Rick Upton's Grab Bag
This is my personal blog which covers a grab bag of topics that aren't covered by my other blogs.
Monday, December 24, 2018
San Francisco Bay Area Cajun Zydeco Dance Calendars
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Logging into Windows 10 with a black screen and a white arrow cursor
At the black screen, press the Ctrl key once on an attached physical keyboard. (You won’t see any visible change, but pressing the Ctrl key will place the cursor in the password box that you’re currently not able to see.) Now type the password of the user that just signed out and press Enter.This will sign you back into Windows and the desktop will appear. If you failed to sign in because you mistyped the password, press Enter once more. Then retype the password and press Enter.Thankfully the advice above worked for me.
Sunday, November 01, 2015
Automated compacting and copying of Microsoft Outlook PST files
Here's a way to automatically compact and backup all of your Microsoft Outlook PST data files on your Windows PC using only free software, AutoIT and PowerShell. AutoIT is freeware, and PowerShell is included in Microsoft Windows. Compacting your PST files before you back them up can reduce the amount of disk space required both at the source and destination locations of your backup.
So, to get started:
- Get the free AutoIT Full Installation and AutoIT Script Editor from the AutoIT Downloads page.
- Ensure PowerShell scripts that you create can run on your computer.
- Create an AutoIT script that, when the Mail control panel is open, will compact all PST files and then close the Mail control panel.
- Create a Powershell script that opens the Mail control panel and then executes the AutoIT script.
Here below are the AutoIT and Powershell scripts that I am running on my Windows 8.1 PC with Outlook 2013. I have a Windows Shortcut to my PowerShell script so that every time I log into my PC, my Outlook PST data files are compacted and backed up before Outlook is opened. I use the PowerShell script to also open other applications so that I may work on them while the Outlook PST data files are being backed up. Please feel free to copy the scripts below and modify them to work for you.
I am using Synology's Cloud Station to keep most of the data files on my laptop in sync with a Synology NAS, but Cloud Station doesn't work well with Outlook PST data files, which is why Cloud Station is configured by default to exclude the synchronization of files with a PST extension.
AutoIT script
PowerShell script
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
School and Study Tips, LinkedIn Tips, Sony, SCU, SJSU, and Del Mar Posts Have Moved
- For school and study tips: The content that was on this site was updated and moved to a new Study and School Tips site.
- For LinkedIn tips: The content that was on this site was either deleted because it was obsolete or updated and moved to the LinkedIn Notes blog.
- For Santa Clara University MBA students and alumni: Information about online social networks was updated and moved to the Santa Clara University MBA Notes blog.
- For San Jose State University students and alumni: Information about online social networks was updated and moved to the San Jose State University Notes blog.
- For Del Mar High School students and alumni: Information about connecting with classmates was updated and moved to the Del Mar High School Connection blog.
- For downtown San Jose residents and visitors: The content that was on this site was deleted because it was obsolete.
- For former and current Sony employees and contractors: Information about online social networks was updated and moved to the Unofficial Sony Alumni Social Networking Sites blog.
Monday, April 27, 2015
Updated Personal Blog, Added Picture in Title
Monday, February 17, 2014
Taking Video from DVD+RW Discs to an MPG file to YouTube
To combine five VOB files on my DVD+RW disc into one file called newfile.mpg on my computer's hard drive, I executed the following command: