Year: 2010

Sorted Menus in Windows XP

XP Logo

So I’ve been doing a little more work with Windows XP than I usually do :-( and it’s reminding me of all those small irritations that come with Microsoft products.

The system itself might well be robust enough, but its details that they don’t seem to have an eye for, one of those that particularly irritates me is that the “All Programs” menu isn’t alphabetically ordered.

So whilst I was waiting for a program to install off it was to google, where I found that this is relatively easy to correct (although it’s not sticky, so it needs repeating each time you add a program).

So for all those OCD suffers out there driven mad by this, here is the solution:

  • Press the “Start” Button
  • Select “All Programs” and navigate anywhere into the list
  • Right Click the mouse and select “Sort by Name”.

And you’re done!

To see where I found this and additional tweaks click here.

Filed under: GeneralTagged with: , , ,

Data Detectors for Safari on the iPad Please

Safari Logo

Now. I love data detectors. It is one of the most unsung and brilliant of Apple’s innovations with OS X. It just works, although I mourn the fact that it’s not spread much beyond a bare implementation in Mail (a very useful one at that though).

Now with the introduction of the iPad data detectors have taken on a whole new form in their beautiful implimentation of the the Mail on the iPad.

Just click and hold on the address details you are given three options:

Data Detectors in iPad Mail

1. Open in Maps, which finds an address for you in a matter of seconds:

Go to Map in iPad Mail

2. Create a New Contact from the information it’s discovered, which leads you to this:

Add New Contact from iPad Mail

3. Add to an existing contact which brings up a list of your contacts and away you go:

Add to Existing Contact in iPad Mail

I have over a 1000 contacts in my address book, but even then there are gaps, missing addresses, phone numbers, etc, which I can now easily add from a contact.

Now just the other day I was looking up a business on the internet and needed the telephone number and I was thinking how great it’d be if this were implemented in Safari on the iPad (or on my desktop too!) then I could just add all this information to an existing contact or a new contact pretty much instantaneously…

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Facebook Sync Revisited

Facebook Logo

Back in September last year I posted about a great program I use to sync my Facebook friends with Address Book in Mac OS X. And I thought I’d revisit the topic this year for all you iPhone users out there, because of a great feature in the Facebook app for the iPhone, you might (as some of my friends were) be unaware of…

If you open the Facebook app on your iPhone and select the friends section it will open up a list of your friends, but hidden away in the top left hand corner or here:

Facebook App Sync Option

You will see the option to “Sync”, which means exactly what you might imagine… YES! Finally you don’t have to take photos of each of your friends for your iPhone contacts, you can just have Facebook pull down the most recent version of their profile picture:

Facebook App Sync OptionsFirst you need to turn it on and then select if you want it to replace existing photos, which means it will replace any photos you already have and do this each time you sync, which as you can see I’ve selected (as I like the variety that results each time I sync) or don’t if you prefer.

And then just sit back and let it do it’s thing.

Cool. And hassle free. (After all, would you have ever got round to adding all those photos anyway?)

Filed under: GeneralTagged with: , , ,

@Disqus Comments at the Independent

I was very excited to stumble upon this (recent I presume) development at the Independent newspaper: an abandoning of their old comments system and it’s replacement with the Disqus system of comments I use here at nealandassociates.co.uk and for most of my other clients.

Now I like to comment on stories I read, and I read alot, and before I stumbled across disqus I was constantly frustrated by the login processes normally involved with commenting on a story. The Disqus system, however, makes this a synch and means I can comment, easily and be updated on a story in just a couple of seconds.

The service is free (with a premium version available) and I can’t praise it more highly or wish for it’s adoption on more sites. It’s great to have feedback and it’s great to give feedback and disqus really helps with both of these processes, as well as nesting comments so your readers can keep track of a discussion (yes dear guardian keep track).

I can only hope that my favourite news site (the guardian) implements it soon… (hint, hint) I’m sure there is also a cost saving for them somewhere in there…

If you use wordpress and want to add the system you can grab a copy here.

Filed under: wordpressTagged with: , , ,

Flash Death Watch

Flash

I’ve been meaning to write an article on the death of flash for quite some time now, I’ve abandoned a number of drafts as the deluge of articles have hit the interwebs on the same topic.

So I thought it would be more interesting to give you a flash death watch tracking the number of sites abandoning flash:

Airlines

Virgin America – Flash Gone Bye Bye! (see here, here and the official statement here)

News & Media Sites

ABC – Official iPad App (see here, download here)

CBS – Reports coming in (here and here) of Flash-free video for the iPad

CNN – iPad Optimised Site (here)

Disney – iPad Optimised Site (here)

The Guardian – @tsmarsh informs me they use Brightcove so hope they’ll follow suit?

New York Times – iPad Optimised Site

NPR

TED – Completely Flash-Free version of their website (see here and the official announcement via twitter here)

Time Magazine

Wall Street Journal – iPad Optimised Site + iPad App (download here)

Video Sites

Brightcove – Supplier for sites like Wired, Slate, Time & NYT so expect to see them go over soon too!

Netflix – Official iPad App (see here)

Youtube – iPad, iPhone optimised sites; HTML 5 experiment for everyone else!

Vimeo

Add anymore sites you know in the comments and I’ll update the list.

Filed under: GeneralTagged with: , , ,

Using Dropbox to share Word Templates

Dropbox

So. Dropbox is my favourite file sharing tool. One of the things I use it for, and you can too, is to share Microsoft Word Templates. On Mac this is relatively easy and you can use the following instructions.

I have a file in my dropbox called masters and within that a file named Microsoft Templates or though you can name it whatever you want. So if you want to share your masters folders across multiple accounts, follow the instructions below (for Microsoft Office for Mac 2008):

1. Open up Word and then select preferences:

Word Preferences2. Then select File Locations:

Word 2008 File Locations

3. Then select Workgroup Templates (this allows you to separate personal local templates and word templates you want to share):

Select Workgroup File Word 2008And once you’ve selected the folder in your dropbox you can begin centralising your word templates! Excellent.

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Translate with Gmail

Gmail

Google TranslateOver the years I’ve consulted for a number of start-up and recently established fashion companies, from manufacturing handbags to shoes, and that has necessitated dealing with a lots of suppliers all over Europe and even as far a field as India and China.

As I only speak English this has created, over the years, a whole number of amusing translation issues, and a generated unfortunately a great deal of communication issues. I wish when I was working on these projects on a more full-time basis I had had access to the facilities of google translate to help iron out these problems.

For those encountering these problems on a daily basis there is a better way than google translate, if you use gmail, which is using the google labs feature allowing you to translate emails directly from within gmail. So if you’re dealing with a supplier get them to sign up for gmail and get them to follow these instructions to enable it.

So here we go for the instructions:

1. Login to your gmail account:

Gmail Login

2. Then click on settings, which you can find in the top right hand corner:

Gmail Settings

3. Then click on the labs option in the settings:

Gmail Labs

4. Then find this option and click on activate:

Google Translate in Gmail5. Once you’ve activated the option then in emails you can activate the translation tool by doing the following:

Activate Gmail TranslateI’d also advise if you are sending an email to a supplier in a foreign country then you should write your email in English and then go to google translate and cut and paste a translation in their language and include it in the email you send with your original English message, thus minimising the likelihood of confusion in sent messages.

Isn’t it great that google is enabling us to communicate better, lets see what the future holds, in the mean time use the above instructions to improve your communications with suppliers abroad.

Filed under: TechTagged with: , ,

When should I buy a new Mac?

So. You’ve just received a shiny new MBP, then a few weeks later Apple go and release an update. And the couple of thousand you just laid out suddenly doesn’t seem as worthwhile as it did the month before when it arrived.

Anyway help is here: there is a site for that. As Apple normally releases new models at regular intervals Apple Store Check counts down the days between the release cycles and tells you whether or not it is safe to buy a Mac.

Thanks to @danbenjamin for the helpful point in this direction.

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3 Years of Calendar Syncing Bliss

Spanning Sync v3.0

So. Spanning Sync turned 3 last week and as I’ve been using their service to sync calendars between my many computers since it was in early beta that means I’ve had 3 years of calendar syncing bliss.

Don’t get me wrong there have been problems; as software moves through early betas there always are… but overall the service has been an incredibly good fit for my needs, infinitely superior to google’s offering.

I eulogised them in an earlier blog post, Contact Sync, but if you’ve not got round to giving their service a go and you need to sort out your calendars then I highly recommend you check them out.

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This is the sound of silence…

Tap, tap, tap… That’s all I can hear. Yes the sound on my year old MBP has disappeared and all I can here is my own forceful tapping on the keyboard.

Unfortunately this is not the first time this has happened. The first time it drove me nuts. I eventually shut down the computer (which I do rarely) and it solved the problem.

The actual fix is quicker and more simple. Just insert your headphones into the socket and remove them and like magic it seems to kick start the system. Phew. Now you know what to do if it happens to you too.

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