टिप्स बॉक्स से: त्वरित विंडो का आकार बदलना, माउस कर्सर युक्त, और बैटरी कॉन्फ़िगरेशन को समझना

When you need to maximize the height of a window (but not the width) you can do so by placing the cursor over the upper or lower edge of the window. When it becomes a little resize arrow, double click. The window will instantly extend to the full height of the monitor (but not the width). I discovered this trick totally by accident and have found it useful ever since.

I love my multi-monitor setup but there are times when it can be a pain. Specifically when playing certain computer games or running certain legacy applications I have to use for my job. Games and older applications often don’t know what to do with a multi-monitor setup and all sorts of weird stuff can happen. I’ve had the mouse get stuck on the secondary monitor, had applications crash when the mouse went from the primary monitor to the secondary monitor, and had the mouse outright disappear once it left the primary monitor. Even when it’s not that drastic it’s annoying when you expect a “hard edge” while playing a game and the mouse just zips right out of the frame and vanishes.

My solution is an open source app I found called Mousenitor. It’s a simple little application that allows you to effectively “jail” the mouse. You can set boundaries, toggle it with hot keys, and even set up profiles for different apps and games. It’s saved me from so many headaches! Speaking of headaches, don’t set up a profile that restricts the mouse to the primary monitor, then put the Mousenitor control panel on the second monitor, and then turn it on. That was quite a puzzle to solve.

The battery “rotating” idea does not make sense electrically unless the batteries are in parallel (rarely used that way). Nearly all battery circuits are in series (which you can tell if their polarity is reversed one from another within the battery compartment). The resistance of a weak battery in a series circuit is the same no matter where it is in the circuit. Possibly, the contacts are dirty and moving them around “cleans” them a little which provides for a better connection between the contacts and the batteries.

You can also tell if the batteries are in series with a cheap voltmeter (it’s a multimeter set for measuring voltage, buy on that measures up to 30 volts to be on the safe side). They’re available at Ace Hardware or similar stores. Place the positive (red) probe at the positive terminal of one battery contact and negative (black) probe on the negative pole of the battery contact at the other end. If the voltage is 2, 3 or 4 times (depending on the number of batteries) the voltage of a single battery (usually about 1.5v for AA or AAA) that is a series circuit and rotating the batteries will have negligible effect.