Word 2010, Word 2007 – how to paste plain text without formatting

Deutsch | Español | Français | Italiano | Português | 日本語 | 한국어 | 简体中文

This blog post shows how to change the default settings in Word 2010 or Word 2007 so that whenever you use Ctrl v to paste text into Word from a Webpage, PDF file or other source, it automatically pastes it without the original formatting as unformatted text, getting rid of all the font styles, bold etc formatting from the original source.

Paste Special is what I've always used when pasting text into a Word document. But in Word 2003, it took too many steps to go to menu, Edit, Paste Special, which has always been an annoyance for me.

In Word 2010 and Word 2007, there are two ways to paste text in unformatted form much more easily.

I'll cover both, but I'd recommend the quick way, which I cover first.

The quicker way

Here's how to get to the best way to paste unformatted text in Word 2010 and Word 2007. This way sets your defaults, so that whenever you use the Ctrl v keyboard shortcut to paste text into Word, it automatically pastes it as plain unformatted text.

Apart from the "Set Default Paste" button mentioned above, you can get to the correct settings window by going to the menu File, Options in Word 2010 (in Word 2010, it's the Word graphic at the top left, then Word Options button at the bottom). Now click "Advanced" in the list on the left.

Now go to the "Cut, copy and paste" section, and use the down arrows against the various itmes to set "Keep Text Only". I retain "Keep Source Formatting" when it's pasting within the same document (though I may change that to Keep Text Only as it can be a pain when moving text to footnotes from the main body).

Then OK, and that's it.

In future, Ctrl v will automatically paste without the original font style, size etc. You may still have to edit the spacing etc, but it's a lot less annoying, for me.

How to get rid of paste options popup too

While you're at the Advanced options, if like me you hate with a vengeance the "Paste Options" popup that appears as default in Word whenever you paste anything, and gets in the way by blocking what you're viewing.

You can also get rid of that and stop it popping up all the time.

The slower way

In Word, once you've copied text to clipboard, you can press Ctrl Alt V – then arrow up or down (or keep pressing u) to choose "Unformatted text" or "Unformatted unicode text".

Or in Word 2010, for mouse users, in the Home menu, click the down arrow under the Paste icon on the left of the ribbon.

This gets you to the same box as Ctrl Alt v above. However, there's a better solution here. Once you click the down arrow under Paste, you can click the "A" button show outlined in red below, to paste just the text.

Or, if you rightclick in the body of the document, you get the same Paste Options where you can click the A button.

But better still, click "Set Default Paste". This gets to a window that lets you set options permanently. I'll cover below another way to get to that window, and what to set in it.

For Word 2007, it's similar, but you only get a Paste Special option (which brings up the box where you choose Unformatted text), there's no A button.

How to do this - in the "Show Paste Options button when context is pasted" line also outlined in red above, just UNtick the box and OK.

The slower way

In Word, once you've copied text to clipboard, you can press Ctrl Alt V – then arrow up or down (or keep pressing u) to choose "Unformatted text" or "Unformatted unicode text".

Or in Word 2010, for mouse users, in the Home menu, click the down arrow under the Paste icon on the left of the ribbon.

This gets you to the same box as Ctrl Alt v above. However, there's a better solution here. Once you click the down arrow under Paste, you can click the "A" button show outlined in red below, to paste just the text.

Or, if you rightclick in the body of the document, you get the same Paste Options where you can click the A button.

But better still, click "Set Default Paste". This gets to a window that lets you set options permanently. I'll cover below another way to get to that window, and what to set in it.

For Word 2007, it's similar, but you only get a Paste Special option (which brings up the box where you choose Unformatted text), there's no A button.

Internet Explorer cookie contents - the new format analysed

Deutsch | Español | Français | Italiano | Português | 日本語 | 한국어 | 简体中文

Microsoft changed the way that Internet Explorer cookie files work and randomised cookie filenames, for security reasons; the cookie text files now have random names which don't indicate the name of the website that saved the cookie, and you have to open up each cookie file individually to check what that is.

However, you can still view the contents of all your IE cookies, unmangled, by exporting your cookies to a single cookies.txt file. Then if you open up that cookies.txt file, you can see the cookie info, in a much more comprehensible, intelligible user-friendly format, eg:

Webtrends seems to be used by Microsoft for recording web visitor analytics & statistics info.

I compared the contents of a couple of the new cookies against the cookies.txt versions to try to figure out how they work. I found that if you copy and paste the text from the cookie file into something else (eg a new text document), the info is broken up into separate lines (ie there's hidden new lines to separate the different components of the info).

For example, the contents of a Twitter cookie file named J0R4GWEF.txt, which like the other contents of cookies appeared to run continuously on in the txt file, was split up like this:

guest_id
v1%3A131542058071389408
twitter.com/
214748475215010693123032155316242192030174605*

The cookies.txt equivalent of that was:

twitter.com TRUE / FALSE 1378897943 guest_id v1%3A131542058071389408

So that helps to figure out the new format of the cookie file. The elements seem to be in this order:

1. variable name (eg "guest_id")
   
2. variable value (eg "v1%3A131542058071389408") - the equivalent of the old "guest_id=v1%3A131542058071389408"
3. domain name (ie the website which set the cookie, eg "twitter.com/")
4. something I haven't figured out yet (in the example above, it's "214748475215010693123032155316242192030174605") - but it must convert to the expiration date for the variable (ie 1378897943 in the example above), which traditionally is the number of seconds since 1 Jan 1970, and shows up as the "proper" figure in the cookies.txt version. Maybe this long figure also contains other info about the cookie file
5. * symbol - which marks the end of this variable, and the start of the next variable set by the website, whose name etc follow in the same order.
   

I worked out the purpose of the * from looking at a single Google cookie file, for example these contents, of a single txt file:

PREF
ID=15025770280c4f56:U=8cbfd7d77ff8ecf4:FF=0:TM=1315398473:LM=1315408615:S=zAzaJeJ5lq1Y-EEk
google.com/
1536
521981312
30321428
744646208
30174577
*
NID
50=IVMzsW2RssDmmdt21XYqM-m6GMBe731GqCispetEG495dEdHdl_tlLqIv8h8tINpCg1kI2lgsAgLheW-TVQzbGoBoiHfBjSJuhOPJSEfWVNTw-H-_Nt16tyNCyIL2zCf
google.com/
9728
2103298560
30211390
722926208
30174577
*

- showed up in the cookies.txt file as this:

google.com TRUE / FALSE 1378844158 PREF ID=15025770280c4f56:U=8cbfd7d77ff8ecf4:FF=0:TM=1315398473:LM=1315408615:S=zAzaJeJ5lq1Y-EEk

google.com TRUE / FALSE 1331583355 NID 50=IVMzsW2RssDmmdt21XYqM-m6GMBe731GqCispetEG495dEdHdl_tlLqIv8h8tINpCg1kI2lgsAgLheW-TVQzbGoBoiHfBjSJuhOPJSEfWVNTw-H-_Nt16tyNCyIL2zCf

Final example, from a Facebook cookie:

eLlnTol8k9yayreWIGxF-h6m
facebook.com/
2147492864
3767864320
30321455
3978419216
30174604
*
translates to:

facebook.com TRUE / FALSE 1378856079 datr eLlnTol8k9yayreWIGxF-h6m
datr

I've not yet worked out how the name of the cookie text file relates to anything in its contents (which no doubt is part of the purpose of the security fix!), so you still can't tell which file was set by which site without opening up each file. The order of info in the cookies.txt document doesn't match the order of the dates that the cookies were created or modified, and they're not in alphabetical order of domain name either. But at least it's possible to check out all the contents of all cookie files at once.

Internet Explorer cookie names change

Deutsch | Español | Français | Italiano | Português | 日本語 | 한국어 | 简体中文

Worried that your cookie filenames have changed to incomprehensible random strings of letters and numbers? No need. Microsoft has, for security reasons, changed the way IE cookies are named. This is to improve security and reduce "cookiejacking", addressing one way in which attackers might be able to access your cookies (which could include your login information etc).

Side effects: some apps depending on the old cookies names system broke, eg CCleaner and WinPatrol. Also, it's now harder for users to figure out which cookies were set by which websites, as you can't tell the website name from the cookie name anymore. You have to open up the cookie file to check.

However, other browsers like Firefox aren't affected by the change - it's Internet Explorer only.

Old cookie names structure

Internet Explorer cookies used to have filenames with the structure: yourcomputerloginname@partialdomainname.txt eg johnsmith@microsoft.txt (or johnsmith@msdn.microsoft[2].txt etc).

IE cookies are typically located in your AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Cookies folder (to find the AppData folder, click Start, in the search box type "appdata" without the quotes and hit Enter. If that doesn't work try "%AppData%" again without the quotes which may go straight to the "Roaming" subfolder).

The security hole, and update

However, in August Microsoft released a Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (2559049) which (according to Microsoft Security Bulletin MS11-057) addresses a "Drag and Drop Information Disclosure Vulnerability CVE-2011-2383" which existed because IE (all versions) didn't properly restrict access to store cookie files.

In more detail for the techies, before the update Internet Explorer did not "properly restrict cross-zone drag-and-drop actions, which allows user-assisted remote attackers to read cookie files via vectors involving an IFRAME element with a SRC attribute containing an http: URL that redirects to a file: URL, as demonstrated by a Facebook game, related to a "cookiejacking" issue".

This vulnerability meant that "An attacker who exploited the vulnerability when a user views a Web page and performs a drag-and-drop operation could gain access to cookie files stored in the local machine."

What the security fix changes

To fix the vulnerability, this update modified how Internet Explorer accesses locally stored cookies, and how it manages cookie files. These changes included changing how Internet Explorer sets file names for cookies, to help make cookie file names less predictable.

Reportedly this change has been seen in several Windows operating systems, ie XP, Vista and Windows 7, and several versions of Internet Explorer including IE8 and IE9 (which would make sense as Microsoft's info says the vulnerability affects Internet Explorer 9 and previous versions).

A Microsoft blog explained the change - see the "Cookie Filenames are Randomized" heading. It's now harder for attackers to guess the location of a particular cookie as IE cookie files are now named "using a randomly-generated alphanumeric string. Cookies are not instantly renamed on [the security] upgrade, but are instead renamed as soon as any update to the cookie’s data occurs."

Consequences of the cookie name change

Now, cookie names look like this:

As mentioned earlier, certain software depending on the old system doesn't work anymore, and will have to be tweaked.

From the viewpoint of those protective of their privacy, while you can't see the website's name from looking at the cookie filename, you can still see it if you open up the cookie in Notepad or other text editor.

For example, here's the contents of cookies saved by Microsoft when I visited and then re-visited their webpage about the cookie change. You can see "microsoft" in there:

And here's the contents of a cookie saved by Google when I searched for info on the cookie change using the search box in Internet Explorer. Again, you can see "google.com" in there, although the filename is now "25Z1H29G.txt", and no longer mylogin@google.txt:

For more details of how it seems to work behind the scenes, I've done a separate blog post on how to view the contents of your Internet Explorer cookies in a more user-friendly way.

How to batch crop JPEG photos, scans, images

Deutsch | Español | Français | Italiano | Português | 日本語 | 한국어 | 简体中文

Here's how to crop a bunch of JPEGs with the free JPEGCrops (Windows), which I used where I needed to chop half an inch (of printer-ink-wasting-black) off the top edge of one set of scanned music score pages, and half an inch off the bottom edge of another set (where I'd turned the book upside down to scan those pages). I couldn't find a proper howto, so here's my step by step.

Cropping multiple files in a batch saves having to open, crop and save each JPEG individually. You just set the edges of the first image (where you want it to be cropped to), and the rest of the photos or pics can automatically be set to the same dimensions.

If all the unwanted bits are on the same part of every image, eg always the left margin or always the bottom margin, you can use the excellent free PDFill PDFTools. My problem was that for some images I needed to crop one edge, and for others another edge, so I couldn't do that - hence JPEGCrops.

I couldn't get JPEGCrops to work fully at first, so here's my step by step tutorial, including all the basic stuff most people skate over:

1. Download, install and open JPEGCrops. It's a bit blank looking, but that'll change.
   
   
   
2. See the folder name in the bottom right? That's the folder into which the software will automatically save the cropped images, in my case "C:\Users\myloginname\Cropped". You can change the location of that folder via the menu File > Select Output Dir to choose another folder, but obviously you need to do that before you crop the images in question.
   
   
3. Go to menu File > Preferences and choose your Default Aspect and OK. In my case, as I'm in the UK, it's A4 - your mileage may vary. Feel free to experiment and change it for each set of images and see how it looks.
   
   
   (The Preferences box is weird on my system, many buttons aren't visible, probably something to do with my system.)
   
   
4. Now in JPEGCrops open up the pics that you need to crop. There are 2 possible ways -
   1. use the menu File > Open Images (or click the "Open Images" button at the bottom left), then navigate to the folder containing your JPEGs, then select the files you want; you can select several files by holding down the Ctrl key as you click on the ones you want, and click Open, or
   2. in Windows Explorer or Computer, navigate to the right folder, select the images you want (again Ctrl and clicking, or the Spacebar key for hotkey fans, does the trick), and drag the selected images into the JPEGCrops window.
      
      
5. Your selected images should now all be in JPEGCrops. Look at the first pic. You'll see parts of it are greyed out, and parts of it are more clearly visible with a white background. The cropping will get rid of the greyed out bits.
   
   
   
6. Depending on your situation, you may want to UNtick the "Flip aspect" button, as I did, to get a proper Portrait view:
   
   
   
7. There are white horizontal and vertical bars around the clearly visible bit. You'd drag these with your mouse to outline the area of the JPEG that you want to keep. But don't do that just yet!
   
   
8. This is the step I missed: first, go to the Edit menu, make sure "Synchronize Crops" is ticked (it isn't in the pic below), by selecting it if necessary.
   
   
   This is to make sure that the crops etc you make to one image will automatically be done to all the others you opened in JPEGCrops. Otherwise you have to tediously do them one by one, which kinda defeats the purpose of using "batch" image editing software!
   
   
9. Now that sync is on, you can drag the white bars to outline the part of the image that you want to keep. There are right and left curly arrows at the bottom left which you can use if you also want to rotate all images at once.
   
   
   
10. Once you've done the edits, it's a good idea to scroll down through all the images in JPEGCrops to check that the correct parts are outlined in all the images. This is to avoid cutting important bits off the occasional image, especially if you haven't scanned them all in exactly the same way and sometimes had the book (or whatever) a few millimetres off.
    
    You may find you have to tweak some of the edges one way or the other, so that you have the sections you need outlined in all the pages. Worse comes to worse, you could untick the synchronisation, then tweak it just for a particular problem image or two.
    
    
11. When all set, click the "Crop all images" button (NOT the "Crop" button):
    
    
    
12. It automatically crops them and saves the cropped images in a new folder, the folder mentioned in step 2. (You can open that folder quickly by clicking in the box, selecting the folder path info and copying it into clipboard, then pasting it into your Windows Explorer address bar.)
    
    
13. In my case, I then repeated this with a different set of JPGs where I needed to crop a different edge off. Then I stitched the cropped images together into a single PDF file for ease of printing, rather than having to print each cropped image one by one - PDFill Tools works great for that too (it's the "Convert Images to PDF" button, then drag and drop the image files, and reorder images in the list if necessary).

LinkedIn privacy - change your settings with fewer clicks

Deutsch | Español | Français | Italiano | Português | 日本語 | 한국어 | 简体中文

If you're a member of business networking site LinkedIn and don't want your name or profile photo used for "social advertising" to endorse products or services on LinkedIn, you have to opt out. Here's a "howto".

How to opt out of social advertising on LinkedIn

The quickest way to opt out is:

1. click this link
2. login to LinkedIn with your username/password (if you aren't already logged in)
3. in the "Manage Social Advertising" box that pops up, UNtick the box against "LinkedIn may use my name, photo in social advertising"
   
   
4. click "Save".

Below are some further privacy-preserving steps you can take on LinkedIn.

How to protect your privacy on LinkedIn - shortcuts to other options

Other steps you may wish to take, while you're signed in to LinkedIn, are as follows:

1. data sharing with third party applications - click this link to opt out; UNtick the box, then click "Save changes":
   
   
2. "enhanced advertising" - click this link to opt out, again UNtick the box, save changes
3. who can see your profile pic - click this link to control the options
4. what info is shown on your public profile - click this link to control display of info from your profile in search engine results
5. how your name is displayed - click this link to change this; under "Basic Information", "Name", there's a "Display Name" option - select the last one to hide your surname (just the initial is shown), remembering to save the changes:
   
   
6. can others find out that you've viewed their profile? - click this link to control this; the first option allows people (if they've also enabled this) to see that you have checked them out! Some might want to show just their organisation, or prefer to be "totally anonymous":
   
   
7. email preferences - click this link to check and change eg who can send you LinkedIn invites
8. correcting or deleting info about you - click this link to contact LinkedIn

I've just linked to some of the key settings which may be relevant to those concerned about their privacy, because while the direct links are given in LinkedIn's privacy policy they're difficult to track down amongst the thickets of LinkedIn's long and winding privacy policy.

There are more options that you may want to check out, eg invitations to participate in research - see below on LinkedIn settings.

LinkedIn settings - the longwinded way

It's via your Settings page that you can opt out of social advertising on LinkedIn, and also other settings which may intrude on your privacy,

To access Settings, the quickest way is to click this link, then login if necessary.

Alternatively:

1. Login to LinkedIn.
   
2. At the top right, hover over your name or the down arrow by it, and click "Settings":
   
   
3. Enter your password again if required.

The different types of Settings are listed at the bottom left, grouped into 4 sections:

• Profile;
• Email Preferences;
• Groups, Companies and Applications; and
• Account.

The "social advertising" opt-out is accessible by clicking the Account link, then "Manage Social Advertising" -

You might want to look at the other links too.

For example under the "Profile" section is "Select what others see when you've viewed their profile".

And the "Groups, Companies & Applications" section is where you can turn off data sharing with apps (although the link I gave above is the quickest way to get there).

Similarly, controlling the display of your name is under the Profile section (Edit your name etc):

More info

LinkedIn's changed privacy policy, which was announced in June 2011, says that (I added the bold):

"In order to deliver relevant and valuable ads to you and your network, LinkedIn may use your name and profile photo in connection with social advertising based on content shared on LinkedIn. This advertising may include the fact that you have recommended or endorsed a product or service on LinkedIn, followed a company, joined Groups or conversations, established or added content to your profile, etc., and will only be displayed to your LinkedIn network."

After criticism of its social advertising changes by security firm Sophos and others, LinkedIn said that they now won't initially show photos against ads, and will just show the number of people in your network who like that product etc.

Here's LinkedIn's "before outcry" and "after outcry" mockups, from their blog post:

However one important issue is still not very clear, as one commenter pointed out. When you click on the "X people in your network" link, what happens? Does it at that stage then show the names or photo of the exact people concerned? Who knows, so some people may well want to opt out anyway, just in case.

Freedom of information requests by Twitter!

Deutsch | Español | Français | Italiano | Português | 日本語 | 한국어 | 简体中文

You can tweet a freedom of information request to public authorities, the Information Commissioner has said. Even referring to the authority's name in an @mention may be effective.

However, for a FOIA request to be valid, you have to:

1. give your real name, or at least link to it (eg in your Twitter profile) - a pseudonym isn't considered good enough, and
2. provide an "address for correspondence".

The Information Commissioner asked, but didn't directly answer, the question: does "address for correspondence" include Twitter names?

I'd argue that in the internet age it does, because people can reach you and correspond with you via your Twitter name. (Or indeed via email addresses.)

Furthermore, the Information Commissioner has said, "The authority could ask the requester for an email address in order to provide a full response. Alternatively, it could publish the requested information, or a refusal notice, on its website and tweet a link to that".

All this is good news for transparency, freedom of information and open government generally, and may perhaps be a lesson to those public authorities who are only willing to provide a postal address or a long online web form for accepting freedom of information requests. If they won't provide an email address for FOI requests, then tweet requests to them, some may say…!

If all public authorities were to make available on their websites an easy to find email address for accepting freedom of information requests from the public, it would be so much better for everyone concerned.

All this may perhaps be less good news for staff at public authorities who may now have to monitor tweets. Or maybe they'll just decide to terminate their Twitter accounts…

Note - this is only for England/Wales/Northern Ireland. Scotland has its own Scottish Information Commissioner, who may (or may not) share the Information Commissioner's view.

Via Computers & Law.

Outlook 2010 - how to change fonts etc for readability and accessibility

Deutsch | Español | Français | Italiano | Português | 日本語 | 한국어 | 简体中文

This post is about how to change fonts and other settings to make the Outlook 2010 email window easier to read, if you have poor eyesight like me. In terms of accessibility, I consider it a step down down from Outlook 2003, but there y'go.

If you want Outlook 2010 to be easier to view and read, and want as much information as possible to be visible to you without having to scroll, the steps I had to take to set up Outlook 2010, below, may be of use to you.

(For anyone interested - I had to change to Outlook because Thunderbird kept freezing for ages everytime a new email arrived, and when version 5 still didn't fix it, I gave up on Thunderbird. I just can't function with the constant hanging. I've tried disabling reminders, visual and audio, it doesn't help. Yes Outlook stops too when I receive new emails, but only for a second, which I can live with.)

Themes

The default "Silver" theme is in my view the least bad of a bad selection - I found the other two choices to be even harder to read. Whoever thought that making the background grey, without giving users the option of a changing to a white background, was a good idea? I bet they had 20-20 vision and are 20 years old.

If you want to try the other 2 themes in case they work better for you:

1. Go to menu File > Options (why they've reduced the size of the font for the Options menu entry, beats me - but it's there, just above Exit)
   
   
2. Under General (it should be preselected but if not it's the top item in the list on the left), the option is "Color scheme" - the dropdown only offers 3 options, as mentioned.
   
   
   Again why isn't there a high visibility or accessibility-friendly theme, I don't know. Or even a "Windows Classic" which was great for visibility.
   
   
3. Pick what you like, then OK it. There's no Preview so you have to just try the different ones out and see what's least bad for you personally.

Navigation Pane

To make the Navigation Pane (the one on the left) easier to read:

1. Click once on the folder eg Inbox to select it
   
   
2. Go to menu View > Navigation pane (in the Layout group)
   
   
3. Click on the Navigation Pane button or the down arrow in its corner, then click Options
   
   
   
4. Click the Font button
   
   
5. Set it as you want, then OK and OK. I found Arial Black, Bold, 9 works best for me as a compromise between being able to read the text and the pane not taking up too much space, but experiment and see what works for you(there's no Preview option, you just have to OK everything to see the changes)
   
   
6. While you're in Options, you might want to untick things in the "Display buttons in this order" list, so that the bottom left of the Navigation pane doesn't take up so much space - and move items up and down as you wish, too.

This just fixes the text for the list of folders - Inbox, Sent etc - on the extreme left.

Lists of emails

To make the font bigger for the lists of emails in the middle of the window, including column headings (From, To, Date) as well as the contents of the Subject line etc:

1. While you're viewing your mail, eg Inbox still selected, again make sure you're in to the View menu view, then click the View Settings button
   
   
   
2. In the popup box click the "Other Settings" button
   
   
3. Here you can click Column Font, which is the font in the headings, then change the size (I made mine 10), and OK, and again click Row Font and increase the font size - this is the font for the email messages' subject line, From, etc
   
   
4. In Other Settings I also chose to UNtick "Automatic Column Sizing" as I prefer to control it myself, dragging the column borders as I need
   
   
5. In View Settings I also clicked the "Group By" button and UNticked "Automatically group according to arrangement" because I don't like the auto-grouping, the titles take up precious space and I can tell, yes all by my lil self, what day is Today or Yesterday, from looking at the Dates!
   
   
6. The Columns button by the way lets you choose the column headings and change their order if you wish (except Flag status, which I'll come to)
   
   
7. Now once you've set all the View Settings options as you wish, and OK'd everything and returned to the main view, at the left you should click the Change View button
   
   
   
8. Then click "Apply Current View to Other Mail Folders", to save yourself having to repeat the font size increases and your other View Settings changes in every single folder of your email one by one!
   
   Tip: first tick the "Apply view to subfolders" at the bottom left as well as selecting the main folders, before you click OK, to save having to manually select all subfolders.
   
   
9. (For me personally, I then clicked on Inbox, View menu and ticked "Show as Conversations" as I quite like the threaded view as in Gmail, as long as I have the option to turn it off when I need to - but I didn't want all emails in other folders to be threaded, just the Inbox, so I did this step only after I applied the current view to other folders.)

Incoming and outgoing emails

To change the font size here (where possible - it depends on the type of email, plain text is best for this):

1. Go to menu File > Options
   
   
2. Click on Mail, 2nd down in the list on the left
   
   
3. Click the "Stationery and Fonts" button, then the "Personal Stationery" tab
   
   
   
4. Click on the various Font buttons for different options (new emails, replies etc) and set the font size/type as you wish, and OK
   
   
5. While you're in Mail options, you can also click the Signatures button (again outlined in red in the pic above) to set your auto-signature; you change its font etc there. Also if you set up a signature, you might want to select it in the dropdown on the right against "Replies/forwards", as otherwise Outlook will not add your signature when you reply or forward an email!
   
   
   
6. Also in Mail options, as mentioned I prefer to compose messages in plain text or rich text (not HTML), and that can be set here too - in the dropdown towards the top of that box.

Reading pane

Doing the above seemed to sort out the fonts for the reading pane too, for me.

EDIT: I meant to add, you can also zoom what's shown in the reading pane by using the % -/+ Zoom slider at the bottom right of the general Outlook window. This works even with HTML emails.

Other space or time saving etc things

I also did these:

1. Changed the unhelpful Outlook startup view so that Outlook 2010 starts up in my main email account's Inbox.
   
   
2. Got rid of the (to me of no use) "People Pane" - menu View, click the People Pane button and tick against "Off".
   
   
3. For better security, set received emails to be displayed in plain text only:
   1. Menu File > Options
   2. Click Trust Center, bottom left
   3. Click the Trust Center Settings button, bottom right
   4. Click E-mail Security in the list on the left
   5. Under "Read as Plain Text", tick "Read all standard mail in plain text", and OK everything
   6. If in future you want to read an email in pretty HTML because you trust the sender, just click on the Infobar (which is the horizontal, not at all bar-looking section, just under the email address of the sender, that says "This message was converted to plain text"), and click "Display as HTML".

Gripes

Apart from the lack of readability of Outlook 2010 (and lack of a standard Windows theme), regarding the email element of Outlook I'm unhappy about:

1. The impossibility of setting it so that it starts up with all IMAP folders and subfolders automatically expanded - I have to manually expand them each time
   
   
2. Lack of Follow up flag or Tag options with IMAP email - if Thunderbird can do it… (there's this workaround which I've not tried yet)
   
   
3. The impossibility of moving the Flag status column to the far left, which is where I've always had it in all my email clients - it's not so obvious on the right, for someone using a language where you read from left to right. (Yes, I tried changing the order of columns in View Settings, Columns - still on the right!)

I'll blog about the Outlook Calendar (which I use with Google Calendar) in another post.

How to remove Nuance PDF reader from Firefox (& short review)

Deutsch | Español | Français | Italiano | Português | 日本語 | 한국어 | 简体中文

If like some people you install the free Nuance PDF reader, then uninstall it but it's still taking over PDFs in Firefox, here is how I got rid of it. It worked for me, but your mileage may vary.

Try these steps (screenshots are from Firefox 4):

1. In Firefox find your Plugins - in Firefox go to menu Tools, Add-ons (or in the address bar type about:addons and hit Enter), then on the left click Plugins
2. In the Plugins list, look for all PDF plugins that are NOT "Adobe Acrobat" - in my case the culprit was DocuCom PDF Plus rather than Nuance, go figure. Click the Disable button for that plugin, so that it now gets greyed out and has "(disable)" after its name:
   
   
   
3. Do this for each non-Adobe PDF plugin. Make sure you scroll down to the end of the plugins list to disable all non-Adobe PDF plugins.
4. You may also have to disable and then enable the standard Adobe plugin, again go figure but I had to before it would work.
5. Restart Firefox, just for luck. And hopefully now PDFs will open using Adobe Reader instead of Nuance.

Nuance PDF Reader

Why did I decide against Nuance's free PDF reader? I want to make it clear that I do love their Dragon Dictation app for the iPhone, which is remarkably accurate and quick (and, generously, free).

However, their PDF reader, although it's quite fast, insists on defaulting to the hand tool when I open a PDF, whereas I need it to default to Select to copy/paste text etc.

More importantly, when I rightclick on a PDF in Firefox, Nuance won't show me the document Properties, which I need in order to check the publication date of some PDFs.

There may be a way to change its settings to do what I need, but it's not obvious, and I've not had the time to find it - whereas Adobe defaults to what I need, so I may as well go back to that.

Convert files free, online - PDF to Word DOC, etc - review of tool

Deutsch | Español | Français | Italiano | Português | 日本語 | 한국어 | 简体中文

ConvertFiles.com, which I've just discovered, is a very useful online tool, especially to convert Adobe Acrobat PDFs to editable word processing documents eg Microsoft Word DOC format.

You just give the website the URL of a file (starting with http, https, ftp), or you can upload a local file, and it will automatically recognise the file type and offer you a choice of suitable formats into which it can be converted.

Tip: sometimes it won't recognise PDF files where the URL doesn't end in .pdf - so in that situation just download the file and upload it from your computer.

There's a decent range of formats available (see lists below).

Speed - you can download the converted file quite quickly, even for big files.

Maximum file size limits - it will accept files of up to a very generous 200 MB.

OCR - it will even do OCR (optical character recognition) of image files, ie convert scans of images etc to editable text - and, though they don't mention this (they should!), that includes PDF scans, I tried some.

It converted a massive PDF scan beautifully into an editable Word document, with very few errors.

What's more, it's all free, although in gratitude I've checked out some of their advertisers!

Supported formats and conversions

From their FAQs, here's their full list of supported conversions:

ARCHIVE

7Z to RAR, TAR, ZIP, TGZ, TAR.GZ
RAR to TAR, ZIP, TGZ, TAR.GZ
TAR to RAR, ZIP, TGZ, TAR.GZ
TGZ to TAR, RAR, ZIP
TAR.GZ to TAR, RAR, ZIP
ZIP to TAR, RAR, TGZ, TAR.GZ

DOCUMENT

DOCX to DOC, ODT, RTF, SWX, TXT, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP
DOC to ODT, RTF, SWX, TXT, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP
ODT to DOC, RTF, SWX, TXT, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP
RTF to ODT, DOC, SWX, TXT, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP
SXW to ODT, RTF, DOC, TXT, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP
TXT to ODT, RTF, SWX, DOC, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP
ODS to XLS, CSV, RTF, PDF, HTML, ZIP
XLS to ODS, CSV, PDF, HTML, ZIP
XLSX to XLS, ODS, CSV, PDF, HTML, ZIP
PDF to DOC, PNG, JPG
XPS to PDF
CHM to PDF, EPUB, FB2, MOBI, LIT, TXT
PAGES to PDF

PRESENTATION

ODP to PPT, PDF, SWF
PPT to ODP, PDF, SWF
PPTX to PPT, ODP, SWF, PDF

E-BOOK

EPUB to FB2, MOBI, LIT, PDF, TXT
FB2 to MOBI, LIT, EPUB, PDF, TXT
MOBI to EPUB, FB2, LIT, PDF, TXT
LIT to EPUB, FB2, MOBI, PDF, TXT
PRC to EPUB, FB2, MOBI, PDF, TXT, LIT

DRAWING

ODG to PDF, JPG, PNG, SWF
DXF to PDF, JPG, PNG, SWF
DWG to PDF, JPG, PNG

IMAGES, PICS, PHOTOS

BMP to GIF, JPG, PNG, TIF, ZIP, PDF
GIF to BMP, JPG, PNG, TIF, PDF
JPG to GIF, BMP, PNG, TIF, PDF
PNG to GIF, JPG, BMP, TIF, PDF
TIF to GIF, JPG, PNG, BMP, ZIP, PDF

OCR

BMP to DOC, TXT, RTF
GIF to DOC, TXT, RTF
JPG to DOC, TXT, RTF
PNG to DOC, TXT, RTF
TIF to DOC, TXT, RTF

AUDIO

AAC to WAV, MP3, OGG, M4A, FLAC, AU, WMA, AMR
AMR to WAV, MP3, OGG, WMA, AAC, FLAC, AU, M4A
AU to WAV, MP3, OGG, WMA, AAC, FLAC, AMR, M4A
FLAC to WAV, MP3, OGG, M4A, AAC, AU, WMA, AMR
M4A to WAV, MP3, OGG, WMA, AAC, FLAC, AU, AMR
MP3 to WAV, OGG, AAC, M4A, FLAC, AU, WMA, AMR
OGG to WAV, MP3, AAC, M4A, FLAC, AU, WMA, AMR
WAV to MP3, OGG, AAC, M4A, FLAC, AU, WMA, AMR
WMA to WAV, MP3, OGG, M4A, AAC, FLAC, AU, AMR
MKA to WAV, MP3, OGG, M4A, AAC, FLAC, AU, AMR, WMA

VIDEO

3GP to AVI, MOV, WMV, M4V, MP3, JPG
AMV to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, WMV, MP3, JPG
ASF to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, WMV, MOV, AVI, M4V, MP3, JPG
AVI to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
FLV to 3GP, AVI, MP4, MPEG, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
MKV to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, WMV, MOV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
MOV to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, WMV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
M4V to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, MOV, MKV, ASF, WMV, MP3, JPG
MP4 to FLV, 3GP, AVI, MPEG, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
MPEG to AVI, 3GP, MP4, FLV, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
MPG to AVI, 3GP, MP4, FLV, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
RM to AVI, 3GP, MP4, FLV, MPEG, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
VOB to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
WMV to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
M2T to WMV, 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
M2TS to WMV, 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
MTS to WMV, 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG

OTHER

EPS to GIF, JPG, PNG
PSD to GIF, JPG, PNG

The downside?

Don't expect any support (I emailed them with a query which they never responded to). But hey, it's free.

Travel more cheaply on London public transport - online tool

Deutsch | Español | Français | Italiano | Português | 日本語 | 한국어 | 简体中文

Update: this blog post has been mentioned on the BBC site, thanks @TomSEdwards!

This online tool calculates the cheapest Transport for London ticket or Travel card for travel in Zones 1 and 2 by bus, Tube or DLR (Docklands Light Railway).

I created it based on data from the graph by University College researcher Neal Lathia (@neal_lathia). Neal Lathia's blog post summarises the 2011 research paper from which the data was derived, by N. Lathia, L. Capra on Mining Mobility Data to Minimise Travellers' Spending on Public Transport (links to abstract and paper are on his publications page).

I heard about this research via BBC News (Tom Edwards): consumers don't always buy the most cost-effective ticket or travelcard for their travel needs (surprise surprise) so hopefully my tool, based on that valuable research, will help some passengers.

Of course, as and when prices changes, the interactive decision tree might not be accurate anymore, but here's hoping that the researchers will keep updating their graph - if they produce a new graph when TfL change their fare prices, I'll update the tool too.

I produced the cheapest London public transport ticket or Travelcard calculator using the Interactive Decision Tree tool by Warren and Josh.

Thanks also to 24 Ways for their info on how to use Google App Engine to host the files and scripts (but note that there's an error on that page: the index.html file should be in the top level of the assets folder as shown in their diagram, not the top level of the app folder as they state).

Try the tool.

How to install 1-Wire drivers for iButton / OneWireViewer

Deutsch | Español | Français | Italiano | Português | 日本語 | 한국어 | 简体中文

If you want to use the Maxim 1-Wire and iButton and have had problems with your computer not properly installing the device drivers for the Maxim DS9490R# USB adapter via WinUSB, you might try the solution outlined below, particularly if you've had these error messages (shown in the screenshots above):

"Windows encountered a problem installing the driver software for your device

Windows found driver software for your device but encountered an error while attempting to install it.
USB Host Adapter for 1-Wire Network using WinUSB
This operation returned because the timeout period expired.
If you know the manufacturer of your device, you can visit its website and check the support section for driver software."

and/or:

"Driver Software Installation
Installing device driver software
Unidentified Device
Failed"

and/or:

"Device driver software was not successfully installed
Please consult with your device manufacturer for assistance getting this device installed.
Unidentified Device Failed"

I know this is a niche area, but as I've done the troubleshooting and fixed the issue for a friend who needs to use iButtons for temperature logging (though not humidity logging), I'm documenting the steps to take, in case it helps any other ecologists, field biologists, conservationists or indeed caterers, restauranteurs or food industry people etc!

The steps below worked on Windows Vista; let me know if they worked on eg Windows 7 too.

1. Do NOT plug in the USB adapter yet!


2. Follow the instructions in the official Quick Start guide for OneWireViewer and iButton.


3. In particular, make sure you install Java, and download the OneWireViewer and 1-Wire drivers for your Windows computer eg Vista. (If you don't know whether your PC is 32 bit or 64 bit, it's very likely to be 32 bit, but they've got a tester on their site to check so use that if necessary.)


4. Run the .msi file, as instructed in their step 3. Allow it to "Continue" if Vista asks for confirmation.


5. Their step 4, after plugging in the USB adapter, is where it went wrong for my friend, and for me too when I tried it on a different Vista computer.


6. Make sure you click on the popup that appears at the bottom right immediately after you plug in the adapter ("Installing device driver software Click here for status"), so that you can view the details of the driver installation - then something bigger will pop up at the bottom right to show the progress.
   
   
   
   
7. Though this is not in their instructions, it's likely that after a while you'll get this message coming up (but it may be hidden behind something else, so you have to look for this window eg by Alt-Tabbing):
   
   
   


8. If you get that window, the progress/status info at the bottom right will also probably be showing this:
   
   
   


9. In order to get any further, in the window shown in my step 7 you must click "Locate and install driver software (recommended)", or you won't get anywhere.


10. If, after clicking that, you wait a long time and then you get one or more of the error messages shown at the top of this blog post, don't despair. Try these next steps.


11. Do NOT unplug the USB adapter. Leave it plugged in. (If you've already unplugged it, then plug it back in and go through my steps 6 to 10 - you'll just have to be patient there.)


12. Now, open your Device Manager. Scroll down the list till you see "Unknown device" under "Other devices" or under "1-Wire", like this:
    
    
    or
    


13. If you have more than one "Unknown device" showing, you need to make sure you're working on the right one for the USB adapter, eg trying unplugging it and seeing which one goes away in Device Manager (but you'll have to then go through steps 6 to 10 again when you plug it back in). If it's under "1-Wire", then it's the right one.


14. Rightclick on the correct "Unknown device", and choose "Update driver software"
    
    
    


15. In the next screen, click "Browse my computer for driver software":
    
    
    


16. Next, click "Let me pick…"
    
    
    


17. In the next screen, "1-Wire" should be highlighted; if not, click on it, then click "Next":
    
    
    


18. The next screen should look like this, click "Have Disk":
    
    
    


19. The next screen should look like this, click "Browse":
    
    
    


20. Now you've got to navigate to the WinUSB_Driver folder that was previously installed when in you ran the .msi file.
    
    
    Mine was located at C:\Program Files\Maxim Integrated Products\1-Wire Drivers x86\WinUSB_Driver.


21. Click on the ds2490winusb_x86.inf file in that folder, then click Open.
    
    
    


22. It should now look like this:
    
    
    


23. Click OK, and you'll see this as it tries to install it (properly this time, hopefully!):
    
    
    


24. With any luck, after waiting a while you'll now see something like this:
    
    
    


25. Notice that it says you have to restart your computer, so do so (having first unplugged the USB adapter). It'll say it's updating stuff in Windows, don't turn off your computer - so leave it to do its thing, which may take a while.


26. After Windows has fully restarted, plug in the USB adapter, and hopefully this time you'll see something like these:
    
    
    
    


27. (Optional) If you want to go check your Device Manager again, it should look like this, with no "Unknown device" for the adapter:
    
    
    


28. You can now proceed to attach the other bits and bobs to the plugged-in USB adapter, and open the OneWireViewer.exe program from your Start menu to view the data collected by the iButton.


29. Note that if you plug the adapter into a different USB port, it will go through step 26 again, just once per new USB port, but hopefully you only have to do the longer-winded earlier steps above once per computer and operating system.