Tech and life

We come across percentages every day. ‘iPhone sales grow 142%; iPad sales grow 183%’ . Sounds good, but what does it actually mean? What about a 415% increase? We all did percentages in school  way back when and some of us work with them in our daily lives but they can still be quite difficult to visualize.

For example, I’ve always had a problem with this one – when someone says something’s value has doubled well that’s actually only a 100% increase, and when it has tripled, that’s a 200% increase.  When the value has gone up say fivefold that’s a 400% increase on the original value. You would think that the numbers would match, i.e. tripled is a 300% increase, but the important word is ‘increase’. Remember that the original value is 100% and if it triples, its value becomes 300% of the original, but the percentage increase is only 200%. Percentage increase is also known as markup. And in the headline above ‘iPhone sales grow 142%’, I guess they are saying that ‘sales increase by 142%’.

You might also come across the terms -times or -fold which mean the same, i.e. triples is three times or threefold the original value.

But don’t let me muddy the waters for you! There are actually quite a few websites that will calculate percentages or percent increases and decreases for you. Here’s a couple of the best I’ve come across.

PercentageCalculator

Nice clear interface. Just fill in 2 values and it calculates all the unknowns including the percentage increase or decrease.

Percentage Calculator

Perhaps a little clearer but just completes the row you have chosen.

So bookmark one of these sites for future reference when you perhaps want to clarify percentages you’ve been given or you want to calculate percent increases or decreases on your values.

Top image credit: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

When we’re not on Facebook or Twitter, chances are we may be searching for something online. It’s important to know how to get the best out of search so we can get the results we want quickly and without too much irrelevant stuff. So I was delighted to find a post on Lifehacker a little while back pointing me to Daniel Russell’s blog SearchReSearch.

Each week, Daniel issues a search challenge on some topic and you can try your hand at getting to the correct result. A couple of days later, he explains how he arrived at his result so you can see where you went wrong or indeed learn from his own search experience. This week it was What’s that flower? (pictured above).

So if you want to make your search more effective, subscribe to his blog and try his search challenges. Even if you haven’t got time to try it every week, just looking at the answers and seeing how he went about the searches is very useful. He also gives a takeaway Search Moral or Search Lesson at the end. And there’s a great archive of search challenges there if you’re looking for something to do this holiday.

And here’s an added bonus: Get More out of Google: Tips and Tricks for Students Conducting Online Research (Infographic)

Yesterday I received email notification of a blog comment which I should check was spam and approve or trash. It looked like spam – a couple of words and a shortened URL. But was the link important or interesting? I was a little wary and knew that this could be a security risk, i.e. don’t click a link if you’re not sure where it’s leading or you don’t know the sender. If you come across a shortened URL on Twitter, you can hover your mouse over it and the full URL will often appear – but not always. So what can you do to check out a shortened URL before you click?

Unshorten the link

Paste the link into unfwd4.me or unshorten.com to see the full URL. You may then be able to decide if the link is reputable and worth following. Still unsure? Try the link scanners mentioned below.

Scan the link

Copy the shortened URL into LinkScanner Online or Online Link Scan. They’ll scan the site and alert you if there may be a problem following the link. Or if you have time and want to try multiple antivirus engines, try the scanner at URLVoid.

After you click the link

After you’ve decided to click, browser plugins like McAfee SiteAdvisor and WOT (Web of Trust) provide another tool you can use to alert you of known dubious or untrusted  sites. I use McAfee and have found it to be fine. There are free and paid versions. The download link to the free limited version (SiteAdvisor) is currently at the bottom of their Downloads page. Web of Trust is also highly regarded in this fight against ‘clickjacking’ and avoiding malicious sites.

We’ve all been there. Arrive at a website and after a few seconds, a massive popup image appears dimming the background and asking you to subscribe to a newsletter or buy an ebook.

You cannot continue until you close this popup – or of course subscribe to the newsletter or buy the ebook. If you regularly visit this website, there are a couple of ways which you might try to block the popups in future.

Adblock Plus extension (for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and IE)

With the Adblock Plus extension installed, when the popup appears, you click the Adblock button (ABP) at the end of your address bar, select Easy Create Filter, then highlight the individual elements of the popup, right click when selected, then click Add to block those elements in future. Keeping adding the elements until all of the popup image has gone. You also have to select the whole dimmed background as well and add this otherwise the annoying dimmed effect will appear next time you load the site. If you got your selection wrong, you can always delete the filter, or parts of it – right click the Adblock button, select Options, then the Add your own filters tab. Then just select all the elements to remove. Although a little fiddly to get right, the advantage of this method is that, once it’s added to Adblock, the filter will keep working until you delete it. The disadvantage I’ve found is that it seems to remove any embedded YouTube videos on the webpage as well as the popup image and so far I can’t find a way to leave the video and remove the pop-up.

Block overlay images in Chrome

I learned another way to try to block these popups in Chrome on the cnet How To website. The instructions there are very clear so head over there for instructions. It doesn’t always seem to work in blocking these overlays. Problem with this one is, when you go to do some PC maintenance with say CCleaner, the popups will reappear. I think that it’s the deletion of Google Chrome cookies which is causing the popup images to reappear after running CCleaner. To prevent deletion of cookies and leave the images blocked, in CCleaner, click the Applications tab, scroll down to Google Chrome and uncheck the box marked Cookies. But you may want all cookies removed anyway so perhaps the Adblock route is the best option overall.

Hope this helps. How do you remove these popups or are you bothered by them?

You don’t have to scan documents to your PC then save them into Evernote organizer in two stages, you can set up your printer/scanner to scan directly into Evernote. I’ve already posted about scanning directly to Evernote with an Epson Perfection 4180 scanner.

I recently got a Canon MP series multifunction printer with built in scanner (MP280) and had no trouble setting it up to scan directly to Evernote. Here’s what you do.

When you installed your Canon printer drivers and utilities on the CD which came with the printer, you would have installed MP Navigator, the application which, among other things, allows you to scan directly to an application, in our case Evernote. Switch on your printer and place a test sheet on the scanner tray. On your PC desktop click Start, All Programs and navigate to Canon Utilities and click on that and open the MP Navigator folder.

For me it was actually called MP Navigator EX 4.0 but you may have a different version. Then double click the executable file in that folder (again for me it was MP Navigator EX 4.0 as shown above) and that should open Canon MP Navigator. If you intend to scan stuff frequently to Evernote, you could copy a program shortcut to your desktop. To do this, drag that executable to your desktop while pressing the Ctrl key (this makes a copy rather than moving it).  Once MP Navigator is open, click on One-click at the top right and you should see the options below.

Click on Custom and that should open a box like below. If it starts to scan now, just click Cancel.

This is the part where we select Evernote as the program we want to open the scan with. So under the section Application Settings, click Set as shown above, then navigate to your Evernote folder (for me it was C:\Program Files\Evernote\Evernote but it may be different for you. You’re looking for the Evernote executable file as shown below:

Select that file and click Open. Evernote will now appear as the application in the Open with: box on the previous screenshot. Click Apply in the bottom left corner to save Evernote in that box, then click the green Scan button in the bottom right corner and if all goes well the test page should be scanned and Evernote will open to show it.

By the way, now this is set up, in future when you click Custom, everything will happen automatically so make sure you have your page loaded ready for scanning.

Recently, my son accidently dropped his Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop and cracked the screen.  I’m not a computer repair tech but I’ve listened to a few Podnutz computer repair podcasts and got the impression this wasn’t a difficult replacement job. A quick search on Google uncovered an excellent video of the 1545 screen replacement on YouTube which convinced me I should have a go at it. I’ve written this post to give some tips on the procedure I used and my experience with the repair.

First I had to find a supplier of a replacement screen. I’m in the UK and Google came up with Laptop-Power UK but the first problem that website pointed out was that the screen could be one of two types – CCFL or LED. I wouldn’t know which until I’d removed the cracked screen and checked the part number on the back of it.

Screen replacement

So first I unplugged the laptop from the mains and removed the laptop battery. Here are the screwdrivers  I used for the job together with a pen for scale:

They’re actually jeweller’s screwdrivers – part of a set I got years ago for Christmas. I see similar ones on sale at Amazon UK. They have magnetic heads which are almost essential here otherwise the tiny screws could fall into the laptop keyboard if you’re not very careful. They also have a swivel top. I used the flat head screwdriver to carefully prize off the small black covers over the six screws on the front of the screen (four on top and two at the bottom). They’re just held in place with glue. Here’s a picture with the caps removed and showing the cracked screen.

Apologies for the poor photo but I’ve arrowed the position of the 6 screws to be removed, four along the top and two at the bottom. Put them into something like a small bowl for safe keeping along with the plastic caps – you’ve still got to order and receive the replacement screen so you don’t want to lose them in the meantime.

Next you have to remove the black bezel or frame around the screen. It’s just clipped in place so starting at the bottom of the screen just get your fingers inside the inner, upper  edge and gently pull away. It should unclip. Then do the sides and finally the top. Take care not to bend the bezel too much or you’ll stress the plastic and have to order that as well! Here’s a shot with the bezel removed.

Next remove the three (even smaller) screws along each side again shown with red arrows in the picture above. After they are out, be careful now as the screen is just sitting in the metal outer frame and only held in place by the two cables indicated in the picture above – the data cable and the backlight cable.

Next, you have to unplug the red and white cable with the white backlight connector plug. Here’s a close-up of that:

I found I had to remove the screw shown with the red arrow before I could get the white plug out. Remember that when you put in the replacement screen, the white plug should connect with the red wire at the top and the white wire at the bottom.

Now you should be able to lay the old screen carefully forward onto the keyboard but take care not to pull or stress the data cables where they connect into the laptop. Once you’ve laid the screen down, you’ll see the data cable connector on the back of the screen:

It’s held in place with transparent tape. I had to peel this tape back from the grey edge as shown above. Yours may be slightly different and peel in the opposite direction. Once peeled back you can unplug the connector. Just note how it’s connected. When you get your new screen you’re going to have to plug this back in and it’s a little fiddly. Next, carefully peel the data cable from the back of the screen. Mine was held in place with adhesive. Once this is done, your old screen should now be free leaving behind the data cable attached to the laptop.

Then check the maker and part number on the back of the screen. In my case, I had a Samsung screen LTN156AT01 so from the Laptop-UK website guide linked above, I knew I had a CCFL screen. I ordered the part and it arrived in 2 days, very well packaged.

Fitting the new screen is just the reverse of the procedure already described and is really straightforward and quite quick. I couldn’t believe how simple the whole procedure was. The most important thing I could see was to be careful not to stress the connection where the data cable connects to the laptop when you are disconnecting the cable from the old screen and connecting up the new screen.

Once I had fitted the screen, I plugged the battery back in, connected to the mains and powered up. Surprisingly, the machine resumed straight away in the application my son had been using before the accident. Of course he hadn’t been able to see the screen to shut down the laptop because the crack had rendered the screen useless. He had just disconnected the battery.

So if you accidently break your Dell 1545 screen, have a go at replacing it yourself and save yourself some money. Leave the repair techs to tackle the harder jobs!

Does your PC shut down for no apparent reason, then shut down again when you reboot? Is your machine becoming increasingly sluggish or are you experiencing unresponsive programs? There could be a number of causes but there’s one pretty simple procedure you can try and eliminate as the cause before you have to resort to a PC repair tech. Your machine may be overheating. This can be fatal for your CPU and your hard drive and can lead to an expensive repair and possible data loss so it needs to be tackled as soon as possible, or better still prevented. Simply open the PC case and see if there’s a thick layer of dust over all the components. This could be the cause of overheating and subsequent shutdowns as dust acts like a kind of blanket insulating all the electrics and preventing heat from escaping. If you have pets or a smoker in the house, or you live in a dusty environment, the likelihood of dust accumulation in your PC increases.

Okay, so you haven’t opened your PC case before… don’t panic it’s not too difficult. In fact, there’s literally thousands of guides online so I’ll just point out a couple of tips to guide you on your way. Google opening a PC case for lots more help in getting inside your machine.

First check your manual to ensure you’re not voiding your warranty by opening the case. Then it’s up to you whether you proceed.

Next if you haven’t done this before, doubtless there’s a horrendous clutter of cables going into the back of your PC. Switch off and unplug the PC. Take a photo of all the cabling with your digital camera to help you reconnect everything afterwards. You could also stick coloured labels on the cables and corresponding coloured dots on where they go on the back of the PC. Disconnect all the cables.

Put your PC box up on a table with the back facing you. To open and check for dust, you only really need remove one side of the case. Generally it’s the right side panel you have to remove to see everything inside. Check your manual to see how the panel comes off. Either there’s a couple of screws at the back holding it in place or it may be a screwless case with a lever possibly at the top middle of the side and which unclips to open the side panel.

Once you’ve opened it and if you’ve found a thick layer of dust over everything, you can remove the left side panel. Now you’ll need to get a can of compressed air from a local supplier and a face filter if you wish. To avoid getting dust everywhere, take the PC out to your back yard (obviously if it’s not raining) and carefully blow the air over the components. Don’t do this in the house! Don’t hold the compressed can too close to the components and be careful you don’t get showered in dust. Get upwind if it’s breezy outside.

Once you’ve blown the dust off all the components, you can brush any remaining lodged dust out with a soft clean artists brush. Then replace the side panels again on the table and finally plug all the cables back in again and reconnect to the power.

Reboot and see if the shutdown problem is resolved. If not then at least you’ve eliminated dust as the shutdown problem and you won’t have to pay a repair tech for that when he goes on to diagnose the problem.

If dust build-up was the problem, then obviously you’re going to have to repeat this procedure on a regular basis. Have a check again after say 3 months and see how things are.

Monitoring the temperature inside your PC

If you’ve opened up your PC and established that dust build-up is a real problem where you live, it would be well worth installing a temperature monitoring program to keep a constant check on the conditions inside your machine. One free program worth considering is SpeedFan. Among other things, this monitors the temperature of the CPU, the hard drive and the ambient temperature inside the computer.

It can be set to run on computer startup and can sound an alarm when preset temperatures are exceeded. SpeedFan also monitors the speed of your fans. Fans are obviously important in dissipating heat build-up in you PC. A build-up of dust can clog the fans so it’s worth monitoring they’re not slowing down. And obviously if some fans aren’t working at all and there’s no dust, you’ve probably found your overheating problem.

I’m very lucky that dust build-up in PCs isn’t a serious problem where I live in Scotland but listening to the Podnutz Daily computer repair podcast, it’s clearly a problem in many parts of the US and doubtless other parts of the world as well.

Have you experienced PC overheating? Any tips for us or stories? Drop a comment below.

Image credit: eurleif

I thought I knew Word… or at least everything I needed to know. But still little surprises come along and you just wonder how you’ve missed them in the past.

I wrote a post about the new search in Word 2010 and Karen left a comment on that post offering this awesome tip. If you’ve used Word you’ll know that one annoyance of search in earlier versions of Word was the way the search box would jump around all over the document when you clicked the Find Next button often obscuring the document and the search results. That’s been improved in Word 2010 as I mentioned in the earlier post, but Karen pointed out that once you hit Ctrl-F and enter your search term in the navigation panel if you then close the dialog box in the left margin and then hit Ctrl-PgDn, it repeats the search without calling the dialog box! Awesome. You can search down through all the occurrences of your search phrase just by using this keyboard combination and without the annoyance of the search box obscuring your document and results. And, wait for it, Ctrl-PgUp runs back up through the search occurrences. And this tip also works in the so-called Advanced Find in Word 2010 – that’s the old style search pre-Word 2010. I mentioned how to access that in the earlier post. In addition, you can even resume the search after doing some typing by just pressing Ctrl-PgDn or Ctrl-PgUp again. I’ve found that this tip also works in Word 2007 and Word 2002 and probably other versions too.

No doubt if I’d taken the time to carefully read through one of the Word cheat sheets I’ve downloaded in the past I would have known this tip already. So I’ll just past it on here in the hope that someone else out there will benefit from it.

Got any good Word tips? Drop a comment below.

What’s uninteresting content? Well that’s obviously pretty subjective. One thing’s for sure – we’re constantly being bombarded with too much online information, whether on Twitter, Facebook, Google Reader, etc. and we just can’t cope with it all. One way to ease the information firehose and stay more productive is to filter out content which we’re really just not interested in based on the appearance of certain ‘switch-off’ keywords in blog titles, tweets and stuff posted on Facebook. This can be done relatively easily with userscripts – these are just small bits of JavaScript which customize how a webpage displays. Thousands are already available at  Userscripts.org but don’t panic, these can be easily installed in your browser. I’ll be looking at Firefox and Chrome here as these are the two browsers I work with but they may also work with other browsers.
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In Windows 7 and Vista, there’s a keyboard shortcut to bring up cascading windows of the open programs on your taskbar. Press the Windows key + Tab to see it in action now… Pretty impressive. And to cycle through the windows, first use the Ctrl+Win Key+Tab combination and then the left and right arrow keys to cycle. Pressing the Enter key or selecting the Window does just that.
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