[box type="note"]Update: Office 2010 is now released, and students can purchase and download it directly from the new Microsoft Store Student Discount page! You can get Office Professional Academic 2010 or Office 2011 for Mac for $99.95, or upgrade to Windows 7 Professional for only $29.99! Check out our new article on how students can Upgrade to Office 2010 and Windows 7 the Cheap and Easy Way.
This past week, I’ve covered a wide range of topics at How-to Geek. Check out the descriptions, and read the articles you find interesting!
Here’s my most recent articles from How-to Geek that help you use your computer better and get more done.
Convert a Row to a Column in Excel the Easy Way
Sometimes we’ve entered data in a column in Excel, only to realize later that it would be better to have this data in a row, or vise-versa. Here’s a simple trick to convert any row or set of rows into a column, or vise-versa, in Excel.
Add keyboard languages to XP, Vista, and Windows 7
Do you regularly need to type in multiple languages in Windows? Here we’ll show you the easy way to add and change input languages to your keyboard in XP, Vista, and Windows 7.
View Mobile Websites in Windows with Safari 4 Developer Tools
Want to try out mobile websites designed for the iPhone and other mobile devices on your PC? Safari 4 for Windows lets you do this easily with their developer tools.
Facebook is the most popular way to keep up with your friends and family today, so what better way to stay in touch than to be accessible on Facebook chat throughout the day? Warning: this may not help your productivity ;)
Easily Add Facebook Chat to Pidgin
Want to keep in touch with your Facebook friends throughout the day? Here we’ll show you how to easily add Facebook chat to the popular multi-protocol chat client Pidgin.
All work and no play... Check these out when you’ve got a few minutes to spare :)
Play Your Favorite DOS Games in XP, Vista, and Windows 7
Want to take a trip down memory lane with old school DOS games? Check out how to easily run DOS games in modern versions of Windows with D-Fend Reloaded!
Geek Fun: Virtualized Old School Windows – Windows 95
Last week we enjoyed looking at Windows 3.1 running in VMware Player on Windows 7. Today, let’s upgrade our 3.1 to 95, and get a look at how most of us remember Windows from the 90’s.
Update: I just noticed that the links I posted were entirely unusable. Sorry about that; they should all be corrected now!
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.
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!
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
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!
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:
Speccy is a new, great little system tool that gives you detailed information about all the hardware on your computer. It is even available in a portable version so you can run it on a computer at a store, friend’s house, or anywhere else you need to check detailed stats. My favorite features is that it shows the model, speed, latency, and more from your Ram; this is really helpful if you’re wanting to add more RAM to your computer. Check out my whole overview of this tool at How-to Geek:
Lifehacker also found this useful, and linked to my How-to Geek article!
My favorite feature in both Windows 7 and Vista is the “Previous Versions” tool. This has absolutely saved me several times, including once when I accidently deleted a nearly finished essay! I think this is the hidden gem in modern versions of Windows, so I really enjoyed writing about it for How-To Geek. Check out the article intro below, and then continue reading it at How-To Geek.
Have you ever accidently deleted a file, or removed a crucial part of a document only to realize it no longer makes sense? Windows 7 is smart enough to protect you from yourself, and here we’ll see how you can restore files in any edition of Windows 7.
My recent article on How-to Geek about running XP Mode without hardware virtualization got a lot of comments from people wanting to run XP Mode on other editions of Windows. XP Mode is only licensed for Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate, so if your computer is running 7 Home Premium or Vista you cannot run it. But, if you have your own legal copy of XP, you can make your own XP Mode. It’s actually very easy with VMware Player, and takes less steps than importing the standard XP Mode. Check out my article at How-to Geek, which details all the steps involved and offers some tips on integrating your virtual XP with Vista or 7!
This article was also listed at Lifehacker! Check that out at: