Being Smarter

There are so many combinations and permutations of how files have been deleted and then how to retrieve them, I couldn’t possibly cover them all here, however I did want to make one quick recommendation, which has worked for me before now.

I’m going to make the assumption that your files aren’t sitting in the Recycle bin(!).

Your best bet is a to use one of two excellent free tools (remember Being Smarter’s ethos – we don’t like paying for stuff!) such as UndeleteMyFiles or Recuva.

Both pieces of software are really easy to use and let you locate and restore most deleted files, providing the data hasn’t been overwritten by new data on your harddrive, which could have happened if it was really full. Chances are it will be lurking behind the scenes, still on the disk, but out of sight from Windows.

It’s sometimes frustrating that certain content such as sporting events or music sites are blocked to particular countries. It is possible to mask your IP address, so that it appears to the web server you are coming from a legitimate country. Pandora is a good example of a site recently blocked to the UK.

There are two ‘spoofing’ tools I would recommend – all free if you use them lightly.

The Cloak

Anonymouse

This problem relates to the insert key on your keyboard. It can come in handy when you really do what to overtype something, however nine times out of ten, you knock it by mistake and it serves no real purpose over than to annoy you and waste time.

You can disable the insert key when you are using Word 2003 or Word 2000. Richt click a blank area of the main Word toolbar and select “customise”. Then click the “commands” tab. Click the “keyboard” button and choose “All commands” in the “Categories” box on the left. In the “Commands” box, scroll down to “Overtype” and select this command. You’ll see “Insert” listed as the “Current key”. Click this and then click the “Remove” button.

Job done – no more annoying ‘insert by accident’ moments.

This is a cool app for Windows XP (I suspect it will work on Vista, but I’ve not tested it.)

The applet is called MiniMIZE and it does one thing only – when you minimise a window, it will be turned into a thumbnail and displayed on your desktop, as opposed to languishing on the taskbar, keeping the taskbar clutter-free.

It looks like this:

… and can be downloaded here.

For those of you who are interested in experimenting in the Business PowerPoint world – this is very cool. A new ‘add-in’ from the little known folks at the Microsoft Office labs (who actually do really good stuff but don’t shout about it).

‘pptPlex’ is a research prototype as an exploration of an alternative method of presenting Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 slides. This plug-in allows you to arrange slides on a canvas then zoom between the slides during the presentation. You can move around the canvas and show groups of slides, individual slides, or even zoom in to show a particular section of a slide.

It was originally demonstrated by Bill Gates at the MS CEO Summit 2008.

The best way to see what it is all about is to watch the video. It’s a short 1?12? video (I just wish the presenter didn’t have a cold!)

If you like what you see, click here to download, install and play!