Using OpenOffice Writer as my Blogging Application

I don't know how many people are actually aware that you can actually use Microsoft Word as a blogging client, but apparently, you can also use OpenOffice as a weblog client when you use a little extension called Sun Weblog Publisher.

All you need to do is download the extension from Sun's website at : http://www.sun.com/software/staroffice/extensions.jsp#weblog

Then, once its on your hard drive, open it, agree to the liscence (after reading it of course) and install it. Then when you open OpenOffice Writer the next time, you'll see two new buttons as shown below:

Pretty cool huh? All this, for the price of 0 dollars – FREE!.

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Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Kwanzaa and Happy New Year!

Alright folks,

I would like to wish you all:

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Kwanzaa and Happy New Year! Please accept the greetings that apply to you ;) Also, I would like to mention here that as for my new years resolution - I don't have any!!! ;)

Cheers, take care and have fun!

Forever thine,

Rishi

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List of Websites for FREE math help, practice and tutorials!

Here’s a list of websites that are great for that additional math help anyone might need. I found then especially helpful last year when I was studying for my Math finals. Although these resources can’t really replace the experience you’ll gain by doing out the questions yourself, they will help you understand the concepts a little better.

Also, I must point out that the following resources will not replace friends and teachers that might be able to help you out. So use them only if it is truly necessary or just to review things you already know.

Yahoo Education Math - A great resource that covers all kinds of math topics from Grade 7 - Grade to Calculus. If you want to brush up on some math then this is the place you have to visit!

Purple Math - A website that’s great for help with topics that might be a little bit on the advanced side like Calculus and Functions. But nevertheless, they have lots of examples, illustrations and graphs that will help you better grasp the concepts. It even has a forums section where you can ask questions and get answers.

WebMath - A website that can not only teach you how to solve problems, but also help you solve them. Plus, it caters to many levels of math such as General Math, k-8 math, trigonometry and even calculus. A great resource.

Algebra Help - A site that has a huge list of algebra lessons, tips, help and much more. If you need some algebra help then this is the website you should visit.

MathForums - A great place to get help and even to solve their ‘problems of the week’ where they post a question every week or so, and you can try to come up with an answer for it.

Bonus: King’s list of On-line Math Activities - This website provides a great list of games that you can play to improve your mathematics skills. Although I must point out that it is all pretty basic math, but nevertheless you’ll definitely improve your skills or perhaps even gain a liking for math after playing these games.

Are there any other great math resources that you know of that might be beneficial to a student or an adult alike?

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Download the Photoshop CS4 alternatives for free!

Photoshop is expensive. With a copy of Photoshop running at $500+ (it's a bit cheaper if you buy the designer pack though...)... most people, especially students who want to learn Photoshop, feel like the only alternative to get it is to pirate it. But, the truth is, that doesn't always have to be the case. Just like a free alternative to Microsoft Word, there are several free alternatives to photoshop as well!

Most of these alternatives, look like photoshop, feel like photoshop and have tools that are similar to those found in photoshop. The only major difference is that these programs are free (or technically, donation ware)! So now, you don't have to illegally pirate photoshop... you can just use an alternative and reap the benefits of good karma. Here we go...

Free alternatives to Photoshop

GIMP (for Windows, Mac and Linux!)

The GIMP (which stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program) is probably the best known alternative for adobe photoshop. The GIMP runs on any platform and has almost the same features found in photoshop and then some! It has several filters that you can use to create things like image editing, banners, logos, greeting cards and whatever else you can do with photoshop with much less effort! Plus, it also supports .PSD file formats, so you can also edit Photoshop files through GIMP if you have any (which provides a great incentive to switch to GIMP).

To add to that, there are also several websites where you can learn how to use the GIMP to create magnificent art work that parallels that of artwork created in Photoshop. I must say here that, if you are very used to Photoshop, it will be definitely a little hard to switch at first, but soon you'll feel right at home with GIMP!

Bonus: You can also get a sort of modified version of GIMP called the GIMPshop, which like photoshop features a window like environment where you can edit things more easily. It also has tool names similar to that of photoshop to make it easier for a photoshop user. However, I personally find that just the usual GIMP is often good enough for me.

Paint.NET - Windows Only

Paint.NET is like Microsoft Paint's older brother and Photoshop's best friend. It has features that are comparable to Photoshop, but at the same time a smaller learning curve, because it looks like Paint! But don't be fooled by the interface, because inside, it's still a monster application that is capable of doing a lot more than just image adjustments and editing.

Not as Powerful free alternatives to Photoshop

Okay, yes, I know, there are only 2 alternatives to photoshop that I consider to be as good as photoshop... but the truth is - most people will never use all the features in Photoshop! I myself use only a few select features in Photoshop. So, naturally some simpler alternatives that are not as powerful might prove to be more useful to do something that you specifically want to do. Here's a little list (although I'm sure there are lots more out there):

Pixia (Windows) - Originally designed for Anima, it's a fairly useful tool for making prototypes of websites, logos and so on, but lacks the ability of being able to fix already existing pictures like Photoshop.

Krita (Linux) - Useful for basic editing without too much trouble. It's also good if you want to do something fast in Linux, as the GIMP might take a little more time to do it. Similarly, there is another tool called Xara Xtreme (or Xara Xtreme for Windows), that does the same things as Krita.

Seashore (Mac) - It has a toolbox that represents that of photoshop, and also several features that look like Photoshop. But it lacks features like filters and advanced abilities found in GIMP (although it is based on the GIMP).

PhotoFilTRE (Windows Only) - Good for basic adjustments to pictures and a few 'filters' here and there. Also useful for screenshots and so on, and adding basic text.

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Download Free Adobe Illustrator CS3 and CS4 Alternatives

Luckily, you don't have to spend a cent to use products that are just like Adobe Illustrator. In fact, there are several free alternatives that you can download free of cost (provided you have an Internet connection of course) and create art that is just as good if not better than the art you can create in Illustrator. Plus, there are several websites out there that have tutorials related to this software.

So, without further ado, here are some bad-karma free alternatives that you can use instead of Adobe Illustrator CS 4 or CS 3 or whatever version that you wanted to initially use.

Free alternatives for Adobe's Illustrator (or Vector editing software)

Note some of the software here is Linux only (yes, that's right, only runs on linux!) but fear not, take a look at my guide where I mention how to run Linux applications on Windows.

1. Inkscape (Windows, Linux, Mac) - Inkscape is a great piece of free and open source software that can do just about anything Illustrator can do. Bezier curves, typography, an infinite canvas, you name it. Although you will likely have to learn some new tricks and learn Inkscape from scratch if you're used to Illustrator, having free software that you can use whenever you want is always a good thing. It's also the only open source alternative that turns on any platform of your choice.


2. Skencil (Linux / Unix only) - While being Linux only, it is still a very powerful tool to help you create vector art. Check out the preview below! It comes with the Illustrator look and feel and also has similar features. Plus its free too! (well, actually, everything on this page is)



3. Xara LX (Linux only) - Linux only, but boy does it do interesting stuff. It has all the standard tools found in Illustrator, bezier curves and all and has the potential to produce great quality art. Definitely worth a look.


4. OpenOffice Draw (All platforms comes along with OpenOffice.org) - While most people don't find OpenOffice draw to be anything special, people who do not wish to spend the time on learning complex software like InkScape or Illustrator can still take advantage of a much simpler editing program. It's perfect for doing little posters, banners or greeting cards or something with a minimal amount of effort. And you can always save your stuff in a variety of formats.


5. Gimp - While GIMP is almost always known as a raster/bitmap imaging application, You can always still use it to do Illustrator like stuff, provided the factor of scalability that you need isn't as great and the art you are doing is somewhat simple.

There you have it, 5 great alternatives for illustrator, all freely available on the Internet. Also, if you are probably going to use the software for commercial uses, you might want to be kind and donate some money to the developers, however, downloading the applications (and... gasp... their source code!) is completely gratis (or free).

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The real way to clean up your Windows registry and make Windows Faster!

Have you ever heard of those applications that promise you that they can clean up your registry in only 1 click and make your computer run faster with only 1 use. Well, let me tell you why these applications don’t work and the real way to keep your registry clean and make sure your system works smoothly.

Why do those registry cleaners don’t work?

Well, the truth is, that the way the Windows registry is built, it’s impossible to find out which keys to delete and which keys to keep. Think of it this way:

You have a closet full of clothes. But this closet is really disorganized and you really want to organize the closet so that you can find your clothes much faster. So, you get someone else to clean up your closet. That someone else, doesn’t know who you are, what size clothes fit you best and what clothes you’d like to keep or what clothes you’d like to get rid of. Is it possible for that person to make your closet all neat and tidy? Not likely.

It is possible for the person to organize the closet, and get rid of clothes that are ripped and are out of fashion. But will that really guarantee that you can find the clothes that you want? Not really.

Registry cleaners work the same way. They get rid of keys that THEY think are of no use to the computer and try to optimize the registry. But that’s not really what the system wants. So, it’s impossible for you to buy or use a free registry cleaner and hope that your system will become faster.

Ok, so how can you really clean up your registry?

The truth is, you can’t really clean up your registry. Once you add information to the registry, it’s in there. There’s no way of getting rid of only the unnecessary information to keep the computer running smoothly. So if you uninstall an application and its registry information is left behind in the registry, most of it will remain in there… forever. Until you reinstall the whole operating system.

Therefore, the best way to keep a clean registry is -

1. Start off with a clean slate – reinstall the operating system all over again and start anew.

2. Keep it clean - If you can’t start off fresh with a new install at least don’t install any unnecessary applications that you know you’ll only use once. Just try to stay away from those applications. That’s the only sure fire way of keeping a clean registry.

Wait, so if I can’t use registry cleaners to keep my system fast, how can I make it fast?

Well, just because I’ve said here that you shouldn’t really use registry cleaners, it doesn’t mean that you can’t make your computer faster using other ways. There are many other sure fire ways to make your computer faster, that I’ve also mentioned in this blog several times. 5 ways to speed up Windows should be the place for you to start if you really want to speed up windows without messing it up.

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Backing up and restoring your Windows Registry

Well, it seems like I should have written this post a long time ago, before I published posts like:

10 Registry Hacks to Make Windows Faster, Free!

Make Microsoft Windows XP Passwords more secure

Enable/Disable low disk space error message in Windows

Free up disk space and get rid of junk on your PC

5 steps make Windows XP faster in 2 mins FREE!

A note on why you should back up

The registry in windows is like a set of configurable commands that tells the operating system (In this case Windows) what to do. As an administrator, you can ‘hack your registry’ by modifying these set of instructions to the operating system. However, you can also screw up the operating system because of ‘improper’ instructions. Therefore, its important to back up the set of instructions (or registry keys) to ensure that you can always restore them if you accidently change something. To read more about how to back up and why you should back up.. read on!

So, How do you back up your registry?

It seems as though when I say ‘BACK UP YOUR REGISTRY’ in a post, people are still unsure of how they could really back up their registry. Especially when I read comments like this one. Nevertheless, once you know how to back up your whole registry, reverting any changes made to it should be really easy.

First, in order to back up your registry, you have to open regedit. It’s short for registry editor. To do that:

1. Click on the start button and click on Run or simply press Windows Flag Key + R key together. This will open up the Run window (you might have to accept a UAC prompt to continue)
2. In the run box that pops up type in regedit like shown below
3.  
4. Then when the Registy Editor opens, click on File > Export,,, 
5. Type in a file name (I suggest you give it a date or a identifiable name.. like ‘BeforeRegistryHack-Dec11’ or something similar so you know the file that you’d have to use to restore your registry (more about how to restore your registry below). I recommend that you select All for most back-ups. But if you want to only restore a ‘part’ of the registry or only the keys that you are going to edit – choose Selected Branch. Of course, if you choose selected branch, you’ll have to navigate to that branch first by using the sidebar on the Reg edit window and then click File > Export….
6. 
7. Click on Save to export your file,
8. That’s it, you’ve just backed up your registry!

Restoring your backed up registry

How will you know when it’s time for restoring the backed up entries? Believe me, you’re system will refuse to do things correctly, crash all the time, slow down tremendously and might even start hanging all the time as well. You’ll certainly know when the registry entries are incorrect , because your system will start showing the symptoms above and start acting up right after you make a change to the registry. But no worries. Restoring your keys is even simpler.

1. First, find the file that you’ve hopefully saved before making the change.
2. Double click on it.
3. Say yes to the prompt that appears when Windows asks you if you really want to add the stuff to the registry.
4. Reboot your computer.

That’s it. Windows will now restore everything in the registry to how it was when you made the back up.

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Backing up and Downloading your PicasaWeb Pictures

I must mention here that I am not an avid PicasaWeb user (or even a Picasa user for that matter). But nevertheless, because this blog (or any new blogger blog for that matter) uses PicasaWeb to store all the pictures, I’ve found it necessary to brainstorm and research ways with which you can download and store the PicasaWeb albums for storage and backup purposes, onto your hard drive.


While doing so, I also realized that other people can download the pictures just as easily if your album is public, which I suppose serves as a warning for me to watch what I put on the Internet. Wouldn’t want that pic of me with a kilt circulating around after a couple of years!

Apparently, there are several ways that you can backup and download the information off of the PicasaWeb account. I’ll mention a few of them here:

Using Picasa (the software application) to download albums:

The most easiest method of all is to use Picasa to download zipped files of applications to your hard drive. But for now, Picasa is still a Windows or Linux app without any Mac support. So if you want to backup things on a Mac, you’ll have to use the solutions below.

Using other methods without installing Picasa (i.e. on a Mac!)

The DownThemAll Method

According to the GOS’s article on downloading picasa web albums without installing picasa they recommend using Firefox with the DownThemAll add-on. Then click on ‘RSS’ in the right hand column for the album you want to download, and right click on the RSS feed page, and click DownThemAll to download all the pictures in the album.

The Picasa Web Albums Assistant Downloader Method

In this method all you have to do is download the Picasa WebAlbums Assistant application created by a guy named Bradley Beach (who apparently wants to become a computer programmer), and the application will help you download whatever you need. The software is pretty simple and easy to use (well the guy created it for his dad... he had to make it user friendly!)
The Picasa Album Downloader does the same thing as well. Both applications run on Java, and need access through a firewall.

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A new easier way to back up your Blogger Blog

Today, while flipping through the settings page, I just noticed that Blogger has added a new option that allows you to back-up your posts. A while ago, I'd written about a little application for windows that allowed you to do the same. But now, thanks to blogger, there's no need for that. And, now, I can also backup my blog from my Mac.

Apparently, all you need to do now, is go to the Settings tab and click on Export Blog to save your blog posts to a file on your desktop. Then, if you want to restore a back-up to your blog all you do is click on 'Import files' on the same Settings page and choose the file from your desktop when Blogger asks you which file you want to backup.

Simple enough, but that still doesn't take care of backing-up pictures that I post to the blog. I suppose that's probably because Blogger now uses Picasa web. But nevertheless, my article on downloading PicasaWeb Pictures(and in the process... backing up Picasa web pictures) should be enough for backing up the pics on my Picasa account.

Nevertheless, I still find that blogger has several features that have been missing for centuries, because the Blogger team has paid no attention whatsoever to them. Most of them deal with the posting interface. And I'll be sure to rant about that in a later post. But for now, I'll just stop here and savour this moment.

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Use Active Screen Corners for increasing productivity on a Mac and Linux

One thing I love about Macs (and now also in new Linux distros) is that they are filled with all kinds of productivity features. Apart from the fact that it doesn't need constant updating and anti-virus checks, it also has a great little feature called Active Screen Corners. If you've never used this before, then here's how it works.

Once the feature is turned on (instructions on how to do that below...), you can move your mouse to one corner of the screen (be it the upper right hand corner, or the bottom right hand corner) and have your mac do pre-programmed tasks.

For example, in my case, I have the lower left corner set as my 'Expose' corner. So if I want to activate expose all I need to do is move my mouse over to the bottom left corner and it's does the same thing as pressing the F9 button. So instead of searching around for a keyboard shortcut or a button, you can simply move your mouse to one corner. This is much more efficient, faster and might save you some repetitive strain injuries as well.

In this post I'll only provide instructions for how to enable and play around with the active screen corner feature on a Mac. However, there are several other posts/articles/books/manuals out there that deal with how to do the same thing on Linux. But at this moment, I don't have linux installed on any of my machines, nor do I remember how to set the feature.

Anyway:

Enabling Active Screen Corners on a Mac

1. Click on the Apple Button at the top left hand corner of the screen and click on 'System Preferences...'
2. Click on Expose and Spaces (or just Expose if you're on Tiger)
   
3. Switch to the Expose tab if you aren't already in it.
4. Under Active Screen corners - choose your settings. (Each drop down list refers to one corner.... so if you move your mouse to that corner, the computer will perform those tasks)
   
5. Once you are done simply close the System Preferences Window

For your reference, here's what the 'different wording' on the options mean.
All Windows - Does Expose
Application Windows - Does the same thing as F10 where it only performs Expose on Application Windows
Desktop - Shows the Desktop
Dashboard - Shows the Dashboard
The other options like 'Start Screensaver' or 'Sleep Display' are pretty self explanatory.

I must mention here that I've been searching for the 'Sleep Display' option for a while, because I like to turn off the display to save power when I'm still using my computer (for tasks like listening to music) on the go... or when I'm trying to sleep with my mac turned on. So having that as an Active Screen Corner is awesome too.

That's it. Enjoy the new productivity! And believe me, its really handy when you have a bazillion windows on the desktop.

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Installing and uninstalling fonts on a Mac

Just like the article about installing and removing fonts on Windows, this is a little note about how to install or uninstall fonts on Macs. Not only that, but I'll also talk about some problems that might appear while installing fonts on a mac. (Psst... if you don't know where you can find some fonts for your Mac and PC try the Excellent sites for free Windows and Mac fonts post!)

First, the easy part:

Installing fonts on a mac

1. Find some fonts (if you don't have any try this post)
2. Double click on the font file
3. Click on the install button

Viola, you're done! That's all there is to installing fonts on a mac. Pretty simple huh? Well, truth be told uninstalling is just as easy.

Uninstalling or Disabling fonts on a Mac

1. First open Font Book (This is usually in your Applications folder so go to Applications and click on FontBook, you can also press Cmd + SpaceBar and search for FontBook in spotlight..)
2. Select the font you want to uninstall, right click and click on either Disable the font, to just disable the font (i.e. unload the font from the system but still retain the files) or remove the font completely (i.e. send the font files to the trash).
   
3. I'd recommend that you simply disable the font because I often find my self searching for a font that I removed completely. But if you're absolutely certain that you won't require the font in the future, then go ahead and delete the font.
   
4. If you do choose to 'Remove the font' then you'll have to say 'Remove' when your Mac asks you if you REALLY want to trash the font files.
   

Then, Empty Trash if necessary to completely remove the font files from your system.

Now for some font installation problems on a Mac.

Help, the font preview doesn't look right and when I install the font it doesn't work!

Well, when the font preview doesn't look right, and it font refuses to install properly, then the font you are trying to install is most likely a Windows font. I've had this happen to me a couple of times and I've realizes that Windows and Mac fonts aren't exactly the same thing... apparently. So first, right click on the font file and click 'Get Info'.

Then verify if the details of the file says Windows font. If it does say 'Windows' font like shown below, then it won't work on your mac.

So if it says Windows TrueType font, it won't work correctly on your mac. That's all there is to it.

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Excellent sites for free Windows and Mac fonts

Perhaps you too have dreams of becoming a graphic designer, like me. May be you just need to get your hands on some fonts that'll help you finish up the project you're working on. Sounds easy enough. But the truth is that although fonts are taken for granted, creating fonts take a lot of time. Generally, they also cost a whole lot of money.
Often, creating fonts is a specialized field and to get your hands on certain types of fonts can mean a lot of money. Plus, if you use a font illegally (without their permission) in your work, and the original designer finds out, you'll probably find yourself in a lawsuit pretty soon.

But there are a couple of sites out there that do allow people to download fonts for free, without having to purchase them. The terms are different for each site, but most likely you wont be able to include them in any commercial work. Nevertheless, you can still download them and play around as you wish.

Of course, if you don’t know how to install or remove these new fonts then you can refer to the ‘installing and removing fonts on windows’ article for windows, and 'installing and removing fonts on Mac’ article for Macs.

Excellent sites for Windows and Mac fonts

1. Smashing Magazine – Smashing magazine has a huge collection of links to websites that have some excellent free fonts. Although they do occasionally post about ‘expensive and professional’ fonts for professional graphic designers, the amount of free fonts on their website far surpasses the amount of article about paid fonts.

2. Urban Fonts – Urban fonts is also a great website to get all sorts of free fonts. Although, I must mention here that these fonts are not always the best fonts to use in your designs because I find that they are not designed ‘perfectly’ like most professional fonts out there. Still, its a great website, and definitely a one worth checking out for more fonts.

3. Font Space – Just like Urban fonts, font space also has a lot of great fonts, especially a long list of display fonts that you can use in your projects. According to their website they have 9487 free fonts at the moment.

4. Dafont.com – Dafont also has a great variety of fonts for both the windows and mac platforms. Although their website does look a little dated, and their search feature isn’t as good as I’d like it to be.

Although there are more resources out there, these are by far the only ones I use. In my opinion typography is all about using type effectively, and as long as you have the basic repertoire of sans serif, serif and a few display fonts here and there, you’re work will be stunning every time.

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Installing and removing Fonts on Windows

Windows today has many more fonts that it originally had. Instead of just blobs of aliased text on the screen, windows now comes with several different serif (fonts like Times New Roman and Baskerville), sans-serif (fonts like Microsoft Sans Serif and Arial) and even some display fonts (those fancy fonts that don’t fit into either category). But if you want more fonts on your computer, how can you install them? (Psst… If you don’t know where to find some awesome new fonts for your computer try: Excellent sites for free Windows and Mac fonts)

Here’s how:

Installing or remove Fonts on Windows (The Windows Vista Method will be shown in the screenshots, although I’ll also talk about the Windows XP method)

The Windows Vista Method:

1. Click on Start and Click on Control Panel
2. Type in Font in the search box (like shown below)
3. 
4. Click on Install or remove a font
5. Once you do that, the Fonts window will open. Then, just drag and drop the font file that you want to add to your computer. For example,I have a font that I`d like to install called Whitney, so I`m going to drag and drop that file into the Fonts window.
6. 
7. If you don`t know where you can get some fonts, take a look at my list of `font websites`.
8. If you want to delete a font simply click on the font name in the Fonts folder and press delete, doing so will automatically send the font to your recycle bin and it will never appear in any of the font lists in applications.

The Windows XP Method:

The XP method is pretty much the same, except the way to reach the folder is through clicking Start, then Control Panel, then, clicking Fonts (if you don’t see fonts when you open Control Panel, then Click on ‘Switch to Classic View’ in the left hand side of the window. Then just follow the same procedure as above to drag and drop fonts to install and delete fonts to remove the fonts from the system.

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How to 'steal' custom emoticons in MSN Messenger

Have you ever experienced the urge to have your own assortment of custom emoticons from which you can use the perfect smiley for the perfect moment? Well, if you're lucky enough that your friends use MSN/Windows Live Messenger, which also means you most likely live in Canada, you can use custom emoticons as well as steal them! Technically, all you are doing is downloading an animated GIF that your friend sends you when they use the emoticon. You can then use this emoticon in your own conversations. Gradually, as you start collecting more emoticons, you'll find that you have your very own 'custom smiley emoticon pack thingy'! Here's how you can do this:

It's pretty simple actually!

Finding the perfect emoticon to steal

First, your friend needs to send you a custom emoticon. In order for your friend to send you that custom smiley/emoticon they ought to have downloaded that from elsewhere and uploaded to their messenger installation, on their computer. Anyway, once they send it to you, all you need to do is add that emoticon.

Adding the emoticon to your library

To add the emoticon, simply right click and click on add. This will store the emoticon on your own computer, and then you can use it in a conversation with someone else. You can also assign your own shortcuts to the emoticons and so on to make it easier for you to use that emoticon again.

Have fun stealing (and eventually sharing) custom emoticons. If your friends don't send you any custom emoticons, then consider downloading free emoticon smiley packs instead of stealing em ;) !

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How long does it take you to put up a post?

Over the past few months I've realized that I haven't really posted a lot on this blog. Now, my reason for not posting too often is that my posts take too much time from my busy schedule. Instead of putting up quick and useless posts, I’d rather take some time, think the post through and only then post. I must admit that coming up with ideas to post about something is really easy, but when I really sit down to post something, I get lost in some kind of a ‘mind maze’ where I come up with other ideas for related posts.. and then start developing on those ideas.. and eventually the original idea bites the dust.

On average I’ve noticed that coming up with the idea of the post takes the longest, or at least it feels like the longest (but I often brainstorm for many ideas at one time like in 2 hours I’ll come up with 90 new ideas to blog about). Once I have a good thing to post about in mind however, writing up the post is only a matter of about 30 - 40 minutes depending on the intricacy of the post. If the post has a lot of explaining to do, and a lot of screenshots it often takes longer. Often when I have to test out my tutorials (yes I always test out all my tutorials on this site to make sure they are accurate) it takes even longer in the region of around 1 – 1.30 hours.

Luckily though, with better tools like Windows Live Writer and Screenshot Captor, I’ve decreased my time to about 1 hour per post. but even that time is hard to find these days. Plus, I have a super long list of things to post already, so I’d rather just post about those thing. But nevertheless, I’m curious – How long does it take you to post a post….

I realize that most of the people reading this blog are here for the tips and tricks that I occasionally publish. But then again it says on my FeedBurner list that I have about 150 subscribers… so I’m curious as to how many people blog.

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Use a free online virus scanner that won’t slow you down

A while ago, I wrote in my ‘5 steps to make Windows faster’ article that it’s better to stay away from anti-virus programs that constantly scan your computer just because its going to slow you down. Instead I recommended that you turn off the ‘heuristics scanning’ and only scan the files you think are a virus, so that your memory and CPU cycles won’t be taken up by the anti-viruses’ processes. But just now, it struck me, why use a virus scanner at all if you PC is always connected to the internet. Why not just us a online virus scanner, and not have any protection (with the exception of some ‘inbuilt’ tools like Windows Defender) at all. Using an online scanner will ensure that the database against which your file is being checked, is always going to be up to date, and plus it won’t slow down your computer, or even cause it (or other applications on your computer) to crash.

Now, before you start saying how important anti-virus applications are to keep your computer safe… I must say here that anti-virus is absolutely necessary, only if you don’t know what you are doing. If you DO know the way malicious pieces of software work, you probably won’t need any protection at all. So pretty much, if you were to rely on only an online scanner, you shouldn’t be visiting any ‘malicious’ websites (see phishing filter and protecting yourself from malicious websites for free post if you don’t know how to stop yourself from visiting these websites…), you most likely shouldn’t be visiting any bit torrent or private downloading website, and you mustn't open any ‘suspicious’ attachments or e-mails. But if you only use webmail, most web mail providers scan the attachment for your anyway.

Therefore, if you don’t do any of the things above, then you most likely don't NEED an anti-virus program at all, although it might always be a good idea to have it incase someone else using the computer doesn’t fit in the criteria listed above.

In my case, I’m the only one using my computer, so I don’t really have to worry too much about not having an anti-virus on my system. Plus, if I do receive any suspicious attachments and so on, I can always use the online antivirus. Anyway, using or not using anti-virus is completely up to you, but incase you do decide to sacrifice a little bit of security for a lot of speed (and stability) here are some good online antivirus scanners that I find work well (although there is no way in the world to ‘completely’ protect yourself from any malicious program that might be created this instant):

The list of free and recommended Online Virus Scanners

Kaspersky Online Virus Scan – There is a limit of 1MB for files that can be checked, but nevertheless, its fast and efficient. All you need to do is upload your file on their site, and they’ll check it for you. No ActiveX controls needed. The great thing I like about this is that it’s super fast because it’ll only check the files you upload to it – Not your whole system like the scanners below do.

BitDefender Online Scan – Free online scan. ActiveX controls needed. May take a while.

Symantec’s Scanner – Yes, I know. It’s Symantec. But its not necessarily a bad thing when the only thing you have to do is download a little ActiveX control.

ESET’s online scanner – A fast online scanner that does only what it’s supposed to. Again, ActiveX controls are necessary fot it to do its job.

Jotti’s Malware Scan – This is a scanner that claims to check your file against the databases of many anti-virus manufactures and has a 100MB file limit that you can upload to its database so that it can check your file. I wouldn’t recommend using this service, unless it is absolutely necessary (and the file you are checking doesn’t contain any personal information) just because is not a well renowned name in the security business.

Of course, there are others out there too, but I’ve never tested them out, so fell free to try out other options too and post about them in the comments.

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Internet Explorer Crashes All the Time

Recently, I noticed that whenever I used IE for browsing websites (just browsing… average websites without any extraneous java application or flash or any such thing), it just crashed all the time. I could have easily blamed IE for the crashes, but the thing that caused me to believe that it wasn’t IE’s problem was that this installation is only a couple of weeks old. Plus, when I used IE for a couple of times a while ago, it worked perfectly fine on the websites that tend to crash the browser right now.

The only thing that was different between the previous browser and the browser that I was using when it crashed was – add-ons. Naturally, add-ons that I was using (most of them from this post) were not developed by Microsoft, but by third party vendors. Unlike Firefox, I guess the add-ons actually make IE worse (because it crashed all the time) instead of making it better.

Anyway, How Did I fix the IE crashes?

Well, I could have disable all the addons but what I wanted to do first was to determine if IE crashed even without the addons. So I ran IE 7 without addons and saw what happened.

Naturally, the browser didn’t crash. So what I did next was I removed all inessential add-ons from the browser and tried using it again. And viola, no more crashes.

How did I remove the Addons?

Simple, first I recommend disabling the addons. To do that, open Internet Explorer. Then press the Alt key to reveal the menu bar. Then click Tools > Internet Options > Programs Tab > Manage Add Ons. Then Click on the addons that you most likely won’t use and just diable them for now. To disable an addon, click on its name, and in the options below click Disable. Like so:

Of course, you can only disable one addon at a time and check if that’s the add-on that is causing the problem But I’m too lazy to do that, so I just disabled all unimportant addons. Of course, after realizing that I rarely used most of the add-ons, I removed them completely through Control' Panel’s add or remove programs option.

That solved the crashing problem once in for all!

Is it a Vista Problem?

Interestingly enough, when I use all the add-ons on my Internet Explorer in Windows XP, it works perfectly fine. But for some reason, it crashes the browser in Vista. Perhaps, it’s vista’s fault then? I don’t know. But at least, IE doesn’t crash when I use it once in an blue moon.

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Boost Productivity by opening applications faster with Launchers

  We all know that the start menu can be used to open an application or start a process. Even fewer of us know about using the run menu to start a program. But do you know about applications like Launchy or Enso that can change your life? If you’re using Windows (especially if you’re still using XP), then one of the things that should be on your computer right now is launchy. If you’re using a mac then try quicksilver or just plain ol’ spotlight. You can take a look at this wikipedia article that mentions a whole lot of other similar programs that do the same thing.

But, I guess you’re wondering, why use a program like this at all? Isn’t it just easier to find the program in the start menu? Good question. Lets look at a couple of factors here that will help you pick launchy or other similar things over the start menu.

Find and open things faster

First off, the thing you have to do with the start menu, or even on the dock, is find your application. If its not one of the most used applications then it’s probably not even in your quick launch bar or your dock. So you’ll have to spend atleast 5 seconds of your precious time, searching for the application you want. Then, you’ll have to wait for another 10 seconds for the application to open.

But wait, you know what the application is called, right? Why not just type in the first few characters of the application and press enter, and let another application open the application for you? That’s exactly want Launchy does.

Let’s say you want to open Microsoft Word. Now, assuming that you know how to spell ‘word’, all you have to do is press Alt+Spacebar, and type in Word. Launchy will automatically detect that you want to open Microsoft word, and it’ll show the word icon. Then, you just press enter to open the application you want. This even works for bookmarks, or even documents if you tell launchy that you want to index ‘.doc’ and ‘.ppt’ files and so on.

Clearly, Launchy helps you open your document or application in 1 second instead of 5 seconds.

Remove the Middle Man (or extra unnecessary steps)

Say you want to search for ‘beyond teck’ (yes, that’s the name of this blog, by the way) on Google. What you would naturally do is, Open Firefox > Click in the Firefox Search Bar > Type in ‘beyond teck’ > Press Enter and only then you’ll be presented with a screen with all the list of search results.

Wouldn’t it just be easier for you to open launchy > type in your search query and get a list of search results in a browser?

Of course, searching through launchers does take a bit of practice (and a bit of manual reading), but its super simple, and super fast. So why use the browser method when launchy (or other such launching applications) is better?

Plug-ins and expandability

Many application launchers are not just limited to doing the tasks they were initially built to do. There are several plug-ins out there that add more functionality to the original application and make it better and much more useful.

For example, with the runny plugin for launchy, you can create your own batch files (more about that later) and run it through launchy. But that’s just one example, there are several other plugins out there for various other launchers.

 

Its rather clear here that using an application launcher is going to improve your productivity and save you a lot of hair pulling.

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Cool yet helpful tricks on Windows XP or Vista

Yes, that’s right this article is going to be all about how to “show off your awesome uber cool windows skills”. Or in other words how to ‘look like a pro’ even if you aren’t one. And yes, I’ve compiled this list from actual videos of Microsoft employees (from Channel 9 if you’re interested) who seem to be every windows/microsoft/computer loving kid’s idols. Also, doing the following tricks might get you the nickname of ‘the smarta**” around your workplace/class, so user beware. Jokes aside, some of the tips below are actually somewhat helpful (especially using the command prompt tip) and can greatly improve your productivity on the computer.

The open using the ‘Run’ window trick

Well, when you think about it there are a bazillion ways of opening an application on windows. You can click on its icon in the desktop… click on the systray icon if (provided the application has a systray icon), you use the start menu, you can even use a program like Launchy/Enso that can open the application. But… have you ever used the run menu? Here, let me illustrate:

Once you confirm that you have admin access (which pretty much rules out any workplace/school or even home setting where you don’t have admin access) just press Windows key + R key. The run menu will pop-up. Then type in the name of the application that you want to open (as shown in the picture below) and press enter. Here’s a quick list of the applications you can type:

iexplore to open Internet Explorer

winword to open Word | powerpnt to open PowerPoint | excel to open Excel | outlook to open Outlook

firefox to open Firefox

you get the idea…

The close a windows by double clicking on its icon in the title bar trick

If you double click on the icon of an application in the taskbar, it closes the application or window. Try it. It even works on windows like an explorer, that doesn’t have a icon.

Maximize the browser window to full screen

This is a trick that pretty much every windows nerd MUST know. Just press F11 in a browser (be it IE or Firefox) and it’ll go full screen as shown in the screenshot below.

Use edit.com instead of Word or Notepad

If you really want to push the limits and show how really geeky you are, try showing off the cool ‘edit.com’ (no, its not a website, its a component that used to be in windows… and still is 30 years later) screen. Just press the Windows + R key and type in edit and press enter. The following screen should pop-up making your computer look like a prehistoric MS-DOS computer (minus the Microsoft bob of course).

Use the Command Prompt

Finally, nothing is as nerdy as using the command prompt to do something ‘cool’. Familiarize yourself with these command prompts and you’ll soon find your self as the top nerd of the jungle.

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Microsoft’s Phishing Filter?

What is Microsoft’s Phishing filter, and why does it keep popping-up at the most random of times?

Well… the first question, I can answer. But for the second part – I have no idea.

As you can see from the screenshot above, the message is about Microsoft’s Phishing Filter. However I already set the settings for the phishing filter when I first started Internet Explorer, why is IE asking me the same question again? Does that mean that the phishing filter wasn’t on even when I told IE to turn it on the first time? Honestly, I don’t know.

However, after some “fishing” around, I have gathered this information:

As an aside, I have no clue what the screenshot below is all about, rather interesting don’t you think?

Anyway, What is the Phishing Filter?

Well, pretty much what phishing means is trying to ‘fish’ for information illegally. For example, if I create a website that is going to fraudulently make you give me your credit card number/password or other sensitive information, then that website is ‘phishing’ for your information. But the problem is, that these websites look so much like the real website, that its hard to figure out if its the real website or a phishing website. Plus, you might receive an e-mail from a person that you already know asking you to go to this website, making it look even more legitimate.

How can the Phishing Filter Help me?

What Phishing Filter does is lets you know when you are about to go a Phishing website, before you actually go to a website. It kind of acts like a shield, that protect you from identity thieves that want your information. Plus, all you need to do is allow it to check the website that you are visiting with a database, and the filter will do the rest. So its always a good thing to keep the filter on.

How do I Turn on the Phishing Filter?

Good question. Simply press Alt to reveal the menubar. Then go to Tools > Phishing Filter > Turn On Website Checking and viola.

What about unsafe websites, does the Phishing Filter help me from that?

As far as I’ve figured out, the phishing filter doesn’t really protect you from a really malicious website. Nor does any other kind of software out there. There are pieces of software that come close, like McAfee site advisor and Open DNS (read my article on Malicious Website here) that help you steer clear of bad sites on the internet, but none of these solutions are highly effective. Why? Because the internet is constantly changing, and if someone uploads a malicious site right this instant, chances are that Site Advisor or Open DNS don’t know about it yet. So the best way to protect yourself is always to exercise caution. A little common sense can help sometimes.

Would someone really ask you to type your credit card number so that they can ‘verify’ its really you and not delete your account. Nope. So sometimes, just knowing about certain things help. Nevertheless, using Site Advisor and Open DNS is a good idea – just incase.

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Protect yourself from Malicious Websites for free

The internet is a place where you can find a plethora of information on topics that you never really knew existed. At the same time, its a place where you can talk to your friends across the globe and see pictures. But, what most people forget is – just like the real world, the internet can sometimes be really bad. It’s full of identity thieves and malware, that can catch you at anytime, and its also full  of malicious websites (not to mention inappropriate websites as well) that can always harm you or your family in some way or the other.

But fear now, there is light at the end of the tunnel. There are 2 great pieces of software out there that everyone can use for FREE to make sure that you never visit or come across such websites.

Option 1: OpenDNS

OpenDNS is a great way to protect yourself (did I mention its also (kind of) a way to improve your internet connection speed) and maybe even your family from malicious and inappropriate websites with their webcontent filtering system. Instead blocking any kind of malicious website, it will give you the option of what you’d like to block. I must mention here that you will need some tech knowhow to configure your internet connection to use OpenDNS, but their helpful guide makes it easy for everyone to use it.

Option 2: Use McAfee Site Advisor

Site advisor is great for people who often search for things on search engines. Instead of accidently going to a bad/evil/phishing web page, Site Advisor will let you know beforehand so that you can ignore the option from the list of search queries. Even if you accidently stumble upon a website that might infect your computer it’ll still let you know.

Although there are 2 options, I recommend that it is best to use both of them in tandem, because unlike an anti-virus the more protection you have, the more you can prevent malware from infiltrating your computer. Also in the case of phishing attacks, I recommend common sense.

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5 steps make Windows XP faster in 2 mins FREE!

If  know you are going to be stuck with XP for a while (which is actually a good thing since vista isn't better anyway), then why not speed up Microsoft's uber slow Windows XP?

Here we go:

How to speed up windows XP in 2 minutes!

(Note: Well, technically, you'll be able to speed up your computer n 3 minutes once you read ALL the information on this page, and the information on the other pages this page links to - it is always important to read instructions,  especially when

they can harm your computer, and remember ABC - Always Backup Computers!)

Step 1

Implement the registry tweaks mentioned in the speed up XP post. It is filled with tweaks that are going to make your computer faster. Don't worry.. it's not a virus or a malicious file, unless you don’t read the instructions.

Step 2

Disable worthless fading effects and the regular flashy theme in Windows XP, see the Sysfader article (you might have to scroll down a little) on how to do it.

Step 3

Defrag, defrag, defrag, and use Disk Clean/Crap Cleaner to free up some space on your hard drive! Need I say more?

Step 4

Keep your computer up to date and make sure you download the latest service packs and other little security updates to ensure your computer is performing at its best. Often (but most certainly not always!), when you apply a new service pack and so on, it’ll improve the speed of your computer greatly.

Step 5

STAY AWAY from memory eating processor intensive Anti-Viruses! This means no Norton/Symantec or McAfee or even things like AVG that scan your computer regularly.

Using processor intensive anti-virus programs (that have heuristics enabled) can actually slow down your computer tremendously, and its best to stay away from these programs. If you already have these programs installed, find out how to disable their heuristics (or constantly checking files for viruses) feature. Of course, disabling this feature means that it’s much easier for you to download a virus and accidently run it, but it’ll make your computer MUCH faster. The only side effect is that you’ll have to scan every suspicious file manually before opening it. 

If you do all the steps mentioned above (remember it’ll only take you 2 minutes to do it, once you know what to do!) it’ll ensure a speedy windows computer and a happy life. Okay, may be not the happy life, but at least your computer will be much faster.

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Use Windows Live Mail or Hotmail with Outlook 2007 or 2003

Now, you don’t need to have a Hotmail Plus account to use your free Windows Live Mail or Hotmail (or even MSN) e-mail account with either Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007. All you need to do is download and use Microsoft’s Outlook Connector to start taking advantage of your Hotmail account in Outlook.

Setting it up is pretty straight forward, and once you set it up, you’ll never have to log into your hotmail account again to see those annoying little ads and face the slow interface.

According to Microsoft, you can do the following with Outlook connector:

With Outlook Connector, you can use Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007 to access and manage your Windows Live Hotmail or Office Live Mail accounts, including e-mail messages and contacts for free! Calendar, tasks and notes synchronization are not available on all services. If your service offers calendar synchronization, tasks and notes will synchronize as well. See the feature list for your service for details.
Outlook Connector enables you to use your Live Hotmail accounts within Outlook:

• Read and send your Office Live Mail/Windows Live Hotmail e-mail messages.
• Manage your Live Mail Contacts.
• Use advanced options for blocking junk e-mail messages.
• Manage multiple e-mail accounts in one place.

With a paid subscription, Outlook Connector enables these additional features:

• Manage, share, and synchronize your calendar in Hotmail from Outlook.
• Access your Tasks and Notes.

Not bad for a free e-mail account. However, there are a few things that I don’t like about this outlook connector thing. What it does essentially is pair up your hotmail and your other POP accounts together if you have more than one account (may be there is an option to turn this off… but I haven’t yet discovered this). So if you receive an e-mail in your POP account inbox, Outlook Connector will automatically upload a copy of the e-mail to your hotmail account. This of course is rather annoying for a person like me who likes to stay organized…

Speaking of staying organized, more on that coming soon. I feel as though I have way to many e-mail accounts and operating systems containing bits and pieces of my work here and there that I need to somehow come up with the ‘ULTIMATE’ solution to reduce the time I spend finding my stuff and sending a little e-mail.

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Free software to take better Windows Screenshots – Screenshot Captor

Sure, print screen is alright, but sometimes you just need something more when you’re taking screenshots. This could be the cursor, delaying the time between the screenshot, an arrow pointing to a button or even a helpful note to accompany the screenshot. Obviously, the default Print Screen button in windows doesn’t support all this, nor does the Snipping Utility in Windows Vista. However, there is one piece of completely free software that does help you take great screenshots.

It’s called Screenshot Captor, and although you do have to register to get a licence key (that expires after a while, but you can get a new one for free), it is completely free. Technically, its donation ware, but it’s a great idea to pay the author for creating such a marvellous screenshot tool.

According to the makers of the tool, the software has the following capabilities:

• Optimized for taking lots of screenshots with minimal intervention.
• Smart auto naming of files, and ability to embed textual comments in files.
• Good multi-monitor support.
• Highly configurable to make it work the way you want it to; stays out of your way in the system tray.
• Lots of capture modes: Multimon (multiple monitors), Desktop, Active Window, Region, Windows Object. Each mode has a hotkey for quick access.
• Unique Cool Effects, including automatic active window enhancement (see pictures below).
• Unsurpassed support for 3rd party user configurable tools, including file browsers and image editors; extend the program to do whatever you need by interfacing it with other programs.
• Slimline sidebar file browser provides full shell operations.
• Optional automatic image file versioning.
• Seamless integration with Unicode Image Maker tool.
• Automatically finds boundaries of non-rectangular/themed windows.
• Auto scroll capture for windows too big for screen.
• Deluxe thumbnail maker.
• Quick Post Capture Popup Dialog.
• Quick Screenshot Emailer Menu.

As you can see, you will soon start using this as a tool to take all the screenshots you need and also start annotating your pictures more. This tool combined with Windows Live Writer, which I like by the way, is great for any blogger who wants to write tutorials.

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Google Search has another new feature - SearchWiki

I just noticed today that Google has added a rather interesting feature that allows people to sort their search results as they like. Instead of just showing a static list of search results, users that are logged into Google can now interact with the results. Apparently, from what I can tell so far, the users can promote search results to a higher rank, delete search results from the list and even leave comments about search results.The little icons that appear beside the search results I guess are Google's way of using the people to improve their searches. For example, if you click on the chat icon, you can leave a comment that becomes public. I don't know if having public comments by all sorts of random people is a good thing or not, but it sounds cool anyway. 

Plus, getting rid of search results is a feature that I feel is going to be quite useful when people use the I'm feeling lucky button. Since the I'm feeling lucky button takes you to the top result, you can simply 'configure' the top search result to reflect the website you want to come first.

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Fox it PDF Reader better than Adobe Acrobat Reader?

Lets face it, PDFs are a part of life. With so many different file formats around, one format that has continued to stay with us is the PDF. They are essential to create many things such as forms, documents that need to preserve their formatting, and presentations that also need to retain their formatting. However, using Adobe Reader to open these PDFs is no doubt a pain. It's bulky, slow and inefficient. So, why not switch to a better and lighter alternative?

Enter Foxit PDF Reader:
As the website says, the PDF reader has several advantages over Adobe's Acrobat Reader.

* Incredibly small: The download size of Foxit Reader is only 2.55 M which is a fraction of Acrobat Reader 20 M size.
* Breezing-fast: When you run Foxit Reader, it launches instantly without any delay. You are not forced to view an annoying splash window displaying company logo, author names, etc.
* Annotation tool: Have you ever wished to annotate (or comment on) a PDF document when you are reading it? Foxit Reader allows you to draw graphics, highlight text, type text and make notes on a PDF document and then print out or save the annotated document.
* Text converter: You may convert the whole PDF document into a simple text file.
* High security and privacy: Foxit Reader highly respects the security and privacy of users and will never connect to the Internet without users' permission. While other PDF readers often silently connect to the Internet in the background. Foxit PDF Reader does not contain any spyware.

So try the Foxit PDF reader today, and you'll definitely like it.

If you're on a Mac, of course, you'll want to use Preview.app, which does pretty much the same thing. It also helps you reduce the file sizes of large pdf files, which of course is a plus if you don't have the $1000 Adobe Acrobat application.

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