Tip of the day/General Tips etc

[blutach]

Post in this thread your useful tips. All contributors welcome! Thanks to BR7 for this great idea.

This is not meant to replace the FAQ or replicate any of the MVP tips sites or registry hack sites, but is more slanted to practical tips you found useful in relation to digital video etc. Even little ideas on how better to use certain progs or even how to make this forum a bit easier to use.

That being said, I'll lead off with a registry hack related to your optical drive!

To turn on/off autoplay:

Go into regedit (Start - Run - Regedit)

Navigate to HKey_Local_Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Cdrom

There's a registry key called AutoRun. Double click it and set it to 1 for autoplay on and 0 for off.

If set to zero, your CD/DVD drive will not execute PC-ROM files when you insert the DVD.

More info: MS Knowledgebase 330135 which explains what else you might need to check to get this one working.

Regards and keep the tips coming!

[smkymntgrl]

Great idea BR7!

Thanks for the tip Blu!

Some of you probably already know this simple tip but just in case you don't.....

This is nice for those of us who are on the computer long periods of time, late at night or early in the morning (before and after your eyes want to focus).

HOW TO ADJUST PRINT SIZE WHILE READING DOCUMENTS

Hold down the Ctrl key on the key board and then turn the wheel on your mouse away or towards you. The print size will change, smaller or larger, depending on which way you turn the wheel.

It works really well for those small prints that are hard to read and for times you've been on this forum too long and your eyes are just tired.

[anonymez]

enable cleartype for crisp fonts (particularly for LCD screens). can be done through windows, but MS's tuner lets you tweak it a little http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearTypeInfo.mspx

[a2j3]

Hello All

Great thread This tip is 4 those of u who don't have an os system that comes with a theme creator/installer. I love 2 create themes and be very decorative. This is the program I use. It's very easy and even though it doesnt say it fully supports xp, I have absolutely no problems with this free program and have used it 4 years.

http://www.themedoctor.com/da.shtml

[ed klein]

Here is a great little program to remove the heavyweight resources hogs in msconfig start-up, that REALLY slow down you computer. I have been using this program for six years now.

This program identifies which programs you want to have at start-up in
start/run/type in msconfig/start-up tab. This program helps YOU decide if the start-up is really needed or not. And the three ways to remove the un-necessary start-up in the software program itself (on-off) or in the registry or in the start-up folder.

This is what I use to automatically remove DVD-43 from starting-up so it will NOT run in the background.

http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.php

One of my very favorite programs

[BR7]

Thanks blu
I have I have already used the tips here.Great tips guys
Organize your files into groups

Organize your files by grouping them. Try this: Open a folder containing several different subfolders and file types. Right-click any empty space on the window's contents pane, click Arrange Icons By, and then click Show in Groups. To arrange the window's contents, right-click again in any empty space on the window's contents pane, point to Arrange Icons By, and click Name, Size, Type, or Modified.

[blutach]

Here's a great tip for anyone using this site.

Read the FAQ!

Regards

[soup]

Very basic search info.

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[blutach]

Stop IE resizing (and other windows too)

If you are like me, you like to have your Internet explorer (and other windows) just so.

IE has a habit of resizing itself, which is a right royal PITA.

A while ago, jmet told me about this free app called Autosizer, which can automatically size your windows as you like them. Maximise them or resize them to your liking. Centre them if you like. Works for "classes" of windows or you can customise it with window titles.

Takes almost no system resources. Just have it start with Windows.

Get it here.

Regards

[blutach]

Collect Yahoo mail directly to your email client

I have a Yahoo mail account, but hate logging into Yahoo mail to retrieve it. I use Outlook instead, which is always on.

So, what to do about checking my Yahoo mail?

The answer is a free utility called YPops! It sits in the background and acts like a POP Server for Yahoo. My Yahoo mail is delivered to my outlook and is sorted through a rule into a special Yahoo folder.

Of course, it's free and is platform independent. You just need to configure it once and you're done (see details on website).

http://www.ypopsemail.com/

Regards

[anonymez]

i think this fits in this thread, an incomplete list of miscellaneous (tried to avoid DV related stuff) useful freeware i like and use, many of which have been mentioned here before at one time or another. none contain adware or spyware of any sort, completely free and (imho) very high quality. i've left out some of the more obvious stuff:

Firefox with the adblock extention and filter set: (apparently not obvious enough )

Thunderbird: better than MS outlook

Avidemux: think virtualdub, but better support for more containers, cross-platform and better looking interface

Audacity: audio editing tool

Xnview: excellent image viewer/manipulator (probably doesn't qualify as an editor, but there's always GIMP for that), cross-platform

HxD: wonderful hex editor

Open Office: Compatible with MS office, cross platform

GParted: excellent partition manager (included in some linux distros), very safe & quite easy to use

EVEREST: home edition is free, system info/diagnostic tool

MP3Gain & AACGain: lossless normalizing of mp3 and aac (in mp4) files respectively

BeHappy: excellent audio transcoding, also like foobar

Webscheduler: imho one of the best apps in existence, for DVB-T

Picasa: photo organiser/sharing, with simple image editing functions. don't care for the layout though, prefer adobe bridge

Radlight Filter Manager: mostly for adjusting merit for filters

Samurize: system monitoring tool/"widgets"/docks, whatever you want to call them. very low memory footprint, good looking

Uxtheme.dll: makes the windows UI bearable; can't stand the teletubbies look! does it without any additional software/services, just removes the "lock" MS has on the UI. I recommend the visual styles "CodeOpus 3.0", "Clearlooks" and "XPMC RC3".

WinDV: lossless DV camera capture

Linux: i like Ubuntu and SUSE

[paglamon]

And here is an extension allowing web based e-mail accounts(Yahoo mail,Hotmail etc.) into Mozilla Thunderbird.Something like YPops for Outlook Express.

http://webmail.mozdev.org/

[blutach]

Here's yet another thing Windows has been lacking for years.

OpenTarget is a tiny dll that puts an Open Target Folder on your right click menu. So if you have a shortcut (anywhere), right click on it and you can go to the folder containing the actual file. I find this tremendously handy.

Installation:

1. Download the attached zip
2. Extract the files anywhere (the desktop is OK).
3. Run OpenTarget.exe (double click it)
4. Delete the zip and the extracted files.

Regards

[MikeyBK]

I thought this would be a cool thing to do to spice up your plain folders.

What I did was use certain program logos or movie pictures and then used them to customize the folders they were in.

*First, right click on the folder you want to change>
*Click on properties>
*click on the customize tab>
*click on 'choose picture' tab>
*browse to the picture, logo, or whatever you want as the folder 'cover'>
*then press 'apply'>

I think it's cool to do on some of the folders.

[photo_angel2004]

what are those pictures of just see little RED X for each.