Converting Adobe PDF Files to Text or HTML

Chances are that you come across a lot of PDF files everyday, at work, school or home. PDF (which stands for Portable Document Format by the way) files are great as they often preserve the formatting of the text even if you don't happen to have a font installed. They also preserve the layout and images in the document. Also, it's free to create PDF files from several applications like OpenOffice, Microsoft Office and you can usually even print web pages to a PDF file.

However, one big problem with a PDF file is that you need a PDF reader to view it. Although Macs, and GNU/Linux based PCs come with individual readers, and Adobe's reader is a free download for windows users, other platforms sometimes don't have readily available or free readers.


For instance, BlackBerrys, iPhones and many other portable devices don't have a full fledged PDF reader built in. So, ironically, the PDF file isn't so portable after all, since you're out of luck when it comes to a mobile device.

However, sometimes there are files where the content is more important than the layout, and the content is mostly text (like ebooks or project instructions or a letter). In such cases it is often more desirable to just have a text file or a html file instead.

Luckily, Adobe provides some really easy ways to convert the PDF documents.

Option 1: Email To convert a PDF to text, simply email the document to pdf2txt@adobe.com! After converting the document, the service will email you back with the text file attached. Similarly, you can also email a PDF to pdf2html@adobe.com and you'll receive a html file attached in the returned email instead.

Option 2: Online Link to the document Alternatively, if the document happens to be online, you can visit Adobe's online conversion tools page, and convert the documents from there.
This way, if it's something simple like a file full of text, you wont need a PDF viewer to view the information in it. Plus, if you happen to need raw data (for a program that you may be writing, say) from a PDF file, this in a great way to convert the file!

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New Blogger Feature: Stats

If there is one thing I like about the new blogger interface (check it out yourself if you happen to have a blogger account with a blog at drafts.blogger.com) it is most likely the site stats feature.


By leveraging the power of Google Analytics, and automatically tracking your blog (without you having to do any work by adding a code to your blog or something) I think blogger has created a tool that many people will find useful.

As you can see from the screenshots below, the tool by default shows several statistics that most people would care about in a much more relevant way. For instance, instead of showing the page that gets the most hits, it shows a post that gets the most hits, and even displays the number of comments for that post. It provides an overview, a breakdown of visitors by posts, a snapshot of traffic sources, and reader statistics like browsers, countries and operating systems.

The graphs provided by the tool seem to be rather relevant to most bloggers. At least, for those bloggers that care to find out who their readers are by seeing details such as geographic locations, times with the most activity and so on.

Although Blogger Stats may provide far less statistics about your blog than a full fledged tracking service, it seems like a nice way to give casual bloggers a chance to know who's reading their blog.

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Taking notes on a BlackBerry While Calling Someone

So, you're on the phone with your friend, and your friend says "so, I'm like, so, like, hungry right now, want to meet me for lunch at this cool new place?". And then you say, "Sure, just let me know where it is". And then your friend starts telling you: "Okay, so walk 5 blocks south from King and Younge, and turn right and go down the dark alley but..."

What happens when you don't have a pen and paper handy to write down the instructions?

No worries, if you have a blackberry, you shouldn't have a problem taking notes, even while you're talking on the phone with your friend (some conditions apply since you will have to type out the notes somehow).

Here's what you do: If you're not on a headset, tell your friend to wait because you'll have to push some buttons first before you can take notes.

First, hit the blackberry home button, causing a menu to pop up. Then, click on the Notes option.

Now in the blank space start typing the notes. You might have to put your friend on speaker as you type the information, but at least this way, you won't forget it.

Once the call is done, it should save the note along with the call details, which can be accessed form the same place as your email messages. Consequently you can easily find the note just by looking at your call list, so you should have no trouble figuring out which note was for which call.

That's it. Happy note-taking!

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Staying Logged in for Two Google Accounts via Chrome

While Google Chrome may already be at version 5 (as of writing this article, version 6 seems to be in the works), I still think that it is going to be a while before I adopt it as my primary browser. I find that several add-ons such as Firebug and the like are not at par with their Firefox counter parts.

Nevertheless, one feature that I like in Chrome is the incognito mode feature. Where it essentially allows you to create a new "private browsing" window, instead of hiding your present session (like it does in Firefox) where your history and such features are not tracked.

However, apart from giving you the ability to do "certain" tasks discreetly, incognito mode is also great for another thing: logging into two Google Accounts at once, through one browser (although you'll have two windows open).

So essentially, what you need to do is log into one of your accounts through a normal Chrome window. Then open an incognito window, like so on a Mac:

And log into another Google account. Surprisingly, Incognito Mode isn't truly incognito in that it still maintains session cookies so that Google can still identify who you are once you log into a Google service like Gmail or Docs.

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Booting to a console window on a Mac

So recently I had the need to boot a mac into console mode only since it was being used as a webserver. If you too want to do the same and boot your mac into text-only mode, then read on.

A quick google search will reveal that there are sereval ways to do this. However, since I always prefer the easiest ways, I'll only post the quick and dirty way here.

First off open a terminal window or log into your computer through ssh (if you don't know what that is, I suggest that you keep graphical mode on your computer for now and think about using a text-only mode later on).

Then get root access to the computer via
$ sudo su

After this, you'll have to open up
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist
in your favourite editor
And change the default login to the following:

 <key>RetriesUntilHint</key>
        <integer>3</integer>
        <key>SHOWFULLNAME</key>
        <false/>
        <key>autoLoginUser</key>
        <string>>console</string>
        <key>lastUser</key>
        <string>loggedIn</string>
        <key>lastUserName</key>
        <string>rishi</string>
        <key>noPasswordKey</key>
        <false/>


Notice the >console

Then simply save the file and reboot.

After the login manager starts, it'll boot you right into the console window.

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How to run Linux applications on Windows

While most people worry about how one can run Windows applications on GNU/Linux, I sometimes worry about the other way. How can I run Linux applications on Windows? After all if you're like most people, chances are that you use Windows way more than you use Linux (or any other operating system for that matter). So how can you run Linux distributions such as Ubuntu/Kubuntu, OpenSuse or Fedora alongside Windows, without actually having to boot into them.
It is actually very easy to do so with the advent of the virtual machine. It is essentially a software solution that emulates hardware, and allows you to run a second operating system on top of your present operating system. This is great for running Linux based operating systems if you want to test out a new linux distro or run a Linux app once in a while.

My virtual machine of choice to run Linux on Windows is Sun's (now Oracle's) VirtualBox. While there are other proprietary solutions such as VMware Player or Microsoft's very own Virtual PC that allow you to run Linux and unix based operating systems, it seems right to use an open source solution for an open source operating system. As well I just find that VirtualBox likes to play nice with any virtual operating system you'd like to run on it. Virtual PC has been buggy in the past with older versions of Ubuntu and such.

To run VirtualBox, first download it from the VirtualBox site. You'll also want to download the ISO file for your GNU/Linux distribution of choice if you haven't done so already. Then follow the instructions on the VirtualBox site to install a new operating system, and you're done!

It's as easy as that! And you don't even have to worry about partitioning, and accidentally screwing up your Linux distro. Plus, you can access the files created on Linux right from Windows.

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You Invest a Lot of Time Online

So, I was publishing some drafts of my blog posts that were just "hanging around" for a really long time, and after publishing one particular post, I came across a rather curious ad.

As you can see from the screenshot above, the ad is for Google Chrome.

However, I think this ad would have been more accurate and true to life:

Don't you agree?

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Internet Sharing Between Two Macs or From a Mac

The Internet is a wonderful thing. But what happens when one mac cannot be connected to the internet because it doesn't have a wireless card? Well, no problem, you just get a mac (or another computer) that does have a wireless card to come to the rescue.

With a built in feature called Internet connection sharing you can easily share the connection from one mac to anorther.

How to set up internet connection sharing on a Mac

To get started, first open up the System Preferences window (found under the Apple menu in the menubar), and go to Sharing. Here, in the menu on the left hand side of the window, you will see an option that says internet sharing. Click on it (you can check the checkbox right now or after you finish configuring it). Then, configure the options to the right.

In my case, as shown in the screenshot, I'm sharing my wireless (AirPort) connection from my laptop to a desktop computer via a crossover cable (or an ethernet or FireWire cable will work as well. Since my laptop has a network card that has "cable management" any cable cross over or regular ethernet will work).

Then, all you need to do is check the checkbox beside internet sharing if you haven't already, and plug in the other end of the ethernet/firewire cable into the other computer.

The other computer will react as though it received a cable/airport connection straight from the router, or your modem, without knowing the difference.

Also, this should work between a mac computer (provided the mac is the one sharing its connection) and a Windows based or GNU/Linux or Unix based computer.

A couple of notes:

Firewall: If you have the firewall on either one or both of your computers, you're going to want to add an exception for internet connection sharing. If you are on Snow Leopard, your Mac should as you about adding an exception automatically. If not open System Preferences, click Security, go to the Firewall tab, and click advanced. Here, click the + sign and add "/usr/libexec/InternetSharing" to the list, and choose the option Allow Incoming connections. This should allow Internet Sharing to do its job.

Only one computer shares its connection: You should make sure that only one computer has internet sharing disabled, if both have it enabled, the one without the real internet connection (either through ethernet or wireless) will simply try to create a local network, and assign itself a local IP instead, which isn't very helpful for creating an internet connection.

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Switching to the DVORAK Layout

For me the main method I use to interface with the computer is typing (for now at least). I use the keyboard almost every time I'm at a computer, save for the few occasions where I only need to check something quickly, and even then I most likely need to login by using the keyboard first.

However, for years, unknowingly, I (and possibly you too) have been using a keyboard layout that is more than a hundred years old! The QWERTY keyboard layout, as many of you probably already know was first created for the typewriter, when the typewriter was primarily a mechanical machine that depended on gravity and springs to do its job. It was designed mainly to slow you down (which makes sense since there are no vowels in the home row -- almost every word in the English language has a vowel), to ensure that the keys don't jam (even though I'm sure that they sometimes did). Have you ever wondered if there is a better way of typing?

Turns out there is: its called the dvorak typing layout, and it helps you type really really fast. Just ask this lady (actually, you can't anymore, but her world record typing speed speaks for itself).

The best way to get started with this new layout first, and see if you are sold. You can do so by checking out the dvorakzine and perhaps read about it on the interwebs. Then you should try out the layout for yourself. But even at a basic intuitive level, having the vowels nearby just makes sense.

If you want to get started, I'd recommend you first start with some typing practice (a basic course in dvorak is probably your best bet), and learn the layout a little by little. Almost every operating system lets you change your layout quickly, so QWERTY will never be too far away.

But before you switch, here are some things you should know:

• It'll naturally feel awkward typing on a qwerty layout once you get completely used to the dvorak one. If you are at a workplace where your system administrator will not allow you to switch layouts, you might just have to stick to qwerty for you entire life
• It's better to switch when you are still a student (and work mainly on your personal computer where you have full control over your keyboard layout)
• You'll never want to type on qwerty anymore
• No one else will be able to use your computer (until they figure out how to switch the layout back to qwerty that is)
• Your typing speed may improve tremendously, or if you were really fast on qwerty, it'll probably become as fast as qwerty
• The dvorak layout only works for English, it doesn't really help that much in other languages, but if you are reading this, you likely speak english anyway
• You'll have to spend quite a lot of time learning the layout, but it is well worth the effort if you ask me
• Warning: You will have to relearn all your qwerty shortcuts, but if you're on a mac, you can use the Dvorak/Qwerty layout where whenever you press command (to enter a shortcut), the layout will be switched back to Qwerty, but this wont work in some applications like Aquamacs/Emacs and shortcuts involving the Control/Meta/Alt key
• You'll have to relearn the location of punctuation marks and symbols like [] or /?+=-_ etc.
• For me the total transition time was a few weeks, and when I first started, my typing speed was about 10~20 WPM (simple words per minute without any complex punctuations), yuck! But now its back to about 60~70 words per minute, although my qwerty speed was 90~100 WPM. However I'm sure that I'll be at ~100 very soon with only a couple of months of practice.

And that's about it. But I assure you that you will be better off with a layout that is faster and less stressful on your fingers.

If you have any other tips or questions on my experience with switching, please feel free to use the comments section.

Note: Yes this post was typed out in its entirety using the dvorak layout, and I bet you couldn't even tell the difference ;) I must say, that I don't think I've ever typed up a post this fast. The flow of thoughts from the brain to the keyboard was almost seamless. Although I must say, I did use the backspace button a few more times than usual because of a few spelling mistakes, but then again -- I'm still learning too.

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Windows XP Mode in Windows 7

If you have an application that only runs in Windows XP and you’re planning on getting Windows 7 (professional edition or greater) here is how you can emulate Windows XP on Windows 7. 

What is Windows XP Mode?

Windows XP Mode is essentially a Windows XP Virtual Machine. A virtual machine that only works for Windows XP. It runs the Windows XP operating system as though it were an application on Windows 7, but give has special “permissions” so that it can access (although not directly in the strictest sense) the hardware (CD/DVD Drive, USB drive etc. but no the actual hard drive) on you computer.
Usually when installing a virtual machine, you first need to create a virtual hard drive on your computer (which is just a file that is reserved for the virtual machine to use as a hard drive) and run the painfully long installation process (validation and all) to run an operating system. But with WXP Mode you can essentially just download the hard drive file where everything is nice and ready for you to use.

How to get Windows XP Mode

First, click the start button (the blue orb on the bottom left of the screen) and search for Windows XP Mode.


You will them be prompted to Download Windows XP Mode.

Click Download to be taken to Microsoft’s Website. Here, you’ll have to choose the options according to what you desire. If you happen to be using a browser other than Internet Explorer as your default browser, copy and paste the download in IE, as the download page may not play nice with other browsers since it requires “Windows Validation”.
However once you download and install all three components on the download page, you’ll be able to access your Windows XP installation directly from the start menu item.
Once you open Windows XP mode, you will be able to install the applications/games that only run on Windows XP and enjoy the other features that Windows 7 offers as well.

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The New Windows Live Messenger App

The Good

The new Windows Live Messenger application from Microsoft integrates online social networking with instant messaging. With a sleek Metro like interface the messenger application allows you to share what you’re doing right now (sort of like twitter) with your friends who are also using windows live, and stay up to date with your Facebook and Myspace profiles at the same time. To use Facebook or Myspace all you need to do is give it your credentials while you sign in for the first time.

The “Social” window allows you to sort recent “highlights” and other things just photos posted by our friends on Windows Live (MSN) or on Facebook. At the same time you can also add regular Windows Live friends like you could in older versions.

Also, the messaging service provides a way to set privacy while you sign in for the first time. You can also have custom privacy settings for every new person that you add to your friends list. It’s nice to see that Microsoft is paying close attention to the Facebook privacy debates.

While things are still in Beta, I think that Microsoft has done a good job of trying to acknowledge the fact that Windows Live is not the only social networking service out there.

Other Thoughts

As usual I’m pretty sure that all of the Windows Live apps are for Windows only, not a good thing if you use a Mac. Of course, Apple software is also Mac only, but it would be nice to see some platform independent apps for once so that more people will actually use the Windows Live service.

Twitter support would also be a cool thing. Anything you type in the status message window could be automatically posted to your twitter profile, which would make things even easier. While I don’t personally use twitter since I don’t really have the self discipline to update anything, combining status messages with twitter may be a cool idea.

Overall I think Microsoft is on the right track with their “Windows Live Messenger” app that integrates other services with Messenger , although I would be much happier with a “Live” suite that I could use on any operating system of my choice.

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Top 7 new Tricks / Features (with Tips) in Windows 7

Windows 7 has some great tricks up its “sleeve” that all can take advantage of. Although, you’ll Windows 7 Home Premium or greater (or “higher”) to take advantage of these tricks. Here are the top 7 features that I like in ascending order of awesomeness:

7. Flip-3d

While this feature was also there in Windows Vista, I think that Microsoft has certainly made Windows 7 less of a resource hog so that I can actually use this feature once in a while. Instead Of Alt key +Tab key (like I used to in Vista and XP), I often press the Windows Key + Tab key now.
Some Flip-3d Tips:

• Usually Flip-3d cycles from first window to the window behind it. If you want it to cycle the other way press: Windows key + Shift Key + Tab key
• You don’t always need to cycle through the windows to select the windows you want. After pressing Windows + Tab, you can simply click on the window that you’d like to see on top. This works great when you have a laptop, because you can click with one hand and press the key combo with the other

6. Windows Snap

I’m sure you all know about this feature. Simply drag a window to the edge of the screen and it snaps into place. Great if you want to have two windows side by side or if you want to maximize of minimize a window. It’s also great when you have dual monitors, and want to maximize the window (currently on monitor 1) to monitor 2 in “one fell swoop”.

5. Jump Lists

Some Tips:

• You can also left click on an icon in the task bar and the jump list will pop-up
• Clicking on the thumb-tack will ensure that the particular item (File/bookmark/etc…) will stay in the jumplist.

4. Improved Start Menu

With the new and improved Windows search features, you should be able to find whatever you need without a hitch. Simply click on the start menu and start typing. Sorry Launchy, but I find the start menu to be a bit more convenient.

3. Improved Touch Features/Hand writing Recognition

If you happen to have a tablet or tablet pc the Tablet PC input panel should provide countless hours of fun. To start it simply search for Tablet PC Input Panel in the start menu and off you go! Have fun!

2. Aero Shake

While transparent Windows are cool, clutter is not. Often I happen to have 40 different windows open while I only really need one, such as my browser window for example. So to quickly hide all those windows what you can do is simply shake the window that you want on the screen (sort of like the way you would drag a window, but without actually dragging it and just “wiggling” it quickly) and watch the other windows dissapear.
You’ll need the Aero theme enabled if you want to be able to do this. Here’s a video of how the Aero Shake feature works.
Although I confess that this feature is cool, I don’t usually use it that often because I don’t really find the need to do so. Or it may be that I am just lazy.

1. Awesome Speech Recognition

By far the greatest feature of Windows 7 has to be its improved (although very little) speech recognition capabilites. Learn more about this in my other article that talks about how you can set up speech recognition on Windows 7.


If you want to learn more out about other features in Windows 7, Microsoft’s website may be a good place to start.

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