Friday, December 23, 2011

Happy Holidays 2011 (and public domain photos)

Happy Holidays

The photo above is from http://www.public-domain-image.com/ which you might find helpful when looking for free images. Photos on the site are public domain images, royalty free stock photos, copyright friendly free images, not copyrighted, and no rights reserved. All pictures on this site are explicitly placed in the public domain, free for any personal or commercial use.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Flowing Fix: Force a visitor's browser to always load a fresh version of your website

"HELP!  I just updated my website and when I visit the site I don't see the changes."  This is a common problem that occurs when updating a website in which can be easily be resolved by clearing your browser cache; however,  your site's visitors have no way of knowing this and they might not be able to see the updated site.  A quick solution is to include the following right before the close of the header section of the HTML code:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="CACHE-CONTROL" CONTENT="NO-CACHE">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="PRAGMA" CONTENT="NO-CACHE">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="EXPIRES" CONTENT="0">

If you are using Apple's iWeb, you cannot directly edit the header code in iWeb; however after you publish it you can edit the html files to include the above META code in the header section.  This can be tedious, but luckily there is a FREE program iWeb SEO tool (http://www.ragesw.com/products/iweb-seo-tool.html)  which helps easily add this meta code and other tweaks as well as help publish the updated website.


(for other  HTML tags see http://www.i18nguy.com/markup/metatags.html )

Keyboard Shortcuts

Today is your lucky day... you get two posts today for the price of one.

Using the keyboard can be much faster than moving the mouse to click on buttons or menus.  Here are some that I use on a routine basis:

MS Windows
Windows + R: Run action from the Start Menu (you can type a lot of commands [e.g. excel, winword, calc] in there to start programs)

Google Stuff
Ctrl+Alt+1 ==> Heading 1
Ctrl+Alt+2 ==> Heading 2
Ctrl+Alt+N ==> Heading N

MS Office
Ctrl+Alt+1 ==> Heading 1
Ctrl+Alt+2 ==> Heading 2
Ctrl+Alt+N ==> Heading N
Alt+I+N+C ==> Insert Caption
Alt+I+B ==> Insert Page Break

Friday, December 9, 2011

Flowing Fix: Don't let your USB drive be a carrier

Panda USB Vaccine (MS Windows only) will stop virus from using the autorun.inf file on a USB from installing a virus from an inflected computer to your USB. It disables the autorun.inf file so the a potential virus cannot use it.   For more information see http://research.pandasecurity.com/panda-usb-and-autorun-vaccine/

Download location:
http://download.cnet.com/Panda-USB-Vaccine/3000-2239_4-10909938.html?part=dl-55967&subj=dl&tag=button

Friday, December 2, 2011

Bulk Renamer

Bulk Renamer (MS Windows Only):
http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.php

This is another file renamer.  I like this one a lot because it does things that other renamers don't.  At least that's what I remember when I was searching for renamers.

Friday, November 25, 2011

Flowing Fix (via NY times): Tips for Buying Tech

So you are thinking of buying a new item of technology (e.g., computer, camera, tv) and with so many options to tweak it might seem confusing as to which are a higher priority than others.  The N.Y. Times article has some good tech buying tips which will help ease the confusion.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/technology/personaltech/12basics.html?_r=3&ref=technology


Friday, November 18, 2011

Flowing Fix (via numberstemplates.com): Export Address Book Data With Apple iWork Numbers ’08

Tip: Export Address Book Data With Apple iWork Numbers ‘08 [Mac OS X only]
Here is a great tip I found on the Apple discussion boards courtesy of Neil Barman
You can use Numbers to export your address book entries to a comma separated values (csv) file.
Here’s how you do it:

Open Address book, then select the entries you wish to export. Drag them into numbers, on a blank area of the canvas, and a table will automatically be created. By default, the following fields are displayed: Last Name, First Name, Phone and Email. The other address book fields are present, but hidden. To have all fields display, choose the Unhide All Columns from the Table menu.
You can then select Export from the File menu, and choose a csv format that will be suitable for import into another application.
Then you can export this to a CSV file which Excel can read. Next create new sheet and create the headers (or as needed)
TitleLast nameFirst nameHow name should print (map to Middle Name)Home streethome cityhome statehome zip


Then, MS Word >>; Tools >>; Mail Merge Manager
Then follow the steps and use the EXCEL file as the data source

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Inkscape

Inkscape (Mac OS X, MS Windows, Linux): http://inkscape.org/
Free, ease to use, and powerful vector graphics editor.  Great for simple and complex figures.  Allows for exporting to various formats including .eps, .pdf, and .png which are perfect for LaTeX documents.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

FormatFactory

FormatFactory (MS Windows only) http://www.formatoz.com/index.html :
Media converter which allows conversion between a variety of different media formats.

Video Monkey

Video Monkey (Mac only) http://videomonkey.org :
Free video encoding software designed for the Mac OS X operating system

Saturday, October 22, 2011

NameChanger

NameChanger (Mac OS X):  http://www.mrrsoftware.com/MRRSoftware/NameChanger.html
Free software designed to help batch renaming of file and folders quickly and with ease.  Among various renaming options, the software supports regular expressions, mismatched files types, and formatting changes.

Lupas Rename 2000

Lupas Rename 2000 (MS Windows): http://rename.lupasfreeware.org/lupasrename.php
Simple and powerful program to help rename file and folders.  In addition to being free, the software is just a simple ".exe" that does not require installation, so it is small and extremely portable.  Perhaps one of the programs that should be handy on a USB drive.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Flowing Fix: How do I get those data points off an image?

Every so often you need to read points (or entire curves) off a figure.  To expedite this process here are two freely available programs to digitize the points from an image.

Engauge (MS Windows, Linux [Mac OS X requires building])  http://digitizer.sourceforge.net/

Plot Digitizer (MS Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X ) http://plotdigitizer.sourceforge.net/

Saturday, October 15, 2011

XLXTRFUN: MS EXCEL functions

ADD-IN for MS EXCEL  http://www.xlxtrfun.com/XlXtrFun/XlXtrFun.htm
following summary via xlxtrfun website:
"XlXtrFun.xll is a collection of functions which extends the capabilities of Microsoft Excel; developed primarily to facilitate, interpolation of 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional data, and simplify 2-variable curve fitting. XlXtrFun has been used for years by engineering and research and development personnel on every continent who need to interpolate, extrapolate, and curve fit data rapidly, reliably, and with a virtually non-existent learning curve.
If you work with real-life data and want to interpolate, extrapolate, or curve fit, then you will find these functions very useful."

Saturday, October 8, 2011

PSPad

PSPad (Windows onlyhttp://www.pspad.com/ :  
Text editor and source editor which is more powerful and useful than notepad and wordpad that are standard with Windows.  PsPad allows for row and column selection of text, macro creation, file comparisons, tabs for multiple documents, language syntax highlighting, regular expression find/replace capabilities,  among other advanced features.  You can either download portable version or install full version to integrate with Windows shell.



Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Flowing Fix: I just moved to Exchange and now I cannot forward mail to another address like the older CITES service

Yes, it is true that Exchange 2010 does not support email forwarding option like the older CITES email; however, you can implement a work around using two email rules within Exchange that work just as well.

1) Log into your Exchange email account using the web portal.

2) Near the upper right of the Outlook:WebApp (just under your displayed name) click the "options" button which opens a drop down and select "Create an Inbox Rule"

3) Click "New" to add a new rule

4) Then, select the following for the drop downs (note after setting the second drop down, the a new form might appear which is fine, if not then you should select the "select people" button to open the new form):

5) Then, in the new "address book" window that opened, enter the "to" in the "Message Recipient:" field at the bottom of the form and click "OK" to commit. !! Be sure to enter your correct email address that you want all new incoming messages to be forwarded to !!

6) Back in the "New Inbox Rule" window, click the "More options" link and then make sure the stop rules after this option is "unchecked" as seen in the image below. Click the "Save" button when done.

7) You can now test the redirect by emailing yourself from another email account and the message should be redirected to that new email account.  However, you will note that a copy of the message still resides in the Exchange account.  In order to remove the message from the Exchange account [or have in marked as read, but not deleted] will require an second rule.

8) As in step 3, create a new rule, and [apply to all messages] as before but this time change the "do the following" selection to be "delete the message".  As before in step 6, you can uncheck the "stop processing more rules"  and optionally append the name of the rule with "delete" so you know what the rule is doing.  Then, click "SAVE"

9) Final important step, make sure to reorder the rules so that the DELETE rule is last (e.g, below the redirect rule) or the message will get deleted first and will NOT be able to be redirected. (See figure below for illustration)



 10) Enjoy your new redirected email settings

Thanks Roberto

Monday, August 15, 2011

Flowing Fix: iPhone on Campus?

For wireless internet access on Campus:
If you would like to connect to the wireless network on Campus, here is a link to the CITES website which has the directions
http://www.cites.illinois.edu/wireless/wpa2/iphone.html


Email Options 
Below are various options for email, for university mail Nils suggests using the University Exchange option (UIUC option 1 listed below) since the university is eventually going that way

For Google (here are two recommended options):
Google Option 1): If you want Google Gmail, Google Contacts and Google Calender (using Google's exchange server) on the iPhone here are instructions:
video to explain Google sync: http://www.google.com/mobile/sync/
the link to the instructions: http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138740&amp;topic=14252 &lt;http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138740&amp;topic=14252&gt;


Google Option 2): If you want to use Google IMAP
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&amp;answer=77702 &lt;http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&amp;answer=77702&gt;

For University (two options):
UIUC option 1): (Recommended by Nils) If you get a University Exchange account (information about the exchange account: http://www.cites.illinois.edu/exchange/) information regarding the iPhone : http://www.cites.illinois.edu/exchange/iphone.html

UIUC option 2): Another method which doesn't use Exchange (but i do not think the reading of emails will be synced from computer to phone and vice versa)
http://yanyanxu.com/2009/01/14/how-to-setup-uiuc-cites-express-email-on-iphone-through-smtp-and-pop/
-------------------------
Note: Apple now allows multiple exchange accounts on the iPhone
-------------------------


A few recommended iPhone Applications:
Also, as I had mentioned here are some applications for the iphone.  You can either install them using the App Store icon on the iPhone or through iTunes installed on a computer (then syncing the phone). Either way you will need to create a itunes store account, but each of the two methods allow you to create an account if you don't have one.  (The App Store icon on the iPhone might be the easier way if you don't have itunes installed, but there are size limitation on apps u can download (i think 10mb limit) and it is slower than directly syncing with a computer,  if you want faster speed or need to install an app larger than 10mb you need to sync to the iTunes on the computer.)  Also, syncing you phone to the computer using itunes, automatically makes a backup of your phone, for that extra piece of mind.
Here is the list of some nice FREE Apps:
(if you use the App Store on the phone, you will have to search for the title of each application, if you have itunes installed on a computer you can click the hyperlinks below for each application)

Aroundme :  helps find various information (businesses, restaurants, etc.) that are around your location.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aroundme/id290051590?mt=8

Appbox Lite: has a couple of useful applications wrapped into one application, (including a digital level, unit converter, currency converter, and others)
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/appbox-lite/id307094023?mt=8

Units:  it is nice unit converter application
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/units/id284574017?mt=8

Skype: just link the Skype for the computer
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/skype/id304878510?mt=8

Google Earth: just link google earth for the computer (best to use this with wifi turned on, though 3G is ok)
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-earth/id293622097?mt=8

GorillaCam: enable your camera to have time lapse, timer, and some other features
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gorillacam/id342972390?mt=8

 DropBox:  first I would click this link to see a short video which explains it https://www.dropbox.com/
 Think of this program as a wireless USB key which you can view and send files in a certain folder on your computer from the iPhone.  (In order to use this need to create an online account and install an application on your computer to get the full benefit) here is the itunes link http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dropbox/id327630330?mt=8