ChaituSingams

How to Unlock a Locked Cell Phone and Why You Might Want To

2013-10-07T07:43:00.003-07:00

How to Unlock a Locked Cell Phone and Why You Might Want To

Most cell phones sold in North America — especially on contract — are “locked” to a particular cellular carrier. They can only be used on that carrier’s network, so you can’t switch to another carrier without “unlocking” it first.

Phone locking applies to nearly any type of cell phone, from the lowest, cheapest dumb phone to the highest end smartphone. Unlocking is different from jailbreaking and rooting, which bypass other software restrictions on mobile devices.

Unlocking Won’t Make Phones Completely Portable

First, it’s important to bear in mind that phones won’t always be capable of working on another carrier even after they’re unlocked. For example, in the USA, AT&T and T-Mobile use the GSM wireless standard, while Verizon and Sprint use the CDMA wireless standard. These are incompatible with each other, which means that you can’t unlock a CDMA phone purchased on Verizon and take it to AT&T’s GSM network, or vice versa.

CDMA is also a more restrictive type of network — while you can unlock an AT&T phone and take it to T-Mobile, you can’t unlock a Verizon phone and take it to Sprint, as Sprint’s CDMA network will reject the phone.

Luckily, most of the world has chosen the less-restrictive GSM standard. Before you consider unlocking a phone and taking it to another carrier, ensure that your phone will actually be capable of functioning on that carrier’s network.

Phone Locking Explained

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The CDMA/GSM difference is a legitimate technical barrier to moving phones between carriers. However, there are also artificial barriers. Carriers “lock” phones to make them only function on that carrier’s network.

For example, let’s say you walk into AT&T and pick up any smartphone on contract. That phone will then function on AT&T’s network, but if you try to place a T-Mobile SIM card into the phone and switch to T-Mobile’s network, the phone will reject the T-Mobile SIM card. There’s no legitimate technical reason for this — it’s compatible — but the AT&T phone is “locked” to AT&T’s network and will only accept AT&T SIM cards.

This would also get in your way if you were travelling and wished to use a local carrier in the country you were visiting rather than paying expensive roaming fees — your locked phone would reject anything but an AT&T SIM card.

Why Are Phones Locked?

Cellular carriers argue that phone locking is a necessary part of their business. By locking phones they sell on contract, they’re able to keep customers on their network so they’ll continue paying their monthly bills. Remember, phones aren’t actually worth their on contract prices — they’re subsidized. No phone is actually “free” and the latest iPhone actually costs more than $199 — so the carrier needs to recover the cost of the on-contract phone over the lifetime of the contract. If consumers were able to take their phones to other networks, carriers argue that they would have difficulty recovering the price of the phone and their business model would take a hit.

In reality, this is a fairly silly argument. If you buy a phone on contract, you’re signing a two-year contract. If you want to take that phone to another carrier, you’d have to break your contract and pay an early termination fee or keep paying the monthly bill for the lifetime of the contract. This contractual obligation would still be binding even if the phone itself was sold unlocked and you took it to another carrier. Some smartphones may even be sold locked if you buy them from a carrier store at full price, without signing a contract, which shows how silly this argument is.

8 Ways Your Wireless Carrier is Gouging You
Wireless carriers are gouging us — particularly in North America, where the USA and Canada have the most expensive cell... [Read Article]

Cell phone locking is really just a way to create additional friction for average people switching carriers, encouraging them to stick with their current carrier instead of looking around for a better price and switching carriers. It’s one of the many horrible business practices carriers employ to gouge their customers.

Unlocking Your Phone

So you want to unlock your phone. Maybe your contract has expired and you want to switch to another carrier, maybe you’re visiting another country, or maybe you just want to pay an early termination fee and get out of your contract early.

There are several ways to unlock a phone:

Call and Ask Nicely: Your carrier may unlock your phone for you. Call your carrier and ask nicely — if your contract has expired, they’ll hopefully unlock your phone for you. If you tell your carrier you’ll be travelling and wish to use a SIM card from another country to save on roaming fees, they may also unlock your phone for you. They may charge a fee for this, but it’s worth a shot.

HTG Explains: What the DMCA Is and How it Affects the Internet
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Unlock It Yourself: At the moment, unlocking a cell phone without permission is illegal in the USA, thanks to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. However, if you live in another country or are willing to be a rebel and flout a law everyone agrees should be changed, you can often unlock phones on your own without anyone’s permission. The exact process will vary from phone to phone, so you’ll have to perform a web search and find instructions for your specific mobile phone.

Of course, not all phones are sold locked. Often, phones sold directly from the manufacturer instead of by a carrier come unlocked. You’ll generally have to pay full price to get an unlocked phone that you can move between carrier networks, as there’s no carrier to subsidize the phone’s full cost.

10 Useful Features Hidden in VLC, The Swiss Army Knife of Media Players

2013-10-07T07:41:00.000-07:00

10 Useful Features Hidden in VLC, The Swiss Army Knife of Media Players

There’s a good chance you already use the VLC media player. But VLC isn’t just a media player — it’s a complete Swiss Army Knife for digital videos and music, filled with useful and fun features you haven’t found yet.

If you’re just using VLC to play back local media files, you’re only using a tiny fraction of VLC’s capabilities. There’s so much more you can do with VLC, whether you’re using it on Windows, Mac, or Linux.

Convert Media Files

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VLC can convert media files between the formats it supports. You could use this tomake a video smaller for a mobile device, convert media from an unsupported format to one your device supports, or even to extract the audio from a video and save it as a separate file.

To do this, click the Media menu and select Convert / Save. Load the file you want to convert, click the Convert / Save button, and select the type of file you want to convert it to. Use the Edit selected profile button to tweak the video encoding settings.

Stream Media Over the Network or Internet

How to Stream Videos and Music Over the Network Using VLC
VLC includes a fairly easy-to-use streaming feature that can stream music and videos over a local network or the Internet.... [Read Article]

VLC can stream media across the Internet or on your local network. To get started, click the Media menu, select Stream, provide the media file you want to stream and click the Stream button. You’ll be able to set up VLC as a media server so other computers on the network — or even around the world — can connect to your stream and view it.

Of course, if you want to stream over the Internet, you’ll probably need to forward ports on your router.

Record Your Desktop

How to Record Your Desktop to a File or Stream It Over the Internet with VLC
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VLC can load your desktop as an input device. This means that you can use the Convert / Save feature to save a video of your desktop, effectively turning VLC into screen capture software. You could also use this in concert with the Stream feature to broadcast a live stream of your desktop across the network or Internet with no additional software required.

Remotely Control Playback From a Browser

How to Activate VLC’s Web Interface, Control VLC From a Browser, & Use Any Smartphone as a Remote
VLC includes a web interface, which you can enable to access your VLC player from a web browser, controlling playback... [Read Article]

VLC has an integrated HTTP server you can enable. Set this up and you can then remotely access your VLC client via a web browser. This would allow you to remotely control a media center PC from a web browser, controlling playback and queuing up audio or video files. You could even use this along with a smartphone to turn your phone into a remote control for VLC. There are mobile apps that function as remote controls for VLC, and these apps use VLC’s web interface to function.

Watch YouTube Videos

How to Watch YouTube Videos in VLC Media Player
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Want to play a YouTube video outside of your web browser? Just browse to a video on YouTube and copy its full URL — this should look something like the following:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=###########

Click the Media menu in VLC, select Open Network Stream, and paste the YouTube video’s URL into the box. VLC will load the video from YouTube and play it in a VLC window on your desktop.

When the video is playing, you could click the Tools menu and select Codec Information. You’ll see the full web address of the MP4 video displayed in the Location box, so you can copy-and-paste into a download manager — or just your web browser — to download the YouTube video to your computer.

Subscribe to Podcasts

VLC can be used to stream podcasts, so you don’t need any additional software if you want to listen to podcasts at your PC. Just click the View menu in VLC and select Playlist. Hover over Podcasts in the sidebar, click the + button, and paste the address of a podcast’s feed into the box. You can then stream the podcast’s episodes from within VLC.

Play Internet Radio

Before Pandora and Spotify, there were streaming Internet radio stations. There was a time when Internet users primarily streamed these radio stations from within Winamp, but they live on. You can view a searchable directory of radio stations from within VLC — just open the playlist and select Icecast Radio Directory. Perform a search for the kind of music you want to listen to or browse the list of free streaming radio stations.

Of course, VLC can also stream other Internet radio stations that aren’t included in this directory. You can generally find a “listen” link on their websites that will allow you to listen in a desktop player like VLC.

Apply Video and Audio Effects

Rotate a Video 90 degrees with VLC or Windows Live Movie Maker
Have you ever captured video with your cell phone or camcorder only to discover when you play it back on your computer that the video is rotated 90 degrees? Or maybe you shot it that way on purpose because you preferred portrait style to a landscape view? Before you go straining your neck or flipping your monitor on it’s side to watch your video, we’ll show you a few easier methods. [Read Article]

VLC can apply audio effects, video effects, and tweak the way a video’s audio and video line up. Click the Tools menu and select Effects and Filters. From here, you can apply an audio equalizer or video effects, such as cropping, rotating, overlaying, or colorizing a video. From the Synchronization tab, you can tweak the way a video’s audio and video stream line up. This allows you to fix broken videos where the audio and video are out of sync.

As with other VLC features, these effects can be combined with other features. For example, you could permanently apply effects to a video by enabling these effects before using the Convert / Save feature.

ASCII Playback

Stupid Geek Tricks: Watch Movies in Your Linux Terminal Window
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ASCII playback isn’t a very useful feature, but it’s certainly an amusing one. In ASCII playback mode, VLC will display a video as ASCII characters rather than play it normally. It’s extremely impractical, but extremely geeky and worth a test drive if you want to surprise and amuse someone.

Click the Tools option in VLC, select Preferences, and click the Video icon. Click the Output box and select Color ASCII art video output. Save your settings, restart VLC, and start playing a new video. This feature works best with simple videos, such as cartoons with large sections of flat color.

After you’re done, go back into this window, click the Output box, and select Automatic to make VLC play videos normally.

Use a Video Wallpaper

Set a Video as Your Desktop Wallpaper with VLC
Are you tired of static desktop wallpapers and want something a bit more entertaining? Today we’ll take a look at setting a video as wallpaper in VLC media player. [Read Article]

VLC also allows you to set a video as your desktop wallpaper, replacing your desktop background with a video. It’s not very practical and extremely distracting, but hey — it’s something you can’t do with many media players.

To do this, open VLC’s preferences window, click the Video icon, and select DirectX (DirectDraw) video output in the Output box. Restart VLC, load a video, and you’ll be able to click the Video menu and select Set as Wallpaper to turn the video into your desktop wallpaper.

When you’re done, just change VLC’s Output setting back to Automatic and restart it.

VLC is also available for other platforms, giving you excellent compatibility with different media formats on almost any device. In addition to Windows, Mac, and Linux, VLC can run on anAndroid phone or tablet or an iOS device like an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. VLC will also soon be available for Windows 8′s Modern interface and Windows Phone.

How to See Which Browser Extensions Are Slowing Down Your Browser

2013-10-07T07:39:00.000-07:00

Browser extensions are useful, but they can increase your browser’s memory consumption, make it take longer to open, and slow it down in general. But how do you measure the impact a browser extension has on your system?

Each browser offers its own ways to pin down an extension’s memory consumption, CPU usage, or startup delay. The exact information you’ll get depends on your browser.

Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox doesn’t offer an easy way to view a browser extension’s memory usage. Rather than digging this information up yourself, you can use a Firefox extension that will display this information for you. Yes, it may seem silly that you’re installing yet another browser extension to see how much extensions are slowing down your browser, but you can always uninstall or disable this extension after using it.

To do this, install the about:addons-memory extension and open the about:addons-memory page in a Firefox tab. You’ll see a list of the extensions you have installed, sorted by how much memory they use. This will give you a better idea of how much memory your add-ons use and which you may benefit from disabling. If you have an add-on with a memory leak, it may continue to use more and more memory the longer your browser runs — you can check this page later to see if any add-ons are consuming a large amount of memory.

Google Chrome

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Google Chrome is a multi-process browser and many browser extensions run as their own process. This means that you can use Chrome’s integrated Task Manager to view the memory consumption — and even current CPU usage — of your running browser extensions. The Task manager will also display the resources used by your installed Chrome web apps as well as each open browser tab and other background processes.

To open the Task Manager, click Chrome’s menu button, point to Tools, and select Task Manager. You can also press Ctrl + Escape to quickly open the task manager.

The Task Manager will give you an idea of how heavy each extension is. Bear in mind that only extensions that run in the background are listed here, so extensions that inject code into pages you load may not appear in the list, although they may have an impact on page loading times.

Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer doesn’t expose the memory used by individual browser add-ons. However, it does give you information about how long each browser add-on takes to load. From this, you can get an idea of how heavy a browser add-on is — if it takes longer to load, it may be consuming more memory as well as slowing things down.

To find this information, click the gear menu in Internet Explorer and select Manage Add-ons. You’ll see each browser extension’s load time listed under the Load time column — to prevent an add-on from loading along with IE, select it in the list and click the Disable button.

Internet Explorer also displays “Navigation time” for each add-on – - that’s how much of a delay an add-on adds each time you navigate to, or load, a new web page.

Use Your Browser’s Safe Mode

Actually determining how much system resources a particular browser extension uses is a difficult problem. The above tricks allow you to get at the information browsers give you, but it doesn’t provide a complete picture.

Fortunately, there is a way to see how your browser performs without any add-ons at all. To do this, open your browser in “safe mode,” where it will load without any extensions at all. If your browser appears noticeably speedier in this mode, you’ll know that certain add-ons are bogging it down. Then it would just be a matter of disabling add-ons one-by-one in normal mode and seeing how much performance improves to pin down the problem add-ons.

Mozilla Firefox: Click the Firefox button, point to Help, and select Restart with Add-ons Disabled.

Google Chrome: To launch Chrome in Safe Mode, right-click the Chrome icon on your taskbar, right-click the Google Chrome option in the list, and select Properties. Add –no-extensions (beginning with two dashes) to the end of the Target box and click OK. Close all running Chrome instances — including the Chrome icon that may be running in your system tray – and then use the shortcut to relaunch Chrome. To disable safe mode, edit the shortcut again and restart Google Chrome.

Internet Explorer: On Windows 7, click the Start button and launch the All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Internet Explorer (No Add-ons) shortcut. On Windows 8, you’ll need to launch this program manually — press Windows Key + R to open the run dialog, type the following text into it, and press Enter:

iexplore.exe -extoff

Browser extensions can be useful. But, like any other software that remains running in your computer, you should try to only use browser extensions that you need.

The fewer browser extensions you have installed, the less bogged down your browser will be. Using a few lightweight extensions shouldn’t result in a noticeable difference on modern computers, but if you keep adding extension after extension you’ll eventually see your browser slow down.

Use Windows 7’s Previous Versions to Go Back in Time and Save Your Files

2012-06-04T08:48:00.001-07:00

Previous Versions is an incredibly useful feature built into Windows 7, which allows the OS to record and view earlier versions of files without a flux capacitor. Here’s a detailed guide to using this excellent feature.
This feature goes beyond the functionality of the Recycle Bin as it allows you to:

Recover files you may have permanently deleted.
View or restore a version of a file which you have saved over.
Allow you to compare current and/or previous versions of a file side by side.

With a little bit of dedicated hard drive space, an automation script and scheduled task, you can leverage this feature to guard against inadvertent file deletions and overwrites which traditional backups may not adequately cover.

Using Previous Versions: A Simple Demonstration

Before covering the configuration options, we are going to demonstrate the awesome power of previous versions. If you are already familiar with this, you can jump to the section about configuration.
Assume we have a folder on our desktop which has 3 files which have previously been captured as previous versions. We will use these files throughout the demonstration.

Making Changes to the Original Files
Now we are going to permanently delete (Shift+Delete) the Excel file,

edit the text file,

and rename the Word document.

Recovering the Original Files
Once the text file is closed, we lose the ability to undo our changes. So in the event we need to recover a previous version of the file, simply right-click on the file and select the Restore Previous Versions menu option.

In the Previous Versions tab of the file’s Properties dialog, you will see all of the previous versions (or snapshots) of this file which have been captured. Select the version you want to view or restore from.

Clicking the Open button will open the the selected copy in the default program. This is the file at the time to snapshot was taken.

Clicking the Copy button will prompt you for the location where you want to create a copy of the selected version.

Clicking Restore will replace the current version with the selected version. You will be prompted to confirm you really want to do this.

But what about the Word Document we renamed or the Excel file we deleted? When you open the previous versions of the renamed file, there is nothing there. If a file is deleted, there is obviously no file to view the previous versions of.

In the event of a file being renamed or deleted, you have to view the previous version of the the containing folder. You do this by right-clicking on some white space in the folder and selecting the Properties option.

In the Previous Versions tab, you can see snapshots made of the folder as a whole.

By double-clicking the folder in the list or clicking the Open button you can view the contents of the folder at the time the snapshot was made. You can see here that the Word Document has the original file name and the contents also contain the Excel file which we permanently deleted.
From here you can view or copy the respective file versions. Additionally, you can use the Copy and Restore buttons in the Previous Versions tab exactly as you would have against an individual file.

Recovering a Deleted Folder
What about the case where an entire folder is deleted?
Currently our Sample Files folder is on the desktop, so we are going to permanently delete (Shift+Delete) it.

In order to recover this folder or a file inside of this folder, we have to view the previous version of the parent folder. In our case the desktop.
Unfortunately, if you right-click on the desktop, there is no Restore Previous Versions or Properties option.

So in order to get to this, we need to get to the Windows Explorer view of the desktop folder.
Open your profile folder from the Start Menu.

Inside of the Windows Explorer view of your profile, there is a Desktop folder. Right-click on this folder and select the Restore Previous Versions option.

As you can probably guess, you can now view historical snapshots of your desktop contents.

Open the respective previous version and you can view the contents of the desktop at the time of the snapshot. Notice this snapshot contains the folder we permanently deleted previously.

By opening the Sample File folder, we can now recover the contents of what we previously deleted.

While this is just a very basic example, it demonstrates just how powerful this function is. The same methodology can be use to recover files from almost any folder on your computer, not just your documents.

Setting Up and Configuring Previous Versions

Previous versions of files are recorded as part of a System Restore Point. So whenever a restore point is created, if you have the option set to capture previous versions of files, this data will be recorded at that time. It is important to note that this function is smart enough to know that only changes to documents should be recorded. For example, if you have not updated a document in 3 months, a new snapshot is not captured each time a restore point is created.
To view or change your current settings, open the System item in the Control Panel and click the System Protection item. If you get a UAC prompt, select the option to continue.

Under the System Protection tab, select the drive containing the files you want to monitor for previous changes and click the Configure button.

Under the Restore Settings section, make sure you have one of the options which includes previous files selected.
Under the Disk Space Usage, set the amount of space you want to allow for storing previous versions of files. The more space you allow here, the farther you can “go back” to a previous copy of a file. However, by dedicating space for this feature, you lose the respective amount of storage for new files so be sure to take this into consideration when making this setting.

Apply your settings and System Restore will start using them immediately.

Creating System Restore Points

As mentioned above, previous versions are captured as part of a System Restore Point. Restore points are created automatically by Windows whenever certain installations are done and also, according to Microsoft documentation, once a day (although my observations do not support this). However, if you want to take complete control over when restore points are taken, you can create them yourself either manually or via a scheduled task.
Manually Creating a Restore Point
To create a System Restore Point manually, in the System Protection tab in the System Properties dialog, simply select the respective drive and click the Create button.

Give the new restore point a name and click Create.

Automating the System Restore Point Creation
If this function is something which you intend to use heavily or simply want some additional insurance against accidental file overwrites and deletes, creating a Scheduled Task to force the creation of a System Restore Point is the way to go. While there is not a simple command you can run to create a restore point, we have provided a VBScript file which allows you to automate the process of creating a restore point. You can download this script at the end of the article.
Create a new Scheduled Task which runs as an administrator on the respective machine. Make sure you have the Run with highest privileges box checked.

In the Triggers tab, configure how often you want a restore point created. Remember, snapshots of files are captured as part of the System Restore Point.

In the Actions tab, configure the task to run the CreateRestorePoint.vbs script provided at the end of the article.

In the Conditions tab, select the option to Wake the computer to run this task.

In the Settings tab, select the option to be able to run the task on demand as well as the option to run the task as soon as possible after a missed schedule.

Apply your changes and you are all set.

Previous Versions vs. Backups

As you can see the previous versions function is quite powerful. However, to be clear, this is not a replacement for regular system backups as it will not protect against drive failure. That said, previous versions offer several conveniences and functions that backups and file syncing services may not:

Ability to view or restore deleted/overwritten files with just a few clicks (in the event your backup drive is not available).
Ability to pick from several snapshots of the same file as they were captured at different points in time.
Historical snapshots can be created at regular, frequent intervals to provide in-day protection against accidental “oops”.
No uploading or downloading required.

Previous versions, however, make a great compliment to backups and file syncing services as it not only adds an extra layer of protection but also the conveniences from above at no additional cost.
Download CreateRestorePoint Script

Sendoid Offers Instant and Secure P2P File Transfer

2012-06-04T08:47:00.002-07:00

Sendoid is a file sharing client designed to shuttle files quickly between browsers and desktops with little need for configuration or firewall tweaking.
The web-based interface allows you to send files up to 1GB in size just by sharing a link with the person you want to share the files with. If you need a more flexible solution that allows for larger files and password protection you can download the free Adobe Air-based desktop client. The Sendoid servers merely facilitate the connection between you and the file recipient, all file transfer is conducted between the two browsers or your Sendoid client and their browser.
Hit up the link below to take it for a test drive or grab a copy of the desktop client for an easier to manage file sharing experience.
Sendoid [via Mashable]

Randomly Rename Every File in a Directory

2012-06-04T08:42:00.001-07:00

UPDATE: An “undo” function has been added to the script. There are comments in the batch script which explain how to use this.
Looking to have a little fun with your files or play a clever prank on someone? With a simple batch script you can randomly rename every file in a directory instantly.
Just copy our RandomNames.bat script into a folder and run it.
Before:

After:

Uses

While it may not be immediately obvious, there are several somewhat practical uses for this:

Easily bulk rename picture files to randomize the order they appear in slideshows or on digital picture frames.
A practical joke (see the warning below).
In case the “random” button on your MP3 player isn’t geeky enough for you.

Options

There are a couple of options you can configure in the script:

Prepend the file names – instead of renaming the entire file, a random string is added to the beginning of each file name.
Undo renaming -

You can set these options by opening the RandomNames.bat file in Notepad and editing accordingly. There are comments included to let you know how to set each option.

Warning!

When the script runs, it warns you that deleting the created translation file (__Translation.txt) will prevent you from being able to undo the renaming.

Needless to say, it would be a good idea to backup your original files before renaming them all.
Use responsibly and have fun!

How to Save Cash, Ink, and Paper by Printing More Efficiently

2012-06-04T08:39:00.005-07:00

If you’re shocked by the costs your printer incurs—and who isn’t?—then this guide is for you. Learn how to slash printing costs by making some simple and free tweaks to your printing routine and print settings.
Printing costs, especially if you have an inkjet printer, are astronomical. Today we’re taking a look at techniques you can use to minimize your printing costs. The majority of the techniques don’t cost you a dime and those that do will save you piles of cash in the long run.

Rethink the Whole Idea of Printing

The first thing you can do to save huge chunks of money in the printing department is to rethink your relationship with printing. It’s the 21st century. We don’t need a hard copy of everything. There are dozens of ways that information can be transferred and manipulated that doesn’t involve a printer. You might already be pretty conservative with your printing practices but consider just a few of the ways you can cut back:
Email documents to the recipient instead of printing them. This seems painfully elementary but quite a few people, especially in corporate environments, have simply got in the habit of firing up the printer left and right when it would be cheaper, more efficient, and environmentally friendly to email the document.
Use your smartphone for directions instead of printing a map—an added bonus here is that you can get new directions automatically if you screw things up. Even if you don’t have a GPS enabled phone just cutting and pasting the directions for use on your phone helps.
Transfer articles to your tablet or smart phone for comfortable away-from-computer reading. Tools like Send to Kindle for Google Chrome and Read It Later’s support for sending articles to your ereader make it easy to shuttle what you want to read to your portable device. With a little digging you can find all manner of tools for your specific device or reading needs.
These are but a few examples of how you can keep things digital and cut down on your printing costs in the process.

Outsource Big Printing Jobs

Home printing and the accompanying printers have never been intended to take over the role of your local copy shop or photo lab. Sure it’s convenient to have a home printer to print whenever you want but you’re paying a premium for that convenience. When you factor in the cost of the printer, the cost of the ink/toner, the cost of the electricity, the wear and tear, and the paper cost you’re either paying more than you would at a copy shop or breaking about even. Sometimes breaking even isn’t really breaking even either, especially when it comes to color and photo printing where home machines generally give lackluster results.
Speaking of color photos, don’t print them at home. The amount of money you’ll spend chasing lab-quality prints is high and the chance you’ll end up with the same quality that the ten cent 4x6s from your local Walgreen’s photo kiosk have is low. At any reasonable consumer price point you’re just not going to get the kind of quality that will ensure your photos still look good a few years down the road. For small volume printing those photo kiosks are actually a great deal compared to trying to print photos at home. Doing a lot of photo printing? You should use a price comparison service like this one to find the best value for your needs. If you’re willing to wait a week or two to get the prints in the mail you can save a mint.
For the most part the same thing applies to color documents. The crappiest color copier at your local copy shop is still ten times better than that inkjet you got free with your computer—and way cheaper for you to use for your intermittent color printing needs.
Think in terms of cost and wasted material. If you print color pages a few times a year then it’s a complete money sink for you to have an inkjet printer. Spend $5 on a flash drive and use that to cart files back and forth to the copy shop when you need a presentation printed.

Adjust Your Printer’s Output

That’s all well and good, you say, but what about saving money with the printer sitting on my desk right now? Fair enough! As much money as you can save by reducing your printing needs and outsourcing the large and/or costly jobs, you can save even more by making small changes.
First, get in the habit of looking at print jobs with the lens of “What can I do to reduce the size of this job?” at all times. Some things are simple to do like using the print preview button to make sure you’re not printing blank pages at the end of the web site you’re about to print off. If you’re not using the print preview you’re just asking to end up with all sorts of crap out of the printer. When you preview you can see if the document will look the way you want on the page and you can also see if the last page will, for example, be nothing but the web site footer and a big ad for Car Fax.
Second, start shrinking your print size. Can you shrink to fit the page and still read it? Can you double your printing mileage by 2-upping or even 4-upping your document? As long as you have your reading glasses handy 2-up for regular documents and 4-up for presentations like PowerPoint slides are completely legible. Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word, and most major document reading and editing applications support shrink to fit and n-up page printing.
Switch to draft mode as the default setting. Depending on your printer the actual title will vary. Some companies call it “draft mode” others call it “toner saver”, “print saver”, “economy” and so on. Regardless of the name it’s a setting or series of settings that allow you to dial back how much ink and toner your using. For simple things like articles and basic documents you’ll likely not even notice the difference. If you do notice it won’t likely decrease your ease of reading. What it will do is radically cut down on how much ink and toner you’ll laying down on the paper.

Start Selectively Printing

Earlier we suggested using the print preview in order to see what your printer was cranking out before it wasted the ink. Selective printing is an even more aggressive approach where you hack out or otherwise edit prints before they spool up, saving yourself a bundle in the process. A variety of solutions exist to help people conserve ink and toner by selectively printing.
When printing from the web, PrintWhatYouLike.com is a great resource for on-the-fly web site editing. By either plugging in the URL to their web site or launching the bookmarklet—seen in the screenshot above—you can quickly and easily edit a site and pull out the content you don’t want. Want the article, a few of the how-to photos you might need to reference, and that’s it? Go ahead and click on (and delete or resize) all the elements you don’t need. You can adjust the font size, selectively edit, and otherwise reduce the footprint of the document.
Other web and bookmarklet-based solutions you may want to look at include The Printliminator, MyPage, and Print Friendly.
If you want that functionality built in to your browser instead of using a third-party site or bookmark you should check out Printee for Internet Explorer and for Google Chrome, Print Edit for Firefox, and Nuke Everything Enhanced for Firefox.
There’s no need to waste your paper and ink printing the ads, sidebars that can’t be clicked in hard copy, and other web-only elements.

DIY Savings: Refilling Your Ink and Toner

One final way you can save big is by manually refilling your toner and ink cartridges. Be forewarned, however, that this is one of those areas that either goes swimmingly well and you exclaim how you can’t believe you haven’t been doing it for years or it goes terribly wrong and you end up either wasting money or outright buying a new printer.
This method is tricky not because it’s insanely difficult to pop a little cap off a toner drum and dump toner in but because print companies use all manner of cartridges and accompanying electronic mechanisms that make things difficult. Some Epson cartridges, for example, have a microchip on board that keeps track of prints and ink; you can’t just inject more ink into the cartridge and expect it to keep on trucking. Other cartridges are much easier to work with–one How-To Geek reader even showed us how he prolongs the life of his cartridges by simply injecting water into them.
Fortunately there are plenty of resources online to help you. The best thing you can do is to search Google for the specific company and printer model you’re dealing with and do your research. Replacement ink and toner is available at a fraction of the price of retail ink. Find yourself a dependable printer that takes well to refills and a quality source for refill supplies and you’ll have a long and happy relationship.

Did You Know You Can Copy and Paste Images Directly into Gmail?

2012-06-04T08:39:00.001-07:00

When reader Artem wrote in with this tip, I was pretty surprised—turns out you can paste images from the clipboard directly into Gmail with Ctrl+V or the context menu… but only in Firefox 4 at the moment. In Google Chrome, it works a little differently.
Update: after doing a little more testing, seems like if you do this in Firefox, this might not make it through to the receiver properly in some or all cases. It does appear to work with Chrome, however.

Copy and Paste in Firefox

Update: This Doesn’t Work Right. Skip down to the Chrome section.
If you’re in Firefox, you can take a screenshot with the print screen key, with a third-party utility, or with the built-in Snipping Tool in Windows 7 or Vista. Or you can even right-click an image in any browser and choose “Copy Image”.

Then you can either Ctrl+V or right-click and choose Paste…

And just like that, the image will be in your new email.

Copy and Paste in Google Chrome

In Google Chrome, it works a little differently—you can’t copy an image from the clipboard, but you can copy images within Chrome. Just right-click on any image, choose “Copy image”…

And then you can paste it directly into Gmail.

Hopefully it’ll all work seamlessly between all browsers at some point in the future. At least you can drag and drop images to Gmail from most modern browsers.

How to Automatically Change Your Default Printer Based on Your Location

2012-06-04T08:38:00.003-07:00

Windows 7 has a ton of great features, most of which are really obvious—but there’s also some great features hidden away that you might not know even exist. One of these is that Windows 7 can automatically change your default printer based on which network you’re connected to.
The normal use case, of course, is to switch printers depending on whether you are at home or at work, but this feature is especially useful if you use one of the many print-to-PDF solutions—you can continue to print things even while you aren’t connected to any network.
Note: this does not work for Home edition of Windows 7, and Obviously it only applies to laptop PCs, since nobody carries a desktop around with them from location to location.

Switching Your Default Printer Automatically

Head into the Devices and Printers panel, and then just click on one of the printers, which will enable more buttons on the toolbar. Now you can select the “Manage default printers” button.

In here you can change the radio button to “Change my default printer when I change networks”.

And now you can select a network in the first drop-down, and then select the printer you want to assign to that network in the drop-down box. The neat trick is to select the “No network” item in the drop-down box for anytime you aren’t connected—this is what I use to assign my print-to-PDF as default when I’m offline.

At this point you can see I’ve got my home office network set to print to our printer, and when I’m offline, the default is to print to PDF instead.

Not that I really print very often.

Using the Default Printer

There’s really nothing you have to do—the default printer will switch back and forth depending on the network. For instance, in this screenshot I’m not connected to any network, and my default printer is now set to doPDF.

And now when I connect to my home network…

The default printer immediately changes.

Very useful!

How to Enable Flashblock in Chrome (And Make it 5000% More Secure)

2012-06-04T08:36:00.004-07:00

Most people don’t realize this, but when your PC gets infected from browsing a web site, it’s not usually because of your browser—it’s because of your plugins, like Flash, Java, and others. They are sadly insecure, but Google Chrome has a built-in option to make your PC much safer.
The option is actually called “Click to Play”, and it’s only enabled inside a hidden page—though we have to assume it’ll eventually make its way to the default Options page. The really great thing is that it works across all plugins, not just Flash, meaning that you can also stop Java and other insecure plugins.

Enabling Click to Play (FlashBlock!) in Google Chrome

The first thing you’re going to want to do is type about:flags into your location bar and hit the Enter key, which will bring up a page of “experimental” features you can enable. Find Click to Play in the list, enable it, and then restart your browser using the button at the bottom of the page.

Now you’ll need to head to Tools –> Options –> Under the Hood, and click on the Content settings button.

Scroll down until you see Plug-ins, and click the Click to Play radio button to enable the feature.
You’ll also notice the Manage exceptions button in here, where you can override this for particular sites—say you wanted to always have Flash enabled on YouTube, or use Java on a particular site that you trust. Once you’re done in here, click the “Disable individual plug-ins” link.

This will take you to the Plug-ins page, which you could also access by typing about:plugins into the address bar. Once in here, you should disable anything that you don’t use, like Java.

All done? Head over to a page that would normally load a plugin to test it out, like YouTube. You’ll see that the Flash plugin is blocked, but you can click to enable it on a particular page. You’ll also notice a new icon up in the address bar, in case the plugin doesn’t show on the page, from which you can enable the plugins just this time, or always.

And now you should be at least 5000% more secure. Just be careful not to download anything weird from a shady site, and you should be pretty safe

How to Display the Windows Version on the Desktop

2012-06-04T08:36:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed during all the beta releases of Windows, there’s always a Windows version on the desktop in the lower right-hand corner? Here’s how that “feature” is enabled or disabled.
Obviously this isn’t terribly useful, which is exactly what makes it a Stupid Geek Trick. Either way, it’s a good learning experience to better understand how your OS works.

Adding the Windows Version to the Desktop

The trick is really simple, you just have to edit a key in the registry and you are done. Let’s start by opening the “Start Menu”, type “regedit” then hit Enter.

When the Registry window open, from the left pane, navigate to this key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

Make sure you select “Desktop” and not the subfolders in it, then on the right-hand side, search for “PaintDesktopVersion” and double-click it.

A dialog will pop-up, change the “Value Data” field to 1.

Now restart and you’ll see your Windows version printed on the desktop. It’s pointless but interesting.

If you want to remove the watermark, just change the “Value Data” field back to 0 for disabled.

Monitor Your Downloads in a Tab Instead of a Separate Window in Firefox

2012-06-04T08:33:00.003-07:00

Are you tired of downloads displaying in a separate window when using Firefox? Then say goodbye to that extra window and shift it over to a tab with the Downloads in Tab extension.
Here are the options for the extension. You can switch it back over to the separate window when needed and control how your shiny new downloads tab works. Very nice.

Note: Works with Firefox 2.0 – 4.2a1pre.
Install the Downloads in Tab Extension [Mozilla Add-ons]

Allocation Sizes, Tweaking the Right-Click Context Menu, Changing the Taskbar Color

2012-06-04T08:30:00.001-07:00

You’ve got questions and we’ve got answers. This week we take a look at understanding allocation sizes, tweaking your right-click context menu, and changing the taskbar color.

Understanding Allocation Sizes

Dear How-To Geek,
While formatting some USB flash drives, I was prompted to select an allocation size. What is this? What should I set it to and should I change it from the default in the first place?
Sincerely,
Staring at the Format Window

Dear Staring,
The allocation size refers to the size of the data clusters you’re instructing your operating system to use. Think of data clusters like a baskets on a shelf. When you need to put data away, you pull off a basket and put it in. The smaller the baskets the smaller the little bundles of data you can store in each one. The larger the basket the larger the bundles of data. The size of the shelf itself is what determines how much total data you store, but the size of the baskets on it (the cluster size) determines how efficiently that data is stored. If, for example, you have one tiny little left over piece of something you need to store, that item is going to get a whole big basket all by itself. Having smaller baskets decreases that wasted space and packs in the data chunks (big and small) into the space you have more effectively.
Now how does this apply to your flash drive? The benefit of having larger clusters is reduced seek time. This really only helps with traditional hard drives as you want to minimize the times the head needs to move across the drive. Flash drives (and Solid State Drives) have nearly instant seek time. Increasing the cluster size to decrease the seek time doesn’t benefit you, it just makes your storage more inefficient. Because the flash drive affords you nearly instant seeking, you want to select the smallest allocation size possible in order to maximize your storage efficiency.

Tweaking the Right-Click Context Menu

Dear How-To Geek,
Is there any way to customize the right-click context menu in Windows so that I can select a folder I want to copy the highlighted files to? The default options are pretty useless to me. I just want to be able to selectively copy files!
Sincerely,
Right-Click Rage

Dear Right-Click Rage,
We understand your frustration. You can add in the functionality you seek can be added with a simple registry hack. Check out our guide to adding a customizable copy/move menu to the Windows 7/Vista right-click context menu here. Now you can stop waiting around for Microsoft to finally include this simple function.

Changing the Windows Taskbar Color

Dear How-To Geek,
I have a really simple request. I want to change the color of the Windows taskbar but I don’t want to install bloated add-ons or special programs for doing any sort of interface tweaking. I just want to change the taskbar and leave everything else about the Windows Aero interface the same. What can I do?
Sincerely,
Task Bar Tweaker

Dear Task Bar,
What you’re asking for is actually super simple to accomplish, assuming you’re willing to get your hands dirty in an image editing application and approach the problem in a unique way. Rather than try to change the color of the taskbar from within the Areo settings, we’re just going to create a wallpaper with a colored band at the bottom that shines through the color you want. Check out our round-about but clever solution here.

Turn a Webcam into a Motion Detecting and Email Notifying Security Cam

2012-06-04T08:29:00.001-07:00

If you have an old web cam or two laying around you can convert them into a CCTV system that pushes email and growl notifications to you any time motion is detected in the area they are monitoring.
Sean, a DIYer from the UK, wanted to put his always-on-server to even more use. By linking a webcam to the server and setting up Yawcam (for the motion detection and email notification) on the server and a growl/prowl server (for the push notifications to desktops and iOS devices). So far his setup has worked perfectly, his next project is to build a more weather-proof enclosure (rather than a simple piece of flashing to keep direct rain off, as we see in the photo above).
Hit up the link below to read more about his project and setup an emailing/growling security cam of your own.
Webcam into Growl CCTV Camera! [Sean's Project Blog via Hack A Day]

How to Backup, Restore, and Sync Your Minecraft Saves on All Your PCs

2012-06-04T08:26:00.001-07:00

Minecraft creations can be huge and intricate, so you may want to back up your saved games, just in case. With a Dropbox account, however, you can take it one step further and access your save files from any computer.

Where Are the Save Files?

As we mentioned in our How To Get Started With Minecraft article, the game is in the form of an executable Jar file. It creates a directory on your computer for your saved worlds and settings, but it differs depending on what OS you’re running.
On Windows:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft

Take note that the AppData directory is hidden, so be sure to show hidden files from within Folder Options.
On Mac OS:

/Users/username/Library/Application Support/minecraft

On Linux:

/home/username/.minecraft

Take note that the .minecraft directory is hidden in your home folder, so if you’re using Nautilus, hit CTRL+H to show hidden files.
Inside, you’ll find some files and folders, but the only really important one is the “saves” folder. Inside, you’ll find your different Minecraft worlds.

The “saves” folder is what you want to back up. If you’re running a server, whatever directory the server’s executable file is in should have a folder with the world’s name. The default is just “world,” but you probably want to back up the entire server folder, so you save all of the settings as well. If you’re running a Bukkit server, this goes for double since all of your plugins will also have their own settings.

Dropbox Synching

Wouldn’t it be great if you could just keep your save files in one place, but have it be accessible by Minecraft on all of your computers? Using Dropbox, this is pretty easy to do.
First of all, make sure you have a backup of your save file somewhere else, in case you mess up. Next, move the “saves” folder from its original location to your Dropbox folder:

To recap, you should NOT have a “saves” folder in your Minecraft settings folder. You should have one somewhere in Dropbox and saved somewhere else as a backup.
Now comes the tricky part: you have to create “symbolic links” to that folder on your computer, using the command-line. It’s not very difficult, regardless of what system you’re on.
On Windows:
Go to Start > Accessories and right-clock on “Command Prompt.” Choose “Run as Administrator…”
Navigate to your Minecraft directory with the following command:

cd “C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft”

The quotes will let the command execute properly even if there’s a space in there somewhere.
Next, make a symbolic link to your Dropbox saves folder with the following command:

mklink –d “saves” “C:\path\to\Dropbox\saves”

Remember to enter the proper path in place of “path\to\Dropbox”. You’ll see a message pop up if you did it correctly.

On Mac OS:
Open up Terminal and enter the following command:

ln -s /Users/username/path/to/Dropbox/saves /Users/username/Library/Application\ Support/minecraft/saves

Remember to fill in your username in place of “username” and enter the proper path in place of “path/to/Dropbox”.
On Linux:
Open up a terminal and enter the following command:

ln –s /path/to/Dropbox/saves /home/username/.minecraft/saves

Remember to fill in your username in place of “username” and enter the proper path in place of “path/to/Dropbox”.
That’s it! Now, instead of having to manually copy/paste the saves folder on your computers, they’re configured to automatically use the “saves” folder in your Dropbox. We’re big Dropbox fans here at How-To Geek, but you could use another service if you like as well, such as Ubuntu One if you’re using Linux. Be sure to backup this folder to somewhere safe every so often!

How to Save Paper by Highlighting and Commenting on PDFs

2012-06-04T08:25:00.003-07:00

Here’s a little-known fact: There are applications that let you annotate and modify PDF files for free, with no watermarks. This way you can review a document and make your comments without wasting any paper in the process.

Foxit Reader

The application we’ll be using for this quick tutorial is Foxit Reader. This is an alternative PDF reader (alternative to Adobe Reader, that is). It’s fast, lightweight, and free. And most importantly for us, it lets you annotate documents.
For starters, download and install Foxit Reader. Then use it to open a PDF document you’d like to annotate. If installing Foxit Reader doesn’t make it the default application for opening PDF files on your system, you can right click the PDF and select Foxit Reader under Open With:

Once the file is open, click View > Toolbars > Commenting Tools.

The commenting toolbar lets you annotate the document in seven different ways:

You can underline words, highlight them, underline with squiggly lines (possibly to mark typos), cross text out, add a “replace” mark for text you wish to change and add floating sticky notes.
You can also double-click any such marking (underline, squiggly line, etc.) to open up a note where you can type a longer explanation. This is optional, so if the other side would understand what you’re trying to communicate even without a verbose note, you might want to omit it.
By clicking the Options link on each note you can set its status, mark it with a checkmark and more. You can also change its color by clicking Open Properties.

The comments you make in the documents are readable with Adobe’s own Reader – the other side does not need to have Foxit Reader installed to read them (though they would need Foxit Reader or Adobe Reader Professional if they wish to reply).

How To Record From Multiple Audio Devices Simultaneously

2012-06-04T08:23:00.001-07:00

Every so often, you may need to record multiple things simultaneously for your audio projects. Without the right equipment, this can be a daunting task, but with the right software tricks, you can get back on track quickly.

Single-track vs. Multitrack

Single-track recording is essentially recording all of your inputs into a one mixed track. This can be really handy in a pinch, and works fine for most home projects. The important thing to note is that you have to adjust your levels and everything before you record, otherwise you may be sacrificing some quality.

Multitrack recording takes each input device and records it to a separate track. This is more of a pro-level method and is really useful because you can add effects and Unless you have a nice sound chipset (most likely a dedicated sound card) or an external audio mixer/preamp, this isn’t going to be possible. This is usually because of shoddy or feature-incomplete drivers on lower-end and integrated sound chipsets. Dedicated sound cards usually have an excellent set of drivers, so if you have something like a Sound Blaster X-Fi, you’re covered. External mixers are something else entirely, and most decent audio programs will interface with these properly on their own. However, if you don’t have something that supports multitrack recording, single-track is still possible and you can make it work.

Requirements

Ultimately how well you can do this depends on a few things. First, you need to have a sound card that’s capable of having multiple inputs simultaneously available for input. You should also have access to stereo mix in your recording properties. If you don’t, check out How To Enable Stereo Mix in Windows 7 (to Record Audio). Of course, you’ll need multiple audio devices to record from. This can be something you’re playing back on your computer (which will be played by your stereo mix), an external mic, or something else you’ve got. If you’re trying to use two microphones, this works best if you have one that works via USB as well as a standard mic. As stated above, the better your soundcard, the better your drivers, and both of these will help things work along. And finally, have a set of headphones handy, so you can listen to the whole process and not worry about any feedback.

Using Audacity

Before we fire up Audacity, we have some quick prep work to take care of. Go down to your system tray and right-click your sound icon.

Go to “Recording devices” to see what’s plugged in and available.

Select one of your inputs and click on the Properties button, then choose the Listen tab.

Be sure your headphones are plugged in, and then click the checkbox next to “Listen to this device.” The headphones will prevent any feedback you’d get from the speakers and mic together. Next, go to the Levels tab.

Here’s where you’ll need to adjust the volume on your input device, as Audacity won’t be able to change them for individual devices. Next, go to the Advanced tab.

Adjust your default format. For most things, 16 bit 44.1 kHz should be fine, and if you want to drop down to mono, here’s where you need to do it. These settings will have to match Audacity’s defaults later on.
Once you’re set, hit OK and then do the same for your other audio input. At the end, if Stereo Mix is unavailable, all you have to do is set it as your default device and you should be okay to go!
Now, fire up Audacity and go to Edit > Preferences > Devices.

Under Recoding, choose Stereo Mix as the device. If you decided to go Mono, you can adjust the Channels down to 1 here, too. Lastly, click on Quality in the left pane.

The Default Sample Rate must match or exceed your settings from Windows sound properties.
Click OK and then record away!
This process essentially lets all of the devices you want to record play through your Stereo Mix channel, which then gets recorded into a single track. If you get an error about making sure your recoding device is properly configured, make sure Stereo Mix isn’t listed as “unavailable” under your Windows’ Recording Devices above and your sample rates match.

Using Multitrack Studio

If you don’t have stereo mix available, but you do have your OS recognizing multiple inputs, you may want to give Multitrack Studio a try. There’s a free demo available which limits you to three simultaneous tracks, but it works really well. If you’re on Linux, Audacity should work better natively with multiple inputs, so long as you’re using ALSA. You can also give Jokosher a try, as well as Muse. If Audacity isn’t cutting it on your OS X rig, your best bet is probably GarageBand.
Download the Multitrack Studio demo, install it, and start it up. Click the Add Track button and select Audio Track…

You’ll see a properties pane pop up.

Give the track a name and switch the settings to Stereo and MP3 if necessary. Repeat the process, so that you have two tracks in the main window. Then, click on Studio > Devices…

Here, you need to choose a proper driver set.

Stick with the default VistaSound and click Properties.

Here, you should be able to choose the proper Audio In devices. On my particular setup, it would only allow me to choose one at a time, but if you’re using a USB device as well, you should be able to choose two.
When you’re done, click OK twice to get back to the main screen. In order to record, you’ll have to flip each track’s record button on.

When they’re both red, you’re good to go. You’ll now be able to see the levels for each track move in response to the audio. In the upper-right corner, click the red Play button to record.

You can click the EDIT button on the right side of each track panel to bring down the waveform and make edits if you need after you’re done. You can also just export the audio files to Audacity and edit them there.

Everybody doesn’t have fancy audio equipment, but with some luck and tweaking your configurations a bit, you’ll be able to record better from your existing rig. This is also a great way to record cheaply if you run your own podcast, without having to spend a lot of money on a separate mixer/preamp.

Know a better way to record from multiple sources? Used nicer multitrack recording software? Share your know-how in the comments!

How To Record From Multiple Audio Devices Simultaneously

2012-06-04T08:22:00.003-07:00

Single-track vs. Multitrack

Requirements

Using Audacity

Using Multitrack Studio

How To Isolate and Save Vocals From Music Tracks Using Audacity

2012-06-04T08:20:00.000-07:00

You’ve seen how to remove vocals to create karaoke tracks, but what if you don’t want the music? Using a similar process and good source audio, you can ditch the instruments and keep the vocals for an a cappella effect.

One Caveat

Isolating the vocals works like removing vocals; in both cases we combine the original waveform with an inverted waveform to “subtract” the part we don’t want. It will leave us, in this case, with the vocal track. In order for this to work, however, you need to have a studio version of the instrumental track. Removing the vocals to get an instrumental track and then trying to isolate the vocals does not work in this case. Don’t be disheartened if you don’t have one ready. Many studios release the instrumental tracks (with and without backup vocals) for use with things like karaoke. There are plenty of places online where you can buy these tracks, like Karaoke-Version.com, and some singles and records even have them on the B side, so all in all, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find them for most popular artists. These full-quality instrumentals usually really work well for isolating vocals.

As with center-channel (vocal) removing, the better the quality of the original tracks, the better the effect works. If you’re using MP3s, do whatever you can to avoid using tracks with a lot of clipping. This will ruin the effect over those parts. You can highlight where clipping occurs on your tracks in Audacity by going to View > Show Clipping.
As opposed to the final mono track you get from removing vocals, this method will leave you with a full stereo track. As such, it becomes more important to try and match the quality of both tracks before you isolate the vocals.

The Process

Open up Audacity and import both the regular and instrumental tracks.

Select the Time Shift Tool to roughly align the two properly. Next, zoom in really close, and then zoom in more. You want to see the wave function very closely.

Take the proper time to align this as closely as you can. pick a peak or trough in the left channel of one track and match it precisely with the left channel of the other track. If the alignment isn’t right, the process won’t really work.
Once you’ve got it as close to perfect as you can, click on the Selection Tool. Double click on the instrumental waveform to highlight all of just that one track, and go to Effect > Invert.

Next, hit Ctrl+A to select all of both tracks. Go to Tracks > Mix and Render.

You’ll get one combined track that should have a more diminished amplitude where the vocals were kept and the instrumentation removed.

Give it a listen. If there’s something off, just redo it. The toughest part is in the alignment, especially if both tracks are of very different lengths.

It’s really easy to isolate the center channel for your own projects. You can study the singer’s methods this way, or listen to just the guitar solo. And, with the internet at your disposal, you should have no trouble tracking down instrumental versions of songs you like for a reasonable cost or for free.

Adding a PDF Printer, Hiding Windows Logins, and Sharing a USB HDD

2012-06-04T08:19:00.002-07:00

Each week we dip into the Ask How-To Geek mailbox and answer your pressing questions. This week we’re looking at installing PDF printers, hiding accounts at the Windows Login Screen, and sharing a USB HDD between computers.

Adding a PDF Printer

Dear How-To Geek,
In your rant article on Style Sheets, you mention Print to PDF: “And of course, there’s loads of people that use print-to-PDF to save articles for later without wasting paper.”
Being basically CHEAP, I liked this idea so decided to try it out this morning. I don’t have a Print to PDF option when I go to print. How do I get this option?
Sincerely,
Looking for PDFs in St. Louis

Dear Looking,
There isn’t a default PDF printer built into Windows, so you’ll need to add one. It’s really simple to do so and once you’re done you’ll have easy-peasy access to a PDF printer for all your future print-to-file needs. While you could go the official route and pay for Adobe Acrobat, that’s overkill for simple access to a PDF printer. Instead we suggest you follow our guide to installing CutePDF under Windows Vista (the guide will work fine for Windows 7, also). You’ll be PDF printing in a matter of minutes.

Tidying Up the Windows Login Screen

Dear How-to Geek,
Today I was wondering why I had to select my username on my laptop that’s only being used by me. Every time I need to click on the same icon after starting my computer. If you have one account on Windows Vista/7 you can just type in the password and start. But when you have 2 accounts (one is the administrator and one is the normal user) you need to select one. I don’t use the administrator-account, at least not in my daily use. I would like to have Windows 7 to ask directly for my normal account. I know it’s just one single click but it’s an useless click. What can I do?
Sincerely,
Give Me One Click or Give Me Death

Dear One Click,
It certainly would be nice if Windows had a built-in setting which allowed you to hide logins, wouldn’t it? While we’re sitting around waiting for that setting to appear, however, we can achieve the same end with a simple registry edit. You can check out our guide to removing user accounts from the login screen in Windows Vista/7 here. Other readers might be interested in our similar guide for Windows XP here.

Connecting Multiples Computers to One USB HDD

Dear How-To Geek,
I would like to give four computers access to a single USB hard drive. There’s a big catch, though. None of the computers are networked and I would like to share the hard drive with all of them via USB at the same time. Is this possible?
Sharing USB in San Diego

Dear Sharing,
We’re sorry to inform you that there’s really no way to accomplish what you’re asking, at least not without some concessions that essentially amount to building a simple network. USB cannot be split in the fashion in which you desire. USB connects to a host computer via one controller and that controller handles everything. You can’t split a USB connection between multiple locations and have the HDD simultaneously mounted.
That said, you can easily accomplish the kind of connectivity you need very cheaply. Since you wanted to share the drive among non-networked computers we’ll go out on a limb and assume that they are close to each other (close enough for a USB cord to reach). With the computers that close together it will be absolutely trivial to set up a simple network. You’ll need a router, but not a very fancy one. Ask around to see if any of your friends have an old router laying around (you’ll probably find at least one or two friends with an old Wi-Fi B router they’d be happy to get rid of). Barring that, you can find plenty of cheap but dependable refurbished routers online like this Linksys router.
In addition to the router you’ll need four lengths of Ethernet cable to hook the PCs to the router. Once everything is hooked together you need to plug the drive into one of the PCs (pick the one that will be turned on the most) and share the drive with the network. Read how to share files between XP and Windows 7 here and how to set up simple sharing under Vista/7 here. Once you’ve shared the folder/drive on the network all the other machines will be able to access it with the host computer acting as the controller.
We know that’s not quite the answer you’re looking for but it’s the fastest and most functional solution to your problem.

Coffee Keeps Your Windows PC Awake until Your Downloads Complete

2012-06-03T20:19:00.003-07:00

There’s no need to go mucking about in your power settings to temporarily keep your machine awake, let Coffee perk it up and keep everything active until your downloads are finished.
Practically everyone has left their machine on to finish a download, just accepting that wasting the electricity/money to run it all night is better than sitting up until 3AM when the files are done downloading. Coffee offers a simple solution in the form of a temporary sleep/hibernation blocker for Windows PCs. Run it, point it at the network adapter that data is flowing through, and give it a minimum data threshold before it shuts off and allows the computer to sleep or hibernate on its own.
Visit the link below to grab a copy. Coffee is a Windows only application and required Microsoft .NET.
Coffee [SourceForge via Addictive Tips]

Synchronize Your Computer and Google Docs Account with SyncDocs

2012-06-03T20:18:00.001-07:00

Are you looking for a quick and easy way to bridge the gap between the files stored on your computer and those in your Google Docs account? Then you need SyncDocs. SyncDocs synchronizes the files on your computer and those in your Google Docs account effortlessly for total file management bliss.
The installation process for SyncDocs is simple. Once the basic install is done you will begin the account setup and synchronization process. You will need to enter your account login credentials and agree to the terms of service.

Here is the information regarding how your account credentials are handled by SyncDocs.

Once you have entered your login credentials SyncDocs will conduct a quick account test.

Next up will be the Preferences Section asking where you want your sync folder to be located and the name you want it to have, file types to be synced, whether you want your documents to be converted to Google Docs format or not, and Windows integration features you can have enabled if desired.

Once you click the Finish Button SyncDocs will begin the synchronization process.
Note: SyncDocs will add a start up entry to your system for automatic synchronizing goodness every time you start your computer.

This is what the Context Menu for the System Tray Icon looks like.

Followed by the Google Docs sync folder on our system.

If you selected the option to have Google Docs as your default office suite, then double clicking your documents will open them in your default browser. To see more SyncDocs goodness be sure to watch the excellent demo video included below!

System Requirements: Works on Windows 7, Vista, and XP. Requires .Net Framework 3.5 or higher for regular installations and .Net Framework 3.0 for USB stick (portable) installations.
Note: At the moment SyncDocs is still in the beta testing phase. Later there will be free and paid versions of the app.
SyncDocs Homepage [via Lifehacker]

How To Force Your Browser to Remember Passwords

2012-06-03T20:06:00.003-07:00

If you use the password manager built into your browser for remembering all your web logins, or are considering it in light of the recent events with LastPass, you have (or will) inevitably come across certain sites which simply will not allow you to save your password. However, with a simple click or two of your mouse, you can work around this limitation and force your browser to remember the password on these uncooperative sites.
Editor’s Note: of course, if you’re using LastPass, this functionality is built right in. This article is for those that prefer to use the built-in browser password saving instead of putting their passwords in the cloud.

Why won’t some sites allow me to save the password?

This answer is quite simple, it is due to the “autocomplete” attribute on form and/or input elements being set to “off”. This attribute was introduced by Internet Explorer 5 and does what its name suggests, prevents auto-complete functionality from applying to any field which has it explicitly turned off.
As you can see here on PayPal’s site (which does not allow you to save your password), the login section has the autocomplete value set to off for the password field. As a result, the browser will not pick up this field for its auto-complete password database.

The Fix: A Simple JavaScript Function

Fortunately, the fix is equally as simple. We merely need to change the value of this attribute, wherever it is present, to “on”. Thanks to the ability of JavaScript to manipulate the DOM (document object model), you can easily do this with the click of a bookmark.
The JavaScript function is embedded in the link below. You can either drag the link to your bookmark bar or right-click on it and bookmark the target link. Once this is done, simply clicking on the bookmark will run the “Allow Password Save” script on the current page.

Allow Password Save

If the link above doesn’t work then here is the source for the link. You can create a bookmark with the following as it’s source URL:

javascript:(function(){var%20ac,c,f,fa,fe,fea,x,y,z;ac="autocomplete";c=0;f=document.forms;for(x=0;x<f.length;x++){fa=f[x].attributes;for(y=0;y<fa.length;y++){if(fa[y].name.toLowerCase()==ac){fa[y].value="on";c++;}}fe=f[x].elements;for(y=0;y<fe.length;y++){fea=fe[y].attributes;for(z=0;z<fea.length;z++){if(fea[z].name.toLowerCase()==ac){fea[z].value="on";c++;}}}}alert("Enabled%20'"+ac+"'%20on%20"+c+"%20objects.");})();

From our testing (using PayPal as the test site), this worked as expected in Firefox 4 and in Internet Explorer 9. Unfortunately, we could not get it to work within Chrome despite the success message that autocomplete was enabled.
The procedures for using it are almost identical in each browser with Internet Explorer requiring one additional step.
Usage in Firefox
When you visit a site that does not allow you to save your password, run the “Allow Password Save” script. You should see a notification like the one below.

Enter your user name and password like normal and upon logging in, you will be prompted to save your password.

The next time you visit the page, your user name will be filled in automatically, but not the password. In order for the password to be auto-filled, you first have to put the focus in the user name field. You can use either a mouse click or Ctrl + Tab if the password field has focus.

Now when you move the focus from the user name field either with a click or Tab, your password will automatically fill in.

Usage in Internet Explorer
When you visit a site that does not allow you to save your password, run the “Allow Password Save” script. You should see a notification like the one below.

Enter your user name and password like normal and upon logging in, you will be prompted to save your password.

The next time you visit the page, your user name will be filled in automatically, but not the password. You will need to run the “Allow Password Save” script again and you should see the same notice as above.

In order for the password to be auto-filled, you first have to put the focus in the user name field. You can use either a mouse click or Ctrl + Tab if the password field has focus.

Now when you move the focus from the user name field either with a click or Tab, your password will automatically fill in.

JavaScript Source

If you are curious how the script works, here is the well formatted and commented source. Feel free to modify it as you see fit.

function() {
   var ac, c, f, fa, fe, fea, x, y, z;
   //ac = autocomplete constant (attribute to search for)
   //c = count of the number of times the autocomplete constant was found
   //f = all forms on the current page
   //fa = attibutes in the current form
   //fe = elements in the current form
   //fea = attibutes in the current form element
   //x,y,z = loop variables

   ac = "autocomplete";
   c = 0;
   f = document.forms;

   //cycle through each form
   for(x = 0; x < f.length; x++) {
      fa = f[x].attributes;
      //cycle through each attribute in the form
      for(y = 0; y < fa.length; y++) {
         //check for autocomplete in the form attribute
         if(fa[y].name.toLowerCase() == ac) {
            fa[y].value = "on";
            c++;
         }
      }

      fe = f[x].elements;
      //cycle through each element in the form
      for(y = 0; y < fe.length; y++) {
         fea = fe[y].attributes;
         //cycle through each attribute in the element
         for(z = 0; z < fea.length; z++) {
            //check for autocomplete in the element attribute
            if(fea[z].name.toLowerCase() == ac) {
               fea[z].value = "on";
               c++;
            }
         }
      }
   }

   alert("Enabled '" + ac + "' on " + c + " objects.");
}

How to Customize Folder Backgrounds and Icons in Windows Explorer

2012-06-03T20:04:00.005-07:00

We’ve covered a lot of Windows tweaks over the years, and today we’re going to show you how to customize the look of your folders in Windows Explorer to add a background image or change the folder icons.
This guest article was written by our friend Ciprian from 7Tutorials, who also authored the Microsoft Press book covering networking Windows 7. Be sure to check out his web site for some interesting Windows 7 content.

Choose a Picture to Show as a Background for the Folder Icon

Did you know that the default folder icon in Windows Explorer can be customized to have a background image? Just like your Desktop!
The default background of folder icons is a thumbnail preview of the contents inside: images from inside the folder, icons of the applications or file types found in the folder, etc. This can be customized and you can have it replaced by an image of your choosing.

To do this, right click on the folder for which you want to change the icon background image and select Properties. Or simply select it and press Alt+Enter on your keyboard. This opens the Properties window of the folder.
Here, go to the Customize tab, in which you will find the Folder pictures section. Click on the Choose File button, Browse and select the picture you want to use as background. Then, press OK twice.
Once you selected the picture, click on OK again, and you are done.

Now the background image is applied to the folder icon.

Pretty cool, isn’t it?

Change the Icon of your Folder

Another thing you might want to do, is change the icon of a folder. If you’ve customized your folder as shown in the previous section, the background image of the folder icon will be replaced with the new icon. To switch back to the background image view, you must revert to the default folder icon.
This section will show you how to customize your folders assuming that you are not interested in changing the background image of the folder icon but you simply want to change its icon completely.
This is done from the same Customize tab of the folder Properties window. Go to the Folder icons section and click on Change icon.

In the Change Icon window, you need to select the new icon that you want applied. Click on Browse and navigate to its location, select it and press OK twice.

One thing to remember: icon files are stored as standalone .ico files but can also be found inside .exe, .icl or .dll files.
Once you select the new icon, click again OK, and you are done. The new icon is applied to the selected folder.

Use a Background Picture for your Folder

Another piece of customization you can do, is to set a background picture for your folder and also change the way text is shown, in order to match your background. This can be done using a number of free tools. The most user friendly you can find is called Windows 7 Folder Background Changer. Long name isn’t it? :)
This tool was released by the Windows Club and can be downloaded from Softpedia. Once you have it on your computer, unzip it and run its main executable as admin (Right click -> Run as administrator).

Note: If you don’t run it as administrator, chances are high that the application will crash.
Once the application is open, select the folder for which you want to add a background image. Then, click on Change Background Image and select the image you want to use.

One very important tip: do not forget to change the text color. Simply click on the box near Text Color and customize it so that it has enough contrast vs. your background image. Otherwise you won’t be able to see the text very well.

As an added feature, you can select if you want to Show Shadows Under Text and choose to Apply To Sub Folders the background image you have just chosen.
Once all configuration is done, close the application and the settings are applied.

How to Block All Cookies Except for Sites You Use

2012-06-03T20:04:00.001-07:00

Cookies can be useful when you’re in control of them. Today we’re taking a look at how you can control cookies by blocking them except for when you want them to enhance your user experience.

Why Would I Want to Do This?

A cookie is simply a small file that a web site places on your computer to store information. The process itself is totally benign and can even be helpful when cookies do useful things like store your shopping cart information between sessions, save you from the hassle of logging into a site every time you open and close your browser, and other helpful time savers. The ones that give cookies a bad name track users without their explicit knowledge and help advertisers (among others) build profiles of users. Many people want to limit the amount of information that is gathered about them and do so by limited the kind of cookies that their browser accepts and/or retains.
Today we’re going to look at some quick ways to do this is Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome using white lists. It’s much easier to specify which sites you want to accept cookies from than it is to perpetually accept/decline the hundreds of cookies your browser is bombarded with. For each browser we’re going to show you how to handle the task with built-in tools and then with extensions that enhance the experience—if any are available for the browser.
A few quick notes before we continue. First, There are a few downsides to aggressively weeding out all but the essential cookies from your browser. You’ll stop getting custom tailored ads (without cookies to tell the ad server what kind of ads would be best suited for you, you’ll get generic ones) and you’ll start experiencing more intersitial ads more frequently (like pop-over ads and video lead-in ads) as these are frequency controlled by cookies.
Second, this is a rather aggressive approach to controlling cookies. We recommend it if you’re really serious about keeping your privacy on lock down and controlling what third-parties can track about your online behavior and/or as a really great exercise in seeing just how many times web sites attempt to load your computer down with cookies.

Controlling Cookies in Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer has simple but serviceable cookie controls. There are two main areas we’re interested in: managing site status and toggling the cookie acceptance. First let’s look at how to whitelist a site. Click on Tools –> Internet Options –> Privacy –> Sites. Here you’ll find the Per Site Privacy Actions menu which allows you to white or black list web sites.

Manually entering every site you’d like to whitelist is a bit on the kludgy side so we’re going to semi-automate the process by toggling the cookie settings. Visit Tools –> Internet Options –> Privacy and under Settings click Advanced.

Here you’ll find a simple radio-button based menu where you can toggle the settings for first-party and third-party cookies. We’re going to temporarily turn on first-party cookie prompting and block third-party cookies. Rather than try to remember every site you might want to add to your white list, this allows you to accept the cookies on a need-to-use basis as they appear. After a few days of browsing you’ll have likely come across nearly every site you regularly use and will be able to add them to the white list on an as-needed basis. At that point you can toggle it to Block or leave it on Prompt if you don’t find it to be a nuisance.
Unfortunately in the realm of extensions, IE is a light weight and there aren’t any widely adopted cookie management extensions. If you’re a diehard IE user and unwilling to switch to Firefox or Chrome one available option is No More Cookies which allows you to bulk authorize/delete cookies in your IE cache. Compared to the native functionality it’s not a radical improvement, however.

Controlling Cookies in Firefox

If you’re a Firefox user you’ll find robust built-in controls as well as pile of extensions for managing your cookies. First let’s look at the built-in methods. Open up Firefox and click on Tools –> Options –> Privacy. Once in the Privacy menu make sure the Firefox will… option is set to “use custom settings for history”. Uncheck Accept third-party cookies and toggle Keep until… to “ask me every time” .
The ask-me-every-time setting is like the Prompt setting in IE. From now on every time a first-party cookie attempts to lodge itself in your browser cache you’ll be prompted to allow or block it. Again, you should only have to use the prompt method for a week or so until you’ve visited all your regular sites and got them into your white list. If at any time you want to check the list or manually add entries to it, just click the Exceptions button.
If you want to really dig in and get your hands dirty you can examine cookies on a cookie-by-cookie basis by click on the Show Cookies button found on the Privacy tab. There you can get detailed information about cookies and manually delete them. If you want to delve in even deeper, grab a copy of Cookies Manager+. It’s a super-charged version of the native Firefox cookie manager that includes cookie editing, import/export, and more. Firefox’s native tools are more than enough for most people but if you find yourself venturing down the path of cookie-hunting-ninja it’s good to have the proper tools.

Controlling Cookies in Google Chrome

If you’re looking to wrangle cookies in Google Chrome you have the option to do so, although Chrome’s menu settings are the least intuitively worded among the three browsers we’re looking at and awkward to use at best. In order to access your cookie settings under Chrome click on the wrench icon and then navigate to Options –> Under the Hood –> Content Settings. Here you have the rather limited ability to “Allow locate data to be set” (allow all cookies), “Block sites from setting any data” (block all cookies), and “Ignore exceptions and block third-party cookies from being set” which allows first-party cookies to be set, blocks all third-party cookies, but unlike IE and Firefox there is no prompt system. You’re stuck manually managing your white list which is completely unacceptable and far too much effort.
Unfortunately due to this gross oversight we need to turn to an add-on to fix things. Fortunately the add-on does a wonderful job fixing things and after installing it life is good again. Leave everything as it is, but check “Ignore exceptions and block third-party cookies from being set”. Now visit the extension gallery page for Vanilla Cookie Manager and install it.

Vanilla Cookie Manager fills in the massive gap in Chrome’s cookie management toolbox by allowing for easy whitelist management. Every web site you visit that has first-party cookies will have a small white cookie icon in the address bar. Click that icon to block or allow cookies from that site. In addition to managing a white list for you Vanilla Cookie Manager will also clear unwanted cookies at startup and protect your whitelisted cookies from deletion.

Although it would be nice if Chrome had the same functionality that Firefox and IE do, Vanilla Cookie Manager picks up the slack quite nicely. None the less, a simple prompt mechanism to facilitate whitelist creation isn’t an unreasonable request to make of future Chrome releases!