Cool tools Posts

Are you a technical writer in your organization? 

If you’re one then you must be looking for a good tool to assist in generating help files.

With a good HTML Help (.chm) generator, gone were the days when technical writers need to write technical documentations in Microsoft Word or even Wordpad, then send it to a HTML programmer for conversion purposes.

A good HTML Help generator should have the capabilities of Microsoft Word and at the same time be able to easily export the technical content to various supported formats such as pdf, html or chm

One such software is HelpSmith Continue Reading »
Create Microsoft HTML Help (.chm) with HelpSmith

After nearly a month of research, I finally found a solution to a colleage’s IT problem as discussed in this post - How to backup outlook and run it from a USB

With this solution, yes, you can run outlook directly from your external drive. Firstly let me define what external drives could be:

• External hard disk
• Ipod
• USB drive
• Basically any device which allows you to store digital content

The possible applications that you can run on the external drive:

• Games
• Microsoft Outlook
• Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint)
• Adobe Apps (Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat)
• You favorite browser with all setttings saved including your favourite bookmarks
• Basically any applications which you can installed on your machine can be installed in the external drive.

With this solution, the following scenarios are possible:

• Your Ipod can act as a PC as well. Just install all your applications in it and plug it on any machine for the applications to work.
• Do a software demo without showing it from your laptop. Just install the software in the external drive, plug it into the client’s machine and present from there.
• Backup files together with the application required the run the files. During urgent times, having access to the file itself is useless without the application to run it. With this solution you can be assured of accessing not just the file, but the information contained in it as well.

So to cut the long story… what is the solution? Continue Reading »
How to run any applications on an external drive

Great news! Google has just released another killer application that could rock the way you surf the Web.

Introducing Google Chrome for Window

Google Chrome is a browser that is built from ground up with open source application framework - Webkit, combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.

Some interesting facts about Google Chrome:

• The default page is no longer a blank page but rather a page featuring the four most used search engines and the user’s nine most visited Web page. Looks like some sort of integrated artificial intelligence is in place.
• Security features are a bundle as Chrome continously contact Google to update a list of known malware sites to warn the user. You can really be assured of a safe browsing experience with Chrome.
• Has its own JavaScript engine, V8, to power web applications with multi-threaded efficiency.
• A tab is actually a browser by itself.  So yes, each tab has it’s own URL space.
• To overcome common crashing problems, the browser tabs get their own process rather than tabs sharing processes which frees up memory and reduce memory fragmentation.
• Supports browser extensions allowing it to make hybrid apps similar to Adobe AIR
• Has an Opera-like dashboard start page and auto-completion.

Looks like Google Chrome is not just another simple web browser. If it does take off well, many people will opt for Google Chrome as their preferred browser. Continue Reading »
A new browser alternative to Internet Explorer and Firefox

Why in the world would I want to do that?

Well I’m sure that office workers in general do only 2 things at work.

1. They are either working OR

2. They are “not working”

Let me explain my definition of “not working”. Not working means doing things which does not directly contribute to the company’s profitability.  Some examples include:

• Facebooking
• Blogging at work
• Reading blog sites
• Chatting with friends via instant messengers
• Downloading porn, pirated software, mp3, videos, movies

For many office workers, working while doing some of the above have become a norm and considers it to be a sort of work life balance. First thing in the morning, that instant messenger is turned on just to be connected to friends at all times.

Are you worried to be seen doing any of the above during work hours? If you are, then there’s a neat tool for you to hide and switch your desktop at times of trouble -> (eg. your boss suddenly walks in and you get busted).

Continue Reading »
How to quickly switch and hide your desktop from your boss