Windows 8 Archives ⋆ Page 6 of 6 ⋆ Programming and Tech Blog

Calling a .NET DLL From VBScript

Post author:Dirk Strauss
Post published:November 20, 2012
Post category:Programming
Post comments:10 Comments

Recently I have had to call a .NET Dll from a VBScript. Why would I need to do this I hear you ask? Well sometimes it is easier to do certain things in .NET or you might have previously written functionality in a .NET DLL that you now need to duplicate in the VBScript. That was what I was faced with. I didn’t want to have to re-write code, and I make no excuses for being lazy. So I decided to try and find a way to call a .NET DLL from a VBScript.

This turned out to be much easier than I had initially thought. In order to illustrate this, fire up Visual Studio and create a new Class Library Project.

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Windows 8 Tips Part 5 – Turn on File History

Post author:Dirk Strauss
Post published:November 15, 2012
Post category:How To
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Every responsible computer owner has a decent backup plan in place that can be used in an emergency to restore lost files. Yeah, right. How does your backup strategy measure up? Are you backing up your data? When last did you backup your data? Do you do it once a week? On occasion?

Well with Windows 8, backing up is really easy and all you have to do is turn on File History, point Windows 8 to your selected File History location and off you go. It would make sense to select a large external drive or network drive to use for the File History.

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Windows 8 Tips Part 4 – Bring back Hibernate

Post author:Dirk Strauss
Post published:November 13, 2012
Post category:How To
Post comments:4 Comments

Windows 8 definitely starts up very fast. Much faster than my previous Windows installations. But one thing that I got used to was hibernating. The difference between Sleep and Hibernate (According to Microsoft) is this:

Sleep is a power-saving state that allows a computer to quickly resume full-power operation (typically within several seconds) when you want to start working again. Putting your computer into the sleep state is like pausing a DVD player—the computer immediately stops what it’s doing and is ready to start again when you want to resume working.

Hibernation is a power-saving state designed primarily for laptops. While sleep puts your work and settings in memory and draws a small amount of power, hibernation puts your open documents and programs on your hard disk, and then turns off your computer. Of all the power-saving states in Windows, hibernation uses the least amount of power. On a laptop, use hibernation when you know that you won’t use your laptop for an extended period and won’t have an opportunity to charge the battery during that time.

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Windows 8 Tips Part 3 – Reduce your clicks

Post author:Dirk Strauss
Post published:November 12, 2012
Post category:How To
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Windows 8 has definitely changed the way I interact with the OS. I find myself using more keyboard shortcuts than in the past. There are the usual suspects such as WinKey+D to take you to your desktop, WinKey+L to lock your PC, Alt+Tab to switch between open apps and WinKey+, to make all windows transparent so you can see your desktop. There are a ton of other keyboard shortcuts you can use to get around Windows 8 more easily.

The next nugget I stumbled across quite by accident, and I have since then seen a few blog posts about this quick menu. How can you access Programs and Features, System, Control Panel, Task Manager and many other often used locations in a snap? Move your mouse into the bottom left corner of your screen (you know, where your start menu used to be). You will see the following pop up:

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Windows 8 Tips Part 2 – Shut down with one click

Post author:Dirk Strauss
Post published:November 7, 2012
Post category:How To
Post comments:0 Comments

I love Windows 8. There, I said it. Right, now that that’s over with, lets get to the nitty gritty of the shut down sequence. WinKey+C -> Settings -> Power -> Select Shut down. Doesn’t that seem a bit drawn out?

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Windows 8 Tips Part 1 – Mount ISO’s

Post author:Dirk Strauss
Post published:October 30, 2012
Post category:How To
Post comments:1 Comment

I decided to upgrade from Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 8 Pro. It was the best decision I have ever made. I didn’t upgrade purely because of all the hype surrounding Windows 8, but more because I wanted to start developing Windows 8 style apps.

Well, I must say that after playing with Windows 8, I am absolutely hooked. The UI is so intuitive and easy to navigate. Getting around the OS is a breeze and I don’t even want to mention the Windows Store. But let me start off from the beginning and go on from there.

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