Techie Views » Techie Tips

Downloading videos to save bandwidth

Website Administrator — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 20:27:51 +0000

With the popularity of video sites such as YouTube, many people are nowadays spending a lot of time watching videos which are hosted online. What most people are not realising is that every time they play a video they are using up a lot of bandwidth because every time a video is being played, the video has to be streamed every time. So, if you are playing the same video of your favourite song 20 times a day that also means that you are practically downloading the same video for 20 times and if your ISP has allocated to you a monthly download limit that will mean that before you know it your download allowance will be used before the end of the month.

If you want to avoid the above situation from happening you can install a video downloader such as the SpeedBit Video Downloader. This will install a toolbar in Internet Explorer or Firefox and every time you are on a video site such as YouTube you will be able to download the video you are watching by clicking on the ‘Download’ button on the toolbar.

To download ‘SpeedBit Video Downloader’ click here: http://www.speedbit.com/video

Tip: Microsoft Word hangs on the splash screen

Website Administrator — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:59:49 +0000

Recently, I opened Microsoft Word to write a post for TechieViews and the application just hanged on the splash screen. All other applications in the Office suite such as Excel and PowerPoint were still working perfectly, and although Word itself offered me to launch itself in ’safe mode’ and later to ‘fix’ itself, nothing helped. As a matter of fact the problem was with the printer driver which for some reason became corrupted. In fact after removing the printer driver and installing a more recent one, Word started to work again. So, keep in mind this tip as it might save you a lot of frustration if you encounter the same problem.

PC Tip: How to avoid file disasters

Software Tip: Changing from Caps to Lower Case (or Vice Versa) in Microsoft Office

Website Administrator — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 06:33:24 +0000

If you have text that is in the wrong case, select (highlight) the text, and then click Shift+F3 until it changes to the case style that you like. Clicking Shift+F3 toggles the text case between ALL CAPS, lower case, and Initial Capital styles. You’ll be surprised how often you will use this once you get the hang of it!

Browser Tip

Website Administrator — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 05:55:27 +0000

Many important websites use the .com domain suffix. The latter is so common that the most popular browsers such as IE and Firefox let you add this suffix with a quick keyboard shortcut. For example everytime you want to visit TechieViews there is no need that you type http://www.techieviews.com ! All that is needed is to type techieviews in the address bar of the browser and press CTRL and Enter.

Software Tip: Fast way to insert the current time in an Excel cell

Website Administrator — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:11:05 +0000

To insert the current time in Microsoft Excel without having to access the menus just hold down Ctrl and Shift and press the colon (:) key. This works with both right and left Ctrl+Shift combinations. Related posts:Software Tip Temporarily prevent StartUp folder programs from launching Software Tip: Changing from Caps to Lower Case (or Vice Versa) in Microsoft [...] Related posts:

Temporarily prevent StartUp folder programs from launching

Website Administrator — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 10:29:09 +0000

It is possible to prevent the programs in your Windows StartUp folder from automatically launching. This is helpful for troubleshooting issues or for fast boot-ups. Start your PC, and when you see the Windows logo screen, hold down the Shift key until Windows is fully finished loading (keep holding down Shift until the disk stops churning). Next time your restart, all your startup programs will run again (unless you hold down the Sift key again of course). This method does not turn off services which run from the System Registry and works with any version of Windows from 95 onwards.

PC Tip: How to avoid file disasters

Website Administrator — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 08:16:46 +0000

There is a thing … a real bad one which I see frequently on PCs operated by beginners: data files (Word docs, Excel sheets, etc …) scattered around the hard-disk without any logical sense. It is of utmost importance that users understand from day one what is a directory/folder and understand their purpose.
If you don’t put your data files in logically named folders it will be more difficult to find these files later on and also there is one particular shortcoming in the FAT file system (if you still use this old file system) which is known as the ‘Maximum entry limit in a FAT root directory’. In fact if you’re trying to create files on the root directory of a FAT drive and get an error, this usually means that you have exceeded the maximum entry limit of 512.

There are a couple of things to remember about the 512-entry limit:

1. Long filenames (more than 8 characters) take up more than one entry.
2. Hidden files, which don’t show up in the file count at a command line, also count toward the total number of entries.

So if you want to avoid file disasters create a logical structure of folders and sub folders and save your files in them.

Software Tip

Website Administrator — Sat, 30 May 2009 10:25:58 +0000

Not many people know that in Powerpoint one can set up a presentation to run in a continuous loop. This is indeed an important feature for those who want to show advertising material in shop windows or during commercial events. This feature can be enabled very easily:

1. On the Slide Show menu, click ‘Set Up Show’.
2. Select ‘Loop continuously until ‘Esc” check box.

Software Tip: Changing from Caps to Lower Case (or Vice Versa) in Microsoft Office

Software Tip

Website Administrator — Wed, 27 May 2009 12:33:56 +0000

Have you ever been surfing the Internet and opened a number of different Internet Explorer or Firefox windows? This can happen many times and after some time one will realise that there is the need to minimise all windows because one might need to access an icon on the desktop! There is no need to minimise all windows one by one since if one holds down the Windows key and presses M, all open programs will be minimised.

Software Tip

Website Administrator — Thu, 14 May 2009 12:13:24 +0000

Did you know that you can control Windows without the use of the mouse? I will not argue on the fact that in most situations it is not recommendable to do such a thing but as many have already found out some keyboard shortcuts will give you faster access to some of the most used features:
To access the Run dialog box hold down the Windows key and press R.

To access the Search dialog box hold down the Windows key and press F.

To access the Systems Properties hold down the Windows key and press Pause/Break.
… and by the way the Windows key is the one between the Ctrl and Alt on the left of the Space Bar.