LANcom Technology Blog

Do you have some printed text that you wish you could convert into an editable document on your computer without having to type the whole thing out? Optical character recognition software (OCR) allows you to covert image files of text into text you can edit on your computer.

OCR software isn’t 100% perfect but the more clear the image of the text the better the results you will get.

If you have a short one off document you would like to convert a good free online option would be OCR terminal. The OCR terminal site allows you to:

1. Convert up to 20 pages of scanned or digitally photographed text for free (more than 20 pages will cost a fee)
2. Convert multi-page TIFF, JPEG, GIF, BMP, or PDF formats
3. Convert to doc, .txt, .rtf, or searchable .pdf formats

There are a few other free online OCR services available, but of the ones I tried OCR Terminal seemed to work the best. It converted a scanned page to plain text perfectly. To visit the OCR site click here. To see a video demonstration of how it works click here.

If you have a document longer than 20 pages or you will need to convert scanned documents on a regular bases then you may want to consider installing OCR software on your computer. Makeuseof.com currently has a great article on their website looking at five different options including: Microsoft OneNote 2007, Microsoft Office Document Imaging, SimpleOCR, TopOCR, and FreeOCR. To read this article click here.

Google has just added a new feature to Gmail, the ability for existing Gmail users to import emails from other email accounts. This feature was previously available to new users signing up to Gmail but now it is available to everyone.

This feature is great if you use Gmail but have another old webmail account you sometimes need to log in to review old emails. With this feature you can now store all your emails in one place.

Here’s how you do it

1. In Gmail click on Settings in the top right of your screen
2. Go to the Accounts and Import tab and click Import mail and contacts

1. Now you just need to enter the email address and password of your other account (This feature works with over 40 different webmail services including hotmail and Yahoo mail, to see the full list click here)
2. Gmail will now offer you some options and you just need to select what you want e.g. you might want to import your contact information as well as your emails. When your done click Start Import.

I could take up to 48 hours for your imported emails to appear but after that you’ll be able to access all your old emails.

If you would like to read about this feature on the official Gmail blog click here.

According to ComputerWorld, HP is about to offer liquid cooling on two of its workstation models because it can decrease the amount noise they produce by up to 10 decibels.

With liquid cooling the fan that cools a processor can be replaced by cold plates that conduct the heat from the processors to a liquid. That liquid then circulates into a reservoir where a slower moving fan disperses the heat. Due to the fact that the fans are moving at a much lower speed the noise the computers produce is also much less.

Here’s an example of the difference liquid cooling can make. An air-cooled z800 workstation running under a heavy CPU load will generate 38 dB of sound, which is close to the noise of a refrigerator. A z800 with liquid cooling will produce 30 dB under a heavy load, which is the sound level of a whisper.

To learn more about HP’s liquid cooling from ComputerWorld click here.

Here’s a quick list of my 3 favourite tips for speeding things up when you’re working with Office.

1. AutoCorrect

Do you have a long word or series of words that you frequently type? If you do then you can save time by setting up typing shortcuts using the AutoCorrect feature. For example instead of always typing ‘LANcom Technology’ I can create an AutoCorrect shortcut so that all I need to type is ‘LCT’ and Office will fill in the rest.

Here’s how set up an AutoCorrect shortcut in Word 2007

1. Click on the Office button (top left) and select Word Options
2. Select Proofing from the menu on the left, and click AutoCorrect Options…
3. Make sure there is a tick in the Replace text as you type box. Then in the Replace box type your shortcut abbreviation, and in the With box type the full text you would like to appear when you use that abbreviation.
4. Now Click Add and then OK.

The AutoCorrect feature is also available in older versions of Office, click here to find out how to do in Office 2003.

2. Changing your default working folder

You may have noticed that when you go to save an Office file for the first time, Office will automatically open the My Documents folder.  This is because My Documents is your default working folder, but if you often save your files in a different location you may want to change this setting to save yourself the time of finding this other location every time you save.

Here’s how you can do this do in Word 2007

1. Click on the Office button (top left) and select Word Options
2. Now choose Save from the menu on the left.
3. Next to Default file location click the Browse button
4. Go to the folder that you would like to be your default working folder and click OK

From now on when you go to save a document Word will open your selected folder as the default saving location.

Click here to find out how to change your default working folder in Office 2003.

3. Customising your Recent Documents list

Did you know you can customise the Recent Documents list that appears when you click on the Office button in Office 2007? The Recent Documents list gives you quick access to documents you have used recently, but you can make it even more convenient by changing the number of items it displays and pinning certain items to it.

To pin a document to the Recent Document list so that it will always appear in this list even if you do not open it for several weeks just click on the picture of a drawing pin next to that document in the list.

Here’s how to change the number of documents that appear in the Recent Documents list

1. Click on the Office Button and then click on the options button, in Word this will be called Word Options, in Excel Excel Options, and so on.
2. On the menu on the left select Advanced
3. Under the Display section (you may need to scroll down to find this) you will find Show this number of Recent Documents. Now enter the number of documents you would like to appear in the list, in the box provided (max 50) and click OK.

To find out how to customise the recently used files list in Office 2003 click here.

iGoogle, a free service that lets you personalise the Google homepage so that at a glance you can see all the things you’re interested in on the net, is now even better with the introduction of social gadgets.

Social gadgets allow you share information with others. If you have friends who also use iGoogle you can now share things like to-do-lists, games, or news with them through your iGoogle pages.

If you would like to learn more about iGoogle social gadgets and how they work click here. To learn more about iGoogle click here.

Need to quickly create a website? Weebly is a free service which allows you to quickly and easily put together a website without any technical skills. It uses a simple drag and drop interface to create your site, and offers over 65 professional website themes for you to choose from.

How does it work?

1. You sign up for free on the Weebly home page.
2. Weebly will then ask you to come up with a title for your site and offers you one of three options for coming up with a domain name. You can:
   1. Use a free Sub domain of Weebly e.g. www.johnsmith.weebly.com
   2. Register a new domain name
   3. Use a domain name you already own
3. Now you will be able to create your site using the Weebly editor. The Weebly editor has four tabs Elements, Designs, Pages, and Settings.
4. Elements - Under this tab you will find different website element like paragraphs, pictures, videos, and contact forms. When you find the element you want all you need to do is drag and drop it on to the place on the page you want it to appear.
5. Designs – Under this tab you can choose from one of over 65 professional themes to apply to your website.
6. Pages - Under this tab you can create and manage the pages of your site.
7. Settings - under this tab you can do things like change the title of your site, enter a site description and keywords, and add Google analytics code to your site. 

What else is great about Weebly?

• The drag and drop interface makes it incredibly easy to use.
• There are over 25 different website elements for you to chose from including a custom Html element if you want to add custom code.
• The themes are completely customisable
• If you would like a copy of your site you can download it as a .zip file
• You can even add a blog for your website using the Weebly editor.

As well as the great free version, Weebly also offers a pro account with additional features like premium support and up to 100MB of file uploads. To find out more about Weebly click here.

To view a youtube video demonstration of Weebly click here.

Link shortening websites like TinyURL are great for taking long and hard to remember links and creating short links to the same thing, but the downside is that when you click on a shortened link from someone else you can never be completely sure where on the web you’ll end up. The link could go to were you thought it would, or it could lead to a site that gives your computer a virus or spyware.

If there’s a shortened link that you would like to visit, but you don’t completely trust the source, then here’s a way you can check it. PrevURL and Untiny are both free online tools that allow you to preview where a shortened link leads to without you having to visit it.

All you have to do is enter the small URL and they will display the long URL it leads to. If it looks like it’s going to where you thought it would you can go ahead and click it, if it appears to go to some strange site you might want to rethink visiting it.

To try out PrevURL click here, to try out Untiny click here. If you would like to learn more about shortening links click here.

Hat tip to MakeUseOf for the idea for this post