Advanced Query Syntax (AQS) is not powerful enough!

Windows 7 came with a nifty feature called AQS which allowed users to search files and folders based upon rules and expressions.

This functionality was extended to Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, where the syntax and concept have remained intact.

Compared to regular expressions, AQS have yet to realise its "Advanced" claim, and should really fashion itself as the "Basic Query Syntax (BQS)".

Consider this scenario. I have a list of archives that I want to search through on my computer. These archives have a specific naming structure, 01-01-01 Archive.rar, 02-01-01 Archive.rar, 03-01-01 Archive.rar... Basically following the pattern of "DD-MM-YY Name.rar"

With "AQS", you're allowed to use the AND and OR operators, where to achieve searching the said files, you could hypothetically do something like: (0 or 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 or 9) and (0 or 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 or 9) * type:.rar

Well.. This worked in Windows 7. But, since Windows 8.1 is the trend now, I updated my computer and found out that it no longer worked.

The question to be asked. Is why is it so complicated to search numbers in the first place?

• (0-9) and (0-9) * type:.rar
• [0-9] and [0-9] * type:.rar
• title:(0-9) and (0-9) * type:.rar
• title:[0-9] and [0-9] * type:.rar
• (0-9)(0-9) * type:.rar
• [0-9][0-9] * type:.rar
• (0-100) * type:.rar
• [0-100] * type:.rar
• title:(0-100) * type:.rar
• title:[0-100] * type:.rar

All do not work...

With regular expressions, the following works fine:

However, the same regular expression fails completely in Windows 8.1...

The best solution that I could come up to solve my problem was to use the following AQS query: ("00" OR "01" OR "02" OR "03" OR "04" OR "05" OR "06" OR "07" OR "08" OR "09" OR "10" OR "11" OR "12" OR "13" OR "14" OR "15" OR "16" OR "17" OR "18" OR "19" OR "20" OR "21" OR "22" OR "23" OR "24" OR "25" OR "26" OR "27" OR "28" OR "29" OR "30" OR "31")

Though, I guess when it comes down to it, this is just proof that the "Advanced Query Syntax" format is simply not powerful enough.

Location of agent.exe

If you're just using your computer and you run into a bit of lag whilst changing a song or while you're just browsing the internet, and open up task manager to investigate the issue, just to see a program called "agent.exe" hog some cpu.
Then the best way to solve this issue is to either uninstall DragonNaturally Speaking, or by taking the recommended route of blocking it within your Firewall...

The program can be found at these paths:

C:\ProgramData\FLEXnet\Connect\11\agent.exe
C:\Program Files\FLEXnet\Connect\11\agent.exe
C:\Program Files\Common Files\InstallShield\UpdateService\agent.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\InstallShield\UpdateService\agent.exe

Block those files from accessing the internet from your Firewall and you're all set... No more lag!

How to delete photos off an iPhone with Windows 7/8

If you own an iPhone or pretty much any iDevice and ever had a need to clear out the Photo Roll (also known as the "Photo App"), you might find that you're unable to delete everything off the phone at once though Apple's inbuilt app.

This is because you cannot directly delete folders, such as the "Camera Roll" fold off an iPhone, instead doing so individually.

To delete photos off an iPhone however, you first plug the device into a computer and delete photos in batch.

Which are the following steps:

1. Visit "My Computer"/"This PC".
2. Select the device of which you want to delete files from.
3. Navigate to the hard drive directory called "Internal Storage".
4. Navigate to the folder called "DCIM".
5. And there will be a collection of folders of which you would have to perform the step below in each and every one of them:
   • Press Control+A to select all the images from each of the folder and press the "Delete" key in order to delete them.

There is considerable benefit to using the baked-in method of deleting files of the iDevice as opposed to an external solution, as instead of having to rely on external software or software downloads alongside the hassle of spending money on spammy software, all the functionality that you require in order to delete photos are there on your computer already.

This technique works with the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPhone 5S, iPhone 5C, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus.

And also with the iPod Touch 2nd Generation, iPod Touch 4th Generation, iPod Touch 5th Generation

Alongside the Original iPad, iPad 2, iPad 3, The New iPad, The iPad Air, and the iPad Air 2.

Oh. And it's more obvious in Mac OS X: