Hibernate option was lost
I have a laptop running Windows Vista
Home Basic. After some recent updates downloaded via Windows Update, Hibernate
option has disappeared from my Start menu. Where has it gone and how can I
bring it back?
Windows only shows Hibernate option on PC
which is considered to support this feature. The laptop manufacturer might
wrongly activate it or find it unreliable later – and secretly inform Microsoft
of the matter. Thus, this feature’s inactivation in laptop became a phase in hundred
patches (of Windows Update) that Microsoft annually announced.
As you want to re-install this feature, we
assume that you used Hibernate before without difficulty; however, you didn’t
talk clearly about this. Therefore, you first have to check whether your
computer supports Hibernate. To do this, press Start, type “cmd” into Search
box then press Enter. In case you are prompted to input administration password,
type it in and press Enter or Continue. Command window will pop up. In Command
prompt, type “powercfg/a” and press Enter. It will bring out “sleep states” available
for your PC. If Hibernate is existing (and we guess it so), it can be
re-activated by typing “powercfg/hibernate” then pressing Enter. Once things
finish, restart Windows and the option is now enabled.
By the way, you will see many options
involving Hibernate (along with Sleep mode and Standby mode) in Hardware and
Sound section in Control Panel (aside from Start menu). Just click Change plan
settings then Change advanced power settings for further discovery.
A mass of blind copies
I had to send frequent messages to
around 350 email addresses. They are at different locations around the country and
categorized as groups of 12 or 50 people. Email uses blind carbon copy (BCC) to
avoid revealing email address to recipient. Is there any way to move these addresses
to BCC field at default, because I got tired of moving them from To field every
time? I use both Outlook and Gmail, thus a solution for one of them will be
useful.
There’s many ways to do this in Outlook and
Gmail. However, solutions for Outlook often depend on commercial add-ins, so we
will focus on a free technique for Gmail. However, in case you prefer doing so
in Outlook, visit Microsoft’s Download Marketplace (at www.snipca.com/X2854) and
explore section “Mail, email and fax” – for instance, Always BBC add-in will
work for you.
To make this process activate Gmail’s
auto-BCC feature in Gmail. You need to use Firefox browser. Unless you install
it, you can download it free from www.firefox.com. Then, you will have to
download and install Greasemonkey: this add-in is free for Firefox and useable
to edit the way websites work, with the help of scripts written by users. Greasemonkey
is downloadable at www.greasespot.net – just click Download link (on top of the
page) followed by a green button “Add to Firefox” and follow instructions.
Reduce image size
I had discussions with a friend via
email. Both of us surely kept images formatted as JPEG, so they were compressed
before sent. However, his file size was always smaller than mine despite that our
images shared similar ratio when viewed. Why was always this?
JPEG format allows for changing compression
ratio. Basically, the lower compression ratio is, the higher image quality
becomes – but file size will increase. High compression ratio is applicable,
resulting small file size but visual quality will look terrible. As a result,
there’s a compromise between image quality and file size.
Because JPEG compression takes effect at
first, most image calibration programs applies low compression rate by default.
However, you can change this setting to reduce file size. Obviously, you will
be surprised at how far you will be able to increase compression rate until
people notify a change in visual quality. Thus, assuming that everything is
relative – especially pixel resolution – we guess you applied higher JPEG
compression rate when saving your image.
You didn’t let us know which image editor
used, so we can’t tell how or where to change JPEG compression ratio. Though,
it often lies in the program’s Options or Preference, or presents as an option
shown when you are saving image as JPEG.
When
saving JPEG images, you can prefer either file size or quality.
Headers and footers
I encountered a problem inserting date
into headers and footers in Microsoft Word. When I chose Author option, Page#,
Date from Header/Footer sub menu in Insert menu, date appeared in US format
(month, day, year) – but I want to see it in UK format (day, month, year). How
can I do?
You didn’t tell us which Word version was
being used. Fortunately, from special custom names included in your original
email, you believe that you were using Word 2003 (or previous versions).
If we are right, date format used by this
special custom menu was drawn from the document’s language setting. To change
this, click to open Tools menu, point to Language then choose Set Language from
sub-menu. If necessary, scroll through language list to find “English UK”, click
to blacken it then press OK. Note: this won’t change format of date you have
inserted, thus they need applying.
Clear Google’s browsing history
I found a recent post about browsing
history useful.
I was trying to clear some unwanted
items stored in Google search box but they continue turning up. Can’t I erase
items on Google?
Yes is the answer.
Firstly, if you have installed Google
Toolbar for the web-browser, its history can be cleared by pressing the
downward button lying on the right of search box then clicking on Clear History
at the list’s bottom. Besides, this History option can be permanently cleared.
To make this, you have to first click on spanner icon on Google Toolbar then
choose Search tab. Now, press to remove the tick from box “Store search history
on my computer” and press Save.
On the other hand, in case you don’t use
Google Toolbar, there’re some ways to prevent Google to track you browsing
history.
If you have a Google Account, log in
normally then click on My Account link on the top-right. Now click Edit (near
“My product” title) than Delete Web History and follow suggestions to confirm
your option.
Whereas you don’t have any Google Account
(or don’t log in yet), Google still records your browsing by using a cookie
stored in the computer. To prevent this behavior, visit www.google.com as usual
and perform any searching (not really important).
Now, click on Web History on the page’s
top-right corner. To prevent Google from saving all thesauruses in future
cookie, just click “Disable customizations based on search activity”.
Finally, if you prefer keeping this add-in
but still want to clear history over times, clearing the browser’s cookies is
enough.
For example, in Internet Explorer, choose
Internet Options from Tools menu than press Delete button in Browsing history
in General tab. Make sure that Cookies box is ticked (along with any items that
you want to erase) then press Delete.
Capture image from video
I needed to shoot an image of people, but
for some reason, the camera fell into video mode. I didn’t realize this until I
transferred to file to computer.
The video lasted few second, stopping at
the moment that I wanted to capture. I tried to copy this image but all of my
efforts resulted in a completed video. How could I get the picture I expected?
Many sophisticated apps can extract frame
out of the video for an image: they will be best solution for capturing a
particular frame at the highest resolution as possible. However, for things in
this case that occasionally happened, both Windows Vista and Windows 7 have
existing tools to fix this.
First, double-click the video whose image
you want to capture – it will be played in Windows Media Player (or in the
computer’s default player).
Press maximize button (on top left) to
enlarge the playback window as much as possible. Then, hover the cursor onto
pause button and get ready to press it at the moment when you wish to capture.
Now, press Start then All Programs and Accessories then Snipping Tool.
A small window for Snipping Tool pops up. Press
the downward button near New, and then choose Rectangular Snip – the entire
screen will turn into grey.
Now click and drag to select the area in
which the media player, containing you desired frame, lies then release mouse
button.
Captured area will be displayed in a new
and larger window in Snipping Tool. If the image is not correctly picked, you
just need to perform these actions again. On the other hand, you can save you
image by choosing Save as from File menu.
There’re
ways to extract frames from video files to serve as images.
