, meaning that they can run on older, PowerPC-powered Macs as well as new, Intel-powered machines. Which means (basically) that there's two sets of code on every program that's on your hard drive. Additionally, Mac programs often ship (download) with multiple language packs to support a broader range of users. I only speak English, so I rarely (never) need to run a program in Spanish. Or Dutch. Or whatever they speak in Kazakhstan.

What Xslimmer does is analyzes your applications folder, and strips out the code you don't need. If you have a PowerPC Mac, it will strip out the Intel code from your apps, and vice versa. It also removes unnecessary language packs from your apps. The initial analysis and "slimming" took about an hour (during which time I was still able to work without any memory hit) and it saved me almost 4.5GB of space!

So if you've got some Mac bloat (and lots of applications), Xslimmer might help your Mac fit into its thin jeans again!

One of the developers from Tumblr has come up with a new service: Instapaper.

The site basically acts as "to-read" list. As you surf the net, you click on a bookmark (which you conveniently place in your links bar) and that page gets added to your "to-read" list; something that's interesting but you don't have time to spend on it right now.

One of the great things about the Net is its breadth of information; and one of the worst things about the Net is its breadth of things. While reading one article, you stumble upon another link to something that is applicable not to the subject at hand, but something else you're doing... but now's not the time to go down that road. So you click on your Instapaper bookmarklet and know that you can go back to it easily.

There's no registration necessary. You don't even have to set up a password (tho you probably should).

The service is free, but as they point out in their FAQ: "Instapaper isn€™t meant for permanent, long-term archival of everything you€™ve ever wanted to read. And while best efforts are made, your data€™s integrity is not 100% guaranteed here. This is for temporary storage of links you€™d like to read."

I've found the site to be incredibly handy and thought I'd do my part to spread the word.

At one of my clients, we limit their users mailboxes to keep the Exchange server humming along. We use an archiving program to keep older mail around in accordance with our document retention policies.

One of the things we mandate is that Outlook purges its Deleted Items folder upon closing. We've had users maintain 3800 (unread!) messages in their deleted items folder and then complain loudly when they run out of mailbox space citing that they might need something in their Deleted Items folder. (Of course, this runs counter to the design of the Deleted Items folder is -- short term storage for items no longer needed. Long term storage should be used in either the users' folder or the server's file system.)

These complaints have subsided now that everyone has had a chance to live with the policy... but there are still some times when people delete something, close Outlook and then realize they can't get it back.

(Let's assume the archiver is off-line.)

Outlook Web Access can come to the rescue and recover some of the lost items as long as it was deleted recently. Stuff deleted a year ago is long gone.

Log in to Outlook Web Access. (This works in Outlook Web Access 2000 and 2003. Screenshots are from OWA 2003)

Click on the OPTIONS button at the bottom of the screen (it's the last icon on the right)

Scroll all the way down the page until you see "Click View Items to view and recover items that were recently emptied from your Deleted Items folder. Recovered items will be moved back to your Deleted Items folder."

Click the "View Items" button and you should be able to browse thru a collection of recently deleted items.

Any item you restore will go back into your Deleted Items folder, where you can then recover it and put it where it belongs.

Bacon saved.

Just a quick post to trumpet the virtues of the Exchange Wireless Connector and how it's helped us at Cuyler Burk.

I chose my SmartPhone, a Treo 700w, because my previous PDA (a Dell Axim) was Windows Mobile based, and I was familiar with it. I also knew that Cuyler Burk, as an all Microsoft shop -- sure, we have a few Linux boxes (this blog is sitting on one) -- that Exchange 2003 would support my phone out of the box. I didn't realize how cool it is.

Now, any calendar item I add at the office shows up on my phone automatically. Any contact I add to my phone pops up in Outlook and I don't have to do anything. Mail just streams to the phone without me having to hit send/receive (like I do with my IMAP based mail accounts) and I can send to internal mailing lists, which is something I can't do through our internet gateway...

Over the past year many of our attorneys have gotten Windows Mobile based phones. Deployment takes only a few minutes -- copy and install the remote certificate and type in their username and password, and they're off. They love that their secretaries can schedule calls and appointments and they just shows up on their home screen as upcoming events.

To sweeten the deal, this was all bundled with Microsoft Small Business Server 2003, so we didn't have to spend an extra thousand bucks on the Blackberry Connector.

Plus -- if the phone is broken -- just get a new one... since everything is stored in Exchange, the new phone will automatically sync itself up and all your contacts, speed dials, appointments, etc. are right back to where you expect them. Gone are the days of losing your address book when you lost your phone.

So, if you're running SBS2003, I would highly recommend taking a look at a Windows Mobile based device for your next phone -- you might wonder how you lived without it. I know I do.

(This sounds a bit shill-y, but I can assure you I'm a big fan of this technology. Next time, I'll rant a little bit about my Treo 700w.)

After installing SP2 for Win2000 Professional, I found that right-clicking on a file no longer brought up the properties for that file.

After trawling around the newsgroups, I found that this is a fairly common problem.

The solution that presented itself and worked for me was to select a few files in a given folder, then right-click and choose properties (which opens the properties window for those files). After doing that, the Properties window came up as expected.

Go figure.