One Tip A Day » MoiN

Install Applications Without Pausing Your Important Work

MoiN — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:13:09 +0000

Especially when we install a new operating system, reinstalling our programs takes up an enormous amount of valuable time. Even when we have an up and running operating system, installing new application usually translates into pausing our important work and supervising the setup process. How great would it be to be able to select the desired program to be installed, and have it install into our system in the background with all the right options checked? Even more so, how great would it be to do this with multiple applications simultaneously so that while we work, a number of our selected applications install on our system in the background?

The answer is obvious: very great; it would be very great for something like that to happen. And with Ninite Easy PC Setup that something is very possible.

On Ninite’s webpage, you can select the programs you want installed and Ninite will generate a custom installer which will operate in the background to setup those application on your PC while your other work goes uninterrupted.

After checking your applications you can scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the ‘Get Installer’ button. If you require an application which is not listed on the website, you can request Ninite to have it listed.

Clicking on the ‘Get Installer button starts the download of an installer.

I took Ninite out on a test drive and selected Python and WinRAR to download. Here is how the installer looked like:

It automatically proceeded to download Python and WinRAR and install them without bugging me with any pesky dialogue boxes. Ninite is the easiest way to download application and provides amazing convenience.

Manage Your Online Social Life With Kazle

MoiN — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:38:42 +0000

A large percentage of us internet users use multiple social networking websites today. Personally, I use Twitter, Facebook, and Orkut. For me managing these networks and checking all of them for updates can become very tedious and time-consuming.

For people, such as me, who are having management troubles regarding their accounts on multiple social networking websites, check out Kazle.

Using Kazle, users can manage many popular social networking websites from a single Dashboard. In their own words, Kazle is a “multi-networking aggregation platform.” Amongst the networks Kazle supports are Facebook, Bebo, Twitter, MySpace, Plurk, Brightkite, Flickr, and others.

The interface is conveniently simple to use and makes sharing over multiple networks easier than imaginable; all you do is enter what is on your mind in the text bar, and click ‘Update.’ Your update is then communicated to the accounts you have connected with your Kazle Dashboard. Within seconds, you update your status over all networks.

Along with modifying and updating your status, you can import pictures from your accounts on the social networks that Kazle supports. Conversely, you can also upload photos from Kazle to your accounts on other networks. Simultaneously uploading photos on multiple networks becomes one of it’s obvious timesaving features.

Furthermore, it can report back live feeds from your networking accounts. Your subscriptions can all be accessed right from within Kazle.

A massively facilitating free web service, Kazle’s friendly user-interface and its flawless functionality is bound to make it a popular tool amongst internet users who use social networking websites.

Upload And Access Your Files Smoothly

MoiN — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:47:58 +0000

Accessing your files from any computer in the world by using the internet has become increasingly popular over the past few years. While there are many web services that enable the user to store his/her files online, very few of these sites can be relied upon for data security and smooth functionality.

We recently discovered a great web service that enables internet users to store their files online. This service is Upload Robots.

There are two ways you can upload your files; if you want to temporarily upload a file, you can do that without registering for a new account. Simply click on the ‘Choose a File’ button and have your file uploaded. You will then be given the link of your uploaded file, and this is how the page will look like:

If the uploaded file is an image, audio, or video file, you can preview it in the space on the left. However the file I uploaded was a text file with the format *.txt, hence no preview was available.

The other way to go about uploading files on Upload Robots is to first sign in for a free account – a process that takes only about a minute or two. Afterwards, you can start uploading your files.

As a sample, I made a simple drawing of circles in Paint, and uploaded it. Here is how it looked, while previewing from Upload Robots:

The advantages of signing up and having your own account is that if you have uploaded multiple files, you can access them all under one username otherwise, you would have to save and keep safe the URL’s of all your uploaded files. Moreover, a signed up user is able to upload his/her files into folders he/she creates.

At the moment, Upload Robots offers a maximum storage capacity of 4 GB. Each uploaded file cannot be more than 10 MB in size. But the number of files you can store is unlimited (given you do not exceed the overall limit of 4 GB). Upload Robots will never delete your uploaded files, and you can access them for years to come. And if those features were not enough to impress you, consider this: the website is absolutely advertisement free. Upload Robots vows to never pester its users with advertisements.

For the more demanding user who needs greater storage capacity and other features, Upload Robots offers Pro Accounts which cost USD 5 per month.

With its amazing uploading speed, and wonderful user-friendliness Upload Robots has made file storage online remarkably convenient.

Collaborate And Share MS-Office Documents Online

MoiN — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:03:23 +0000

Often when making presentations together, not all members can be present at the time the final Powerpoint file is being created. Suppose all the group members go to college together and they have decided on what the presentation should include. The details are handed over to the group leader who then proceeds to make the Powerpoint presentation at his/her home PC.

But the group might have overlooked some important decisions to be made such as the visual effects of the Powerpoint presentation.

In situations like these, when group editing of a Microsoft Office file is absolutely necessary (and the entire group cannot be present at the time of creating the Office file), the only solution that reveals itself is the group leader first emailing his version to the entire group; then one member making suggestions/edits to that version; then another member, and then another. Needless to say, such a process can be extremely time-consuming and inefficient.

A perfect alternative to that the emailing line of action is DocVerse.

DocVerse is a Microsoft Office plug-in which uploads your Office file every time you make edits to it or save it. Group members can all have simultaneous access to the same file and edit it; the edits are incorporated into the Office file and the URL of the uploaded file stays the same. The file creator first needs to register for a free DocVerse account so that the uploaded Office file is secure. The creator can then select the group members who will be spectators to the editing process and the ones who will be editors.

DocVerse takes hardly takes two minutes to install and is a much better way than sending countless emails back and forth. Moreover, since DocVerse is a plug-in, it works within Microsoft Office and its presence does not interfere with Office’s normal functions.

DocVerse is a handy plug-in that can help enhance the final result of group efforts. Give it a go; the plug-in is absolutely free.

How To Create PDF Forms In Your Browser

MoiN — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 17:43:52 +0000

Creating your own forms can be quite a hassle. Choosing the design, widths and heights of each fields, and length, can be issues which take up a lot of valuable time. On a computer, these tasks cannot be easily done simply by opening up Microsoft Word and start making our own DOC or DOCX files. For that reason we will be exploring PDFAmigo today.

PDFAmigo is a free web service which lets you create interactive fill-able PDF forms right in your internet browser. There is no signup required for PDFAmigo, so you can visit the homepage and get right down to business.

You start off with a blank page on top of which is this bar:

You can click on individual buttons on this tab to add various features to your form:

With these options you can create and add sophisticated text fields (to allow users to enter text), check boxes (for on/off switches), list boxes (to allow multiple boxes to be selected), text labels (to annotate and decorate your form), and images (to personalize your form).

When you are all done editing with your form, you can either download the free version of it, which has a PDFAmigo watermark or you can go ahead and purchase it from PDFAmigo. The form which is purchased does not have the watermark.

Overall, PDFAmigo makes form-making in the PDF format easy and interactive. The next time you need any forms made, be sure to visit PDFAmigo; you will surely benefit from it.

How To Resume Work From Different Locations

MoiN — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:47:07 +0000

What if you could leave all your work on computer 1, travel to a different location, turn on computer 2 at that location and find the monitor screen image to be exactly as you left it? Unbelievable? Well with Hibernater, that little magic trick is very much possible. You can leave all your work on one computer, and then proceed from the same point with another PC.

The setup file to be downloaded is only around 5 MB in size.

In order to be able to continue your work from a second computer, both your computers need to have Hibernater installed. The next step is to register for an account which hardly takes three minutes. When the program is up and running, Hibernator allows you to save and resume your computer’s working state with only one click.

The way Hibernater works is, it saves all your documents and web addresses (on which you are working) on to the server and has those launch automatically at another computer when you run Hibernater there. This way you can easily keep track of your web surfing history anywhere, access your favorites anywhere anytime, have your frequently used documents and web pages launched whenever you are at the same terminal, and store your documents or files and access it anywhere.

For people who are concerned about their data being stored on server and the security hazards, Hibernater has 256 bit encryption to ensure that all connections are secure.

Hibernater currently supports the following commonly-used applications:

MS Word
MS Powerpoint
MS Excel
IE 6,7 and Firefox 3
IE Favourites
OpenOffice 2.4 Writer, Calc and Impress
Adobe Reader 9
Auto Login on MSN

Hibernater also includes a task list on which notes can be jotted down, in case you want to be reminded of something the next time you run the program.

For people who are constantly on the go, Hibernater is an extremely beneficial program which should not be overlooked.

Be Creative With Your Webcam – The Glow Doodle Way

MoiN — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:05:35 +0000

Yet another Jaw dropping-ly amazing app for you today! Ever thought of making art using just your webcam and a light source (like the LED lights you find built into those cheap Chinese lighters?) Of course you haven’t! But someone went ahead and made a software that does it anyway!

GlowDoodle is a freeware application for both Macs and PCs that aims to turn you into a Picasso on the cheap!

Utilizing WinVDIG (ie. a QuickTime Video capture tool) as its platform, GlowDoodle converts your webcam into an long exposure camera (of sorts). It captures light in such a way that it look like you’re making lines or streaks – whats amazing is that as you move the light around the `lines’ get saved onto your screen in real time!

You can make complex pieces of art using this simple technique and software! One you’re done with your masterpiece just hit the spacebar and your picture will be uploaded to the main sites gallery! While not serving any functional purpose – GlowDoodle is definitely one app that aims to bring fun back into your PC’s life!

Download here.

Scheduling Made Easy with TimeBridge

MoiN — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:52:25 +0000

Whether you’re a sales agent or a business owner, your sole focus is on one aspect at all times – get more business! For the proactive professional this means running around setting up appointments, meeting clients and deadlines, utilizing whatever time you have in the most efficient way possible.

The reality is, a large chunk of the professionals time is spent not on how to present his ideas, services or product – but in playing secretary to him/herself! Calling clients, setting meetings and getting things done. Sure, it looks easy when reading about it – but no one ever tells you about the countless numbers of rescheduling that usually occurs, or constantly hearing about `oh I never received an email about that meeting’. Soon your calendar starts looking more like a football playbook than an organized sales persons planner!

Today appointment scheduling has shifted to Outlook, Google calendar or Apple iCal, but that doesn’t mean the mess has gone away. If one important client decides to change an appointment you will end up calling all your clients for that day just to accommodate them. The question is – is there a way to handle this without hiring a separate secretary!

Well now there is! TimeBridge is a San Francisco-based startup focused on making it easy to schedule meetings and appointments. With the ability to sync with Apple iCal as well as with established calendar apps such as Google and Outlook. TimeBridge’s main pull is in the simplicity with which it gives its participants optional times and dates for each appointment.

Let say you want to schedule something with a certain person doing a specific work you asked, TimeBridge will send an email to him/her which will have 5 different time frames – he/she will be requested to choose which time suits them by selecting between “Yes,” “no,” and “Best” for each time option. Once the choices have been made, an email will be sent back to the original sender with their preferred time. Timebridge will then automatically check the original senders schedule and if that person’s `Best’ time matches up with the theirs — then TimeBridge will automatically set the appointment and send out confirmation emails! If there’s a clash in timings (e.g. the original sender will not be available during the specified time) then he/she will be notified by TimeBridge of the conflict.

TimeBridge can do this not for one client but ALL the clients you have on your calendar, at the same time! Regardless of how many appointment mails are sent back TimeBridge will juggle them around and set the appointments automatically until it hits a situation where there is absolutely no time combination within your schedule that will work with your client.

The amazing thing is that this part of TimeBridge’s service is absolutely free! Once you have set up a successful appointment, you may also use TimeBridges online screen-sharing and phone meeting services for a really low fee ($8.95 p/m) compare that to approximately $40 p/m using WebEx or GoToMeeting.com. This is especially useful for a conference call with multiple clients (eg, when showcasing your service/product).

In these hard times it pays to be smart and effective, TimeBridge is just the tool to tip the scales in your favor!

Create your own Custom themes for FireFox

MoiN — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 05:40:13 +0000

There are a lot of pre-given firefox themes that you can choose from, some satisfy your needs, some might not. To overcome all that, why not create your own firefox colored theme? You can, easily with AnyColor Addon. It’s a great addon that lets you change Firefox to Any Color and create your own personalized theme in matter of minutes. Some of you might recall a similar add-on called “Personas” – It basically lets you adds lightweight themes to your browser without much problem but I find this one a better half of the two.

AnyColor Features:

Choose your own colors and preview them immediately.
Select background images for the top and bottom part of the browser’s main window.
Choose one of the built-in appearance presets or create your own.
Create appearance scripts and change the browser’s appearance using dynamically generated content

Another cool feature worth mentioning is that you can change the look of firefox without restarting it.

Latest changes to the addon (currently) are:

Small fixes for compatibility with 3.6a1pre.
Small compatibility fix for DownThemAll!.
Removed the “Hide main menu” tweak.
Fixed a bug that would cause the “Get more presets” link to stop working.
Added the “Lighter Menus” tweak, it makes the menu popups lighter than the regular background color.
Removed built-in color overrides for Fast Dial and added it as a tweak.
Fixed the flickr preset by correcting the invalid json response.
Added the “Lighter radio and check boxes” tweak.
Added Hungarian translation

Download AnyColor (FireFox Addons Website)

Spell Checker For MSN Messenger

MoiN — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 05:30:19 +0000

Are you tired of your Typos? Almost everyone is. Most of the internet users are chatting their way off through instant messengers & committing spelling mistakes often. If you are using MSN Messenger, you must’ve installed Messenger Plus! Live. If you haven’t, it’s a great add-on which adds tons of features and extras to the software. Giving you the ability to change it’s skin, custom emoticons, giving you the ability to keep your history and much more. The best feature I like about Messenger Plus live is it’s scripts add-ons. You can download different kind of scripts to enhance your chatting experience.

aSpellChecker is one of them. It is a great spell checker for Windows Live Messenger. It helps you correct the wrong spellings / typos instantly. Easy to use and simple to install. Here’s what you need.

1- First of all, if you have Messenger Plus! Live, skip this step, if you don’t, download the latest version here.

2- Download GNU Aspell-0.50.3 (win32) (here) and install it in the directory C:Program FilesAspell

3- Download Aspell Precompiled Dictionary (en-us) (here). You can also find different versions of pre-compiled dictionaries at Aspell’s website. You can also download any but there isn’t any reliability if they work to the full extent.

4- Run aSpellChecker.plsc to import the script for Messenger Plus! Live.

5- If you’re signed in to MSN Messenger then sign off and log in back. And you’re done.

Keep in mind, since chatting on MSN is consider a bit hyper, aSpellChecker doesn’t work for all of your messages. If you’re in doubt that something you wrote might have a mistake in it, simple type a . (dot) in front of the message you’re typing out.

Like,

One Tip A Day is a graet website
.One Tip A Day is a great website

I hope it helps and counter your spelling mistakes.