Bloated SnagIt Screencapture Utility

I hate it when I want to do something but have to wait for it. I know, I know, it just goes to show how impatient I am, but don’t we live in the age of instant gratification where everything must be done in the snap of your fingers.

Screen capturing is something that I (probably) do on a daily basis, so imagine my annoyance when something like screen capturing can’t be done in a quick, painless process. My basic requirements are simple: I want an area of my screen quickly captured and saved in a JPG format on my desktop so that I can do whatever I want with it.

With that requirements in mind, I downloaded SnagIt, tried it out, and after a few days realised that I cannot live with software as slow as it was. While it fulfilled my requirements perfectly, it went too far above and beyond, because with the SnagIt software came the ability to capture text, to capture a window or region, to save as a multitude of file-types, to browse your screen captures, etcetc. It was too much for me, though I could imagine how other people could benefit from these features.

Perhaps software should come in a few flavours. In my SnagIt example, the software in its entirety made me a dissatisifed user. If, however, it came in a “lite” version that did basic screencapturing quickly and easily, I would be sold.

In any case, I switched to a C# freeware called Cropper, which does what I want perfectly. That’s the screenshot of how it works: a simple and elegant solution that allows you to:

• Takes over the default PrtScrn (Print Screen) key
• Capture the region under the mouse
• Capture the active window
• Capture a selection

Awesome stuff. Download it free here:

http://www.codeplex.com/cropper

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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.

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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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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).

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