4 Random Tips to Get More Done with Your PC
I've had several challenges in the final couple weeks, some of which required some artistic solutions. Since some of yous might find yourself facing the same challenges at some point, I thought I'd share this motley collection of tips with you.
Jott to Evernote
If you read Joel'south postal service, 7 Ways to Use Evernote concluding month, you lot already know how useful the new version of Evernote can be. Although it'southward still in airtight beta (email me if y'all need an invite; 1st 12 people only! All gone!), Evernote is well on its style to go the premiere notation-taking and spider web-clipping app, synchronizing across your calculator, your mobile devices, and the Web.
But what if yous want to add a note when you tin't login and blazon something up? Peradventure you're dribing, you don't have web admission on your phone, or the thought of keying in a notation on your telephone'southward x-key keypad fills you with dread.
Turns out, you tin can Jott it.
Jott is a messaging service with voice recognition – you lot all the Jott number from your mobile telephone, exit a message, and Jott transcribes it to text and forwards it to your desired recipient. I've written before about the many ways yous can use Jott, merely at the time I had some problem using it's Jott-to-email functions to interface with other services.
Well, I tried once again last dark, and it worked. Hither'southward what yous practise:
- Login to Evernote's website, click "Settings", and copy your Evernote email accost.
- Login to Jott and click "Add Contacts" on the correct-hand side.
- In the "Quick Add" screen, put "Evernote" as the Get-go Name (or whatever you'll want to call your Evernote account – try "Spanky the Elephant" if yous feel like it) and paste your Evernote electronic mail address under the "E-mail" cavalcade.
- Click "Add".
Easy. When you lot phone call Jott, it will ask "Who do yous want to Jott", yous'll say "Evernote", recite your message, and information technology will testify up in Evernote a few minutes later.
But wait! Jott to Google Docs, likewise!
Equally long as yous're adding contacts in Jott, you might want to add together your Google Docs email address as well. Perhaps you don't like Evernote or tend to work a lot out of Google Docs. Or mayhap you experience like sending an idea for a project y'all already have in Google Docs.
Go your Google Docs email address by logging into Google Docs and clicking "Import". Curl downwards and you lot'll meet a monster email address in big, bold letters. Again, cut and paste it equally a contact in Jott, add a name you'll think and Jott is liikely to recognize easily, and y'all're good. Now you tin transport ideas straight into your word processor, wherever you have cellphone service.
Export Sound from PowerPoint
Who doesn't dearest PowerPoint?
OK, OK, put your hands down. Anyway, PowerPoint (PPT) has a groovy characteristic where you can record a narration while you click through the slides, and you can save the timings so that PPT will advance from slide to slide automatically.
Unfortunately, PPT'southward narration is saved in WAV format – uncompressed audio. The 30-minute presentation I recorded recently was 110 MB! If you've always tried to send a 110 MB file to someone, you already see the trouble. Can't be done – and while there are some good services like drop.io for sending big files, information technology'southward nevertheless a bit of a hurting.
I didn't desire to e-mail it to anyone, I wanted to upload information technology to SlideRocket (notwithstanding in beta; no invites) and then I could embed it into a web page.
And then what I needed to exercise was extract the audio, shrink it to MP3, upload it and the new MP3s, and re-embed the audio from within SlideRocket.
Turns out, getting the audio out was a slice of cake. All you lot have to do is "Save As" HTML. The slides will be worthless later you lot exercise this (unless they're really bones) merely you'll get a folder of support files, including your narration broken into an private WAV file for each slide.
I used RazorLame, a gratis front-terminate to the every bit free LAME mp3 encoder, to convert the files to MP3s at 32 kbps – skillful enough for voice narration – which reduced the overall size to merely under 11 MB.
If I had been planning to email the presentation to someone, I could have simply replaced the existing audio on each slide with the new MP3. Instead, I uploaded everything to SlideRocket and did that on the site. Published to the Web, cutting and paste my embed link, and my presentation was successfully embedded in a web page.
Spellcheck and Word Count Everywhere
Finally, here's a dandy fiddling awarding I discovered recently that's proven to be a big help. Enso Words provides system-wide spellcheck and give-and-take count for Windows XP and Vista systems. The program runs in the background and is called up with a elementary keystroke combo to spellcheck or count the words in whatever text yous have selected on the screen, in any program.
By default, Enso Words takes over your Caps Lock key; Caps Lock+s volition bring up the spellchecker, Caps Lock+w will bring up a word count. On some systems, mine included, Enso doesn't interact well with the keyboard driver and the Caps Lock office will be activated and can't be turned off. If this happens to you, just change the default to another primal — I use the left-hand Windows fundamental instead of Caps Lock, and that works fine.
I use Enso Words several times a day, since I use a wide variety of programs to compile blog posts, academic work, ad re-create, and other material, and I'd rather take a single interface for all of them. Enso Words is the little sibling of Enso Launcher, a system-wide app launcher that uses the same Caps Lock+shortcut approach to launch files, programs, and webpages. The ii programs work well side-by-side; I discover that I don't apply Launcher's features much, and so I simply have Enso Words installed.
Got a Random Tip?
Have you found a handy application or useful way to do something recently? Tell me and the other readers about information technology in the comments!
Source: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/4-random-tips-to-get-more-done-with-your-pc.html
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