How to stop the research pane from popping up in Outlook 2010

Press Alt-F11 to bring up the VB code editor
Press Ctrl-G to go to the immediate window (executes code as you type it)
Enter these commands to

1)verify research is enabled,
2)disable the research pane and
3)confirm it's now disabled

msgbox(Application.ActiveWindow.CommandBars("Research").Enabled)
Application.ActiveWindow.CommandBars("Research").Enabled = False
msgbox(Application.ActiveWindow.CommandBars("Research").Enabled)

source

Win7 forcing sync folders offline

Maximum PC Guides article on forcing your Win7 Sync'd folder to work offline while connected to the network. This is a great way to boost performance if, for example, you're connected to VPN on the other side of the country just so you can get to a NAS down the street from your house.

Disable AutoRecover in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio

Found here, disabling AutoRecover in SSMS: Just geeks: Disable AutoRecover in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio. This is the path for SQL Server 2005 Management Studio. I confirmed just a slight tweak is necessary for 2k8 and also show how to do it in Powershell:

PS C:\> cd hkcu:
PS HKCU:\> cd '.\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Shell\General\AutoRecover'
PS HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Shell\General\AutoRecover> Set-ItemProperty . -name 'AutoRecover Enabled' -Value 0
PS HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Shell\General\AutoRecover> Set-ItemProperty . -name 'AutoRecover Always Enabled' -Value 0
PS HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Shell\General\AutoRecover> Get-ItemProperty .

Powershell splatting

This article from the Windows Powershell Blog does a great job of elegantly explaining splatting in both V1 and V2. An even more condensed set of examples:

V1 example (splatting a switch is the gotcha here)

Test-FunctionCall -stringArg:$stringArg -switchArg:$switchArg;

V2 example

Test-FunctionCall @psBoundParameters;

FreeBSD on laptops

FreeBSD on laptops: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/laptop/article.html

FreeBSD stop SendMail "My unqualified host name" warnings

This Discussion on Nabble explains how to stop the "My unqualified host name" error on FreeBSD installations. This will happen by default if you're setting up a FreeBSD machine you don't give a fully qualified hostname at installation time, e.g. mycomputer.google.com. To fix, edit /etc/rc.conf and add this line:

sendmail_enable="NONE"

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Updated (better) option #2

This FreeBSD mailing list message mentions being able to change your hostname by editing the hostname value in the same file. Looking at /etc/hosts, it occurred to me the problem may simply be that I picked the wrong name (netbook) for my machine not intended to be out on the internet by itself. Changing /etc/rc.conf's hostname line to read:

hostname="localhost"

allowed me to clear the error message without turning off SendMail.