Scott Hanselman

I met with some family friends today, at their request, to do a simple financial and debt analysis and come up with some ideas on how they could save money month to month.

Here's the list they left with:

• Don't get tricked by Irregular Pay Periods - If one spouse is paid "every other Weds" and one is paid on the 1st and the 15th, pick one schedule to go with. For example, take the every other Weds paycheck and deposit it into a separate account and "pay yourself" on the 1st and the 15th.
• Be aware of Irregular Bills - Have an interest bearing account where you pay a "simulated monthly bill" (much like a mortgage escrow account behaves) that builds up until the yearly/biyearly payment comes out.
• Turn off everything in the house (as if you were on a trip) - When you go out for a long trip you likely prepare the house by turning things off. Why not do this all the time and work out a system where minimal things are on while you're at work? LCD or not, your computer monitor is a big light bulb. Forget screen savers, just turn it off.
• Save for Property Taxes Monthly - In Oregon, Yearly Property Taxes tend to sneak up on folks. Save for those taxes, and everything irregular, in a regular way like your paycheck. Money in, money out, same every month, makes for a predictable lifestyle.
• Call the Electric Company – Some electric companies give out Coupons for High Efficiency Lighting (fluorescent). Call yours.
• Library Book/Videos Box near the Front Door - Don't pay late fees. Leave a shoebox near the door you leave from. Make it a habit to put things like library books and rental videos in that box and take them with you as you walk out.
• Minimize Cell Phone Time - Somehow you survived the 80s and 90s without a cell phone. Save $75 a month or more by getting the plan that is the cheapest and hang up while driving.
• Check Tire Pressure Weekly - Get a tire pressure gauge, or better yet, check your pressure everytime you fill up. Good tire pressure can get you another 5 MPG or more.
• Know not just your Car's Mileage but your Dollars Per Mile - How much does it cost you to drive a mile? Is it 80 cents to the video store to rent a two dollar video? Maybe you should walk, or ride a bike.
• Fill up, write down ODO. Drive. Fill up, write down ODO. Take Miles Driven and divide by Gallons. That is your Miles Per Gallon. Then take the price of a gallon of gas and divide by your Miles Per Gallon. That’s how much it costs to drive one mile.
• Consolidate Trips - If you're out, get all your errands done in one trip. Avoid the "hub and spoke" model of returning home and heading out.
• Cancel the local paper delivery - You pay for Internet, use it.
• Cut Coupons and avoid waste - Bread lasts longest tightly bound in its bag, in the dark. Put Fruit in a paper sack in your fridge. Close lids.
• Consolidate Insurance - Is your home and car insurance with different companies? You might get a discount if you consolidate.
• Store Credit Cards are Satan - Cut up and close Store Cards. Call your existing Credit Cards and ask them if they can lower your rate. If they want your business, they will. Otherwise, leave them.
• Know how your Cash Flows monthly - Monthly is usually the way to go if you're paid monthly or on the 1st and 15th. If not, find a boundary that works for you and get your life's inputs and outputs into a simple CASHIN-CASHOUT=SOMELEFTOVERCASH equation. Then, take the left over cash and save it. Take your checkbook down to some agreed upon number. We always "level off" to $300. Then next month you'll get a paycheck(s) and pay bills. Take the SOMELEFTOVERCASH-$300 and save it. Rinse, Repeat.

It was a fun evening and everyone left feeling a little more empowered and prepared to take action. If not these actions, some action.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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A number a people have commented on my simple, but customized command prompt. Actually I have a few, but for cmd.exe, I do this. Right-click on My Computer|Properties. Then from the Advanced Tab, click Environment Variables, then add a new User Variable called PROMPT and set it to $p$_$+$g. This came originally from Craig Andera, who got it from Shawn Van Ness. Sahil Malik also has some great command line tricks. Junfeng points out the little known ntcmds.chm.

Here's the breakdown:

• $P = Current Directory's Path
• $_ = Carriage Return
• $+ = A plus sign for each level in the PUSHD/POPD stack.

Here's some other interesting prompts. Paste these into any CMD.EXE window:

set prompt=[%computername%] $d$s$t$_$p$_$_$+$g

yields this. Note the use of an environment variables within a prompt. Here's an extensive list of environment variables.

[SCOTTPC] Thu 07/13/2006 22:19:20.40
C:\Documents and Settings\Scott

Another nice one:

set=prompt=$m$_$p$g

yields this when on a UNC Mapped Drive:

\\FREDPC\C$
Z:\Documents and Settings\Fred

There's all sorts of crap that PROMPT /? gives you:

  $A   & (Ampersand)
  $B   | (pipe)
  $C   ( (Left parenthesis)
  $D   Current date
  $E   Escape code (ASCII code 27)
  $F   ) (Right parenthesis)
  $G   > (greater-than sign)
  $H   Backspace (erases previous character)
  $L   < (less-than sign)
  $N   Current drive
  $P   Current drive and path
  $Q   = (equal sign)
  $S     (space)
  $T   Current time
  $V   Windows XP version number
  $_   Carriage return and linefeed
  $$   $ (dollar sign)
  $+   zero or more plus sign (+) characters depending upon the
       depth of the PUSHD directory stack, one character for each
       level pushed.
  $M   Displays the remote name associated with the current drive
       letter or the empty string if current drive is not a network
       drive.

Here's my command prompt. It's transparent because I use the awesome Console 2.00 Beta, build 122 hosted at SourceForge. I blogged about this last November.

Note the multiple tabs. I've got PowerShell, CMD.EXE and two VisualStudio Windows, each in their own tab. I could add a tab for Cygwin, but really, with PowerShell, who needs ls -alogF?

Console uses a XML settings file (console.xml) that takes a while to understand. Here's a snippet of my settings. I used short filenames in the VS.NET stuff for simplicity and avoidance of quoted quotes. Remember, DIR /X will give you short filenames for things like this.

...Snip...this is a PARTIAL snippet for illustrative purposes...

<tabs>
  <tab title="Console">
   <console shell="" init_dir=""/>
  </tab>
  <tab title="PowerShell">
   <console shell="c:\program files\windows powershell\v1.0\powershell.exe" init_dir=""/>
  </tab>
  <tab title="VS.NET 2003">
   <console shell="cmd /k C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~2.NET\Common7\Tools\vsvars32.bat" init_dir=""/>
  </tab>
  <tab title="VS.NET 2005">
   <console shell="cmd /k C:\PROGRA~1\MID05A~1\VC\vcvarsall.bat" init_dir=""/>
  </tab>
 </tabs>

My font is Consolas, Size 15, Kermit Green (0x00FF00). Enjoy.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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If you start getting this stunning error on startup, you likely:

• Just installed IE7 Beta2 or Beta3
• Also have installed one of:
  • Verizon DSL schmutz
  • Ergodex Manager for the DX1 Pad
  • SmartBridge (MotiveSB.exe)
  • Something else that is distributing an old version of PSAPI.dll

The solution is to search your hard drive for all instances of PSAPI.dll and rename them to something like PSAPI.old.

UPDATE: I've received one report where someone had trouble with this tip, and he suggested leaving the PSAPI.dll in c:\windows\system32 alone. I didn't, but you should be aware and possibly try first with that one DLL left alone.

This problem was debugged using ProcessExplorer to ask folks (other processes) WHERE their PSAPI came from...

Crisis averted, at least for me.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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My twenty-fourth Podcast is up. This episode is about some more advanced aspects of Windows PowerShell and could be called PowerShell/Monad Part 2. For Part 1 take a look at the first Podcast on Monad (PowerShell's previous name) here.

Jeffrey Snover, PowerShell Architect has already reviewed this week's show and testifies to it not sucking. Cool!

We're listed in the iTunes Podcast Directory, so I encourage you to subscribe with a single click (two in Firefox) with the button below. For those of you on slower connections there are lo-fi and torrent-based versions as well.

NEW COUPON CODE EXCLUSIVELY FOR HANSELMINUTES LISTENERS: The folks at XCeed are giving Hanselminutes listeners that is Coupon Code "hm-20-20." It'll work on their online shop or over the phone. This is an amazing deal, and I encourage you to check our their stuff. The coupon is good for 20% off any component or suite, with or without subscription, for 1 developer all the way up to a site license.

Our sponsors are XCeed, CodeSmith Tools, PeterBlum and the .NET Dev Journal. There's a $100 off CodeSmith coupon for Hanselminutes listeners - it's coupon code HM100. Spread the word, now's the time to buy.

As I've said before this show comes to you with the audio expertise and stewardship of Carl Franklin. The name comes from Travis Illig, but the goal of the show is simple. Avoid wasting the listener's time. (and make the commute less boring)

• The basic MP3 feed is here, and the iPod friendly one is here. There's a number of other ways you can get it (streaming, straight download, etc) that are all up on the site just below the fold. I use iTunes, myself, to listen to most podcasts, but I also use FeedDemon and it's built in support.
  • Some other clients are Doppler (also suppose Windows CE), FireAnt, Nimiq, and PrimeTime Podcast.
• Note that for now, because of bandwidth constraints, the feeds always have just the current show. If you want to get an old show (and because many Podcasting Clients aren't smart enough to not download the file more than once) you can always find them at http://www.hanselminutes.com.
• I have, and will, also include the enclosures to this feed you're reading, so if you're already subscribed to ComputerZen and you're not interested in cluttering your life with another feed, you have the choice to get the 'cast as well.
• If there's a topic you'd like to hear, perhaps one that is better spoken than presented on a blog, or a great tool you can't live without, contact me and I'll get it in the queue!

Enjoy. Who knows what'll happen in the next show?

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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I put a one hour Camtasia video up for a customer today and it wasn't loading. It would show all the signs it was working with the controls and what-not showing up, but the flash video itself (the FLV) wasn't loading.

I checked the IIS logs (always check the logs!) and saw a 404 when index.flv was requested. I knew the file was there, but the request ended in a 404. I also checked the UrlScan logs to see if we weren't applying a whitelist. We weren't.

Turned out that there was no mime-type applied for the FLV extension. Added it, and poof, worked. Ah, life's little details.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

About   Newsletter

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