Mini-Compressor Version 1.4 just Sprouted

Spring has sprung in the Saturday MP basement!

We planted some seeds in the late winter, and look what’s sprung! Version 1.4 of Mini-Compressor! Get it while it’s fresh.

Here are some of the features we’re especially proud of:

  • An intelligent error message when trying to compress a non-jpeg file
  • The ability to pause while compressing images
  • A window from the Start Menu that reminds users to right-click to use Mini-Compressor

All of Mini-Compressor’s fabulous features and how to use it are documented in the updated Mini-Guide.

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Categories: mini-compressor  Tags: mini-compressor 

Two Tips When Doing a Fresh Install of Windows 8

I have two tips when you are doing a fresh install of Windows 8 on a new laptop with UEFI BIOS.  Sorry, I mean with UEFI firmware interface instead of BIOS firmware interface.  I think that is more correcter or the correstest way.  I just can’t stop saying “UEFI BIOS”.   “UEFI BIOS”.  See I just did it again.  Next I’ll be saying use “The Google”.

Let us get back to the two tips.  The first tip is booting your new laptop with UEFI and secure boot enabled from a USB stick with Windows 8 on it.  The problem is the USB stick needs to be formatted as FAT32 because UEFI does not recognize NTFS.  I wonder why this is.  I couldn’t find a reason on The Google.

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‘Tis the Season

Snow in Edmonton

It doesn’t seem to want to stop snowing in Edmonton for some reason, but that’s not the season I’m talking about… I’m talking about the one that concerns the government taking a certain percentage of your earnings every April.

While walking DD to school last week, she educated me on a fictional Queen of Fables who, for her punishment, was banished to the US Tax Manual for eternity!  I then educated DD on the meaning of the phrase “fate worse than death”!

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Categories: fun  Tags: death-and-taxes 

Get’er Dun

Every Tuesday night, my business partner and I have a date.  A working date.  It’s in our calendars for 9:00 to 10:30.  The place is always the same – the basement office – so no babysitter is required.  And there’s plenty of parking.  We’ve had this standing date for about a year and a half, since we returned from the Business of Software conference in 2011.

I mentioned in Working Together – Part 1 how SatMP is like our second born child.  Well, like our first born child whom we drive to various extracurricular activities, we need to drive this baby places too.  Only, by driving, we mean staying put, and by places, we mean putting in the time.  When we made this earth shattering discovery, we were both gainfully contracted i.e. day jobs, and found we had a hard time tackling our to-do list.  And boy did the list grow while we were at the conference.  They say the way to eat an elephant* is one bite at a time but those bites are sure tiny when you’re tired and there are competing demands like laundry and bookkeeping.   The obvious time slot would have been our namesake Saturday mornings, but those are now for family activities…  so during one of our lovely dinners in Boston, we committed ourselves to one whole night a week to pampering our SatMP.

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Dealing with Microsoft's SmartScreen Filter Part 2: Getting a Code Signing Certificate

This is part 2 of dealing with Microsoft’s SmartScreen Filter.  You can find the first part here.

I figured the best way to deal with SmartScreen filter was to get Mini-Compressor Windows 7 certified.  Windows 8 had just been released but I figured if I could get Windows 7 certified upgrading to Windows 8 certification shouldn’t be a problem.  At the time I had not tested Mini-Compressor on Windows 8 but I had done lots of testing on Windows 7.

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