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How to Customize Your "Send To" Menu

I’m normally not one to like storing items on my computer desktop. Perhaps what’s weird is that I also prefer that all the files I download from the Internet are saved to my Desktop instead of the normal downloads folder.

right-click-send-to

What I’ve done is customize the “Send To” menu that’s available from the right-click context menu. My customizations allow me to right-click on any file and quickly send the file to another destination folder for saving, storage or organization.

Customizing the menu is fairly easy, you can just follow the instructions below:

  1. Create a shortcut on your desktop to the location/folder where you want to be able to quickly send files.
  2. Open the following path C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\SendTo
  3. Move the shortcuts you created in Step 1 above into the folder opened in Step 2

That’s it!

You’re done.

Now you have shortcuts to your preferred folders now available in the “Send To” menu available when you right-click on a file. Any location you find yourself normally sending files to regularly can be added to the list. You can even create shortcuts to network locations as well if you desire. If you put a shortcut to the executable for a program you can send a file to be opened into that program.

I use this customization on a daily basis. Hopefully you’ll find it as handy as I do.

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Down For Everyone Or Just Me

Sometimes the best sites and resources end up being the simplest ideas executed to perfection. Google has a lot of fans because of the simplicity in the way it does search. I believe one of the reasons the iPod design is so popular is because of the simplicity of the controls. The same simplicity in design also works well for websites.

down-for-everyone-or-just-me

The downforeveryoneorjustme.com site does exactly what the domain name suggests. It quickly lets you know if a website is offline for everyone or just you. This can come in handy when you’re developing a new site for a client and aren’t sure what you’re getting. Is it a problem with the servers or something in your coding that’s making it night work. Add the challenge of figuring out if it’s your ISP’s domain name resolution services and you’ve got a few questions up in the air that need answering.

Simply visit www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com and input the domain name in question as shown in the image above. You’ll be immediately presented with whether or not the issues are impacting the website across the board or if it’s just a problem being experienced on your machine or your Internet connection.

Uncover the quick, simple answers for your website being on or offline by using www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com

Image: Custom image and Snagit of featured website interface

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Setting Default File Locations on SQL Server

I’m in SQL just about every day of the week. Supporting multiple clients with multiple SQL servers in operation, we’re regularly working on databases. Part of that process is to backup and restore databases on our local machines for development.

SQL-Server-Properties

One of the annoying items about SQL for me is that it wants to bury your database files deep within the Windows program folder for your SQL install. I really don’t want to dig down 7 levels of folder structure to get to my files. I can see how that might be handy and serve as a layer of protection, but for me it’s just annoying.

It took me awhile to find it, but I’ve now found where you can set your default file locations for databases. It’s actually pretty obvious where it is now, but that makes me think they’ve changed how you set this preference. If I didn’t find it before, surely it couldn’t have been that easy initially.

Right click on your main SQL server database and select “Properties” from the right-click menu. Then click on the item labeled “Database Settings”. Almost to the bottom of the screen is a location to specify where you want to keep your database files. You can select different locations for the data and the log file, which could help with management in the future as well, depending on your personal use preferences.

Hopefully that may help you if you’re looking for this in the future. I’m now debating on storing my database files on a removable USB external drive. Just not sure about the risk of storing them on that type of device instead of the main computer hard drive. Does anyone else have experience with SQL databases in this format?