The whole Internet, the forums, chat rooms, Google groups, blogs are filled with one question: How do I install this xyz.ttf font without having administrator privileges? There seems to be no answer.

Well, not any more.

When you try to install a font without having proper permissions to the C:\Windows\Fonts directory, this is the error message you get:

The SKETCHY.TTF file is currently being used and cannot be replaced.
Wait until Windows is finished using the file, and then try again.

This one is a classic among all the ambiguous and disorienting error messages that Windows throws in our way. It says that the file is in use, but if you get this error you can be pretty sure that it is a permission issue.

How to Install Fonts in Windows as a Normal User?

Windows have made it extremely difficult for normal users to install fonts. This is because the C:\Windows\Fonts where all the Fonts live peacefully is writable only by Administrator. Either the administrator need to give you write permission to this folder (which will not be that feasible in a corporate environment) or you will have to read along this post till the end.

A good guy called Tsukasa have cooked up a small command line utility which can add and remove fonts to your font cache. This addition is however temporary, which last only till the system is rebooted. Therefore this utility need to be run each time you start your system. Looks like lot of work? We'll help you make it a one time business.

1. Download RegisterFonts utility from here.
   
2. Unzip it to a suitable location. Say, D:\myutils.
   
3. Download all the fonts (the .ttf files) that you want to install into this location.
   
4. Right click on RegisterFont.exe and select Create Shortcut.
   
5. Right click on this shortcut and select Properties. Append the string add font1.ttf font2.ttf to the Target field. Remember to replace font1, font2 etc with the name of the fonts that you have downloaded to this folder. In my case I have added two fonts Blazed.ttf and sketchy.ttf. My shortcut properties looks like:
   
   
   
6. Drag this newly created (and edited) shortcut to Start Menu -> All Programs -> Startup folder, so that this gets executed each time the system is rebooted.

Once you run the shortcut, you can see that the fonts you added are available to you in all Windows applications like notepad and MS Word.

Graphic designers who experiment with a lot of fonts would also like to remove fonts at runtime. For this just take a command prompt, navigate to D:\myutils and run the command: RegisterFont.exe rem fontname.ttf.

Thanks Tsukasa | Download RegisterFont | Download Source

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If you have been brave enough to try out Firefox 3, you might have noticed that a lot of extension in the Firefox addons site is unavailable to you.
This is because those extensions were made for Firefox 2 and are hence not supported in FF3. So, the good folks at Mozilla have completely disabled downloading of such addons, if you browse to the addon page using Firefox 3.

We however disagree with the Mozilla developers. We have found that a large number of Firefox 2 addons function seamlessly in Firefox 3 and it is really cruel to lock out FF3 users from enjoying those extensions.

How to download Firefox 2 extensions using Firefox 3 From The Firefox Addons Site?

1. Take Firefox. Type about:config into the address bar and hit enter.
2. Click on "I'll be careful, I promise!" button.
3. Right click and select New -> String.
4. Enter the preference name as general.useragent.override and the value as Firefox/2.0.0.14

Now go to an addons page like this and see whether the "Download Now" option is enabled.

How to enable installing Firefox 2 extensions in Firefox 3

We have already covered this here, but reproducing it here for making this post complete.
Even though, you are able to download FF2 addons using the above method, your Firefox 3 will resist installing incompatible addons unless you perform the below steps.

1. Type about:config into Firefox's address bar and click the "I'll be careful, I promise!" button.
2. Right-click anywhere. Choose New -> Boolean. Make the name of your new config value extensions.checkCompatibility and set it to false.
3. Make another new boolean pair called extensions.checkUpdateSecurity and set the value to false.
4. Restart Firefox.

That's it. Now you'll be able to download all addons from Firefox Addons site and also install them in Firefox 3.

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Google Trends says that Yahoo is more popular than Google since a long time. Even though the graph of Google has been steadily climbing, it has never beaten Yahoo. Should we or shouldn't we believe you Google?

Well, what do you think?

Google Trends : Yahoo and Google

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OpenOffice.org have just released the first public beta version of OpenOffice.org v3.0 - a popular open source and free Microsoft Office alternative.
Now, what matters most to the common Joe is that OpenOffice 3 can read and write in the Office 2007 file formats (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc.) out of the box. This version will also be the first one to natively support MAC OSX (in addition to Windows and Linux).
There is a change that will appeal more to Indians. While the rest of the world group numbers in thousands, Indians tend to group number in #,##,##,### format. OO.o 3 now uses this format for numbers if your locale is set to IN. So ten million will be displayed as 1,00,00,000 and not 10,000,000 in India.
Remember that this is a beta release. So don't bother to install on a production machine.

Download OpenOffice 3.0 | Release Notes | Features

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With Vista, Microsoft introduced the built-in speech recognition capabilities. Even though this feature is one among the many under-hyped Vista features, it's sure bound to revolutionize the way people interact with their PC.

Microsoft has identified the vast potential that exists in Speech Recognition and has gone one step further when they released the Windows Speech Recognition Macros (WSRMacros) last day.

WSRMacros is sort of an addon for Vista’s built-in speech recognition. Using this tool, you can easily create macros (read as jobs), which gets executed when you say a particular word or sentence.

This is how Microsoft describes their product:

The Windows Speech Recognition Macros tool (aka WSRMacros) extends the usefulness of the speech recognition capabilities already included in Windows Vista. Users can now create powerful macros that are triggered by spoken commands. These macros can perform a single task, or a series of tasks. Macros can be as simple as inserting your mailing address to as complex as providing a completely different speech interaction utilizing a number of built in capabilities or utilizing custom JScript/VBScript actions.

Remember that this software is still in pre-beta. So this might not be the product for the faint hearted. Requires Genuine Windows Vista English Edition with atleast 1GB RAM and a good microphone.

Release Notes | Download from downloads.microsoft.com.

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