Align/snap shapes to grid in Powerpoint

Drawing a simple flowchart in Powerpoint became frustrating when the flows/arrows were not straight and a snap to grid didn't work. Resulting in an angled and wonky flowchart.

Using the snap to grid feature didn't seem to help, even when adjusting the grid to be larger/smaller.

Tip: Holding down CTRL when using the arrows allows you to make smaller steps which helps align the arrows and shapes a bit more precisely when using a mouse is too tricky.

Have a solution too? why not share below in the comments.

New WLM not so chunky and bulky after all

Hey

The new WLM sucks right? so big and bulky and hard to use, an eye sore! Unless you use the built-in Facebook and social network features.

But if you prefer the older compact view, you actually can change it.


A. Next to the Inbox icon you should see a icon that looks like a window, or two frames, click that to toggle compact and full view.

B. Click on your name in WLM (The bit where you can change your online status to online, busy, offline etc.) and then click on the button that says "Switch to full view mode" or "Switch to compact view" to toggle settings.

Easier way to add captions in Pinnacle Studio

Its not too hard to make captions that are short.

I got lazy and I just added a slab or maybe 20 seconds of captions on one caption, this made it really bulky, unprofessional and crowded the screen but it was convenient for me.

I then realised I can easily make then shorter without having to apply much effort.

1. Do what I have done above, add a decent slab of text into a caption and add it to scene.
2. Split the captions on the timeline along where you want the captions to change.
3. Now start deleting sentences so that you only have a short sentence on every split caption.
4. As the captions will include the original slab of text, all you have to do is delete more and more lines of text until you teach the last sentence in the slab.
2B. You may want to split the captions strategically to ensure you don't need to play around with timing realignment.

This has saved me so much effort in making shorter captions. Its easy , quick and looks so much more professional (which makes it more practical) as slabs of text are hard to follow.

Quickly switch to the desktop

I realised how much efficiency I have gained through Windows 7 using the Aero Peek or bottom right hand button that shows desktop as well as learning the Windows + D shortcut to switch to the desktop.

A recent modification I made was to go into the mouse settings and assign the middle click button to show desktop, now I can quickly switch applications, open apps or files and folders in 1 click and 1 click to bring back the last program I was using. Its pretty quick and easy, like in games to switch between modes or screens but it will disable the open in now window function which really only works in Internet browsers.

EDIT/Fix: You can add program specific settings and add Firefox to it and allow the middle click button to be Middle Click rather then Show/Hide desktop.

Faster Moving and expanding partition

If you are going to make a partition larger by adding HDD space after that partition into it, you will find it only takes a few minutes to do. If however say you have an OS partition and you want to shrink that and use the extra space into a data partition then you will need to move everything in your data partition over to begin where the new space is formed, meaning that every data has to be moved over.

To speed it up you can do a bit of house cleaning and delete some data you don't need off the data disk so there is less things to move over, for example deleting some movie and large sized files.

Automated resize of pics to upload

We all now have better quality cameras, camera phones etc. which is all good until you need to upload over 30 pictures to the Internet at >500KB an image.

Using Photoshop to re-size them is a good way to really compress the size but keep the quality but how long will it take YOU to re-size it in Photoshop? (without learning how to make an automated batch script thingy)

Here is a quick and very small solution! :

RESIZE - http://www.snapfiles.com/publishers/peter-bone/index.html

Also check out the stick figure animation whilst your there, I have also used this before and it was great!

How to find out what mobile network your friend is on

1. Ask them duh!

3. EDIT - Refer to Edit below

2. This question has surfaced the Internet before due to mobile carriers providing free sms or calls to numbers on the same carrier, sometimes you want to know for things like Plumbers, contractors, sellers (from poster ads and notice boards etc.) for whom you don't want to ask because it makes you look stingy and cheap, LOL

The Internet reads that with new mobile numbers it is impossible to tell which provider because numbers are no longer allocated to providers specifically. I am sure there are other methods to find out the provider of a mobile phone but I thought of a method to do it by using another service (not designed to tell you what provider the mobile number belongs to but works to do just that if you know how to)

SOLUTION:

1. Go to http://www.web2msg.com/
2. Make sure you go to the web page when all the allocated SMS to all the providers are "currently unavailable", to check this look under the "Current Status" box in the top right side of the web page. You should see all yellow crossed boxes
   
3. Now fill in the form on the website and send an SMS to number you want to send to
4. All providers are unavailable and you will get a message saying that the message was not sent because all the allocated SMS quota to provider XYZABCDEFG Pty. Ltd. are exhausted.
5. That's how you determine the provider, or one of the ways, or the only way I've come up with so far without asking the person (which is sometimes not possible without calling them first).

EXCEPTION:

1. If the providers are not all unavailable your message will actually be sent, so try avoid doing this, the SMS sent will be from Web2msg's number and will be considered as spam if you send it. The quota is reset every 12 hours so if you try at the right time, or analyse the website you'll know what time the quota is always exhausted, I will post some AEST times that I have found them to be most dead.

EDIT: (More reliable as method 2. has issues with carriers using other carrier networks and numbers being transferred to new carrier?)

Just found a better, simpler way to do it, good ol Google work.

http://www.smsfun.com.au/mobile_lookup.php

Shows the previous and current provider/carrier, which can be a bit confusing but;

Current provider: provider currently with (free txt or calls goes with them)

Previous provider: the previous carrier of that number (number change over?)

* A limitation of this 3rd method is that you can check up to ~3 numebrs a day without needing to make an account with the website (who has more than 3 numebrs to check anyway?)

Unlimited MSN/WLM nudges (Without MSN Plus)

You can use MSN plus but if you only wanted unlimited nudges every now and then, MSN Plus might be an eyesore and extra resource usage on your computer as your not using its other capabilities.

You can use a WLM alternative like emesene that has nudge plugins that do not follow the nudge limit design. They can sometimes not work though.

My discovery is if you open up your WLM window and then open the contact's window, nudge contact hit ESC click the contact again you can nudge again. It seems nudge limits are reset upon closing the chat window.

Clearing/Removing MSN Live Messenger Chat logs/history

1. Open up Live Messenger:

• Tools > Options >Messages tab
• Uncheck "Automatically keep a history of my conversations
• Apply
• Re-check it
  

OR

2. Type in the Windows Explorer address bar:

C:\Users\UserName\Documents\My Received Files\MSN Username + random numbers\History

In your case, most likely:

• C:\Users\Username
• Documents\My Received Files\MSN Username + random numbers
• History
• Delete all contents of folder

On second thoughts, it might be easier to just use step 1.

Blackout Your powerpoint Presentation

I am not quite sure what the function for at the moment but during powerpoint presentation if you press the "B" (not case sensitive) key you can blackout the presentation into a black screen and when you press B again it will un-black it out. Use for breaks maybe or emergency hiding of a slide?

Most of the time presentations are practised so there shouldn't be any no no slides in it and most people prefer to have a slide that says "Intermission' or soemthing like that rather than a black screen but now this knowledge is with you, make good use of it!

:P
;)

Quick shortcut to minimise all windows and jump to desktop

Windows + D

Animation button for website

What's a easy and fast way to make animated buttons for a website, like mouse roll over effects and such?

I had to do a website recently and had this problem too. Then I remembered in past website projects I did, I used photoshop.

What you do is:

1. Make the image or a row of menu button I am guessing, next to each other
2. Using the slice tool, slice it up into seperate buttons
3. Using Fail>Save As Web, save the image as a website
4. Change the image and repeat step 3, but saving the website in a different folder/file name
5. Go to the folder where the site is stored
   
6. Deleted everything else except for the images saved in the image folder and move them to your website project folder and use them
7. Program the animation as you would normally with jpegs

hope this helps or at least I hope I can remember this post to stop me wasting time in photoshop in the future.

Quicker Quick Launch in Vista (My Article 2)

You can launch your quick launch programs in Vista using the Windows Key and the rank that the program is located. For example if Firefox is in rank 1 (first icon from left in quick launch bar), you can launch it by pressing Windows Key + 1. This is very useful as your quick launch programs are usually only there because you use it heavily, I find it especially useful for those who have small screens on laptops or have track pads and no mouse on them.

Help me find that picture i googled

Do you ever want to seek help on the Internet or forum, Something stupid because your that desperate to find the site where you got an image from, whether its for referencing reasons or simply it was an excellent site?

The the problem for you really is you can't remember what the sites name was, you can't remember the URL and you've renamed DSC123.jpeg into CoolPictureOfMonkey.jpeg


Well, i am not really sure how to help you but my Tip for today would be to leave the file name as it is cause if you ever need to find it again you can image google it again and your chances of finding the source site are greater. If it was named something like Picture1.jpeg then your stuffed really unless your willing to go though a heck heap of image result pages.

Try and remember what the site is called when you get pictures it usually works better than trying to remember the URL. Which this tip might be useful for you soon as Uni.cc seems to be having problems. You may have to soon google "Gec Living" or "GecSoft Australia" to find the site. As our forwarding domain may be no more :|

But if you still visit even without the convenience of a domain forwarder and bothered to google the sites header address, I'll be extra nice to you ;)

99% reduced SPAM for your website

Like the GecSoft portal website, a contact method is really nice and necessary.
But your current e-mail address is excellent with SPAM control and amount of SPAM received and you really don't want to post your primary e-mail on your website and you really can not be bothered to open a new account that you know you won't check regularly.


Well one solution can be to do what I have done and post a blog post called contact me. Click that post to view in a single view and then use that page link as your contact link. Now when people want to contact you they can use the blog comments system to send you a message.
Of course you would need a blog first. Also don't forget to ask Anonymous contacts to add a reply e-mail address if required.

Any other suggestions are welcomed.


You can always use things like "me AT hotmail DOT COM" to make autobots searching for e-mails to SPAM skip you as this is not a valid format for an e-mail address but this makes it harder for standard users to contact you and understand what your doing. Its also useless against human collected e-mail spamers.

I highly doubt that sending an e-mail addressed to (me AT hotmail DOT COM) will get it sent to (me@hotmail.com) p.s. that was an example e-mail it is not a real e-mail.

Open QuickLaunch Programs using hotkeys

Sorry I haven't posted for a while, haven't found anything IT to post about and also been busy with uni.

I have my TurnOffLCD program on my quicklaunch bar because making a shortcut on the desktop and making a shortcut key doesn't work like i mentioned before it turns off and then back on but now there is a solution!!

If you want to launch a program off your quicklaunch bar using shortcut keys:

1. Choose the icon of the program you want to launch from the quicklaunch bar

2. Count from left to right, what place is that icon placed under?

3. Now press Windows button + the number its ranked as, the program should now open


* you can re-arrange the icon placements say if Windows + 1 is more comfortable move the icon to first place on left and now you can use Windows + 1 to launch it!

* Haven't figured out how to launch 10th place or more icons, not that the average person has 32 quicklaunch icons ;)

How do I send to taskbar, programs that load on start up?

Start programs minimised:


Go to your StartUp folder from the Start Menu > Right-Click on shortcut icon > Properties > Edit the value for Run from "Normal" to "Minimised"

Done!

Obvious but sometimes forgetten procedure ;)

Back up uses for a 2.5" external hard drive

Google some answers, think of some using your logic, there are many benefits that are simple and obvious such as back ups that can be stored in a remote location, extend your disk space in your computer by storing less used data on the external dirve etc.

But a random thought today was what the hell would happen if my homework/project was trapped on a broken or disabled laptop? and you didn't have a back up on another disk or it was not updated? that's where the external hard drive comes in, most if not all laptops use the 2.5" hard drives and then can be unplugged from the laptop and connected into the external hard drive holder, if you brought a already made external hard drive you may not be able to disconnect your hard drive but if you brought the hard drive and the external case seperate then you are pretty much able to rescue your data from the laptop hard drive,

Now for the software part, some laptop hard drives are locked into the hard drive via serial codes and pins numbers? maybe not sure but IBM hard drives are rendered useless if you just unplugged them from a laptop and tried to steal data (which is good for anti-theft purposes but for that major project deadline? dam)

Anyone got any advice for this? would be very appreciated as I am doing all my work on a laptop, my current solution is to back up recent work on a thumb drive and back up the whole data drive onto an external hard drive.

How to unzip a Zip file for people who think they know how to

You think you know how to unzip a file yes? Problems with unzipping files? Unzipped software/program not working/installing?

Well have you had any software/program/zip files with more than one file inside the zip file that didn't unzip properly?

You wouldn't have noticed as some of the files are unzipped but not all. Its a problem many have but because there is error message people don't seem to know why their zipped files don't work.

As there is no formal error messages, I am hoping that you can still find this post and solve your unzipped errors.


The common problem is people open the winzip and extract the files, sometimes not checking the "extract all" box. A better practice is to right-click the zip file and select the unzip to /folder

Switching between windows

Did you know?

To switch between windows open you can use a keyboard shortcut:

ALT + TAB


To switch between files opened in the same program:


CTRL + TAB



(For some Vista versions) to switch between windows opened with a nicer interface:

WINDOWS + TAB