Technology Notebook

20010419 Lockergnome Windows Daily Coming from Serdar Yegulalp's very awesome Windows 2000 e-mail newsletter (found at THEGLINE.COM), here's an awesome tip for instant shutdown gratification in (duh) Windows 2000. "To shut W2K down fast, hit CTRL-ALT-DEL, and then hold down the CTRL key while clicking the Shut Down button. You'll get a warning dialog: 'If you continue your machine will reboot and any unsaved data will be lost. Use this only as a last resort.' (They're not kidding) If you click OK, the system will reboot IMMEDIATELY -- no shutdown screen, no 'It is now safe to turn off your computer' splash. Upon rebooting, I found all was well, and the 'dirty' bit on my NTFS drives was not set, meaning that any pending writes to those volumes had been flushed." This technique is not recommended unless you're caught between a rock and a hard place. Still, for sticky situations, this click trick is quite slick.