Windows Live Messenger and Windows 7

This one was annoying me to no end. Under Windows XP, if you used the "X" button to close your Live Messenger window, it minimized to they System Tray instead of the task bar. For some reason, Microsoft changed this behavior with Windows 7. Instead of minimizing to the System Tray, the button stayed on your task bar.

Personally, I much prefer instant messenger apps, and others that are basically running in the background, to sit in my system tray, saving taskbar space for applications that are actively doing something.

Well, a quick web search turned up this lovely article over at How-To Geek. Long story short, you can get the old behavior back by changing the application compatibility mode. If you set it to Windows Vista, it will minimize to the tray instead of the taskbar. This certainly indicates it's something specific to the Windows 7 interface. I haven't played around with turning of Aero to see if that makes a difference, as I rather like the Aero look and feel.

While this hack works for now, it makes me wonder what Microsoft will do with the upcoming Metro interface.

This is the type of thing where the user should be given the choice. Some apps alread minimize to the system tray under Windows 7/Aero. Specifically, the Google Talk app does. Further, applications used to ask how you wanted them to handle minimizing, either to the tray or to the taskbar.

It should be about control, and customizing, and the ability to have a system that performs how you want it to.

Oh well. For now, at least, application compatibility settings handle the need without seeming to break anything.

Too cool for school - View Web Source for Android

We have been having an issue with one of our websites, and have been doing extensive testing across multiple devices and browsers. Often times, it's helpful to look at the source code for the page, to help determine what might be causing the issue or to view comments that we inject into the pages to help us with troubleshooting.

By default, the Android browser does not have a 'view source' option. However, thanks to a discussion over on Stack Exchange, I ran across this nifty (and FREE!!!) Android app called View Web Source.

Once it is installed, usage is exceptionally easy. Load the page you want to inspect in the browser, select the Menu -> More -> Share Page. View Web Source registers itself as a "Share" helper, so it will appear in the list of "Share via" applications. Select it, and then a text window is displayed with the page source.

Now, if your rendered page is large, it's not very easy to scroll through and look at everything, but it is certainly better than nothing.

The one feature I wish it would implement is searching, use the default search button on the device. Otherwise, it's quite the handy utility.