Google announced a couple of days ago that they are about to expand the services that Google Docs currently offers by allowing other files to be uloaded to the internet other than Spreadsheets, Presentations and Word Documents. The new service will give up to 1GB of free storage space to upload and share any of your files. If you go over that limit then it costs just 25 cents/year for an extra GB of storage space.

The service could be used for those times when you need to email large files to friends or clients, but instead of relying on email you could simply upload the file to Google Docs and send an invite to all those who need access to the file.

When files have been uploaded to the service they can be sorted in to folders just like regular documents can and searched as documents also. If you upload a common file type then Google are also allowing you to open some formats to read the files online saving the need to download them.

The service is set to roll out in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out when you log in to Docs to see what it’s all about.

I recently came across the need to download a YouTube video for a presentation in a building where no internet connection was available. In order to play the video it needed to be downloaded from YouTube. A quick search on Google helped me to track down a program called YouTube Downloader that looked like a decent option to attempt to download the video. This “how to” tutorial will give the full run-down on how to download youtube videos.

YouTube Downloader is a free program that you can download here.

To download the video the first step you need to find the video you want to download on YouTube by loading Youtube.com and navigating to the video. Once loaded you need to highlight the content of the URL box found on the right of the page as shown below, then copy the URL to the clipboard (right click/copy).

Now that the URL is copied to the clipboard you then need to load up the new YouTube Downloader software you just installed and paste the URL in to the top box out of the two.

Once pasted click OK and then OK again. After that you will be asked for a location to save the downloaded file to. I normally select the desktop or my documents. Once selected hit OK and the video will download.

Please post any comments if you run in to problems with the conversion.

A cool little hack has recently been found that allows you to control all aspects of Windows 7 from within one control panel. The hack is called GodMode and is very simple to implement.

To access GodMode on your Windows 7 install (works on Vista too but apparently crashes the 64-bit version of Vista) all you need to do is create a new folder anywhere on your computer (the desktop can be used too) and either name or rename the folder GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

Once done the icon of the folder will change from the default yellow colour to a screen and name that says GodMode. Double click it to access the folder and you’ll have access to everything you need to config your PC in one location. Just go careful though and don’t change anything you are unsure about.

Via: CNET

If you have some video clips you want to share with friends, family or even the world then this guide will show you how to upload to YouTube your videos.

The steps to achieve this are quite simple in that all you need is a video to upload (which I assume you have if you are wanting to upload to youtube), a YouTube account and some spare time to upload the video.

The first step here is to visit the YouTube site and if you already have an account hit the login button at the top right of the page. If you don’t have an account then click the Create Account button also at the top right of the page.

Creating an account is relatively simple in that you just need to select a username, fill in some details and then submit the form. Once you have an account log in to the YouTube site and hit the yellow Upload button found at the top left of the screen. A page showing what can be uploaded is then presented which basically says you can upload a 2GB video file that is up to 10 minutes in length. At this point, click the Upload Video button where a file manager will open for you to select the video you want to upload.

A status bar will then be seen along with a form to fill out to provide details of what the video is about. Once the upload to youtube is complete you will be able to save the settings and at this point a URL will be provided allowing you to email it to friends and family or those who you want to see your newly uploaded video.

If you are running Microsoft Office and need to convert a PowerPoint Presentation to a PDF file then you can use the built in functionality of Powerpoint to achieve this. Reasons for doing this include the ability to share the file more easily with others if you know the recipients don’t have PowerPoint or the PowerPoint viewer installed.

We are currently running Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 Beta, so screen shots here are geared towards that version of the software although the same principles apply on other versions such as PowerPoint 2007.

To get started you first need to load up or create the PowerPoint presentation. When the presentation is ready click on the File option in the top menu and click the Save As button shown below.

Once done you are presented with the file manager where you need to select a location, filename and file type for the presentation. In the drop down box towards the bottom of the screen select PDF and once selected a few options will appear below which include “Standard (publishing online and printing)” and “Minimum Size (publishing online)”. Select the option you want (with minimum creating a smaller file size and standard creating a normal file size).

When you hit save Adobe Acrobat should open to display your newly created PDF file of your presentation with the same amount of pages as slides that you created.

Although this function might not be a life changing feature, it certainly can come in handy when someone doesn’t have a PowerPoint Viewer or software installed on their PC as chances are a lot more people have Adobe Reader installed.

When you install software on your Windows computer it is common for those programs to set themselves to automatically run when your computer starts up. Over time a collection of these programs starts to slow down your computer as more and more memory is used for each additional program loaded at boot. In a lot of cases all these extra programs are not required when you start up your computer as chances are you are not going to be using every piece of software you have ever installed every time your computer is switched on. Luckily there is an easy way to prevent some of these programs from loading up when booting your PC by using a program called msconfig.exe.

Msconfig.exe comes installed with most versions of Windows and allows you to control exactly what is run when booting your PC. To access the program click start (or the Windows button for Windows 7 users) then click run (if on XP) or if on Windows 7 type in msconfig.exe in to the search programs and files box and hit enter. Once done you will be presented with the System Configuration program shown below. Once loaded up select the Startup tab.

Here you see a list of programs currently selected to load up when booting my own PC. Out of the visible list above I personally can remove Adobe Acrobat, Adobe CS4 Service Manager and Adobe Reader and Acrobat. Having these run at boot is not essential for my PC and thus, is wasting valuable memory that could be put to better use elsewhere.

Other programs that I could potentially remove without issue is Microsoft Office 2010, Office Send-a-smile scheduler and PowerDVD RC Service.

One thing to take caution here is not to remove all programs as some of them are essential to your PC or laptop running such as Intel drivers, network card programs and audio drivers. However, if you do remove them accidentally then after a reboot is performed and something doesn’t work you can simply load up msconfig.exe and re-enable programs on the startup and check back here with TechAsis if you run in to any problems.

Google Docs is a free set of online tools from Google that allows you to work with spreadsheets online as well as documents, presentations and forms. This tutorial provides a step by step way that you can upload a Spreadsheet created in Excel to work with it online in Google Docs and perhaps even share the spreadsheet with friends so you can collaborate together on the data within.

How to Upload a Spreadsheet to Google Docs

Visit the Google docs site and log in with your Google username and password. If you do not have a username and password for Google then click on the Get Started button towards the bottom of the login box and follow the on-screen instructions. Registration is a fairly straight forward process requiring you to enter your email address, or create a GMail account and then give it a password and some basic information.

Now that you have logged in to Google Docs you will see the sidebar which contains options to sort through your documents such as which documents are shared with others, owned by me, hidden, starred etc…

To upload a spreadsheet to Google Docs you first need to make sure you have a spreadsheet built to upload. If so click on the Upload button found near the top of the page as follows…

When you click on Upload you are presented with a page that gives a simple upload area. At this point you click Select Files to Upload where you will then be presented with a file manager where you can find the spreadsheet on your PC to upload. Select the spreadsheet and click on Open and then on Start Upload.

Once the upload completes (which could take a while depending on how large the spreadsheet file is) you can click on the << Back to Google Docs link at the top left of the page.

Back on the main menu you will now see the spreadsheet you loaded right at the top of the list in the middle of the page where you can now open the spreadsheet and edit online.

A few things to note here are that Excel is far more powerful than Google Docs Spreadsheet software and thus, if you upload a fancy spreadsheet that’s designed with colours and a specific layout then you might loose a lot of the artistic look. The good thing is that a lot of the functionality should remain.

Recently, Google announced a new protocol called SPDY that is designed to get information to your browser quicker when downloading a web page. As well as introducing SPDY, Google have also launched the Google Public DNS that aims to speed up the time it takes to resolve a web address to an IP address.

A quick run down of what that means… When you type in the name of a website in the browser, such as www.techasis.com, a DNS is queried and the name is translated in to an IP address. DNS can be looked at as a phone book as each domain name has an IP address assigned. Each time a domain name is used in your browser it ads a little bit of time to a page load. By using Google Public DNS servers, their aim is to lessen that time to give a better user experience.

The changes are simple to make and require that you just set your DNS server information in your network connection to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and that’s it. However, it might not be that simple for everybody who reads this, so below is a quick tutorial on how to make the necessary changes.

Google Public DNS Settings for Windows 7

If you are a Windows 7 user click on the Windows Logo/Start Button at the bottom left of the screen, Click Control Panel (right hand column), View Network Status and Tasks, Change Adapter Settings. In this screen you will see a list of available network connections as below.

Double click on the active network connection (in my case it’s the wireless connection), then click on Properties…

Highlight IPV4 as pictured below and click Properties…

Make a note of the current settings just incase you want to switch back and once done, enter the DNS information as shown below then hit OK, Close, Close until you are out.

Now that the changes have been made you are using Google’s DNS servers. If for some reason you seem to witness a slow down and want to switch back the DNS servers to what they were then follow the instructions above and when you get to the IPV4 properties page, re-enter your old settings.

As always, feel free to post any questions below.

If you are a user of Twitter then you probably have noticed the the above image at the top of your Twitter home page. Twitter lists were created to help you cut down the noise of Twitter by creating and adding yourself to specific conversation groups. For example, for this site I have created a list called PC-Tech-Sites that can be found by clicking on that link. When visiting Twitter I might only want to look at what other pc tech sites have to say and if that is the case I simply load up my pc-tech-sites list. I could also add a “GadgetVenue” staff list where writers connect.

The system is simple to use in that you simply click the Create New List button, give it a name and then select if the list is to be public or private. To add people to the list is a fairly easy process. All you do is open up the profile of the person you want to add to the list (you don’t have to be following them), click the lists button at the top of the tweet list and then select which list you want to add them to.

That’s all there really is to the system. You can create all the lists you want and also add who ever you like to those lists. Others also have the option of following your lists.

If you have any good Twitter lists set up then feel free to post a URL below in the comments along with a brief description of what your list is about (unless it’s self explanatory).

Microsoft Office 2010 is not too far away now. One of the big features touted is the Office Web Apps application which allows you to use online version of Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote. A technical preview was just started, but due to demand it was already closed with those showing interest being able to register over on the Office 2010 beta site.

Most features on the beta test web app work except a few quirks such as being unable to edit in Word. Excel and Powerpoint have a few features missing too. OneNote is not yet ready for preview on the test site.

The Office Web Apps system uses Windows SkyDrive to function. This allows you to store your documents online in “the cloud” as it were, so that you can access them from anywhere. Co-authoring is also available on some of the apps allowing users to go online and work together on a spreadsheet as well as sharing docs from your desk top too.

….The great integration with Office gives people the ability to quickly and easily save and open documents from the Web, directly from Microsoft Office 2010. Seamless integration with Windows Live lets people access, edit and share with friends, family and co-workers anywhere. ….

When launched in the first half of 2010, Microsoft Office 2010 will have 3 versions available. First will be Windows Live customers who will be able to access Office Web Apps on Windows Live SkyDrive. The next way to get Office 2010 is through the usual volume licensing structure which will use Microsoft SharePoint Server on premisis. Lastly, businesses will be able to access through MS online services.

If you want to test the beta version of Office 2010 then check out this page here.

Via: TeknoBites