Tips and Tricks - Windows Vista and Internet

English Pirates in Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Sun, 31 May 2009 17:30:00 +0000

Fun: Change your Language in Facebook to English Pirate

Okay, this post has nothing to do with my usual tech stuff, but I find it worth-sharing. I am a big Facebook fan, and last night, a freind sent a few 'secret' or I call it 'fun facts' of facebook. I found this one amusing.

To change your language:

Scroll all the way down, and click English (US). Of course, if you are using any other language, then click that language.
Choose English Pirate.

Have FUN!! I took time to right-guess some of them though. ;p

More articles on ToyangQren's another blog.

Microsoft Excel Keyboard Accelerator

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Sun, 31 May 2009 17:29:00 +0000

Microsoft Excel 2007 Tips #3 -- Using the Keyboard Accelerator

This accelerator aims to allow you to access every command in the Excel using the keyboard. This function may not work for everybody, however, for people who don't usually use mouse, just like me, this knowledge would prove useful.

To do this, you would need to press and release the ALT key. You will notice then, there would be a ToolTips above each command, with an associated accelerator key.

Try this simple trick, could be more helpful than you might think.

More articles on ToyangQren's another blog.

Adding and Removing Icon Quick Access

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Sun, 31 May 2009 17:28:00 +0000

Microsoft Excel 2007 Tips #4 -- Adding/Removing an Icon to/from Quick Access

Quick Access Toolbar is another great feature of Microsfot Excel that will save you a few clicks to get the button you want. This works exactly the same like the Quick Launch next to your Windows Start button. And therfore, yes, you can customise it the way you like.

To add your favourite icons to the quick access toolbar:

Go to the icons you want to add.
Hover over the icon, and right click on it.
Choose Add to Quick Access Toolbar.

To remove it, do the step 1-2, and for step 3, choose Remove from Quick Access Toolbar.

More articles on ToyangQren's another blog.

Freezing Tables Panes in Excel

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Sun, 31 May 2009 17:27:00 +0000

Microsoft Excel 2007 Tips #5 -- Freezing Panes in Excel Table

When creating a table with massive data is what you smoetimes (I have to do tables for my lab report), then keeping the headers/panes of the table visible is something you would want to see when you are scrolling down the data. Using Excel, this can be done simply.

Consider the table I have made in the video below, what you need to do, is to follow these steps.

Make sure you place the cursor on the first cell that you would NOT freeze.
From the VIEW ribbon, select Freeze Panes dropdown.
Then choose Freeze Panes.

More articles on ToyangQren's another blog.

Creating In-Cell Bar Charts

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Sun, 31 May 2009 17:27:00 +0000

Microsoft Excel 2007 Tips #6 -- Creating In-Cell Bar Charts with Data Bars

A Data Bar in Microsoft Excel is defined as a semitransparent swath of colour which start from the lief side of the cell. If the number in the cell is small, then the range of the coloured bar would be small and vice versa. The use of this in-cell bar chart is one alternative in presenting a table filled with numeric data. Watch my video below to get a better idea of what I have been saying.

Creating data bars is not that difficult, only requiring a few clicks.

Drag the mouse to select a range of numeric data. Take note that this data should be numbers of the same scale, ie. if you have a row of total, then don not include this row.
Go to Home Ribbon, then from the Style group, select the Conditional Formatting icon.
Choose Data Bars frin the drop down.

If you do not like the default set by the Excel, you can customise by following these steps:

From the same Conditional Formatting, shoose Manage Rules (the last option).
From the Show Formatting Rules drop-down, choose This Worksheet.
Click the Data Bar rule you want to customise.
Click the Edit button, and you can start customising it as you wish.

Hope that helps.

More articles on ToyangQren's another blog.

Short Films about Google Chrome

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Sun, 31 May 2009 17:26:00 +0000

Since Google Chrome was introduced by Google just a few months ago, I had fallen in love with the browser for its simple interface and seemingly-better-than-others operations. It is fast. The tabs are simply awesome and finding a word (with Crtl F) is really a quick thing to do. Simply great.

Last month Google invited some creative parties to engineer 11 short movies about the Google Chrome. I spent some time to wath all the 11 movies, and some are pretty good. And I thought I justo share it here. The videos below are "A colloection of short films about a browser" and one of my favourite "You and Your Browser". Enjoy.

Original: 11 Short Films about Browser

MMore articles on ToyangQren's another blog.

Google Image Colour Selector

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Sun, 31 May 2009 17:26:00 +0000

It was just yesterday that I realised that Google Image has added a new feature called Google Images Selector, a tool that will let you narrow down your search by colour. I tried using this, and the results were pretty cool. Below are the pictures I took when I was experimenting with the tool.

Notice that all the three pictures have the same key word I typed in the search box, 'chelsea'. However, when I changed the colour drop-down just below the search box, the search results will change according to the colour. Awesome!

More articles on ToyangQren's another blog.

Wallpaper Search using Google Search

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Sun, 31 May 2009 17:24:00 +0000

Google has recently added a new feature in Image Search that include an options to specify the size of picture you are searching for. It is not just that. You can now look for a photo whose size can fit you desktop size, i.e. you can now search for a picture for your wallpaper!!

These are the simple steps:

Go to Google.com and click image on the top left tab.
Click on the Advanced Image Search which is located just next to the search box.
Select that Photo Content from the list of content types.
Select Use my desktop Size to find images that will suit your desktop.

Original: Wallpaper Search

More articles on ToyangQren's another blog.

Finding Published Date of a Webpage

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Sun, 31 May 2009 17:24:00 +0000

When one is looking for an article online, one would need to find out the details about the webpage. One of the common details is the date when the webpage is first uploaded on to a publus web server so that we can find and read it.

Using some tweak on thr address url on google search result, it is possible to find the published date of a webpage quite easily.

Here are the steps to follow:

Go to Google.com, and type the website url.
Go to the browser address bar, and add "&as_qdr=y15" at the end of the address.
You will notice the publication date.

Original: Find Date When a Web Page was First Published on the Internet.

More articles on ToyangQren's another blog.

How to minimise ribbon in Excel

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Wed, 20 May 2009 17:39:00 +0000

Microsoft Excel 2007 Tips #2 -- Minimising Ribbon

My laptop has a very small screen that sometimes i had to hide my toolbar just to get a better view on my screen. Some of you may also have PC tablet that more or less would give you the same trouble. In the Microsfot Excel 2007 the RIBBON takes quite a big space honestly, and the good thing is that you can minimise it!! Watch the video to help you understand what I mean.

To recap, the 2 ways on how to minimise ribbon are as follow:

Press Crtl+F1.
Right Click the Ribbon and choose Minimize the Ribbon.

When the ribbon is minimised, you can click on a tab name and Excel will temporarily open that particular ribbon. After a command have been selected, the ribbon will be automatically return to minimised state.

More articles on ToyangQren's another blog.

Best Video Formats for Youtube Uploads

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Wed, 20 May 2009 17:27:00 +0000

I have been uploading videos to youtube for more than a year now, starting with a video of myself (yes, myself) singing a cover to my favourite songs, until recently I started to upload videos for my blogs. And it was sad that I missed out the information about how I can maximse the quality of the videos by following the right formats for the videos.

This information is indeed in the youtube website, however, I believe no a lot of people would know it - I took a year to realise this!! :(. Well here are the pointers to remember:

Video format is best to be H.264, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 preferred.
The recommended aspect ratio of the video would be 4:3 or 16:9.
Resolution: 640x360 or 480x360 (recommended).
If it has audio format, try to haeve MP3 or ACC preferred.
It is important to have 30 frames per second.
The video should not beyond 10 min (2-3 min would be best).
Maximum file size allowed is 1 GB.

More articeles on Toyang Qren's another blog.

Customise Recent Documents Excel

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Wed, 20 May 2009 17:14:00 +0000

Microsoft Excel 2007 Tips #1 -- Customise the Recent Documents List

Recent Documents List is what will appear when you click the Office Button on the top left of the workbook in the Microsoft Excel 2007. The list will display all the documents that have just been opened. You can choose to display up to 50 recent documents.

Customising the Recent Document List may come useful when you are sharing computer with others. You might even want to clear the recently used file list altogether. The video below will show you exactly how to do it.

So, in the nutshell, these are the simple steps you need to do to customise the size of your Recent Documents List:

Click the Office Icon.
Select Excel Options at the bottom.
Choose Advanced tab on the left.
Scroll down till you see Display.
Then you use the Show This Number of the Recent Documents spin button to increase the number to up to 50.

In addition, to the right of each list in the Recent Documents, there is a grey thumbtack. If you click the thumbtack, you will pin that file to the list. The files will appear in the Recent Documetns List until you unpin them. To upon, simply just click on the thumbtack again.

More articles on ToyangQren's another blog.

Google Talk in iGoogle

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 06:36:00 +0000

Having a chat feature in a website that you may usually visit would be a great stuff to have, wouldn't be? Just like Facebook where you can use the chat panel to chat with you online friends, GoogleBlog has announced that iGoogle, Google page with a multiple website customised in a single page, has been completed with a Chat feature.

This chat feature is similar to the one on Gmail where Gmail users will be able to send instant messages to their colleagues, friends and family. Now we can do it straight from the iGoogle page.

A cool feature of this is that you'll even be able to chat with friends who don't yet have a Gmail address — any email address will do. All you have to do is invite them as a chat buddy, and if they accept your invitation and sign up for iGoogle with their personal email account, their name becomes just a click away right on your page.

Here is the original post from GoogleBLog: Chatting away on iGoogle..

Toyang Qren. More articles on Qren's other blog.

RocketDock Animates your Desktop

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 12:19:00 +0000

I used to wonder what those animated icons that can auto-hide on my friend's screen. I thought it must come together with the laptop. I was yesterday then I realised I (and you!) can have it!!

RocketDock is what you need. RocketDock.com gives you a useful description:

RocketDock is a smoothly animated, alpha blended application launcher. It provides a nice clean interface to drop shortcuts on for easy access and organization. With each item completely customizable there is no end to what you can add and launch from the dock.
The following video is an awesome video (not done by me), that will help you understand how to work with it.

It makes you interface really cool!!

by Toyang Qren

Cool Screen Saver Dropclock

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 11:59:00 +0000

Last week, a friend of mine told me about this cool screen saver. As the website says: Dropclock is an aesthetically intriguing motion clock screen saver. Every minute of real time is numerically expressed with heavy helvetica dropping into water in super slow-motion.

If you are an avid fan of 3d-art, this could be that will amaze you.

Go and give it a try.

Here is the link to download.

by ToyangQren

More articles on ToyangQren's another blog .

BatteryBar: Monitor your Battery

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:51:00 +0000

BatteryBar is a free software (also available Pro version) that will consantly control and monitor the battery status in your laptop as you use it.

What of the faetures it offers includes the display that will let you know the remianing time, the history data, the baterry wear, capacity and full lifetime.

Once you have download it, the next things you'd need to do:

Right click on taskbar
Choose Toolbars
Choose BatteryBar

Happy trying

by. Toyang Qren

More articles on Toyang Qren' another blog

Customize your Gmail Colours

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:03:00 +0000

Gmail has made one awesome improvement such that now Gmail users are able to customizise their own gmail page with their own favourite colours. The Google Blogscoped explained that you can make Gmil as ugly or pretty as you want.

The steps are simple:

From yout Gmail page, go to Settings
Choose Theme
At the last choice of theme, click Choose your own colours
Pick the colours of your choice.

Enjoy.

by. ToyangQren

More articles on Toyang Qren's another blog.

Coverting Webpage to pdf

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:51:00 +0000

PrimoPDF is a website where you can convert a webpage to pdf. What a useful tool! What you need to do is jst to past the link of the webpage, and the pdf file will be sent to your email quite instantly (I tried it a few times, and it took less than 3 minutes for the file to reach my Gmail inbox!).

These are the steps and details:

Go to PrimoPDF.
Enter you email address.
Choose if you want to convert a file or an url.
Done!

PrimoPDF is also capable of converting more than 300 file types to pdf files. Powerful indeed!!

Hope this article helps you.

by.Toyang Qren

More articles on another Toyang Qren's blog.

PDF Conversion Using KoolWIRE

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:04:00 +0000

Convert to PDF by sending Email to pdf@koolwire.com

When I started reading this tips in my email, I was like "really?? can it be that simple??". Then I try myself to see if this trick is effective for person like me who used pdf file a lot.

The result?? It was pretty impressive I assure you.

The following were the sequence of what I did:

I attached a Word file, named Lab Schedule, and send it to pdf@koolwire.com (if you notice the time I sent it, it shows 7.41 pm). In the first image, I highlighted that the file that I sent was indeed a Word document.
Within ONE minute, I received the reply. You can see the second image below.

The disadvantage is of course you can only do this when you are connected to the internet.

Go and try this trick!!

Google Chrome: Incognito Setting

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 05:15:00 +0000

Browsing Privately using Google Chrome

Since Google released the new-kid-on-the-block browser, namely Google Chrome, I have been using it quite often together with my primary browser. Since writing a review about it would require certain amount of time, I would review some features that will be helpful to you. Incognito is absolutely one of them.

If you are familiar with Private Browsing feature in Safari or the new InPrivate Browsing in IE8, the feature of Incognito in Chrome would be more or less the same.

When you open a window in incognito mode (Ctrl+Shift+N), your cookies from the standard session are no longer available and you can easily log in to a new Google account. The Google Operating System has a little bit of description about this feature:

"Webpages that you open and files downloaded while you are incognito won't be logged in your browsing and download histories; all new cookies are deleted after you close the incognito window. You can browse normally and in incognito mode at the same time by using separate windows."

To open this in Google Chrome:

Look at a button next to the address bar that when you hover it you will see "Control the Current page"
Choose New Incognito Window
The Incognito Window will appear

Tips: Keyboard shortcut is Shift+Ctrl+N

Hope this helps.

Software: Picasa Creates Collages

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 05:04:00 +0000

Create Collages with Picasa

If you like to document loads of pictures and enjoy editing them, making collages (a combination of photos) using Picasa, which is a free software from Google, would be really fun.

These are examples of what I did recently using Picasa (pardon me if you hate Chelsea FC, but I am a big fan of them ;p).

To start off, you need to download Picasa if you have not installed it in your computer.

You can watch this one-minute video to get the idea of how to do this.

The simple step you need to do:

Select the pictures you wish to collage (Tips: use Ctrl+click if the pictures are not well-organised in your folder)
Go to Create -- Picture Collage
You can then change the type, and edit it as you ike.
Save it once you are done.

Tips: to change the order of the photos, you can click o on the preview window. If you want to change the layout of the picture, shift+click on the preview window.

Hope this helps.

Links for 2008-09-02 [Digg]

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:00:00 PDT

http://tipsandtricks-vista.blogspot.com/
If you have read my post on CustumizeGoogle a few months ago, you will have notice that the addition of Google suggest when you are searching would be of great help, especially if you use Google.com more that any other website in a day.

Disable Enable Google Suggest

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:33:00 +0000

How to Enable/Disable Google Suggest

Though I would think Google Suggest is a great tool a Google user would love to use, I understand not all users would need this feature. Therefore this article is a quick tutorials on how to enable/disable Google Suggest.

To do this, follow these simple steps:

On the Google.com page, click Preference
Scroll down, at end of the options, you should find an option to enable/disable Google Suggest. Tick this option as you like (to disable to enable)

This is what it should look like.

Hope this helps.

Google: Suggestions in Search

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:09:00 +0000

Enhance your Searching with Google Suggest

If you have read my post on CustumizeGoogle a few months ago, you will have notice that the addition of Google suggest when you are searching would be of great help, especially if you use Google.com more that any other website in a day.

Just at the end of last month, Google had 'graduated' Google Suggest from its Lab so that now Google users would be able to apply this feature. As you write you search terms, the Google Suggest would give you relevant suggestions that you may find useful.

Here is one shot I took to give you a better idea of what I am talking about.

According to the Google blog, this feature would help in reducing spelling errors, save keystrokes and help in formulating queries.

Personally, this feature help me when I am looking for a terms which I am not sure how to spell. Just a week ago, I was looking for some video of Germany and Bayer Munich player, Bastian Sch%^Personally, this feature help me when I am looking for a terms which I am not sure how to spell. Just a week ago, I was looking for some video of Germany and Bayer Munich player, Bastian Sch%^$&*#(%, and this Google suggest really helped me to find it easier and faster. By the way, now I can spell the name correctly, thanks to Google Suggest too. The player is one of my favorite, Bastian Schweinsteiger.
amp;*#(%, and this Google suggest really helped me to find it easier and faster. By the way, now I can spell the name correctly, thanks to Google Suggest too. The player is one of my favorite, Bastian Schweinsteiger.

If you are wondering how to disable this feature, you can read my other post about disabling Google Suggest.

Hope this helps.

Links for 2008-08-19 [Digg]

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 PDT

Software: Kallout Easier Searching
Kallout, a Windows application, is a great way to enhance your searching experience in the internet. You and most of people would go to search engines and type the phrase you look for in a search box. However, have you ever thought a way to search for a phrase you accidentally found on a page, without having to open a new Google or Yahoo page? Kall

Software: Kallout Easier Searching

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:09:00 +0000

Kallout: Make Searching Much Easier and Better

Kallout, a Windows application, is a great way to enhance your searching experience in the internet. You and most of people would go to search engines and type the phrase you look for in a search box. However, have you ever thought a way to search for a phrase you accidentally found on a page, without having to open a new Google or Yahoo page? Kallout is the answer.

If you highlight any text in many programs (including Firefox, Adobe Acrobat, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office and Notepad) there will be an icon that will show up on the top right of the highlighted text . When you hover your mouse over that icon, it gives you a menu to look up the selected text in many popular services like Google, YouTube, Wikipedia, eBay and many more.

Watch this video to understand better.

Tips: The page will float on top of the page you are reading, so you don'thave to direct to a new, different page.

To download this useful software, you can click here.

Some screenshots..

Hope this helps.

Links for 2008-08-12 [Digg]

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 PDT

Vista: Resizing Desktop Icons
In my previous post, I have discussed about the use of mouse wheel in resizing fonts when you are surfing the internet. Apparently, as discussed in the Digital Information, the power of mouse wheel doesn't stop there. You can actually now resize your desktop icons.

Vista: Resizing Desktop Icons

noreply@blogger.com (Toyang Q) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:43:00 +0000

Resizing Desktop Icons with your Mouse Wheel

In my previous post, I have discussed about the use of mouse wheel in resizing fonts when you are surfing the internet. Apparently, as discussed in the Digital Information, the power of mouse wheel doesn't stop there. You can actually now resize your desktop icons.

This video will tell you even more.

So, to do this is simple.

Ctrl + Right/Left Click + Scroll your mouse wheel.

Tips (or Warning rather): XP users, I am sorry that this feature only works on Vista. When I tried using my roomie's laptop (XP), this doesn't work.

Some screen shots..

Hope this helps.

Links for 2008-08-08 [Digg]

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 00:00:00 PDT

Speed Up Windows Vista
Many people have written or asked me questions about problems that Vista has, especially in terms of the speed. Slow computer system is indeed what computer users find annoying really. However, this is what I found when I was surfing to kill my spare my free time last week: WINDOWS VISTA PERFORMANCE AND TUNING.

Links for 2008-08-06 [Digg]

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:00:00 PDT

category: browsers
http://tipsandtricks-vista.blogspot.com

Links for 2008-08-05 [Digg]

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 00:00:00 PDT

Category: Windows Vista Tips
http://tipsandtricks-vista.blogspot.com
Google News: Find Quotation
I like how Google put it in a review of Google News: Words Matter. As part of Google's mission to organize the world's information, Google provides quotations in news articles easy to search and browse in the Google News. It is now very easy for you to keep track of what your favorite politician, actor or sports star is saying.

Links for 2008-08-04 [Digg]

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:00:00 PDT

Category: Goggle Tips
tips of Google
Category: Software TIps
http://tipsandtricks-vista.blogspot.com