merill.net » Tips

Troubleshooting the ’403 Forbidden’ error for SharePoint & ASP.NET Apps

Merill Fernando — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 21:31:01 +0000

If your site bombs out with 403 Forbidden error one quick way to identify the root cause is to run ProcessMon on the web server and filter it out to only show entries where

Process Name = w3wp.exe

Result = ACCESS DENIED

Disable Windows Live Contacts from being synchronized to Windows Phone

Merill Fernando — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:50:18 +0000

One very useful Windows Phone feature is that it automatically adds all your Windows Live contacts to your Windows Phone when you sign in. This is all fine and dandy if that’s your master contact list but for me all of those contacts were carried over from MSN Messenger which I stopped using many years ago.

The most annoying bit is that there is no way to get rid of those contacts. As of WP 7.5 you only have two options either delete all your contacts from Windows Live or change your primary Windows Live ID (which required a hard reset).

There is a third option though and that is to filter out the Windows Live contacts from the People Hub.

To do so go to the People Hub -> Settings -> Filter -> Uncheck Windows Live

Tada a quick and painless way to remove the Windows Live contacts and keep your address book tidy.

Windows 8 – New Folder

Merill Fernando — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 07:32:28 +0000

To create a new folder in windows explorer pre Win8 was Alt+F, N.

In Windows 8 it’s Alt+H, N

There are many new shortcuts like Alt+F,S to start PowerShell etc.. The neat advantage with the ribbon bar is that you press Alt and can see the shortcut letters displayed so you don’t need to memorise these things.

Windows 7: New Keyboard Shortcuts

Merill Fernando — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 20:39:26 +0000

There are quite a few new keyboard shortcuts in Windows 7 and some of them are a godsend when working on a multi-monitor setup. I can finally retire UltraMon just to get a keyboard shortcut for switching windows between monitors.

There are new shortcuts for maximizing, restoring and minimizing windows as well. I will now be retiring an old keyboard shortcut that I’ve been using since Windows 3.1 (if you didn’t know Alt+Space, X for maximizing and Alt+Space, R for restore and Alt+Space, N for minimize).

Here’s a full list of the new keyboard shortcuts from TechNet, I couldn’t get the Win+(+/-) Zoom working though.

Windows 7 beta 1 includes some handy new shortcut key combinations that allow you to navigate and manage the Windows workspace more efficiently. Here are 10 new Windows 7 shortcuts that will help you speed up your workflow (“Win” means the Windows Key):

Win+Home: Clear all but the active window
Win+Space: All windows become transparent so you can see through to the desktop
Win+Up arrow: Maximize the active window
Win+Down arrow: Minimize the active window or restore the window if it’s maximized
Win+Left/Right arrows: Dock the active window to each side of the monitor
Win+Shift+Left/Right arrows: If you’ve got dual monitors, this will move the active window to the adjacent monitor
Win+T: Shift focus to and scroll through items on the taskbar
Win+P: Adjust presentation settings for your display
Win+(+/-): Zoom in/out
Shift+Click a taskbar item: Open a new instance of that particular application