Digital Letter

There are those times in life when you need to send someone a handwritten letter. This is a close substitute.

You can use PowerPoint to make this.

1. Download a paper background or texture.

You can use something from this link: 200-high-quality-free-paper-textures-to-grab

2. Download a handwritten font and install it. (Drag and drop the downloaded file into the Fonts folder in your Control Panel) 

You can choose a font from this page: 50-free-handwritten-fonts-for-web-designers-and-logo-artists

3. Open Powerpoint and insert the paper texture as a picture.

4. Insert a text box and select your handwritten font.

5. Type your message.

6. You can add other elements from the following links:
Peachie’s Collection of Cute Stuff

Digital Scrapbooking Embellishments

You can also add autoshapes, photos, and other details such as word art or seasonal elements.

7. After completing your design, press CTRL+A to select all the elements, right-click and select Save As Picture.

8. Save your image and send it to your friend by email or print it out and give it to them.

Try making one for your grandma… she will love it!

 

Root LG Optimus One P500 Android Froyo 2.2

I just rooted my LG Optimus One P500 with Froyo 2.2 with a one-click application named Gingerbreak.

Download
1. First of all, you must download the Gingerbreak installation file from the XDA forums. Here’s the link: gingerbreak-v1.20.apk
(Ignore the message that says it’s incompatible)

Install
2. Open OI File Manager and go to mnt/sdcard/download.

3. Open gingerbreak-v1.20.apk from your list of downloaded files to install the application.

Enable USB Debugging
4. Go to Settings and then select Applications. Click Development and select the USB debugging checkbox.

Root
5. Open the Gingerbreak app and click Root Device. Your phone will reboot automatically when the rooting is complete. This will take a little longer than your usual boot up time but don’t panic!

Finally, check for a new app named Superuser in your phone to confirm that your phone has been rooted.

Note:

Don’t worry if your SD Card has other stuff on it. Mine did too but nothing happened to them.

Ensure that your phone has enough battery charge to go through with this. Interruptions during rooting can cause problems.

If for some reason the procedure does not work, then turn your phone off and turn it back on before retrying.

If the app does not work,check if you have installed the app on the Phone memory and not in the SD card. Move the app to Phone if it’s on the SD Card.

You can now kick some serious ass with your rooted device!

 

Who’s Suing Whom in the Telecom Industry?

via InformationIsBeautiful

 

How to Download a Page from Google Books?

I will tell you upfront that you’ll need the Google Chrome browser to use this method.

1. Open the Google book in your Google Chrome browser and go to the page you wish to download.

2. Right-click on the page and select Inspect Element

3. Under Inspect Element, go to Resources and select Images.

4. Browse all the images and find the image of the page you wish to download. Sometimes it will be available in more than one size. In such cases, select the image with the best size.

5. Double-click the image name to open the image in a new tab. Right-click the image and select Save Image As.

6. Save the file to your local machine and enjoy!

Enjoy!

 

Backup Your Tweets in Excel

I had written many small haikus on Twitter and I wanted to save them for later.

To do this, you should first save your tweets as an XML file.
Go to http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/userid.xml?count=x

In the above link, replace “userid” with your user name and “x” with the number of tweets you want to download. (You can view your total number of updates on your twitter page.)

When the page opens, click Save As in your browser and save the XML file to your computer.

Open MS-Excel(2007) and click Data -> From Other Sources -> From XML Data Import

In other versions of MS-Excel, you would click Data -> XML -> Import

Browse your computer and select the Twitter XML file you downloaded.

Ta daaaa!!!!!!!!

You have all your tweets in a neat Excel sheet. Enjoy!

 

Macro to Extract Comments from a PPT to a Text File

Use the macro below to extract all the comments in a PPT file to a text file. You can then print the text file.

When you run this macro, it opens an Output File dialog box asking for a path to store the text. Remember to enter a name for the file when you specify the path in the ‘Output file’ dialog. Example: C:\Documents and Settings\User1\Desktop\comments.txt

Sub ExportComments()

    Dim oSl As Slide
    Dim oSlides As Slides
    Dim oCom As Comment
    Dim sText As String
    Dim sFilename As String

    Set oSlides = ActivePresentation.Slides
    For Each oSl In oSlides
    sText = sText & "Slide: " & oSl.SlideIndex & vbCrLf
    sText = sText & "======================================" & vbCrLf
        For Each oCom In oSl.Comments

            sText = sText & oCom.Author & vbCrLf
            sText = sText & oCom.DateTime & vbCrLf
            sText = sText & oCom.Text & vbCrLf
            sText = sText & "--------------" & vbCrLf

        Next oCom
    Next oSl

    sFilename = InputBox("Full path to output file:", "Output file")
    If Len(sFilename) > 0 Then
        WriteStringToFile sFilename, sText
        SendFileToNotePad sFilename
    End If

End Sub

Sub WriteStringToFile(pFileName As String, pString As String)
' This writes the text out to a file

    Dim intFileNum As Integer

    intFileNum = FreeFile
    Open pFileName For Output As intFileNum
    Print #intFileNum, pString
    Close intFileNum

End Sub

Sub SendFileToNotePad(pFileName As String)
' This opens the file in notepad

    Dim lngReturn As Long
    lngReturn = Shell("NOTEPAD.EXE " & pFileName, vbNormalFocus)

End Sub

Macro courtesy: pptfaq.com

 

How much data will humans create and store in 2011? [Infographic]

via mashable.com

 

MS-Word Building Blocks

My job involves using 30 different types of tables repeatedly across a document. I usually have a source document from which I copy each table template and paste it into the document I’m working on. Recently, I was trying to find a better way to do this. I thought I should record a macro for each table and save it as a button. However, Word 2007 allows for very little customization of the ribbon (without some complicated VB scripting etc.) and that’s when I stumbled upon Building Blocks.

If you have objects (tables, drawings, paragraphs, pictures) that you need to repeatedly paste into a document, you can also use the following method. I have demonstrated with a table as an example:

1. Open a new word document.

2. Copy and paste the template table for ST1 into the new document.

3. Select the entire table (or object).

4. Press ALT+F3

5. A box named “Create New Building Block” will open up. Select the options shown in the image below and click Ok.

Note: You can also add the table to any other category which you think might be easier for you to access.

6. Repeat the steps for all the tables or objects you use frequently.

7. To insert the table or object, go to Insert -> Table -> Quick Tables and select on the table you want to insert.

8. Voila!

 

Macro to Highlight Track Changes in Word

Note: This macro highlights only the insertions in your track changes. It does not highlight the deletions.

Often, we need to highlight the changes in our document after making the corrections suggested by a reviewer. I came across this interesting macro that made my job easy.

Sub HLight_Inserts()

Dim i As Long
Dim iMax As Long
Dim bAccept As Boolean ' Set this to True if you want to accept revision

ActiveDocument.TrackRevisions = False
' ----------------------------
' Set bAccept  = True if Insertions to be Accepted
' ----------------------------
bAccept = False
' ----------------------------

iMax = ActiveDocument.Revisions.Count
For i = 1 To iMax
    If i > iMax Then Exit For
    Debug.Print ActiveDocument.Revisions(i).Type
    If ActiveDocument.Revisions(i).Type = wdRevisionInsert Then
        ActiveDocument.Revisions(i).Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdYellow
        If bAccept = True Then
            ActiveDocument.Revisions(i).Accept
            i = i - 1
            iMax = iMax - 1
        End If
    End If
Next i
ActiveDocument.TrackRevisions = True
End sub

To change the highlight color, find the word WdYellow in the code above and change it to WdTurquoise, WdBrightGreen or other highlight color names.

Macro Courtesy: p2p.wrox.com

 

PowerPoint Animations with Wingdings

I once had a situation where I had to create an interesting PowerPoint presentation but I had no access to interesting graphics or visuals. I was not allowed to take images off the web or use stock photography due to some constraints at my work place. So I invented this fun method to make cute little animations by using Webdings and Wingdings fonts.

Follow these steps to make your own animations:

1. Go to “Start” menu and click “Run”

2. Type “Charmap”

3. From the “Font” list, select “Webdings” or “Wingdings 1, 2, 3″

4. Select a character that you want to animate, from the table of characters and copy it to the clip board by clicking “Copy”. You can also press CTRL+C.

5. Open MS- PowerPoint

6. Right- click on a blank slide and paste the font. You can also press CTRL+V. If the font changes to an arbit square or a martian hieroglyphic, select it and apply the correct font from the PowerPoint font list.

7. Select the character and enlarge the font size to “72″ or more. Now the character will be clearly visible as an image.

8. Change the color of the font, if required.

9. Select other characters and repeat the same procedure.

10. Right-click each of the characters and select “Save as Picture”. (This can be a little tricky if you do not select the character properly. Don’t select the font but the whole character.)

11. Type a name and save the characters as image files.

12. In the “Insert” menu, select “Insert Picture” and insert the saved images.

13. Animate each image by using “Custom Animation”

14. Play your slideshow to check the animation.

15. Rejoice!

You can find a simple PPT animation I created by using this method, in the following link:

Download from Google Docs (otherwise you cannot see the animation). This download is not required to understand the method.

Feel free to post questions/doubts in the Comments section.