Check out the New Experts Exchange

Check out the New Experts Exchange

CloudCourse: An Enterprise Application in the Cloud - Google Open Source Blog

CloudCourse is fully integrated with Google Calendar and can be further customized for your organization with the following service provider interfaces (replaceable components):

• Sync service - to sync CloudCourse data with your internal systems
• Room info service - to schedule classes in your locations
• User info service - to look up user profile (employee title, picture, etc)

CloudCourse has been developed in Python, using the Django web application framework and the Closure Javascript library. Deploying CloudCourse on App Engine is a breeze, and should take less than 5 minutes.

Google announced their new Font API yesterday, including a font directory and preview tool. They teamed up with TypeKit, to build and open source the WebFont Loader.

I quite like how they have done it. You just hotlink the CSS right from Google and then reference the font names in the CSS. It’s really easy — view source on this demo.

Why do this? Isn’t this just @font-face? Yep it is just @font-face, which you can do yourself without Google’s help. But there are advantages:

1. Bandwidth savings (weight is on Google)
2. Caching speed (same font used on multiple sites, browser cache kicks in)
3. Speed in general (Google’s CDN is faster than your site)

Loading the extra CSS file is an extra HTTP Request though, but you could hotlink the font fileno support for iPhone/iPad. instead. You may also want to download the font and create your own SVG version, because the Google stylesheets aren’t serving that up, and hence

So what is this WebFont Loader then? It’s a bit of JavaScript which handles the loading of fonts. It’s use is totally optional, but offers some advantages. For example, Firefox will display a font further down the font stack until an @font-face font is loaded, and then flip to the @font-face font when it is ready, causing reflow and general weirdness. It’s called FOUT (Flash of unstyled text). The WebFont Loader can help fight this. This link helps
http://paulirish.com/2010/details-on-the-new-google-webfont-api/

Safely remove hardware icon missing.. How to restore using command line

The safely remove hardware icon is missing from my system tray when i plug in the USB drive

This command at the run dialog box will show you the eject hardware dialog

%SystemRoot%\System32\RUNDLL32.EXE shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll

Windows XP Tweaks

Following is a list of some important restrictions, which can be made in Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008 and 7. For example, you can restrict Display properties, Taskbar properties, folder options, etc.

All tricks are based on Registry editing, you just need to open Registry Editor by providing regedit command in RUN and then create the mentioned key and set its value as given below:

NOTE: If you want to remove the restriction, simply delete the DWORD value or set its value to 0

1.) Restrict Display Properties:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\System

create DWORD value NoDispCPL and set its value to 1

2.) Restrict Taskbar Properties:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

create DWORD value NoSetTaskbar and set its value to 1

3.) Restrict Folder Options:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

create DWORD value NoFolderOptions and set its value to 1

4.) Restrict Locking/Unlocking the taskbar:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

create DWORD value LockTaskbar and set its value to 1

5.) Restrict Active Desktop:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

create DWORD value NoActiveDesktop and set its value to 1

6.) Restrict adding/deleting items from Toolbars:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

create DWORD value NoToolbarCustomize and set its value to 1

7.) Restrict adding/deleting toolbars:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

create DWORD value NoBandCustomize and set its value to 1

8.) Restrict right-click in Start Menu:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

create DWORD value NoChangeStartMenu and set its value to 1

9.) Restrict Desktop Cleanup Wizard:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

create DWORD value NoDesktopCleanupWizard and set its value to 1

10.) Restrict notification at low disk space:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

create DWORD value NoLowDiskSpaceChecks and set its value to 1

11.) Restrict Taskbar Context Menu:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

create DWORD value NoTrayContextMenu and set its value to 1

12.) Restrict Programs to run:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer\DisallowRun

create String value with any name, like 1 and set its value to the program's EXE file.

e.g., If you want to restrict msconfig, then create a String value 1 and set its value to msconfig.exe. If you want to restrict more programs, then simply create more String values with names 2, 3 and so on and set their values to the program's exe.

13.) Restrict Registry Editor:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\System

create DWORD value DisableRegistryTools and set its value to 1

14.) Restrict Task Manager:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\System

create DWORD value DisableTaskMgr and set its value to 1

15.) Restrict Writing to USB Drives:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Current Control Set\Control\StorageDevicePolicies

Create DWORD value WriteProtect and set its value to 1

16.) Restrict New option in context menu:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shellex\ContextMenu Handlers\New

And delete the value of Default, e.g., empty it.

17.) Restrict Send To in context menu:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenu Handlers\Send To

And delete the value of Default, e.g., empty it.

18.) Restrict Balloon Tips:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Explorer\Advanced

Create DWORD value EnableBalloonTips and set its value to 0

19.) Restrict Users to enable New XP StartMenu:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

Create DWORD value NoSimpleStartMenu and set its value to 1

20.) Restrict Command Prompt:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System

Create DWORD value DisableCMD and set its value to 2

21.) Restrict Drives in My Computer:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

In right-side pane, create a new DWORD value NoViewOnDrive and change its value as following:

3 : To Restrict A and B drives only.
4 : To Restrict C drive only.
7 : To Restrict A, B, and C drives only.
8 : To Restrict D drive only.
F : To Restrict A, B, C, and D drives only.
03FFFFFF : To Restrict all drives.

And if you want more specific restrictions, like you want to restrict a combination of other drives, then you can use decimal no. instead of hexadecimal no. Following is a list for all drives decimal no.:

A: 1
B: 2
C: 4
D: 8
E: 16
F: 32
G: 64
H: 128
I: 256
J: 512
K: 1024
L: 2048
M: 4096
N: 8192
O: 16384
P: 32768
Q: 65536
R: 131072
S: 262144
T: 524288
U: 1048576
V: 2097152
W: 4194304
X: 8388608
Y: 16777216
Z: 33554432
ALL: 67108863

So if you want to disable a combination of drives, just sum their numbers and give the same value to NoViewOnDrive. e.g., for restricting C, D, E and F drives, give the value: 4+8+16+32 = 60

NOTE: You can also hide the drives using NoDrives DWORD value. The location and its value remain same as the above trick.

22.) Restrict RUN in New XP StartMenu:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

Create DWORD value NoRun and set its value to 1

23.) Restrict Control Panel:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer

Create DWORD value NoControlPanel and set its value to 1