Best Free Windows Calculator Replacement

Moffsoft FreeCalc is a freeware calculator application that is the best Windows calculator alternative. That’s right — you can completely replace the in-built calculator within Windows with this freeware tool because it provides so much more functionality.

Firstly, the calculator is resizable, so gone are the days that you had to carefully click on each number (yes, I know you can type it in on the keyboard as well). With Moffsoft FreeCalc, you can expand the calculator window so that it even fills up the entire screen if you wish! This makes pressing those buttons SO MUCH easier. Just check out a screenshot of it running on my laptop here:

Secondly, you get a useful tape (optional - can be turned off) that is displayed on the right of the main calculator window, and it’ll record down all the operations that you’ve performed.

Just these two additional features alone have made me switch from the calculator in Windows to this great little freeware application. Try it out! Moffsoft FreeCalc can be downloaded here. And if you want a premium version that comes with even more features (and I mean A LOT), then you’ll be pleased to know that Moffsoft offers a premium version of their calculator as well. Want even more calculator software? Then check out this site, because it offers a really wide range of freeware and software downloads.

Subscribe to my blog: RSS reader    Email

How To Solve “No available system font while editing PDF in Adobe Acrobat” Problem

If you’ve tried editing PDF documents using Adobe Acrobat (using the Acrobat Touch Up Text Tool), then you’ve most probably come across this problem that says “No available system font”. Bummer.

Now some of you might legitimately have the font when you created the PDF, but might have switched computers, went through an upgrade, or anything of that sort that caused you to not have that particular system font now.

The conventional way was to go out there and buy that font again, so that you edit your PDF document in Adobe Acrobat right? Well — that will work, but it’s not a very scalable solution. Imagine having multiple fonts that you had to buy, or perhaps you only had to edit the document, and having the exact same font didn’t matter at all to you.

That was the problem I faced — the fonts that I used were pretty, but it wasn’t crucial that I continued using them. In fact, I would have been happy with just Arial or even Times New Roman. So the main thing is to get the editing operation to work.

So I gave it some thought, and I realised that I could actually masquerade some fonts as the required fonts by Adobe Acrobat. However, it wasn’t as easy as I thought. I discovered that just changing the font’s filename wouldn’t work, so I searched around this software download site for a solution, and found it in the form of FontCreator, a font software created by High-Logic.

FontCreator is, in essence, a very powerful font-creation tool that even professional typographers and graphic designers use. But it’s simple and user-friendly, and best of all, affordable enough for home users to buy.

The font editor allows you to easily select and modify the entire character set of any TrueType® font and fonts based on OpenType® font technology. You can even convert images to outlines! I tried scanning in my signature, and made a font with my own signature. Then I tried the same process with my handwriting! So now I can select “My Handwriting” as the font in any application (such as Microsoft Word), and have my documents written in my signature, digitally!

Most importantly though, it allowed me to edit the property of an existing font. So I made a copy of an existing font in my system (I can’t remember which!), and then used FontCreator to change the name of the font to the one that was embedded in my PDF document. Next, I opened up Adobe Acrobat again to edit my font, and viola! IT WORKED.

So if you’re looking for a long-term solution that’s infinitely more scalable than always having to buy individual fonts again and again, try out FontCreator. It’s a great piece of software to add to your collection, and you get to have added functionality like creating a customised font to mimic your handwriting!

Update: Ah! I found a coupon for 10% off…but only after I made my purchase!

If anyone wants the 10% discount coupon for FontCreator, it’s “VGHK-D515″ (without the quotes).

Subscribe to my blog: RSS reader    Email

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.

Subscribe to my blog: RSS reader    Email

Bookmark Bridge Review and Screenshot

I use both Firefox and Internet Explorer, and one of the pet peeves that I have is that both of them don’t share bookmarks / favourites. This is a problem because when I save a site in Firefox, I want to be able to access it in Internet Explorer and vice versa.

Well, here’s the solution, it’s called Bookmark Bridge, and what it does is that it syncs the bookmarks between Firefox and IE. Very straightforward application, and does what it’s supposed to do perfectly!

Visit the Bookmark Bridge website, it’s open-source software that runs on Linux and Windows!

Subscribe to my blog: RSS reader    Email

Think Microsoft Paint Sucks? Wait Till You See This

I used to think that Microsoft Paint was just a bare-bones basic image editing software that couldn’t really serve much use — clunky and under-featured. Until I saw this video. Then I thought maybe the problem lay with me

Just look at how this guy does it — it’s AMAZING. He/she completely reproduces the Mona Lisa, and in under 3 hours!

Ms Paint: Painting Mona Lisa - video powered by Metacafe

Subscribe to my blog: RSS reader    Email