Yearly Archives: 2009

Take Screenshot Of Any Website At Fixed Time Intervals With SiteShoter

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There are various methods to take screenshot of a website, among them include add-ons for Firefox. But not everyone uses Firefox browser, or do they? What if you want to take screenshot of the website every hour, or every 5 minutes? Or what if you want to take the screenshot without the main scrollbar, javascript, or flash?

SiteShoter is a free standalone portable tool for Windows that can take screenshot of any website instantly and save it to an image file. All you have to do is enter the website URL, select the output destination, set some web browser options, and select the image size and quality.

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Terminate Or Kill A Non-Responsive Program/Application In A Single Click

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Usually when a program hangs up on Windows, we head over to Task Manager and try to kill that program. When this method fails, we try to terminate the program with some 3rd party applications. But wait, there is even a better way of doing it.

Meet Process Assassin, it enables the user to select a non-responding application and terminate it immediately without calling any other external programs. And that too can be done in a single click. Just click Assassinate and select the program that you want to Terminate, that’s all.

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How To Reduce Unwanted Noise During VoIP Calls In Windows

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SoliCall is a free app that helps in reducing unwanted noise during VoIP calls in real time. It can come handy especially if you make frequent VoIP calls using tools such as Skype, Google Talk, Yahoo messenger, Live Messenger, etc. Once you have installed this app, you will have to integrate it with VoIP clients, the details of which are given here. But before you do so, make sure you have configured SoliCall with the Microphone/Speakers you want to work with. Run SoliCall, go to Tools > Options and select the Sound Devices. Read More

Secure Your Passwords And Login To Multiple Websites In A Single Click

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Web browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox have a build-in password manager, every time you login to a website it will ask whether to remember password or not. These build-in password managers are not secure in my opinion. For example in Firefox, go to Security tab and click Saved Passwords, you will be able to see all login details easily. So what will you do if you want to login to a website automatically without having to remember the password using the browser build-in password manager?

Suppose another situation where you have multiple Yahoo email accounts(let’s say 3), and you have to access each one of them frequently. Now will you login to one account, sign out, then login to second, sign out, and so on? Web browsers only allow you to save one login details for each website, so what will you do?

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How To Arrange Windows Quick Launch Shortcuts In Groups And Sub-Menus

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Do you use Windows Quick Launch bar to launch applications easily? It is a great feature that allows user to gain quick access to frequently used apps, but there is one big downside, it does not allow you to sort the shortcuts in groups. When you have lots of shortcuts, it gets quite cluttered and difficult to find an app.

Free Launch Bar is a free replacement for Quick Launch Bar and is fully compatible with it since they use the same folder for shortcuts. The difference is that Free Launch Bar lets you arrange the shortcuts in groups and is fully customizable. It also supports Hotkeys and integrates itself into Windows Shell.

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Create A Quick LAN Connection Between Two Computers In Windows

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Last year I wrote a detailed guide for creating a quick ad-hoc wireless connection between two computers in Windows Vista. The problem is that not everybody has wireless card installed in their computers. So this guide will focus on creating a Local Area Network(LAN) connection between two computers in both Windows Vista and XP.

First go and buy the straight patch Ethernet LAN cable(make sure that ‘patch’ or ‘crossover’ is written on the cord) and connect them to both computers.

In Windows XP: Go to Network Connections Control Panel, right-click Local Area Network connection and select Properties. Now select Internet Protocol(TCP/IP) and click Properties.

In Windows Vista: Go to Network and Sharing Center, select Manage Network Connections, right-click Local Area Network connection and select Properties. Now select Internet Protocol Version 4(TCP/IPv4) and click Properties.

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Make A Panorama And Share It Instantly With CleVR Stitcher

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CleVR Stitcher is a cross-platform Adobe Air Runtime application that lets you stitch multiple pictures to create a panorama. This app is part of CleVR website, so you will have to first sign-up with them and then click Stitch A Panorama to download the app. By signing up you get additional benefits, such as uploading your created panorama and then sharing it with friends, family, and co-workers.

Once the app has been installed, you can login with the Clever account so that you can upload the panoramas later, but this is just an optional feature. Drag your photos to the empty box or click Choose Images, there are no limits on the number of pictures you can add.

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Track And Manage Time Spend On Projects More Efficiently With Klok

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Are you working on some projects and would like to keep track of how much time each project is taking? Or maybe you are working on a single project and would love to save time on each sub-project? Klok is an Adobe Air application that helps you keep track of all the time spend on projects. In short, it is a flexible time management tool.

You can add the projects to the timeline by dragging them, to remove the project drag them to the Recycle box. New projects and sub-projects can added easily with a single click. Double-click the projects in the timeline to add comments and date/time.

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Introduction To Greasemonkey Add-on For Firefox

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Lately, I have been writing about many interesting Greasemonkey scripts. Even through the Greasemonkey add-on has been installed 17.5 million times, many users still don’t know what it is, how to use it, or why to use it. In this post, I will do my best to explain what is this add-on is all about.

What Is Greasemonkey

Just like there are hundreds of add-ons out there for Firefox, one among them is called Greasemonkey. So what does this add-on do? Wikipedia has explained this superbly,

This add-on allows users to install scripts that make on-the-fly changes to most HTML-based web pages. As Greasemonkey scripts are persistent, the changes made to the web pages are executed every time the page is opened, making them effectively permanent for the user running the script. Greasemonkey can be used for adding new functions to web pages (for example, embedding price comparison in Amazon.com web pages), fixing rendering bugs, combining data from multiple webpages, and numerous other purposes.

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Check MX Records For Your Domain With MX Lookup Tool

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When you are done setting up your website, the next most important step is to set up MX Records. For those who don’t know what MX Records is, according to Wikipedia,

An MX record or Mail exchanger record is a type of resource record in the Domain Name System (DNS) specifying how Internet e-mail should be routed using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). Each MX record contains a preference and a host name, so that the collection of MX records for a given domain name point to the servers that should receive e-mail for that domain, and their priority relative to each other.

Once MX Records are set up, how will you know if these records have been implemented properly according to their respective priorities? Most people waste their time in forums asking whether their MX Records have been set up properly. The best way to check it is to use this MX Lookup Tool. All you have to do is to enter your domain, and it will look up MX Records for you within seconds and list them according to their priorities.

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Add More Photo Sizes And Options To Picasa ‘Embed Image’ URL Code

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Picasa is one of the most popular places to store images online but there are few limitations when it comes to sharing photos. One such annoying feature is that while embedding the image, you can only choose between one of the four sizes: Thumbnail(144px), Small(288px), Medium(400px), or Large(800px). Bloggers and Webmasters prefer different sizes when embedding an image, one of the most common size being 512px.

Get Picasaweb Image URL is a GreaseMonkey script for Firefox that adds 19 more sizes to the list(making a total of 23 sizes), from 32px to 1600px, thus enabling webmasters to use Picasa as a destination for sharing their photos more easily.

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View Any Window In Full Screen With Win-Super-Maximize

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WinSuperMaximize is a small portable tool for Windows that lets you “super maximize” any window. In other words, it enables Full Screen mode similar to the one found in Firefox and Internet Explorer when pressed F11. What it actually does is to move the title bar above the screen boundary and the status bar below the screen boundry, thus saving some extra pixels.

Just run the tool and it will sit silently in the system tray. To switch any active window to Full Screen simply press the hotkey Win+F11, press this hotkey again to bring the window back to normal state.

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Save, Extract, And/Or Remove Attachments From Microsoft Outlook

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Outlook Attachment Remover is a free add-in for Microsoft Outlook that lets you remove, save, and extract attachments from emails. If you are receive frequent attachments, you can extract them all to a folder and/or remove them from the emails. What makes this add-in unique is it’s ability to replace the attachment with a link to the file.

Before installing this add-in, make sure that Outlook is not running. Now install the add-in and launch Microsoft Outlook. A small Attachment Remover window will pop-up, you can position it wherever you like by dragging it around the screen.

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How To Create And Edit PDF File Quickly With Free PDF Editor

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Editor’s Notes: We have covered before a tip on editing a PDF document online, this post will concentrate on quickly creating and editing a professional PDF document on Windows desktop.

Free PDF Editor is a free portable app for Windows that lets you create and edit any PDF file instantly. You can now create a PDF document in minutes without have to learn the complex functionalities and advanced features. It is a WYSIWYG PDF builder, you can add text, insert images and shapes, resize them, customize the fonts, and much more.

To begin, simply run the executable file and it will load up instantly. Since it is a portable tool, you can run it from USB drive too. Now start adding text, images, shapes, pages, etc using the top toolbox.

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Auto Hide Any Active Window With WinAutoHide

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WinAutoHide is a free portable and opensource tool for Windows that can hide any active window with a hotkey. Unlike ClickyGone, this tool is portable and can be used to quickly hide/unhide important windows. You can hide upto 4 windows since only 4 shortcut keys are supported(Win+Left, Win+Right, Win+Up, and Win+Down).

Since this tool does not include advanced functionalities, it is recommended not to use it as a security or privacy tool. Instead, it’s real purpose is to hide any window in which you are mostly active(e.g Command Prompt, Graphic Tools, Browser Windows, etc). Once you have hidden your window, you can complete other tasks and come back to it later.

Just extract the files and click winautohide.exe to run it directly, no installation is required.

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Completely Uninstall Application Or Program In Mac OS X

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In late February I talked about a way to reinstall trial software after trial period has expired. The trick was to remove all such registry items that a software would leave behind in Windows. One user wanted to know whether there is any Mac OS X tool that can completely eliminate the traces of an installed application.

Meet AppCleaner, it is a free tool for Mac OS that allows a user to remove all traces and scattered files of an unwanted application. There are many similar tools out there(but cost some bucks), this tool however gives all other programs a run for their money. It is a simple and straightforward tool, just drag&drop the application and it will display all files related of this app, click Delete to remove them safely.

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Remove Text Ads And Increase The Width Of Message Box In Gmail

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Are you annoyed by the text ads in Gmail? GMail Without Ads is a Greasemonkey script for Firefox browser that removes the ads from Gmail completely. By installing this script, the advertisement from the right sidebar will vanish and the message box will be automatically extended, giving you more width and visibility. In other words, it completely removes the right sidebar.

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Increase Or Decrease Your Hard Drive Cache Memory With CacheBooster

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When you get a slow performance when running an application, it can be due to two reasons, hard drive cache and system memory. We have already solved the problem of system memory with MaxMem, now what about Hard disk cache? AnalogX CacheBooster is a free tool for Windows that lets you tweak the hard disk cache instantly. It helps in achieving the best possible performance from your system. We all know that different activities such as Gaming, Burning a CD, File Server, etc require different amount of cache size, so one setting will not be optimal for all activities. It is fairly simply to use, just select the activity you are doing from the list and it will optimize the cache size accordingly. Make  sure you have clicked Apply Changes and then restarted the system, since system restart is required for the cache size to take effect. Read More

How To Embed Mp3 Audio Files In Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation

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If you use Microsoft Office PowerPoint to make presentations you will know that you can only embed wav audio files. The problem is that wav format is almost 10 times bigger in size when compared with mp3 format. The only working technique is that we can add a header to the mp3 file that will convince the PowerPoint that it is actually a wav audio file. This method will add the wav extension at the end of the file name but the format will remain as mp3, this is known as masking.

In my earlier post I reviewed a software called CDex, you can use it to add wav header to the mp3 file. First convert wav audio to mp3 format by clicking Convert Wav file(s) to mp3 format(s) button or selecting it from the Convert menu as shown in the screenshot below.

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What Is Windows 7 Guest Mode And How To Enable It?

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What Is Guest Mode

Did it ever happen to you that a friend or co-worker while using your computer deleted an important file or modified some system settings by mistake? Microsoft has included in Windows 7 an exciting new feature called Guest Mode that prevents anybody from making changes to your computer. Guest Mode is not the same as Guest Account, so don’t be confused between the two. An Administrator can enabled Guest Mode on any user account. According to Lifehacker enabling the Guest Mode,

  • Prevents system setting changes. Any attempts to change the system while running under a safeguarded account are prevented.
  • Prevents the installation of applications and other software. Once you've enabled Guest Mode, it is impossible to install or permanently configure already installed software applications.
  • Prevents the user from writing to the disk outside of their user profile.
  • Data saved inside of the user profile is deleted when the user logs off.

It can also prevent a user from accessing any local drive that you mark as protected. In other words all changes and installations made by the user will be automatically deleted when he/she logs off. The user can however copy the files and save them to the external USB drive in order to prevent them from getting deleted.

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