Month: March 2008

Following Cyril’s post on how to remove USB device safely, I found another USB-related application that’s become part of my daily work on its own merits. Its name is USB Disk Ejector and does exactly what its name states: ejects your USB devices in just a couple of clicks or keystrokes.

As a frequent user of USB memory sticks to carry documents and photos around, I’m sick of the lengthy process Windows puts me through every time I want to eject a USB device from my computer: first click on the taskbar icon, then select the device, then wait for Windows to show another dialog box and finally click again. It’s totally inefficient and a complete waste of time.

This is why I was glad to find USB Disk Ejector: simply run it and remove your USB device by double clicking on its name on the program’s interface – or just press Enter if it’s already selected. Plus, the program features a much more intuitive design which helps you identify your USB devices if there’s more than one connected at the same time.

By the way, here’s one tip to make the program even more useful: save the EXE file anywhere you want and create a shortcut to it on the Desktop. Then open the shortcut’s Properties dialog and assign a keyboard shortcut to it. From now on, you’ll be able to eject your USB devices in no time!

This weekend I watched a polemical documentary on the global warming debate called The Great Global Warming Swindle. The makers claimed that the entire man-made global warming debate was a sham and that the whole process was very natural. The theory was that it was nothing more than an attempt by governments and corporations to extract more money out of people through carbon taxes. The documentary was certainly persuasive although I couldn’t help feeling that surely, even if we’re not directly responsible, the amount of CO2 that we produce can’t be helping – or at least is speeding-up the process to an unhealthy extent.

Whatever your take on the matter, what can be said with certainty is that it surely can’t hurt to reduce your carbon footprint. Last year I wrote about MakeMeSustainable which is an online project to track your carbon footprint online. However, having had my interest re-stimulated in the debate, I’ve recently discovered a few more sites which offer alternative ways of calculating or tracking your carbon footprint.

If you’re based in the UK, then the Carbon Rationing Organisation offer a simple utility to calculate your footprint which can be completed online. The program allows you to calculate your carbon output for regular commuter trips and display the results in graphical format. Meanwhile Carbon Footprint offer a much simpler tool but a more proactive approach which calculates your carbon output in tonnes for flights. Once calculated, you can then offset some of your contribution by donating to organisations and projects that are fighting against increased CO2 emissions such as the Clean Energy Fund or replanting trees in the Third World. Probably the most fun especially for kids, is the UK government’s Act On CO2 Calculator which is packed with graphics although is very heavy on the use of Flash.

Note that all of these projects are aimed at individuals but if you want to make your company more responsible, then Verisae Carbon Footprint is a professional package aimed to calculating the output of heavy industrial plants. If you’re sceptical about the merits of making your organisation more responsible for it’s carbon emissions, then this article in Redmond Magazine spells out the benefits and issues in black and white.

If you’re reading this in the USA, then you’re probably cringing at the plummeting value of the dollar which today hit a new low against the Euro. At one stage today, it required $1.561 to buy €1 and there seems no end in sight to the depths that the once mighty currency is going to drop.

If you are in the USA, or you’ve got savings and investments in dollars, now might be the time to think about trading them in or at least converting to a different currency for a while. Rather than use online currency converters, it’s much quicker and easier to make conversions from your desktop. Currency Converter FX is a simple little app which sits on your desktop and is updated in real-time with the conversion rates of over 150 currencies. The same goes for Desktop Currency Converter which carries info for around 50 currencies but has a nicer interface and converts in real-time as you type – no conversion clicks needed.

If you need something a little more advanced, then Currency Server is a sophisticated solution for those who need to be updated in real-time on their desktop as to the latest conversion rates for world currencies. Meanwhile, if you work in industry and need to know how the latest market fluctuations are affecting the price of your goods, Raw Materials is designed especially for you, enabling conversions to be made per kilo, metre, square metre etc. Finally, if you use your own exchange rates for making conversions, then you can customise WorldCalc according to your needs for making quick and easy desktop conversions.

The 2008 Formula 1 season has just started (featuring excellent results so far, by the way) and along with it, the show of trips around the world, powerful cars, beautiful women and excited crowds cheering for their hi-speed idols. This admiration can be shown not only in F1 circuits during the race, but also in many other aspects of your daily life: for example, on your computer.

Formula 1 races are in fact the subject matter of many varied software tools, ranging from the official F1 screensaver (for Windows and Mac) to a complete Palm application like F1 Season 2008, which enables you to track the competition in full detail. If you’d like to follow Formula 1 results but don’t own a Palm, don’t worry: you can also keep an eye on the competition with F1X; it’s not exactly a tracking tool, but it does contain loads of statistics and very accurate information about the Formula 1 competitions since 1950 to nowadays.

Of course, the F1 software fever is not restricted to desktop tools. You can also find online apps and services with which to follow results and learn more about pilots, circuits and races. Besides the standard sources of information like Google or your favorite digital newspaper there are interesting tools such as the F1 Gmaps mashup, which uses the power of Google Maps to display highly detailed information about each track: date, location, satellite imagery and links to Wikipedia.

Finally, for those of you who don’t resign themselves to just watching F1 drivers speeding on the track, you can now emulate them with MiniRacingOnline, a simple fun game where you can compete on actual Formula 1 tracks against players from all over the world.

It may be a poor-man’s answer to Word, but Windows’ built-in office suite Works hides a few fun secrets. After delving under the hood of its bigger brother last week, today I thought I’d scout for some Easter eggs for those who don’t have MS Office installed on their PC.

If you’re frustrated by Works’ somewhat limited functionality why not take it out on the software’s development team by hitting them in the face? Open the Works Task Launcher and ‘Start a Blank Project’ on the home page. In the ‘Project Title’ type “weiVtcejorP” (without quotes) and click in an empty space underneath the title. Hit Ctrl+F6 and you’ll now get the chance to whack the developers as they fly around the screen!

Another fun bit of animation is available in Works 6 and Works 2001 Suite. Open the Database, Spreadsheet or Word Processor and select ‘About Microsoft Works’ from the ‘About’ menu. Left-click on the copyright information box, then type”works 6 rules”. You’ll now be presented with an all-singing, all-dancing full-screen animation page with lots of cool goodies.

If you’re running Works 4.5 then try this one: open a new word processing document and type in “zzzz”. Highlight it then go to ‘Tools’ and ‘Spelling’ and check out Microsoft’s definition (this one also works in Word). That’s your lot for today. I’ll have some more treasures for you tomorrow.

Continue with the Easter egg hunt here.

Compressing is a perfect way to clean up all those files that you no longer need to access on a regular basis and can safely archive in case you ever need to look at them again. What type of archiver you’ll need depends on the type and size of archive you want to save. Here’s a selection of 5 powerful archivers, apart from old favorites WinZIP and WinRAR, that are suitable for most needs:

PowerArchiver – One of the most powerful compression ratios around

7-Zip – Open source high compression archiver for all file types

WinRK – Designed especially for dealing with large files

PeaZip – Fast and easy archiver for beginners

IZArc – The perfect all-round archiver

Wow, it’s day four already of my software Easter egg hunt and already I’ve uncovered some really cool secrets for Photoshop, Windows XP, and Winamp. Being a writer I’ve usually got my copy of Word open so I set about discovering some Easter egg goodies for the veteran word processing app. Here’s my pick of the pops:
Want to quickly generate some random text? Then open a new Word document and type “=rand(200,99)” (without the quote marks). Hit Enter and you’ll be presented with page upon page of randomness. Now try tinkering around with the numbers in brackets – you can change the repitition of the text and the number of times in a row it appears.

If you’re still using Word 97 then you needn’t feel left out. In fact, there’s a feature in there that users of Office 2007 will be envious of – a neat pinball game. Launch a new document and type the word “Blue”. Select the word, then go to ‘Format’, ‘Font’ and make the text bold and blue. Go back to your document and type a space after the word. Now go to ‘About’ in the ‘Help’ menu and Ctrl-Shift left-click on the Word logo/banner. The game will now magically launch! The ‘Z’ key controls the left flipper and the ‘M’ the right. Hit Esc to quit.

Here’s an interesting one for you linguists – did you know that liberal bias exists in Word theasaurus? See for yourself by looking up the words “liberal” and “conservative” in the Thesaurus. notice that the definition of liberal is much more positive (i.e. ‘broad-minded’, ‘tolerant’, ‘free-thinking’, ‘non-interventionist’), whereas to be conservative seems to be a bad thing in the eyes of Microsoft (e.g. ‘unadventurous’, ‘old-fashioned’, ‘conformist’, ‘old school’).

Though technically not an Easter egg, here’s an ‘old school’ trick for all you conservatives out there: open a new document and type ‘Q33 NY’. Now change the font size to 26 and the type to ‘Wingdings’. Amazingly, it looks like a plane flying into two towers with a symbolic message which apparently represents ‘death to jews’. Personally I think this one is pure conincedence, though some conspiracy theorists swear by it.

Continue with the Easter egg hunt here.