New Computer and Technology Help and Tips - MalekTips.Com

Bing Search Engine - Reference Page Including Details About Daily Image

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 02:32:23 GMT

Bing's Reference page displays information from Wikipedia and Freebase, and also provides detail about its daily image.

Looking for more information about the image that Microsoft's Bing search engine uses every day? You can now find it and more on Bing's Reference home page, which also contains facts about this day in history, a list of people in the news, and sample searches.

From the Reference page you can perform searches that pull information from Wikipedia, and in some cases also from the Freebase open database. ...

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Sites to Browse - Sports - See How Far Home Runs Were Hit

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:38:42 GMT

How far did a grand slam ball fly? Find out with Hit Tracker.

Curious how far that two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth went into the stands? Is your favorite slugger only hitting long balls in baseball parks with short right field lines, or is no stadium safe? Consider Hit Tracker, which uses "atmospheric information and observation data, and gives as an output the true distance that the home run traveled, along with the initial speed of the hit off the bat and the precise angles at which the ball left the bat."

All types of related information can be found, broken down by season and playoffs for the last few years. View the top distance by batter, see the speed baseballs came off the bat, and display home run stats by league and player. For a particular player, display "true" landing spots plotted on a graph. There are also links to top plays on external sites if you want to see video....

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[MODIFIED] Google Search Engine - Display Weather Reports

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:51:09 GMT

Will it rain? Snow? Or are sunny days predicted? Display weather reports for the U.S. and selected cities around the world from within the Google search engine.

Instead of visiting other weather search sites, you can display weather reports for the U.S. and selected cities around the world directly in Google. Google displays the current temperature, conditions, humidity, wind speed and direction, and a four-day forecast with graphics.

Next to the weather report is a link allowing you to add the forecast to your iGoogle page. Plus, underneath U.S. weather reports you will find links to external sites such as AccuWeather, The Weather Channel, and Weather Underground, offering more detailed weather forecasts and radars if desired....

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Digital Photo Processing - Drag and Drop JPEG Photos to a Folder to Resize Them

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:33:41 GMT

Drag and drop JPEG photos to a folder to automatically resize them for e-mail, web, or presentations with DropResize.

Need to frequently resize photos smaller for quicker transfer via electronic mail, faster display on websites, or for use in PowerPoint presentations?

Instead of using external software to resize images, one option for Windows XP and above users is the freeware DropResize application. This tool adds an icon to the System Tray area of the Windows Taskbar, allowing you to choose a folder so that when JPEG images are "dropped" into it via Explorer drag-and-drop, they will automatically be resized to the height or width that you specify. You can also choose the JPEG quality for the newly resized photos....

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[MODIFIED] IrfanView - Disable Most Recently Used Directories for Privacy

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:27:17 GMT

Increase your privacy by making IrfanView forget the most recently used directories from where images were loaded or saved.

For convenience, IrfanView offers a "Recent Directories" option in its "File" menu. This way you can access the most recently-used directories, locations where you may have opened or saved files.

While this feature may be a convenience, it can be a potential privacy risk if multiple people share the same machine. Thus, you can turn it off if desired:...

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Sites to Browse - Food - Drinks - Recipes - An Editable Food and Recipe Encyclopedia

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:34:50 GMT

Contribute your culinary know-how to the Foodista cooking encyclopedia.

Think you can help cook the perfect minestrone? When you see others' cornbread recipes, do you note a spice missing that would add an extra 'zing'? Are most peoples' jambalaya dishes just not hot enough?

If you think you have what it takes to make the perfect dish, check out "Foodista" which labels itself as "The Cooking Encyclopedia Everyone Can Edit". Besides recipes, you can view (and edit) photos and details about particular food items such as macadamia nuts and Tabasco sauce, food creation tools, and even cooking techniques such as caramelizing and salt broiling. ...

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Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 - Prevent Page Transition Animations from Appearing

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:48:08 GMT

If you find webpage transition animations annoying when browsing the web with Internet Explorer 8, disable them.

Internet Explorer 8 supports page transition animations that some web developers may apply when entering or exiting a page. These include wipes, blends, and dissolves.

While some may find these animations enjoyable, others may place them in the same class as the blink tag - extremely annoying. Thus if you frequently browse sites that use this feature, the following disables transitions:...

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Font Managers - Viewers - dp4 Font Viewer for Windows

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:20:14 GMT

Perform basic font viewing and management functions with the freeware dp4 Font Viewer for Windows - requires no installation.

dp4 Font Viewer is a freeware TrueType font viewing application for Windows. Viewed fonts can be filtered by family, weight, width, and whether they are monospaced, and the font size is adjustable. The software can display characters from ASCII 0-255, all glyphs available, your own text, or text from an external file.

Other features include the ability to install and delete fonts, save the preview pane as a bitmap, and print a list of fonts....

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Mozilla Firefox - Plugins and Extensions - Translate Text or Web Pages Directly from Firefox

Fri, 9 Oct 2009 22:44:30 GMT

The BabelFish Instant Translation add-on lets you translate words, paragraphs, or whole web pages from within Firefox by accessing external translation services for you.

Need to translate web page content from one language to another, but don't want to have to manually visit an external translation service from Google or Yahoo? The BabelFish Instant Translation plug-in for Mozilla Firefox can call these services for you.

1. Visit the following page from within Firefox:...

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RSS Readers - YeahReader for Windows

Fri, 9 Oct 2009 19:59:50 GMT

YeahReader is an Atom / RDF / RSS reader for Windows with an integrated mini blog client.

YeahReader is a free (for non-commercial use) Atom, RDF, and RSS reader for Windows. The software allows you to organize feeds by category, and includes an integrated tabbed viewing pane. Updates appear as a pop-up above the Windows Taskbar. Feed lists can be imported via OPML format, and you can export feeds to CSV, HTML, or text files, among other formats.

The software also includes a basic blog client, allowing you to post messages via Blogger, Delicious, LiveJournal, or via the MetaWebLog API (Drupal, Movable Type, WordPress, etc). Configuration options including running the software at Windows startup, toggling sounds, and using a proxy server....

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Miscellaneous Software - Annotate or Draw on an Application or Window for Technical Presentations

Fri, 9 Oct 2009 18:12:53 GMT

The ZoomIt utility lets you draw or write on an immediate snapshot of the current screen, useful when giving presentations.

Need to give a technical presentation involving a website, application, or the operating system itself, and find it hard to focus attention to a particular link, dialog box, menu item, etc? The ZoomIt utility lets you activate a hotkey to immediately zoom in or out of the current screen, allowing those in the back of the room to more easily see a topic that you are discussing.

Besides zooming features, you can also draw on a zoomed or non-zoomed snapshot of the desktop in multiple colors, perhaps highlighting a menu item or web link the audience needs to notice. And, instead of having to open up Notepad to type description text, while in drawing mode you can press t to immediately begin typing on the screen snapshot. Plus, you can copy the snapshot with all drawings / text to the clipboard, or save it to a file. This way you could e-mail copies of the annotated screen to the participants or offer printouts at the end of a presentation....

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[MODIFIED] Google Search Engine - Check Global Flu Trends

Fri, 9 Oct 2009 14:59:14 GMT

Use Google's technology to predict when the flu will spread in the USA and several countries around the world.

Google has developed a prediction tool for when flu outbreaks will spread in the United States and several countries around the world including Australia, France, Germany, Japan, and Russia. Based on search engine queries, Google claims this tool provides near real-time estimates of flu activity, while traditional reports may have a lag time of 1-2 weeks.

The Flu Trends website shows a a graph with current and predicted flu outbreak times based on historical data. Data can be further broken down by state / region / etc....

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Miscellaneous Software - Become a Keyboard Power User with Global Hotkeys

Fri, 9 Oct 2009 03:09:08 GMT

HotKeyz lets you set up global hotkeys to run applications, access Control Panel entries, reboot the computer, and more.

Tired of relying on the mouse to perform common tasks in Windows and wish you could keep your hands on your keyboard? HotKeyz, a freeware application from Skynergy, lets you assign keyboard shortcuts to accomplish all sorts of tasks including minimizing windows, executing applications, muting the sound (useful if you don't have a multimedia keyboard), rebooting or shutting down the computer, opening web browsers to a particular web page, and much more.

While some other applications also support the creation of global hotkeys, HotKeyz lets you define keystrokes that perform multiple functions. For example, one hotkey can eject media, empty the Recycle Bin, and hibernate the machine. ...

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IrfanView - Toggle Browsing Drives and Folders with IrfanView via Right Click Context Menu

Thu, 8 Oct 2009 18:45:11 GMT

Toggle whether or not a right-click context menu option should appear in Explorer for drives and folders to browse the contents via IrfanView Thumbnails.

Depending on your configuration, when you right-click a drive or folder in Explorer, you may be given the option to browse the contents in IrfanView. This opens up IrfanView Thumbnails, allowing you to display thumbnail previews of the drive/folder contents and double-click a thumbnail to open the image in the main IrfanView window.

If this option does not appear and you would like this convenience, or if this option appears and you wish to remove it as you already have too many right-click context menu items, do the following:...

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Opera - Tired of the Default Download Location? Change It!

Thu, 8 Oct 2009 16:01:29 GMT

Configure Opera to ask you to download files to a different folder by default, such as on a separate hard drive or partition.

While browsing the web with Opera, when you download files are you tired of the default location where the browser tries to store them, such as your "My Documents" folder? Perhaps you have a different folder, partition, or hard drive where you want file downloads placed. Changing this default location is easy:

1. Click the "Tools" menu, selecting "Preferences". Or press Ctrl + F12...

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Google Gmail - Use Your Own Colors for Gmail

Thu, 8 Oct 2009 14:28:02 GMT

Tired of the default Gmail theme colors? Use your own to personalize Gmail.

While Google's Gmail has a variety of themes you can use to skin the application, did you know that if none of them are to your liking, you can choose your own colors? Unlike other methods of customizing Gmail, this requires no browser add-ons.

1. Click the "Settings" link near the top-right of Gmail....

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Mozilla Firefox - Plugins and Extensions - Another Way to Add Color to Firefox Tabs

Thu, 8 Oct 2009 02:45:29 GMT

ColorfulTabs adds colors to Firefox tabs, allowing you to choose presets depending on the domain.

The FabTabs plugin for Mozilla Firefox causes the browser to automatically add colors to tabs based on the dominant colors used in webpages. Another option to instantly add colors to tabs is the ColorfulTabs plug-in, which at the time this tip was written has been downloaded over 10 million (!) times.

1. Visit the following page from within Firefox:...

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Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 - Slide Show Graphics, Video, and Animations Display Slow or Poorly

Wed, 7 Oct 2009 22:37:51 GMT

Adjust performance options when displaying slide shows in PowerPoint 2007.

If you are having difficulty displaying a Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 slide show, either due to the graphics, video, and animation displaying slowly, poorly, or not at all, here are a couple of options you can try changing:

1. Click the "Slide Show" tab in the Ribbon....

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Miscellaneous Software - View and Register DLL, EXE, and OCX Files

Wed, 7 Oct 2009 19:30:20 GMT

System administrators can determine which DLL, EXE, and OCX files have been registered via COM with RegDllView.

RegDllView is a portable freeware utility for Windows 98 and up that lets you view and register (Component Object Model) DLL, EXE, and OCX files. For each file the utility displays the number of system, user, and control entries; last registration date and time; .NET version (if applicable); company name; file and product versions; and other information. For each entry RegDllView shows the full class ID, name, program ID, threading model, and other information.

Other features include accessing entries in the registry editor by opening RegEdit; registering, re-registering, and unregistering files; accessing file properties; opening the file's location folder in Explorer; and outputting HTML reports of registered files. ...

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Multimedia Players - Monkey Around with Your Media Files

Wed, 7 Oct 2009 16:13:48 GMT

MediaMonkey for Windows lets you organize and play multimedia files, supporting visualizations and a party mode.

MediaMonkey is a multimedia organizer and player for Windows with support for many types of files including AAC, FLA, MP3, OGG, and WMA. Files can be organized and viewed by file location, album, artist, composer, and genre. Besides reading ID3 tags, you can key in a variety of classifications such as tempo, mood, occasion, and quality, plus album art and lyrics can be added.

Besides multimedia playback, MediaMonkey supports ripping files from CD, burning CDs and DVDs, converting audio between formats, syncing with external audio devices, downloading podcasts, visualizations (additional visualizations can be obtained online), and a special "Party Mode" that prevents changes to your media library and helps prevent switching to other Windows applications (with an optional administrator password lock). ...

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Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 - Don't Accidentally Show a Menu During a Slide Show

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:03:19 GMT

Prevent accidentally displaying a pop-up menu when showing an important slide show in PowerPoint 2007.

By default, when displaying a slide show in Microsoft PowerPoint 2007, if you click the right mouse button a pop-up menu appears. This lets you jump between slides, change the pointer type, immediately end the slide show, and other options.

While some appreciate this feature, others might access this menu by accident, causing a displayed presentation to appear less professional. Thus you may wish to disable this pop-up menu:...

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Windows 7 - "Remove" the Labels of Computer and Recycle Bin Desktop Icons

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:23:35 GMT

Clean up the display of icons on your Windows 7 Desktop - remove the labels of the easily-identifiable Computer and Recycle Bin icons.

If desired, to clean up the Desktop of your Windows 7 machine, you can remove the labels of the Computer and Recycle Bin icons:

1. Right-click one of the aforementioned icons and choose "Rename"....

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