7.8.10

Rename Multiple Files at Once

Once all the files you want to rename are highlighted, press F2, or right-click on one of the files and select Rename. All of your file selections will disappear except for one, but don't panic: Type in your new name and click Enter. That's it! One file will be now be named "renametext" and the others will have sequential numbers in the format of "renametext (1)" and "renametext (2)" and so on

6.8.10

Gmail - Save Attachments to the Desktop via Drag-and-Drop

Saving dozens of e-mail file attachments to your computer just became a whole lot easier.

Google has added a new feature to Gmail: the ability to save file attachments by simply dragging-and-dropping them onto the desktop. If you hover over the file icon or the “Download” link for any attachment, you’ll notice the new text prompting you to drag the file to your desktop to save.

It’s really as simple as it sounds. There is one caveat to saving file attachments via drag-and-drop, though: The feature is only available in Google Chrome.

Google has been adding more drag-and-drop functionality to Gmail in recent months. Back in April, Google launched the ability to add attachments to e-mails via drag-and-drop. In May, Google gave Gmail users the ability to add images to e-mails via drag-an-drop.

1.8.10

Outlook Sorting contacts and messages by multiple criteria

It’s a trivial task to sort your Outlook contacts: simply display them in List view and click any of the column headers. So, to sort by category, click the Category column header; to sort by name, click the Full Name column header.

It’s an equally trivial task to sort your contacts by multiple criteria. Trivial, but not obvious.

You perform the first sort as usual, by clicking the column header; you then perform the second sort by holding down the Shift key while clicking another column header.

For example, to sort your contacts by category and then by name first click the Category column header and then hold down the Shift key and click the Full Name column header.

You can sort by up to four columns using this shift-click method. You can also use the same technique to sort your email messages.
Finding phone-less, email-less contacts

I sometimes find it useful to sift out any contacts in my list who have no phone number and no email address. To do that, I click Business Phone, then shift-click Home Phone, shift-click Mobile Phone and shift-click E-mail. This lets me see at a glance any contacts who have no information in any of these fields.

Note that you may need to double-check fields such as E-mail 2, Business Phone 2, Assistant’s Phone and so on if you’re checking to see whether you have no phone or email info whatsoever for a particular person. You can do that either by double-clicking the contact and checking out their details or by adding those columns to the List view and sorting on those fields. To add a column to the List view:

  • Right-click any of the column headers and select Field Chooser from the context menu.
  • In the Field Chooser, use the drop-down menu at the top to select the type of fields you want to add – E-mail Fields, Phone Fields and so on.
  • Select the specific field you want to add and click-and-drag it alongside any of the existing columns in your contacts list.
  • Repeat the process for additional fields, then close the field chooser.
  • To delete a column for the contacts list, right-click the column header and choose Remove This Column from the context menu.


[Note: These instructions are for Outlook 2010. The process is similar for Outlook 2007 and  2003.]


Combining sorting and categories

Because of the 4-column limit on sorting, if I need to sort by additional columns, I’ll usually sort by the first four and then categorise all the matching contacts. I can then do a simple sort on the category column and use the shift-click method to add deeper levels of sorting.

For example, say I want to find all those contacts who have no e-mail, e-mail 2 or e-mail 3 address and no business phone, mobile phone or home phone listed. I can do this 6-level sort in this way:

  • Click the E-mail header to sort by that column.
  • Shift-click E-mail 2 and E-mail 3.
  • Select all the matching contacts (click the first matching contact, scroll to the last matching contact and shift-click it).
  • Right-click in the Category column and select All Categories from the context menu.
  • Click the New button to create a new category called No Email, then click OK twice to close the dialog boxes and apply the category to the selected records. (In fact, I have a special ‘Temp’ category set up that I use for this sort of on-the-fly categorising: I apply it whenever I need it, then remove it once I’ve finished the task at hand.)
  • Now, click the Category column header to perform a new sort based on that column alone.
  • Shift-click Business Phone, Mobile Phone and Home Phone to apply the deeper sort levels.

29.7.10

Picasa - A quick Guide

Library View

This is the default view when Picasa starts. Any time you’re dealing with more than one image, or browsing to find one to work with, you’re spending your time here. Let’s break this down.

picasa-library550  

Menus and toolbars

At the top of the screen is the normal collection of menus and toolbars, and most of these do just the things you might expect them to. We’ll deal with these as they come up. Note where the help menu is though. It’s very useful, but has an annoying peculiarity that’s becoming rather common. None of the help info is stored locally, so it will only work while you are online.

picasa-library-menu  

Folder list

picasa-library-folder-flat

On the left of the Library View is the Folder List. There are two ways to view this. The default, shown here, is called Flat, because it just lists all the folders without any indenting.

There are, when you start, two Collections in the list. Albums and Folders.

Folders are grouped by year. It’s only by chance that my folder names are also dates, and confuse the issue.

The Folders listed directly relate to the folders/directories you see in Windows Explorer.

Albums are virtual collections of files, and don’t relate to anything real on your hard drive. You can create an album and add images, and all Picasa does is keep track of them together, without actually moving any of the real files.

   
picasa-library-folder-tree

You switch between the Flat and Tree view using the view tool in the toolbar or the Folder View option in the View menu.

The Tree view shows the folders nested, the way Windows normally does.

The Flat View can be annoying until you get used to it, and then switch camps, so give the Flat View a try first.

Whichever view you use, they operate much the same way.

Light box

picasa-library-lightbox  

The major portion of the screen, and the one you’re likely to spend most of your time, is called the Light Box, after the boxes traditionally used by photographers to view and compare slides.

The light box is similar to the thumbnail view in Windows Explorer, and mostly behaves the same way, except for one very strange but handy feature. If you scroll out the top or bottom of the view of the older you are in, it just happily continues to the next or previous folder (or album).

Once you actually click on an image, the Folder List highlights the current folder again.

Status Bar

Directly underneath the Light Box is the status bar. This shows you a whole lot of information about whatever is currently selected. Keep an eye on it. It’s very handy.

picasa-library-status  

Underneath the Status Bar are two more important features, collectively known as the Photo Tray.

Photo Tray

picasa-library-phototray  

On the right are all the tools you need to deal with moving your images onto the web, printing them, blogging etc.

Top right of this tool is a slider to let you change the thumbnail size in the Light Box. To the left are some buttons for dealing with individual images, including rotating and favouriting (alright, favoriting) them.

picasa-library-phototrayleft

Over in the left corner is the Photo Tray itself. This tool lets you deal with multiple files at once. We won’t be doing that here, but those three buttons are (from top to bottom) Hold, Clear and Add to Album.

Okay, now you know your way around, you can take a look at an individual file. Just double-click on one in the Light Tray.

Edit View

Picasa-editview550  

That’s it. Click the Back to Library button, top left, or hit the Escape key to return to the Library view.

16.7.10

How to Seed Moved or Renamed Files in BitTorrent

This feature is available in uTorrent version 1.8 and later. You can not change file names and keep seeding with earlier versions of uTorrent.

You can use this guide if you move or rename the folder in addition to changing file names.
It is possible to change file (and folder) names because they are not really parts of the files. They are like ''labels'' that tell the computer where to find the content of the files.

After such changes, you need to retarget the files in uTorrent if you want to keep seeding the torrent. The procedure for doing this is the same no matter if the torrent is already loaded in uTorrent, or if you add it as a new torrent.
Seed Renamed Files

1. If the torrent is already loaded in uTorrent, right-click it and choose ''Stop'' (if it is not already stopped). If you are adding a new torrent with changed file names, make sure that you add it in stopped mode (or stop it very quickly if you fail to do this).
2. Select the torrent, then click the ''Files'' tab in the lower pane. (If you have no lower pane, click ''Options'' and check ''Show detailed info''.)
3. Right-click a file and choose ''Relocate...'' from the menu. (If you have also changed the folder name, or moved the folder, you need to browse to the right folder.)
4. When you are in the right folder, simply click the new file name for the file, then click ''Save''. Be careful that you really choose the right file: sometimes uTorrent and Explorer show the files in different order.
You will see the changed file name in the file list in uTorrent.
5. Optional: When you have changed all the file names to the new names, you may want to right-click the torrent and choose ''Force re-check'' in order to be sure that all the files were pointed to the right new names.
6. Right-click the torrent and choose ''Start'' (or ''Force Start'' if you want to make sure the torrent does not get queued).
Seed Files Inside a Renamed or Moved Folder

1. Stop the torrent by right-clicking it and choosing ''Stop''.
2. In uTorrent, right-click the torrent and choose ''Advanced - Set Download Location...''
3. Browse to the moved and/or re-named folder, click OK.
4. Optional: If you have re-named the folder and want to change the name of the torrent, so that the new name shows in uTorrent, too, select the torrent and (left-)click it again. (or select the torrent and press F2)
5. Optional: If you want to be really sure you got it right, right-click the torrent and choose ''Force Re-Check''. When it stops checking, uTorrent should say that 100% is done.
6. Right-click the torrent and choose ''Start'' (or ''Force Start'' if you want to make sure the torrent does not get queued).