How do you launch the Run dialog? Using Start Menu -> Run? Or using the shortcut keys Win + R?
What if you wished to have a shortcut to launch this dialog box in your desktop?
Well, it is really simple to create such a shortcut. You just have to drag and drop "Run" from the start menu onto desktop. This creates a shortcut on double clicking which pops up your Run dialog.
Note: Works in the new Start Menu of XP only (not in classic menu).

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Windows Picture and Fax Viewer is one of the goodies that comes pre-installed with Windows XP. We, the folks at DailyGyan, simply love this piece of software. Why, you ask? Well that’s because of its dead simple interface, absolute zero learning curve that’s required and finally because of such a sweet and ‘creative’ name that Microsoft managed to give it.

Well, in today’s Daily Feature, we give you some ways to super-charge your Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. Read along.

1. Create a shortcut to windows picture and fax viewer.
   If you want to have a shortcut for the Picture and Fax Viewer, just like you have for other programs in your start menu or desktop, here is what you should do:
   
   • Right click on the folder you want to place the shortcut and select New –> Shortcut.
   • Type in rundll32.exe %SystemRoot%\system32\shimgvw.dll,ImageView_Fullscreen and hit enter.
   • Type in ‘Windows Picture and Fax Viewer’ as the name of the shortcut.
   • Right click the new shortcut and select Properties.
   • Click on ‘Change Icon'. Type in %SystemRoot%\system32\shimgvw.dll and hit enter.
   • Select a suitable icon.
   Now, if you double click on this shortcut, the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer comes up with the preview pane saying "No preview available". You just have to drag your photos to this pane to display them.
   
   
2. Change the slide show duration in Picture and Fax viewer.
   You can have a slide show of all photos in a folder by opening any one of the photos and then clicking the 'start slide show' button (shortcut - F11). By default, the duration between changing the pictures is 5 seconds. Unfortunately, this utility doesn't expose any settings, by which the user can change this value of 5 seconds. This will require some tampering with the Windows Registry and for the faint of heart, we have also provided a utility which does this automatically for you.
   
   • In the Run dialog (Start -> Run), type regedit and hit enter.
   • Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellImageView
   • Create a new DWORD (Right click and select New DWORD) with name as Timeout
   • Double click on this newly created DWORD and give a value you desire for the slide show duration as a millisecond value. For example, if you want a duration of 6 seconds between each photos, enter 6000 as the value (Remember to select base as Decimal).

   Those who wishes to have a more simple and straight forward solution can download this little vbs script. On double clicking, it asks for the timeout seconds desired. Enter this value in the text box and hit enter. (Note: you need to enter the value in seconds and not milliseconds).
   

3. Convert Picture and Fax Viewer into an Image Editor.
   

   
   

   One of the fields where our beloved tool fall behind is image editing. It does image displaying in a pretty much smart way but fumbles at the slightest request to edit some photos. Of course, you can rotate the image in what ever direction you want, but that's it. There is nothing more to be expected of it.
   Well, that is not the case anymore. With a freeware called Photo Toolkit, you can extend the capabilities of Windows Picture and Fax Viewer to make it your dream photo editor.  You can get the features list here and download it here.

What other tips and tricks have you found about Windows Picture and Fax Viewer? Share with us in the comments.

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Microsoft Office 2007 introduced the revolutionary 'Ribbon' interface to windows.

Though this revamped user interface has been widely praised upon, it has also received some serious criticisms. Especially, the folks like the PC World, accusing the ribbon interface to crowd the work area, making it difficult for laptop users and others, who are still stuck with a low resolution monitor to work with.

Though we love the new Office 2007 interface, we do see that there is a pinch of truth in these accusations. The Ribbon is fat. Now, how do you take the ribbon on a diet?
Read on.

The procedure to make the ribbon slim is stupidly simple. Just double click on any one of the ribbon tabs. The ribbon bar shrinks to show just the tabs and stays in this minimized form until you double click on any tab and maximize it again.

Instead of double clicking, you can also right click the ribbon and select 'Minimize the Ribbon'. This trick works across all products in the Microsoft Office 2007 suite including Outlook 2007.

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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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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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You got a really funny video that you couldn't resist emailing to your friends. But now, that fat video attachment have clogged your Outlook Outbox. You are unable to send the urgent status report to your boss due to this. Moreover, Outlook is teasing you with error messages on trying to stop sending mail or delete the  mail in Outbox. What to do?

Stop biting your nails and read on.

1. In Outlook, select File -> Work Offline.
   
2. Take Outbox and drag the fatso mail to your Drafts folder (or if you have hated this damn mail enough by now, delete it). Once in Drafts folder, you can edit the mail and try to slim it down before attempting to send again.
3. Deselect File -> Work Offline to resume sending and receiving mails.

 

via [Microsoft Outlook Blog]

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If you have been an internet user for quite some time, you probably have heard about Twitter. "Twitter is another name for micro blogging". We had earlier helped you how to explain Twitter to your mom. Remember?

Twitter is too simple. You sign up, you tell what you are currently doing (known as tweeting), and you follow other interesting people's tweets.

And if you have been an internet user for quite some time, you probably have heard about Pidgin also.

Pidgin is an instant messaging program for Windows, Linux, BSD, and other Unixes. You can talk to your friends using AIM, ICQ, Jabber/XMPP, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, QQ, Lotus Sametime, SILC, SIMPLE, MySpaceIM, and Zephyr.
Pidgin runs on a number of platforms, including Windows, Linux, and other UNIX operating systems.

So, instead of running gTalk, Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger separately, you can have everything-in-one using Pidgin.

Now let's come to the main area of this post. Pidgin, like all IM clients allow you to set a status message - something like "I am currently busy" or "Checking out great tips from DailyGyan". Hey! wait. That's exactly what Twitter is for, right? Wouldn't it be cool if I can update my twitter status alone and then Pidgin retrieves and sets my tweet as the IM status automatically? Yes, it would be very cool and that's what we are going to do today.

1. Install Pidgin from here.
2. You need to have Perl installed for this to work. Most Linux distros come with Perl preinstalled. Windows users, download and install Perl from here.
3. Take a Command Prompt/Terminal and enter: perl -MCPAN -e shell (Linux users, add a sudo before this). In the CPAN prompt that you got now, enter install XML::XPath and hit enter. This will download and install the Xpath module from Internet.
   
4. If all goes well, launch Pidgin. Go to Help -> About and scroll to the bottom of the page. You should see a line : Perl: Enabled.
5. Download twitter.pl from http://code.google.com/p/pidgin-twitterstatus/downloads/list and put it into your Pidgin plugins folder. Usually the plugins folder is C:\Program Files\pidgin\plugins for Windows users and ~/.purple/plugins for Linux users.
6. Once you have put the file in place, restart Pidgin and go to Tools -> Plugins. There will be a new plugin named "Twitter Status Feed". Enable it and click on Configure Plugin. Enter your twitter user name in the dialog box that pops up.
7. Done. Soon you will find that your Pidgin status bar reads the same as your last Twitted message.

What other tips have you found about Twitter and Pidgin. Share it in the comments.

Happy Twittering.

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1. Squash
   
   Squash gets the first prize, because it is dead simple, cross-platform (runs on Windows, Linux and Mac), light weight, super fast and can run from a thumb drive. Get it here.
   


2. Picture Resizer
   
   Picture Resizer is another simple image resizing tool. It doesn't have a UI. You need to drag your photos into the executable icon. And you can also mention the width of the expected image by changing the name of the executable!. Get Picture Resizer here.
   


3. Multiple Image Resizer:
   
   The name sucks, but the software doesn't. And yes, it does what it says, in addition to a lot more things. It resizes, adds text, adds overlay images, crop, rotate, flip folder full of images in no time. Did we mention that it can batch resize images? Unfortunately, it's built on top of .NET platform and hence is Windows only. Get it here.
   


4. Microsoft PowerToy Image Resizer
   
   Install this one and then you can right click any image and select Resize Pictures. This is really user friendly and at the same time provides ample options for an average joe user.Get it here.
   


5. High Quality Photo Resizer:
   
   Another feature rich batch photo resizer. Features: Windows only, works well in Vista, numerous input and output file formats, supports about 37 effects that can be added to your photo. Get it here.

Which one is your favorite? Did we miss out any great image resizer? How do you do the same in Mac and Linux? Please share in the comments.

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There may be many reasons for one to wish to return back to an old version of his favorite app.

• The software that was a freeware suddently turned into a shareware and/or nagware with a new version release.
• The software that used to be slick and less resource hungry suddenly became a memory eating monster.
• The new version runs in Vista alone and you have decided not to upgrade.
• The new version requires better hardware to run than your current system.
• You don't like the advertisements that started to appear in this version.
• The new version have become too feature rich and complex. You liked it the simpler and slick way.
• The feature that you liked most was removed from the latest version.
  

But learn this. If the software that you are after is not a freeware, then hunting for it is going to be extremely difficult. Consider yourself lucky if you get the desired version and if you did get it, hold on to it! Write it to a CD, flash drive and put it in a vault because the next time you search for the same in the internet, it would be gone...

Checkout these sites that achieves old software versions (not so popularly called as Abandonware):

1		http://www.oldversion.com/
2		http://www.oldapps.com/
3		http://www.old-software.com/
4		http://www.filehippo.com/

SourceForge.net

If the software you are after is hosted in SourceForge.net, then there is a very good chance that old versions will be listed in the downloads page of the project.

ebay

Surprisingly, you can find a large number of used and old software in ebay. A large number of people just give away there old software and you should normally get them at very reasonable prices unless the software is a high demand one.

Google it

This is a no-brainer. You should have done this much before you started anything at all. But usually googling for your app name don't yield much other than the current website of the software. But this can be quite powerful if you know the name of the exe file you are looking.
Say, you want to download the version 2.3.1 of our favorite chat client pidgin. Somehow you figured out that the file name is pidgin-2.3.1.exe. Now all you have to do is fire up google and search for pidgin-2.3.1 filetype:exe. Gotcha!!!

Mail the company directly

Believe me, software engineers are suckers for fanfare. Tell them how you love their programs and how avidly you have been collecting all their versions from first. Only if you had the version 0.x you could make your collection complete. Oh please, could you just send me that particular version?

What other ways have you used to get hold of your favorite programs? Tell us in the comments.

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Your graphics team have send you a presentation that you need to present to a customer. But instead of the usual .ppt or .pptx file that you are familiar with, this one is a PowerPoint show file (the extension is .pps or .ppsx). When you open it, the sideshow begins automatically in full screen. Now, there is something that you have to modify in this presentation and you have no idea how...
Well, it isn't as difficult as it looks and no you don't have to send another email to the graphics team asking for a ppt file.

Two solutions:

1. Change the extension of the file from pps to ppt. Now it will open in PowerPoint. (Not applicable for Office 2007)
   
2. Open PowerPoint. Select Office Button -> Open and browse to your PowerPoint show file. Make the modifications and then save it as a pptx file.
   

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Lucky for you, we have decided to continue our series on Microsoft bashing.

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By default Windows stores all the user's documents, the installed programs and the system files in the C: drive. As a result of this C: drive is the one that gets filled faster than other drives. Once the free space in C: drive (or any other drive) becomes very low, Windows starts to show the above annoying balloon pop up message. How do you solve such a problem? Just read along.
Scenario: The free space in your C: drive is in MB range while any of your other drives (D, E ...) have ample space. Since most of the programs require some space in C: during running/installing, you will find yourself unable to do your daily PC work as you would normally do, in this situation.

Solution:

1. Create an empty folder in any NTFS drive(D, E ...) that has ample space.
   
2. Run diskmgmt.msc from the Run command.
   
   
3. Right click on the C: drive and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths" and click on "Add"
   
   
4. In the window that appears, specify the path of the empty folder that we created in step 1.
   
   
5. You can see that the folder that we created now appears as an exact copy of the C: drive and the that size of the C: drive have magically increased.
   

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