How many of you know to change Zoom level in IE very quickly? In IE Window, There is a drop down box for zooming level on bottom-right hand corner. Click on it mouse and change the Zoom level.
Do you want to change the zooming level in IE even more quickly?
Click and hold the Control key on your keyboard and rotate
your mouse wheel.
This trick works in IE7 in Windows XP also.
Are you a "Classic" lover? I mean when you click Start –> Power Button, and you found Vista is not shutting down, but goes into sleep mode. Oh! Yeah! You already tried the changing the Start menu to "classic" Start menu. Didn’t help ya? Power button still does the "Sleep" mode. Don’t worry there is trick that makes what you want.
2. Click "Change Plan Settings" on the corresponding current power profile.
4. Click OK and "Save settings" button to close the dialog boxes. Then close the Power Options window.
You are done. Shut that computer away in two clicks.
Is your Vista machine running slow? Not responsive? Microsoft added "Reliability and Performance Monitor" with Vista. I was playing around with this tool and I realized it’s THE best tool to quickly analyze your computer.
I was amazed to see which programs or services are using the network, accessing disk, occupying memory in almost REAL time. WOW! You may find exactly what’s bothering your computer in minutes.
Here is how you use it.
1. Click Start (Orb) Button and type "performance"
2. Select Reliability and Performance Monitor
3. Play around and find that naughty program or service
Here is the screen shot of "Reliability and Performance Monitor" looks like,
Everyone has their favorite gadget list. Here are mine. I am not listing the ones that come with Vista. These are the ones you have to download from Microsoft and Third-party web sites.
1. Battery Monitor (LINK ): I like this gadget over other Battery monitors. This one actually shows “how much time left?” It works very well on my laptop. Beware that some reported that their Laptop’s not calculating the time right. If I change my Power Profiles, this gadget updates the “Time Left” accordingly.
2. Multi-Meter Dual Core (LINK ): This gadget actually displays usage of each core in dual-core processor and memory information. When you click on it, it will open up the Task Manager. There is another gadget available from the same developer for Quad-core processors if you have one.
3. Desktop Wallpaper (LINK): I am a “Wallpaper Freak”, means I hate to have single wallpaper forever. I want to change the wallpaper from my photo and wallpaper collection. Pre-Vista, I have used Wallpaper Master which is free and very usable. This gadget “Desktop Wallpaper” is like slideshow gadget (comes with Vista), but it also changes your Wallpaper from your collection in specified duration. I totally love it.
4. The Magic Folder (LINK): The Magic Folder is a gadget that helps you categorize and move files. When you drag a file to the gadget it will look at the file extension and place Document files (like doc, xls, ppt, etc) in the Document folder. It places image files like (JPEG, PNG, TIFF, GIF, etc) into the Pictures folder. And many more extension types come pre-registered.
5. Remote Desktop (LINK): As a System Administrator, I use Remote Desktop extensively to connect to my servers. This one comes very handy at desktop.
6. Fidelity Market Monitor (LINK): This is the ONLY stock quotes gadget I like. The reasons are very obvious like controlling the size of the gadget, Refresh button, Charts, News and others. I wish they add more feature like after-market quotes, more skins, etc.,
7. Traffic by Live Search Maps (LINK): The name says it all. I use it everyday. Also it’s fun to watch how the traffic alerts changes through the day. Of course, I can always check the same thing using Live Search (maps) program on my HTC Mobile. Unfortunately it’s only for USA for now.
8. CT Control (LINK): This is one hell of a gadget. This displays date and time, Day, Countdown, Day of the year, Week of the Year, Quarter of the year, Alarm, Customizable count down, Timer, System control…Whoa! All this…in a tiny gadget.
9. Daily Political Cartoons from MSNBC (LINK): I read the political cartoons time to time. Its fun and time passing.
10. Daily Dilbert (LINK): This gadget displays the Daily Dilbert cartoon from the fly-out window from the Gadget. So, you don’t have to open the IE to read your cartoon. Of course, you can subscribe via RSS on your Outlook or IE or other RSS reader. But this is fun. I wish they add print or save button.
I will update this blog if I find any cool useful gadgets later.
This is not a Vista only tip, but applies to all versions of Windows.
I am not against the Ads in web sites. It’s the main source of earning money for most web sites. But I hate to death for the flashing and annoying repeated ads. There is an easy way to block those annoying ads in web pages. You simply block the domain names via local Hosts file.
I have explained it step by step for Vista OS. For all other OS, Please check this web site: http://www.everythingisnt.com/hosts.html
These following steps will open the Hosts file as Administrator and place the contents from pre-tested list from http://www.everythingisnt.com/hosts.html.
1. Click Start (Orb) button and type Notepad. When Notepad is listed in Start window, Right click on the Notepad icon and select “Run as Administrator”
2. Click Continue on User Account Control dialog window.
3. On Notepad, Click File –> Open. Browse to this location: c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc. Open Hosts file. (Tip: you need to select all files instead of *.txt from the drop-down box)
4. Visit this location in your browser: http://everythingisnt.com/hosts. Copy all the contents (Control –A and Control-C).
5. Go back to the Notepad (Hosts file), Paste the contents (Control-V) after the following lines,
127.0.0.1 localhost
::1 localhost
6. Save (File –> Save) and close the Notepad.
7. You may get a warning message from “Windows Defender” about modification of Hosts file. Click Ignore.
8. Reboot your Vista machine. If you don’t want to reboot, follow the steps below to enable the new Host file settings,
a. Open Command Prompt (Start à Cmd)
b. Type “IPConfig /FlushDNS”
c. Close the Command Prompt by typing “Exit”
9. You are DONE. Test it by visiting a site has annoying ads.
You may need to add the missing “Ad” server domain names later if you anything later. You may repeat the steps above to get the new current host file time to time. If you are very saavy guy, you can add new ad servers as you find in your browser(by right-click on the Ad, select properties and get the domain name from the URL).
1. Open Folder Options by click the Start (Orb) Button –> type "Folder Options" –> Press Enter
2. Open the View tab and scroll down to the end in Advanced Settings:
3. Check the box Use check boxes to select items
4. Click OK to close the dialog box and You are done.
To use this feature, Open your documents folders and try selecting files and folder. You will see an checkbox appears when you move the mouse over the files and folder items.
Tips and Tricks: Windows Eco System 