Month: June 2018

Dark Reader

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Do your eyes get tired reading predominantly white browser screens? Mine do, which is why I was attracted to this free add-on.

Dark Reader inverts the brightness of a screen, as these before and after images show:

Tektif screen before inversion
Tektif screen after inversion

The add-in is available for Chrome and Firefox. Not all screens are amenable to inversion, though most appear to be. You can choose which sites should be inverted or not, as well as adjust the criteria for brightness and contrast.

Dark Reader's interface is one of the best I've seen: intuitive, clear, and aesthetically pleasing.

Change Outlook Folder Sort Order

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For many years, the sort order in Outlook was alphabetical, A to Z, and couldn’t be changed. However, after numerous calls by users for an option to allow free ordering, Microsoft finally introduced the feature in Outlook 2013.

The option is available in the Folders tab. It’s a toggle, and it retains your chosen sequencing should you temporarily revert to alphabetical.

Outlook folder sort order toggle
Outlook folder sort order toggle

Unselecting A to Z enables folders to be moved anywhere in the list, either by dragging the folder or using Move Up or Move Down when right-clicking the folder name:

Move Up/Down folder
Move Up/Down folder

PST vs OST

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I use a POP3 mail server, so I’ve always opted for a PST file when setting up a new account in Outlook. PST stands for Personal Storage Table. Outlook uses it to store all your email items, contacts, and calendar. It may be designated Outlook.pst or something like user@example.com.pst. Either way, it resides in the Outlook Files folder of your Documents folder.

I recently installed Office 365 on a laptop and discovered that instead of PST I had an OST file. OST is the initialism for Offline Storage Table.

Because PST files are local, you can copy them to other PCs that have Outlook that uses a PST, provided you change the transferred file’s name to the existing one before replacing it. This isn’t possible with OST files, which are copies from the exchange server. When you disconnect from the Internet, the local copy gives you continued access to all the files. Once the Internet connection is restored, the local file is synced with the server’s file.

Unlike PST files, OST files cannot be backed up.

“File Too Large for Destination File System”

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This message came up today. I needed to transfer an 8GB file to a USB drive I’d just bought. The new drive had stacks of space, so it didn’t make sense to be told the drive wasn’t large enough.

A quick check of the USB drive’s properties supplied the explanation. It was using FAT32 rather than NTFS. FAT32 file sizes are limited to 4GB. (FAT = File Allocation Table; NTFS = New Technology File System.)

I’m surprised that manufacturers still use the old FAT32 file system for devices with today’s large capacities. However, it’s not difficult to convert them to NTFS. Microsoft provides a conversion utility for that purpose and it’s easy to use.

Go to the Start menu and in Search enter cmd.exe. This will bring up the Command window. Enter convert x: /fs:ntfs where x: is the drive letter of the target file.

In this example, drive J:  is to be converted:

Convert file system example
Convert file system example

The files are not affected by the conversion.