Software Tips | J.D. Hodges

Category Archives: Software Tips

Open PDF files in different Foxit Reader windows (not tabs) [SOLVED]

Monday, 2015.04.27 J.D. H. 2 comments

Foxit is a very nice PDF reader, however, a few versions back they made a change that is limiting for multiple monitor users. Specifically, PDFs open in separate Foxit tabs rather than their own windows. This can make it tough to compare two documents side-by-side etc. Thankfully, there is an easy fix to allow multiple Foxit PDF windows: File -> Preferences -> Documents -> Check the “Allow Multiple Instances” box -> Click OK That is all there is to it!

Stop Foxit Reader from opening the “start” tab [SOLVED]

Monday, 2015.04.27 J.D. H. 2 comments

Foxit is a nice PDF reader, but they recently made some changes that I find annoying. Primarily the new “Start” tab that opens every time you open a document 🙁 Thankfully, the start tab is easily disabled in Foxit Reader: File -> Preferences -> General -> uncheck Show Start Page I also like to disable the advertisement: File -> Preferences -> General -> uncheck Show Advertisement 🙂

Format FAT32 on 64GB, 128GB, 256GB USB flash drives on Windows

Tuesday, 2015.04.21 J.D. H. 6 comments

Need to format a > 32GB USB flash drive as FAT32 but Windows won’t let you? No problem, here is a free and safe utility that you can use to format your thumbdrive: (dl website) More details and background: Recently I needed to format a 64GB USB flash drive as FAT32. This was for use in a Chevrolet vehicle that requires FAT32 and 32K cluster sizes in order to read from high capacity USB flash drive. I ordered a

Fix GOM Player distorted sound

Thursday, 2015.04.09 J.D. H. 2 comments

If your GOM Player has very distorted/scratchy/popping noise during video playback, then here is a setting you will want to check: Preferences -> Audio -> Audio Effects tab -> Voice Filter -> Disable Setting the audio effects voice filter to ‘None’ resolved the sound issue for me. Previously the ‘cut’ filter had been checked and it was causing some terrible sound issues on certain videos, I am not sure how the checkbox ever got check but it could have been

Update Quicken 2015 to R5 for taxes

Sunday, 2015.03.29 J.D. H. 2 comments

Quicken has recently (3/24/2015) released their version R5 patch for Quicken 2015. If you like to have all your financial software up to date while doing taxes, you may want to backup and then perform the upgrade! There are a couple ways you can update, you can find info on both below. #1 Perform a “One Step Update” from the Tools menu in the application, after the update completes it should show you a notice about the new update: After

Updating VMware Tools fails [SOLVED] isolation.tools.guestInitiatedUpgrade.disable = “FALSE”

Saturday, 2015.03.07 J.D. H. Leave a comment

Updating VMware Tools fails with the error: Update Tools failed. Edit the virtual machine’s vmx file (2007298) Symptoms You are unable to update VMware Tools. Updating VMware Tools fails. You see the error: Update Tools failed. Edit the virtual machine’s vmx file, add the line below and try again. Please read KB article 1714 on tips for editing a vmx file. isolation.tools.guestInitiatedUpgrade.disable = “FALSE” To resolve this issue, enable VMware Tools updates from within the guest by updating the virtual machine

Move media files into individual folders with the same name

Tuesday, 2015.01.20 J.D. H. Leave a comment

If you ever decide to backup your DVDs or other media to ISO format, it can be handy to have them each in their own folder. However, if you decide to do this after you have already ripped all the ISOs to a single folder then it can be a time consuming task. I have written batch (.bat) files to automate this process in the past, but recently I discovered a very nice Windows program that can do it for

Turn off Kindle singles recommendations etc. [SOLVED[

Thursday, 2015.01.08 J.D. H. Leave a comment

Some Kindle questions from readers: Q1. How do I turn off the annoying Kindle singles crap that takes up half of my Kindle’s screen?! Menu -> Settings -> Device options -> Personalize your Kindle -> Advanced Options -> Cover View Recommendations -> Off Q2. Can I get rid of recomendations, they are way off?! While you are at it, you can also turn off Special Offers Recommendations: Menu -> Settings -> Device options -> Personalize your Kindle -> Advanced Options