Transfer music to mp3 player for free

Need to transfer music from your pc to your portable player? Well, there are a couple of free mp3 player softwares that can accomplish that task. But before we get there, these are the steps you need to follow in order to copy music to your mp3 player:

1. First of all have the music in the appropriate format, which is mp3. If you have the music on a cd for instance, you'll first have to rip the tracks and convert them to mp3 files. There's a free cd-ripper called AudioGrabber that does that, and is one of the best out there (considering the price).


2. Second of all is the mp3 software that you need in order to sync your mp3 player with your music selection on the PC. For this purpose I've considered these free mp3 synchronization programs: iTunes (with iTunes Sync and/or BadApple plugins installed), MediaMonkey, musikCube and Yahoo! Music Jukebox

Once these programs are installed and your mp3 player recognized, you can transfer music to it.

1. iTunes is one of the most used mp3 programs out there, but that's because its relation with iPod. However, if you don't have a iPod you cannot use iTunes to synchronize your playlist...at least not without any additional software. This is where iTunes Sync comes handy, as it tweaks iTunes to recognize any other mp3 player that shows up as a drive letter in Windows. So, first you need to download iTunes and install it on your computer. After that you have to download and install Microsoft .NET Framework, as it's required by iTunes Sync. Last thing to do is install iTunes Sync and follow the tutorial shown on Binary Fortress Software to sync your music.
   
   iTunes (default install, recognizes only iPods)
   
   
   iTunes Sync (plugin, tweaks iTunes to recognize any mp3 player)
   


2. Still iTunes, but now a different plugin called BadApple. BadApple is a free plug-in for iTunes which allows you to sync your music library to any MP3 player (not just an iPod). After downloading and installing the software, you will have a "Sync to MP3 player" link you can click on from within iTunes. This will sync all tracks to a MP3 player. What's better over iTunes Sync is the fact that it doesn't require the .NET Framework. However, it seems that it doesn't work in recent versions of iTunes, and the dowload link points to a 404 page. After iTunes is installed, download and install BadApple using this link (click on the Zum Download button). Once BadApple is installed if you're lucky you'll have a way to select an mp3 player to sync to.
   
   BadApple (plugin, tweaks iTunes to recognize any mp3 player)
   


3. MediaMonkey. Has a funny name but it works well, has a zillion of features and is one of my favourite. There's a free version that does it work well and can be downloaded here. The paid version ($20) attracts mainly because of this feature: "Auto-conversion allows you to automatically synchronize tracks no matter what format they're in, converting tracks on-the-fly to a format that is supported by your iPod or other portable device, while retaining all metadata." But, as I mentioned the AudioGrabber program earlier, you can do the conversion before the synchronization and save this way $20.
   It can synchronize with iPods, phones (with mp3 support) and other mp3 players.
   
   MediaMonkey's synchronization settings window
   


4. musikCube does it too. Once you plug in an portable audio device it will appear under the Playlists section, and you'll be able to synchronize all music in the playlist with your mp3 player. Simple, structured more or less like iTunes, and free.
   
   musikCube - once an mp3 device is added will be recognized automatically
   


5. Yahoo! Music Jukebox (formerly MusicMatch) can synchronize too with your mp3 player. The only thing is that I had problem with it after installing, as I was receiving a blue screen of death. However, might have been a one-in-a-million error so it might work perfect on other systems. Just like the MediaMonkey, there's a free version and a paid version (Musi Jukebox Plus, $20). The free version does more than you need so no need to pay for the "Plus" one. You can get the free version here. Of course they're using this free version to promote their music subscription plan (like Apple does). You can do the synchronization with your player using the Playlists section.
   
   MusicMatch main window


6. Almost forgot about Windows Media Player 11. Looks well, works well, but it's Microsoft's :). Anyway, to download it you'll need to pass the Windows Genuine Advantage verification, so if you're ready here you can download it. However, first check to see if it isn't already installed on your computer, as it comes bundled with the operating system. Once opened you can use the Sync button to synchronize your playlist with the mp3 player.
   
   Windows Media Player 11 main window
   

So, plenty of free mp3 softwares for you to choose from. Note that these programs do much more than synchronizing music, but this is a plus.

Print web page without header, footer but with background images

Have you tried printing a web page from Internet Explorer? Well if you didn't, I'll tell you what might be frustrating:

• first of all, on the printed page you'll see an additional header added (i.e. Page 1/1) and a footer containing the URL of the printed page


• second, if the web page contains some images that are defined as background images (a HTML thingy), those will not be printed

How to correct these annoyances:

1. The header and footer can be removed from further printed web pages by going to File->Page Setup (we're talking about Internet Explorer 7 and Maxthon here, but might be the same for other browsers). Now, on the configuration window that opens you have to erase everything that's in the Header and Footer fields.
   
   Since you're still here you can do further adjustments, more important being the fact that you can reduce the margins so that the web page fits better printed.
   


2. Printing the background colors and images. Well, here is a simple option that needs to be enabled. Go to Tools->Internet Options and click on the Advanced tab. Now, scroll down until you see a Printing section and check the option Print background colors and images. Click ok and that's it, from now on these background colors and images from web pages will appear on the printed results too.
   
   


3. This is more of a tip instead of a fix. If you go to File->Print Preview you'll have a configuration window where you can set the layout of the printed page, if you want or not to shrink the web page to fit on one page, as well as turning on/off the header/footer.
   
   

See, after all, printing a web page from Internet Explorer 7 is not as annoying as it used to be.

Free encryption software, Kruptos 2

Think of this scenario, you want to transfer from your office to your home computer some very important documents (bank accounts, google pagerank algorithm) using an USB drive. But, dreaming of Jeannie, you end up home without the USB drive. Probably you lost it when getting your keychain, or when you picked up that nickel of the sidewalk...point is you're in a lot of trouble. To avoid such headaches you should encrypt files/folders that you're moving using removable drives (usb, enclosures). Encryption encodes the data using certain algorithms and the only way to decode the data is by providing the password used originally.

There are lots of encryption programs out there (there's even one built-in Windows Xp Professional) but a surprisingly easy and powerful free encryption software is Kruptos 2, developed by Steve Beckett.
Some of its main features:

• encrypts files/folders using 128-bit Blowfish algorithm


• obfuscates names of encrypted files, but leaves folder names unaltered


• integrates in the right-click menu (Windows Explorer)


• creates self-extracting encrypted files (having the .exe extension), that:
  contain encrypted files and the software necessary to decompress the contents. Users can decompress the contents of a self-extracting file simply by running it like any other program.


• has a file shredder that uses dod standard (department of defense)


• it's free

[main window of Kruptos 2]


[options window for Kruptos 2]

You can download it here: Kruptos 2
Also, here's a quick tutorial on how encryption works with Kruptos 2:

1. Select files/folders. The easier way it's to right click a folder (or file) in Windows Explorer, choose Kruptos 2 and after that Encrypt folder (file).
   
   


2. Enter a password. Before the encryption starts, you have to choose a password for it. Also, you can enter a hint word, that later might remind you of the password you used, in case your memory is on a break. Note that once the password is set and the file encrypted, it's almost impossible to recover the file unless you know the password. So make sure you enter something you'll remember.
   
   


3. Encrypt. Once the encryption is finished you'll receive a message about the status of the encryption (successful, failed). If you've encrypted a folder, you'll see that the name of the folder is the same but the name of the files are now completely changed and they show a "locked" icon.
   
   


4. Decrypting the files. To decrypt, simply right click an encrypted file and select Decrypt. You will be prompted for the password and once that's entered and validated the files will be decrypted.
   
   


5. File shredding. When you normally delete a file (using the simple Delete key), that file is not actually erased from your computer, and can be sometimes recovered. This is why, when you really want to delete a file you'd better use the File Shredding option. What this does, it's re-writing the file with a character, then the character's complement, and then a random character for a number of times specified by you (1-16). Given it's a method used by the Department of Defense, it's pretty sure that the file cannot be recovered.
   
   

That's it. Once you play a little more with Kruptos you'll see that's not difficult to use and it provides an additional security measure by encrypting sensitive data.

Free typing test

So how fast you type? Actually, what would you consider a normal typing speed?
First of all, the typing speed is measured in words-per-minute (wpm). For a given text, the typing speed (wpm) is calculated like this:

• first you divide the number of characters in the text to five (average word length), and you obtain the number of words in that text


• after that, the number of words is divided by the time of the excercise (in seconds) - resulting words typed per second


• lastly you multiply the words per second with 60 to obtain your wpm speed

A standard minimum typing speed is 40 words-per-minute. However, if you intend to go for a job as a secretary, a minimum speed of 60 words-per-minute might be needed. Now, about the typing test. There are a bunch of them out there, but I chose the one that gave me the highest typing speed result :). Jphantom is the author of this free typing test.
Once you click in the text area, you have to start typing the text that appears as fast as you can - once finished the typing speed will be displayed (ignore the Wow in front of the text, they show that to everybody):


Note that the accuracy matters too (meaning how many spelling mistakes you do). Anyway, if you're not satisfied by the result you can start improving your typing speed. Here are some tips:

• Learn to type with 9 fingers. To do that, first position your forefingers on F (left hand) respectively J (right hand) - these keys also have small bars on them usually. Other fingers will have to be positioned to the left of that, respectively to the right. With the thumb you press the spacebar (this is why only 9 fingers, since one thumb will operate the space)


• Learn to type without looking at your fingers. Will be difficult at first, but you'll get used to doing this if you want to type fast.


• Practice typing a lot. Practice until you are satisfied with your speed. There are also lots of free typing tutor programs, just do a search on Google for that.

How to get free software (GiveAwayoftheDay)

In one of my net wonderings I've encountered a site that seems to get more and more popularity, GiveAwayOfTheDay. As the site suggests (sort of), they're offering for free every day licensed software you'd have to buy otherwise.

The Good:

• you get a program for free each day


• you get a game for free each day (on a subdomain, game.giveawayoftheday.com)


• some of the programs are very good (and expensive), like they've featured FlashSpring Pro, a program that normally sells for $150

The Bad:

• you have to activate the program while the promotion is still running (24 hr), otherwise you will just end up with the trial


• if you uninstall the program or reinstall the system, you lose the registration since it works only if it's activated (and since the activation can be done for one day only...)

So, here is a step by step tutorial:
1. First you download the program that they're featuring. It's always an archive where normally is the setup of the program, a readme file and an Activate.exe program.

2. After that you run the setup to install the software, first you'll get a nag screen presenting info about the project and also some other programs from the same author:



3. Once the software is installed you have to run the Activate.exe program, which will connect to the internet and if the promotion is still active it will register the program. Make sure your firewall lets it connect.



4. Last thing is you get the registration key (if any, sometimes it just adds it directly to your registry) and you use it to register the program. Note that this may vary from program to program, meaning for some of them they simply add the registration directly to your registry instead of you having to copy/paste it.



That's it. You have now the program registered and you can freely use it until you reinstall your system.

Now you might ask why developers accept to do this. First of all the GAOTD pays the developer that gives them the right to run a promotion for a certain program. Second, given the fact that after you reinstall your system (for instance) you cannot have the program registered, they hope you'll buy it. Third, if they have other programs those are featured on the promotion page, and might result in a couple of licenses sold too.

Free accounting software from Microsoft

It's called Microsoft Accounting Express 2007 and seems (at least judging by the price) to be a good alternative to QuickBooks (which is like $300). You can download it from IdeaWins (website Microsoft set up for this). Note that the download is about 208 MB, so it should take a while to complete.



Above it's a screen, below are some of its features:

• Import data from other programs such as Intuit QuickBooks, Microsoft Money, and Microsoft Office Excel


• Create customized estimates, invoices, and purchase orders


• Track expenses automatically


• Automate bank accounts and customer payments


• Store and organize customer, contact, employee, vendor, and financial information in a single location


• Export reports to Excel 2007 for further analysis in just one click


• Share your books with your accountant and still continue using them for your day-to-day business


• Share data more securely with your accountant via Microsoft Office Live


• List items on eBay


• Track activity in real time and download and process orders


• Send invoices in an e-mail message that includes a direct link to PayPal


• Process credit card payments quickly

Ok, free from Microsoft? Where's the catch I see you asking. Well this Express edition is free, but there's a Professional edition too that sells for like $150. So they're hoping to get some money from the upgrades. Plus, they're promoting the Office 2007 applications with this. Anyway, bottom line is that small businesses will find this more than enough for their needs.

Windows Installer Clean Up utility

Ever got an error message when you tried uninstalling a program that used the Microsoft Installer (MSI) sounding like "the installation source for this product is not available"? Well I did. I tried uninstalling Quark and I couldn't because I have deleted the installation source files.
First error message I got:
"The feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable.
Clik OK to try again, or enter an alternate path to a folder containing the installation package 'QuarkXPress 6.0.msi' in the box below"


I didn't remember where I've put the CD with the original installation package so clicking Cancel I realized that it's not going to be that easy to remove the program, as the second error message popped-in: "The installation source for this product is not available. Verify that the source exists and that you can access it."


Ok. I've decided to delete the installation folder completely, but I didn't want to leave the registry entries not cleaned. So after a little research I've found a utility called WINDOWS INSTALLER CLEANUP that helps safely remove Windows Installer-related registry settings from your computer for certain programs that don't want to uninstall. You can download it (and read more about how it works) from here: Description of the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility.
Once downloaded simply install it following the wizard


Now to cleanup Quark installation (in this case, but this happens with Office too) go to click Start, point to Programs, and then click Windows Install CleanUp. You'll see the interface of this utility and from that list select the application that you want to cleanup (Quark in this case) and after that click on Remove.


On the next window you'll get a warning, just click Ok to complete this process: "Warning - All items selected will be removed from the Windows Installer database. In order for the items to work properly, you must individually re-install all items selected. Select OK to continue removing product, Cancel to abort."


Last thing to do is to click Exit to close the utility. Now the registry keys for Quark and the entry in the Add/Remove Programs aren't there anymore and you can remove the rest of the Quark files. As I mentioned above this might happen with Office too, as stated in this support kbase note: "Error 1612. The installation source for this product is not available" error message when you install or remove Office XP Service Pack 1

Send voice email messages for free

It took me a while to find a cool freebie that would allow sending voice email messages, but finally I got it. It's called Voice Mail Compressor and is produced by Lagolento.
Couple of things I like especially about it:
- creates the voicemails in wav or mp3 format (you can compress these with different codecs to reduce a lot the size of the voicemail) - example, a voicemail of 51 seconds had 100Kb

- you can send the voicemail automatically with your pop3 email client or you can save the voice message on your hard drive (highly visible Send and Save buttons);



- is compatible with the most used e-mail clients (MS Outlook, Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird, Eudora, ...).
- best part is that Voice Mail Compressor is freeware, no ads, no limitations, no adware, no spyware etc.... Only a small mention in the email that is sent about the program that created the voicemail.



- no bloataware, only a 1MB installer file.

Give it a try, especially if you're not too much into typing. Also, two more mentions in the send voicemails section: PureVoice (add-in from Eudora) and Slawesome (web based voicemail software).

Embedding fonts in MS PowerPoint

You've worked a week for an important PowerPoint, and now you have to present it in front of your possible client. However, you didn't take into account one minor thing, that you've created the PowerPoint on your desktop computer and you're presenting it from your laptop. You open it and see that all the titles are outside of the careful selected boxes, all the paragraphs are now larger and with a strange font. Your feet are getting softer, you start seeing little stars - you're scre**d. Something similar almost happened to me, what's best is that I've tested this before actually going live with the presentation. See, if you're not using a universal font that's by default installed with Windows, you have to embed it into the PowerPoint so that you will not have surprises in displaying the text.

It's simple to do this, before saving the PowerPoint go to File and click on Save As. Now on the top right hand corner click on Tools and after on Save Options.



Yeah, a little bit tricky seeing that Tools button. Now that the Save Options window is opened, you have to check the Embed True Type Fonts check box, and then select Embed all characters (this is the recommended option if you want to have others review and edit your file).



Now a little warning. You can embed TrueType fonts if they have no license restrictions or if they come by default with Windows. If a font can't be embedded a message will tell you why, and if you ignore that, when you'll try to edit the PowerPoint you'll get "This presentation cannot be edited because it contains a read-only embedded font". To avoid this problem, the other solution is to use the Package for CD feature (PowerPoint 2003) or the Pack and Go wizard (PowerPoint 2002). Learn more on how to do this directly from the master, Mikrosoft: Package your presentation to run on another computer.

That's it for today's tutorial. If you have a tutorial that you want to share with others, send it in to spuby2000@gmail.com and I'll publish it in here (if it's good).

Open PDF files, faster

PDF files are now a very popular electronic document format, especially when it comes to distributing it via the Internet. Just how popular? Well a simple search for PDF on Google returns almost 2.8 billion, not to mention that Google indexes over 300 million pdf files (search for filetype:pdf). There are a lot of free PDF viewers/readers, but most popular ones are: Adobe Reader and Foxit PDF Reader.



1. Foxit PDF Reader is free and loads faster than the Adobe Reader, but you cannot have the same quality guarantee as in the last one mentioned. It makes sense that Adobe Reader is better since Adobe invented the PDF format.
Foxit PDF Reader can be downloaded here: Foxit 1.3 (direct download, about 1.2 Mb). Easy to install and configure, has other needed features like: select text and copy, print PDF files, find text in the PDF file, change page layout.

2. Adobe Reader, recently reached version 7.0.8. While is the most popular free PDF reader out there, has an inconvenience - it loads very slow, because it has to load all the plugins used (must load about 50 plugins or so when it starts, actually everytime it starts). Of course there are work-arounds for this slow loading inconvenience:

• when you double-click on a PDF file to open it, keep the Shift key pressed, so that you skip the loading of the plugins


• another solution is to download and install Adobe Reader SpeedUP, a great program that you can install and configure Adobe to load faster


• last solution is to go in and change the way Adobe Reader starts. Close Adobe Reader and go to the plugins folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\Reader\plug_ins and create a new folder called unused_plugins. Now move all files from the plug_ins folder to unused_plugins, except EWH32.api, print*.api, and Search*.api After you restart Adobe Reader there should be a visible reduced load time.

You can get the latest version here: Adobe Reader 7.0.8

If you want to read more tips on how to make Adobe Reader load faster, you can read this entry from a MDSN blog: How to make Adobe Reader 7.0 load faster

Take Picture from Movie

Now you did a great movie at the barbecue last week-end, and you want to send to a couple of your colleagues some pictures of that, not the entire movie that might be quite large. But how do you do that if you don't have additional programs installed (like HyperSnap, SnagIt...)?

Well there is a way to do that using a tool that comes with Windows, called Windows Movie Maker. It's very easy to do it, but I thought of splitting it into a 3 step process:

1. First of all you have to start the program - yes, this is the toughest part :)). Go to Start->Programs and go all the way down until you see the Windows Movie Maker text. Click to open it.
   
   


2. Now what you have to do is to import the movie into Windows Movie Maker. Click on the Import video link from the Capture Video section. Now in the window that opens browse to your video and select it (can be avi, mpg, ...). Before clicking on Import, uncheck the option Create clips for video files (it takes less time to import it, and you don't need that option if you're taking screenshots only). Click on Import to finish this step.
   
   


3. Last step is to click on the thumbnail of the movie, until you see an image in the Preview window (the one in the right). After that, you can either go to Tools and select Take Picture from Preview, or you can click on the Take Picture button under the Preview window. A window will open and you have to choose a location where the jpg image will be saved.
   
   

That's it. You now have a screenshot of the movie. To take screenshots of other parts of the video, just click on Play in the movie preview window, and pause where you want to take the picture from.

[Update]Now if you're using Windows Media Player, you can pause the movie and press Ctrl+I (shortcut for Capture a DVD image). You can save the image either as an JPEG (smaller file) or as an BMP image (better quality, larger file).

Another way is to go to Tools->Options->Performance and move the slider for Video Acceleration to None, and after that using the Print Screen function built-in Windows. The draw-back is that after the screenshot is taken you have to move the slider back to Full, so you could benefit from the video quality again (thanks to coolguy69 from DIGG).

Batch rename tutorial

LifeHacker and Yahoo! Tech posted a tip on how to batch rename a list of files in Windows Explorer. I thought of making a small tutorial on this, mainly because they didn't mention anything about the powerful batch renaming utility in Total Commander (one of the best file managers out there).

• Ok, first things first. Open Windows Explorer and browse to a folder where you have a bunch of files that you want to batch-rename (for instance images stored from your camera). You can open directly Windows Explorer by pressing the Windows key and E. No shame if you don't know exactly which one is the windows key, see the image below:
  
  
  


• Now select the files that you want to rename and then press F2 (or right click and select Rename)
  
  
  
  


• Enter a name that you want to use for the files, and then press Enter. You'll see that all the files will be renamed and they will start with your entered name plus (number). If you don't like what happened or want to go back to the original names, click Ctrl+Z (or Edit->Undo). Problem is that you'll have to do this for each individual image.
  
  
  
  

Now, this is how is done in Windows Explorer. There are also freeware tools to do this, much more powerful then the Windows XP batch renaming tool, like the Rename-It tool (open-source). But if you're a Total Commander user, you know that beside having the best file manager out there (personal opinion), you also have a powerful renaming tool.
In Total Commander just select the files you want to rename and press Ctrl+M to open the Multi-Rename-Tool.



There are a lot of options in there, so you better hit the F1 key to open the help file and read what each of those options does. An example (from Total Commander's page): "[N] means the name of the file (without the extension), [N1-5] means the first 5 characters of the file name, [C] means a counter, etc. You can use the buttons to insert common placeholders
The file list below the buttons show the rename result in real time, without actually renaming the files!
When you're satisfied with the results, click "Start!"
If you made a mistake, you can click on "Undo". This even works after closing and re-opening the rename tool!"

So here you have it. Recommended only when you have lots of files, don't follow this tutorial only to bulk rename 4-5 files.

Always on top, with DeskPins

No it's not a sexual advice. And it's not related to being the first in a competition. It's about a simple freeware program called DeskPins. You should know this feature from Winamp that has an option to stay on top of the other windows, or from Robo Form, Outlook Express and others. While this is a particullary useful feature, it is missing in some Windows programs, such as NotePad or the Calculator. This is where DeskPins helps you, "to make any application topmost, that is, to keep it above all other windows".
How to use it?

• First of all download it from here (direct download, under 100Kb): DeskPins v1.30
  
• After unzipping it, you start the installation wizard by double-clicking on the executable file. I would keep marked only the Program files & help and Create Start menu icons options. You'll notice a small bug in here, but doesn't affect its functionality. If you uncheck all the options it will let you continue installing the application but without actually installing anything. So make sure you keep at least the first option checked.
  


• Now you can start it from Start->Programs->Deskpins. You'll see a tray icon that you can right click for more options or to use the pins. To "pin" a window, from the right-click option choose "Enter pin mode" and using the mouse click on a window that you want to keep on top of others. I use this mainly with NotePad and the Calculator.
  


• That's it if you want to use it for basic things, from time to time. If you want to use it everytime, you'll find useful the feature called AutoPins. As it suggests, it will automatically pin a certain window that it recognizes. It's very simple to define which window to pin, just click on Add and using those small "targets" drag them on the window that you want pinned everytime. You can choose also how much time DeskPins should wait before it pins the window (default is 200 ms).
  

It also has some hotkey function and some language packs you can use with it if English is not your mother language. Visit Elias Fotinis' Website for more information.

Screen capture with Snagit 8

Ever wanted to take a screenshot of your desktop and didn't know how? Well the basic thing you can do is to use the built-in screen capture utility included in Windows:
1. Press that Print Screen button from your keyboard. Now everything that was displayed on the screen is captured in a bitmap image. Next we have to paste that image.
2. Press Start->Run and type in there mspaint (or go to Programs->Accessories and click on Paint). Ms Paint will start, and to see the captured image press Ctrl+V. The image will be displayed in Ms Paint where you can do some basic edits to it.
3. Save your image in the desired format (default is .bmp, you can also choose others by clicking File->Save as and using the drop-down box you can select them).
That's it. You have now a screenshot of your desktop. Unfortunately, the built-in screen capture utility is very basic and it captures the entire screen. This is a problem when you use 2 monitors for instance.

This is where other screen capture programs are useful. One of them is SnagIt, and I must say that it's very impressive, considering the plethora of features it has and how easy it is to use. SnagIt is developed by Techsmith (creators of Camtasia) and it reached recently version 8. You can download a trial version from here: SnagIt 8 (direct download, about 14 MB). The trial version works without limitations for a period of 30 days. If you decide to purchase it after, it will cost you $40.

Once you have installed SnagIt, you'll be able to easily create your screenshots. After it starts, the main window displays some pop-up callouts with messages that guide you through the basic steps of creating your screenshot. After you select what type of screenshot you want to make (region, entire window, full screen, scrolling window, web page) you just have to push the Capture button (it's the big red one).



After that the fun part starts. Because you get to choose what type of effects to apply to your screenshot. In the Screen Capture Preview window that launches, you'll see what you've captured and you can play with it until you have what you wanted.



First set of effects you can choose are the Edge Effects. I mainly use and like the Drop shadow effect and the Torn edge one.

Edge effects you can choose


Drop Shadow effect


Fade effect


Torn effect


Wave effect


Saw effect


Sharktooth effect


Beveled effect

These are nice, told you so. Beside the edge effects, there are plenty others. Another sweet one is the Spotlight and Magnify effect, that gives you the option to magnify one region of the screenshot, and eventually put it in a spotlight.



You can also add a dim or blur effect to the background, to emphasize the region you magnified.
Perspective and shear is nice too. You can apply horizontal or vertical rotation angles, but what's best is that everything will be displayed from a perspective, not frontally. The shear effect will allow you to make it look like you've just got a piece of paper from the trash.



Getting tired already of the features? There are lots more. Another one is the option to add a watermark to your image. For this you'll point to another image that will be part of it.



Adding a border to the screenshot is useful too, especially when the margins are white. It borders the image this way creating a picture effect.



If you plan to create lots of screenshots, adding a caption to each will allow you to better handle them.



There are also the Paint tools in the left panel, that give you the option to add callouts (they are useful, custom text, stamps and also erase portions of the screenshot.



Once you've added the effects you want, you can finish the capture by pressing the Done button from the SnagIt toolbar.



I know that there are a lot of screenshots in here, but trust me that I didn't even expose a quarter of the features in SnagIt. This program does it all. Of course, if you don't want to go through the hassle of these effects, you can define profiles and do everything automatically, capture, edit and share them. Visit the techsmith website for more tutorials and other information.

BluePrint Tips and Tricks

Yesterday I've found a Flash game on Digg that turned out to be quite addictive. Thus I had to finish it and I thought that maybe others will want to see the results for the puzzles in the BluePrint game. First of all the game is available from teagames.com, and you can access it here: BluePrint Flash Game (just click on the Click to Play! button).
A game menu will be first displayed, giving you the option to choose a puzzle. I've marked each puzzle with a number for a better understanding of the solutions given below:



Ok, below are the solutions for all 21 puzzles. Some of them are not actually the best solutions, but at least they work :) (yes, I had some luck too).

Puzzle 1


Puzzle 2


Puzzle 3


Puzzle 4


Puzzle 5


Puzzle 6


Puzzle 7


Puzzle 8


Puzzle 9


Puzzle 10


Puzzle 11


Puzzle 12


Puzzle 13


Puzzle 14


Puzzle 15


Puzzle 16


Puzzle 17


Puzzle 18


Puzzle 19


Puzzle 20


Puzzle 21

If you have other solutions I would happily post them here. [DIGG this]

[Update]
Claudiu,
I was glad I stumbled across your Blueprint solutions on your blog--some of the puzzles were driving me nuts. I found some alternate solutions though that you might want to incorporate.
Best,
Joe Price

Thank you Joe, these are actually better solutions:


[Bluepring Level 16 solution]


[Bluepring Level 18 Solution]


[Bluepring Level 19 Solution]

[Update 2] Well, I didn't visit the teagames website in a long time, that's why is just now I've seen they added 7 more levels. Since I don't have time to play them for now, I'll just link to Joseph Price's blog as he has posted the solutions for the final levels. When I'll manage to get over my Popcap Zuma obsession, maybe I'll try to solve them too.

Antivirus free up to 12 months

Well, seems that some major antivirus producers teamed up with Microsoft to offer free trials. So what's good in this? Well is good that you can get the trials up to 1 year. Here is the complete offer:

1. eTrust EZ Antivirus from Computer Associates. This is the best offer, since it has a trial subscription up to 12 months.
   
   


2. F-Secure antivirus. On this one you can get a 6 months free trial. See that on the landing page they have a lot of marketing blurb, just scroll down to see the link for the free trial.
   
   


3. McAfee VirusScan from McAfee Security. You get a 3 months free trial for this one.
   
   


4. Panda Platinum 2006 Internet Security. This is free for 3 months too.
   
   


5. Norton Antivirus 2005. They offer a 3 months trial for this one too.
   
   


6. Trend Micro Pc-Cillin. This one has a 90 day trial too.
   
   

Too bad NOD 32 is not there with a trial. Anyway, that's a cumulated 2 and a half years of free antivirus protection.

Send HTML emails directly from Word

By default when you click on File->Send To->Mail Recipient in an opened Word document, that will be sent as an attachment. Sometimes is more convenient to send this directly in the body of the email, having this way an easy option to send HTML email.

To send an HTML formatted email directly from MS Word, \you need to follow these steps:

1. Open MS Word and then create your document that you want to send as an HTML email. It’s an easy way if you don’t really have the HTML knowledge, because you can format the text anyway you want and also insert images.


2. From the View tab select the Web Layout option (this gives you the option to preview how it would normally appear as a web page):
   
   
   
   


3. In Word’s menu go to Tools->Options. Click on the General tab and uncheck the option Mail as attachment (if this option is checked, Word will send your document as an attachment instead of including its content into the body of the email):
   
   
   
   


4. Click after that on the E-mail Options… button and in the window that opens go to General and select the Medium box (might be already selected like this):
   
   
   
   


5. Next go to File->Send To and select Mail Recipient:
   
   
   
   


6. In the word document you’ll see that an email header appears with To…, CC… and other fields specific to email sending. Enter someone’s name in the To… field and change the subject if you want. If you’ll write something in the Introduction field, the recipient will first see that text and after that the HTML email. Hit on Send a Copy if you consider it looks the way you intended it to look:
   
   
   

That’s it, if you want to send your HTML email to more then one person use the BCC field. You can read about other options to send HTML emails directly from MS Word on the SlipStick website, a great resource for anything Outlook related.

SeTerra, learn geography the fun way

I've recently discovered a fun freeware program called SeTerra. Seterra is a geography learning program with 70 different exercises. Either you're a professor teaching geography, or a graduate with some rusty geography knowledge, this application will be challenging. Because you can learn about countries, capitals, flags and cities in Africa, Europe, South America, North America, Asia and Australia in a fun way. An outlined map is displayed and you have to click (on some exercises) on the country, capital or city that you're asked about. Think that's easy? Then tell me what's Lesotho?

Seterra runs in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish or Swedish. After you install the program (direct download link: Seterra 2.84 - about 700KB) and run it, you're asked in what language do you want it to be displayed.



Once a language is choosed, you get the main window where you can start one of the exercises, set the options, read the help file or see the high scores (exercises have a high score list to keep track of your progress).



As the author (Marianne Wartoft AB) says it, this is a colorful and addictive way to learn geography.

On the exercises where you get to point on an outlined map the countries or cities, when you're correct the portion is marked with white, when you get it after a second attempt is colored in yellow, and if you're wrong the 3rd time it will show you which is the correct one and mark it with red. A statistic is being created and you can save that to track your learning process.



I won't list all the 70 exercises it has, but here is a small list: "countries in Europe; American states; American state capitals; French cities; cities in Mexico; countries in Asia, etc, etc..."
Best of all the program is completely freeware (actually open source, since you can download the source code too). It's time to work on that rusty geography of yours ;).

Skype 2.0 with video calling

Skype 2.0 was released yesterday (January 5th). It's a stable release, not a beta as it was until now and to be more accurate is version 2.0.0.69 according to their website.
What's the main change? Well it's not a surprise but one-to-one video conversations are now possible using Skype 2.0 (of course a decent internet connection is required to have a decent video conversation - just to be clear, by "decent" I mean without high delays in displaying the other person you're chatting with).



According to their website, this is what's changed officially in Skype 2.0:

• Our best ever call quality.


• Smile, wave or say hello to anyone, anywhere in the world with free one-to-one video conversations.


• Easily sort your contacts into groups like ‘colleagues’, ‘friends’ and ‘family’.


• Display mood messages and your local time, so people know where you are and how you’re feeling.

The download size is about 7.2Mb and you can get it from here: Skype 2.0
Just for fun I'm going to remember how many downloads they have now, January 6th, which is 229,308,402, and see how that increases this week.

If you're installing Skype for the first time, you might take into consideration their requirements too:

• PC running Windows 2000 or XP. (The new video feature requires Windows XP.)


• Internet connection (broadband is best, GPRS is not supported for voice calls, and results may vary on a satellite connection).


• Speakers and microphone — built-in or separate.


• A webcam, if you want to make video calls.


• We also recommend that you have at least 400 MHz processor, 128 MB RAM and 15 MB free disk space on your hard drive.

That's about it, have fun video chatting.

[update]
Well I got to play with it for a couple of days since version 2 was released. First of all the download file is about 9.52 Mb and not 7.2 MB as they wrote on the website.
Regarding their changes, I really dislike the new sounds they've incorporated. But the good news is that you can switch back to the Classic sound. To do that go to Tools->Options->Sounds and select for each sound type the Classic one instead of the Modern sounds.

There are some changed icons too (images are all so shiny now) but I tend to think the old ones were better. Anyway, that doesn't bother me.
You can set mood messages in your profile now. Just click on your profile name that appears now on top of the contacts, and type in whatever you want. And others can also see what time is where you are now (you can uncheck the option to allow your contacts to see how many contacts you have though, since that's kind of private). Also, you can set a cool picture to go with that (they have a library too):



Now, even if version 2 is now a stable release (non-beta) the video calling feature is still in beta, as you can see in the Tools->Options menu:



Even with these minor things, Skype 2 seems much more stable than the previous version and the sound quality is better (at least on my connection, which goes through a proxy server). And seems that I'm not the only one that thinks that, since their download counter now shows "only" over one million extra downloads (230,312,087 download) compared to yesterday's counter.

Windows live ideas - Live, liive, liiiive

"The Live era is just starting. It's a new way to look at software and a better way to create opportunities." said Gates in a San Francisco conference. I keep as