Firefox’s tooltip “feature”

Eric Vautier — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:16:41 +0000

Those using Firefox version 3.0+ may have noticed a tooltip comes up when you hover on the url icon, providing some details about the domain you’re visiting. While possibly useful, this feature, enabled by default, effectively prevents usage of the toolbar bookmarks via drag&drop, if the target bookmark toolbar folder lies just under the address bar.

The solution is to disable the tooltip, by setting variable browser.chrome.toolbar_tips to false in about:config.

Vista disk thrashing

Eric Vautier — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 21:17:01 +0000

Quite a few people have experienced Vista disk thrashing at intervals. There can be multiple reasons for this, as Microsoft has tried to be very thorough with security and enables, by default, the following:

Index build for faster search: if you don’t search your computer for files every other day, might be a good idea to disable it. Runs in low priority.
Drive defragmenting is typically scheduled once a week, set to Wednesday evening by default on my machine. Runs in normal priority, can effectively make your computer grind to a halt. Either set an idle date when you’re not at your desk to run it, or disable it and run the defragmenting manually.
System restore points also run at intervals, typically when you’ve just installed a new piece of software. Best keep that going, it’s a nuisance at times but can save you a lot of trouble later on.

Ze blog » Annoyances

Firefox’s tooltip “feature”

Vista disk thrashing