Tech Xpress

How to Open .ISO file ?

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:35:00 +0000

.ISO files are basically image files usually meant to be burned on a DVD or CD. You can also mount iso images with tools like WinMount. But what if you want to open them directly like zip or rar files?

Yes, .iso files can be opened directly. It's quite simple.

1. Just install 7-Zip. Its free.

2. Once installed, start 7-Zip file manager.

3. Go to Tools - Options.

4. Check the iso box in the system tab. Click Ok.

Now you can open iso files like zip or rar files. Enjoy!

More tips -
Extract from Zip, Rar and Iso files online

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Customize 'Send To' Context Menu in Vista and Windows 7

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 07:26:00 +0000

The 'Send To' menu is accessed through the Right-Click menu. Here's how to modify it according to your needs.

Lets just take a small example to see how Notepad can be added in the Send To menu.

Adding Notepad in the Send To menu in Vista

1. The first step is to open the SendTo folder in Windows. To do it, click the Start button and type shell:sendto. Press enter. This opens the SendTo folder.

2. Inside the SendTo directory, right-click a blank area and select New - Shortcut. In the box that appears, type notepad.exe. This makes Notepad to be added in the Send-To context menu.

Similarly, you can add shorcuts to other applications like MS Word, Excel etc. You can also remove unwanted items from the Send To menu. This may also work for Windows 7, although this needs to be confirmed. So if you have Windows 7, please check and let us know. Cheers!

Update: This works in Windows 7 too. Via comment.

Extract Multiple Zip, Rar and other Archives Simultaneously

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:28:00 +0000

If you have Winrar installed, just select all the archives, right-click and select 'Extract each archive to separate folder'.

This can also be done with ExtractNow. Install it and just drag the archives into the ExtractNow window anc click the Extract button.

I haven't tested this with 7Zip or Winzip yet. Will let you know after using them.

More:
UnZip, Unrar files online

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Insert Images in Gmail Message Body

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 15:13:00 +0000

By default, Gmail doesn't allow you to embed or insert images inside the message body. Although you can send images as attachments, sometimes its useful to insert images directly in the email body. And here's how you do it in gmail -

1. Login to your Gmail inbox. Click the Settings link in the top-right of the screen.

2. In the Settings page, click the Labs tab.

3. Look for and add-in named Inserting Images. Select the Enable option beside it.

4. Scroll down the page and hit the Save changes button.

5. Now when you compose a mail, a new button called Insert Image is provided in the compose message toolbar.

Use it to embed images inside your email.
Enjoy!

More Reading:
Undo Send Mail in Gmail
Protect your Gmail sessions by make it always use HTTPS
Find if someone is secretly reading your mails in Gmail

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Edit Text in Scanned Documents

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:23:00 +0000

Scanned documents are usually images, which means they cannot be modified directly. To edit the text in a scanned document, it has to be made editable. This is where OCR tools are of use.

OnlineOCR does just that. It's a site which converts scanned images of documents and gives you the editable text.

OnlineOCR accepts pdf, tiff, jpg, png, bmp, pcs, zip files as input. Output formats supported are plain text, rtf, pdf, word, excel and html. It supports 28 languages. The website also claims to preserve the formatting in the original file. However, I haven't tested that yet. Till then, enjoy!

More ways to edit text in scanned images are mentioned in below articles:

Copy Text from Images for Free
Extract Text from Scanned Documents for Free

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Show File MenuBar in Internet Explorer 8 and IE7

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:53:00 +0000

Missing the file menu in IE7 and IE8? Internet Explorer 7 and 8 doesn't have the menubar enabled by default.

Here is how to enable the menubar.

1. Right-click a blank area on the toolbar or tab-bar.
2. In the context menu that appears, select Menu Bar.

3. Bingo! The file menu bar should now be displayed.

Tested on Windows Vista Home Basic with IE 7.

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Disable Automatic Windows Update in Vista

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:56:00 +0000

Windows updates are important, but quite frustrating when it happens at the wrong time. Here's my problem with it - My internet plan has a bandwidth cap of 1 GB per month, but no caps are applicable during the night; its unlimited at night. So I would prefer that Windows updates are downloaded and installed when my internet connection is free of bandwidth caps. Similarly, you may also not want those updates to be installed just before your all important presentation. A manual update of Windows give you more control of when to download and apply it. So, here's how to do it.

Steps to Disable Automatic Updates in Vista

1. Open Windows Update by clicking the Windows Start button and type Windows Update. The Windows Update program is listed. Click it. Alternatively, you can open the tool from Control Panel.

2. On the left pane, click Change Settings.

3. Select the 'Never check for updates' option and click Ok.

That should do it. Remember to manually update Windows from now on. To enable automatic updates again, just follow the same steps and select 'Install updates automatically' option.

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Best way to Disable USB Autorun in Windows

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:47:00 +0000

Autorun is one "feature" or bug in Windows that must be disabled quickly. Whenever you plug in a USB drive, CD or DVD, Windows automatically executes the instructions in the Autorun.inf file that may be present in any of those removable devices. This is how most computers get infected with viruses, trojan, malware etc when a USB drive is plugged in. So it is highly recommended to turn off Autorun in Windows. After looking around quite a bit, here is the best way I found to disable it in Windows.

Disable Autorun in Windows Vista and XP

The below tip involves editing the Windows Registry. Please take a backup of the registry before proceeding.

1. Open the Windows Registry Editor. Go to Start - Run. Type Regedit and press Enter. In Vista, you can just type it in the box above the Windows button.

2. In the registry editor, navigate to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\

Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping

3. Right-click IniFileMapping key select New - Key. Name the new key as Autorun.inf

4. Right-click the value of the newly created key and hit Modify.

5. Enter @SYS:DoesNotExist in the Value data box. Click Ok.

6. Now Navigate to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MountPoints2

7. Delete the MountPoints2 key.

That's all. This will prevent the auto execution of malicious programs when a USB stick or DVD is inserted.
Note: Your computer can still be infected if you manually click the virus program. But this tip will atleast give you a first level of protection. Cheers!

[Source: Thanks to Nick Brown]

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Convert .Xlsx (Excel 2007) files to .Xls (Older format) with Google Docs

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:04:00 +0000

It is still a pain when you get .xlsx files. For those who don't know, this is the default Excel file format that Microsoft introduced with Office 2007.

Google Docs can be used to open Excel 2007 format files. Not just that, it also lets you convert .xlsx files to the older .xls format.

All you have to do is -

1. Upload the .xlsx file to Google Docs.

2. Select the uploaded file and choose to save as Excel.

3. The file is then converted to the older format and downloaded to your machine.

Enjoy!

More Reading -
How to Open .Docx ans .Xlsx files

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Virtual Desktop In Windows

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 14:39:00 +0000

Linux has this. Windows users may not be familiar with Virtual Desktop Managers. Having a virtual desktop turned out to be quite productive for me.

So what is a Virtual Desktop?

A virtual desktop allows you to organize your work in more than one desktop at the same time. Lets say you have two of them. Open some applications in one of them. You can now switch to the other desktop, and this one won't have the applications opened by you in the first one. Switch back to the first desktop to view the opened applications. You can run any programs in the second desktop. Both of them have their own 'workspaces'.

How do I get a Virtual Desktop in Windows?

VirtuaWin is a free application that gives you virtual desktops in Windows. It is small and easy to use.

Just download and install it. A small icon appears in the system tray. You can just right-click it and hit next/previous to move between your virtual desktops or use the default Ctrl + Alt + (Any of the arrow keys) shortcut to do the same.

A must have to improve productivity.

[Download VirtuaWin]

More Reading:
Save and Restore Desktop Icons to Original positions
Run Windows applications in custom display resolutions
Embed a Calender in a Wallpaper
Mac-like Program Dock in Windows

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Reduce MP3 FileSize

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 14:54:00 +0000

Want to make your mp3 files smaller without losing out much on quality? Here's a nice and small software to do it.

MP3 Quality Modifier is a free program to change attributes like bitrate, frequency etc of the file. In simple words, reduce the bitrate to reduce the size. So here's how to do it.

1. Download MP3 Quality Modifier and unzip it.
2. Run the program (No installation is required).
3. Click the 'Add Files' button to select the files to modify.
4. Leave the settings to its default. Select a bitrate of your choice if you want; default is 130 Kbps.
130 is quite good for computer use. A thing to remember is, lower bitrate means lower quality. A bitrate of 164, 192 or 256 is almost as good as the original quality but that would also increase the filesize. So choose what makes you happy.
5. Hit 'Start Process' and that should do it.

Upload Files to many File Hosting sites together

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 14:39:00 +0000

Here's a nice and easy site to upload files to RapidShare, Megaupload etc together. It's called KiloUpload. All you got to do is upload your file to KiloUpload. It then sends your file to as many as 20 top file hosting websites.

After the file is uploaded, KiloUpload will provide a page with links to download the file for each of the file hosting sites. And finally, it is free!

More Reading -
Upload a File to many sites with MassMirror
Upload and Share files with Senduit
Upload File upto 5 GB

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How to Block Websites

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 14:59:00 +0000

Worried about your kids surfing habit? Here are a few ways to block access to sites from your computer. These methods aren't very difficult to circumvent. But nevertheless, it provides a first line of defense for you to protect your kids.

Block Websites using Windows HOSTS file

Windows HOSTS file can be used to completely deny access to a website from a computer. Here's how it can be done -

1. Locate the HOSTS file.
In Windows XP and Vista it is in C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\
In Windows 2000 C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\system32\drivers\etc\
In Windows 98 and ME it is in C:\WINDOWS\

2. Open it in Notepad and find the line 127.0.0.1 localhost at the bottom. Add the following lines below it.
127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 facebook.com
127.0.0.1 www.orkut.com
127.0.0.1 orkut.com

The above lines will block facebook and orkut. Include sites with and without "www". Try all possible combinations for accessing the website and enter them in the list; for eg, to deny access to yahoo websites, see the list below.

127.0.0.1 www.yahoo.com
127.0.0.1 yahoo.com
127.0.0.1 in.yahoo.com (use your regional yahoo domain here like, "in" is for India, "mx" is for Mexico etc)
127.0.0.1 mail.yahoo.com
127.0.0.1 login.yahoo.com

3. Save the file.
This will block the entered sites from being accessed by any browser from your computer.

4. To restore access, just delete the lines.

Block Websites in Firefox

Firefox has a nice addon, BlockSite, which can be used to block sites. The obvious disadvantage is, it only works with Firefox. So if Firefox is the only browser installed in your machine, this should be enough.

Conclusion: The advantage of using the HOSTS file is its simplicity and no additional software is needed. As I said before, these methods can be circumvented. If you are very serious about this, consider using commercial third-party software.
Sites can also be blocked with OpenDNS, your router settings, or with third-party software. These are more advanced which I'll try to cover later.

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How to Edit PDF File

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:49:00 +0000

This article isn't about some piece of software that lets you edit a PDF file directly. This is about creating a new PDF document from an existing one, with some changes in the content. Here's how we are going to "edit" a PDF file.

1. Choose the PDF file you want to modify. Convert it to a Word document.
2. Now edit the Word document.
3. Convert the modified Word document to PDF again.

There you have it. All the services listed above are free. Enjoy!

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Rename File Extensions in Windows

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 13:56:00 +0000

Changing file extensions in Windows through menus is quite a bit lengthy. If you love using the command prompt, here's a really easy way.

Change File Extension of a single file through command prompt

1. Open up Command prompt. Go to Start >> Run. Type cmd and hit Enter.
2. Navigate to the directory which has the files. If the folder is D:\MyFolder, type the command
cd D:\MyFolder
3. Lets assume you want to change the file named sales.txt to sales.doc. Type the command
ren sales.txt sales.doc
This will change the extension .txt to .doc.

Change File Extension of multiple files together through command prompt (Batch rename extensions)

The command will be -
ren *.txt *.doc
This will change all .txt files to .doc files in the current directory.

Change File Extension through menus

1. In Explorer, go to Tools >> Folder Options.
2. Click View and uncheck the Hide extensions of known file types.
3. Now you can rename file.txt to file.doc directly.

More Tips:
How to Edit a Powerpoint Show(.pps or .ppsx) file
Rename Multiple files Simultaneously in Windows
Create File without Name
Copy all Filenames in a Folder to a Text file

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Take Screenshot of Full Web Page

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:37:00 +0000

The Print Screen key in Windows only takes screenshots of the visible area on the screen. This doesn't quite work when you want to take screenshots of long web pages that would require you to scroll down.
Here are a few tools that let you to take entire screenshot of a page.

Firefox users have choices. Screengrab is a Firefox addon that can take full screen shots.

Once installed, a small icon appears at the lower-right of your screen. Click it and go to -
Save >> Complete Page/Frame.
A Save dialog prompts you to save the screenshot as an image. This also grabs images of login protected pages; like that of your gmail inbox.

Internet Explorer users can consider a free program called Fireshot. Fireshot is also available for Firefox.

And if you don't want to install any software, check out free the web application at Aviary.

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Stop Google.com Redirecting to Local Google Page

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 02:33:00 +0000

Unless you are in the US, Google.com automatically redirects to a local Google homepage of a country, like for example Google.co.in for India. This is used to provide relevant results to users.

However, if you want to search on Google.com, here's a quick tip.
Use the following links:

http://www.google.com/ncr
http://www.google.com/webhp

These links won't redirect to local Google domains. Have fun!

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Download Image from Bing Homepage

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:14:00 +0000

Here's an easy way to download images from Bing -

1. Open Bing in Firefox.
2. Right-click on the page and click View Page Info. This opens the Page Info box.
3. Select the Media tab. You will find all the media files here. Once you get the image, hit the 'Save As' button to save the image.

This is same as the tip to download images from Flickr.
Enjoy!

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Add Watermark to Images Online

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:19:00 +0000

Do you share pictures online? Then you surely must be concerned about someone else using your images without giving credits. That is why its a good idea to watermark images before sharing them online. And here is a free and easy online tool.

PicMarkr is website that lets you add a custom watermark to images. It allows to upload images from your computer, Flickr, Facebook or Picasa accounts. You can choose to add a text watermark, image watermark or tiled watermark.
Best of all, its free!

More:
How to Watermark Video Files

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Block Images from Bing Homepage

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:36:00 +0000

The different images displayed on Bing's homepage is quite refreshing. And I doubt anyone out there would want to block them. But anyway, here's how you can do it.
Just add ?rb=0 to the Bing url. So it should be -

http://bing.com/?rb=0

With this url, Bing won't load the image.
Off course, I won't be doing it! It looks dull without those images.
Enjoy!

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Two Finger Scroll for Windows Laptop TouchPads

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:22:00 +0000

Mac users will be aware of two-finger scrolling for laptop touchpads. Here's one for Windows laptops. Two-Finger-Scroll is a project that lets Windows users to easily scroll a page up or down using two fingers simultaneously on their Synaptics TouchPads.

Currently supported gestures are are -
Two finger scrolling - scroll vertically by sliding two fingers anywhere on the TouchPad.
Two finger tapping - tap with two fingers to simulate a selected mouse button.

Note - I was unable to test this program as I didn't have a laptop at the time of writing this.
Hope you find this useful.

Copy Text from Images

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:47:00 +0000

I had previously written about copying text from images. That method required a bit of work. Here's a website that does the same, but with lot less effort.

Free OCR provides a really easy way to get text from an image. Just upload your image and the website extracts the text portions from the image. The extracted text can be copied. It did a decent job when I tested it; about 80-85% of the text was correctly extracted.

Free OCR has a few limitations though-
It only accepts PDF, JPG, GIF, TIFF and BMP files. You cannot use it for files greater than 2 MB in size. Images cannot be wider or higher than 5000 pixels. A limit of 10 images per hour also applies.

Off course, as the name suggests, its free!

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Preview Word Documents without Opening them

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:14:00 +0000

If you have a folder with many Word documents, this tip will come in handy, especially when you don't remember which file had the contents.

1. Open Microsoft Word.
2. Go to File >> Open. Navigate to the directory which has the word documents.
3. Select 'Preview' from the Views dropdown menu in the top-right of the dialog box. (See image below)

4. Select a word file from the directory. You can see the preview in the right pane without the need to open the file.

Tested on Windows XP with Office 2003. Enjoy!

More:
Password Protect Word, Excel and Powerpoint files
Convert PDF to Word
Remove hidden data from Word and Excel files
Save images from Word documents in their original dimensions

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Open Command Prompt from Context Menu in Windows

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:59:00 +0000

Here's a nice tool to quickly open the Command prompt for the current directory in Windows, with a right-click. The program is a shell extension for Windows that creates a "Open Command Prompt" in the right-click context menu.

The program run on all Windows versions above 2000. The application is free, open source and uses very little memory.

[Download Open Command Prompt]

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Embed Calender to Desktop Wallpaper

noreply@blogger.com (Vijeesh Ravindran) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:01:00 +0000

Big Huge Labs lets you add a calender to your wallpaper. Just upload your wallpaper image, specify calender month, position etc and hit the create button. A new image is generated which contains the calender.

Since the embedded calender itself is a part of the image, there is no need to install any application. Off course, you'll miss features that a calender application provides.
This can be pretty handy in offices where you aren't allowed to install software of view the Windows calender(some offices don't allow users to change the date).

Since the site allows you to only add one month at a time, it would be a good idea to embed for the next few months a well.

Via LifeHacker

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