Convert PDF to Doc with Free Software Download

I use a Treo 650 smartphone, and it’s been one of the best investments that I’ve made because of how it has allowed me to make use of idle time to read. With so much to read and so little time, every moment counts, and I love reading ebooks on my Treo. There’s no need to carry around an extra book, because everything is loaded in the memory of my Treo, and there’s no worry about low light because I can read in any kind of lighting condition with the Treo’s lighted screen.

The only problem I found is that documents must be in plaintext for best results. I’ve tried loading in PDF files, but the PDF reader doesn’t load as fast as the eReader software, and the process doesn’t seem as smooth. So I convert my PDFs to DOC format, and then convert them to PDB with the easyPDB software. Here’s a screenshot of how the PDF to DOC converter looks like - simple and efficient!

The great thing is, both these software are free!

Dowload the free PDF to Doc software
Download the free easyPDB software

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Toshiba Announces End of HD DVD, Sony’s Blu-ray Triumphs

I was just reading in the papers about the decision of Wal-Mart dropping HD DVD for Blu-ray, and wondering what the impact of that would be. I guess I found out. Toshiba has just officially announced the discontinuation of its high-definition video format, HD DVD, after numerous bigwigs such as Wal-Mart, Netflix, Best Buy and many others abandoned HD DVD for Sony’s Blu-ray.

It appears that Wal-Mart was the final straw. With no major players backing up its format, Toshiba could only admit defeat. HD DVD was the first to appear on the market, and is cheaper by a margin, but it appears that Blu-ray wins out. It’s not a bad thing, because Blu-ray is technologically more superior. In any case, it’s still a fact that is made even clearer after this episode that the majority of consumers will create enormous market forces that can make or break a new technology or format.

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Logitech Ultraslim Keyboard Dark Pearl (with Soft Touch Technology) Review

Urgh. I wanted to get a new keyboard for myself because I’m using a 17″ LCD monitor to extend my desktop from my Thinkpad notebook, so an external keyboard and mouse makes things easier to use.

I thought keyboards were all the same, and the only difference was the touch or feeling of the keys. Well, I thought wrong.

Logitech has an ultraslim keyboard that has really nice Soft Touch keys — they’re soft of like the keys that notebooks use, so it’s really comfortable and easy to type.

What I didn’t count on what that the key layout was totally different. It’s not like the full 104 key keyboards where the arrow keys live in an isolated area of their own, as with the numpad keys and the group of Page Down, Page Up, Insert, etc keys.

In this logitech keyboard, the keys were all squeezed together. That’s right — there’s no gap at all between any group of keys, arrow keys, numpad, or otherwise. That makes this keyboard really hard to use. It’s fine if you type without mistakes or require very little editing because the main group of keys are FANTASTIC to type on. It’s still by far the most comfortable keyboard I’ve used.

It’s just that the key layout really annoys me. This surfaces when I try to use the keyboard to navigate around (with the arrow keys) or perform editing operations (shift-home, shift-end, delete, backspace, etc). Normally I can do it without even looking at the keyboard, but with this particular Logitech keyboard, I have to actually look down and make sure I’m pressing on the right key. I’ve tried not looking, but I’m always hitting on the wrong key. That makes it really slow and awkward for me.

It got to a point where I couldn’t stand it anymore and pried out the less-important keys so that I could regain some of my productivity back. You can see from the picture above that I took out the Insert key and the Numpad 0 key. Things are slightly better this way, but it’s still a temporary measure.

Verdict? I’m going to sell off this keyboard, and get a better keyboard. One which is full-sized, so all the keys are where they should be, but also with the Soft Touch technology, which makes typing such a joy.

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Connecting SpeedTouch ST536 with Wireless Router

So I switched from cable to ADSL, but didn’t check if my wireless router could work out of the box. Well, it turned out that it could because I could surf the Internet just fine, or so I thought.

By not changing the settings to accomodate the ADSL modem, there was a weird phenomenon happening that caused frequent time-outs, FTP uploads failing, MSN messages not being sent or received properly, message loss, and the dreaded Page “Unable To Display” message in your browser until you refresh.

With such a host of problems, I did more research on my network configuration and tried to get my SpeedTouch ST536 ADSL modem to work with my Belkin wireless router properly. In fact, I was about to flash the SpeedTouch and get everything working in a bridge-mode setup until I discovered that there was an easier way!

If you think about it — the SpeedTouch can actually function as a router, and you can just use your wireless router as an access point. It means you don’t really fully maximise your router’s capabilities, but by using this setup, you ensure the fastest and most optimal way to configure your network.

How To Configure Your Wireless Router

In order for this configuration to work, you’ll need to do just a few things, in this order:

1.) Change your wireless router’s IP to 192.168.1.2 (it most probably was 192.168.2.1 or 192.168.0.1 etc.)
2.) Disable DHCP (dynamic IP assignment) in your wireless router’s configuration panel
3.) Plug the ST536 modem’s cable into your wireless router’s LAN port (not WAN port or MODEM port). This is the same type of port that your computer is connected to your router by.
4.) Disconnect and connect any computers that are currently connected to your network.

Done! This method worked for me, and I’m darn happy with my network now!

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Book Safe to Keep and Hide Valuables (Cash, Jewelry, etc)

I remember when I was much younger, and I happened to watch this movie where one of the characters stowed some secret item in a book safe. The much-younger-me was very much the impressionable and easily astonished kid, and if I don’t recall wrongly, I was extremely surprised when I first discovered the book safe.

I thought it was an absolutely ingenious idea.

Books were meant for reading and I never did explore the possibilities of actually having a fake book to store valuables in. The premise was simple — have a fake book, or a real book with a hole cut into it — and then storing your cash and valuables inside that book safe.

For book safes like that, a lock or combination wouldn’t even be possible. These book safes depend on security by obfuscation, which, is entirely inadequate. The complete system is based on the assumption that another person will not chance upon your book safe by accident.

That said, I know it sure as heck is a great conversational piece. And it’s cool.

Interested? Amazon has it, so you can get your very own book safe.

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