Stupid XP Fix (aka wasting time until Holiday Time Kicks In)

The office is dead, the partners are gone, half of the client's staff is on physical vacation and the other half is on mental vacation. I've beat the last tower defense game to come out, now what?  Oh yeah, fixes to Windows XP.

My computer hangs for 5 seconds every time I right click on a file to delete it.  There's no value in pointing out the idiocy of a super-advanced productivity-increasing operating system that forces the user to wait 5 seconds to delete a file.  But here's the fix:

Right click on an empty area of Desktop>Properties.  When the Display Properties box opens, click the Appearance tab, click the Effects button, left click to REMOVE the checkmark in the box to the left of: Use the following transition effect for menus and tooltips, click the OK button, then click the Apply and OK buttons at the bottom of theremaining box. - Xperience XP

Remove Windows XP Delete Confirmation

I have no idea why Windows asks you to confirm deleting something before you delete it. A deleted file actually goes into the Recycle Bin, which allows for recovery after a mistake.

Stop Windows XP from bringing up the confirmation dialog box by right clicking on the Recycle Bin and clicking on properties. Then uncheck the "Display delete confirmation dialog" box.

Remapping IBM right alt key to the windows key so that you have one click desktop access

One of the few benefits of a windows key on a computer is that you can have a shortcut to minimize all your windows at once to get to your desktop. However, IBM & Lenovo thinkpads don't have a windows key. After some searching, I figured out how to remap a
keyboard key to something else. I realized that I never used the right Alt key, so remapped this to the windows function, and Voila! I have the ability to minimize windows with a single keystroke (Right Alt+M).

This website explains how to do it.

Faster Pivot Tables with Lots of Data

Often you get huge sets of data to analyze, or "slice" as you say when you want to sound cool to the client. You duly put it into excel and pivot table it, only to have excel turn into a dog. There's a better way - put the data into Access.

Lots of Consultants are afraid of Microsoft Access, and for good reason - it's a piece of crap for lots of reasons that I may detail later. It's a pin hammer when you need to bash in 100K nails quickly into a pretty-looking house.

Never the less, it can help you in this case. First, get the data into Access:

• Open Access, create a new database
  
• File->Get External Data->Import (Alt+F,G,I)
  
• Import the data into a table
  

Now, get ready for speedy pivot table manipulation:

• Open Excel and create a new pivot table (Data->Pivot Table, or Alt+D,P)
  
• Choose "External Data Source" then next, then "Get Data"
  
• A file menu pops up. Click "MS Access Databse", then find your database.
  
• Highlight the table where the data is, and click the ">" button to move all the fields over to the right side
  
• Click next again and again and again until you're finished.
  
• Voila! You're ready to slice and dice that data to your heart's content.
  

Outlook Password Challenges - Wrong implementation

If you ever fail when connecting to your email server, Outlook will then prompt you for the password before trying again. I'm willing to bet that 99% of the time a failed connection is because the user isn't connected to the internet (or their VPN).

Outlook shouldn't prompt to re-enter the password unless it gets a "user/pass combination incorrect" error.