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• Create Panoramic Photos with Windows Live Photo Gallery

  - by Matthew Guay

  Have you ever wanted to capture the view from a mountain or the full size of a building?  Here’s how you can stitch multiple shots together into the perfect panoramic picture for free with Windows Live Photo Gallery. Getting Started First, make sure you have Windows Live Photo Gallery installed (link below).  Live Photo Gallery is part of the Windows Live Essentials suite, you can select other programs to install along with it if you want. Make sure to uncheck setting your home page to MSN and setting your search provider as Bing if you don’t want them changed.   Now, make sure you have pictures that will work good for a panorama.  These need to be taken from the same spot, and the edges of the pictures need to overlap so the program can find where the pictures connect.  Here we have taken pictures inside a building with a cell phone camera. Make your Panorama Open Live Photo Gallery, and find the pictures you want to use in your panorama.  It will automatically index and display all of the photos in your Pictures folder or Library if you’re using Windows 7. If your pictures are saved elsewhere, add that folder to Photo Gallery.  Click File, Include a folder in the gallery, and select the correct folder at the prompt. Now select all of the pictures that you will use in your panorama.  You can easily do this by clicking the checkbox on each picture that appears when you hover over it.    Once all of the pictures are selected, click Make in the menu bar and select Create panoramic photo… Alternately, right-click on any of the pictures you’ve selected, and click Create panoramic photo… Live Photo Gallery will analyze your photos and compost them together to create a panorama.  The amount of time it takes will vary depending on the number of photos, size of the pictures, and computer speed. When it’s finished making the panorama, you’ll be prompted to enter a file name and save the picture. Your new panorama picture will open as soon as it’s saved.  Depending on your shots, the picture may have quite a bit of black space around the edges where each picture didn’t cover the exact same amount of area. To correct this, click Fix on the menu bar, and then select Crop Photo in the sidebar that opens. Select the center of the picture with the crop tool, and click Apply when you’ve got the selection you want. Live Photo Gallery automatically saves your picture changes, and you can revert back to the original picture if you wish. Now you’ve got a nice panoramic shot, trimmed and ready to print, share, and more. Conclusion Panoramic shots are great ways to capture your whole surroundings, whether it’s a sports stadium, mall, or a scenic mountain view.  They can also be a great way to capture more with low-resolution cameras. Link Download Windows Live Photo Gallery Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Family Fun: Share Photos with Photo Gallery and Windows Live SpacesLearning Windows 7: Manage Photos with Live Photo GalleryEasily Re-Size Photos in Windows Vista or XPInstall Windows Live Essentials In Windows 7Convert Photos to Flash for Your Website TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 2010 World Cup Schedule Boot Snooze – Reboot and then Standby or Hibernate Customize Everything Related to Dates, Times, Currency and Measurement in Windows 7 Google Earth replacement Icon (Icons we like) Build Great Charts in Excel with Chart Advisor tinysong gives a shortened URL for you to post on Twitter (or anywhere)

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• Center Pictures and Other Objects in Office 2007 & 2010

  - by Matthew Guay

  Sometimes it can be difficult to center a picture in a document just by dragging it dragging it around. Today we show you how to center pictures, images, and other objects perfectly in Word and PowerPoint. Note: For this tutorial we’re using Office 2010, but the steps are nearly identical in 2007. Centering a Picture in Word First let’s insert a picture into our document.  Click the Insert tab, and then click Picture. Once you select the picture you want, it will be added to your document.  Usually, pictures are added wherever your curser was in the document, so in a blank document it will be added at the top left. Also notice Picture Tools show up in the Ribbon after inserting an image. Note: The following menu items are available in Picture Tools Format tab which is displayed when you select the object or image you’re working with. How do we align the picture just like we want?  Click Position to get some quick placement options, including centered in the middle of the document or on the top.    However, for more advanced placement, we can use the Align tool.  If Word isn’t maximized, you may only see the icon without the “Align” label. Notice the tools were grayed out in the menu by default.  To be able to change the Alignment, we need to first change the text wrap settings. Click the Wrap Text button, and any option other than “In Line with Text”.  Your choice will depend on the document you’re writing, just choose the option that works best in the document.   Now, select the Align tools again.  You can now position your image precisely with these options. Align Center will position your picture in the center of the page widthwise. Align Middle will put the picture in the middle of the page height-wise. This works the same with textboxes.  Simply click the Align button in the Format tab, and you can center it in the page. And if you’d like to align several objects together, simply select them all, click Group, and then select Group from the menu.   Now, in the align tools, you can center the whole group on your page for a heading, or whatever you want to use the pictures for. These steps also work the same with Office 2007. Center objects in PowerPoint This works similar in PowerPoint, except that pictures are automatically set for square wrapping automatically, so you don’t have to change anything.  Simply insert the picture or other object of your choice, click Align, and choose the option you want. Additionally, if one object is already aligned like you want, drag another object near it and you will see a Smart Guide to help you align or center the second object with the first.  This only works with shapes in PowerPoint 2010 beta, but will work with pictures, textboxes, and media in the final release this summer. Conclusion These are good methods for centering images and objects in Word and PowerPoint.  From designing perfect headers to emphasizing your message in a PowerPoint presentation, this is something we’ve found useful and hope you will too. Since we’re talking about Office here, it’s worth mentioning that Microsoft has announced the Technology Guarantee Program for Office 2010. Essentially what this means is, if you purchase a version of Office 2007 between March 5th and September 30th of this year, when Office 2010 is released you’ll be able to upgrade to it for free! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Add or Remove Apps from the Microsoft Office 2007 or 2010 SuiteAdd More Functions To Office 2007 By Installing Add-InsCustomize Your Welcome Picture Choices in Windows VistaEasily Rotate Pictures In Word 2007Add Effects To Your Pictures in Word 2007 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Discover New Bundled Feeds in Google Reader Play Music in Chrome by Simply Dragging a File 15 Great Illustrations by Chow Hon Lam Easily Sync Files & Folders with Friends & Family Amazon Free Kindle for PC Download Stretch popurls.com with a Stylish Script (Firefox)

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• View Docs and PDFs Directly in Google Chrome

  - by Matthew Guay

  Would you like to view documents, presentations, and PDFs directly in Google Chrome?  Here’s a handy extension that makes Google Docs your default online viewer so don’t have to download the file first. Getting Started By default, when you come across a PDF or other common document file online in Google Chrome, you’ll have to download the file and open it in a separate application. It’d be much easier to simply view online documents directly in Chrome.  To do this, head over to the Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer page on the Chrome Extensions site (link below), and click Install to add it to your browser. Click Install to confirm that you want to install this extension. Extensions don’t run by default in Incognito mode, so if you’d like to always view documents directly in Chrome, open the Extensions page and check Allow this extension to run in incognito. Now, when you click a link for a document online, such as a .docx file from Word, it will open in the Google Docs viewer. These documents usually render in their original full-quality.  You can zoom in and out to see exactly what you want, or search within the document.  Or, if it doesn’t look correct, you can click the Download link in the top left to save the original document to your computer and open it in Office.   Even complex PDF render very nicely.  Do note that Docs will keep downloading the document as you’re reading it, so if you jump to the middle of a document it may look blurry at first but will quickly clear up. You can even view famous presentations online without opening them in PowerPoint.  Note that this will only display the slides themselves, but if you’re looking for information you likely don’t need the slideshow effects anyway.   Adobe Reader Conflicts If you already have Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader installed on your computer, PDF files may open with the Adobe plugin.  If you’d prefer to read your PDFs with the Docs PDF Viewer, then you need to disable the Adobe plugin.  Enter the following in your Address Bar to open your Chrome Plugins page: chrome://plugins/ and then click Disable underneath the Adobe Acrobat plugin. Now your PDFs will always open with the Docs viewer instead. Performance Who hasn’t been frustrated by clicking a link to a PDF file, only to have your browser pause for several minutes while Adobe Reader struggles to download and display the file?  Google Chrome’s default behavior of simply downloading the files and letting you open them is hardly more helpful.  This extension takes away both of these problems, since it renders the documents on Google’s servers.  Most documents opened fairly quickly in our tests, and we were able to read large PDFs only seconds after clicking their link.  Also, the Google Docs viewer rendered the documents much better than the HTML version in Google’s cache. Google Docs did seem to have problem on some files, and we saw error messages on several documents we tried to open.  If you encounter this, click the Download link in the top left corner to download the file and view it from your desktop instead. Conclusion Google Docs has improved over the years, and now it offers fairly good rendering even on more complex documents.  This extension can make your browsing easier, and help documents and PDFs feel more like part of the Internet.  And, since the documents are rendered on Google’s servers, it’s often faster to preview large files than to download them to your computer. Link Download the Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer extension from Google Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Integrate Google Docs with Outlook the Easy WayGoogle Image Search Quick FixView the Time & Date in Chrome When Hiding Your TaskbarView Maps and Get Directions in Google ChromeHow To Export Documents from Google Docs to Your Computer TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 How to Forecast Weather, without Gadgets Outlook Tools, one stop tweaking for any Outlook version Zoofs, find the most popular tweeted YouTube videos Video preview of new Windows Live Essentials 21 Cursor Packs for XP, Vista & 7 Map the Stars with Stellarium

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• How to Create AppArmor Profiles to Lock Down Programs on Ubuntu

  - by Chris Hoffman

  AppArmor locks down programs on your Ubuntu system, allowing them only the permissions they require in normal use – particularly useful for server software that may become compromised. AppArmor includes simple tools you can use to lock down other applications. AppArmor is included by default in Ubuntu and some other Linux distributions. Ubuntu ships AppArmor with several profiles, but you can also create your own AppArmor profiles. AppArmor’s utilities can monitor a program’s execution and help you create a profile. Before creating your own profile for an application, you may want to check the apparmor-profiles package in Ubuntu’s repositories to see if a profile for the application you want to confine already exists. How to Use an Xbox 360 Controller On Your Windows PC Download the Official How-To Geek Trivia App for Windows 8 How to Banish Duplicate Photos with VisiPic

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• Edit the Windows Live Writer Custom Dictionary

  - by Matthew Guay

  Windows Live Writer is a great tool for writing and publishing posts to your blog, but its spell check unfortunately doesn’t include many common tech words.  Here’s how you can easily edit your custom dictionary and add your favorite words. Customize Live Writer’s Dictionary Adding an individual word to the Windows Live Writer dictionary works as you would expect.  Right-click on a word and select Add to dictionary. And changing the default spell check settings is easy too.  In the menu, click Tools, then Options, and select the Spelling tab in this dialog.  Here you can choose your dictionary language and turn on/off real-time spell checking and other settings. But there’s no obvious way to edit your custom dictionary.  Editing the custom dictionary directly is nice if you accidently add a misspelled word to your dictionary and want to remove it, or if you want to add a lot of words to the dictionary at once. Live Writer actually stores your custom dictionary entries in a plain text file located in your appdata folder.  It is saved as User.dic in the C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Roaming\Windows Live Writer\Dictionaries folder.  The easiest way to open the custom dictionary is to enter the following in the Run box or the address bar of an Explorer window: %appdata%\Windows Live Writer\Dictionaries\User.dic   This will open the User.dic file in your default text editor.  Add any new words to the custom dictionary on separate lines, and delete any misspelled words you accidently added to the dictionary.   Microsoft Office Word also stores its custom dictionary in a plain text file.  If you already have lots of custom words in it and want to import them into Live Writer, enter the following in the Run command or Explorer’s address bar to open Word’s custom dictionary.  Then copy the words, and past them into your Live Writer custom dictionary file. %AppData%\Microsoft\UProof\Custom.dic Don’t forget to save the changes when you’re done.  Note that the changes to the dictionary may not show up in Live Writer’s spell check until you restart the program.  If it’s currently running, save any posts you’re working on, exit, and then reopen, and all of your new words should be in the dictionary. Conclusion Whether you use Live Writer daily in your job or occasionally post an update to a personal blog, adding your own custom words to the dictionary can save you a lot of time and frustration in editing.  Plus, if you’ve accidently added a misspelled word to the dictionary, this is a great way to undo your mistake and make sure your spelling is up to par! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Backup Your Windows Live Writer SettingsTransfer or Move Your Microsoft Office Custom DictionaryFuture Date a Post in Windows Live WriterTools to Help Post Content On Your WordPress BlogInstall Windows Live Essentials In Windows 7 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows Video Toolbox is a Superb Online Video Editor Fun with 47 charts and graphs Tomorrow is Mother’s Day Check the Average Speed of YouTube Videos You’ve Watched OutlookStatView Scans and Displays General Usage Statistics How to Add Exceptions to the Windows Firewall

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• New PeopleTools Developer Book Available

  - by matthew.haavisto

  I recently had an opportunity to work through a copy of a new book for PeopleTools developers and thought it might be of interest to the readers of the PeopleTools blog. It is called PeopleSoft PeopleTools Tips & Techniques, and was written by Jim Marion, a long-time Oracle employee we often recruit to deliver the very popular and highly regarded conference sessions of the same title. This book is not for the beginner and doesn't contain much introductory material. Instead, it's for the more experienced PeopleSoft developer looking to maximize the efficiency and productivity of their PeopleSoft applications. Throughout the book Jim offers proven methods and best practices he's worked with personally. PeopleSoft PeopleTools Tips & Techniques lays out the benefits of many tactics along with implementation considerations, programming instructions, and reusable code samples. It will help you construct powerful iScripts, build custom UIs, work with Java and Ajax, and integrate the latest Web 2.0 features. Test-driven development, application security, performance tuning, and debugging are also covered in this authoritative resource. This book was one of the best sellers at the Oracle bookstore during the most recent Oracle Open World conference. The book can be ordered here and here. You may also want to check out Jim's PeopleTools developer blog.

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• Stay on Schedule in Chrome with DayHiker

  - by Matthew Guay

  Do you keep your schedule and tasks in Google Calendar?  Here’s a handy extension for Google Chrome that can keep you on top of your appointments without having to open Google Calendar in another tab. Integrate Google Calendar with Chrome DayHiker is a handy extension for Google Chrome that can help you stay on schedule in your browser.  Desktop applications typically can keep you notified easier with popups or alerts, but webapps require you to visit them to view your information.  DayHiker takes the best of both, and can make your Google Calendar work more like a desktop application. To get started, open the DayHiker page from the Chrome Extensions Gallery (link below), and click Install.  Confirm you wish to install it at the prompt. Now you’ll have a new extension button in your Chrome toolbar.  Click the calendar icon to view your Google Calendar.  You’ll need to be signed into your Google account for your calendar to display; click the key icon to select your account if it doesn’t show your appointments automatically. If you’re signed into multiple Google accounts, such as your public Gmail and a Google Apps account, you can select the calendar you wish and click Continue. Now you can quickly see your upcoming appointments.  Simply hover over the icon to see your upcoming events.  Or, just glance at it to see if there are any appointments coming up, as the indicator icon will change colors to show how long you have until your next appointment. Click the icon to see more information about your appointments. Or, click the Add link to add a new appointment.  If you need to edit the appointment details, click Edit Details and the appointment will open in Google Calendar for you to edit. You can also view and manage your tasks in Google Calendar.  Click the checkmark icon, and then add or check-off tasks directly from the extension pane. You can also set an alarm clock in DayHiker.  Click the green circle icon, and then enter the time for the alarm to go off.  Strangely it will only chime if the extension pane is left open, so if you click anywhere else in the browser or even switch to another program it will not chime.   If you’d like to customize DayHiker’s settings, right-click on it and select Options, or select Options in the Chrome Extensions page.  Here you can customize your badges and the DayHiker icon, or enter a custom domain for your Google Apps Pro calendar.   Conclusion If you rely on Google Calendar to stay on top of your schedule, DayHiker can help you stay scheduled and know what’s coming up.  We wish DayHiker supported multiple calendars so we could combine our Google Apps calendars with our personal Google Calendar, but even still, it is a very useful tool.  Whether you’re a tightly scheduled person or just like to jot down to-dos and keep track of them, this extension will help you do this efficiently with familiar Google tools. Link Download DayHiker from the Chrome Extensions Gallery Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Configure Disk Defragmenter Schedule in Windows 7 or VistaSchedule Updates for Windows Media CenterOpen Multiple Sites Without Reopening the Menus in FirefoxFind a Website’s Actual Location with Chrome FlagsSubscribe to RSS Feeds in Chrome with a Single Click TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Dual Boot Ubuntu and Windows 7 What is HTML5? Default Programs Editor – One great tool for Setting Defaults Convert BMP, TIFF, PCX to Vector files with RasterVect Free Identify Fonts using WhatFontis.com Windows 7’s WordPad is Actually Good

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• Bring Office 2003 Menus Back to 2010 with UBitMenu

  - by Matthew Guay

  Are you having trouble getting used to the Ribbon interface in Office 2010?  Here’s how you can roll back the clock a bit and bring back the familiar menus and toolbars from 2003. The Office 2007 Ribbon was both praised and criticized.  While many users felt they were more productive with the new interface, others felt frustrated searching for commands they had memorized in older versions of Office.  Now, with Office 2010, the ribbon interface has been brought to every app in the Office suite, and is integrated into many newer programs from Microsoft. If you’re moving from Office 2003, using UBitMenu allows you to add the old familiar menus back along with the new Ribbon interface for an easier learning curve. Also, with the customizability of Office 2010, we can strip away the extra Ribbon tabs to make it more like 2003. Get the 2003 Menus and Toolbars Back in Office 2010 Download UBitMenu (link below), and install as normal.  Make sure all of your Office programs are closed during the installation.  This handy utility is very small, and installed amazingly quick. Open Word, Excel, or PowerPoint and there’s now a new Menu tab beside Home in the Ribbon.  Now you can access all of your favorite old Office commands in the familiar menus, and access many of the newer Office features such as SmartArt.   Here’s a close-up of the toolbar.  Notice that the layout is very similar to that of Word 2003. You can access all of the new Transitions in PowerPoint 2010 from the menu bar.   The menu in Excel even included support for the new PivotTable and PivotCharts Wizard. One problem we noticed was that the toolbars were condensed to a drop-down menu if the Office window was less than 870px wide.  This may be a frustration to users with low-resolution displays, and you might want to use the Office Apps maximized. Get Rid of the Ribbon Now that you’ve got the old menus back, you can get rid of the extra ribbon tabs if you’d like.  Office 2010 lets you customize your ribbon and remove tabs, so let’s get rid of all the other tabs except for our new Menu tab.  In our example we’re using Word, but you can do it in Excel or PowerPoint the same way. Click the File tab and select Options. Alternately, in the Menu tab, select Tools and then Word Options. Select Customize Ribbon on the left sidebar, then uncheck the boxes beside all the ribbon tabs you want to hide on the right.  Click Ok when you’re finished. While you’re at it, you can change the default color scheme as well. Note: The color change will automatically change the color scheme in all of the Office apps, so you’ll only need to do that once. Now the ribbon only has 2 tabs…the File tab for the new Backstage View, and the UBitMenu tab we just installed.  It almost has the appearance Word 2003, but with the new features of Word 2010!  You’ll need to repeat these steps in Excel and PowerPoint if you want to customize their ribbon the same.   Conclusion If you’ve been having a hard time getting used to Office 2010, UBitMenu is a great way to get familiar with the new interface, or simply stay productive with your old tricks.  We do wish it supported the other Office applications like OneNote and Outlook. That doesn’t make it a deal breaker though, it can make the learning curve easier in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. UBitMenu is free for personal use, and available at a very reasonable price for businesses. If you’re using Office 2007 and not a fan of the Ribbon, UBitMenu works for it as well. Download UBitMenu Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How To Bring Back the Old Menus in Office 2007Upgrade Office 2003 to 2010 on XP or Run them Side by SideHow to Find Office 2003 Commands in Office 2010Make Word 2007 Always Save in Word 2003 FormatMake Excel 2007 Always Save in Excel 2003 Format TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Speed Up Windows With ReadyBoost Awesome World Cup Soccer Calendar Nice Websites To Watch TV Shows Online 24 Million Sites Windows Media Player Glass Icons (icons we like) How to Forecast Weather, without Gadgets

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• Obsolete Computer Parts as Art [DIY]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  If you’re like most geeks, you’ve got a box of aging computer equipment you just haven’t got around to hauling to your city’s haz-mat drop off site. This simple tutorial turns cast off circuit boards into wall art. While the author of the tutorial opted to use motherboards, you could easily use smaller frames/mats and use old expansion boards too. The process involves inexpensive IKEA frames with mats, popping the I/O ports off the boards to make them thinner, and drilling small mount holes in the backer board to mount the boards in place. Hit up the link below for more details. Motherboard Art [via IKEAHackers] How to Use an Xbox 360 Controller On Your Windows PC Download the Official How-To Geek Trivia App for Windows 8 How to Banish Duplicate Photos with VisiPic

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• Speed Up the Help Dialog in Windows and Office

  - by Matthew Guay

  When you click help, you don’t want to wait for your computer to bring it to you.  Here’s how you can speed up the help dialog in Windows and Office. If you have a slow internet connection, chances are you’ve been frustrated by the Help dialog in Windows and Office trying to download fresh content every time you open them. This can be great if the updated help files contain better content, but sometimes you just want to find what you were looking for without waiting.  Here’s how you can turn off the automatic online help. Use Local Help in Windows Windows 7 and Vista’s help dialog usually tries to load the latest content from the net, but this can take a long time on slow connections. If you’re seeing the above screen a lot, you may want to switch to offline help.  Click the “Online Help” button at the bottom, and select “Get offline Help”. Now your computer will just load the pre-installed help files.  And don’t worry; if there’s a major update to your help files, Windows will download and install it through Windows Update.   Stupid Geek Tip: An easy way to open Windows Help is to click on your desktop or Start Menu and press F1 on your keyboard. Use Local Help in Office This same trick works in Office 2007 and 2010.  We’ve actually had more problems with Office’s help being tardy. Solve this the same way as with Windows help.  Click on the “Connected to Office.com” or “Connected to Office Online” button, depending on your version of Office, and select “Show content only from this computer”. This will automatically change the settings for Help in all of your Office applications. While this may not be a major trick, it can be helpful especially if you have a slow internet connection and want to get things done quickly.  Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How to See the About Dialog and Version Information in Office 2007Speed Up SATA Hard Drives in Windows VistaMake Mouse Navigation Faster in WindowsSpeed up Your Windows Vista Computer with ReadyBoostSet the Speed Dial as the Opera Startup Page TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 FoxClocks adds World Times in your Statusbar (Firefox) Have Fun Editing Photo Editing with Citrify Outlook Connector Upgrade Error Gadfly is a cool Twitter/Silverlight app Enable DreamScene in Windows 7 Microsoft’s “How Do I ?” Videos

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• Oracle Database 11g Helps Control Exponential Data Growth

  - by [email protected]

  The 2010 ESG annual customer survey is now available. As part of it, ESG interviewed 300 customers about their IT priorities and, unsurprisingly, "Manage Data Growth" is top of the list. Perhaps less self-evident is the proposed solution to target this prime concern: "Often overlooked because it is a database platform, Oracle Database 11g offers additional capabilities such as automatic storage management (ASM), advanced data compression, and data protection that make managing data growth much easier for organizations of any size." The paper goes on to discuss these capabilities and highlights their potential benefits. Oracle Database 11g Helps Control Exponential Database Growth - a worthwhile read for anyone having to deal with rapidly increasing amounts of data. Download your free copy here.

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• Superpower Your Touchpad Computer with Scrybe

  - by Matthew Guay

  Are you looking for a way to help your Touchpad computer make you more productive?  Here’s a quick look at Scrybe, a new application from Synaptics that lets you superpower it. Touchpad devices have become increasingly more interesting as they’ve included support for multi-touch gestures.  Scrybe takes it to the next level and lets you use your touchpad as an application launcher.  You can launch any application, website, or complete many common commands on your computer with a simple gesture.  Scrybe works with most modern Synaptics touchpads, which are standard on most laptops and netbooks.  It is optimized for newer multi-touch touchpads, but can also work with standard single-touch touchpads.  It works on Windows 7, Vista, and XP, so chances are it will work with your laptop or netbook. Get Started With Scrybe Head over to the Scrybe website and download the latest version (link below).  You are asked to enter your email address, name, and information about your computer…but you actually only have to enter your email address.  Click Download when finished. Run the installer when it’s download.  It will automatically download the latest Synaptics driver for your touchpad and any other components needed for Scrybe.  Note that the Scrybe installer will ask to install the Yahoo! toolbar, so uncheck this to avoid adding this worthless browser toolbar. Using Scrybe To open an application or website with a gesture, press 3 fingers on your touchpad at once, or if your touchpad doesn’t support multi-touch gestures, then press Ctrl+Alt and press 1 finger on your touchpad.  This will open the Scrype input pane; start drawing a gesture, and you’ll see it on the grey square.  The input pane shows some default gestures you can try. Here we drew an “M”, which opens our default Music player.  As soon as you finish the gesture and lift up your finger, Scrybe will open the application or website you selected. A notification balloon will let you know what gesture was preformed. When you’re entering your gesture, the input pane will show white “ink”.  The “ink” will turn blue if the command is recognized, but will turn red if it isn’t.  If Scrybe doesn’t recognize your command, press 3 fingers and try again. Scrybe Control Panel You can open the Scrybe Control panel to enter or change commands by entering a box-like gesture, or right-clicking the Scrybe icon in your system tray and selecting “Scrybe Control Panel”. Scrybe has many pre-configured gestures that you can preview and even practice. All of the gestures in the Popular tab are preset and cannot be changed.  However, the ones in the favorites tab can be edited.  Select the gesture you wish to edit, and click the gear icon to change it.  Here we changed the email gesture to open Hotmail instead of the default Yahoo Mail. Scrybe can also help you perform many common Windows commands such as Copy and Undo.  Select the Tools tab to see all of these commands.   Scrybe has many settings you may wish to change.  Select the Preferences button in the Control Panel to change these.  Here’s some of the settings we changed. Uncheck “Display a message” to turn off the tooltip notifications when you enter a gesture Uncheck “Show symbol hints” to turn off the sidebar on the input pane Select the search engine you want to open with the Search Gesture.  The default is Yahoo, but you can choose your favorite. Adding a new Scrybe Gesture The default Scrybe options are useful, but the best part is that you can assign gestures to your own programs or websites.  Open the Scrybe control panel, and click the plus sign on the bottom left corner.  Enter a name for your gesture, and then choose if it is for a website or an application. If you want the gesture to open a website, enter the address in the box. Alternately, if you want your gesture to open an application, select Launch Application and then either enter the path to the application, or click the button beside the Launch field and browse to it. Now click the down arrow on the blue box and choose one of the gestures for your application or website. Your new gesture will show up under the Favorites tab in the Scrybe control panel, and you can use it whenever you want from Scrybe, or practice the gesture by selecting the Practice button. Conclusion If you enjoy multi-touch gestures, you may find Scrybe very useful on your laptop or netbook.  Scrybe recognizes gestures fairly easily, even if you don’t enter them perfectly correctly.  Just like pinch-to-zoom and two-finger scroll, Scrybe can quickly become something you miss on other laptops. Download Scrybe (registration required) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Fixing Firefox Scrolling Problems with Dell Synaptics TouchpadRemove Synaptics Touchpad Icon from System TrayRoll Back Troublesome Device Drivers in Windows VistaChange Your Computer Name in Windows 7 or VistaLet Somebody Use Your Computer Without Logging Off in Ubuntu TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows Fun with 47 charts and graphs Tomorrow is Mother’s Day Check the Average Speed of YouTube Videos You’ve Watched OutlookStatView Scans and Displays General Usage Statistics How to Add Exceptions to the Windows Firewall Office 2010 reviewed in depth by Ed Bott

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• How to Access the Control Panel in Windows 8

  - by Matthew Klein

  With the old Windows Start menu, you could add the Control Panel as a menu or a drop-down list. With Windows 8, you can pin the Control Panel to the Start Screen and taskbar but first you need to know where it is. One of the chief complaints about Windows 8 (or any new version of Microsoft’s operating system) is “where did such-and-such go?” With Windows 8, when MS removed the Start button and Start Menu, it threw a lot of people for a loop. Because the Start Menu was like an old familiar hang out; one of those places that no matter how it changed over the years, it was a fairly reliable place to find stuff whether it was your Documents folder, Devices, Printers, the ability to search your programs and files, and of course, the Control Panel. There are about four ways (so far) to access the Control Panel in Windows 8 Preview Release. HTG Explains: What Is RSS and How Can I Benefit From Using It? HTG Explains: Why You Only Have to Wipe a Disk Once to Erase It HTG Explains: Learn How Websites Are Tracking You Online

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• iPhone image asset recommended resolution/dpi/format

  - by Matthew

  I'm learning iPhone development and a friend will be doing the graphics/animation. I'll be using cocos2d most likely (if that matters). My friend wants to get started on the graphics, and I don't know what image resolution or dpi or formats are recommended. This probably depends on if something is a background vs. a small character. Also, I know I read something about using @2x in image file names to support high res iphone screens. Does cocos2d prefer a different way? Or is this not something to worry about at this point? What should I know before they start working on the graphics?

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• How can I make an object's hitbox rotate with its texture?

  - by Matthew Optional Meehan

  In XNA, when you have a rectangular sprite that doesnt rotate, it's easy to get its four corners to make a hitbox. However, when you do a rotation, the points get moved and I assume there is some kind of math that I can use to aquire them. I am using the four points to draw a rectangle that visually represents the hitboxes. I have seen some per-pixel collision examples, but I can forsee they would be hard to draw a box/'convex hull' around. I have also seen physics like farseer but I'm not sure if there is a quick tutorial to do what I want.

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• LWJGL SlickUtil Texture Binding

  - by Matthew Dockerty

  I am making a 3D game using LWJGL and I have a texture class with static variables so that I only need to load textures once, even if I need to use them more than once. I am using Slick Util for this. When I bind a texture it works fine, but then when I try to render something else after I have rendered the model with the texture, the texture is still being bound. How do I unbind the texture and set the rendermode to the one that was in use before any textures were bound? Some of my code is below. The problem I am having is the player texture is being used in the box drawn around the player after it the model has been rendered. Model.java public class Model { public List<Vector3f> vertices = new ArrayList<Vector3f>(); public List<Vector3f> normals = new ArrayList<Vector3f>(); public ArrayList<Vector2f> textureCoords = new ArrayList<Vector2f>(); public List<Face> faces = new ArrayList<Face>(); public static Model TREE; public static Model PLAYER; public static void loadModels() { try { TREE = OBJLoader.loadModel(new File("assets/model/tree_pine_0.obj")); PLAYER = OBJLoader.loadModel(new File("assets/model/player.obj")); } catch (Exception e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } public void render(Vector3f position, Vector3f scale, Vector3f rotation, Texture texture, float shinyness) { glPushMatrix(); { texture.bind(); glColor3f(1, 1, 1); glTranslatef(position.x, position.y, position.z); glScalef(scale.x, scale.y, scale.z); glRotatef(rotation.x, 1, 0, 0); glRotatef(rotation.y, 0, 1, 0); glRotatef(rotation.z, 0, 0, 1); glMaterialf(GL_FRONT, GL_SHININESS, shinyness); glBegin(GL_TRIANGLES); { for (Face face : faces) { Vector2f t1 = textureCoords.get((int) face.textureCoords.x - 1); glTexCoord2f(t1.x, t1.y); Vector3f n1 = normals.get((int) face.normal.x - 1); glNormal3f(n1.x, n1.y, n1.z); Vector3f v1 = vertices.get((int) face.vertex.x - 1); glVertex3f(v1.x, v1.y, v1.z); Vector2f t2 = textureCoords.get((int) face.textureCoords.y - 1); glTexCoord2f(t2.x, t2.y); Vector3f n2 = normals.get((int) face.normal.y - 1); glNormal3f(n2.x, n2.y, n2.z); Vector3f v2 = vertices.get((int) face.vertex.y - 1); glVertex3f(v2.x, v2.y, v2.z); Vector2f t3 = textureCoords.get((int) face.textureCoords.z - 1); glTexCoord2f(t3.x, t3.y); Vector3f n3 = normals.get((int) face.normal.z - 1); glNormal3f(n3.x, n3.y, n3.z); Vector3f v3 = vertices.get((int) face.vertex.z - 1); glVertex3f(v3.x, v3.y, v3.z); } texture.release(); } glEnd(); } glPopMatrix(); } } Textures.java public class Textures { public static Texture FLOOR; public static Texture PLAYER; public static Texture SKYBOX_TOP; public static Texture SKYBOX_BOTTOM; public static Texture SKYBOX_FRONT; public static Texture SKYBOX_BACK; public static Texture SKYBOX_LEFT; public static Texture SKYBOX_RIGHT; public static void loadTextures() { try { FLOOR = TextureLoader.getTexture("PNG", new FileInputStream(new File("assets/model/floor.png"))); FLOOR.setTextureFilter(GL11.GL_NEAREST); PLAYER = TextureLoader.getTexture("PNG", new FileInputStream(new File("assets/model/tree_pine_0.png"))); PLAYER.setTextureFilter(GL11.GL_NEAREST); SKYBOX_TOP = TextureLoader.getTexture("PNG", new FileInputStream(new File("assets/textures/skybox_top.png"))); SKYBOX_TOP.setTextureFilter(GL11.GL_NEAREST); SKYBOX_BOTTOM = TextureLoader.getTexture("PNG", new FileInputStream(new File("assets/textures/skybox_bottom.png"))); SKYBOX_BOTTOM.setTextureFilter(GL11.GL_NEAREST); SKYBOX_FRONT = TextureLoader.getTexture("PNG", new FileInputStream(new File("assets/textures/skybox_front.png"))); SKYBOX_FRONT.setTextureFilter(GL11.GL_NEAREST); SKYBOX_BACK = TextureLoader.getTexture("PNG", new FileInputStream(new File("assets/textures/skybox_back.png"))); SKYBOX_BACK.setTextureFilter(GL11.GL_NEAREST); SKYBOX_LEFT = TextureLoader.getTexture("PNG", new FileInputStream(new File("assets/textures/skybox_left.png"))); SKYBOX_LEFT.setTextureFilter(GL11.GL_NEAREST); SKYBOX_RIGHT = TextureLoader.getTexture("PNG", new FileInputStream(new File("assets/textures/skybox_right.png"))); SKYBOX_RIGHT.setTextureFilter(GL11.GL_NEAREST); } catch (Exception e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } } Player.java public class Player { private Vector3f position; private float yaw; private float moveSpeed; public Player(float x, float y, float z, float yaw, float moveSpeed) { this.position = new Vector3f(x, y, z); this.yaw = yaw; this.moveSpeed = moveSpeed; } public void update() { if (Keyboard.isKeyDown(Keyboard.KEY_W)) walkForward(moveSpeed); if (Keyboard.isKeyDown(Keyboard.KEY_S)) walkBackwards(moveSpeed); if (Keyboard.isKeyDown(Keyboard.KEY_A)) strafeLeft(moveSpeed); if (Keyboard.isKeyDown(Keyboard.KEY_D)) strafeRight(moveSpeed); if (Mouse.isButtonDown(0)) yaw += Mouse.getDX(); LowPolyRPG.getInstance().getCamera().setPosition(-position.x, -position.y, -position.z); LowPolyRPG.getInstance().getCamera().setYaw(yaw); } public void walkForward(float distance) { position.setX(position.getX() + distance * (float) Math.sin(Math.toRadians(yaw))); position.setZ(position.getZ() - distance * (float) Math.cos(Math.toRadians(yaw))); } public void walkBackwards(float distance) { position.setX(position.getX() - distance * (float) Math.sin(Math.toRadians(yaw))); position.setZ(position.getZ() + distance * (float) Math.cos(Math.toRadians(yaw))); } public void strafeLeft(float distance) { position.setX(position.getX() + distance * (float) Math.sin(Math.toRadians(yaw - 90))); position.setZ(position.getZ() - distance * (float) Math.cos(Math.toRadians(yaw - 90))); } public void strafeRight(float distance) { position.setX(position.getX() + distance * (float) Math.sin(Math.toRadians(yaw + 90))); position.setZ(position.getZ() - distance * (float) Math.cos(Math.toRadians(yaw + 90))); } public void render() { Model.PLAYER.render(new Vector3f(position.x, position.y + 12, position.z), new Vector3f(3, 3, 3), new Vector3f(0, -yaw + 90, 0), Textures.PLAYER, 128); GL11.glPushMatrix(); GL11.glTranslatef(position.getX(), position.getY(), position.getZ()); GL11.glRotatef(-yaw, 0, 1, 0); GL11.glScalef(5.8f, 21, 2.2f); GL11.glDisable(GL11.GL_LIGHTING); GL11.glLineWidth(3); GL11.glBegin(GL11.GL_LINE_STRIP); GL11.glColor3f(1, 1, 1); glVertex3f(1f, 0f, -1f); glVertex3f(-1f, 0f, -1f); glVertex3f(-1f, 1f, -1f); glVertex3f(1f, 1f, -1f); glVertex3f(-1f, 0f, 1f); glVertex3f(1f, 0f, 1f); glVertex3f(1f, 1f, 1f); glVertex3f(-1f, 1f, 1f); glVertex3f(1f, 1f, -1f); glVertex3f(-1f, 1f, -1f); glVertex3f(-1f, 1f, 1f); glVertex3f(1f, 1f, 1f); glVertex3f(1f, 0f, 1f); glVertex3f(-1f, 0f, 1f); glVertex3f(-1f, 0f, -1f); glVertex3f(1f, 0f, -1f); glVertex3f(1f, 0f, 1f); glVertex3f(1f, 0f, -1f); glVertex3f(1f, 1f, -1f); glVertex3f(1f, 1f, 1f); glVertex3f(-1f, 0f, -1f); glVertex3f(-1f, 0f, 1f); glVertex3f(-1f, 1f, 1f); glVertex3f(-1f, 1f, -1f); GL11.glEnd(); GL11.glEnable(GL11.GL_LIGHTING); GL11.glPopMatrix(); } public Vector3f getPosition() { return new Vector3f(-position.x, -position.y, -position.z); } public float getX() { return position.getX(); } public float getY() { return position.getY(); } public float getZ() { return position.getZ(); } public void setPosition(Vector3f position) { this.position = position; } public void setPosition(float x, float y, float z) { this.position.setX(x); this.position.setY(y); this.position.setZ(z); } } Thanks for the help.

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• 10 Package Management Operations You Need Synaptic for on Ubuntu

  - by Chris Hoffman

  The Ubuntu Software Center is a solid, user-friendly application, but sometimes you need more power. The Synaptic package manager – previously included with Ubuntu by default – can do many things the Ubuntu Software Center can’t. You can install Synaptic from the Ubuntu Software Center – just search for Synaptic. You can also perform all these operations from the terminal – but, if you need a powerful graphical application for managing packages, Synaptic can’t be beat. How to Play Classic Arcade Games On Your PC How to Use an Xbox 360 Controller On Your Windows PC Download the Official How-To Geek Trivia App for Windows 8

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• New PeopleSoft Applications Search

  - by Matthew Haavisto

  As you may have seen from the PeopleTools 8.52 Release Value Proposition , PeopleTools intends to introduce a new search capability in release 8.52. We believe this feature will not only improve the ability of users to find content, but will fundamentally change the way people navigate around the PeopleSoft ecosystem. PeopleSoft applications will be delivering this new search in coming releases and feature packs. PeopleSoft Application Search is actually a framework—a group of features that provides an improved means of searching for a variety of content across PeopleSoft applications. From a user experience perspective, the new search offers a powerful, keyword-based search presented in a familiar, intuitive user experience. Rather than browsing through long menu hierarchies to find a page, data item, or transaction, users can use PeopleSoft Application Search to directly navigate to desired locations. We envision this to be similar to how people navigate across the internet. This capability may reduce or even eliminate the need to navigate PeopleSoft applications using the existing application menu system (though menus will still be available to people that prefer that method). The new search will be available at any point in an application and can be configured to span multiple PeopleSoft applications. It enables users to initiate transactions or navigate to key information without using the PeopleSoft application menus. In addition, filters and facets will enable people to narrow their search results sets, making it easier to identify and navigate to desired application content. Action menus are embedded directly in the search results, allowing users to navigate straight to specific related transactions – pre-populated with the selected search results data. PeopleSoft Applications Search framework uses Oracle’s Secure Enterprise Search as its search engine. Most Customers will benefit from the new search when it is delivered with applications. However, customers can start deploying it after a Tools-only upgrade. In this case, however, customers would have to create their own indices and implement security.

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• Integrate Google Wave With Your Windows Workflow

  - by Matthew Guay

  Have you given Google Wave a try, only to find it difficult to keep up with?  Here’s how you can integrate Google Wave with your desktop and workflow with some free and simple apps. Google Wave is an online web app, and unlike many Google services, it’s not easily integrated with standard desktop applications.  Instead, you’ll have to keep it open in a browser tab, and since it is one of the most intensive HTML5 webapps available today, you may notice slowdowns in many popular browsers.  Plus, it can be hard to stay on top of your Wave conversations and collaborations by just switching back and forth between the website and whatever else you’re working on.  Here we’ll look at some tools that can help you integrate Google Wave with your workflow, and make it feel more native in Windows. Use Google Wave Directly in Windows What’s one of the best ways to make a web app feel like a native application?  By making it into a native application, of course!  Waver is a free Air powered app that can make the mobile version of Google Wave feel at home on your Windows, Mac, or Linux desktop.  We found it to be a quick and easy way to keep on top of our waves and collaborate with our friends. To get started with Waver, open their homepage on the Adobe Air Marketplace (link below) and click Download From Publisher. Waver is powered by Adobe Air, so if you don’t have Adobe Air installed, you’ll need to first download and install it. After clicking the link above, Adobe Air will open a prompt asking what you wish to do with the file.  Click Open, and then install as normal. Once the installation is finished, enter your Google Account info in the window.   After a few moments, you’ll see your Wave account in miniature, running directly in Waver.  Click a Wave to view it, or click New wave to start a new Wave message.  Unfortunately, in our tests the search box didn’t seem to work, but everything else worked fine. Google Wave works great in Waver, though all of the Wave features are not available since it is running the mobile version of Wave. You can still view content from plugins, including YouTube videos, directly in Waver.   Get Wave Notifications From Your Windows Taskbar Most popular email and Twitter clients give you notifications from your system tray when new messages come in.  And with Google Wave Notifier, you can now get the same alerts when you receive a new Wave message. Head over to the Google Wave Notifier site (link below), and click the download link to get started.  Make sure to download the latest Binary zip, as this one will contain the Windows program rather than the source code. Unzip the folder, and then run GoogleWaveNotifier.exe. On first run, you can enter your Google Account information.  Notice that this is not a standard account login window; you’ll need to enter your email address in the Username field, and then your password below it. You can also change other settings from this dialog, including update frequency and whether or not to run at startup.  Click the value, and then select the setting you want from the dropdown menu. Now, you’ll have a new Wave icon in your system tray.  When it detects new Waves or unread updates, it will display a popup notification with details about the unread Waves.  Additionally, the icon will change to show the number of unread Waves.  Click the popup to open Wave in your browser.  Or, if you have Waver installed, simply open the Waver window to view your latest Waves. If you ever need to change settings again in the future, right-click the icon and select Settings, and then edit as above. Get Wave Notifications in Your Email  Most of us have Outlook or Gmail open all day, and seldom leave the house without a Smartphone with push email.  And thanks to a new Wave feature, you can still keep up with your Waves without having to change your workflow. To activate email notifications from Google Wave, login to your Wave account, click the arrow beside your Inbox, and select Notifications. Select how quickly you want to receive notifications, and choose which email address you wish to receive the notifications.  Click Save when you’re finished. Now you’ll receive an email with information about new and updated Waves in your account.  If there were only small changes, you may get enough info directly in the email; otherwise, you can click the link and open that Wave in your browser. Conclusion Google Wave has great potential as a collaboration and communications platform, but by default it can be hard to keep up with what’s going on in your Waves.  These apps for Windows help you integrate Wave with your workflow, and can keep you from constantly logging in and checking for new Waves.  And since Google Wave registration is now open for everyone, it’s a great time to give it a try and see how it works for yourself. Links Signup for Google Wave (Google Account required) Download Waver from the Adobe Air Marketplace Download Google Wave Notifier Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips We Have 20 Google Wave Invites. Want One?Tired of Waiting for Google Wave? Try ShareFlow NowIntegrate Google Docs with Outlook the Easy WayAwesome Desktop Wallpapers: The Windows 7 EditionWeek in Geek: The Stupid Geek Tricks to Hide Extra Windows Edition TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Default Programs Editor – One great tool for Setting Defaults Convert BMP, TIFF, PCX to Vector files with RasterVect Free Identify Fonts using WhatFontis.com Windows 7’s WordPad is Actually Good Greate Image Viewing and Management with Zoner Photo Studio Free Windows Media Player Plus! – Cool WMP Enhancer

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• Pass FORTRAN variable to Python [migrated]

  - by Matthew Bilskie

  I have a FORTRAN program that is called from a Python script (as an ArcGIS tool). I need to pass an array, Raster_Z(i,j), from FORTRAN to python. I have read about the Python subprocess module; however, I have not had much luck in understanding how to do this with FORTRAN. All examples I have found involve simple unix command line calls and not actual programs. Has anyone had any experience in passing a variable from FORTRAN to Python via a memory PIPE? Thank you for your time.

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• Get Information to Your Blog with Microsoft Broadcaster

  - by Matthew Guay

  Do you often have people ask you for advice about technology, or do you write tech-focused blog or newsletter?  Here’s how you can get information to share with your readers about Microsoft technology with Microsoft Broadcaster. Microsoft Broadcaster is a new service from Microsoft to help publishers, bloggers, developers, and other IT professionals find relevant information and resources from Microsoft.  You can use it to help discover things to write about, or simply discover new information about the technology you use.  Broadcaster will also notify you when new resources are available about the topics that interest you.  Let’s look at how you could use this to expand your blog and help your users. Getting Started Head over to the Microsoft Broadcaster site (link below), and click Join to get started. Sign in with your Windows Live ID, or create a new account if you don’t already have one. Near the bottom of the page, add information about your blog, newsletter, or group that you want to share Broadcaster information with.  Click Add when you’re done entering information.  You can enter as many sites or groups as you wish. When you’ve entered all of your information, click the Apply button at the bottom of the page.  Broadcaster will then let you know your information has been submitted, but you’ll need to wait several days to see if you are approved or not. Our application was approved about 2 days after applying, though this may vary.  When you’re approved, you’ll receive an email letting you know.  Return to the Broadcaster website (link below), but this time, click Sign in. Accept the terms of use by clicking I Accept at the bottom of the page. Confirm that your information entered previously is correct, and then click Configure my keywords at the bottom of the page. Now you can pick the topics you want to stay informed about.  Type keywords in the textbox, and it will bring up relevant topics with IntelliSense. Here we’ve added several topics to keep up with. Next select the Microsoft Products you want to keep track of.  If the product you want to keep track of is not listed, make sure to list it in the keywords section as above. Finally, select the types of content you wish to see, including articles, eBooks, webcasts, and more. Finally, when everything’s entered, click Configure My Alerts at the bottom of the page. Broadcaster can automatically email you when new content is found.  If you would like this, click Subscribe.  Otherwise, simply click Access Dashboard to go ahead and find your personalized content. If you choose to receive emails of new content, you’ll have to configure it with Windows Live Alerts.  Click Continue to set this up. Select if you want to receive Messenger alerts, emails, and/or text messages when new content is available.  Click Save when you’re finished. Finally, select how often you want to be notified, and then click Access Dashboard to view the content currently available. Finding Content For Your Blog, Site, or Group Now you can find content specified for your interests from the dashboard.  To access the dashboard in the future, simply go to the Broadcaster site and click Sign In. Here you can see available content, and can search for different topics or customize the topics shown. You’ll see snippets of information from various Microsoft videos, articles, whitepapers, eBooks, and more, depending on your settings.  Click the link at the top of the snippet to view the content, or right-click and copy the link to use in emails or on social networks like Twitter. If you’d like to add this snippet to your website or blog, click the Download content link at the bottom.   Now you can preview what the snippet will look like on your site, and change the width or height to fit your site.  You can view and edit the source code of the snippet from the box at the bottom, and then copy it to use on your site. Copy the code, and paste it in the HTML of a blog post, email, webpage, or anywhere else you wish to share it.  Here we’re pasting it into the HTML editor in Windows Live Writer so we can post it to a blog. After adding a title and opening paragraph, we have a nice blog post that only took a few minutes to put together but should still be useful for our readers.  You can check out the blog post we created at the link below. Readers can click on the links, which will direct them to the content on Microsoft’s websites. Conclusion If you frequently need to find educational and informative content about Microsoft products and services, Broadcaster can be a great service to keep you up to date.  The service worked quite good in our tests, and generally found relevant content to our keywords.  We had difficulty embedding links to eBooks that were listed by Broadcaster, but everything else worked for us.  Now you can always have high quality content to help your customers, coworkers, friends, and more, and you just might find something that will help you, too! Link Microsoft Broadcaster (registration required) Example Post at Techinch.com with Content from Microsoft Broadcaster Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Create An Electronic Business Card In Outlook 2007Mysticgeek Blog: A Look at Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 on Windows XPAnnouncing the How-To Geek BlogsNew Vista Syntax for Opening Control Panel Items from the Command-lineHow To Create and Publish Blog Posts in Word 2010 & 2007 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Fix Common Inkjet Printer Errors Dual Boot Ubuntu and Windows 7 What is HTML5? Default Programs Editor – One great tool for Setting Defaults Convert BMP, TIFF, PCX to Vector files with RasterVect Free Identify Fonts using WhatFontis.com

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• How to Create Custom Personalized Maps in Google Maps [Video]

  - by Asian Angel

  Though the custom maps feature has been out for a bit, you may have forgotten about it or it may all be new for you. Either way this wonderful video shows you how to create your own custom maps and enjoy an awesome feature of this popular Google service. ‘My Maps’ is mentioned in the video above, but is now referred to as ‘My Places’ in Google Maps (as seen below). There is also a nice interactive tutorial available. How to Use an Xbox 360 Controller On Your Windows PC Download the Official How-To Geek Trivia App for Windows 8 How to Banish Duplicate Photos with VisiPic

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• Circular dependency and object creation when attempting DDD

  - by Matthew

  I have a domain where an Organization has People. Organization Entity public class Organization { private readonly List<Person> _people = new List<Person>(); public Person CreatePerson(string name) { var person = new Person(organization, name); _people.Add(person); return person; } public IEnumerable<Person> People { get { return _people; } } } Person Entity public class Person { public Person(Organization organization, string name) { if (organization == null) { throw new ArgumentNullException("organization"); } Organization = organization; Name = name; } public Organization { get; private set; } public Name { get; private set; } } The rule for this relationship is that a Person must belong to exactly one Organization. The invariants I want to guarantee are: A person must have an organization this is enforced via the Person's constuctor An organization must know of its people this is why the Organization has a CreatePerson method A person must belong to only one organization this is why the organization's people list is not publicly mutable (ignoring the casting to List, maybe ToEnumerable can enforce that, not too concerned about it though) What I want out of this is that if a person is created, that the organization knows about its creation. However, the problem with the model currently is that you are able to create a person without ever adding it to the organizations collection. Here's a failing unit-test to describe my problem [Test] public void AnOrganizationMustKnowOfItsPeople() { var organization = new Organization(); var person = new Person(organization, "Steve McQueen"); CollectionAssert.Contains(organization.People, person); } What is the most idiomatic way to enforce the invariants and the circular relationship?

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• Create Advanced Panoramas with Microsoft Image Composite Editor

  - by Matthew Guay

  Do you enjoy making panoramas with your pictures, but want more features than tools like Live Photo Gallery offer?  Here’s how you can create amazing panoramas for free with the Microsoft Image Composite Editor. Yesterday we took a look at creating panoramic photos in Windows Live Photo Gallery. Today we take a look at a free tool from Microsoft that will give you more advanced features to create your own masterpiece. Getting Started Download Microsoft Image Composite Editor from Microsoft Research (link below), and install as normal.  Note that there are separate version for 32 & 64-bit editions of Windows, so make sure to download the correct one for your computer. Once it’s installed, you can proceed to create awesome panoramas and extremely large image combinations with it.  Microsoft Image Composite Editor integrates with Live Photo Gallery, so you can create more advanced panoramic pictures directly.  Select the pictures you want to combine, click Extras in the menu bar, and select Create Image Composite. You can also create a photo stitch directly from Explorer.  Select the pictures you want to combine, right-click, and select Stitch Images… Or, simply launch the Image Composite Editor itself and drag your pictures into its editor.  Either way you start a image composition, the program will automatically analyze and combine your images.  This application is optimized for multiple cores, and we found it much faster than other panorama tools such as Live Photo Gallery. Within seconds, you’ll see your panorama in the top preview pane. From the bottom of the window, you can choose a different camera motion which will change how the program stitches the pictures together.  You can also quickly crop the picture to the size you want, or use Automatic Crop to have the program select the maximum area with a continuous picture.   Here’s how our panorama looked when we switched the Camera Motion to Planar Motion 2. But, the real tweaking comes in when you adjust the panorama’s projection and orientation.  Click the box button at the top to change these settings. The panorama is now overlaid with a grid, and you can drag the corners and edges of the panorama to change its shape. Or, from the Projection button at the top, you can choose different projection modes. Here we’ve chosen Cylinder (Vertical), which entirely removed the warp on the walls in the image.  You can pan around the image, and get the part you find most important in the center.  Click the Apply button on the top when you’re finished making changes, or click Revert if you want to switch to the default view settings. Once you’ve finished your masterpiece, you can export it easily to common photo formats from the Export panel on the bottom.  You can choose to scale the image or set it to a maximum width and height as well.  Click Export to disk to save the photo to your computer, or select Publish to Photosynth to post your panorama online. Alternately, from the File menu you can choose to save the panorama as .spj file.  This preserves all of your settings in the Image Composite Editor so you can edit it more in the future if you wish.   Conclusion Whether you’re trying to capture the inside of a building or a tall tree, the extra tools in Microsoft Image Composite Editor let you make nicer panoramas than you ever thought possible.  We found the final results surprisingly accurate to the real buildings and objects, especially after tweaking the projection modes.  This tool can be both fun and useful, so give it a try and let us know what you’ve found it useful for. Works with 32 & 64-bit versions of XP, Vista, and Windows 7 Link Download Microsoft Image Composite Editor Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Change or Set the Greasemonkey Script Editor in FirefoxNew Vista Syntax for Opening Control Panel Items from the Command-lineTune Your ClearType Font Settings in Windows VistaChange the Default Editor From Nano on Ubuntu LinuxMake MSE Create a Restore Point Before Cleaning Malware TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 Get a free copy of WinUtilities Pro 2010 World Cup Schedule Boot Snooze – Reboot and then Standby or Hibernate Customize Everything Related to Dates, Times, Currency and Measurement in Windows 7 Google Earth replacement Icon (Icons we like) Build Great Charts in Excel with Chart Advisor

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• Could anyone help me get my NETGEAR WNA3100 (Broadcom BCM43231) wireless adapter to work?

  - by Matthew Carroll

  I have just moved back to Ubuntu from Windows 7 and a few months ago, I bought a NETGEAR WNA3100 wireless adapter because my old adapter had broken. I plugged in my adapter and it doesn't seem to work, I also used the windows 7 drivers for it and tried them on the program "Windows Wireless Drivers" and they don't seem to recognize the device. However I have heard you need XP drivers but I can't seem to find them on the internet nor find them on the CD. Could anyone help me get my wireless adapter to work? Any help is greatly appreciate. P.S I do have internet connection though I have to tether my phone to my computer and then connect my phone to my router.

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