How To Take A Screen Shot

Today, we’ll take things from a completely different angle than usually, and I have a serious reason to do that. What kind of reason? My sanity, that’s the reason! Serious enough? No, don’t worry, I won’t go crazy if I write about some other interesting program, but I was very close to that point yesterday, when trying to explain to a friend of mine how to take a screen shot! Believe it or not, there are people who have been using computers for years and have no idea how to take a screen shotwhen needed!

First of all, let me say that, no matter the operating system you’re using, the Print Screen key is worth its weight in gold. The big difference between Windows XP and Vista is that most Vista versions come with a tool built specifically for taking screen shots, while XP doesn’t have such a thing. Anyway, taking a screen shot is much easier than those who haven’t done it so far may believe, and if it takes more than 1 minute to do that, then you may have a problem…

How To Take A Screen Shot In Windows XP

1. Press Print Screen to capture the entire screen, or Alt+Print Screen, to capture only the active window.

2. Open the Run window (Win key+R), type in mspaint, and then press Enter, or choose the old way – Start> All Programs> Accessories> Paint.

3. Once Paint opens, simply press Ctrl+V to paste the contents of the clipboard (your screen shot, obviously); the old way is to open the Edit menu and click on Paste.

4. Press Ctrl+S and choose the destination where you want to save the screen shot. Beware that default image format is BMP, and the resulting file can be pretty large, so be sure to save as JPEG, GIF, or PNG (TIFF files are also pretty large).

In Windows Vista Home Basic, you’ll be doing about the same thing, and no matter what Windows OS do you have, there are plenty of free image capture tools to play with, for example the one coming with PhotoScape.

How To Take A Screen Shot In Windows Vista

If you don’t have Vista Home Basic, then your version surely has the Snipping Tool, so here’s how to use that one…

1. Open the Snipping Tool simply by typing snip in the Search Box and clicking on its name, once it appears (if you have similar programs, for example a game called Sniper, those will also be shown).

2. Click the arrow pointing down in the right side of the New button to choose the selection mode (free-form, rectangular, window and full screen capture modes are available).

3. Select the area you want to capture, and then work on your image, if you consider it necessary.

4. When everything’s done, save your work (PNG, GIF, JPEG and MHT files can be saved by Vista’s Snipping Tool) or send it through email right away!

How To Take A Screen Shot In Mac OS X, Linux, or any other OS

If you’re using anything but Windows, things should be about the same. After all, thePrint Screen key also works in Linux and Mac OS X… and I am sure that if you’re using anything but Windows, most chances are that you know how to take a screen shot already, right?

These being said, I only have one question remaining: how do you take screen shots?

Best Internet Browse

If I think well, virtually any forum on the Internet involving discussions about computers and software can’t avoid a topic about the best Internet browser, or at least one starting with a poll asking you about the browser you’re using. Now, this is nothing out of ordinary – there are also a lot of silly topics on every forum involving questions about sex, for example, but at least those can be really fun, while here, there’s only one answer that you should remember well: there’s no such thing as“best Internet browser,” all right?

Some time ago, I made the mistake to overlook the capabilities of a browser who was far from version 1.0, but some of my friends recommended as being one of those very strong newcomers, and I won’t do that mistake again. The newcomer I didn’t even try some time ago was Flock, now one of the browsers I use on a regular basis, and the one I won’t overlook today is Midori.

Simply described as “a lightweight web browser” on its homepage, Midori comes with all the features most Internet users need and – everyone pay attention here, please! – offers fast WebKit-based rendering and pretty smart resource management, making it an ideal choice to those who are tired already of looking for a browser that won’t expand to chew all available memory as soon as two-three tabs have been opened!

Unfortunately, I wouldn’t recommend this browser to my mom, as I wouldn’t recommend my father to jump into a Corvette and drive away without attending some special driving courses for powerful rear-drive cars, either. Why am I saying this? Well, Midori for Windows is only labeled 0.1.8 for now, and is still far from perfect, as I was able to notice while playing with it.

Speaking about problems, let me tell you about a strange one – while it obtains 88/100 when running the Acid 3 Test, Midori fails in displaying Wikipedia’s home page properly! Even more, while I have the Adobe Flash Player installed and working properly, Midori won’t display Flash content, either. I am talking about the browser out of the box here, without touching any settings or adding any modules yet, so if you feel like playing with some early code, don’t be afraid and jump right in!

If you like to tune your browser, let me tell you that Midori currently supports user script, user styles, and it also has theme support, next to the things you’d expect from a decent browser anyway, like tabbed browsing and session management.

Obviously, this is a free Internet browser, and while it may be still far from being a very good one, I think Midori is one of those piece of code we should check on a regular basis, since you never know where the best Internet browser could be hiding! Oh, yeah – here’s one more thing you should know – this interesting piece of code is also available for Linux, so if you’re one of those using it, be sure to give it a try, I am sure your PC will love it, especially if it’s low on resources! 

Use TV As Monitor, If You Can

In the last few years, I started to think more and more about protecting the environment, especially because I see most people around me completely ignoring this. For example, I upgraded my video card not because I really needed more video juice, but because the new one draws less power, and now I am really glad that I’ll build a computer for someone who won’t need a monitor… and this naturally takes us to the subject today: if you’re not using a monitor, what are you going to use? Obviously, you’ll end up using your TV as monitor!

Unfortunately, not every TV can be used as monitor for your computer, but even if you’ll have to get a new TV, it’s better than purchasing a TV and a monitor, don’t you think? Since I won’t tell you “Get that model from LG!” or “You have to get a Sony LCD TV/monitor, they are great!” because it wouldn’t be fair at all, I will try to guide you in making the right choice for your needs and budget.

Ready or not, here you have the big things to think about before deciding to use TV as monitor…

1. Who is usually using the TV, and who needs the monitor? Let’s suppose that you’re living in a room with your girlfriend, and she wants to watch some soap opera exactly when you want to play some online game with your friends – in this case, you shouldn’t use TV as monitor… unless you don’t know how to make her leave you! 

2. Check the back of your TV (or the one you want to buy, of course) to see the available connections; if you’re buying one, ask about it. To connect a PC, a DVI or VGA input should be enough. Speaking for myself, I think HDMI is useless for most people, but having the capability to directly play files from a USB drive is something you should also look for, since it becomes more and more popular and is decently priced.

3. See if your computer has DVI output – as long as your TV also has it, this is the best way to connect them, but using the VGA cable ain’t that bad, either. If you have a VGA input and only DVI output on your video card, don’t worry – adapters are not expensive at all, and they’re not hard to find, either.

4. Be sure to check the native resolution of the display, especially when buying a new TV/monitor – a lower end LCD TV with 1024X768 resolution isn’t such a smart choice to be used as TV and monitor…

5. Try to get only the additional features you really need – for example, a TV/LCD with good speakers could help you drop those computer speakers you had and gain some space.

I guess these are some major things to think about when trying to use a TV as monitor, and if you’re thinking about using that old TV your mother had for over a decade… it may be done, but using the S-video/composite connectors may not deliver good results at all, especially if you look around at these LCD TV/monitor wonders available for pretty low prices!

Windows 7 PC Power Management Made Easy

I know we only talked about saving power and protecting the environment yesterday, but today we have to get back to that topic, because something just happen, and I had to share that with you. Fortunately, I am fine, my computer is fine, the family is just fine, but a guy that asked for advice on a forum is not. No, it’s not about his health or integrity, is simply the fact that he asked for advice, he got it, and then he finally did it his way – enough to say that he got a HD 4870 video card for a small resolution monitor and a weak CPU-mainboard couple instead of the less power hungry HD 4770…

and so I will write something like never before – an article about a piece of software I didn’t manage to give a spin, and I won’t be able to do it in the coming weeks, either. How’s that possible? Well, it’s pretty simple – Power Plan Assistant, today’s topic, is a Windows 7-exclusive piece of code, and the only reason that really pushed me to write about it is the fact that, maybe, some of you will start using and add just a little bit to the global effort (more or less global, at least I know there are people like me everywhere, unfortunately governments are not full of such people…) made to protect the environment.

While Windows Vista has been on my hard drive for almost 2 years now, but I think I used it less than XP in a week during these years, I think I’ll switch to Windows 7pretty soon. Obviously, I have some friends who already played with the early versions, and seeing it in action is worth reading 1,000 reviews. Why switch? Reliability, driver support, smart resource management but, more than anything else, better power management than Vista, and since I got a new video card just to save power… that’s more than enough for me!

Speaking about Power Plan Assistant, it’s enough to say that this piece of code has been specifically designed for Windows 7, and is fully compatible with all 32- and 64-bit versions of Microsoft’s upcoming OS, having native 64-bit binaries. More than just helping you save power, it also helps you work efficiently, since it can automatically switch to “High Performance” on plugging in, for example, and all the system power plans are easily accessible, not only 2 of 3, as it happens when using Windows 7’s Power icon.

Oh… did I say this program is completely free to download and use? Anyway, we’re talking about a “donationware” application, so donations are welcome, giving you a serial number that will allows you to have your own copy of the program and permanently disable the expiration date check present in the unregistered version that will force you to download new builds of the program on a weekly basis to continue using it.

All in all, I think Windows 7 PC power management can get much easier with Power Plan Assistant, be it registered or not and, more than anything, if you can save just a little power by using it, don’t hesitate – one day, some generation will probably thank us for our efforts now… or they could as well curse us, it all depends on each and everyone’s actions TODAY.

Need To Convert Video To EXE?

Some say that animated GIFs are dead, and I think they’re right. Even more, wallpapers sites aren’t what they used to be some years ago, and this is simply because too many crappy sites invaded the Internet in the last few years. Anyway, I don’t have anything against animated GIFs or people looking for wallpapers online, since even I do this from time to time, but what I really hate is people asking me “I have a movie that won’t play – what can I do?” over and over again. The tool I just found won’t help them figure out things, but will help those sending them movies to avoid being asked about how to play those movies…

and this is not made by using magic, since there’s no magic in converting video to EXE files! All you need is to download MakeInstantPlayer, install it, and then play with it just a little bit, until you get things right. Current version is 1.35, and this piece of code requires only 15.6MB to be installed.

The good part of the story is that we’re not only talking about a program that will add some launcher to play your video using Windows Media Player or a basic player with only a few formats supported; things are really serious here! Just think about this –MakeInstantPlayer uses the almighty MPlayer engine to play the video you just turned to EXE, so you’ll get support for virtually any video format you can think of, and you’ll even have advantage to some interesting features, as I’ll reveal them right away…

First of all, you can add codecs to the EXE file, something that’s not always needed, but when we’re talking about WMV or RM files, it is. Next, there’s a nice feature allowing you to add a custom splash screen to the EXE file – in my case, I added a pretty large image, and this probably made my EXE file 5MB larger than the original video. Anyway, I think that having a few extra megs added to a large holiday movie that even your grandmother could play without problems is pretty cool, don’t you agree?

Once you launch the result of your video to EXE conversion, the video is being loaded into MPlayer, and that’s it – only one file to handle, nothing to install, no codecs required!

This being said, I hope you’ll find today’s article useful, because I know one thing for sure – my free software arsenal just got a new weapon, and MakeInstantPlayer will remain a part of the inventory from a long time… and I can only hope you’ll find this as useful as I do. Good luck and enjoy it! 

Searching For A Cool PDF Reader?

Earlier today, a friend of mine called, and I was intrigued to find out that he found out that Adobe Reader simply disappeared… and he did it the hard way, since he installed some program and needed to check the manual. Obviously, the manual was in PDF format, but it seems opening it wasn’t as easy as expected. Anyway, I recommended my friend to try Foxit Reader, and that’s what he did. Everything’s fine now, but now I know what I’ll recommend next time to someone who just wants to check some PDF file really quick…



… and I am talking about a free and really cool piece of code here, the cool PDF reader I know many of you have been looking for. Its name? Cool PDF Reader, just as I wasn’t expecting! Now, imagine how funny and frustrating would be for someone to ask you about a cool PDF reader, and to get this as an answer!
It’s funny to see that the official page claims you have to unpack the EXE file from the standalone package and run it… and once you click the download link, you see there’s only the EXE file, and nothing more! Double click it, and you have a cool PDF reader up & running. Sweet!

The EXE file containing the entire code of Cool PDF Reader has only 650KB in size, while the all-in-one and standard installers are both smaller than 900KB, so I guess we have the smallest PDF reader in the world here… but that doesn’t mean there aren’t enough features available to get the job done, and then some!

Because I don’t want to go through all the features Cool PDF Reader has, let me only point out its excellent export capabilities (BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, WMF, EMF, EPS, and even TXT), full Windows compatibility (works with Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2008, 2003, 2000, 32-bit and 64-bit versions!), the full screen slide show feature and… it doesn’t stop here, but I don’t want to ruin your chances of finding something new in it, so I will conclude my trip here.

Wait, wait! Did I tell you anything about how ridiculous can this program be? It’s just like a Lamborghini doing 250 miles per gallon! Why? I just opened one large PDF file, and you know what? Cool PDF Reader dares to eat almost 1MB of memory!

PDF To Word Online Conversion

Converting PDF to Word may not be that hard to do, but I know a lot of people who didn’t have a clue on how to do that, and – obviously – it happened what I use to hate these days… they asked for my help! Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy helping people, but when I get to face same problems over and over again, especially since we’re not talking about things requiring any special knowledge, I get a bit pissed – after all, I’m not a customer support guy…

… so today’s article will be a great answer to those looking to find a PDF to Wordconversion software, especially since we’re talking about online tools, and – more than just PDF to Word, they’ll also be able to perform additional conversions, as I’m going to show you right away.

First on the list is ConvertPDFToWord, a site with a really cool design that allows you to convert PDF to Word, text, image, HTML, and even to turn back text into a PDF file. Everything is done without asking you any kind of personal info, in two easy steps – you choose the PDF file to process, click on Convert and Download, and then click the Download button to get your Word file. Pretty easy, don’t you think? 

Second and last one PDF to Word online conversion tool today is Zamzar, and while this one needs your email address to send you the converted files and it’s still in Beta stage, it can also convert a wider range of formats, basically most common video, audio, and document files, output options including DOC, BMP, GIF, PNG, TXT, and a few others. Working with it is also extremely easy – just take a look at the image below and you’ll surely get the idea!

Obviously, both tools for PDF to Word conversion I told you about today are free, and I tried them in Opera, Firefox and Internet Explorer without facing any special problems. Sure, converting encrypted PDF files or PDF files containing images compressed using JPEG2000 could be a bit of a gamble, but you’ll have to see if you are lucky or not – after all, no pain, no gain, right? These being said, all I can add is a big “Good luck!” to you, all those in need of a quick PDF to Word conversion… or more! 

How to create hibernate shortcut in windows xp

This short video tutorial will guide you how to create hibernate shortcut in windows xp and place it directly on your desktop. Enjoy it