Blocked files — Windows security excess

[Tracey Capen]

LANGALIST PLUS Blocked files — Windows security excess By Fred Langa It's one of those "What the heck!" moments: an alert pops up, stating, "Windows has blocked access to this file." This little annoyance started in XP, became common in Vista, and is still hanging around in Windows 7; but a fix is easy and the same for all three OSes. The full text of this column is posted at WindowsSecrets.com/2011/04/21/06 (paid content, opens in a new window/tab). Columnists typically cannot reply to comments here, but do incorporate the best tips into future columns.

[yogi22]

This is about "Tabbed interfaces on small screens", as I couldn't access that thread, so I am filing under the main heading of Fred's column.

This was an interesting article, but it forgot to mention that pressing F11 in many programs (including the three main browsers) will toggle Full Screen ON & OFF. This is especially valuable on netbooks. In all three browsers, you can access some of the hidden items at the top of the screen by moving the mouse to the top. Firefox is much better than Chrome in this respect, as it makes more options temporarily visible whilst the mouse is at the top of the screen.
kk

[whytyger]

This is also about "Tabbed interfaces on small screens." My first act after buying a new notebook with a 16:9 screen was to increase usable vertical space by moving the taskbar from its default position at the bottom of the screen to the left side.

[greytech]

Another possible alternative to using an old scanner under Windows 7 is to set-up a Virtual PC XPMode with the scanning applications installed and the drivers for the scanner. Perhaps not worth the effort for low cost home scanners but certainly to be considered for large format or high speed auto-feed ones.

[TeeJay]

Regarding "Blocked files — Windows security excess," you might have mentioned Slovak Technical Services' Attachment Options plugin for Outlook 2000 SP3 or higher, Outlook 2002, Outlook 2003, and Outlook 2007. While this plugin obviously should be used with caution, it might be handy for those who regularly receive blocked attachments from a trusted source or find that Outlook will not allow them to unblock certain types of attachments. My own experience with Attachment Options is positive but is limited to Windows XP.

http://www.slovaktech.com/attachmentoptions.htm

[EdPWNY]

IE 8 can be configured to use less toolbar space by eliminating the Menu Bar and combining other toolbars to single lines. See the attached image of my IE 8 window.

Also the Alt+Enter key combination results in an IE window with no toolbars showing at all.

[bobprimak]

Google Chrome has a little-known Full-Screen Mode. Press F11 (fn+f11 on some keyboards). Chrome will toggle between showing only the browser window, full-screen, with no border and no toolbars, and upon pressing F11 again, back to normal mode. On small screens, the current tab window will occupy the entire screen. When used with the equally little-known Chrome keyboard shortcuts, it is possible to switch tabs, add tabs, close tabs, and do a lot of other things, all without exiting Full-Screen Mode. This Article is a bit dated, but a lot of the shortcuts it lists still work in Chrome 10. Maybe other Chrome users could add more articles or lists of keyboard shortcuts.

The Chrome Bookmarks Toolbar can be hidden by right-clicking an empty space on it, and unchecking the "Always Show..." item. To retrieve the toolbar, open a new (empty) tab, right-click on the Bookmarks Toolbar, and recheck the "Always Show..." item.

IE and Firefox also have keyboard shortcuts which would allow staying in Full Screen Modes most of the time on computers with small screens.