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Bring Back Desktop Icons That Are Gone, Missing or Disappeared

June 16th, 2008

Occasionally a user will accidentally click on wrong place and all their desktop icons will be gone. They won’t be able to find the icons anywhere on the desktop. All their My Computer and My Documents shortcuts will be missing and even their recycling bin will be gone. They will be left with a plain background or a wallpaper.

It is easy to bring them back! Simply right click on your desktop, go to Arrange Icons By and then select Show Desktop Icons.

Wait several seconds and your desktop icons will be back.

Turn Off Auto Correction in Microsoft Office

June 15th, 2008

Microsoft Office suite comes with some annoying features such as automatic capitalization of the first letter of the first word each time you end the sentence with a period. Many of these features are helpful but at times when you copy text from Microsoft Word and paste in somewhere else the formatting will be lost because it does not recognize Microsoft Office Word format. Same will happen if you are using Access, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project or Publisher.

To avoid this, it is helpful to turn off auto correction feature in Microsoft Office.

If you are using Microsoft Office 2000 or 2003 version, you can turn of the automatic correction features by going to Tools -> Auto-Correction -> Deselect the features you want turned off.

If you are using the latest Microsoft Office 2007, you can turn off auto correction features by clicking on the Microsoft Office Button and then selecting Word Options. Note: If you want to turn off auto correction for other office programs such as PowerPoint then you would follow the same procedures but you will see PowerPoint Options.

Click Proofing and select AutoCorrect Options.

Now deselect the options you want disabled.

• Correct TWo INitial CApitals
• Capitalize first letter of sentences
• Capitalize names of days
• Correct accidental use of cAPS LOCK key
• Capitalize first letter of table cells

Install Windows Vista Cursors in XP

June 15th, 2008

Windows Vista has one of the best selection of cursors compared to other popular operating systems. Windows XP users can now have that same clear-cut cursors of Windows Vista on their system. Windows Vista’s cursors are anti-aliased, the edges are much more softer, and animated. The loading cursors changes to a cursor with an animated circle.

To install, download the Aero Cursors package.

Unzip the files, right click install.ini and select install.

Go to Start, Control Panel and select Mouse. Navigate over to Pointers tab.

Under scheme, select Aero Cursors (Alphablended).

Click OK and you are done. Cheers!

How to Record or Delete Videos and Pictures from HP QuickPlay

June 7th, 2008

Users of HP Pavilion Notebook can record videos and take pictures in QuickPlay with the integrated HP webcam or even 3rd party camera. If you have Windows Vista with HP QuickPlay installed on your HP Pavilion laptop, you can easily record movies or take pictures by launching HP QuickPlay.

Click on Video icon from the menu and select HP webcam in the Source column.

From your QuickPlay Control Panel, click the record button to record and stop button to stop the recording. You can also take snapshots by selecting the last button in the Control Panel. To delete the pictures and videos that you just have taken is tricky in Windows Vista.

You videos and pictures are by default saved to

C:\Users\Public\Videos\HP Webcam\webcam_2008067_1541.mpg

To reach that folder, press the Windows key + R on your keyboard to bring up the run box.

Then type in the following:

C:\USERS\Public\Videos

Press OK and you will be at a folder where all your HP QuickPlay movies and pictures are stored. From here you can delete the videos and pictures you want. Creating a shortcut to this folder on your desktop to make it easeir to access all your QuickPlay pictures and videos in future. To create a shortcut on your desktop, right click on the folder called “Videos” and select send to “Desktop (create shortcut)”.

Now you can freely browse, edit or burn QuickPlay videos and pictures right from your desktop!

Wallpaper Manager for the Gnome Desktop

June 7th, 2008

Desktop Drapes is a Gnome desktop application for those that love randomizing your desktop wallpaper. Users can add wallpapers they like to the list and select how often do you want the wallpaper to be changed. Indeed, a nifty little tool for your desktop eye candy list.

Desktop Drapes goes a step further and automatically adds the wallpaper to the list from a specified folder. So a user can simply save wallpapers to a dictionary and Desktop Drapes will do the rest.

To install Desktop Drapes, open up a Terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install drapes