From The Tips Box: Windows Explorer Sorting, Linux Package Managers

Readers offer their best tips for sorting files in Windows Explorer, managing gift card balances, and speeding through Linux installations.

Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favourites. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments or send it using the contact tab on the right.

Lesser-Known Explorer Views Make Browsing Certain File Types Easier

Moon shares a few handy views for Windows Explorer:

Windows 7 Explorer has a way of arranging file groups and types I hadn’t appreciated until lately, e.g. in a folder of pictures. From the View menu, or by right-clicking, choose:

1. Group by Type (Descending)
2. Sort by Date (Descending)
3. View as List

It looks like this when I’m done.

Most recently added or modified files are seen first (to the left), and folders to the far right — again, based on date. A personal preference. You can change it of course.

If you change the View from List to an icon view, the arrow keys will not only let you navigate files (in this case, pics) but will also let you show and hide groups, based on the criteria you chose earlier. See an example of this above, where folders and PNGs are collapsed and JPGs are visible.

Also, if you’re in a view such as List, a tap of the right or left arrow keys will get you around the different groups. Try it out if you haven’t already.

This could be pretty useful when you’re organising your documents folder, or just wading through large groups of files.

Stop Linux Package Managers From Confirming Installations

KatsumeBlisk shares a command line flag to speed up installations in Linux:

Kind of a simple tip, but it can help a lot especially with shell scripting. If you want to install packages in Linux without hitting yes after the command, use the -y flag. This won’t work for all package managers, but I can confirm apt and yum work. Just type apt-get install -y and it’ll install the package without asking for permission. (It’ll still ask for a password if you use sudo). This makes it easier for shell scripting especially since you don’t have to sit and wait for the script to load to start the installations if you’re doing it on a lot of machines.

Undecim adds that for Arch Linux, our other favourite distro, you can add --noconfirm to ignore the confirmations.

Use Dropbox Automator to Send Items to Your Kindle

Harry Guinness lets us know another way to forward reading material to your Kindle:

I was Googling to see if Amazon’s Send to Kindle App was available for Mac yet (it isn’t) and I remembered a service mentioned here that I wanted to try out: Dropbox Automator. I realised I could achieve the same thing with it.

I set up a Watch Folder called Send to Kindle and when I add a file to it, Dropbox Automator automatically emails it to my @free.kindle.com email address. This makes Amazon’s conversion tool do the work and I end up with the file automatically emailed to my Kindle!

Photo by The Approximate Photographer.