Posts Tagged ‘Screenshot’
Two tools to make documenting easier
Snipping tool is a part of Windows Vista and is used for screen capturing. And it actually works really well! If you don’t have it installed you can add it by going to Computer then click on “Uninstall or change a program”.
Then click on “Turn Windows features on or off” on the left side.
Just check the box for Tablet PC optional components and you are done.
Once you have it installed just go to the start menu and search for “snipping”. It should be the first result. One thing I found out you cannot do is take a screenshot of the snipping tool while it is open. You will still have to use your PrtScn button for that. 
The second little tool isn’t really for documentation as it is for quick answers while in Firefox. If you go into the little search bar at the top and search for “miles in Kilometers” and don’t hit enter you will see your answer right there in the suggestion area.
Pretty neat.
Let me know if there are any easy/free tools that you have overlooked for years that you now use everyday in the comments.
A bunch of new tools/tweaks
I don’t really like filling up my website with posts about every tool I find. But every once and a while my RSS feeds fills up with “pinned” items for me to remember and check out when I get time. Well, it has filled up again and I am going to throw a bunch of downloads at you so get ready.
Lets start with a few tools that I probably won’t use much but it may be good for me in the future. Test Everything is a all-in-one tester for your website. Want to test your CSS or Whois? They have it all in a pretty slick, but not very user friendly interface. Bottom line is, if it isn’t at Test Everything I would be surprised if it exists anywhere.
This next one is a tool I remember reading about in the PDAPhoneHome forums a couple of years ago when I had my xv6700 and it was just a idea. It is called WMWifiRouter and it makes your Windows Mobile phone work as a wireless router for your laptop/PSP/whatever. You have to connect via a Ad Hoc network because the phone cannot broadcast DHCP but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. The tool comes in 3 versions. The first version will install the program on your phone and also set up the Ad Hoc network connection for you. The second will install the program but you will have to do the Ad Hoc network settings yourself. The third is just the program. You will have to drag the program over to your phone and then run it and set up the network yourself. I really can’t wait till I get my new phone so I can give this one a try.
Now on to some tools I know I will probably use. The first two allow you to work on computers remotely. What is always the first step of working on a computer remotely? Figure out what is wrong. LSGrab helps with that. It allows you to remotely get a screenshot of a computer on your network. I tried it out on a couple of computers on my work network and had mixed results. Either way, it doesn’t hurt to try. The same web site, Moernaut.com, also had a tool called Remote interactive executer. I didn’t get a chance to try out this tool but if it works the way I think it does I will be keeping this around for a while.
Speaking of remotely managing computers. If anyone out there has a good program for remotely administering computers please leave a comment. I have been having a hard time finding a good one for my work. And just to narrow things down a little bit, LanDesk and Desktop Authority require too much integration (domain admins/servers), and NetSupport and Radmin don’t have all the features I need. So if you find something in between please let me know. I need to be able to remotely administer a computer without disrupting the user.
The next tool comes from the How-To Geek. They helped me out in a big way by showing me how to disable the internal system beep in Windows. If I still ever used internet explorer I would also have loved their tip on enabling more simultaneous downloads. In order to keep things nice and tidy on your computer, lifehacker has a tool called Belvedere that can automatically manage files for you. I have a couple set up that lets my downloaded files move after 1 week of creation and then if they aren’t opened in a couple weeks after being moved they are automatically deleted. A great way to keep junk files off my computer.
Finally, there is something I am never fond of but it is still fun to mess around with and that is making your OS look like a different OS. But, if you ever wanted to make your Windows XP machine look like OSX you don’t need to look any further than FlyakiteOSX. How-To Geek tipped me off to the program and I gave it a try on my virtual machine and it doesn’t look to bad. I mean, for what it is.
That should clean out my RSS feeds for a little while. Enjoy the new tools.