C# 411True story… After Thanksgiving dinner yesterday at the in-laws, I was talking with a nice older woman in her 60s. Eventually the conversation shifted to my favorite subject, computers.
The woman, whom I’ll call “Helen,” told me that she doesn’t own a computer anymore since her “scare.”
“Did your computer get attacked by a virus?” I asked.
Google, in partnership with Samsung and Acer, has announced a radical new laptop where all the software and data is stored online. It’s called the Chromebook, which is named after Google’s Chrome web browser.
The Chromebook runs a full-screen Chrome web browser and does everything via the Internet. Your word processor, spreadsheets, email and games are all web apps. There is no local hard drive, so all of your data resides in the “cloud.”
Every so often a new technology comes along that solves a really nagging problem. As any photographer knows, taking a picture at the exact right moment with perfect focus and framing is a challenge and an art. But thanks to a new camera by Lytro, you can shoot first and focus later.
The Lytro “light field camera” uses multiple lenses to capture an image at different angles and depth and with much greater light than a traditional digital camera. Later, the photographer can use the exclusive Lytro software to focus the image on the desired subject. This enables the photographer to just click away and concentrate only on framing the shot.
Visit the Lytro website to see how the software will work. For example, here’s an image of four beautiful women. You can use the software to focus on the woman in the foreground:
Everyone loves to hate Facebook. With over a half billion users, Facebook has assimilated most connected adults in the modern world, and resistance has become futile. Even for me — I must disclose that I actually like Facebook and how it connects me to distant friends and relatives. But like anything popular, there’s no way to please all the people all the time, so Facebook is target for lots of criticism.
Some of the negativity is well-deserved, especially regarding privacy issues. Facebook’s mission is to “make the world more open and connected,” which is in direct conflict with the desire of most people to keep their private information private. The problem isn’t that Facebook provides many different ways to share your information. The problem is that Facebook assumes you want to share all of your information to everyone — by default.
I recently discussed how Microsoft is charging Android phone manufacturers a $5-$15 fee per smartphone to license Microsoft patents. Now Oracle has its hand out and is asking for a whopping $15-$20 per Android smartphone for royalties on its patents. So far none of the major phone manufacturers have coughed up any money to Oracle, but it’s only a matter of time before the Oracle lawyers get involved, and the money starts flowing.
Update: It appears that Elite750 has already gone out of business. As the Bill Gates character said in a Simpsons episode, “I didn’t get rich by writing a lot of checks!”
Do you remember the “I Am Rich” iPhone app that did nothing and sold for the maximum $999.99? Eight rich douchebags blew a grand on this waste of bytes before Apple pulled the app from its stores because the app lacked any useful functionality.
Well, it looks like the wealthy 1% have another opportunity to shell out big bucks on digital wares. Elite750 is offering “The World’s Most Exclusive Email Address.” Elite750 is restricted to 750 users worldwide… forever. Signup is $7500, and the service costs $750 per month ongoing. That’s $16,500 for the first year alone.
Use the Ctrl+Space keyboard shortcut to remove formatting from text in Microsoft Office programs like Word, Excel and Outlook. This command strips fonts, styles, indenting, etc. and leaves only the plain text.
To remove text formatting:
There is an easy (but tricky) way to open a command prompt window for a specific folder you are browsing in Windows Explorer in Windows 7 and Vista:
This will open a command prompt window for the selected folder:
Note that this does NOT work if you shift+right-click in the tree view on the left side of the Explorer window! Also note that this works only in Windows Vista and later, and not in Windows XP or before without special software.
When you copy text from a web page and paste it in an email message or Word document, you end up pasting the fonts, formatting and styles along with the text. But sometimes all you want is the plain text.
One option is to select "Paste Special" from the "Edit" menu or Office 2007 ribbon bar.
Another option is to use the Ctrl+Space keyboard shortcut available in Microsoft Office programs like Word, Excel and Outlook.
Here’s how it works:
Note that the Ctrl+Space keyboard shortcut clears the formatting from any text in a Microsoft Office program, not just pasted text.
