The guys at Evernote were kind enough to offer five premium licenses worth $5 each for our readers. We’re giving them away. Here’s what you have to do to make yourself eligible for the giveaway:

1. First, like our page on Facebook by clicking on the ‘Like’ button below. If you can’t see the ‘Like’ box here, click here to go to our fan page and then ‘Like’ the page.

2. Either tweet this article or like it on Facebook by using the buttons below.

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3. Leave a comment below with a valid email address and tell us why you’d like to win an Evernote premium account.

Please make sure that you leave a comment, just doing #1 and #2 doesn’t get your entry registered.

We’ll pick five winners randomly and make an announcement in a week. If you’d like to keep an eye on the results, make sure you subscribe to the RSS feed or get updates via email.

Post from: Killer Tech Tips

Giveaway: Win 5 Evernote Premium Accounts

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Thanks to Windows X Live, this application is available as a free download here.

Installation of Windows 8 Transformation Pack:

I was very much surprised to see that the size of the Windows 8 Transformation Pack was 53 megabytes. And in addition, it is recommended that you also download .NET Framework 4.0 whose file size is another 48 Mb. 100 megabytes just for a transformation pack and my expectations were high.

The best part of the transformation pack is its easy and safe installation. You get a single EXE file which when run gives you the following dialogue.

In order to get an experience of more of the Windows 8 UI, I suggest that you check the Metro UI checkbox. You might want to, however, remove the tick mark from the “Set Window X’s Live as default homepage” option.

Click on the ‘Install’ button once you are done and the installation of the Windows 8 Transformation Pack will begin. Your screen will eventually turn black and white and the Windows 8-like theme will be applied. Restart your system for the rest of the modules to finish their installation.

Note: If Explorer crashes and your system becomes super slow, don’t get scared. Simply click on the Cancel buttons repeatedly and things will be back to normal.

First Impressions:

Upon restarting Windows 7, the first thing you will notice is the startup screen which is still black, but has some added design that makes it look better. We are not exactly sure it this will look the same in the final release of Windows 8.

What comes next is the new login screen, with the Windows 8 Ultimate logo. A similar design is applied here and it looks quite great. The power options are available at the bottom right of the screen with the big button, which cannot go unseen. I also noticed that the blue is mild when compared to the default login screens in previous versions of Windows and it looks soothing.

Once you’ve logged in, the first things that you’ll notice are the new wallpaper and widgets. There is also a sidebar which provides you options like Search, Share and Settings.

The Windows 8-like Metro UI (which is called Zetro) is not enabled by default and you need to go to Personalize > Installed Themes and pick Zetro UI to activate it. Once done, you get to see an interface that looks much cleaner than the normal UI. You also get functionalities like Aero auto-colorization, user tiles in the taskbar, etc. The Metro UI looks more similar to Windows Phone 7 Mango.

The guys at Windows X have even managed to change the About window in Windows 7 to resemble as if it’s from Windows 8.

Please note that you must have .NET Framework 4.0 installed to make these things work.

Other Changes:

The start menu icon is one of the major changes made by the Windows 8 transformation pack. The circular windows icon is replaced by a cool Windows logo.

Another change is a picture tile at the right corner of the taskbar which gives you access to the Control Panel, User Account Control, etc.

The close, maximize and minimize buttons at the top of windows have also been changed.

‘My Computer’ also gets some new styling, thanks to the Windows 8 transformation pack. Memory bar looks more stylish and scrollbars too are prominent in black colour.

Perhaps the coolest thing about the theme is the way things are transparent. You get to see through window title bars, the start menu etc.

Conclusion – Should you install the Windows 8 Transformation Pack in Windows 7?

The Windows 8 transformation pack is the most comprehensive styling option for Windows users. It not just provides support for all versions of Windows – including XP, Vista and 7 but also goes a long way in bringing the Windows 8 experience to users. Although it is not exactly sure whether all these components will remain the same when Windows 8 is launched, it’s a nice way to start. Like promised, Windows X guys have made installation and uninstallation simple enough. Great effort overall!

Download Windows 8 Transformation Pack

Download .NET Framework 4

Post from: Killer Tech Tips

Review: Windows 8 Transformation Pack

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Shutdown your computer automatically after iTunes playback is complete

If you listen to music from your iTunes library before going to sleep, download NightTunes. NightTunes automatically shuts down your system when the current playlist stops playing. What you need to do is to make sure NightTunes is running and start playing from any iTunes playlist.

Please ensure that shuffle and repeat modes are turned off. If not, the playback will run on an endless loop.

The Lite version is available as a free download here. The Pro version also lets you hibernate and put your PC into standby mode and is available for a one time price of €2.99.

Now, you can listen to your favourite songs, audio books etc. and not worry about leaving your computer turned on when you sleep through the night.

Shutdown or logoff automatically based on a timer

Smart Shutdown is another lightweight app which is quite useful. You may set a timer for your computer to turn off, say, after 30 minutes or one hour. In addition, there is also an option to shutdown the system after a predefined time of inactivity. The best part is that the app supports all power options including shut down, reboot, lock, standby, hibernate and logoff.

Also available are options to disconnect your internet connection or turn off other computers in the network. This wide array of features makes Smart Shutdown an extremely useful program. It has a simple drop down list to choose the actions from and can be configured in seconds. Of course, it is free.

Download Page

Automatically shutdown computer when downloads are complete

The automatic shutdown option is available in both Internet Download Manager and uTorrent which are the most widely used download managers out there. You can configure your PC to turn off after files have finished downloading. This is especially useful when you have downloads queued and have to go to class or work leaving your system on.

In IDM:

• Go to Downloads > Scheduler
• Select the download queue from the left (usually main download queue)
• In the bottom of the window, choose Turn off computer when done

In uTorrent:

• Go to Options > Auto Shutdown > Choose any option

These options will let you save a lot of power and CPU usage.

Shutdown when downloads are complete in Firefox:

Auto Shutdown NG is an addon for Firefox that turns your system off when all downloads running inside Firefox are done. The tool also works with the DownThemAll add-on and you may configure it to shutdown, restart, logout or hibernate your system upon the completion of downloads. This auto-shutdown addon for Firefox supports Windows and Linux and is available here.

Shutdown when file copying tasks are over

This option is available in the free version of Teracopy but is unnoticed by many. When you start copying a file, the TeraCopy dialogue shows, among other things, a shutdown option (aligned to the right) between the progress bars.

It is turned off by default. All you need to do is click on it to activate automatic shutdown. Once done, your PC will be shut down automatically once the file transfer is complete.

Shutdown based on a timer or when your computer is idle

This is perhaps the most powerful app in the list. Users can shutdown, hibernate, logout etc. based on different conditions. The free application allow you to turn off your PC at a certain time and date. However, the paid version has a lot more conditions like – CPU usage, CPU Temperature, Memory Usage, Network Usage, System Idle State and the current state of a process. Surprisingly, there is also an option to wake the system from sleep.

If you are a serious user and like to automate your PC, you can pay for the paid version which costs $5. If not, the timer option should be good enough for regular users.

That completes the list. Which one do you think is the most useful among the pack?

Post from: Killer Tech Tips

Shutdown Your Computer Automatically With These Six Freeware

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The taskbar is one of the most under appreciated features in Windows, and here are 6 ways to add super power to the humble taskbar. Read them below and make your workflow more productive.

1. Pin anything to the taskbar with Taskbar Items Pinner

Windows 7 Taskbar Items Pinner lets you pin anything ranging from files and folders to web pages to your taskbar. Upon launching the application, you can choose to pin any pre-defined links/folders like the Control Panel or Program Files. Alternatively, you can browse to a custom path and pin that file or folder to your taskbar.

In addition to letting you pin anything to the taskbar, the application also shows the currently pinned items and allows you to unpin them.

2. Get Gmail Alerts In System Tray

Google’s official Gmail Notifier puts your inbox unread count right in the system tray. Clicking on the Gmail Notifier system tray icon will show you a preview of your messages in the inbox. Clicking on these messages opens them in the default browser on your computer.

3. Monitor bandwidth usage with Networx

Networx is a free bandwidth monitoring application for Windows. Once you have Networx installed, you can right click on the taskbar and choose Toolbars > Networx Desk Band to display information about your network traffic – the current transfer rate or the weekly/monthly/daily traffic.

4. Control iTunes playback from the taskbar

If iTunes is your media player of choice, this tip is for you. Right click on any empty space in the taskbar, click Toolbars and choose iTunes. The next time you minimize iTunes, you can still control song playback from the system tray using the appropriate audio control buttons that appear in the iTunes toolbar.

5. Middle click empty space to show the desktop

Windows 7 has this neat button in the bottom right that lets you see the desktop immediately when you click on it. You can instead choose to see the desktop when you middle click on the empty space in the taskbar. Just download 7 Taskbar Tweaker and check the option shown in the screenshot above.

6. Open Recycle Bin from the taskbar

To pin the Recycle Bin to the taskbar, first create a shortcut in your desktop to C:\Windows\explorer.exe shell:RecycleBinFolder. Go to the properties and use the customization options to pick the Recycle Bin icon for the shortcut. Then, right click on it to pin it to the taskbar. Voila! It’s done.

–

If you’ve got any more tips on making better use of the taskbar, tell us in the comments section below!

(Guest Post by Krupesh Muthukumar)

Post from: Killer Tech Tips

6 Things You Can Do From Windows Taskbar

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1. BatteryBar:

BatteryBar is perhaps the most widely used and popular application there is to monitor your laptop battery level. It is a very simple application and it’s something every portable notebook/netbook user should install. BatteryBar works from the taskbar and shows either of these two states:

• Discharge – shows the amount of time the laptop can run on the battery
• Charging – shows the amount of time necessary to completely charge your laptop

You may also click on the meter to change it show battery level in percentage, instead of estimated time. Detailed information about the state of the battery can be obtained by hovering your mouse pointer over the meter.

Having it installed in the taskbar will let you have a look at the status of your battery constantly all the time.

There is also a paid upgrade available that will give you custom themes, critical notifications and lets you change the Windows Power Scheme. The paid version comes at a one-time price of $10.

Download Battery Bar

2. Vista Battery Saver

A handy app that helps you extend battery life by disabling Aero effects. Apparently, the application can save your battery up to 70%.

You can assign a condition to disable cool Aero effects when the battery level goes below a certain mark.

Similar conditions can also be set to change Windows power schemes, or to turn Aero effects when the laptop is on AC power.

Letting it run on start up ensures that your battery is saved to a certain extent. It works on all versions of Windows Vista and Windows Home Premium that have support for Aero.

Download Vista Battery Saver

3. Battery Alarm

A simple app with a simple purpose. Plays a sound when the battery level reaches a certain mark. By default it is assigned to 5%, but you may change it to any number you want.

Another much welcome feature is that the app will also play a sound when the battery finishes charging and is at 100%. You can also customize the repeat time for the sound and also the sound file itself.

Pretty handy when you are playing a movie or a game and you can’t notice when the battery is about to go dry.

Download Battery Alarm

4. Power Meter Plus

Personally, this is one of my favourite apps. Power Meter Plus is a small bar which you can configure to be on your screen. For an app which is just 135Kb big, it is extremely innovative and very useful.

When the app is running, a meter is displayed on your screen. It becomes more prominent when your laptop battery level goes down and is completely transparent when it has near full charge.

The more you use it, the more you see how useful it is. It automatically changes its position to make sure that doesn’t bother you or occupy the part of the screen you are using.

Download Power Meter Plus

5. Turn off LCD

Lets you turn off your LCD by opening an app. Useful when your laptop needs to be used for music playback or some dormant task that doesn’t  require your display to be turned on. Completely turns off your laptop’s display even when the lid is open and can be a great way to save battery.

You no longer have to worry about your notebook turning off when you leave for class/work after starting a download.

Download Turn Off LCD

6. Monitor ES

Another small utility that does a lot more than managing your battery. It automatically turns off your display when you lock your system. It also pauses all videos, mutes your system sounds automatically to further conserve your battery.

Used regularly, it can make a significant difference and make your battery last longer. The best part is that, if you forget to log off from your IM client, an “Away” message will be set automatically. Just run the app in the background and let it run.

When you come back, everything will be restored.

Download Monitor ES

I’d say you can install all these apps. It doesn’t hurt. Please try using them and post your opinion in the comments section.

Post from: Killer Tech Tips

6 Battery Monitoring Software To Monitor Your Laptop Battery Level

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Ninite is a simple tool that bulk installs multiple applications at once. You go to Ninite.com, choose a set of applications and get a single installer that automatically downloads and installs all the apps you’ve chosen in a breeze.

There are no next/back buttons you have to go through, and all the toolbar crapware that comes with software installers is blocked. These are great reasons to use Ninite and that’s why a lot of tech support guys love it.

Ninite has recently released Ninite Updater. It’s the same old Ninite goodness again, but for software updates instead of new installations.

Ninite Updater checks for updates for installed software on your computer and updates them all in one go. The best part: it’s all done in the background (just like Google Chrome updates itself silently). Ninite Updater costs you $9.99 but the guys at Ninite were kind enough to send us a review copy.

Here’s our complete review of Ninite Updater.

When you launch Ninite Updater for the first time, you’ll see a progress bar. It should take not more than a minute for Ninite Updater to finish installing.

Once the Ninite Updater setup is complete, a notification pops up in the system tray informing that the installation was successful. The rotating Ninite icon means Ninite indicates that it’s checking for updates.

In a few seconds, Ninite Updater should show you a list of available updates for your computer software. The program can check for updates for around 90 applications. This should cover most of the software you’ve installed on your computer.

Right clicking on the system tray icon, you can choose applications to ignore. Ninite Updater will not check for updates anymore for the applications you check in this list.

Clicking ‘Install Updates’ from the menu opens up a window similar to the one below. This lists the software for which updates are now available. You can choose to update all the software in this list by clicking on the ‘Select all’ option in the bottom of the window. Or you can choose to install individual updates by selectively choosing applications from this list.

Click ‘Install’ and the following window (similar to the Ninite installer window) should pop up. You can continue doing other work while Ninite Updater starts downloading all the updates and installs them all in the background.

So, that’s the walk through. Here are our observations:

• If you’ve used Ninite before, you’ll love this new addition to the Ninite family. It’s basically the same thing as Ninite, but for updates instead of new installations.
• Ninite Updater polls for updates every time it starts up and every six hours afterwards.
• You need to click on the system balloon, choose apps you want to update and then click ‘Install’ to actually begin the updating process – there’s no way right now to set it to automatically install updates as soon as they’re available. Explicit permission needs to be granted every time to install all available updates.
• Patrick from Ninite tells us that they’re considering including a feature to let users choose to install updates on their PC when it’s idle. They’re just thinking about it.
• Ninite Updater itself gets automatically updated with new features.

We asked Patrick why they’re branching out to new offerings besides the Ninite installer. Here’s what he had to say:

We’ve been thinking about Updater for a few months now. We built it because we noticed a lot of our users have been running Ninite installers periodically to keep applications updated. It’s such a win for security and far easier than running installers by hand. We realized we could build a really amazing software update experience with some of the technology we created for Ninite and Ninite Pro. We love releasing products that solve real problems incredibly well, and early sales seem to indicate that we’ve done that again with Ninite Updater.

He’s right – it’s simply not possible in Windows to update several applications at once and all those software that promise to do update checks only send you to web pages where you can download new updates. Ninite Updater makes things much easier by updating applications in the background.

Lots of people are already fans of the way Google Chrome updates itself without asking a question. Ninite Updater does the same thing, but for a plethora of other Windows applications.

But is it worth $9.99? Pretty close. If the Updater auto-installs all updates without having users to click on ‘Install’ explicitly, it’d have been more nice. Still, it’s a great companion to your computers. And if you’re the family tech support guy, don’t forget the fact that you can purchase licenses in bulk and save some money ($29.99 for 5 machines, $49.99 for 10 machines and $99.99 for 25 machines).

Disclosure: Killer Tech Tips received a free copy of Ninite+ for the purpose of this review.

Post from: Killer Tech Tips

First Look: Ninite Updater Updates Windows Software At Once

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Here are eight of them. There’s a bonus tip at the end, so keep reading!

1. Startup Delayer

If your computer takes ages to boot and if you usually wait for several minutes before you could actually start working, get Startup Delayer.

You can use Startup Delayer to launch specific programs some time later after boot so that you get to the important stuff quickly, without a hitch.

Delay startup programs. Time saved: a couple of minutes.

2. Ninite

Tired of downloading the same old applications again and again when configuring a new computer? Ninite gives you a single installer for all essential Windows apps.

Once you choose the software that you’d like to install from Ninite.com, you can download the Ninite installer that magically fetches all your chosen applications and installs them without asking you anything.

Installation unattended. Time saved: Up to 2-3 hours.

3. Desk Drive

If you frequently deal with USB drives and CD ROMs, you usually have to open the My Computer window from the start menu or the desktop and then get to your drive by clicking on the respective icon. That’s a drag.

Desk Drive puts shortcut icons to removable drives you insert right on your desktop as soon as you insert them, so that you can access them in a jiffy.

Quickly open new files from your desktop. Time saved: a few seconds, but a lot of convenience this is.

4. Stalled Printer Repair

If you frequently print documents, you’d have definitely been annoyed by the printer job queue in Windows. Every once in a while, a printing job gets stuck and you simply can’t do anything about it.

Stalled Printer Repair, when running, grabs all these stuck printer jobs and displays them in a window. You can use the ‘Purge Printer Jobs’ button to nuke the printing tasks in the queue that are blocking other tasks.

Shoot stalled printer jobs into oblivion. Time saved: an hour+, and lots of frustration.

5. Lifehacker Texter

Tired of typing the same text over and over again? Texter comes to the rescue by letting you expand phrases into frequently used blocks of text.

If you’re into web development, this will be insanely useful to you – you can use Texter to expand code tags. Download it from Lifehacker here.

Forget hurting your fingers typing the same thing over and over. Time saved: a couple of minutes every hour

6. Gmail Canned Responses

Canned Responses in Gmail does the same thing as Lifehacker’s Texter, but works exclusively inside Gmail on any computer you’re signed in. You have to activate it from Gmail Labs first.

If you get a boatload of emails everyday and if you’re tired of typing the same reply for many of them, you gotta use Canned Responses.

Time saved: a few minutes to a few hours, depending upon your email volume.

7. Special Characters Menu

Hunting down that special character in charmap.exe is pretty stressful. It’s not really that organized and there isn’t a quick way to locate that one character you frequently use. Enter Special Characters Menu.

The program runs at startup and pressing Win+C pops open a menu that gives you quick access to a list of your favourite special symbols. This list is editable, so you can put your frequently used items there.

Typing special characters is a breeze again. Time saved: a couple of minutes.

8. Everything Search

Windows Search is slow as hell. Everything is an awesome replacement, and it works by monitoring changes in the NTFS Change Journal – there’s no such thing as ‘indexing’.

It consumes minimal resources, and the search works as you type – pretty much like Google Instant on for your local files.

Forget Windows search. Time saved: a few minutes to a quarter of an hour.

9. Bonus: Use the Snap To feature to put your mouse pointer where it should be

You can call this a stupid geek trick, but you might as well find this useful. And this isn’t an app but it’s a feature in Windows. Do you start looking for the mouse pointer when an annoying dialog box pops up?

You can save a few minutes by letting Windows automatically place the mouse pointer on the default option in any dialog box. All you need to do is activate the feature from Control Panel > Mouse > Pointer Options

Post from: Killer Tech Tips

8 Desktop Apps That Save You Time And Frustration

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1. 5 Unique Freeware That Tweak Your Desktop and Save Your Time
2. How To Quickly Navigate To Your Favourite Folders From The Save As Dialog
3. Three Apps That Power Your Keyboard’s Underused Numpad

So, here’s the list:

1. Switch Between Local or Downloaded Wallpapers With John’s Switcher

John’s Backgrounds Switcher puts your desktop background on steroids. This is by far the ultimate wallpaper switcher for your Windows computer. Sitting in the system tray, the application changes the desktop wallpaper at specific intervals. It can download photos automatically from Flickr, Facebook and a few more sites.

Describing its feature set would would take a few hundred words, so we’ll leave you with a screenshot. You can download the application from John’s site.

2. Put News Stories And Blog Posts As Desktop Backgrounds

Go to this page and type in a topic of your choice (be it Obama or iPhone) or choose a news source (there’s everything from Washington Post to Macworld). Download the .theme file from the site, and apply it.

On applying the theme, you can see that your desktop wallpaper displays a blog post from the news source you had chosen. Right click and choose ‘Next Desktop Background’ and the wallpaper will now display the next article from the same source as your wallpaper.

3. Change Wallpapers Only During Boot

If you think John’s Background Switcher is an overkill, try Wallpaper Rotator from 100dof. You choose a folder or a subfolder containing pictures and also specify the style – tiled, centered, or stretched.

The application will load itself every time your computer boots, change the system wallpaper, and then exit. It doesn’t drain your computer’s resources, because it doesn’t run in the background constantly.

4. Change Wallpapers Based On The Weather

How cool would it be if you could judge the weather outside based on your desktop wallpaper? Weather Desktop Background lets you do just that. You first specify your location from the application’s settings. You will then have to choose images for 31 different weather conditions that the software displays.

The application will alternate between all of these wallpapers based on the temperature. If you fail to specify an image for a specific condition, only default text describing the weather will be displayed.

5. Download Wallpapers Based On Keywords And Rotate Them

Pulse is a neat application that downloads wallpapers from the internet based on keywords you specify and rotates them automatically at specific intervals. You can also use it to set the downloaded wallpapers as backgrounds for the Windows login screen.

Downloaded wallpapers can be autodeleted after a set number of days. There are two wallpaper providers that Pulse uses right now – wallbase and rewalls but things might change in the future.

Bonus: Check out Wallpaper Juggler that downloads wallpapers fitting your screen resolution from InterfaceLIFT.com

6. Rotate Wallpapers In Your Android Phone

Okay, we’ve covered enough desktop applications so here’s one for Android. Wallpaper Changer lets you switch backgrounds in your Android phone at specific intervals. All you need to do is pick photos from your Gallery that you’d like to have use as wallpapers.

You can also make the wallpaper change every time you unlock the screen. There’s also a widget that the app comes with which you can use to manually switch between wallpapers. WebLiveWallpaper does the same thing, but it could fetch images from the internet as well.

7. Get New Bing Wallpapers Weekly With The Bing Dynamic Theme

Bing may not be your search engine of choice, but the wallpapers on the site are adored by many. Upon popular demand, Microsoft has made available Bing Dynamic, an RSS-based dynamic theme for Windows 7.

Every week, the theme download and updates your desktop background with two wallpapers from Bing.com.

8. Search Wallpapers Fitting Your Screen Resolution Using Google Or Bing

Google Image Search lets you search for pictures based on their resolution. You can just type in a keyword and pick the image size from the panel on the left of the page. Alternatively, you can use the imagesize: operator to specify a resolution that the resulting images have to match.

Bing fares better, because it can automatically detect your screen resolution and show you matching pictures. Just go to Bing Image Search, type in your keyword and choose Size > Wallpaper from the sidebar.

–

That’s pretty much it. If you know of any more software that enhances your desktop wallpaper, let us know in the comments.

Post from: Killer Tech Tips

8 Tools To Supercharge Your Desktop Wallpaper

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Look below for some tips on making the best out of Evernote. We hope these are new to you. If you find a useful tip in here, do share the article on Facebook or Twitter.

1. Speed up Evernote with the secret Debug menu

Exit Evernote, hit Win+R and type Evernote.exe /DebugMenu. Evernote should pop up with a new menu option – Debug. Choose Optimize Database from the menu.

Evernote does optimize its database automatically, but if you feel it’s been running slowly for a while, use this option to speed it up. This should make searches faster too. Thanks Matthew!

2. Create a new note from clipboard using Ctrl+Alt+V

Previously mentioned shortcut combo Ctrl+Alt+V puts the contents of the clipboard right into Evernote as a new note. Works from any application in Windows. The clipboard content could either be text or images.

3. Encrypt selected text with a passphrase

If you’re storing sensitive data like your passwords in your Evernote account, you might want to encrypt that information so that it doesn’t get sniffed. Select any piece of text in your note and go to Format > Encrypt Selected Text.

You’ll have to enter a passphrase, and the next time you open Evernote, the encrypted text will be locked like you see in the screenshot above. You’ll have to enter the passphrase to decrypt it.

4. Put a todo list inside your notes

If you are using a basic task management application and Evernote at the same time, you can probably ditch the former. Go to Format > Insert Checkbox or hit Ctrl+Shift+C to add a todo list in your note.

You can now start typing your task. Hit Enter and press the shortcut again to insert another task.

5. Enable automatic syncing

By default, Evernote doesn’t sync your notes automatically to the web. You might find that some of your recently created notes are not available from the web interface.

Go to Tools > Options > Sync and check Synchronize automatically to make Evernote sync your content at specific intervals. Pretty helpful if you use Evernote frequently. Thanks PC Geek Blog!

6. Change the sync shortcut for convenience

Many of us find it hard to reach the rarely-used function keys on our keyboard. Evernote uses F9 as the default shortcut for syncing but in case you want to change it to Ctrl+S or something really convenient, try this Autohotkey script:

SetTitleMatchMode, 2
#IfWinActive Evernote
^s::
Send {F9}
Return
#IfWinActive

Having said that, Evernote does let you customize shortcut keys for a bunch of actions. Go to Tools > Options > Hotkeys to do the same.

If you’re a long time Evernote user, share your know-how in the comments section below.

Post from: Killer Tech Tips

6 Tips For Evernote Nerds

Related posts:

1. 7 Google Chrome Productivity Tips
2. 12 Keyboard Shortcuts You May Not Know About
3. Giveaway: Win 5 Evernote Premium Accounts

Photo by kalebdf. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

1. Q10 For Distraction-Free Essay Writing

With Facebook and other distractions just a tab away, it’s pretty hard to focus on writing for long bouts of time but you have to a lot of that in college – there’s always an essay lying there in your todo list. Q10 is a nifty text editor that blocks all distractions by taking full screen control of your desktop.

Q10 has a dark interface that puts the focus on your writing. The editor canvas also shows dynamic word count, and there’s even a timer that you can race against to complete your essay or thesis work. If you download one thing today, download Q10.

2. FocusBooster Helps You Focus On One Task

The Pomodoro Technique is one of the best ways to get things done. You set a timer for 25 minutes and start working without a break. You do nothing for five minutes after that, and you resume your work again as the countdown restarts.

FocusBooster puts a neat countdown timer on your desktop. It’s based on Adobe AIR, and there’s this ticking sound as the countdown runs. You can even set an alarm to ring when a session ends.

3. RescueTime Tracks Your Time Wasting Habits

Do you switch on your computer to do some coursework but end up spending your time on Facebook? RescueTime is for you.  The app will track where you’re spending your time when you’re using your computer – you can see your activities charted out in the RescueTime web dashboard.

Each of these activities is assigned a productivity score and your efficiency is calculated and emailed to you every week. Besides that, there’s a ‘Get Focused’ mode in the app that lets you block all distracting activities for a set number of minutes.

4. GeeTeeDee Is A No Nonsense Task Management App

If you need a beautiful, no-frills task manager for Windows and if Wunderlist doesn’t cut it for you, try GeeTeeDee. In GeeTeeDee, you can create a group for specific task types, and start adding tasks immediately. The bottomline: it’s simple, and there’s a ‘Compact’ view option that makes it even more minimalistic.

The best part: there’s a portable version of GeeTeeDee which you can put in your USB key or Dropbox and use across multiple computers. There isn’t a sync feature and there aren’t mobile apps yet. But, simple tasks management is guaranteed. Thanks Abhishek!

5. FreeMind Lets You Map Your Ideas

FreeMind doesn’t get a lot of press, but it certainly deserves a mention. You can use FreeMind to create a free-form mind map on any topic that’s running inside your head. The mind map is non-linear – so you can add and remove elements at any time.

This screenshot sourced from the official site should be self-explanatory. FreeMind is perfect for jotting down notes from your class and can also help you record essay ideas.

6. SpeedRead Improves Your Comprehension Rate

Most of us have an average reading speed of 200 words per minute. However, with a bit of training and effort, you can drastically increase it without affecting comprehension.  SpeedRead helps you do just that.

Throw SpeedRead a text file and it start displaying the words in the text file one by one. You need to concentrate on just following the text. Pretty useful if you’re going to be taking competitive exams.

7. Chit Chat Puts Facebook Chat In Your Desktop

Enough said about distractions, but you might still find Facebook chat indispensable to keep in touch with your friends in college. It’s downright annoying to switch between browser tabs often when chatting. Chit Chat is a neat application for Windows that brings Facebook chat to your desktop.

Chit Chat’s interface supports tabs – you can chat with multiple friends under a single window. There’s also instant desktop notification support, much better than Facebook’s pop-sound, switch-tab, see-message workflow. Just make sure you decline the agreement to install RelevantKnowledge crapware when you install Chit Chat.

8. Ubuntu As Your Primary Operating System

Every operating system has its own merits. You don’t need to spend a dime on Ubuntu – it’s free of cost and you can download it for your computer from their site. Better security is a bonus.

Courtesy: Sticky Comics

Mac fanboys and Windows aficionados are screaming already, but you’ll learn more about  your system internals when you’re on Linux than when you’re on any other OS. It might break, but it’s exciting to use and it will be a fun ride. Linux desktops in general have come a long way and everything works out-of-the-box these days.

Looking for eight more apps? Check out our previous list of lesser known, but insanely useful software for college.

Post from: Killer Tech Tips

8+8 Awesome, But Underrated Software For College

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