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Showing posts from October, 2008

Print those pesky PRN files with PrintFile

Have you ever wondered what that little checkbox "Save to file" does when you go to print something? Well, guess what? It saves your print job to a file instead of actually printing it - uncanny huh? ;) When you save such a file, it's a PRN file. Well, that was kinda supposed to be funny, but the serious part of this post is that there's a utility out there that will let you print those otherwise useless little files. It's called PrintFile and you can get it here: http://www.lerup.com/printfile/ Make a note of this, cos one day you'll be like - heh, I can't access the printer, but I know, I can save it to a file and print it off later (on another computer) with that cool little utility PrintFile. And by the way PrintFile is free. How about that :) EDIT: also check out EscapeE by RedTitan NOTE: these apps won't always print your document perfectly! but if you're printer is messed up it could be a life saver.

Toodledo - King of the to-do list managers

I've been using Toodledo for a good while now and it's a great to-do list manager. It's free, and manages to offer lots of useful features for organising your tasks while still remaining very simple to use. Also there are 3 different mobile interfaces you can use on your mobile phone or PDA, and there are integration options with sites like Google Calendar, Twitter etc, so you can send yourself notifications and synchronise your tasks etc. All in all, a really cool to-do list manager :) so check it out at Toodledo.com

Computer Management in XP (MMC)

This is more of a note-to-self than anything else, but nonetheless something that was bugging me. I'm in a locked-down work environment and couldn't open the Computer Management console.  Pity, because I wanted to see if I was running XP with SP2 or SP3, and the only way I know to do that in my environment is via the Computer Management console. Unfortunately in my environment: - the "Properties" option in the My Computer context menu has been removed - System has been removed from the Control Panel. - and when you run the sysdm.cpl command from Start -> Run, nothing happens. (this should normally bring up the System Properties panel. Anyway, I finally found the command to launch the Computer Management console directly: compmgmt.msc This worked. Then it was simply a matter of selecting "Properties" from the context menu of the "Computer Management (Local)" item on the left-hand side. And voila, there was the System Propeties panel (only this w

Google Chrome in-page search shortcuts

I couldn't work it out by myself: The keyboard shortcuts for jumping through one's Google Chrome in-page search results. Well, I think I'll use Ctrl+G, hell, why not?! :) Ctrl+F Open find-in-page box Ctrl+G  or  F3 Find next match for your input in the find-in-page box Ctrl+Shift+G  or  Shift+F3 Find previous match for your input in the find-in-page box

Audacity great choice for recording audio stream

Just wanted to share my great experience with Audacity yesterday. I've always been annoyed with BBC online radio. Not because of its quality or content, but because I can't rip/ record/ copy the bloomin' stuff. Now I tried recording the 1Xtra Drum n Bass chart, one of the shows I listen to every now and then, with some pitiful piece of recording software that I won't name, and it sounded rubbish. Like I'd used an old portable audio cassette recorder or something! Yesterday however, I was listening to the MOBO awards, which you can maybe still catch here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/1xtra_aod.shtml?1xtra/mistajam_wed I was once again determined to try to record the stream (it's a RealPlayer stream) so I did a quick Google for a recording software. My Google search returned Audacity as the first result. Obviously I'm slightly confused as to why it never popped up before. Anyway here's the Audacity link: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/ I just d

Import Tiddlers from another TiddlyWiki

This TiddlyWiki plugin (below) lets you import Tiddlers from another TiddlyWiki. I was actually looking for a plugin to import a text file as a tiddler. But this is also nice. I'm sure It'll come in handy some time. :) ImportTiddlersPlugin

Installing the CoreTweaks plugin for TiddlyWiki

As mentioned by Darrel Austin on the MN Interactive blog it's not easy to figure out how to install a TiddlyWiki plugin. He describes it nicely, but even so, I couldn't quite work out what I had to do on the CoreTweaks plugin page to get the thing installed! It's a piece of cake once you know how of course. This is what I did: 1. Click the "view" link on the top right-hand side of the CoreTweaks tiddler (because yes, this is actually a tiddler, even though it looks nothing like an out-of-the-box tiddler. It's been customised you see to look cool ;)) [If you're still lost, note that the "view" is only visible when your mouse is actually hovering over the browser window] 2. When the "view" link has been clicked, you can see the source of the tiddler. Just copy this, create a new tiddler in your own TiddlyWiki and paste the CoreTweaks source into your new tiddler. I don't think you have to call your new tiddler CoreTweaks, but I did

Retrieve lost download on iTunes

If you ever lose a song you were downloading in iTunes - i.e. you thought it was downloaded butit wasn't (I don't mean you deleted it) try the following. Go to iTunes -> Store (menu) -> "View My Account" -> (you'll need to sign in probably) Then IF there are downloads still waiting for you to finish off or start, they'll be sitting right at the top of the Account Information page above your Apple ID. There should be a button called "Download now" or something just a above the "Edit account info" button. If not, and you've paid for music that you haven't received.  Contact Apple. http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/store/browser/