ManToAdmire’s Blog

It sometimes feels irritating when Acrobat Reader takes around 5-10 seconds to load a PDF document. It’s mainly because of the plugins it has to load that it slows down. You can speed up the loading by removing the plugins you do not require.

To do so, follow the steps below:

1. Make sure Adobe Reader is not open. If so, then it will lock the files and not allow you to move them. So close it down.
2. Open the installation folder of Acrobat Reader
(C:\program files\adobe\acrobat\reader\….)
3. There will be a ‘Plugins’ directory over there. Cut and Paste all the files and folders from that directory to the ‘Optional’ directory.

Once you do so, you will notice that now Acrobat Reader will open up quickly. .

When you open a document window in a word processing (or similar) program, a pointer appears in the upper-left corner of the window. The text you enter will appear at the pointer. In insertion mode, the new text is inserted into the existing text, the existing text is automatically pushed back to follow the new text. In overwrite mode, the new text overwrites the existing text. The following keys automatically scroll the window to keep the pointer in view when it is necessary. These keys also work in the text boxes of dialog boxes and list boxes.

Insert            Toggles between overtype and insertion modes
Arrow Keys        Moves the pointer one character in the direction of the arrow
Home or End       Moves the pointer to the beginning or end of the current line
Page Up/Down      Moves the pointer up or down
Ctrl+Right/Left   Moves the pointer to the beginning of the next or previous word
Ctrl+Up/Down      Moves the pointer to the beginning of the preceeding or next paragraph
Ctrl+Home/End     Moves the pointer to the beginning or the end of the document
Delete            Deletes the next character or the selected text
Backspace         Deletes the previous character or the selected text
Ctrl+Z            Undoes the last action
Ctrl+C            Copies the selected text to the clipboard
Ctrl+X            Cuts the selected text to the clipboard
Ctrl+V            Pastes copied text from the clipboard

In Microsoft Windows XP, you can select the Thumbnails view for any folder, thereby gaining a quick way to find images. In some earlier Windows versions, you first had to right-click on the folder, choose Properties, and check a box titled Enable Thumbnail View. Either way, Windows generates a small thumbnail image for every file in the folder. For many file types, the thumbnail is just an oversized icon, but for image files, it’s a small version of the image. Because it takes time to generate the thumbnail images, Windows caches them in a hidden file named Thumbs.db.

In theory, the Thumbs.db file stays up to date with the folder’s current contents, updating thumbnail images as necessary. Inpractice, the file can sometimes get out of sync, and may also wind up containing thumbnails for files that have been deleted from the folder. You can right-click on an individual file and choose Refresh Thumbnail, but for many photos in many folders that’s too slow. Since Windows will re-create the thumbnails as needed, an occasional general cleanup is a good idea, and it’s easy to do.

Select ‘Search‘ from the Start menu, choose to search for files or folders, and search your local hard drives and their subfolders for files named ‘Thumbs.db’. When the search is finished, you’ll have a list of all the thumbnail files. Click within the results area, press ‘Ctrl+A’ to select all of them, and press the ‘Delete’ key to delete them. Click on the ‘Yes to All’ button. Now all of your folders with pictures will get new, fresh thumbnails the next time you view them. In addition, depending on how many such files you had, you may save quite a bit of disk space.

Having file extensions visible can make certain malicious programs in your e-mail in-box more obvious. For example, showing a file attachment such as image.jpg.exe, which would otherwise have the harmless-looking name image.jpg. On the other hand, displaying all file extensions all the time looks ugly, makes file names more difficult to read, and increases your likelihood of changing a file’s extension accidentally when renaming it. With a Registry editing, you can make Windows display only the file extensions of executable files, which you’re less likely to rename or interact with directly. Follow these steps:

1. Click on the Start button and select Run
2. Type in ‘regedit’ and press OK 3. Double-click on the ‘HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT’ key
4. Scroll down the list to the ‘exefile‘ key
5. Right-click in the right pane and select ‘New->String Value’
6. Type in ‘AlwaysShowExt‘ and press OK

You may need to restart Windows to see the effect, but from now on, all application files will have their .exe extensions visible in folder windows and other programs that display file names, even when ‘Hide extensions for known file types’ is selected.

CRT monitors act like dust magnets. Electrical fields emanating from the monitor attract dust particles like a flower attracts bees. Fortunately, cleaning is easy. Unplug your monitor and clean the screen gently with a soft, clean cotton cloth moistened with water. Never spray anything directly on the monitor. To dry the screen, use another clean, dry cotton cloth.

Monitor manufacturers say you should never use any chemicals (glass cleaners included) on your screen. The most important thing is to avoid ammonia, a component of most cleaners. The water-only method works very well, but if you really want to get a cleaning solution, buy a specific monitor cleaner based on your manufacturer’s recommendations. Be sure to check your monitor’s documentation first; if your monitor has an antiglare surface or other delicate coating, it may require special cleaning procedures.

To remove dust on the outside of the monitor case, use the soft brush attachment and your vacuum cleaner. (Make sure your monitor is unplugged.) Pay particular attention to gently brushing and cleaning the cooling vents. Avoid blowing dust into the monitor’s case. If you find dirt marks on the case that won’t vacuum away, wipe it with a cloth very slightly moistened with plain water. If that doesn’t get the mark off, try the same amount of moisture with a bit of liquid dish detergent added. Avoid using kitchen cleansers on the plastics used in your monitor case.

The Registry in Windows XP has a feature that it remembers the last-used key. It also has the ability to save often-used keys as Favorites. The only way to disable this feature is to restrict the Registry from saving the last-used key information. To do this, open regedit and look for this key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Regedit

Right-click on the ‘LastKey‘ value in the right pane and select ‘Modify‘. Erase everything in the ‘Value Data’ box and leave it blank then click OK. Now, with the ‘RegEdit’ key in the left pane highlighted, go to ‘Edit->Permissions‘ at the top of the Registry window. Select a User Name then select the ‘Deny’ checkbox next to ‘Full Control’ and click OK.

The Registry will now no longer save the last used key, but remember that you will no longer be able to use the Favorites menu. If you prefer not to disable this feature, a fast way to colapse the menu tree is to hold down the left arrow key on the keyboard until only the My Computer entry is visible then tap on the left arrow key once to bring back the five root keys.