For today’s post I’m going to teach you two neat and very useful MS word tricks.

First up is selecting text blocks vertically. I’m assuming you already know how to select items horizontally in word, you should actually. When selecting text blocks in word you simply click and drag your mouse to the text block that you wish to modify or delete. If you do the same action vertically (Click and Drag), it will select the whole line of the text block. But what if you just want to select the first letters of the lines in a text block or just a portion of a paragraph?

Microsoft offers us this option by holding the “ALT” key before you drag the mouse. Dragging the mouse vertically extends the height of the selection while dragging it vertically expands the width of the text block.
Go try it for yourself. Open a word document, start from the top of the paragraph, press the ALT key and then drag your mouse. You should be getting a view similar to this



Next on our list is changing the type case of texts. Normally, if you accidentally pressed the CAPSLOCK button and proceeded with typing the text, you would normally delete the whole text and then retype the whole thing with the right case type. A faster way of modifying text case is by first selecting the text that you want to modify and then pressing SHIFT + F3. See how easy it is? Now pressing the same short cut will yield different text case options.

We’ve discussed hibernating your computer using the windows shortcut key (Window Key + L) in a previous post. A lazier way of doing the same task is to apply it in a shortcut. Steps are as follows:

1. Right click on your Desktop
   
2. Mouse hover on “New”
   
3. Select “Shortcut”
   
4. Key in “rundll32.exe PowrProf.dll, SetSuspendState” (minus the quotation marks of course)
   
5. You can use whatever name you want for the shortcut; Though I recommend naming it “YouScreamTheyScreamIscreamforIceCream”
   
6. The shortcut will automatically switch your machine to hibernate mode once clicked.
   

Now you might think that this has more steps than the Windows Shortcut, BUT! If you place the shortcut in your start menu it’ll be two clicks away to hibernate. Oh, and I personally believe that click through is faster than finger shortcuts. Shortcuts involve more muscles to locate and press, while using the mouse is just hovering to the correct location and click. Forget it, just believe me on this, ok? OK?!!!

For all music aficionados out there, here’s a well recommended site for your music download. No membership at all (unless you plan to be active in the forum), just tons of mp3 download. Don’t ask me if it’s legal or not and if you’re my officemate do not, I repeat, DO NOT download from this site. You are taking up bandwidth that can be best used for our browsing. Just go get a dial up and download the Disney Collection, all 200 MB of them.



Click here for the link.

Let’s pretend that you and your office mate are talking about someone in front of you using messenger. Of course, it'll be obvious if you’re both typing and laughing at the same time while looking at him/her/it. Good thing Microsoft has a built in keyboard function to help you chat unnoticed. Just use the On Screen Keyboard built into Windows XP to simulate your normal keystrokes.

Do the following to activate OSK.
1. Click start
2. Select Run
3. Type “osk”

You should see something like this on your monitor.



Just type away like you’re using your actual keyboard without getting noticed

I’ve always been a fan of different musical genres. Started listening during our school bus days when our driver would play albums of Saro and Asin neatly packaged with those plastic billboard compilation covers; This were the pirated copies of early musicdom. Officially got hooked with music when I first got hand of the launching album of The Dawn (enveloped ideas) and it was no stopping me from collecting albums from then on. To date I’ve got loads of music from the Jerks to Lolita Carbon, Robert Johnson to Rob Halford, Metallica to Fat Boy Slim.

The usual predicament with having loads of music is how to best categorize your music. The closest thing I got to classifying music is this site, All Music.

Just do a quick search on the artist that you would like to know more about. They not only give you the specific genre, but also detail the history of the band/artist, their influence and other artists that belong to the same genre. I go to the site for broad categories and guidance and then apply my own preferred sub category for proper sorting. Too bad they only have it for foreign music.

Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night sky starting August. It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will cultimate on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65M miles of earth. Be sure to watch the sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am. It will look like the earth has 2 moons. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Share this with ur friends as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY will ever see it again

Also, I will stay away from me if I were you. I'm now officially dangerous, frustrated, angsty and zoned enough to actually bash the first punk who utters non-sensical crap.

Here are the promised prompt commands after triggering the run command Window Key + R)

‘cmd’ = Opens the command prompt terminal. It’s the same as saying it’ll open the DOS window and make it look like you’re doing shell programming. Change the color scheme of your prompt and you can actually fool those who hover over you that you’re doing scripts without GUI.

‘control’ = Opens the Control Panel
‘control printers’ = Opens the Printers Dialog

The following are prompt commands that open Microsoft applications.
calc = Calculator
wmplayer = Windows Media Player
iexplore + "web address" = Internet Explorer
excel = Microsoft Excel
msaccess = Microsoft Access (If Installed)
powerpnt = Microsoft PowerPoint
winword = Microsoft Word (If Installed)
notepad = Notepad
wordpad = WordPad
mspaint = Paint

You can manipulate different system setups or if you’re too bored, then totally mess up your system configuration by typing the following commands.

eventvwr = Event Viewer
msinfo32 = System Information
ntbackup = Backup or Restore Wizard (Windows Backup Utility)
mmc = Microsoft Management Console
cleanmgr = Disk Cleanup
rstrui = System Restore

If the previous commands weren’t enough there’s always the registry to totally zap your workstation useless depending on your mood.

Type ‘regedit’ and blast off anything you want.

Now given these tools, you are now credible to manipulate your machine, give IT a hardtime and possibly lose your job. Just make sure that you don’t go near (not even stare at) my workstation.

The Window Key is the least used piece in the keyboard for obvious reason that not a lot knows what it can actually do aside from opening the start button. It is the most used key in my piece; especially windows + D (minimize all). I’m listing several short cut combos that use the windows button and scenarios on how best to use them.

1. You just downloaded a new set of zipped porn but forgot to save it in the drop folder. Just key in Windows Key + F to display the Find all files dialog box.
   
2. It’s lunch time and your download is only at 52%. Press Windows + L to lock your desktop and avoid snoopers from finding out that you are not actually working.
   
3. An officemate announced that he has a fresh copy of “When Harry ate Sally” and it’s available in his shared folder. Press CTRL + Windows Key + F to search for computers in your network.
   
4. Boss 5 seconds away from your workstation and you have yahoo, myspace, Friendster and the Aaron Carter fansite open in IE, what do you do?
   - Get the nearest box of staple wires, chug it in 2 seconds, open the nearest window and jump while doing the roger rabbit.
   
5. Boss 5 seconds away from your workstation and you have gmail, projectw and other nifty sites open, what do you do?
   - Press Windows Key + D to hide all open applications. (You can use this alternately with Windows Key + M)
   
6. Boss out of your area and you want to revert back to what you were doing; press Windows Key + D again to restore the previously opened applications.
   

Other Windows Key Shortcuts:

Windows key + Break = Opens the System properties
Windows key + R = Run menu (I’ll expand the command prompts for Run in another post)
Windows key + E = Launches the Windows Explorer
Windows + F1 = Open Windows Help
Windows + Tab = Cycle through the Taskbar buttons
Windows + Break = Displays the Systems Properties dialog box.
Windows Logo + U = Open Utility Manager
Windows + Shift + M = Restores all previously open windows to how they were before you Minimized them.

Oh, and if you send me a comment that these shortcuts don't work because you keep pressing the "+" then go try to screw yourself.

Wait ... I've disabled comments in this blog. Well screw yourself anyways

If you’re one of the rats like myself who go through the daily routine (or any of the routines) of riding a tricycle, traveling by bus, crowding up in the train terminal, scorching in humid FX Transports and walking a few meters (or blocks) going to your office then you share the unpleasant start of the day drenching in sweat.

Now thanks to Japanese ingenuity, there’s a fresh way to go about these inconvenience without breaking in sweat.

Introducing the Aircon Jacket! *Applause* *Applause*



The Air Conditioned Jacket has two fans on the side and back of the jacket. The Jacket is powered by USB cable and can be plugged into the port of your PC. Fan speed can be changed by adjusting the switch of the external USB Cable.



It can also be powered by AA batteries when you’re traveling or through a plug that goes into the cigarette lighter of your car.

To make it a bit funky and stylish to wear, here’re a couple of designs to choose from.



For the full details of the product, you can go here