Back up data using an affordable cloud service( Amazon S3)

               The online storage service is not just for developers. You can use it as a cheap online backup location for all your important files.

               If you are looking for a simple, inexpensive online Web storage service, opt for Amazon S3. Contrary to the popular belief, this service from Amazon is not just for developers. It is equally useful  for  home  users.  It  can  be  used  to store your data like music fi les, videos, pictures etc or you can use it to back up your local hard drive. Instead of folders, there are buckets in which you can store your fi les. You have to select a region where you wish to store the bucket. Amazon  S3  is  available  in  US  Standard, EU (Ireland), US West (Northern California), Asia Pacific (Singapore), and Asia Pacific (Tokyo) regions. Select the region  closest  to  you  so  that  you  can save time and minimize cost. You can retrieve the fi les saved in the bucket via a unique developer assigned key. Amazon S3  is  also  very  cost  effective, as it functions on the policy that you pay only for what you consume.

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Adjust font size in the Firefox menu(Firefox)

                   You need to increase the size of the text in Firefox's menu and tool bars, and the Windows controls aren't enough.

                 You can increase the font size of the fi le menu items and reduce the font size of the bookmarks if you find  it  to  be  too  large. Firefox  uses  the Windows default settings, so you could increase the DPI value of the system font size. Alternatively, you can customize the required settings by creating a 'userChrome.css' file instead. You can find the sample file at ‘C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\
Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\j53h8g9g.default\chrome'. For example, to set the font size to 20 px for all elements of the Firefox interface, add the line '* {font-size: 20pt !important}'.You can also edit individual elements, but for that, you will have to locate the correct CSS selectors. For more samples of CSS codes, visit http://
www.mozilla.org/unix/customizing.html

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Configure multifunctional homepage(Chrome 4.x onwards)

                  In Chrome, the automatically generated selection for new tabs is really practical. Still, you can customize the homepage in the browser for quick selection and other functions. A free Chrome extension called Incredible Start page helps you confi gure your Chrome homepage.

                   You can customize Chrome to your liking with the free Incredible Start page extension, which you can easily find online. Once you reach the extensions page, confirm the installation and allow access  to  personal  data  by  clicking ‘Install’. Now open a new tab. To the left, you will see a list of the last closed tabs as  well  as  the  bookmarks.  To  the  right, the large field of ers a quick selection for a specific  folder  of  bookmarks.  To  change the displayed contents, navigate to the desired bookmark folder, and click ‘Show as main’ button at the base of the dialog. Other bookmarks can also be added to the right via drag-and-drop.
                 You can personalize colors and the background  image  by  clicking  ‘Theme Options’. To use your own picture, click ‘Custom’ under ‘Wallpapers’. In the next dialog box, enter the URL of the desired photo and confirm with ‘Save’. You can also use photos from Flickr as a background. You can add notes for quick access on the yellow notepad that you can send to G mail or to Google calendar with the allocated links. With the ‘Advanced Options’ link, you can change the number of the recently closed tabs  that  should  be  visible  on  the  page in the ‘Maximum recently closed tabs’ combination fi eld.

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The Office Menu 2010 offers many features, but often not where you want it. However, you can customize the menu to your style of working.( Office 2010)

                   The Office Menu 2010 offers many features, but often not where you want it. However, you can customize the menu  to  your  style  of  working.
                From  version  2010  onwards, you can set up the menu in all Office applications individually. To do so, open ‘File | Options’ and click on ‘Customize Ribbon’ from the options displayed on the left.

                You can even customize the standard commands to a certain extent. To do so, select  ‘All  Tabs’  in  both  the  combo-box sets. The section ‘Main Tab’ defines the available tabs. Individual commands are organized into groups and to display them, click on the plus sign in front of  the relevant tabs. You can then move the selected group by a simple drag-and drop action. But before that, you will have to create a new group, as you cannot add a command to the existing groups. Creating a new group is fairly simple; all you  have  to  do  is  right-click  at  the  desired place and then click on ‘New Group’. You can even rename the group that you have  created.  For  example,  in  Excel,  the group ‘Macros’ is in the tab ‘View’. For immediate access, you can move this to the ‘Start’ tab.

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Define specific cells as per the maximum value( Microsoft Excel)

                 You want to display the content of one result  cell  in  another  which  is  to  the left of the relevant maximum value of a specific data fi eld in the table sheet.
                 This task can be carried out using a combination of three simple functions.The functions are used in one single formula. Just imagine: The fields “B1” to “B4”  contain  four  numbers.  If  the  largest number  is  in  “B3”,  the  result  cell  should return the value from “A3”. For this, enter the formula given here:
=INDEX(A1:A4,
MATCH(MAX(B1:B4),B1:B4,0),1)
“MAX(B1:B4) first identifies the largest value from the data set. This value serves as a search criterion for the comparison that is extended to the search matrix “B1:B4”. With the comparison type “0”, the function identifies the position of the first value from the search matrix that is identical to the search criteria.
                The matrix variant of the “INDEX” function then uses the searched value from the value matrix “A1:A4” that is located in the fi rst column of the row defined by the comparison.

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Display hidden data on the server( Filezilla)

                   An FTP client normally shows no hidden files on the connected server whose name starts with a leading point.  However,  if  you  need  to  access  a  file with the name ‘. htaccess’, the FTP client Filezilla can be forced to display the hidden fi les on the server.

                 If you want to see the hidden files on the connected server, you can easily do so by a simple click.  If  you  are  using version 3.x, select ‘Server’ from the menu bar, click the option ‘Force show hidden files’.If you are using version 2.x instead, go to ‘View’. Here you will fi nd the option to  show  hidden  files.

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Create e-mail signatures with text and images(Thunderbird)

                Instead of a signature that just contains the sender details, it’s possible to create a sophisticated signature with an image or logo.

              Thunderbird supports text-based signatures, but if you need images togo  with  your  signature,  you  will  have  to code it as an  HTML  file. You can use the Word  editor  to  arrange  your  image  and
text settings. Save the fi le as a webpage.Next, open Thunderbird, ‘Tools | Account Settings’.  Next,  select  the  e-mail  account to add the signature. Now, select the‘attach the signature from a fi le instead’and select the created HTML file. For this to  work,  make  sure  that  the  messages are being sent in HTML format. To enable,click on ‘Composition & Addressing’ on the left. Enable the ‘write messages in HTML format’ option and click OK.
               If your image is not showing up in the signature,you  will  have to convert  the image to base64 strings. The process converts the image into its original base code that can be incorporated into  an  HTML  file. To convert the image,go to http://webcodertools.com/imagetobase64converter. Load the image, and replace the image in the HTML fi le with the contents appearing in the Image tag text box, and save the
file. The image will then appear in yourselected signature.

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Install new fonts and manage them centrally

                 Windows 7 has a wide range of fonts but they are still not enough for some users. Unfortunately, a command for installing more fonts is not available in the font folder at fi rst glance.
                 In  order  to  configure fonts, click ‘Appearance and Personalization’ in the Control Panel and then ‘Fonts’. In this view, every entry already has a mini preview of the relevant font.
                 There are several options for installing new  font  types.  It  is  usually enough  to copy the new font file into the folder ‘C:\Windows\Fonts’. The disadvantage of this method is that only the file name and not the font name is later displayed in applications. It  is  thus  better to select one of the following procedures: Open the folder with the desired font file in Windows Explorer. Right click the file entry and select the context command ‘Install’. Even the preview window of the font type which opens on double clicking has an ‘Install’ button. A click on it integrates the font into the system.
                 The other option is to open the Fonts folder and press [Alt]. Windows then displays the menu bar. Click ‘New Font’ in the ‘File’ menu, navigate to where the new font is saved and open the file.
                 You can also uninstall fonts via the ‘Fonts’ folder, for example, using the context menu command ‘Delete’. System-relevant ones are an exception. Today’s computers are so potent that system performance is not affected even if a lot of fonts are installed.
                 If  you just want to reduce the number fonts displayed in the selection lists,you can simply deactivate the unused ones. These  then continue to be in the system but cannot be used.For this,right click the entry and select the context command ‘Hide’. You can reactivate the font at a later time using the context command ‘Show’. But unfortunately, not all programs respect this option. Microsoft Office 2010  continues to display all fonts.  

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Define the actual folders hidden behind shortcuts

              From Vista onwards, specific folders seem exist for the sake of compatibility, but actually redirect 

to other real folders. This messes up scripts and batch fi les you’ve written yourself.

             These shortcuts, called junction points, exist throughout Windows.For example, programs can 
try to save data to the old ‘Documents and Settings’ folder, but will be seamlessly redirected to the applicable new ‘Users’ folder. The operating system however hides this persistently. Attempts to access the junction points directly (Windows  displays  them  if  you  enable the display of the system fi les via the folder options) are aborted with an error message. And another stumbling block  is  that  real  folder  names  need to  be  used  in  scripts  or  batch  files. Else,  they  hang  during  execution.

             The free tool NTFSLinks-View provides 

help. It lists the active junctions in the system. Download the program from 

www.nirsoft.net/utils/ntfs_links_view.html. The tool ‘nftslinksview.exe’ can immediately be started. The program lists all active junctions in the folder of your user profile.

              In the ‘Target Path’ column, it displays the relevant real folder which the junction controls in the ‘Full Path’ column. Right click an entry and select the context command ‘Open Target Path’ to open this  target  folder  in  Explorer. 

              In order to check other directories, enter the folder in the input fi eld, e.g. ‘C’ and click ‘Go’. Use the key combination [Ctrl]+[A] to select all entries and then ‘Save’  them  to  a  text  fi le using ‘File I Save 

selected items’.

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Add data types to hard drive cleaning

                 Hard drive cleaning helps in tracking trash on the system. Unfortunately, the functionality is restricted to predefined file types.
            You can add more data types for this function to clean out. For this,right click a free place on the desktop and select ‘New | Shortcut’. Enter the following command in the ‘Item location’ input field:
C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe 
/c cleanmgr /sageset:4711 & 
cleanmgr /sagerun:4711
and confirm with ‘Next’. On the second page, define a name for the new link such as ‘Hard drive cleaning selection’. Then click ‘Finish’. If you use this link to run the Disk Cleanup utility in the future, you will see more entries such as ‘Old CHKDSK fi les’, ‘Setup log fi les’, ‘System error memory dump fi les’ and ‘Log fi les
for Windows Upgrades’ for selection.The command behind this link makes Windows call up the hard drive cleaning utility  ‘cleanmgr.exe’  twice,  with  different start options. First with ‘/sageset’ and then with ‘sagerun’. The number after the start options must always be identical

and must be between 1 and 65535.
             The option ‘sageset’ results in Windows opening the ‘Settings for cleaning  the  hard  drive’  dialog  box  in which the drive cleaning settings can be configured. The system then saves this configuration in the registry under the specified number. The option ‘/sagerun’ then executes the configuration saved under the specified number.

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Hide unused libraries in Windows Explorer

              The Libraries function in Windows 7 help in structuring data. But a lot of users still prefer the conventional folder structure.
              In such a case, you can hide the libraries and thus make space for displaying more folders. For this, right click the first library ‘Pictures’ and select the context command ‘Do not display in navigation field’.Repeat  this  step  for all other unused libraries. In order to display individual entries again, click ‘Libraries’ in Explorer. Then right click the desired element and select the context command ‘Display in navigation field’.

              The main entry ‘Libraries’ cannot be deleted so easily. To do this, a detour Additional clocks can be placed in the system tray to help you work better with international clients.3Add the cool Expose feature to Windows XP with this simple free tool.via the registry is necessary. Type ‘regedit’ in the search fi eld of the Start menu, press Enter, and confirm the user account control prompt by clicking ‘Yes’. Now navigate to the key‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace’. Then select the sub-key ‘{O31E48257B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}’ and open ‘File | Export’. Then select a safe storage location, enter a file  name  such  as  ‘Explorerlibraries’ and  click  ‘Save’.  This  is  to  back  up  the entry. Then simply delete the subkey in the Registry Editor and confirm with ‘Yes’. Now close the registry and restart Windows Explorer. A system restart is not required.
             In order to display the libraries again, double click the exported REG file and confirm the requests for user account control and adding values into the registry with ‘Yes’. The libraries will be visible once again the next time you start Explorer.

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Switch between applications quickly with Apple’s Expose function

             When you flick the cursor to a specific corner of  the  monitor, Expose  shows thumbnails of all active programs minimized on the desktop.You can then  uickly  switch to another application – but only on Mac OS X.
              The  tool  SmallWindows  equips Windows with the practical Expose functionality of Mac OS X. Small Windows has two functions: It either minimizes all  windows  so  that  it  is  easy  to  toggle between applications, or it moves all windows  to  the  screen  border  so  that  you get a free view of the desktop. You can download it from http://smallwindows.sourceforge.net.  A  wizard  guides  you through the setup. Under Vista and Windows 7, you need to authorize the installation by selecting a user account with administrator rights and entering the relevant password if needed.

           At the time of the fi rst start, configure the program asks whether Windows should automatically load it during startup  so  that  it  is  at  your  disposal immediately, so confirm the query with ‘Yes’. After the start, a new icon is displayed in the system notifi cation area. Right click it and select the context command ‘Settings’ to open the dialog box for configuring the application. Here you can also deactivate the automatic start during system start by removing the checkmark on ‘Start when Windows starts’.
            The hot zones are the four corners of the desktop via which you can activate SmallWindows. For every hot zone, define a reaction using the relevant field. In  case  of  all  ‘All’,  Windows  displays  all the open programs in one minimized view. You can select a program with just a click and bring it into foreground. You can deactivate the function with ‘None’. ‘Desktop’ moves all windows to the screen border and gives a free view of the desktop. ‘Related’ minimizes the current program. This function is however of  no  use  otherwise.  In  addition  to  flicking the mouse, you can also defi ne key combinations for individual functions via ‘Hotkey Activation’.

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Get a constant overview of several time zones

                     When  making  a  call  to  another  country such  as  the  USA,  you  don’t  want  to inadvertently wake someone up in the middle of the night. But this can actually happen if you do not pay attention to the time difference.

              Windows provides help in displaying  several  time  zones.  Click the clock to the right of the taskbar.
A window with an analog clock and a calendar is displayed. Use the ‘Change Date and Time Settings’ link in this window. The ‘Date and Time’ dialog box
opens. Activate the ‘Additional times’ tab in it. This tab can be opened via the control panel as well as via the ‘Time, Language and Region’ and ‘Add times for different time zones’.
              Alternatively, in the classic view of the Control Panel, double click ‘Date and Time’ and activate the ‘Additional Times’ tab. You can define  up  to  two more time zones that Windows then displays near the analog clock with the local time. For this, there are two ‘Display this time’ fi elds in the ‘Additional Times’ tab. Checkmark the heading to activate the field. You can then select ‘Select time zone’ and ‘Enter display name’ with the help of which you can later identify the time zone. The country name would be an ideal entry. Repeat these settings for the third time if required and confirm with ‘OK’.
               Now after clicking the taskbar clock,Windows will show both additional time zones. If you simply hover the cursor over the time, a small tooltip with the current date and the various times is displayed.

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Defragment several disks automatically without monitoring

                 Regular defragmentation keeps the system performance consistent. But you cannot sit at your PC through this entire  process.  What  is  also irritating is that defragmentation needs to be manually activated if there are several hard disks.
                 The graphical interface of Windows’ defragmenter does not provide the option to process several drives one

after the other, at least under XP. What a lot  of  people  don’t  know  is  that  Windows has an additional command line tool called  ‘defrag.exe’  that  is  suitable  for batch processing as well. You can use it to automate the defragmentation of several drives. If you operate a system with the drives C, D and E for instance, enter the following in Notepad:
@echo off
defrag.exe -f c
defrag.exe -f d
defrag.exe -f e
Save the fi le as ‘defrag.cmd’. If you are using other drive names or more drives, change the file accordingly. Double click this fi le to defragment all hard disk partitions one after the other automatically without a break. However you need to be logged in with administrator rights for running the file. The used parameter ‘-f’ carries out the defragmentation even if the hard disk hasless than 10 percent free space, without pausing for an error message. But the process takes too long in that case. What you can do is delete the large fi les that are no longer required.
                  Vista and Windows 7 regulate defragmentation automatically on the basis of a schedule. Irrespective of that, you can either use the batch processing operation via ‘defrag.exe’ or even select several drives simultaneously with the graphical interface.
                  For this, right click a drive entry (e.g.in Explorer) for both the versions, select
the context command ‘Properties’, activate the tab ‘Tools’ and then click the ‘Defragment now’ button. Under Vista, click the ‘Select Volumes’ button and you can then activate several drives for defragmentation or select ‘Select all data carriers’. Under Win7, keep the [Ctrl] key pressed and then select the desired drives by clicking the entries one after the other.

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Switch off Aero interface automatically or programspecifically

               You need to switch of  the Aero efects  in Windows for taking screenshots or for some games, but using the display properties dialog box each time is extremely tedious.

          You  can  automate  this  task  by means of a property in the shortcut with which you can call up a specific program,  such  as  the  Screenshot  tool. The programs get more graphics power when  the  Aero  is  switched  of . The PC thus has a little more breathing room in case of intensive graphics applications such as games.

          Search  for  the  link  to  call  up  the relevant program on the Desktop or in the Start menu. Right click it and select the context command ‘Properties’. Then switch to the ‘Compatibility’ tab and activate the option ‘Disable desktop composition’ in the ‘Settings’ area.

          Confirm this change with ‘OK’. After this, Windows automatically switches to the ‘Windows 7 Basic’ color scheme when you start the relevant program.Windows automatically switches back to  the  previous  scheme  as  soon  as  you close the program.

             NOTE:  When  calling  up  Windows’  built-in components, it is not possible to set compatibility options. A shortcut to ‘notepad.exe’  is  thus  not  suitable  for this trick.

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