techtrickz» Download

Swype Like Keyboard For Windows 8 Tablet PCs

Kannan — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 08:18:29 +0000

If you are an iPhone, Android or Nokia phone user, you may have familiar with Swype keyboard. Swype is a QWERTY keyboard for touchscreens that can greatly speed up the text typing process – only need to move (swype) your fingers or stylus across virtual letters to form text. Swype keyboard currently not available for Windows 8 Tablet PCs, however, you can enable Swype like keyboard feature in Windows 8 with InScribe.

Because Windows 8 has been designed with Tablet PC in mind, it comes with a nice virtual onscreen keyboard with useful features like auto-complete text, but doesn’t have swype like feature. InScribe enable this.

InScribe is a free, virtual keyboard designed for Tablet PCs and UMPCs and has several features to enhance your text typing process. However, it is not as perfect as Swype and lacks features like word suggestions, autocorrect misspelled words, etc.

Features and usage of InScribe (v.2.0):

Download and install InScribe. When it running, there is an InScribe icon in the system tray. Tap this icon to show and hide the keyboard. You can make your keyboard bigger or smaller by dragging the keyboard borders.

From the Options menu, you can change how transparent your keyboard is, select the font type and color that displays on the keys, and make other adjustments to the appearance.

You can switch to different keyboard layouts by either selecting the Choose Layout pick from the menu or by tapping the Layout key on your InScribe keyboard. Moreover, you can design your own layouts using the Layout Designer option.

Verdict: Though the title of this article is Swype like keyboard for Windows 8 Tablet PCs, InScribe is not as perfect as Swype. It doesn’t have text suggestion and auto-correct features. Moreover, its interface (GUI) is not attractive.

You can download (2.4 MB) InScribe from the developer’s website here. (via)

CloudShot Screen Capturing Tool With Dropbox Integration

Kannan — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 01:52:13 +0000

CloudShot is a little, but comprehensive screen capturing tool for Windows that allows you to capture screenshot of your computer screen and save it on your computer as well as on your Dropbox folder. The Dropbox cloud storage integration makes this a unique tool, as this makes you quickly share your screenshot with your friends remotely and access them from anywhere on any device.

With CloudShot, you can take screenshots of screen region, window (by click in window) and screenshots of the menus and tooltips and as said above, the screenshots will automatically save on your computer and Dropbox.

Other unique features of CloudShot include support for multiple monitors, option to save as PNG or JPEG file and saves history of recent shots (currently10 shots).

See the video below to know how it works

CloudShot is a free application and can be downloaded at Codeplex here. (via)

Enhance Your PowerPoint Presentation With VisualBee

Kannan — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 07:05:29 +0000

It is said that a well-crafted presentation can have much more impact than a really good blog post, thesis or a good article. Therefore, still it has greater importance in many fields like businesses, classroom lecturing, etc. For creating presentations, people are generally depending on Microsoft PowerPoint. To make your presentations even more exciting, here is a plug-in for PowerPoint called VisualBee.
The plug-in is simple and easy to use. First, download and install the free plug-in, then select the customizations you would like to make. It offers many eye-catching design templates, images and icons, which you can choose from.

VisualBee is available in two flavors, the basic that is free, and the premium. The Premium version gives you access to more designs, images, as well as the ability to automate use of personal images. Besides, you can also embed your own logo on each slide.

Note: For installation, internet access is required. While installing VisualBee don’t forget to uncheck the browser toolbar option.

Snaplr: Simple Tool to Capture And Annotate Your Desktop Activity

Kannan — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 02:24:33 +0000

Snaplr is an intuitive, very simple to use screen-capturing application designed to easily capture and annotate your desktop’s activity. This Adobe Air application can be useful, if for example, to quickly capture something show on your desktop and share it with your friends via email or other means.
To capture a screenshot, just click ‘Take Screenshot’ button and draw the required area. Then you can highlight a specific area on the captured image with a set of drawing tools.

After capturing the screenshot, just copy your screenshot to the clipboard and paste it to an outlook email or you can save it as a png image.

Snaplr requires Adobe Air on your system (Windows, Mac, and Linux) to install. If it is not, Snaplr will automatically download install it (required internet connection).

Snaplr is a free tool and clean (Check this VirusTotal test result). You can download it at source here.

How Fast is Your USB Flash Drive? Test it With USBFlashSpeed

Kannan — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 08:56:21 +0000

The read and write speed of USB flash drives vary between make and model. If you are planning to buy a new USB flash drive, it is very useful to know its read/write speed. In addition, if you know the read/write speed of your USB flash drive, you will get an idea how much time it would take to complete a file transfer between USB drive and a PC.
Here is a little, simple to use and portable benchmarking tool called USBFlashSpeed, which lets you test your USB’s read/write rate at different data sizes and lets you know how fast it is.

It tests USB flash drives at different data levels, for example 25 MB to 1 KB. During the test, the read/write data is always marked on a graph, so you will get an idea of read/write speed of the USB at various data transfer levels.

Using USBFlashSpeed is quite useful. Just follow as described below.

1. Plug in your USB flash drive on your computer and run the benchmark application (no installation needed).

2. Choose your USB flash drive letter and start the benchmark. Wait for results.

You can also compare your results with other results published on the developer’s site! USBFlashSpeed can be downloaded free at developer’s site here.

New Easeus Todo Backup v.3.0 Supports Differential and Incremental Backup

Kannan — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 10:46:44 +0000

Every computer owners knows that keeping a backup of their valuable data is important, but as the process of setting up a back up is so complex, often they hesitate to do that. However, the backup tool Easeus Todo Backup lets you do things little easier. What is more, it is free for both home and business users.

Easeus Todo Backup can back up files and folders or your entire system including the OS and installed applications on the fly without interrupting your work under Windows.

The latest version of EASEUS Todo Backup (version 3.0) supports differential backup and incremental backup, which saves time and disk space by only backing up changed files.

What is a differential backup? It backs up only the files that changed since the last full back.

What is incremental backup? Incremental backups also back up only the changed data, but they only back up the data that has changed since the last backup.

Interested readers can get details and download at developer’s website.

Manage Multiple Clipboard Items in Windows

Kannan — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 02:40:33 +0000

Want to copy and paste several different things at the same time? Here is a powerful clipboard manager called Shapeshifter for Windows that allows you to copy several items (text, images, or any data) in your clipboard, easily swap between them, and increase your work performance.

Shapeshifter is quite easy to use and requires only a few system memories. Install it, it will sit in the system tray. Read below to know how to use Shapeshifter.

Copying items: Use Ctrl + C key to copy multiple items. Then, hold down CTRL + V to see the Shapeshifter interface. While holding down CTRL + V, select an item to paste with the arrow keys or the mouse-wheel, and release CTRL + V to paste the item.

Deleting clipboard history: Hold down CTRL + V, and press the Delete key on your keyboard for more than 0.5 seconds. You may also clear a single item in the history by pressing Delete once.

Pinning an item: A clipboard item can be pinned so that it stays in the top of the list. Hold down the CTRL + V key, and press the Home key on your keyboard.

Shapeshifter can be downloaded free at developer’s website.