Firefox hanging every few seconds while scrolling through a web page

One of the most annoying glitches I've ever seen in an application: Firefox begins to hang/freeze for a few seconds, every 10 seconds or so until browsing a long web page becomes unbearable.

Turns out this is caused by some flaky internal Javascript code in Firefox, used in the routine that stores your session information so that Fox can restore the session in case it crashes.

Ironic if you ask me, especially as that's one of the most useless features in the browser. So I just disabled it:

Type in "about: config" in the address bar, locate the "browser.sessionrestore.resume_from_crash" line, and double-click it to change to false.

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Disable Microsoft Error Reporting

I have Windows Home Server running on my HP MediaSmart server, and recently the awful Samsung Allshare app decided to crash more often than usual. This caused the c:\windows\temp directory to fill up with trash from the dw20.exe process, the Error Reporting Service.

As I am fully aware Samsung Allshare does not run well and I have absolutely no plans of troubleshooting it, and also that is the only app that crashes often, I decided to disable the Error Reporting Service.

Just use Task Manager to close any running instances of dw20.exe, then use the Computer Management console, Services list, to stop then disable the Error Reporting Service.

I also deleted all files under c:\windows\temp to regain 10 GB of disk space.

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Re-enable Mount option for ISO images on Windows 8

1. Right-click the .ISO file, choose Properties.
2. Click the Change button.
3. Choose Windows Explorer from the application list.
4. The Opens With option will change back to Windows Explorer.
5. Click Apply, then OK to close the properties window.
6. Right-click the ISO file. Mount will be one of the top options.

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Fix poor (washed out) image quality in VLC

No doubt VLC is the best video player there is. However I experienced poor image quality (dark washed out) on several computers on which I installed VLC and had a hard time trying to tweak the video effect settings to no avail.

Turns out the problem happens only on NVIDIA video cards, and the solution is amazingly simple:

1. Go to Nvidia Control panel
2. In Nvidia Control Panel select adjust video color settings
3. In How do you make color adjustments? Select with Nvidia settings.
4. Select advanced of Nvidia video settings
5. Select FULL(0-255) in dynamic range.

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How to disable / enable User Account Control (UAC) via command line

Disable UAC
"C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f"

Enable UAC
"C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f"

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Firefix is already running, but is not responding

"Firefox is already running, but it is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system."

Yeah, like users are supposed to bother themselves with that. It's puzzling that Firefox is at version 19, and still hanging with this errors.

How-To Geek has put together a great article on how to fix this. Basically it's killing the firefox.exe process, if it's running, then deleting the parent.lock file that resides in "%appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\random_rubbish.default\", where random_rubbish is... just that.

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How to use the Apple Wireless Keyboard on Windows

I am a big fan of Apple hardware, but not so much of Mac OS. Therefore, my primary workstation runs Windows. However, as I want the best of both worlds, I use the Apple Wireless Keyboard with my Dell Precision PC.

Using any generic Bluetooth adapter, we're able to pair the keyboard with Windows and use it immediately.

The first and most annoying problem we notice is that the delete key won't work as a "normal" Del key of PC keyboards. It works as the Backspace key. The other problem is that we can't use the Multimedia controls that are concatenated with the Function keys.

If you've ever used Windows on Apple hardware with their native tool Bootcamp, you know that Apple solved the problems described above by giving users the option to use the fn key together with the delete and Function keys to emulate the Del and Function keys to which PC users are accustomed.

As Apple does not separately provide the Windows device drivers bundled in Bootcamp when you purchase their devices, the solution resides in hacking.

The nice folks at the InsanelyMac forum have put together detailed instructions:

"""""Begin optional part""""""
Burn or mount the Bootcamp_Driver_3.0.iso
Go to Folder "Boot Camp" > "Drivers" > "Apple" then copy "BootCamp64.msi" to your desktop.
In the folder "x64" copy the file "AppleKeyboardInstallerx64.exe" to the desktop too.
Extract "AppleKeyboardInstallerx64.exe" with your archive packer of choice.
You can remove the disk or image now.
""""""""End optional part""""""""""
Make sure the extracted "AppleKeyboardInstaller64" directory and "BootCamp64.msi" file from my archive are both on the desktop.
When it's done run the file "DPInst.exe"
Note, that the keyboard special keys will not work yet.
After that, search you need to run "BootCamp.msi" as administrator:
1. You need to open cmd as administrator ("start menu" > "all programs" > accessories > "command prompt" then right click "run as administrator")
In the command prompt, go to your desktop (cd /Users/*your users' name*/Desktop).
Then type "BootCamp.msi".
When the install is finish, reboot and it's ok!
***Note***
1. After install and restart type "msconfig" (without quotes) in the start menu and remove "boot camp" entry from the "Startup items", because it is not necessary and just
delays start-up procedure.
2. Stop and disable following services (type "services" in the start menu):
- Apple OS Switch Manager
- Apple Time Service
2. To change the fn-key behavior (to default F1-F12 and not to fn+F1 - fn+F12):
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\KeyMagic\OSXFnBehavior
Change the value to REG_DWORD and value zero.

If you choose to obtain the files from their site, you will need to register.

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