Run Commands in the Windows Explorer Address Bar

Stupid Geek Tricks: Run Commands in the Windows Explorer Address Bar

Here’s a fun little tip for you: did you know that you can run commands from the address bar in Windows Explorer? It’s true — any app that you could run on the command line can be run from the address bar, including opening a new command prompt.

For instance, if you were to type cmd into the address bar, you would end up opening a command prompt with the current path already set to whatever the current folder is. Useful.

You can also run other commands, like opening a file in the current folder with Notepad. Imagine that you have a file on your desktop called test.txt and you want to open it. From the Desktop folder in Explorer, type notepad test.txt into the address bar, and hit the enter key.

Just like that, Notepad will open the file. Easy!

You could also use other commands directly from the address bar — for instance, if you wanted to see a directory listing of the current directory in the command prompt, you could use cmd /k dir in the address bar. Obviously that would be silly, but you can do it.

Via[HowToGeek]

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How to Encrypt and Password Protect Your USB Drives Without Extra Software

BitLocker is a lesser-known technology included in Windows that allows you to both password protect and encrypt the contents of your storage mediums.

Note: BitLocker requires Windows 8 Pro.

Turning On BitLocker for a Removable Drive

Open explorer and right click on your removable drive to open the context menu, then click on Turn on BitLocker.

When the wizard starts up you will need to check the “Use a password to unlock the drive” checkbox.

Then go ahead and type in a password and click next.

Now you will need to choose where you want to save the recovery key incase you forget the password for your drive. Usually you would only be able to either print it or save it to a file, however starting with Windows 8 you can also back it up to your Microsoft account, which I chose to do.

You then have to choose whether your drive is already in use or if it is new. Then click next.

Finally, you can click the Start encrypting button.

Unlocking the Drive

When you plug in the encrypted drive you will get a notification saying that it is BitLocker-protected.  Click on it.

You will then be asked for the password. Once you have typed it in, click on the Unlock button.

That’s all there is to it.

Via[HowToGeek]

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How to Get Microsoft Word’s Auto-Complete and Spelling Correction Features Across All Windows Apps

Do you sometimes wish that you could use Microsoft Word’s more useful features, such as auto-complete, automatic spelling correction, and Autotext, in other programs in Windows? PhraseExpress is a free program that allows you to do just that.

PhraseExpress allows you to organize text snippets into customizable categories for quick access and to use shortened phrases to insert these full text snippets. If you type the same phrases over and over, this reduces typing time and minimizes spelling mistakes. PhraseExpress will also start to learn what you type and offer to auto-complete frequently used phrases.

More than 8,200 common spelling corrections in six languages can be freely downloaded and automatically correct misspellings as you type. PhraseExpress can also learn from your own spelling mistakes.

To install PhraseExpress, double-click the .exe file you downloaded (see the link at the end of this article), if you downloaded the file using the CNet link. If you downloaded PhraseExpress using the alternative download link, extract the .zip file first and then run the .exe file.

Follow the instructions in the Setup Wizard. When the Select Additional Tasks screen displays, make sure there is NO check mark in the Do you want to use PhraseExpress in a network check box. If this is selected, you will be installing the trial version, rather than the version that is free for personal use.

Once you have installed PhraseExpress and run it, an icon is added to the system tray and the following balloon hint displays. Click on the balloon to open the main PhraseExpress window.

You can also right-click on the PhraseExpress system tray icon and select Edit phrases from the popup menu to access the main window.

NOTE: Before using PhraseExpress, you need to enable it. To do this, left-click on the system tray icon and select Direct access to settings and then select Enable PhraseExpress.

To add a custom phrase to the list, click New Phrase. On the right side of the window, enter a description for the phrase in the Description edit box. As an example, we added the phrase How-To Geek, so we entered “HTG” as our description.

In the Phrase content box, enter the full text you want inserted when you type a shortened phrase in any Windows program.

If you want to be able to insert the text using a hotkey, select the desired keys in the Hotkey section.

To enter a full phrase using an abbreviation, enter text in the Autotext edit box, and select an option indicating when to execute the command. For example, when we enter “htg” in any Windows program and press Space, Enter, or any punctuation mark (default delimiters), “How-To Geek” will replace “htg”.

You can also restrict PhraseExpress to work only in a specific program by checking the Execute only in specific program and selecting a program from the dialog box that displays.

When you have finished entering your custom phrase, it’s displayed in the list on the left with the hotkey, if one was applied.

When you want to quickly type a phrase you defined in PhraseExpress, enter the Autotext or press the hotkey you defined for the phrase.

A balloon hint displays on the system tray icon telling you how to finalize the replacement of the phrase.

When we typed a space after “htg”, the phrase “How-To Geek” was inserted into the program.

You can organize your custom phrases into folders. To do this, click New Folder.

Enter a name for the folder in the Description edit box on the right side of the screen.

To move a custom phrase into the new folder, drag and drop the phrase in the list on the left to the new folder.

The phrase is moved to the new folder.

PhraseExpress comes with a list of AutoCorrect words and phrases that will be automatically corrected when the specified incorrect word or phrase is typed. For example, if you type “abondon”, PhraseExpress will correct it to “abandon”.

You can add your own words and phrases to the AutoCorrect list by clicking New Phrase while the AutoCorrect_English list is selected. Enter a description for the word or phrase in the Description edit box and enter the correct spelling of that word in the Phrase content box. Enter possible misspellings in the Autotext edit box, each separated by a vertical bar.

PhraseExpress can also be run as a portable program. To do this, download the portable version from the webpage using the link at the end of this article. Extract the files and create a new shortcut to the phraseexpress.exe file. If you’re going to run PhraseExpress from a USB flash drive, you can save the shortcut in the same directory as the program, allowing you to copy the program folder to any drive and run it without installing it.

Right-click on the shortcut and select Properties from the popup menu.

Add a space and “-portable” to the end of the Target command, after phraseexpress.exe, and click OK.

When you run PhraseExpress using the new shortcut, the following warning displays, reminding you to exit PhraseExpress before you remove the USB flash drive.

Via[HowToGeek]

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Microsoft launches Internet Explorer 10 browser

Microsoft released Internet Explorer 10 to millions of new users, hoping the latest version of its market-leading browser will win back customers who have migrated to Google's Chrome and help it establish a toe-hold in the fast-growing mobile browser market. 

The world's largest software maker, whose Internet Explorer browser elbowed out Netscape Navigator in the early days of the web, said IE 10 is 20 percent faster at downloading sites than its predecessor IE 9 and allows for touch-screen commands. 

The browser has been available since late October for users of Windows 8, Microsoft's new touch-friendly operating system, but now becomes available for the 700 million or so users of Windows 7. 

Microsoft is hoping PC and laptop users will like the new browser enough to consider buying Windows 8 tablets rather than Apple Inc's iPad, which does not run Internet Explorer. 

Various versions of Microsoft's venerable Internet Explorer franchise still dominate desktop browsing, with 55 per cent of the PC browser market all together. But it has in recent years lost share to Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome, which now account for 20 per cent and 17 per cent respectively, according to tech research firm NetMarketShare. 

IE 10 running on Windows 8 has got generally good reviews, and has been hailed as the best version of Internet Explorer yet, but it has not been considered decisively superior to Chrome or Firefox. 

In the smaller but faster-growing mobile browser market, Apple's Safari is the runaway leader with 61 per cent, owing to the popularity of its iPhones and iPads while Google's Android browser has 21 per cent. 

Tablets running Windows 8, including Microsoft's own Surface devices, have not sold strongly since they were launched last October, restricting IE 10's popularity so far. Only 2.3 per cent of computer users are running Windows 8, according to NetMarketShare. 

Via[Techgig]

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How to Automatically Shut Down or Restart Your PC (or Do it Remotely From Your Phone)

How to Automatically Shut Down or Restart Your PC (or Do it Remotely From Your Phone)

So, you want to head to bed… time to power down the PC and call it a night. But wait… that download hasn’t finished yet. You could stay up and wait for it to finish, but then you will miss out on sleep. You could leave it running, but that’s a waste of electricity. Or you could do is turn to Shutter, which gives you a couple of alternative options.
This is a free tool that may not look like anything special, but it has a few tricks up its sleeve that make it well worth checking out. Used at its most basic Shutter could be configured to automatically shut down your computer in an hour’s time, or however long you think it’s going to take for your download to complete.
This in itself is useful, but there’s much more the app. Grab yourself a copy from the website and get it installed.

Launch the app and prepare to be distinctly underwhelmed by its appearance – but looks can be, and in fact are, deceptive.

Click the Event drop down menu and you will find that there are a number of triggers for you to choose from. These include a simple countdown timer or an alarm-style time trigger, but there are also more interesting options such as low battery and the closing of a window or the termination of a particular process.

Depending on what you choose from this first menu, you will then have to configure additional settings. If you have opted for a timer, this involves little more than specifying how long the timer should run, but you may also choose which windows Shutter should monitor, the battery level to watch out for, or the processor activity level that should act as the trigger.
The Action menu is where you can select what should happen when your chosen trigger occurs. We are interested in using the Shutdown option for now, but restarting, hibernating, sleeping, sound muting and more are also available.

Hit the Start button and you can walk away from your machine safe in the knowledge that the shutdown or other action will happen in your absence. If you have opted for an alarm or sound muting/unmuting instead, you can use the Now button to have a dry run and ensure that it is going to work as expected.
You might well be wondering why you would want to take the time to configure Shutter to do something that could be achieved by setting up Windows’ task scheduler instead. Shutter is far more flexible than Windows’ scheduling tool in terms of the different events that can be used as triggers, and it is also able to trigger a wider range of events. But it does not end there.
We recently looked at how you can re-enable the hibernation feature in Windows 8, but if you right click the Shutter icon in the notification area of the taskbar it’s possible to access the various power down states from the Now sub-menu.

But arguably the most useful element of Shutter is its remote access option. Click the Options button in the main program window, or select this from the system tray menu. While you are here, you might want to select the autorun option so that the program starts with Windows.
This is important if you want to ensure that your computer always shuts down on a schedule or you want to have the remote access option available at all times.

Moving to the Web Interface tab, you can turn on a very useful option.  Tick the Enable box, select your computer’s IP address from the Listen IP menu and then choose the port you’d like to use.
You are required to secure your remote session, so enter a username and password before clicking Save.

Assuming you have a firewall in place, you will need to grant Shutter permission to make use of your network before you can continue with this feature of the program.

Returning to our scenario in which a lengthy download is getting in the way of going to bed, the remote access option is particularly useful. You could head off to bed with your laptop, watch a movie or catch up on emails beneath the sheets and log into your other machine via Shutter.
Fire up your web browser, enter the IP address of your computer into the address bar followed by a colon and then the port number you have specified – e.g. 192.168.1.67:802.

At first it may seem as though you have just been presented with a list of shut down options, and it’s certainly true that you can jump right in and remotely sleep your PC if you want. However, you may first want to check just what’s happening on the machine.

You can click the ‘Information on Computer’ link to view details of processes that are running – which may help you to determine whether a particular task has safely completed – but the ‘Screenshot of a Desktop’ link gives you a quick snapshot so you can see exactly what’s going on before you decide what to do.
And because this is all web-based, you can even use your phone to control your PC from bed.

This is a wonderfully useful little utility that can also be controlled from the command line, which opens up additional possibilities.

Via[HowToGeek]

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What’s the Difference Between Office 365 and Office 2013?

What’s the Difference Between Office 365 and Office 2013?

After the hubbub surrounding the release of Windows 8 had died down, Microsoft had another software staple to unleash – the latest version of Office. But this time things are a little different from previous years. There’s not only the choice between Home and Professional to make, but also the Office 365 and Office 2013 variants; but what is the difference?

Put simply, the difference between the two different versions of the office suite is that one is owned outright while the other is rented. This is the arrival of software as a service that Microsoft has been building up to for so many years.

Office 2013

While there are many similarities between the 2013 and 365 strands of the Office family, it is Office 2013 that should be regarded as the natural successor to Office 2010. This is software in the traditional sense. You buy it for a one-time fee, install it, own it; it’s yours.

As with most software, you are entitled to install Office 2013 on one computer (unless you buy more than one copy, that is) and as has been the case in the past, there are several versions available which include different Office programs.

Clearly anticipating confusion – and it’s hardly surprising really – the Office web site includes not only a breakdown of what each of the different editions of Office 2013 includes, but also aFAQ which explains, among other things, the difference between 365 and 2013.

There is the usual raft of suite versions to choose from starting with Office Home and Student 2013. For $139.99 this includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, but if you also want to be able to use Outlook you must look to Office Home & Business 2013 for $219.99.

Top of the range is Office Professional 2013 which, for $399.99, also includes Publisher and Access. Suite components can also be bought as individual apps for $109.99, which the exception of OneNote which costs $69.99.

What’s New?

Office is a piece of software that is often criticized for the small number of changes between versions. As is to be expected, the suite boasts the Modern look of Windows 8 and features touch screen support. But there are other new options as well.

There is a strong focus on online work, with all areas of Office including collaboration, sharing or cloud options – files can be saved directly to SkyDrive, for instance. Many of the changes are quite cosmetic, with Word gaining a new reading mode and Outlook benefiting from a much cleaner look that ever before. Social networking integration is also included, as one might expect.

Excel users can take advantage of improved pivot tables as well as suggestions for charts that are best suited to different types of data. There are also time-saving touches such as Flash Fill which aims to speed up data entry by noticing lists and patterns in the data you enter and autofilling for you.

Office 365

In many respects, the big news for Office is Office 365 – this is where the big changes are to be found. Rather than buying software to keep, here you pay a monthly or annual subscription; essentially renting the software.

But this is far from being the only difference. While Office 2013 can only be installed on one computer, Office 365 can be used on up to five PCs (and Macs) for one price. There are other versions available for businesses - Office 365 Small Business Premium, Office 365 Enterprise and Office 365 ProPlus.

If you like this approach to software, Office 365 can be yours for $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year. Whether you are working with one PC or five, you pay the same price, so this is great option for households with several computers.

There’s a strong online focus with Office 365 and a subscription also includes 20GB of SkyDrive storage and, perhaps unsurprisingly following Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype, 60 minutes of Skype calls per month.

Try Before You Buy

Anyone who was interested in the regular desktop version of Office had the opportunity to try out the Office 2013 Consumer Preview, but this is no longer available. However, it is possible to try out Office 365 completely free of charge for a month so you can see how like it. While the idea of online software is nothing particularly new, moving to an online version of Office is something of major transition that you might want to test drive before committing to.

Despite the fact the trial is free, you have to provide payment details just in case you decide to keep using it – pop a reminder in the calendar to avoid getting charged if you are just trying it out for the curiosity’s sake.

Benefits and Drawbacks

If there is one thing to be said in favor of Office 365 it is that it has the potential to save you a great deal of money. Were you to buy the cheapest version of Office 2013 for two computers, it would cost you $278.98 – almost three times the price of opting for Office 365.

The added extras such as the SkyDrive integration are nice touches and are likely to prove enticing for businesses who might use it for collaborative purposes.

While we can expect to see updates released for Office 2013, new features and updates are going to be released for Office 365 more frequently, and many are likely to be exclusives.

For those occasions when you find that you are working on a computer other than one of the five you have installed Office 365 on, you can make use of Office on Demand. This feature is a nice touch which amounts to being a temporary Office installation that can be used anywhere.

If you are working in an internet café and want to make use of your purchased software you can do so by streaming it to the computer you are using. Streaming in this way can be a little slow – much like the installation of Office 365 on the whole.

It’s interesting to note that it is not possible to opt to subscribe to a single application. You might only be interested in Word, but you can’t rent this on its own. This means that some users may feel as though they are paying more than necessary for software they are not using fully.

But whichever route you decide to go, if you make the jump to one of the latest incarnations of Office, you will have the new UI to work with, complete with inexplicably capitalized menu options.

Via[HotToGeek]

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