Getting taskbar to STAY HIDDEN

[thanatoid]

You didn't seriously think anyone was going to read that
amount of opinionated miisdirection, did you? After your
third misinfo I just hit CTRL-END.

a) learn to snip

b) I was replying to Dan, you didn't even have to try reading
it, especially if people who have opinions offend you.

 

[thanatoid]

In

Then you're in the wrong place to find either sympathy or
empathy.

Trust me, I am looking for neither. I was just explaining the
nick to those who need it explained.

 

[Ed Cryer]

If you want an even better reference look up the opening scene of
Euripides' "Alcestis". Thanatos himself turns up and speaks.

Ed

Have you ever read Housman's Fragment of A Greek Tragedy?
http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/texts/housman.html
I read it again and again and it never ceases to have me collapse in
helpless laughter.

Ed

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

All that nick means is that I am somewhat obsessed with death,
especially my own, since I hate myself and my life.

Which is why I suggested to Ed Cryer that he look up thanatos or
thanatopsis, since I couldn't be sure that he knew the meaning.

As for hating yourself and your life, well, OK, that is not a necessary
conclusion from your choice of nick, so thanks for the addition to our
knowledge.

And given that info and how long you've used the nick, you must have
some reasonably effective coping mechanisms at work.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Have you ever read Housman's Fragment of A Greek Tragedy?
http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/texts/housman.html
I read it again and again and it never ceases to have me collapse in
helpless laughter.

Ed

The last time I tried to read some of the Greek plays (sometime in the
last year, as a matter of fact), I got bogged down in the translations,
which were numbingly dull. The first one in that book, Oedipus, was
translated by someone else and was fine, but the others all were by the
translator that I didn't like. But it doesn't matter anyway, since
Alcestis ain't there. But you made me track down another book, which has
Alcestis and 9 others by Euripides. It's by a different translator, so
now I'll read it soon. I'll read the Housman in a minute.

And we easily can see which one of us needs more culture

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

while the regulars in n.s.r. are
rather uninteresting and quite demented

I'm one of them[1], so I doubtless qualify

[1] My knowledge level in n.s.r. limits me to contributing puns, mostly.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

The last time I tried to read some of the Greek plays (sometime in the
last year, as a matter of fact), I got bogged down in the translations,
which were numbingly dull. The first one in that book, Oedipus, was
translated by someone else and was fine, but the others all were by the
translator that I didn't like. But it doesn't matter anyway, since
Alcestis ain't there. But you made me track down another book, which has
Alcestis and 9 others by Euripides. It's by a different translator, so
now I'll read it soon. I'll read the Housman in a minute.

And we easily can see which one of us needs more culture

In fact the Housman is a lot like the translator I couldn't read - but
with two exceptions.

1. The play is brief

2. His ponderous sentences are obvious satire, and they are surrounded
by other satire of a different flavor.

 

[thanatoid]

As for hating yourself and your life, well, OK, that is not
a necessary conclusion from your choice of nick, so thanks
for the addition to our knowledge.
Anytime.

And given that info and how long you've used the nick, you
must have some reasonably effective coping mechanisms at
work.

It's complicated. I've thought of snuffing it for over 30 years,
but first I thought things would get better, and then I had to
spend about 10 years taking care of my mother. No family at all.
She died about 2 years ago. Since then I've been in distress and
confusion. I am free to snuff it but since I started taking a
2nd antidepressant I feel less need to do so. My life, however,
remains a totally pointless waste. A conundrum. And, there's
also the cat. I have no one to leave him with.

Anyway, let's leave it at that, huh? ;-]

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

As for hating yourself and your life, well, OK, that is not
a necessary conclusion from your choice of nick, so thanks
for the addition to our knowledge.
Anytime.

And given that info and how long you've used the nick, you
must have some reasonably effective coping mechanisms at
work.

It's complicated. I've thought of snuffing it for over 30 years,
but first I thought things would get better, and then I had to
spend about 10 years taking care of my mother. No family at all.
She died about 2 years ago. Since then I've been in distress and
confusion. I am free to snuff it but since I started taking a
2nd antidepressant I feel less need to do so. My life, however,
remains a totally pointless waste. A conundrum. And, there's
also the cat. I have no one to leave him with.

Anyway, let's leave it at that, huh? ;-]

Agreed.

 

[thanatoid]

while the regulars in n.s.r. are
rather uninteresting and quite demented

I'm one of them[1], so I doubtless qualify

No, I am talking about a gang of about 5-7 who ruled a few years
ago. Very unpleasant. Some are gone, all are in my KF, and I
don't go there any more - I did a few weeks ago and there is a
new bunch of psychos, so that's that. Individual dementia is
amusing for a few posts but then gets very tiresome.

I forgot to mention I also used to spend a LOT of time in
microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion. but that group is pretty
much dead, and the 3 or 4 people left are all in my KF.

<snip>

 

[thanatoid]

<snip>

I intend to reply to you but the two subjects you raised require
a certain amount of mental effort to deal with, and ATM I am not
quite up to it.

For now I will just say that I have gotten a LOT stupider over
the last 20 years, so I may disappoint you on many levels. IOW,
don't expect much in the way of a satisfying intellectual
exchange.

 

[for the kids]

It's complicated. I've thought of snuffing it for over 30 years,
but first I thought things would get better, and then I had to
spend about 10 years taking care of my mother. No family at all.
She died about 2 years ago. Since then I've been in distress and
confusion. I am free to snuff it but since I started taking a
2nd antidepressant I feel less need to do so. My life, however,
remains a totally pointless waste. A conundrum. And, there's
also the cat. I have no one to leave him with.

Hi Manatee.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

while the regulars in n.s.r. are
rather uninteresting and quite demented

I'm one of them[1], so I doubtless qualify

No, I am talking about a gang of about 5-7 who ruled a few years
ago. Very unpleasant. Some are gone, all are in my KF, and I
don't go there any more - I did a few weeks ago and there is a
new bunch of psychos, so that's that. Individual dementia is
amusing for a few posts but then gets very tiresome.

I forgot to mention I also used to spend a LOT of time in
microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion. but that group is pretty
much dead, and the 3 or 4 people left are all in my KF.

<snip>

You have shot down my false modesty ;-)

I was kind of joking in the prior post. But n.s.r. is very variable.
Humor, good advice, trolling, vituperation - they (and more) are all in
there still.

 

[thanatoid]

I was kind of joking in the prior post. But n.s.r. is very
variable. Humor, good advice, trolling, vituperation - they
(and more) are all in there still.

It's hard not to generalize unless one wants to write a three
page analysis of a group. There was a time I felt I had some
useful advice about XNews on a low memory machine which a lot of
people seemed to have problems with, but reactions were quite
violent (possibly because my suggestions required a certain
amount of *work*).

Then it turned into the usual attacks, and of course, I was
branded a troll, which (you may or not agree) IMO is simply the
last line of "defense" when there is nothing valid to be said -
unless the troll IS a troll, of course.

Also, arguing with the same 5-10 people got really tedious. I
have toyed with the idea of joining alt.atheism but I don't know
if I'm ready for /that/ kind of punishment. I have tried some
other discussion groups over the years, and they were all very
disappointing. People are boring. Any suggestions?

Also, the warm/fuzzy feeling of contributing something useful,
which I used to occasionally get in the past, has diminished to
almost none. In many ways, I /am/ way behind the times, and
people will just NOT accept that a 200KB program from 15 years
ago can be useful.

Example - a program I can not live without, a Win 3.1 system-
wide spellchecker works in XP even though the author says it
does not (it's always worked in 9x). I was amazed and overjoyed
- in fact an amazing amount of utilities from days when people
actually wrote useful software works in XP. But I guess they
just aren't flashy enough, even though people ask about how to
solve the exact same problems all the time. (Of course I know
nothing about the win6 generation, since it has an XP compat.
mode, it must be /somewhat/ different. I hope to never be forced
to find out.)

Anyway, I know better than to even mention my spellchecker. It
is SO much better to buy MS Office because Word has a spell-
checker, fire up the behemoth when you want to write a ten
sentence letter/post, and NOT use the spell checker anyway (have
you noticed how NO ONE uses spellcheckers? Look at almost ANY
webpage, including corporate ones). BTW, I use the spellchecker
for typos. I spell VERY well, but I type very fast using only 3-
7 fingers depending on overall brain condition. So often 1 in 3
words has a typo. Sometimes 1 in 10.

What really gets me is I've used manual typewriters, electric
typewriters, and now computers, since I was 8 or 9 yrs old, and
I still can NOT type *n't - I always type *n;t. It drives me
insane. But the sc takes care of it.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

On Tue, 28 Jun 2011 16:05:38 +0000 (UTC), thanatoid wrote:

In-line...

It's hard not to generalize unless one wants to write a three
page analysis of a group. There was a time I felt I had some
useful advice about XNews on a low memory machine which a lot of
people seemed to have problems with, but reactions were quite
violent (possibly because my suggestions required a certain
amount of *work*).

Then it turned into the usual attacks, and of course, I was
branded a troll, which (you may or not agree) IMO is simply the
last line of "defense" when there is nothing valid to be said -
unless the troll IS a troll, of course.

Sounds like n.s.r.

Also, arguing with the same 5-10 people got really tedious. I
have toyed with the idea of joining alt.atheism but I don't know
if I'm ready for /that/ kind of punishment. I have tried some
other discussion groups over the years, and they were all very
disappointing. People are boring. Any suggestions?

No, sorry - but I might lurk in your suggested NG, alt.atheism, for a
while, to see if I have any fun. I'll subscribe now before I forget.

Also, the warm/fuzzy feeling of contributing something useful,
which I used to occasionally get in the past, has diminished to
almost none. In many ways, I /am/ way behind the times, and
people will just NOT accept that a 200KB program from 15 years
ago can be useful.

Example - a program I can not live without, a Win 3.1 system-
wide spellchecker works in XP even though the author says it
does not (it's always worked in 9x). I was amazed and overjoyed
- in fact an amazing amount of utilities from days when people
actually wrote useful software works in XP. But I guess they
just aren't flashy enough, even though people ask about how to
solve the exact same problems all the time. (Of course I know
nothing about the win6 generation, since it has an XP compat.
mode, it must be /somewhat/ different. I hope to never be forced
to find out.)

Anyway, I know better than to even mention my spellchecker. It
is SO much better to buy MS Office because Word has a spell-
checker, fire up the behemoth when you want to write a ten
sentence letter/post, and NOT use the spell checker anyway (have
you noticed how NO ONE uses spellcheckers? Look at almost ANY
webpage, including corporate ones). BTW, I use the spellchecker
for typos. I spell VERY well, but I type very fast using only 3-
7 fingers depending on overall brain condition. So often 1 in 3
words has a typo. Sometimes 1 in 10.

My problem in typing is much the same.

What really gets me is I've used manual typewriters, electric
typewriters, and now computers, since I was 8 or 9 yrs old, and
I still can NOT type *n't - I always type *n;t. It drives me
insane. But the sc takes care of it.

Dialog's built-in SC will see "doens;t" but can't handle it. "doesn;t"
doesn't do any better. The semicolon stops it. The SC in MesNews, which
I use from time to time, has different problems, but both are totally
mystified by any word with more than one error.

 

[thanatoid]

No, sorry - but I might lurk in your suggested NG,
alt.atheism, for a while, to see if I have any fun. I'll
subscribe now before I forget.

Oh dog<, what have I done... Be careful!

<snip>

Well, FWIW, my sc can handle multiple errors, two capitals at
the beginning of the word, etc. And has a custom dictionary (or
2 or 3 or 4) in addition to the standard. Amd comes in a bunch
of languages. The only annoyances are:

1) it assumes the first letter or two are correct, so nree
instead of tree will get near as a suggestion instead of breed.
Not a BIG deal.

2) I have not managed to teach it that numbers inside words are
errors. someth8ing will show up as someth and then as ing.
Again, not a big deal. I have tried several other sys-wide sc's
and this one is SO easy to use - for most errors just a few
arrows down and Enter, ie just keyboard, no smelly rodents. The
others, besides being ridiculously huge (2-5 MB DLs, and that
was a FEW years ago) require so much mouse etc. activity that it
seems easier just to use a hard dictionary.

Even though you have not asked, it's here:

http://www.quinion.com/mqa/spell.htm

If you have time, you could try installing it (is requires a
/little/ bit of work) - I'm curious whether it would run on
Win7. That would be something, huh?

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Oh dog<, what have I done... Be careful!

Not a problem. I've been out of touch with the mainstream long enough

Well, FWIW, my sc can handle multiple errors, two capitals at
the beginning of the word, etc. And has a custom dictionary (or
2 or 3 or 4) in addition to the standard. Amd comes in a bunch
of languages. The only annoyances are:

1) it assumes the first letter or two are correct, so nree
instead of tree will get near as a suggestion instead of breed.
Not a BIG deal.

2) I have not managed to teach it that numbers inside words are
errors. someth8ing will show up as someth and then as ing.
Again, not a big deal. I have tried several other sys-wide sc's
and this one is SO easy to use - for most errors just a few
arrows down and Enter, ie just keyboard, no smelly rodents. The
others, besides being ridiculously huge (2-5 MB DLs, and that
was a FEW years ago) require so much mouse etc. activity that it
seems easier just to use a hard dictionary.

Similar to what I get, but not identical.

Even though you have not asked, it's here:

http://www.quinion.com/mqa/spell.htm

If you have time, you could try installing it (is requires a
/little/ bit of work) - I'm curious whether it would run on
Win7. That would be something, huh?

No promises, but I'll look. I have no idea how to add an alternative
spellchecker to either of the newsreaders I use (I have looked
unsuccessfully in the helpfiles, which in MesNews is no help to me).

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

No, sorry - but I might lurk in your suggested NG, alt.atheism, for a
while, to see if I have any fun. I'll subscribe now before I forget.

The "while" was very short.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

No promises, but I'll look. I have no idea how to add an alternative
spellchecker to either of the newsreaders I use (I have looked
unsuccessfully in the helpfiles, which in MesNews is no help to me).

The site says it's a 16-bit program, and I have a 64-bit Windows 7, so
it won't work here, outside of a virtual machine running an earlier
version of Windows.

The site gives no info abut how to run it, but I'll look inside the zip
file for some help. ... Never mind, I see it

 

[DanS]

WindowBlinds is the most ridiculous piece of totally
useless software I have ever tried. It's one thing to dye
your hair blue, and quite another to insist every strand be
a slightly different shade.

In the early days of WindowBlinds, it was very buggy and
unstable. The latest versions however, run quite well. It's a
nice change from the standard window theme, in XP or 9x/2K/NT.
Of course, there were people that said XP looked 'cartoonish'
because the top of the windows were rounded instead of sharp
corners.

From what I have read in this group just in the few weeks I
have been visiting, there appear to be things which simply
can not be done which were possible on earlier versions of
Windows (don't ask for specifics, I have a terrible memory,
you can check the threads yourself).

The 100 hours or so, which I have largely spent trying to
tweak XP to some level of usability, have proven to me that
XP was designed to be totally incomprehensible and largely
untweakable.

And you'd be wrong.

Even TweakUI, the MOST basic tool without
which, IMHO, a Windows computer is almost unusable, does
VERY little to deal with the hundreds of annoyances XP
brought us.

And you can't even come up with one that don't have a tweak.

How dramatic. BTW, I am not afraid of change if it is for
the better.

I am aware of Kelly's and many other tweak pages, but none
of them told me how to eliminate all the useless user
accounts.

Then why did you create all the accounts ?

No one else ever touches this computer, and while
I can handle /having/ to have more than one user account, I
can NOT deal with the idiotic and absurdly redundant
structure of "documents and settings", and the fact
programs install themselves wherever they want (including
in one or another of the "documents and settings"
directories instead of in "program files")

Which has absolutely nothing to do with Windows, but the
publishers of the s/w, but it is VERY RARE occasion when
something gets installed w/o asking where to install it.

and only a few
ask whether you "want to install this program just for
yourself or for every user".

I've found most s/w does that nowadays.

This makes creating a usable
start menu totally impossible, and finding things /almost/
impossible, certainly extremely time-consuming. And I
thought "My Documents" was bad.

If YOU can tell me how to consolidate all that garbage into
ONE user account and how to make a usable start menu, I
will be externally grateful.

I'm sure you can't merge them all. You could point them all to
the same subdirectory under D & S in the registry after
copying the contents of each to one profile directory.

I saw methods on several search results right on the first
page:

http://www.google.com/search?
q=windows+xp+consolidate+user+accounts&hl=en&client=ubuntu&cha
nnel=fs&prmd=ivns&ei=KZEKTqCrEqSo0AHRqOGIAQ&start=10&sa=N

Who knows what you've done to it. My XP has 5 user accounts.
[my username], All Users, Default user, a LocalService, and
NetworkService. I can look in [my username], or All Users, and
everything can be found there.

And you can use userpassword2 to set a username to
automatically log on.

As for the Start Menu, switch to classic view? And then
arrange it to how you like it. The Start Menu's drag-n-drop
you know. I wrote a replacement shell for Windows and don't
have a standard taskbar/start menu arrangement on my PC, but
as I recall, you have to be very diligent about it. As soon as
you install a new piece of s/w, move it where you want it in
the start menu right away before the menu gets out-of-hand.