Remove tools pane in Adobe Reader and set default zoom level to 100%

Almost every PC user will be using Adobe reader to view PDF files. But in latest version of reader, I'm annoyed by the tools pane which comes up to the right side of the document, which I think many do not use.

To remove this annoying tools pane, here are steps.

1. Go to Edit Menu and then Preferences
2. select Documents category on the left
3. uncheck against the following item - "Open tools pane for each document"
4. Exit pdf reader using File Menu and then Exit

Try to open any pdf document and tools pane will not be shown now.

Another settings change which will be useful is to set the default zoom level to 100%. Here are the steps:

1. Go to Edit Menu and then Preferences
2. select Page Display category on the left
3. Under Default Layout and Zoom, select Zoom level to 100%
4. Press OK button

This settings change should open the pdf document default zoom level at 100%

hope this will be helpful for you in enjoying reading your PDF files.

How to turn off the PC screen without sleeping, hibernating or shutting down

Hi all, many times we move away from our PC/laptop to get a cup of coffee, water etc..In doing so, we lock the laptop, but still the screen will be on which can consume power.

To save power in such short intervals, we have a utility. Using this utility every time you move away from your laptop can save lot of power. Think how much power we can save if everyone does the same.

here it is...

1. First we need to download a utility called NirCmd from http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html

2. Extract the zip file which is downloaded

3. right click on the file nircmd.exe and select create shortcut

4. move this shortcut on to your desktop

5. right click the shortcut and select properties

6. In target text box, append the following text -  cmdwait 1000 monitor off
it should look like
"C:\location_of_nircmd_folder\nircmd.exe" cmdwait 1000 monitor off

7. Also in the same properties window, for shortcut key, you can select 'Ctrl+Alt+P' - I'm assuming that you have not set this shortcut pattern for any other utility, in that case, please use some other pattern.

8. Click OK

Now you are just few clicks away to start saving power. just select your short cut key pattern to switch off the screen "Ctrl+Alt+P".

To wake the screen up, just move your mouse, or tap on the touchpad, or click any key on keyboard.

So start SAVING POWER by turning off the screen whenever you move away from your PC/Laptop.
And Save Earth for our future generations....

P.S:
In fact, NirCmd utility can be used for many other purposes that can create shortcuts for shutting down PC, starting your tomcat server, opening your CD drive, changing display modes etc.. Please check this link for more info: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html

switching between windows in VNC viewer and also in host OS Windows

Hi all, I use VNC Viewer for my office work. I would like to switch between windows in my VNC viewer and also between windows in host OS Windows using short cut keys. Through default settings, this isn't possible. So here is the solution for this problem.

1. short cut key for switching windows in both VNC viewer OS and in host Windows OS is same i.e. Alt+Tab
2. To allow switching windows in VNC Viewer, we need to allow it to send special keys directly to VNC Server in its settings [go to settings, select input tab]
3. Because we allowed VNC Viewer to send special keys to its VNC Server, we will not be able to switch between windows in host OS Windows.
4. In this case, we should disable 'send special keys directly to VNC Server' in VNC Viewer settings.
5. But we need to edit the keyboard shortcut key setting for switching windows in VNC Viewer OS [Go to Preferences->Keyboard shortcuts->change shortcut for windows switching e.g. ctrl+tab]
6. the shortcut selected in step 5 should not be a shortcut for some other action in host OS
7. this will allow us to switch windows in host OS using alt+tab, and also to switch windows in VNC Viewer OS using ctrl+tab

hope this is helpful for you.

How to fix the error 'Firefox is already running, but is not responding' error in Linux machines?

I was trying to open Firefox browser in my Linux box and faced this issue:
"Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system"

To fix this issue, I tried looking for Firefox process and kill it, but couldn't find the process id.
>ps -ef | grep -i Firefox

finally, I found the following solution:
when we start an instance of Firefox, a lock will be created in the Firefox profile directory to prevent multiple instances of firefox. This situation can arise when system is shutdown abruptly when firefox is running or some other issue with in Firefox. 

If we clear these locks, we can start Firefox without issues:
>cd ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxx.default
>rm  lock .parentlock

in first command, replace xxxx with the actual folder name in your system.

Now try to open Firefox again.
>firefox &

Hope this helped in resolving your issue.

How to find RAM size and RAM type in Windows

Hello all, I was trying to increase RAM memory in my laptop and was not aware of what RAM type my laptop supports. So I took help from Google Search and here is my finding....

steps:
1. go to command console in Windows by pressing windows logo + R, type 'cmd' and then press enter

2. copy paste this command on console and press enter
wmic MemoryChip get BankLabel, Capacity, MemoryType, TypeDetail, Speed

3. this returned following on my laptop
BankLabel  Capacity    MemoryType  Speed  TypeDetail
Bank 0     2147483648   24                   20307    4

so my RAM capacity is 2 GB [2147483648/1024*1024 = 2048 i.e. 2 GB]
Memory Type is given as 24 which represents DDR3

here is the reference:
DDR (20)
DDR2 (21)
DDR2 (21)
DDR2 FB-DIMM (22)
DDR3 (24)

I hope this will be useful to you if you too are looking for similar information...

courtesy:
http://superuser.com/questions/606318/how-to-find-the-ram-type-in-command-prompt
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa394347(v=vs.85).aspx

Password protect your Google Chrome

Google Chrome is the best browser around, that doesn't mean that Firefox is behind. Just that Chrome is ahead is usability and features wise, and Firefox is catching on. In fact, I have donated dollars for Mozilla earlier for their wonderful work on browser technology and for introducing browser wars!!

I use chrome in my office, mobile and home laptop [in office, I use Firefox most of the times, being a developer!]. Whichever device I use, all my bookmarks, history and settings follow me.

But this can have privacy issues. Of course we have profiles feature in Chrome, but they are open for everyone to select any profile.

Here I discuss about the profile lock in Google chrome. Earlier when we enabled the 'enable-new-profile-management' feature in chrome://flags, locking the profile was enabled by default. But now it is disabled. We need to add a new person and select that user as 'supervised user', so that lock feature will be back.

steps:

1. Sign in chrome browser with your gmail id and password.

2. Go to chrome://flags and enable the following feature "enable-new-profile-management", restart chrome

2. Go to settings "chrome://settings/" and under People, click add person button

3. give a name to that person and select the checkbox for 'control and view the websites this person visits from 'yourprofile_gmailid'

4. exit the chrome and come back, this will ask the password for your main profile

Now your profile is secured.

courtesy:

http://www.techverse.net/lock-your-google-chrome-profile-with-a-password/

What is the Default Font on Windows Notepad editor

I changed my Windows Notepad editor font to Verdana, and used the same for sometime now. Now I changed my mind to go back to default font. But there is no utility provided in Notepad to reset the properties of Notepad.

So here is the info:
Originally, in Windows 95, “Fixedsys” was the only available display font for Notepad. In Windows 2000, the default font was changed to “Lucida Console”. In Windows 8, the default font was changed to “Consolas”.

Latest Notepad uses 'Consolas' font with size as 11.

Hope you got your required info by coming to this post.
Courtesy:
https://www.petri.com/how-to-restore-default-windows-notepad-settings

Custom Scaning Using Windows Defender

This is my learning from Google Search today......

I downloaded a utility to check how much extra RAM my laptop supports and immediately saw drop in my internet speed. I suspected that this utility might have done something wrong. I tried to scan this file, but I had no idea on how to do it.....So I went to my friend.....Google Search! and found this....

steps:
1. Click windows logo button and type 'Defender', and then select 'Windows Defender' from the options shown
2. Once the Windows Defender tool is opened, click Home Tab
3. Select Custom options on the right side and click Scan
4. This will open a window to select a folder or file to scan it. Select the folder or file which you to scan
Done!

I also got to learn some utilities on how to scan files easily

Utility 1: drop the file onto this utility to scan
steps:
1. Click windows logo button and type 'notepad', and select notepad editor
2. copy paste the following into Notepad
@ECHO OFF
"C:\Program Files\Windows Defender\MpCmdRun.exe" -Scan -ScanType 3 -File %1
PAUSE
3. Save this file with your preferred name e.g. 'DefenderScan.cmd', but with an extension of '.cmd'. Also select 'All Files' in Save as type option, else it will be saved as text file
Done!

Now you can drop any file you want to scan onto this utility which will start scanning that file

Utility 2: Right Click the file and send to Defender to Scan!
steps:
1. Create the utility from the above steps
2. Open Windows Explorer with shortcut 'windows button + E'
3. Click View menu on top [if it is not visible, use shortcut 'Ctrl+F1']
4. Select 'Hidden Items' checkbox to show hidden files
5. Go to this location 'C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo'
6. Copy the utility file created before and paste in this folder
Done!
Right click the file you want to scan and select 'Send to->Defender Scan'

Hope you got something to learn new from this post.
Courtesy link:
https://www.winhelp.us/windows-defender-on-demand-scan-in-windows-8.html