thinking IT loud
This is a quick post to explain how you can get search working from the emoji keyboard in Windows 10 or Windows 11. This should work by default but some organisations block the downloading of the optional features that would allow it.
Update 07/01/2022: I found the magic command line to fix it all! Jump to the bottom to see.
My current job as an “Enterprise Architect” has my place of work officially listed as my home, although I’m regularly out visiting clients. I share that home with my wife, 3 sons and a cat (the cat is the only one with me in the daytime). As a relative newcomer to the home-working scene, I thought it would be interesting to share my experience over the last year in how I’ve adjusted to this new way of working. I was inspired by one of Scott Hanselman’s tweets around going for a morning commute even if you work from home:
Now, I’m sure most home-workers will tell you one of the best perks of being based at home is avoiding the traffic-filled commute but something about Scott’s tweet definitely rings true. It made me think of what I’ve done to motivate me to get out of bed in the morning when I could just as easily roll out at 8:55. How do you get into good habits rather than develop bad habits? So here are my personal 6 rituals of working from home.
This is the news you’ve all been waiting for, I’m getting back into blogging!
A lot has happened since my last post, to me, technology and the IT Pro community. I’ve been really impressed by some of the work my peers have been doing publishing articles, producing YouTube videos and recording some great podcasts, so I feel it’s about time I jumped back in the water.
My blog posts will continue to be varied but will mostly focus on my interests in cloud computing and especially the Microsoft stack. I’ll be avoiding “paid for” articles like a few of my previous ones to keep a better sense of integrity and provide better value to those of you who may stumble across my ramblings.
The point of this article is to give me a kick to actually put some content on here, so hopefully that’s done the trick and you’ll see more regular posts (if I don’t get too distracted with updating my “about” pages and tinkering with the theme/layout!).
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog. Despite only having 8 new posts I feel like I’ve reconnected with my blog a bit and hopefully will be adding more useful articles on it soon. Thanks for reading 🙂
Here’s an excerpt:
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 130,000 times in 2013. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 6 days for that many people to see it.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog. They do this every year and it’s one of the reasons I love using WordPress as a blogging platform!
Here’s an excerpt:
19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 110,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Click here to see the complete report.
It seems like a long time since my last proper technical blog post, I blame OneNote for replacing my need to publish all my notes online! I intended to do at least one article a month but I was shocked to discover I only did 6 new articles in 2012, although I did update many existing ones. Even so, I’ve been getting impressive page views and glad to see the technical articles becoming more popular than fluffy ones (like my old 2009 Windows 7 theme packs posts from 2009)
As it is a new year, and I’m soon to be starting a new role, I thought it’s about time to share some of my problems to help others stuck in the same situation. Check back very soon for fresh, interesting and (hopefully) useful articles
Last month I took on my wife’s challenge to abstain from any social networking over the six weeks of Lent. Some thought it couldn’t be done but I endured and think I may have come through it a little wiser.
At first, it was a real mental struggle. I can remember the very first day when I almost broke out in a sweat when not checking in to my train station on Foursquare. I could sense the long road ahead and could feel all my social clout slipping away from me. This was no joke and it helped me realise just how addicted to it I was.
Fortunately, the initial day was the only real struggle. I was occasionally tempted by a few notifications slipping through on my phone but once they were all properly turned off it was surprisingly easy to leave it all behind, refreshing in fact.
Continue reading “The Return of Me: what I learned from my social fast”
I’m sure a lot of us use social networking too much. By too much I mean using it,
This is becoming the latest addiction for our generation, and although not as harmful as drugs or gambling etc, it can cause a disruption in your real life and actually make you less social with the people you see on a day to day basis.
Continue reading “Addicted to Social Networking? I’m giving it up for Lent!”
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 50,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 19 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Click here to see the complete report.
Not quite a “post a week” but a vast improvement over last year’s (21 posts and 4500 views). Part of this is directly linked to migrating from the now defunct Windows Live Spaces platform and onto WordPress.
Thanks to all my visitors, I really appreciate your comments and hope you have found something useful, intersting or funny on my blog.
Hopefully 2012 will bring even more interesting posts thanks to my new job (starting next week!). One of my tech resolutions will definitely be to increase the amount of posts I do and taking the drafts that float around in limbo to completed usefull articles.
Here to seeing what 2012 brings 🙂
I was wondering if Word 2010 would be a better blog editor than Windows Live Writer 2011 (WLW).
I constantly find myself using Word/Office keyboard shortcuts in WLW only to get annoyed that they don’t work.
This is really just a quick test to see the pros & cons and what features actually work. It may look a complete mess once I upload it!
Setting up Word 2010 to blog is really easy
Photo of me with background removal tool
and artistic pencil effect 
This is written using a special font on my PC.
If Word is clever it will change it into a picture
Time to publish and see what happens!
OK, so after hitting the publish button I can see a few niggles but nothing major.
Overall, I think Word gives you a lot more power, not to mention better performance, than Windows Live Writer. It could be improved in the way it handles the whole blogging side of things (e.g. hyperlinkng to live articles, updating existing posts, source code editing). Ideally I would want it to have all the features of WLW (or vice versa!) but I can use the WordPress dashboard to easily fine tune things.
I think I will probably use it for all my posts for a while and see how it goes. If you’ve got it, flaunt it!
Just a quick repress here, I never new a free theme could be so malicious. Doesn’t just apply to WordPress though, could be easily as dodgy in Joomla, Drupal or any “Theme” .
Check out the link below and find out how to check if you theme is hiding anything nasty
Thom's HeadSpace 