Posted by Matthew Guay on Mar 9, 2010 | 0 comments
We regularly edit and create documents, images, videos, and more on our computers, but PDFs are the one file format that many people still cannot easily edit or create. Adobe Acrobat, the industry leading PDF solution, is expensive, and most people simply have the free Adobe Reader so they can view, but not edit or create, PDF files. With PDFs being one of the most used files for professional documents, a simple and affordable PDF editor is an increasingly needed thing. Nitro PDF Professional offers such a solution, and at $99 it is much more affordable than Adobe Acrobat Pro.
Last year I reviewed a wide range of free tools from Nitro to create and convert PDF files, ranging from their PrimoPDF creator to the excellent PDF to Word online conversion service. These products are all excellent and highly recommended, and a recent update to PrimoPDF made it an even more valuable PDF creator. But if you want to edit PDF files directly, or create your own rich PDF documents and forms, Nitro PDF may be the best solution for you.
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Posted by Matthew Guay on Mar 5, 2010 | 0 comments
It’s been a busy week between finals at Florida Tech and a major problem with an article I wrote on running XP Mode in Virtual Box, so here’s your chance to catch up my How-to Geek articles if you’ve been waiting for me to post them here.
Outlook:
I wrote two articles about my favorite plugins for Outlook: Forgotten Attachment Detector and the Drop.io plugin.
Never Forget to Send an Email Attachment in Outlook
Send up to 100MB attachments with Outlook and drop.io
Windows:
Is IE 8 any good for web developers? Check out a fun trick you can do with IE8 at:
Edit Text in a Webpage with Internet Explorer 8
And then, Find your computer’s location with Windows 7 and Geosense
UAC is often unloved and misunderstood, which is why I wrote Understanding User Account Control in Windows 7
All work and no play …. well, let’s look at Window’s ancient ancestors! Geek Fun: Virtualized old school Windows 3.11
And then, to continue my series on running XP Mode in extreme and unusual ways, I wrote an article on how to run XP Mode in VirtualBox. Windows XP didn’t appear to activate correctly when users started trying to follow my directions, so we quickly went back to the drawing board. Thankfully, MysticGeek at How-to Geek dug up a great way to still get XP Mode to work in Virtual Box via the VMLite plugin. This integrates XP Mode with Windows 7 very nicely, including showing XP programs directly in your Windows 7 Start menu just like the official XP Mode. Check this method out at Install XP Mode with VirtualBox Using the VMLite Plugin, and you can even still see my original infamous article if you’d like at How To Run XP Mode in VirtualBox on Windows 7 (though remember, you won’t actually be able to activate XP Mode this way).
Books, books, and more books!
Microsoft press has the good habit of giving away free ebooks periodically, and they recently released a new on on their blog for free. This book, Own Your Future: Update Your Skills with Resources and Career Ideas from Microsoft, offers some unique and interesting pointers to make your career more successful in any field. Check out their blog post for more info, and download the book for free in PDF or XPS formats.
One more thing!
The neatest new download of the week was the new Opera 10.50. It brings a sleek Aero UI and great Windows 7 integration to the most popular browser that no one uses (on the desktop anyhow). This new version should help change that; it’s fast, pretty, and easy to use with streamlined menus. But this wasn’t Opera’s only new release of the week; they also released a beta version of Opera Mini 5 for Windows Mobile. Unlike previous versions that ran in Java, this version is a native Windows Mobile browser, includes tabbed browsing, and is amazingly fast. Opera Mini was already my favorite browser on Windows Mobile (Chrome and IE8 tie on the desktop for me 
), and this just made it even better. Check them both out when you have a chance; you’ll enjoy it!
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Posted by Matthew Guay on Feb 25, 2010 | 0 comments
In between all of my new writing at How-to Geek, I have still been writing some articles for Digital Inspiration. I recently reviewed Manymoon, an exciting project management system that is fully integrated with Google Apps. It works both with the free standard Google accounts, as well as pro Google Apps accounts. Find out more here: Manymoon, an Online Project Management Software for Google Users
Then, I personally started out blogging at WordPress.com, but then recently moved to a self-hosted WordPress.org install with MochaHost. The great thing is, I was able to move all of my old content to this site, and also redirect all of the traffic from my old theoldestof8.wordpress.com domain directly here to www.techinch.com. Check out the article I contributed to at Digital Inspiration for exactly how to do this: How to Migrate your Blog from WordPress.com to a Personal Domain
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Posted by Matthew Guay on Feb 25, 2010 | 0 comments
Would you like to try out Ubuntu (or any other popular distribution of Linux) from the comfort of your Windows 7 (or Vista or XP) desktop? With a quick download of the Ubuntu ISO and VMware Player, you can do this easily. And, you can even run Linux apps side by side with your Windows Apps, and even see their icons in your taskbar! This article is my latest on Virtualization, so check it out on How-To Geek to see how easy it is to run Ubuntu right inside Windows!
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Posted by Matthew Guay on Feb 24, 2010 | 0 comments
Want to make Windows 7 Starter look and work just like you want it to? Check out my post at How-to Geek for tips and tricks on how to change your screensaver, sounds, theme, icons, and even customize your desktop! Once again, I’ve been presently surprised that Windows 7 Starter is more capable than one would assume at first glance. Continue reading at How-to Geek:
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