By uskatpayday loans
Bren posted about this a good while ago, but I get so much use out of it that I figured I’d spread it around again.
If you accidentally close a tab you can bring it back from the netherworld by hitting Shift+Cmd+T (on a Mac) or Shift+Ctrl+T (on Windows).
This is so incredibly helpful when you get overly close-happy with your tabs, and go too far. Or, in my case, if you just aren’t thinking, this will resurrect the results of your errant clicks.
My dad runs a Joomla! based website that I have been hosting. Just recently we decided to migrate it to a different web host, so I had to figure out how to move it.
I was initially puzzled by how to accomplish this move with the least amount of pain. I’ve enjoyed the slick Export/Import process that WordPress provides, and (to my knowledge) there is nothing like that for Joomla!. I decided the only way I was going to complete this was to export the MySQL database, and download all 2000+ Joomla! files from the old server, then upload the files and import the database to the new server. A little time consuming, but it guarantees that everything will be migrated.
Before I set out on this “journey” I decided to see if there were any guides online that had different methods. What I found was detailed steps of exactly what I was planning to do. Here is another guide (less detailed though) that I just had to link to, because it’s a Joomla! guide on a site running Drupal. Go figure.
Mac OS X only — that I know of, any word to the contrary is welcome.
I was doing some WordPress development this weekend while listening to my team on MLB Gameday Audio. While I attempted to Cmd-Tab to another application I miskeyed and hit Cmd-` (` is right above Tab on my keyboard) which gave me a pleasent surprise.
Because MLB Gameday and Gameday Audio each open in their own windows I typically resorted to using F9 to move to either of those windows. However, as long as I’ve got Firefox (or any application for that matter) I can use Cmd-` to cycle through the open Firefox windows. This goes for Finder windows, open photos in Photoshop, open documents in Word, etc. Great time saver.
In the little rant I gave on the baked-in Windows screenshot capabilities the other day I mentioned the simplicity of the baked-in Mac screenshot process. Like Windows there are multiple keystrokes to achieve the various types of screenshots.
With all three of these it saves the screenshot to the desktop. In OS10.4 it saves as a PNG, and I believe in OS10.3 and earlier it saves as a PDF.
I did not know this until I did a little searching, but there is a utility application (in your Applications > Utilities folder) called Grab. This tutorial is a wee bit old, but it does a good job of talking about Grab.
Just like Windows there are other screenshot titles that are fairly popular (Snapz Pro X and Skitch come to mind), but what comes standard with OSX is already beyond what you get with Windows out of the box.
Windows comes with two ways to capture screenshots baked into the software. If you hit PrintScreen it will capture the entire screen to the clipboard. If you hit Alt-PrintScreen it will capture the active application/window to the clipboard.
I very rarely use the full screen capture because I’m usually taking a shot of one specific application. This process is very easy to understand, and simple to use. It’s at this point where my frustration begins.
With the baked-in functionality Windows places the screenshots in the clipboard. You’ve captured it, but now you have to do something with it, which is completely un-intuitive. In OS X when you take a screenshot it dumps the image not to the clipboard, but saves it as a PNG to your desktop. It even makes a camera clicking sound so you know it took the picture.
What I generally do on Windows is open Paint.net and paste the capture into a new image. I will frequently get screenshots pasted into Word documents. Neither way is convenient for the one capturing the image, and the Word method is not convenient for the viewer.
Since it doesn’t happen baked-in, are there any installable products that are capable of duplicating the simplicity of the OS X screenshot process on Windows? Or does everyone just suffer with the standard functionality?
I’ve recently seen various write-ups about Google Notebook, so I decided to take a look at it. I must say I was pretty happy with what I found. I’ll give the caveat that this is in no way a perfect product, nor fully featured…yet. There were, however, a few features of it that make it a good solution for me right now with keeping track of ideas.
There is a Firefox plugin that places a nice Notebook window in your status bar (image below). With this plugin you don’t have to visit the Notebook website to actually use it — very slick. You can show and hide the plugin window as you choose.
(click for a full screen image)
If you look at the photo you will see two little yellow/orange people next to “Work Screencast Ideas.” That signifies that I’ve shared that Notebook with other people. In this case, I’ve shared it with Bren so we can collaborate on ideas for screencasts to do for our staff. I’m all about collaboration stuff, and this is a great feature to have.
Another thing that makes this a good product for me is that it is — as all Google products — web based. I have a computer at home, and a different computer at work. I needed a solution that didn’t have me tied to one computer. And even if I’m working on some random computer without the plugin, I can still get to my stuff.
Lastly, with the Firefox plugin, if you highlight a section of text on a web page you are presented with a button right below the highlight to add a note using that highlighted text. When you use this it adds the note to your last open Notebook.
I’m the tech/operations person for a branch of our organization that has staff in 3 locations. I work out of the “main office,” and do a poor job of making it out to the other two locations on a regular basis. Partially because of the location spread, and partially because I think it’d be fun, I’m going to start producing some demo/instructional screencasts. I know, this is completely unique take on screencasting that no one else is doing. Maybe I should patent it. (please note the thick sarcasm) I’m tied to Windows at work, so I looked first at Camtasia. Being cheap I balked at the price tag. That started me looking for free alternatives.
I read something a couple of weeks ago about a “free” Windows-based screencasting setup. For the capture George suggested using CamStudio. I’ve played around with it a little, and I’ve been very impressed with the simplicity and general quality of the capture. CamStudio’s captures are fairly large, so George took a suggestion from Free Vlog and used Windows Movie Maker to achieve better compression — and convert the AVI file to WMV.
What other options are out there? I’ve read about Wink, but haven’t tried it yet. What do you use for Windows-based screencasting?