Getting programs to run in networks

A new user was trying to run Lotus Notes at work today. An error message referring to “notes.ini” being missing kept on displaying when they started Notes, and then it would close down again. Even when running the Notes directly from the directory it was installed in, it would not run. I searched the hard drive for a “notes.ini”, and couldn’t find it.

I went to my computer, and compared what happened when I opened Notes to what was happening on the other PC. I use a shortcut that was already set up when I started using notes. I looked at the properties of the shortcut, and found that the “Start in:” box had a directory on the network supplied. In that directory, there was a “notes.ini” file.

I copied the address down and had the user enter it into the same place on their new shortcut. Notes then ran.

A few lessons:

• Networks can make programs more complicated to support
• If a program is running on one computer, but not another, see what the differences are between them.
• Even if your actual job isn’t IT support, if you know anything about IT, you’ll be asked to help in times of need.

Thanks for reading.

Quickly enter today’s date in Excel

To quickly add today’s date to a cell in Excel, click Control and semi-colon:

ctrl + ;

Useful Windows shortcut keys

Someone who I consider to have some technical knowledge at work didn’t know at least one of these, I found out today, so maybe you’ll want to know these too:

Windows key + “e”, will open My Computer/Explorer

Windows key + “d”, will minimise all windows, to show the desktop

Windows key + “r”, will open the “Run” box.

Get Youtube videos to play in Powerpoint

Here is a video I made to show how to download and convert Youtube videos so they will play in Powerpoint:

Get Firefox to download wmv files

Here is a video I made that shows how you can get Firefox to download a wmv file rather than just play it online: