Dick Evans Tips

MP3 Player

2011-12-31T09:06:00.000-05:00

I picked up an inexpensive MP3 player and wanted to load some of my music to them. I had a player in the past, but it stopped working a couple of months ago. I used to bring it to the gym to use while I worked out. It does seem to make the time go by faster.

Getting songs to that old one was pretty easy. I just opened Windows Media Player, clicked on Sync, mounted my MP3 player, and dragged my songs to it. This time it did not work. Oh, the music went over fine. They just would not play.

The new MP3 player only plays MP3 files. It does not have software built in to handle the WMA format from Windows Media Player. Somehow I had to get all those WMA files converted to MP3 so I could move them to the new player. I can’t complain about the MP3 player—it only cost $6.50 (see http://bit.ly/sVONxT).

I located a freebie called Switch Sound File Converter that does a job doing just that. And it will convert into other formats as well. You can find it at http://www.nch.com.au/switch/index.html.

A little more digging and I discovered an option in Windows Media Player. When ripping a CD you can choose to have it rip in MP3 format instead of WMA! (Organize > Options > Rip Music > Format MP3)

So if you intend on getting your music to an MP3 player, rip as MP3 and you can listen on both your PC and your MP3 player.

Showing the Desktop in Windows 7

2011-10-29T15:42:00.001-04:00

New Page 1

In most version of Windows, you can clear the desktop without closing any open app by holding down the Windows key (that key with the windows flag on it) and tapping D for desktop.

Now, in Windows 7, you just have to locate the vertical bar to the right of the time and click it. To restore the desktop, click it again.

Out of Room on Hard Drive

2011-10-14T19:08:00.001-04:00

All I have on C: is the OS and the installed programs. All my data and pictures and movie file are on a second partition. 50 gb each. I set it up this way so when my OS got messed up the next time I would not have to find a way to extract all my data and then reload the OS. Sounded like a great idea and it all worked well until...

The amount of room on C: was dwindling fast. Something was eating away at the allocation of space and it was getting real bad. Here is what I did and freed up over 15gb of space.

I moved the system restore files to my data area. That was eating into storage big time. I never realized how large those files were. Now I could have removed them all together, but that is not wise. So I shifted them to D: (my data partition) and made a starting restore point.

Here is how that was done on my Vista machine:

I started with the System Restore files. From the Start menu, I right-clicked Computer and selected Properties. On the System window I selected System protection. I unchecked the C: box which removed ALL past system restore points from drive C:. Then I checked the D: box to establish new restore point on that drive. I then forced the first restore point.

On the same System Properties window, click the Advanced tab and then under Performance click Settings. On the Performance Options, click the Advanced tab. Under Virtual memory, click Change. This lets you set the parameters for the System Paging File. If you are real tight on space you can override the System managed size and steal a few more bytes back from Windows.

Next I took a look at the Hybernate function. I really do not need to use it and each time it runs it makes a file as large as RAM and I have 4gb.

From a cmd window Run as Administrator, I ran powercfg -h off

(To run as an administrator, right-click on the command prompt in the start menu, and then choosing Run as Administrator. If you do not have a command prompt, click Start. In the search box type cmd and press Enter. Close the window that opens and open Start again. It should be there.)

This disabled Hibernate and then I located and deleted the hiberfil.sys file.

Amount of space recovered was over 15gb. Now I have plenty of room left on my system drive and can forget about that new hard drive I was considering. I have plenty of data room left, so more storage is unnecessary.

I also use CCleaner and SmartDefrag on a regular basis to clean up the junk on my drives and in my registry as well as reducing the number of fragments automatically as I am using the computer.

Firefox Running Too Slow

2011-10-10T09:22:00.000-04:00

It got to the point that it was taking forever to open a page. It is not that Firefox is my favorite browser. It has just been the one I have used over the past year or so and am used to. I still believe Google Chrome is the fastest. It loads quickly and the page seem to fly in. I do have a few addons in Firefox that I like, so it is my #2 choice. Internet Explorer? I would put it at #3. Now the latest version is a bit faster and looks similar now to Chrome, but still not as fast.

This tips I picked up while reading an article in the PC World. You can find it at http://www.pcworld.com/article/241112/browsing_tips_slowloading_sites_google_chrome_tweak.html#tk.nl_wbx_h_crawl2.

It is a way to solve the slow loading of pages in Firefix. I tried it and it works great, so I thought I would pass it on.

1. Open Firefox
2. In the address bar, type about:config and press Enter
3. At the warning message, click I’ll be careful...
4. In the Filter bar, type keep-alive
5. If true, double-click network.http.keep-alive to change true to false
6. If true, double-click network.http.proxy.keep-alive to change true to false
7. Restart Firefox

Converting a Video File Format

2011-09-17T19:27:00.000-04:00

Had a challenge today with a video file I took with my digital camera. It records in the MOV format, which is fine for uploading to YouTube. However, I did not hit the off button soon enough and ended up with an extra two plus minutes at the end of the floor, ceiling, and me talking that just did not belong. Easy solution was to open in Windows Move Maker and cut out the ending. But, WMM does not read MOV formatted files. So off to Google I go.

I found a cloud app that did the trick. http://www.convertfiles.com. It was simple to use. I uploaded my MOV file, chose the destination format I wanted as WMV, and in a minute or two it gave me a link to download the file.

That is not the only input or output file format it accepts. And best of all, it is free.

Securing a Text File

2011-09-12T15:17:00.000-04:00

Do you have some data you would like to keep on your computer, but you want to hide it from prying eyes? Perhaps things like bank account numbers, passwords, safe combinations, or more. Here is a neat little app that you can use to create a locked text file. Yes, I said text. All the data is in text form just like you were using the Notepad app that comes with Windows.

Download it for free at http://locknote.steganos.com/

Open locknote.exe and type or paste text into the open window. SaveAs to give it a name and then you will be asked for the password needed to unlock the file. The file is saved as an EXE with the name you keyed. To reopen, simply double-click the file you created. You will be asked to provide the password and then you are back into it to view or change the data. If you change the data, the only save option is SaveAs. You can use the same name to replace the original file.

Understanding Copy and Paste

2011-08-07T17:28:00.001-04:00

First let’s define some key concepts:

Right-click means to point at something on the screen with the mouse pointer and then clicking the right button on the mouse. Click means to click the left button on the mouse.

Drag means to point at something with the mouse pointer and then, while holding down the left button on the mouse, moving the mouse. This is generally used move what is being pointed to or to select what is dragged over. Right-drag means to use the right button instead of the left.

Select means to drag across a series of words or objects on the screen. This action causes what is dragged over to change color indicating it has been selected.

Copy and Paste

Copy and Paste is such a simple but misunderstood concept. Your computer has a hidden from view area called the clipboard. To copy something, select it—words in a document, an image, the URL of a Web site, or even text on a Web page. Then right-click on the selected piece and select Copy. You can also use the keyboard command that has been around since the beginning; Ctrl+C. To use it, hold down the Ctrl key, tap C, and then release both keys. Do not attempt to press both keys at the same time.

What you had selected is now in the clipboard. You cannot see it, but just take it on faith. It is there and will stay there until you either copy something else which replaces the content of the clipboard or you turn off your computer which clears memory.

Open the app you wish to copy the material to, like Word. Click to place the insertion point (that vertical line indicating where your next keystroke will appear) where you want the pasted material to be located, and then right-click and select Paste. You can also Ctrl+V to paste from the clipboard.

This same method can be used to copy a file to another location on your computer.

The Shift+Click Method

This method works whenever you want to select multiple items. It could be file names in a list of files, a series of sentences or paragraphs in a document, or even a part of a Web page to use in a document.

Locate the first word in the section to be copied and mouse over it to select it. Without touching any button on the mouse, bring the pointer down to the end of the section to be copied.

The key is to hold down the shift key, point to the ending position, and then click the mouse and all between the first selected entry and the place you last clicked have been selected.

Now that you have selected all of it, you can right-click and select Copy or simply Ctrl+C to copy it to the clipboard for pasting in another application.

Copying from a Web Page

When copying from a Web page even the behind the scenes coding is copied. You cannot see this information, but when you paste the selection into another app, like a Word Processor, the results are not just the text. Included are all the formatting, links, images, and often other things we may not understand.

To avoid this “mess”, I suggest pasting first into a pure text app like NOTEPAD. This app accepts only the raw text dropping any other coding and images. Then select all the new data. Another shortcut is Ctrl+A which selects all data in the window having focus. Then right-click and copy to place that text data into the clipboard for pasting elsewhere.

Recovering Data from a Bad SD Card

2011-07-16T15:30:00.000-04:00

Now that was cool. My wife went to transfer her pictures from her camera yesterday. She took the SD card out of the camera and plugged it into her netbook. Instead of displaying her folders, it displayed a message telling her the disk was not formatted and giving her an opportunity to do so.

What to do? I tried it on my computer and the same error message appeared. This was not good. Granted, I had already transferred a number of the images at various times. Some are on Facebook, some on Flickr, and some on my hard disk for potential future use. But not all of them, especially a few she had recently taken.

I have one machine running Ubuntu 10.1 so I booted it and tried again. No luck. Same error message.

Google search to the rescue! I located an open source multi-platform application distributed under GNU General Public License that claimed to be able to read an un-mountable disk and recover files. I wnet to http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec and downloaded the zip and extracted the files.

After reviewing the documentation found in their Step-by-Step documentation at http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec_Step_By_Step I found the command line I had to use to run it. The command had to be run from the root at a command prompt in Ubuntu. I am just starting to fiddle with Ubuntu and had no idea how to get to the command prompt. In Windows I just Win+R to open the Run dialog box, type cmd, and press Enter. No such thing in Ubuntu/Linux.

Another Google search revealed that the command mode is called terminal mode and Ctrl+Alt+t would open a window. Following the guidelines in the documentation I found in the extracted folder, I typed:

sudo Downloads/testdisk-6.12/photorec_static

Sudo enables a normal user to run a superuser command in linux. Downloads is the folder I saved the app into. Testdisk-6.12 is the folder the program was extracted into. Photorec_static is the name of the program.

A series of DOS like windows offered me various opportunities to look at all the disks on the system including the one I was unable to read, the SD card. After some poking around I was able to recover hundreds of pictures saving them to the hard drive. Interesting that each image had two sizes, the thumbnail size used when looking in a folder from explorer in Windows and the full sized image.

I was then able to reformat the SD card and copy the recovered images (large ones only) onto the disk. This same method could be used to find data on a badly behaving hard disk drive, a flash drive, or any other mountable disk. Real CSI stuff!

By the way, you do not have to use Ubuntu. The app works in a variety of operating systems including Windows.

Bounced Email

2011-07-09T08:46:00.000-04:00

Q;
I have a number of deletes of email I put through, several times. They keep coming back on my screen. How can I prevent this ?

A:
I assume you are referring to bounced emails or delivery errors. Bad email addresses will bounce back to you so you know your mail was not deliverable just like the USPS returns undelivered mail. When someones address is good, but cannot receive mail for the time being for reasons such as their mail box is full, the email system keeps trying to deliver and lets you know the progress. Read the delivery error message to understand why it was bounced back to you.

I have my bounced messages go to a special folder so they are not in the middle of all my "normal" email.

Of course, if an email address is no longer valid, you should stop sending mail to it.

Creating a Book

2011-07-02T22:02:00.000-04:00

I am putting a book together using Microsoft Word. I downloaded a template where I see the 2 small pages at once all the time as I am writing. I would like for the page numbering to begin after the title page, forward, and T. of C. pages but the template is locked. It starts numbering after the title page and I can't eliminate the "footer" option. Is there an easy fix to this?

Downloaded the template from where? If you are going to publish on LuLu.com, you need the template from them and you will NOT see two pages at once. If you are printing on your own computer, you do not need a template. Just: Page Layout > Page Setup > Margins > Pages > Book Fold. Then when you print, print two sided. If your printer does not do it naturally, Word will have you do all of one side and then have you put the paper back in to print all the other sides.

Page numbers are easy: Insert > Page numbers. Getting them on just the body is another thing. You have to section the book so the portion to have page numbers stands by itself. To create a separate section: Page layout > Breaks > Section Break Next Page this is instead of Ctrl+Enter to start a new page. To stop the page numbers from flowing from section to section, you have to turn off Link to Previous in the header and/or footer area in the section you do not want to carry forward from the previous section.

TOC is easy also, you just use a heading font for the subtitles, have the insertion point at the page you want the TOC to be created at, and then: Reference > Table of Contents. It will create a TOC with those subtitles as the wording and the current page number as the number.

Booklet Printing

2011-06-20T20:04:00.001-04:00

I like to print long documents as booklets printed on both sides of a standard size paper. This ends up being 5.5 X 4.25.

In Word this is an easy task under Page Layout > Page Setup > Margins > Pages > Book Fold > OK.

That's it. Your document is reformatted to fit, page numbers are redone, and you are ready to print. A duplex printer is nice, but a simplex one works just as well. You just have to follow the instructions and put the pages back in upside down for the second sides to print.

But what about using a word processor other than Word? If you have the document as a PDF, this becomes an easy task.

Open the PDF version of the document in Adobe Reader. File > Print and choose Page Scaling > Booklet Printing. Then Booklet subset > Both sides and OK to begin printing.

Simple, right? One issue that might be a concern is the size of the font printed. What happens is the 8.5 x 11 formatted document is resized to fit on a sheet half that size. Therefore the font size is a lot smaller. Depending on your eyesight, that might work for you.

Here is how to solve that issue. Go back to the original document and change the size of the paper and the margins, then save it as a PDF and try it again. If you get the document size down to a smaller size page the font size will be "normal" on the booklet printing.

Change the Page size to 5 X 8.

Change the page margins to .3" all around.

Now save it as a PDF and the booklet will have "normal" font sizes.

You might have to play around with the margins and paper size to get it to print the way you want. But the end result will be booklet printing from any word processor.

I use Google Docs a lot and when you select printing, it creates a PDF for you. If you do not have a word processor that allows the creation of a PDF, there are a number of printer drivers you can install that will give you PDF printing capability. One that I use is called "PDF redirect v2". It is a free download and works great.

For a PDF version of this white paper with screen shots: Booklet Printing.pdf

Tiny Tabs and more

2011-06-17T17:00:00.002-04:00

If you upgraded to FireFox 4 (and I suggest you do), there is a new feature you might like. I like to have three open tabs all the time while browsing—my Google docs page, my email, and my Facebook. Those three tabs take up about half of the space for tabs. As I open other pages, the tabs get smaller and smaIler.

Right-click the tabs you always have open and select Pin as App Tab. The tab is instantly made the size of the icon and the words go away. To reverse the process, right-click and choose Unpin Tab.

A couple of shortcuts that have been around for a while can help you "see" the window better. F11 removes all the data above the page you are displaying. Mouse up to the top of the window to have it pop back in temporarily. F11 again to bring it back.

Words too small? Ctrl + to enlarge the page and Ctrl – to reduce it in size.

Auto Creating Lines in Word

2011-06-17T12:48:00.001-04:00

In Office 2003 I used to be able to type three dashes and it would automatically create a line across the page. Now in Office 2010 all I get is three dashes. After some searching in Word Help, I discovered how to turn that feature back on.

Click the File tab
Help > Options > Proofing
Click AutoCorrect Options
Select the AutoFormat as You Type tab
Check Border Lines and then click OK

While you are in AutoCorrect Options you might want to poke around and enable or disable other options as well. For example, I do not like a fraction like 1/4 to automatically become a superscript, or for a "double-quote" to be turned into a left or right double-quote.

Now in addition to getting a horizontal line when I type three dashes followed by pressing enter, three of these characters work to give different types of border lines across the page:

~ Wavy line

- Lite line

_ Heavy line

# Triple line

* Dots

= Double line

Try them out. You will be glad you did and will start using them in your documents.

Join.me

2011-06-14T19:52:00.001-04:00

By Dick Evans

Here is a great product and it is FREE! Need to help someone with a computer problem and they are at another location, maybe even in another state? Need to show a group of people how to do something on the computer while they watch what you do – with phone support?

This is a free tool from LogMeIn. Download the app, run it, share the URL and conference 9-digit code with a friend, and you have sharing your screen with a friend. It includes text chat, voice conferencing, mouse and keyboard sharing, and more.

1. Support someone else

Have them open a browser and type join.me

Then have them click the orange button with the triangle inside

With Internet Explorer, click Run to install

Using the phone or an email, have them communicate the 9 digit code to you. This is a one-time code, so you do not have to remember it for later.

On your end, type the 9 digit code into the join box, and then click the green button with the triangle inside.

You are now connected to the person needing assistance, but you do not have mouse control.

On your window have a similar set of icons. Click the mouse icon and then the Request Control box.

They will be asked a question on their end about allowing you access. Tell them to do so and you have control of their system as though you were right there.

2. Set up a demonstration or training session

Just like the above example, but you are the one installing the app and obtaining the code which you will share with as many as you want to join in the session. I strongly suggest that you DO NOT give them control of your mouse and keyboard (unless you want to for some chaos!).

Click the telephone icon to obtain the free conference number they can call to hear what you are saying in your presentation. Once they dial in you can all voice chat while watching the demonstration on the shared screen, and even share files with each other.

It couldn’t be easier!

For a PDF with screen shots, see http://rwevans.com/JoinMe.pdf

The Power

2011-05-09T21:39:00.005-04:00

Remember that old TV show, "Have Gun--Will Travel"?

Paladin was a good guy with a black hat. His services were for hire. This was one of the most popular shows of the late 1950's. Okay, so you were not even born way back then. Google the show title and watch an episode or two. His Colt .45 gave him the power and those who hired him, the authority to fulfill his missions.

Luke 10:1,17

The Lord now chose seventy-two other disciples and sent them ahead in pairs to all the towns and places he planned to visit... When the seventy-two disciples returned, they joyfully reported to him, "Lord, even the demons obey us when we use your name!" (NLT)

Jesus gave the disciples authority and power to go out two by two. Had they not gone would they have had the power?

If you want to have the power you have to do the work. It comes as a result of the doing. You do not get it first and then walk out. Power comes in the walk. As we walk God directs us onto the right path. But without motion there can be no direction. You just stand still looking around.

Just as in the law of physics that says every action has an equal and opposite reaction, every time we step out to complete the Father's work here on earth another piece is added to our spiritual man. We don't feel it, but we can tell when the next assignment comes along. We are able to recognize it quicker and complete it with an added level of confidence.

As baptized believers we have been given the Holy Spirit along with the authority and power to do whatever He tells us to do when we do so in the name of Jesus.

Making a Quick Video

2011-05-04T17:46:00.001-04:00

I just discovered a great Web site to create quick animations of pictures. Take a dozen or less pictures and upload them to www.animoto.com to produce a 30 second video of your images with neat backgrounds and audio.

The site is easy to use and does just what it says it does. For a few dollars a month you can create unlimited flicks without their logo appearing at the end. It will link to your Facebook and Flickr pages (and other sites) so you can both grab your images and publish your results. You can also download the video to your desktop or publish it to your YouTube account.

Check out a clip I just made of some of my “old” pictures...

http://animoto.com/play/YlFIsz56JqepYDrCtrOyhw

Pictures in Documents

2011-04-24T19:00:00.001-04:00

It is a wonderful change having digital cameras that take such high resolution pictures. Years ago we used 35mm film and it is costly and time consuming. You paid for the film, took your limited number of shots, then dropped the exposed film off to be printed. A week or so later, you picked up the prints and found a few worth saving. Then to make more prints you returned to the store and ordered additional ones from the negatives. Okay, some of you are not old enough to even remember doing that!

Back to the future. We can take as many shots as our SD card will hold. Even then all we have to do is pop in another to continue shooting. We get home and pop the card into our computer and get to see them right away. We can edit them, crop them, change the lighting, and even print them out in as good a quality as we used to see with the 35mm camera from years ago. And we can print as many as we need right in our own home.

The best thing is that we can send them to others in emails, post them on Facebook, include them in a Web page, and include them in writings created in our favorite word processing app.

To get that 35mm quality, the images are saved as pretty large files. Most are over 1mb and some more than 5mb. With hard drives of 320gb and more today, that is not a big problem. Even the SD cards for our camera are up to 32gb at reasonable prices. Size only becomes an issue when we want to email them to someone, post them on Facebook, or include them in a document.

Read the entire document at http://www.rwevans.com/Pictures%20in%20Documents.pdf

LibreOffice

2011-04-23T17:48:00.002-04:00

Downloaded LibreOffice this afternoon. The download was 220mb and it installed in a few minutes. When you open it from the shortcut it places on the desktop, it opens a window for you to choose the app you want to work with. The word processor is called Text Document.

You can save documents in its native format (.odf) or in a number of others including .doc and .docx. Yes, it support the new format for Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010. No, it does not have ribbons like Microsoft and that may be a plus or a minus for you. But the toolbars are familiar and easy to work with.

Although I have only used the text document app, I can say it is fast and easy to use. It includes the ability to output as a PDF and as an HTML file. Of course there is a spell checker and those familiar red squiggly lines when you spell something wrong. No green or blue squiggles, though.

Why would I even try out a non-Microsoft app like this? Well, I have more than one computer and to upgrade all of them with the latest Office 2010 app is expensive. I used Google Docs quite a bit, but that requires an Internet connection. This app installs locally and is free.

Oh, it also does mail-merge, which is an important feature for me.

What other apps are included? A spreadsheet app, a presentation app, a drawing app, and a database app. Pretty much all you need for home or office work. And there are versions for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux.

Give it a try at www.LibreOffice.org

Another Excel Shortcut

2011-04-23T16:47:00.002-04:00

Easy way to open a new sheet in an Excel workbook is to press Shift+F11

A New tab will appear at the bottom of the workbook with the name Sheet n with n being the next available sheet number.

More Online Storage

2011-04-13T15:08:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I registered for Box.net. They are an online storage site offering 5gb free for personal use and a reasonable monthly charge for more. In addition to having a place to store files up to 25mb each, you can share and collaborate on those files easily.

Here is an overview I wrote on signing up for Box.net. Once I dragged and dropped it to the site using the easy web interface, I clicked Share and was given this address:

http://www.box.net/shared/t627p0pip3

All I have to do is share that address with anybody and they have access to view it, download it, or share the link with others. And I can see how many people have opened it by signing into my Box.net account. I can also have Box.net email me each time the file is accessed.

Don’t like that strange link address? Use Tinyurl.com to turn it into something else like:

http://tinyurl.com/evans-stuff

Another Cloud Application worthy of mention. Give it a try.

More Shortened URL’s

2011-04-10T18:06:00.000-04:00

I have been messing around with a couple of other short URL Web sites, and there are a number of them out there. TinyURL.com has been around for quite a while. No registration to be bothered with and you can get a randomly generated address like http://tinyurl.com/y6gr3d or something like that. Or you can enter the address you want and if available that is what you will get like http://tinyurl/mypicture. That is it. Pretty simple.

I wrote about Google’s goo.gl last time, and it works a lot like tinyurl. But it tracks the URLs you have created and give you a chart of how often they have been clicked on. Of course you need a Google account to get this information, but that is free.

Then I found tiny.cc. It works like both of the above sites and generates random addresses. But, if you register you have access to two other features and registration is free. First you get to edit the address and request one that people can remember easily like tinyurl does. Second you can a number of reports on activity occurring when someone clicks on your links. Not just how many opens, but where it was opened from and more.

Give them all a try and let me know which one you like best.

www.TinyURL.com
www.Goo.gl
www.Tiny.cc

URL Shortener

2011-04-01T16:05:00.000-04:00

I am sure you have seen the funny looking URL’s showing up on Facebook and other places. They look like this http://goo.gl/...

Google has given us another great tool.

When you have a long URL of any length and want to pass it on to someone else, go to goo.gl and get a shorter one!

For example here is a YouTube URL to a talk my wife recently gave:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vNp2t1ERvA

Using goo.gl by simply entering that URL into the box and hitting Shorten, I get this url to use:
goo.gl/KF8BA

A lot shorter and easy to type when Copy/Paste doesn’t work.

Using Windows Live

2011-04-01T11:47:00.000-04:00

Have you tried Window's Live? I have had a Hotmail account for years. I don't use it much because I have my own domains. Every once in a while I may use the address when asked for an email address at a site I do not know well so any junk emails fall to my Hotmail account. Hotmail is much more than a free email account. Now it is a piece of this new Cloud App called Windows Live.

You get 25gb of free storage on SkyDrive and a Cloud version of Microsoft Office 2010 that works for 99% of my writing. In addition to Word, you get Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Add to that a calendar, contact manager, integration with Messenger and MSN, and storage to upload and manage your pictures!

All you need is a computer with Internet access and a browser. All the apps you need are in the CLOUD. Don't get me wrong, some need to purchase Microsoft Office to do more complicated tasks like MailMerge in Word. But for everyday writing and spreadsheets the cloud app works great.

Check it out today at www.windowslive.com and choose what cloud app to run or at the old address of www.hotmail.com and start at your email.

Keyboard Froze!

2011-04-01T11:09:00.003-04:00

Recently I had to rebuild my main notebook. All of a sudden it the keyboard and mouse pad stopped working! I tried an external keyboard and mouse and they worked. It seemed software related, but I could not find the issue causing it. So back to basics I went.

I backed up all my files to an external drive and double checked that I could read them. Then I used my notebooks built in system restore option and back to factory specs I went. Everything worked great. No more keyboard or mouse pad problems.

But now I had to reload the applications I wanted on the “new” machine. Bad news is I had to reload them. Good news is I could leave off all those apps I had installed in the past and no longer used.

I came across this Web site that allows you to pick and choose the apps you want to install. It downloads them all at once and installs them. This is much quicker than locating them online one at a time, downloading, and installing. Great site. Check it out at http://ninite.com/.

Oh, the piece that took the longest was getting all the Windows updates. But now I have a clean machine running a lot faster then before. Took some time to finish, but it was worth it.

Notepad in the Cloud by Dick Evans

2010-12-31T12:47:00.003-05:00

I was looking for a way to enter text on a Web enabled cell phone so I could take notes while I am out and about. My old PDA had a version of Word on it and I got very used to being able to pull it out of my pocket and type a note. Many of the newer cell phone have nice slide out QWERTY keyboards, but no apps to use. The keyboard is for texting and updating contacts. I wanted more.

A couple of useful cloud apps allow you to take notes and keep a things to do list. I have talked about the to do list before and that Site is http://www.tadalist.com. No need to explain it. Just open the site and start your list. You have to register, but there is no cost.

The other one I just located is a notepad in the cloud. The site is http://www.notepad.cc. It too is free. When you open the site you are presented with a blank page. Just start typing. It is being saved using the URL in your address bar generated by the site. You have the option of changing the name at the bottom of the page. You can also password protect the page or share it with the world.

I typed this post using notepad.cc. You can locate it at http://notepad.cc/sdfg67.

Back to the cell phone. I do not have a slide out keyboard on a data enabled phone. I assume one could simply go to either of these Web sites and work using the cell phone just like I have done on my notebook. How about giving them a test on your data enabled cell phone and tell me how it works?