July 30, 2011

JOCR -- Reads text out of images


Have you ever wanted to copy text from images? If not yet, do it now! With JOCR, you can copy text from screenshots and other images.

This utility let you take screenshots and recognizes text out of those screenshots.

This specialised software is JOCR (a.k.a GOCR), a free Optical Character Recognition software. What the software does is read the text on the screen and reproduces it in editable text format. This means that you can easily screenshot and copy all text that is in protected webpages (no right-click option pages), locked PDF documents, error messages, etc. The program does offer several capture modes. It is legally advisable to respect copyrights of concerned parties.

Drawbacks of this freebie:
> The text copied is plain text sans the formatting as you see, so no bolds, italics, or as it appears in a magazine.
> It cannot read your handwriting.

Download JOCR
http://home.megapass.co.kr/~woosjung/Files/JOCR.exe

Shock 3D -- 3D Desktop for Windows --- Amazing!


Bring Half-life 2 right into your desktop... with Shock 3D

If you thought Windows 7 desktop was cool, wait till you see Shock 3D,
an OpenGL application that is under 3MB. The application turns all
your icons/desktop into 3D, such that you can move them around like
objects. If you've ever played Half-life 2 using Gravity gun to
interact with objects (Havok physics), you'll know what I talking
about.
Some of the selected icons are 2D and others are 3D, while being fully
interactive at the same time
A drawback of this app is that you cannot use your desktop normally as
Shock 3D sits as a layer on top of your desktop, it is not a fully
baked application to replace your desktop. But give the Korean
developer a break, they have created something cool and deserve the
credit. Microsoft if you are listening, steal this idea right away!
Download page:
http://www.docs.kr/entry/Download-Shock-Desktop3D-en 

Running an application as a different user without logging off and on

Have you ever needed to run a program or an application with different user's credentials? For example, you have logged on as a normal user with limited privileges and you want to activate a service or make some other system-level change. To do this, you need not close all your open programs and log off and then log on with an administrator account, make changes and then log out, and login with your normal user account to see the effect.


You can run a program as a different user without logging out in. To see how, read below:
1. Right click the icon of that program or a shortcut to that, select Run As...
2. Enter the user name and password you want to use.


This only applies for that run. The trick is particularly useful if you need to have administrative 
permissions to install a program.




Note: For this trick to work, Secondary logon service must be running.
To start this service, follow these steps:
1. Start ->> Run...
2. Type in services.msc and select OK.
3. In the Services window, locate secondary logon, and start that by viewing its properties.
4. Close Services window.

July 25, 2011

Disabling need for entering username and password while startup


Many a times you find it inconvenient and time consuming, when you have to log in to you system frequently. It gets even more irritating when you need to enter your username and password for logging in.

You can boot and login without entering user name and password. Just follow these steps:
1. Select Start --> Run...
2. In Run dialog box, type control userpasswords2.
Doing so opens the user accounts application.
3. On the Users tab, clear the box for Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer.
4. Click on OK. An Automatically Log On dialog box will appear.
5. In that dialog box, enter the user name and password for the account you want to use. 

Now you can log in to your system without hassling with user name and password.
Enjoy!

- Rishi Raj
Mail | WebAnswers | Google Groups

To get valuable system information, like 'system installation date and time'


If you want to get operating system and hardware related information about your computer, then you need not download any tool for the same. This information includes details like operating system (OS) version, OS installation date, processor (CPU) type/class among others.

You get retrieve vital system information by following these steps:
1. Run command prompt. 
[Hint: you can run command prompt  by either of the ways: 
 a. Start --> Run... --> type
cmd
and hit Enter key.
 b. Start --> Programs --> Accessories --> Command Prompt] 
2. In command prompt, type systeminfo.

The computer will produce a lot of useful info, including the uptime.

To Save System Information to a File:
If you want to save this information to a file, type  
systeminfo > info.txt
in command prompt. This creates a file called info.txt you can view later with Notepad or any other text viewer.

July 23, 2011

Receiving Mail Alerts for Gmail on mobile phone


Many a times you might have found it to be troublesome to go to computer for checking your important emails. You find it even irritating, if you have to go to computer (to go to some cafe and pay) just to check whether you have received any new emails.

To avoid this hassle and expense, opt for receiving email alerts right on your mobile phone. It'll be very handy,  right?! :-)
To receive email alerts in form of SMS (totally free of charge) on your mobile phone, follow these steps:
1. Visit http://www.way2sms.com and register with your mobile number.
2. Get you email account activated on way2sms.com by clicking on
"Mail" tab.
3. Login to http://mail.google.com and go to "mail settings".
4. Under "Email Forward and IMAP/POP" tab, make settings to forward your emails arriving in your Gmail mailbox to your way2sms email account.
[you make these settings with both gmail and way2sms email accounts.]
4. click on "Mail alerts" link to activate email alerts.


From now on whenever your receive a mail with your Gmail account, the
same email will be received with your way2sms account and your mobile
phone will ring out:"1 New Message!"  

July 19, 2011

Automate installation of drivers and applications with Windows

If you find it annoying to first install Windows on a formatted computer and then install graphics drivers and audio drivers and other software packages one by one, and want to automate this all, then try the following method.

This method lets you-
- to avoid taking pains to enter USER name, ORGANISATION name, serial key,
- to append automatic installation of graphics drivers, sound drivers to installation of Windows,
- to append automatinc installation of antivirus program to that.


The method is-
Try creating your own "Unattended Windows Installation CD". For this, go through tutorials provided on site http://unattended.msfn.org.
 
[ do read home page contents for advices. Do begin with "Beginner" level. ]   

Desktop shortcut for locking computer

Sometimes you might have felt need of locking computer with as much ease as opening any file- double-click and get computer locked. This post tells you how you can achieve this ease.

Steps to locking computer with a shortcut:
1. Right-click on Desktop.
2. Choose New > Shortcut.
3. Enter target value: %windir%\system32\rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation


Now you must see a shortcut for locking computer on your Desktop.

Whenever you like to lock your computer and go away, just double-click this shortcut; and Yola! it's done for you!!

Enjoy!

Move user Desktop to another partition

You can move your desktop (Desktop folder in Windows) to another location.

Follow these simple steps for that: 
1. Go to Registry Editor.  
2. Navigate to 
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion 
\Explorer\User Shell Folders  
3. There change value of
Desktop  
from  
%USERPROFILE%\Desktop 
to  
D:\Desktop 
or whatever you like. 


Recommendation:
Moving desktop folder to a partition other than system partition helps keep your precious data inert to vulnerabilities of system partition like Windows failure, system breakdown. 

Enjoy! 


* For those who do not know how to Go to Registry Editor*: 
1. Press Start button.
2. Click on Run.
3. Type regedit in Run dialog box.
4. Hit OK. 

* Keyboard shortcut for Run is "WindowsLogoKey + R".