1

I have just installed Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

It all started after I successfully installed Ubuntu on a XP laptop; it’s cd/dvd player didn’t work and because of the way Ubuntu installs (from boot up) I couldn’t use an external dvd player; but had to make a bootable flash drive and tell Ubuntu help me installing (this meant that Ubuntu created a dos bat file telling where the software could be found). After that I could perform a total installation.

So being rather of an inquisitive nature, I just had to install Ubuntu onto one of my win7 learning pcs (it kindly comes with “Libra Office”, “Firefox” and much more software, that I still haven’t worked out how to use and access). I installed it as a dual-boot system; and found that Ubuntu is the controller of which environment to boot. There are 15 seconds to decide whether to boot Ubuntu or win7.

The choice is displayed on an Ubuntu coloured screen. Ubuntu is the norm and unless win7 is required this will be loaded; it’s a matter of moving the cursor down to win7 & hit the [enter] key to load windows. Loading Ubuntu is way faster than loading win7.

I have managed to change the normal background to something grey and easy to look at. I have also managed to look at and use documents from my windows directory. That was easier than I had anticipated.

It was so easy to install my Wi-Fi Canon printer, way easier than onto a win7 pc

All I needed to do to access to my Dropbox was a quick installation and all my files are now available in Ubuntu. The same applied for Twitter; it was so easy and quick.




Just a Snippet I came across

How many times have you wanted to be able to cut just a little piece out of a screen display, be it from an advert, an internet picture or just some text somewhere on your screen?

 

Up till now I had to: take a screenshot (using either [Print Screen] {whole screen} or [Alt]+[Print screen] {active window only}) and paste it into a picture manipulation program; then cut out the bit I was interested in and save that bit.

 

Once, while I was fixing a customers PC I saw an icon of “Snipping Tool” and ask my customer what it was, he didn’t quite know as his daughter might have put it there. So I made a note and checked when I got home; this is what I found.

What is the Microsoft snipping tool?

clip_image002
Snipping Tool is a screen shooting utility included in Windows Vista and later.

    It can be found in “All Programs” -> “Accessories”.

  • If you want it on your desktop:
  • Right-Click it and “Send to” -> “Desktop (create shortcut)”

clip_image002[4]

You can use Snipping Tool to capture a screen shot, or snip, of any object on your screen, and then annotate, save, or share the image.

    It can take screenshots of an open window using:

  1. “Free-Form Snip”
  2. “Rectangular Snip”
  3. “Window Snip”
  4. “Full Screen Snip”

 

    Snips can then be annotated using a mouse, then:

  1. Save As: a PNG, GIF, JPEG or MHT file,
  2. Send To: as e-mail attachment or part of e-mail body.

 




A great tool “Windows Live Writer”

I was downloading Microsoft’s “Windows Essentials for a user who uses “Windows Live Mail” and as I, when installing only what the user needed,  noticed a program I hadn’t seen before: “Windows Live Writer” as well as the usual “Photo Gallery”, “Movie Maker” and “OneDrive”.

Windows Live Writer is a desktop blog-publishing application.
All I did was adding my account from wordpress.com and start creating a new post.

Things you can do within Windows Live Writer:

  • Add “photos”, “videos” and even a “Bing Map”.
  • It is easy to use: “Edit”, “Preview” and “Source”.
  • Release the post: by uploading “Draft” or directly “Publishing”.



Microsoft Movie Maker

Have you ever on your smart-phone or your camera shot a whole movie upside down or sideways?
When you came to look at it you could have cried! What do you do now?
Don’t worry; Microsoft can help you here. Download and install from the Microsoft download site: Movie Maker.
Read about it here.
For a Microsoft software it’s quite user-friendly, you can even publish direct to YouTube



Check for duplicated files

How many duplicated files have you got?
Have you ever wondered if you have backed-up or copied a file to somewhere?
Have you ever wondered if and how many versions of the same file you have stored on your pc?

You don’t have to wonder anymore!

A student of mine was asking if I knew a way to find all the duplicated files stored on his computer.
I didn’t, but goggled for it, and yes, I did find a very useful small program dupeGuru (hardcoded.net);
which is a tool to find duplicate files on your computer. It can scan either filenames or contents.




Easy merge of PDF files

I was scanning a booklet into PDF formatted files; but I really only wanted one file and couldn’t remember how to make the scanner do the work.

So I looked around and found this easy and free software: PDFbinder (and downloaded it from CNET).
Wow it worked, it wasn’t intrusive to install, and it was quick; all I had to do was adding the files I wanted to merge; move them around into sequence and press “Bind” then tell it the new name and where to save it.

That was all. Great stuff.




About Outlook.com

outlook

Outlook.com introduces the most sophisticated rules in webmail

The average person has 100+ emails in their inbox, and receives 20+ emails (spam, junk, advertisements and many unwanted email) each day. This can be a lot to handle, so helping you get to the email you care about is one of Microsoft’s top priorities.
Microsoft has released Advanced Rules and other features, all to help you keep your inbox in top shape and make it even easier to see the email that matters … more (from Microsoft)

This is from all Microsoft’s online accounts (Hotmail, Live & Outlook)