Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on December 27, 2007 by CyberNet.

Tutorial Thursday

Most keyboards these days have 100+ keys, and there are so many keys that it can be difficult to get them to work exactly the way you want them to. As with most other things on a computer, if there is something that you don’t like about the keyboard you should just change it!

To manipulate the keys on the keyboard we’re going to resurrect an application that we’ve previously written about. It’s called KeyTweak, and it’s a freeware program that has a simple interface for customizing the action of the keys on your keyboard. An example of where this would be useful is for turning one of your spare Control or Alt keys into a Windows Key on a computer that doesn’t have a Windows Key. Or maybe you want to disable the Insert and/or Caps Lock key since you never use it…with KeyTweak that is possible.

 
(Click to Enlarge)

KeyTweak is a pretty straightforward application, and working with it couldn’t be any easier. Here’s how you can remap keyboard keys in a few simple steps:

1. Download and install KeyTweak. Then run it.
2. On the screen you will see a fullsize computer keyboard (pictured above). What you’ll want to do now is click on the key you want to change or disable. We want to disable the Caps Lock key in our example, so we clicked on key number 30. KeyTweak will show the key that you’ve selected, and what command is currently assigned to it:
   
3. If you want to assign the key a new action just choose from one of the dozens of keyboard remapping options in the drop-down menu. Once you have found the option that you want click the Remap Key button to save that configuration. Alternatively you can completely disable that key by clicking the Disable Key button, or you can reset it back to the default action by choosing Restore Default.
4. The action you chose to take in Step 3 will be added to the list of pending changes located in the bottom-right corner. Once you’ve made all of the keyboard changes that you want click the Apply button.
   
5. In order for the changes to take effect you’ll need to restart your computer, and after that you can enjoy your newly remapped keyboard!

This is a really powerful program that I’ve been using for years, and it has never failed me. I’ve used it the most to disable keys that I frequently find annoying, such as Insert or Caps Lock. Even if you don’t plan on using this app right now make sure you stick it in your bookmarks, because I can assure you that sometime down the road the idea of disabling or remapping a keyboard key will pop into your head!

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This article was written on March 06, 2008 by CyberNet.

Tutorial Thursday

I’ve sat through a lot of PowerPoint presentations before, and one thing that always struck me as interesting was how many people don’t take advantage of PowerPoint’s special “Presenter’s View.” It’s been around since at least Office 2003, and I’ve found it to be an incredibly valuable tool when making presentations myself.

Note: The Presenter’s View (a.k.a. presentation mode) is only available when you’re giving a presentation using a computer that supports multiple monitors. I think most laptops fall under that category these days, and that’s what a lot of people are using to give their presentations.

In the Presenter’s View the audience will see the presentation just as they would normally, but on the presenter’s screen is some extremely useful information. Instead of having a full screen presentation it is scaled down so that a scrolling timeline of the slides is shown along the bottom, and the notes from each slide is shown along the right side. The timeline at the bottom is great for getting a peek at what’s coming up next. Here’s what the Presenter’s View looks like in PowerPoint 2007:

(Click to Enlarge)

This will be a real gem if you’re given time constraints for your presentation. Underneath where it shows the current slide there is a running stopwatch to let you know how long you’ve been presenting, and it also has the current time according to your system’s clock. That way you’ll be able to see if you’re going too fast or too slow, and adjust accordingly.

Forget your laser pointer? No problem, use the marker tool located underneath the current slide to draw on the presentation in real-time. If you’re using a mouse it might not turn out to be very pretty since you’re hand will probably be jittery, but it works.

So how do you setup the Presenter’s View? Here are the instructions for PowerPoint 2007 and PowerPoint 2003:

–PowerPoint 2007 Instructions–

1. In PowerPoint, under the Slide Show tab, locate the Monitors section:
2. Check the box labeled Use Presenter View.
3. In the Show Presentation On menu click the monitor you want the slide show presentation to appear on.

–PowerPoint 2003 Instructions–

1. In PowerPoint, on the Slide Show menu, click Set Up Show.
2. Under Multiple monitors, select the Show Presenter View check box.
3. In the Display slide show on list, click the monitor you want the slide show presentation to appear on.

–Overview–

Once you have the Presenter’s View enabled in PowerPoint it will automatically start when you begin your presentation. After you’ve used this presentation mode one time I think you’ll see first hand just how useful it really is.

Remember: Your computer has to support multiple monitors in order for this to work.

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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No patience to wait until Q3 for an official Froyo build? Fret not, dear Desire owners, as udK_dev has managed to push out a near-perfect Android 2.2 port that’s working spectacularly well so far. As you’d expect, HTC’s Sense overlay is indeed baked in, and while there are still a few quirks here and there, users seem to be generally pleased with how it’s going. Better still, the camera has been upgraded to handle 720p video recording, so there’s that. Hit the source link for the how-to, but make sure you set aside a few hours first. Or maybe just one.

[Thanks, seaders]

Android 2.2 ported to HTC Desire, working quite well originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Jul 2010 01:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on July 19, 2007 by CyberNet.

Tutorial Thursday

Have you ever wanted to create a cool panoramic image yourself? No, you don’t need an expensive camera to do it and you don’t need to purchase any software…instead you can do it all for free using AutoStitch.

A program like this can serve several purposes, but I use it the most for assembling photos of objects I can’t capture all at one time. The most common panoramic scenes that you see are probably of mountains because a much larger area can be covered, but it can be used on buildings or monuments as well. For example, let’s say that you want to take a picture of the Statue of Liberty, but you’re too close to get it all into one shot. What you can do is take a picture of the upper, middle, and lower portions of the statue and then use AutoStitch to put the different photos together.

AutoStitch is fairly straight-forward, and I’m sure you could figure out how to use it in no time at all, but there are some helpful tips that I can give to make using it extremely easy. Here’s how you do it:

Note: AutoStitch says that it is a demo version, but there is no limitation or trial period

1. Download and install the free AutoStitch program on your Windows computer. There is no installation required so it is a piece of cake to get running
2. Start AutoStitch, go to the File menu, and choose the Open option. Then Ctrl+Click on all of the images that you want AutoStitch to put together.
   
3. If AutoStitch was successful you should see a file named “pano.jpg” located in the folder you picked the images from. A preview of the image should also popup on your screen.

That’s all there really is to it. The program comes with some images that you can use to test the panoramic assembler with, but you should find that it has pretty good results. If it doesn’t you can mess with some of the settings, although many of them are pretty advanced (and the program won’t remember your settings after you close it):

So how about the tips on getting the best results? It’s all about redundancy! I had tried several different image compilations that I had done in the past, and the results that I had were a little mixed. The ones that I had the best results with were the ones that had a lot of overlapping portions. Here are four photos of a bridge that I had AutoStitch assemble for me:

As you can see in those images there are a lot of portions that are redundant from one photo to another. That’s a good thing because it gives AutoStitch a lot more area to match up. The resulting photo looked like this:

You’ll notice that there are some missing areas that are represented by black blocks, but I can easily crop the photo and remove those by using something like PhotoScape. My example is a very simple one, and if you want a more complex panoramic photo, checkout the 57-image “collage” on the AutoStitch homepage. It’s complete with before and after photos!

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Choices, choices. Do you get the 16GB or 32GB iPhone 4? The black one now or the white one a little later? We can’t tell you which variant of Apple’s next phone will hold its value best over the coming months, but we can try to clear up a bit of the fogginess surrounding price plans on offer from UK networks. Orange and O2 are the first to drop handset pricing and full contract details, but they haven’t made it easy for the discerning buyer, with each carrier offering more than a dozen options. Vodafone, T-Mobile, Three, and even Tesco Mobile are set to follow suit in the coming days and weeks, but we thought we’d get the ball rolling with the pair we have now.

P.S. — And just as we publish this, Voda has gone official with its tariffs. We’ve now broken them down into a more digestible format as well. Just for you.

Continue reading How-to: figure out the best value iPhone 4 contracts in the UK

How-to: figure out the best value iPhone 4 contracts in the UK originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Jun 2010 06:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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