Tech for Luddites

In today’s T3, we have a tip for people who fondly remember Windows XP (????), people who don’t always want to see everything on Twitter (????????), and people who love to hug trees (????????????).

1. Add Quick Launch Bar to Taskbar in Windows 7 and Windows 10

If this was a feature you really liked in Windows XP, you were probably disappointed when it went away in Windows 7. The following steps will let you bring it back to Windows 7, 8, and 10.

• Copy this string of characters to your clipboard: %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch
• Right-click an empty space on your taskbar and select Toolbars > New Toolbar. NOTE: If you have a lot of programs pinned to your taskbar, it can be hard to find an empty space. I suggest trying at the very left or very right of all the icons.

• Paste the text string you copied earlier into the Folder field. This will create the Quick Launch bar to the right of taskbar with default programs added.

• Click on the words “Quick Launch” and uncheck the option for Lock the Taskbar. This will add a divider between the main taskbar and the Quick Launch bar.
• Right-click on the divider and uncheck the options for Lock the Taskbar, Show Text, and Show Title, and check the option for View > Small Icons.

You can now drag any file or folder to the Quick Launch bar from File Explorer and change the order and right-click on an item to remove it from the bar.

2. New Muting Options for Twitter

Twitter has for a long time allowed people to mute other users to avoid seeing harassing tweets. Muting is a way to prevent someone’s tweets from showing up in your Timeline without unfollowing or blocking them. However, unwanted tweets could still show up in your Notifications if someone mentioned your username in them.

Twitter has just added more options for muting these notifications as well, including the ability to mute based on keywords or hashtags in the tweet. Here is an article on Twitter about muting in general and another one about the new options available, with instructions for how to turn them on.

Muting Accounts on Twitter

Advanced Muting Options on Twitter

I think they still have some work to do on this functionality because the options are quite confusing. For example, if you mute notifications based on words or hashtags, they’ll still show up in your Timeline unless you’ve muted the accounts of the people sending those tweets. Also, if you do a Twitter search on a topic, you’ll still tweets from muted accounts in the results. But it’s a step in the right direction towards giving users more control over what they see.

3. Recycle Your Holiday Lights

The first part of this tip is to make sure you test that your holiday light strings are working BEFORE you climb that ladder to your roof. 🙂 The second part is if you do find some strings that are no longer working, check to see if there are any local recycling programs in your area. Home Depot used to have a trade-in event but I can’t find anything that says they’re doing it again this year. 🙁

If there aren’t any recycling options near you, here are a couple of places you can mail your lights to for recycling:

• HolidayLEDs will take your lights and give you a 15% coupon off purchases from their site.
• Christmas Light Source is a company in the Dallas area that will donate proceeds from their recycling program to Toys for Tots.

If you know of other options, please add them in the comments below and I’ll update this post.

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