Changing default paper size of Microsoft Word 2010

A mistake I always tend to do is define the paper size of my writings in Microsoft Word after finishing what I intended to write. I opt to change paper size when I see that the printed papers does not have the actual formatting I had in mind. Changing paper size after the finishing results in me doing touch ups makes again.

I ended up changing the default paper size of Microsoft Word to A4 thereby setting A4 paper size as my document size in all new documents that I would be creating.

Here’s how I did it.

How to change your wireless lan card into a wireless access point and share internet

This is actually awesome. I came to know about this very recently (well, yesterday).

Here’s the thing… you have got internet to your workstation and a wireless LAN card or a wireless USB (WIFI) adapter. You want to share internet as in like using an access point so that you can, say let your iPhones and iPads be connectable to your workstation/network via WIFI and share internet and even share files.

Its simple. Here is the process.

Easily enabling telnet in Windows 7

Maybe it’s the norm to use Putty or a multi-windowed application for SSH and Telnetting. But for me, I was used to telnetting from CMD since XP until Windows 7 came out. All these days I was on the thought that Telnet was no longer supported on Windows 7.

I was wrong.

Its still there but disabled or not active by default.

Here is how to enable telnet in Windows 7:

Creating Dhiraagu website – Part I

Creating Dhiraagu website from scratch(almost) .

Retreiving stored email passwords in Outlook, in 1 minute

In most offices, workstation-users don’t get there email passwords. It’s typically the IT department that configures the mail client and they don’t give out the passwords to its users. If you’re such a user, what if you want to check your mail from your home when you’re absent or for whatever reason? Don’t bother asking the IT’s, here is a workaround.

2-minute outlook mail backup without ‘using’ an IT guy

Outlook uses single flat files to store emails typically known as outlook data file. So, basically what needs to be done is to make a backup of this file. If anything goes wrong, this backup file can be copied back. Ok, so where is the file?

To find the location of the file, open up outlook and click ‘File’, click ‘Info’ from the option on the left, click ‘Account Settings’ button and click ‘Account Settings…’ from the drop-down.

I’ve added a dummy email account for my outlook (i.e. admin@maldhivian.org) for the purpose of this article.

When the email profile is selected (in ‘E-mail’ tab), the path of the outlook data file that is associated with the email account is shown (red circle) and the file name at the end (blue circle), in this case ‘admin@maldhivian.org.pst’.

But the path is not fully shown, so we go to the second tab named ‘Data files’.

Select the data file and click ‘Open File Location…’ to open the folder where the data file is.

Now copy the outlook data file to any backup medium (pen, different folder/drive, cd…)

Backing up is done.

In case the file needs to be restored, click ‘Add’ (in ‘Data files’ tab) and select the backup file.

Note: The above is tried on Outlook 2010. Similar steps would be done even in the case of Outlook 2007.

Easiest way to fully backup your PC instantly

Again, recently, I was searching for a good backup program and I found this amaaaaazing software with less than 300KB named Drive Snapshot, I believe developed by a German company.

This tool support XP’s, Windows 7 and even server edition including 2008 R2. You can create backups even of the system drive, on-the-fly, while working normally on the PC.

While on my search for a backup program, I did try Acronis and Ghost which works fine but noooo, not at simple and small as this one. I can make a backup and view the backup file(s) as a virtual drive, letting me restore particular files or folders from the backup and the backup process seemed very fast. I’m very impressed with this new tool in my collection.

According to the developers website, their software company was found for the sole purpose of building this software; a real-time disk imaging software.

This one isn’t free though, its worth around EUR 40. But you can try it for 30 days, worth it!

I haven’t tried restoring full drives with this one but I can say I won’t have any problems with this.

You can download either the setup file or just the executable from their website.
Download links:
Executable (around 300KB)
Setup file (around 2MB)

Developers website: http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/index.htm

All-in-one network (ethernet) driver installer

Recently a friend of mine called me and asked me if I could help him locate a driver for his Ethernet card. Just after he said that, I said to check his mail. He gave a chuckle and asked me how do I know which type of Ethernet card he is having or how do I know if he had not tried the driver I was about to send since he had been trying to solve the issue for days trying many work arounds. I said again, “check your mail!”. In a while, I got a reply saying a biiiiiiig THANK YOU in shining red colors.

So what did I send him? it was a link. A link to a small software named 3DP NET around 32MB in size.

I don’t know what the name of this software really represents or means, but this is a great tool to have, specially for (unorganized) IT technicians who find it difficult to locate driver CD’s.

This tool can identify the Ethernet cards and install the appropriate drivers or even update in cases of outdated drivers. A very simple and convenient tool. You can see the list of cards supported in here and they are being constantly updated.

You can download the software from here.

Its free, appreciate it! Donate if you can 🙂

Changing Windows 7’s Windows Explorer Taskbar icon’s default opening folder to My Computer

Its frustrating to see Libraries folder popping whenever I open the Windows Explorer Taskbar icon. I wanted to change it to My Computer.

I searched through the internet and found this very simple trick.

Here’s how:
First right click the Windows Explorer Taskbar icon (red circle on the screen-shot), again do a right click on ‘Windows Explorer’ (green circle on the screen-shot and click ‘Properties’ (blue circle on the screen-shot) to see the properties of Windows Explorer.

From there, go to ‘Shortcut’. In ‘Target’ field, just include the following after a space as in the diagram.
shell:MyComputerFolder

Apply the settings and that’s it.
Not only My Computer, you can set it to a lot other destinations, from folders to recycle bin to even Administrative Tools. Take a look at this link where I found all of this.

Reference:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2863-windows-explorer-taskbar-icon-change-open-target.html

Microsoft Word 2010: Inserting equations and aligning them on the equal sign

Recently I had to prepare a document with lots of maths functions and equations. I managed to insert equations but they weren’t looking as good as I want since they had alignment issues.

I knew it can be done via the tab stops but that wasn’t good enough as it was troublesome.

I wanted to align all the ‘steps’ of the equation on the equal sign. Here is what I learnt.

For demo purposes I’ll write up the following quadratic equation

x^2=x+20
x^2-x-20=0
(x+4)  (x-5)=0
x= -4 or 5

 

Instructions:

Open up Microsoft Word.
Go to ‘Insert’ from the ribbon menu.

Click ‘Equation’ (3rd icon from the right)

Click ‘Insert new equation’
Enter the first line of the above equation in the newly created equation text-box and to go to the next line press ‘Shift + Return/Enter’

A new equation textbox would appear below where you need to type in the second line of the equation. When you’re done typing the whole equation, it should look like something similiar as below.Now, to align the whole thing on the equal sign…
Select and highlight the equal sign on the top line of the equation. Right click and click ‘Align at this Character’ option.
Do this for each line of the equation to view it as below. Done!