Open source software advocates like to point to OpenOffice.org as a viable alternative to Microsoft Office. It can open, create, edit, and save Office-compatible documents including text, spreadsheet, and database files. It might not have every last bell and whistle of Office, but it gets the job done. But OpenOffice.org also has a dirty little secret: It's kind of slow. And apparently, it's getting slower all the time.
OpenOffice.org Ninja ran a battery of tests and found that with each major release, OpenOffice.org has gotten a little slower when performing common tasks like opening, closing, and exporting documents. OpenOffice.org 1.1.5, for example, launches about 40% faster than OpenOffice.org 2.4. That figure holds true whether you're doing a cold start (loading the program for the first time since rebooting your computer) or a warm start (starting the program a second, third, or 15th time).
The developers have certainly been tweaking the open source office suite to improve performance. But they also keep adding new features, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, sometimes those new features slow down program performance. Of course, if you can't wait 20-25 seconds to load your office suite, you could always just buy more RAM, a faster CPU, and umm... Microsoft Office. Or try an online office suite like Google Docs or Zoho, which load faster than OpenOffice.org if you already have a browser window open.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Download Multiple Web Videos Into a Single Movie or MP3
While there are tons of tools that let you download web videos with ease, MovAVI offers one unique feature - it can join multiple videos from YouTube, Metacafe, Break.com, etc. into one single file all by itself that you can later download in any format.
join multiple videos
Related Reading: How to do Everything with YouTube
Using Movavi is simple - just add the different video URLs (5 is the limit) and select an output format. You can either request the combined video clip as an MP3 audio file (great for music videos) or in regular formats like iPod MP4, AVI, Flash Video & Quicktime.
Movavi will not join your videos instantly - it sends out an email when the video to ready for download. If you are looking for instant conversion, check this Flash Video Guide. MovAVI can also be used to join video files that reside on your local hard drive.
MovAVI.com [Online Video Converter]
Read Full Articles on The Wall Street Journal Without a Subscription
"The full WSJ.com article is only available to subscribers." You may often see this registration message when trying to access content published on The Wall Street Journal Online edition [unless you are lucky].
BugMeNot database does have username-password combinations for most paid-subscription websites (including the WSJ) but it's tough to find one that works. Now George has a handy trick though only for geeks.
You can read any subscriber-only articles published in the Wall Street Journal newspaper (online edition) if you have Firefox ( Get Firefox with Google Toolbar) and an awesome extension called Firebug (that allows inline HTML editing).
Following are the steps involved to bypass the WSJ yearly subscription wall:
Step 1: Open the Wall Street Journal story web page that you want to read but can't because it's behind the subscription firewall.
Step 2: Add the text mod=googlenews_wsj to URL immediately following the .html filename. See example below:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB11874773.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Step 3: Open news.google.com and press Ctrl+Shift+C - Hover the mouse over any random news headline and click once to the enter the HTML editing mode in Firebug.
Now change the link of that Google News story in the Firebug window to the one we created in Step 2. [change the "href" attribute of "a" tag] Press enter.
Click the modified link on the Google News homepage and you'll immediately get access to the full article on WSJ, not just the two-para summary.
How to Read Popular Magazines on your Desktop for Free
This is a very simple & non-geeky trick to help you read the latest issue of popular magazines like PC Magazine, MIT Technology Review, Popular Mechanics, MacWorld, Lonely Planet, Reader’s Digest, etc without paying any subscription charges.
You will also get to read adult magazines like Playboy and Penthouse. Best of all, these digital magazines are exact replicas of print and served as high-resolution images that you can also download on to the computer for offline reading.
How to Read Online Magazines for Free
safari-magazines Step 1: If you are on a Windows PC, go to apple.com and download the Safari browser. Mac users already have Safari on their system.
Step 2: Once you install Safari, go to Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced and check the option that says "Show Develop menu in menu bar."
Step 3: Open the "Develop" option in the browser menu bar and choose Mobile Safari 1.1.3 - iPhone as the User Agent.
iphone-user-agent
Step 4: You’re all set. Open zinio.com/iphone inside Safari browser and start reading your favorite magazines for free. Use the navigation arrows at the top to turn pages.
For people in countries like India who are already subscribed to Zinio Digital Magazines, this hack is still useful because you get access to certain magazines which are otherwise not available for subscription via Zinio (e.g., Penthouse and Playboy).
Geeks may write a AutoHotKey script or create a "scrolling capture" profile in SnagIt that will auto-flip magazine pages and save all the images locally.
You will also get to read adult magazines like Playboy and Penthouse. Best of all, these digital magazines are exact replicas of print and served as high-resolution images that you can also download on to the computer for offline reading.
How to Read Online Magazines for Free
safari-magazines Step 1: If you are on a Windows PC, go to apple.com and download the Safari browser. Mac users already have Safari on their system.
Step 2: Once you install Safari, go to Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced and check the option that says "Show Develop menu in menu bar."
Step 3: Open the "Develop" option in the browser menu bar and choose Mobile Safari 1.1.3 - iPhone as the User Agent.
iphone-user-agent
Step 4: You’re all set. Open zinio.com/iphone inside Safari browser and start reading your favorite magazines for free. Use the navigation arrows at the top to turn pages.
For people in countries like India who are already subscribed to Zinio Digital Magazines, this hack is still useful because you get access to certain magazines which are otherwise not available for subscription via Zinio (e.g., Penthouse and Playboy).
Geeks may write a AutoHotKey script or create a "scrolling capture" profile in SnagIt that will auto-flip magazine pages and save all the images locally.
Read Books at Work While Boss Thinks You’re Working on a PowerPoint Presentation
Read Books at Work While Boss Thinks You’re Working on a PowerPoint Presentation
By Amit Agarwal on spy
‘Read At Work’ is a collection of some famous books converted into PowerPoint presentations so you can read them at work without having to worry about boss stepping into the cubicle.
fake-windows-xp
The website resembles a Windows XP desktop and these PowerPoint style books are neatly arranged in different folders on the desktop.
powerpoint-books You can double click the book name to read them in the browser. Hit the escape key and return to your standard Windows desktop.
The whole idea is to help people read books even while they are at office. Each novel has the full text but formatted like a presentation. Works across all browsers.
www.readatwork.com -
By Amit Agarwal on spy
‘Read At Work’ is a collection of some famous books converted into PowerPoint presentations so you can read them at work without having to worry about boss stepping into the cubicle.
fake-windows-xp
The website resembles a Windows XP desktop and these PowerPoint style books are neatly arranged in different folders on the desktop.
powerpoint-books You can double click the book name to read them in the browser. Hit the escape key and return to your standard Windows desktop.
The whole idea is to help people read books even while they are at office. Each novel has the full text but formatted like a presentation. Works across all browsers.
www.readatwork.com -
Ways to keep XP fresh
By Dennis O'Reilly
A better way to clear out temp folders, a great all-purpose Windows cleaner, and more free online storage top your suggestions for giving XP a new lease on life.
The question remains: Who benefits when Microsoft's only real competition is with itself?
Reports of XP's demise are greatly exaggerated
Last week's Top Story by Scott Dunn on keeping XP fresh until Vista's successor is released was one of the most popular articles the newsletter has ever published. Clearly, a great number of Windows users see no need to trade in XP for Vista.
Responding to Scott's request, several readers offered their own techniques for teaching the old OS new tricks. David M. Deitz points out that you can empty XP's temp folder for all users by replacing the login name. "On Rule 7, 'Clear the clutter from XP's many cubbyholes,' " he writes, "the batch file could be more generic by using the userprofile variable." This would look as follows:
del /s /q "%userprofile%\Local Settings\Temp\*.*"
Windows substitutes the userprofile variable with the actual location of information for all users of a machine. The quotation marks in the command are required because the command line includes a space.
The freeware cleanup alternative
Several readers echoed Ezra Riner's recommendation for a free cleanup utility.
* "I never use Microsoft's Disk Cleanup tool. I find the free CCleaner [from Piriform] does an excellent job of clearing caches, temp files, and the like. [The program] integrates into your Recycle Bin for ease of use and total control."
Even more free storage available online
Scott recommended several online-storage services that offer as much as 2MB of space for your files for free. Hitman Howler wrote in to tell us about two services that trump those offerings.
* "The [services] you mention are about 1GB to 2GB free. Allow me to show you two sites that offer 5GB totally free: Microsoft's Windows Live SkyDrive and 4Shared."
I don't often think of Microsoft as the kind of company that does its customers a favor, but the only two programs that really compete with Vista are the OS's predecessor and eventual successor. Perhaps that's some consolation for the company as it attempts to fabricate a silk purse out of the sow's ear that is Vista.
A better way to clear out temp folders, a great all-purpose Windows cleaner, and more free online storage top your suggestions for giving XP a new lease on life.
The question remains: Who benefits when Microsoft's only real competition is with itself?
Reports of XP's demise are greatly exaggerated
Last week's Top Story by Scott Dunn on keeping XP fresh until Vista's successor is released was one of the most popular articles the newsletter has ever published. Clearly, a great number of Windows users see no need to trade in XP for Vista.
Responding to Scott's request, several readers offered their own techniques for teaching the old OS new tricks. David M. Deitz points out that you can empty XP's temp folder for all users by replacing the login name. "On Rule 7, 'Clear the clutter from XP's many cubbyholes,' " he writes, "the batch file could be more generic by using the userprofile variable." This would look as follows:
del /s /q "%userprofile%\Local Settings\Temp\*.*"
Windows substitutes the userprofile variable with the actual location of information for all users of a machine. The quotation marks in the command are required because the command line includes a space.
The freeware cleanup alternative
Several readers echoed Ezra Riner's recommendation for a free cleanup utility.
* "I never use Microsoft's Disk Cleanup tool. I find the free CCleaner [from Piriform] does an excellent job of clearing caches, temp files, and the like. [The program] integrates into your Recycle Bin for ease of use and total control."
Even more free storage available online
Scott recommended several online-storage services that offer as much as 2MB of space for your files for free. Hitman Howler wrote in to tell us about two services that trump those offerings.
* "The [services] you mention are about 1GB to 2GB free. Allow me to show you two sites that offer 5GB totally free: Microsoft's Windows Live SkyDrive and 4Shared."
I don't often think of Microsoft as the kind of company that does its customers a favor, but the only two programs that really compete with Vista are the OS's predecessor and eventual successor. Perhaps that's some consolation for the company as it attempts to fabricate a silk purse out of the sow's ear that is Vista.
A cure for XP SP3's never-ending reboots
If you're one of the folks whose AMD-based PCs constantly reboot after applying XP SP3, here's how you can recover.
When the system is first booting, press F8 to enter Windows' Safe Mode. Log into the Administrator acccount, click Start, Run, type cmd, and press Enter. When the command window opens, type the following command (don't forget the space after the equals sign, which is required):
sc config intelppm start= disabled
The problem is caused by the presence of Intel drivers on AMD-based systems. Follow the above steps only if you know your PC uses an AMD processor; doing so on an Intel-based machine could render the system unusable.
To determine which processor your system uses, open the Control Panel's System applet and click the General tab. (See Figure 1.)
Windows XP's System Control Panel applet
Figure 1. Open the System applet in Control Panel to verify the type of processor your PC uses.
If the processor listed in the window is "Intel," do not enter the command shown above. An Intel-based system that constantly reboots may be having an unrelated problem. It might be caused by conflicts with antivirus products, as described in my previous item, or something else entirely that no one has yet identified.
As I wrote in my May 22 column, there's no rush to install XP SP3. Wait until we know more about these kinds of conflicts.
When the system is first booting, press F8 to enter Windows' Safe Mode. Log into the Administrator acccount, click Start, Run, type cmd, and press Enter. When the command window opens, type the following command (don't forget the space after the equals sign, which is required):
sc config intelppm start= disabled
The problem is caused by the presence of Intel drivers on AMD-based systems. Follow the above steps only if you know your PC uses an AMD processor; doing so on an Intel-based machine could render the system unusable.
To determine which processor your system uses, open the Control Panel's System applet and click the General tab. (See Figure 1.)
Windows XP's System Control Panel applet
Figure 1. Open the System applet in Control Panel to verify the type of processor your PC uses.
If the processor listed in the window is "Intel," do not enter the command shown above. An Intel-based system that constantly reboots may be having an unrelated problem. It might be caused by conflicts with antivirus products, as described in my previous item, or something else entirely that no one has yet identified.
As I wrote in my May 22 column, there's no rush to install XP SP3. Wait until we know more about these kinds of conflicts.
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