How Do I Add Text Shortcuts to the Windows Run Dialog Box

Windows comes prepackaged with a ton of handy run-dialog shortcuts to help you launch apps and tools right from the run box; is it possible to add in your own custom shortcuts.

The Question

SuperUser reader Nic finds the run-dialog shortcuts to be handy and wants to expand upon them.

When I hit Windows+R, I can type in calc and get a calculator really quickly. Same thing for mspaint. My question is, how do I adjust this so I can type “netbeans” and have it open the program?

The Answer

SuperUser contributor John T offers a quick and simply way to accomplish the shortcut addition.

The easiest option would be to add the following location to 

C:\Program Files\NetBeans X.X.X\bin

replace X.X.X with your version of Netbeans.

Alternatively you could make a shortcut to the netbeans.exe executable in the above path, and place that shortcut in a location that’s already in your path (e.g. C:\Windows\System32).

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Solid state drive pricing dropped 38% in 2012

Solid state drives had a big year in 2012; not because of any controller breakthrough or performance barriers tackled but rather the fact that pricing dropped significantly over the past 12 months. Per gigabyte pricing for flash-based storage is still a great deal higher compared to spinning media but on average, you can expect to pay about a third less for an SSD now than you would a year ago.
The median price for a consumer-grade SSD last January was $1.64. By December 31, however, that figure had dropped to just $1.02 per gigabyte. Drives in the 240-256GB range saw the biggest price cuts, dropping a full 44 percent to only $0.83 per gigabyte as we waved goodbye to 2012

Midrange drives in the 120-128GB category nearly broke the sub-$1 per gigabyte mark as they fell 34 percent over the last 12 months. Surprisingly enough, drives with capacities of 40-64GB had the poorest showing of all. Said SSDs finished at $1.29 per gig, good for a 28 percent drop since the beginning of last year.

As the Tech Report points out, pricing on solid state drives fell for the first three consecutive quarters of 2012. Drive pricing leveled out and even rebounded in the fourth quarter. According to data from Camelegg, some drives saw a significant price increase during Q4. For example, OCZ’s Vertex 3 120GB drive shot up 53 percent, the Vertex 4 64GB drive increased 31 percent and the Vertex 3 240GB drive went up 28 percent.

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Facebook tries out yet another profile redesign

Facebook has begun rolling out a new Timeline layout which groups all your friends' public communiques on one side of the wall while other bits and pieces are locked to the other.

This makes the whole thing look a bit less 'timeline-y' but does mean a cleaner, easier to read layout without any danger of you missing anything on your own wall. Sorry, timeline. Thing. Whatever.

Wait a minute, you're thinking. This isn't a CES 2013 story! And you're right - we're as surprised to be writing it as you are to be reading it.

Image credit: The Next Web

Still, you can't get your hands on this new Facebook layout at the moment (unless you're in New Zealand) so it's got that in common with the majority of products announced at the Las Vegas techjaculation.
Speaking to The Next Web, a Facebook spokesperson explained that the company has "no other details to share right now" so whether this is a case of New Zealand getting a little trial that might go nowhere, or the shape of Facebook to come remains to be seen.

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LG Tab Book

This new hybrid is a cross over between a tablet and a ultrabook (like the name suggests). The LG Tab book H160 will have the following specifications – Intel Atom Z2760 Clover Trail processor, 2GB RAM, 64GB solid state disk, Intel core i5, 11.6 inch IPS display of 1366 x 768 pixels resolution, Bluetooth 4.0, HDMI output, a microSD card slot and USB port. Sounds pretty good.

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How To Turn Off Your Computer With Mobile Phone & E-mail

Using this method, a user can shutdown, restart, hibernate, etc., your computer, simply send an email from your phone. To do this, all you need is Microsoft Outlook which should come with Microsoft Office, what most people have. This needs to be on the computer that would have shut down. So this is how you do it:

First, you need the batch files to perform the Shutdown, Hibernate, etc.. If you know you do not need to write down, if not you can download it  here.

You must extract the file to the C: drive, thus:  C: \ sms_functionsshutdown.bat (Important this is a must, the path must be exact), or you can modify the rule once you import it to point to the new destination, is your call. But I recommend leaving with is described above.

Open Microsoft Outlook. Make sure you've configured for your email. Now we have to make Outlook checks your inbox every minute (1 minute for testing time can be increased as desired). Go to Tools: Options .

Then click the Mail Setup , and then on the button Send / Receive .

Make sure that the Scheduler automatic send / receive is checked, and set the number of minutes interval. Now you can close all dialog boxes.

Now go to Tools: Rules and Alerts ... Then click the Options button in the upper right corner and press the Import Rules.

Now select the file shutdown.rwz that was found in the zip file you downloaded called sms_functions.

Now, when you send a message from your phone to your e-mail with the subject smsshutdown%% , your computer will shut down.

You can also make your own rule, so you can use your own batch file, and you can specify the phrase you want to trigger the action.

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