Da Vinci Planet » productivity tools

Convert Any Document to PDF

Da Vinci — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:26:02 +0000

PDFCreator is a handy little application that installs as a printer and creates PDFs from any file that you are trying to print. To convert a document to PDF simply open the document up the usual way, select Print and choose PDFCreator as your printer. PDFCreator then opens up a window that allows you to enter meta data for the file like Document Title and Author and then you hit Save to save it as PDF.

Here’s a tip on how PDFCreator can be used to help with filing expense reports. When you’re making hotel reservations or airline bookings while working remotely and without access to a local printer, you can print your reservation confirmations to PDFCreator and save them as PDFs on your computer. Now you can email the PDF version of the confirmation to someone who can print it for you and you have easy access to your invoices when it’s time to file your expense report.

Remove Unwanted Programs with Revo Uninstaller Portable App

Da Vinci — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 02:40:57 +0000

If your system is suffering with performance issues or is simply cluttered with old applications then Revo Uninstaller could save you time vs. a full Windows reinstall. Revo Uninstaller shows you all applications and components installed on your PC and allows you to remove unwanted apps. It does a scan before and after the uninstall to find files, folders and registry keys that may have been missed during the uninstall process. In Hunter Mode, you can uninstall programs with one click or by simply dragging application shortcuts on your desktop or quick launch bar to the Revo Uninstaller system tray icon. A portable app version is now available so you can now run it from a USB drive without installing it.

In addition, Revo Uninstaller also comes bundled with other useful utilities like the Autorun Manager which let’s you enable or disable programs that autostart at Windows startup and the Junk Files Cleaner which scans and deletes temporary files that should have been deleted.

Revo Uninstaller is portable, free and with no spyware or tricks – a great productivity tool just the way we like it.

Revo Uninstaller (Look for the Portable version download link)

Productivity Tools: AutoComplete words and phrases with LetMeType

Da Vinci — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 03:19:19 +0000

LetMeType is an open source application that suggests words and phrases as-you-type. The clever little application builds an index of words that you type and pops up with auto-complete suggestions of words as you are typing. LetMeType is built into the OS and so it works in all applications. Like PureText, a plain text copy tool, this is a small little app and it doesn’t take much time to get used to, but can give you great productivity boost.

Why you should use Portable Applications

Da Vinci — Sun, 06 May 2007 22:57:23 +0000

Most people know that I am a portable app fan and that I would almost exclusively try to use portable applications or Web applications rather than “installs”. The problem with regular, non-portable applications is that they rely on the Windows registry and that they are typically distributed in many folders. So when you need to reinstall Window all your settings are lost and you need to completely reinstall the applications. In this post I would like to describe the reasons why I prefer portable apps and how you can manage them better.

Why use portable apps?

Light weight. Portable applications do not require installation and therefore (normally) do not fill your registry with unnecessary junk. So one does not experience performance degradation when you add apps. Besides, portable apps are normally created to fit on USB drives so they are small and efficient.
Portable. Portability doesnâ€™t only apply to USB drives, it also allows you to copy your apps between computers. So for instance, I keep all my portable apps in my d:\Portable folder and can easily copy that folder to other computers without needing to install the applications on the other computer. That way I can have my favorite apps on my home and work computer. By synching (see below) them up I am also able to keep all data related to the portable apps on both computers. Another nice thing about portable apps is that when you reinstall Windows or have a re-image as we often do at work, you do not need to download, install and configure your apps because theyâ€™re all self contained in your portable folder.

PStart application launcher

PStart is a simple tray tool to start user defined applications. PStart is itself a portable application and can be used to launch your portable apps similar to the Windows Start button. The nice thing about PStart is that if you copy it along with your portable apps to a USB key or other computer all the settings get copied as well. So it provides an easy way to launch your portable apps the same way on any computer.

Synchronizing portable applications between computers

I use SyncBack (look for the freeware download) for regular backups, but I also use it to synchronize my portable apps folders between computers. By scheduling a daily sync I have access to the same apps and data on my home and my work computer.

A nice side-effect of applications that are built to be portable is that they are normally not copy protected. Copy protection would defeat portability and as a result they are normally free.

Note-Taking Applications

Da Vinci — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 23:51:55 +0000

Over the last couple of weeks I tested various note-taking applications. I was looking for software to help me to better organize my typical daily notes, memos, ideas, to-do lists and to clean up the myriads of text files that I have used for the purpose. KeePass is perfect for saving and organizing passwords, but there are many other important snippets of text that didn’t have a good home. The criterion is that I wanted a free, light-weight and portable note-taking application to help me be more productive. There are hundreds of on-line tools, but I prefer off-line tools for this purpose and I also discovered dozens of sticky note applications which I find generally messy. Wherever I looked, EverNote showed up and it turned out to be my favorite, but other applications that I reviewed include TiddlyWiki, NeoMem and wikidPad.

EverNote

EverNote can easily capture, store and quickly access common everyday memos like to-do lists, expenses, telephone numbers, and Web clips. With EverNote you can save your notes in categories, which really behave more like tags. It supports text, HTML, images and drag & drop type functionality. The EverNote database can be encrypted and you can also encrypt text within a note. Another nice feature is neat printing functionality – something that is missing from many similar tools. Itâ€™s not as light-weight as I had hoped (the portable version is about 12MB in size) and it took me a while to familiarize myself, but now I love it!

TiddlyWiki

When I first discovered TiddlyWiki I saw it as a very neat piece of HTML code, but didnâ€™t really see a purpose for it. More recently I realized its use as a note-taking application. Itâ€™s highly portable and has amazingly cool functionality for a single HTML file. Some users have complained that it becomes slow when it grows too large. There are also many enhanced versions like GTDTiddlyWiki and MonkeyGTD, both Getting Things Done adaptations of TiddlyWiki.

wikidPad

wikidPad isnâ€™t portable and itâ€™s also not really light-weight, but itâ€™s another very popular choice. Itâ€™s a standalone desktop wiki and actually very neat and fun to play with. It’s main feature is the ease with which you can cross-link notes, but it lacks rich features and the ability to copy and paste HTML and images.

NeoMem

NeoMem is like a word processor and database combined. Itâ€™s a more technical solution that allows you to define “classes” which describe the items that you want to store information about. It’s a good application for storing structured lists, but I found it too complex for regular note-taking.

Others Solutions

For a comprehensive list of mostly on-line tools, check out Fifty Ways to Take Notes. I left out Microsoft OneNote because it’s not free and some other solutions, like ZuluPad don’t offer much in their free versions. For now I am going to stick with EverNote.

Productivity Tools: WordWeb

Da Vinci — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 12:04:35 +0000

WordWeb is a free English dictionary and thesaurus application, and can be used to look up words in just one click. This is a very handy productivity tool and it’s really fast. I found their “for free use” licensing agreement quite amusing (though I fail on both accounts!):

You may use the program free of charge indefinitely only if
* You take at most 4 flights (2 return flights) in any 12 month period
* AND you do not own or regularly drive an SUV (sports utility vehicle).

I also like that it can be installed as a portable USB application (under Advanced Options during install).

Via Lifehacker

Productivity Tools: Screen Capture with WinSnap

Da Vinci — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 23:40:49 +0000

WinSnap is a great little application that can replace regular Windows screen captures. Previously mentioned FastStone Capture is great for scrolling screen captures like Web pages in browsers, but WinSnap is great for regular CTRL+Prnt Scrn replacement. It can be configured to automatically modify the image border to rounded corners or PhotoShop-style shadows.Â This is particularly useful for us bloggers who like to capture imagesÂ and post them to our blogs.Â Older versions are free (for personal, educational and non-commercial use) and as a bonus they have a portable version, so this application needs to be added to my list of essential portable applications. The free version is available here.

Productivity Tools: Copy and Paste Plain Text

Da Vinci — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 04:10:21 +0000

You know how annoying it is when you try to Copy & Paste formatted text from some applications like Web browsers and Word docs into other applications like Excel or Outlook and the formatting also gets copied!? PureText is a free and very light-weight productivity tool that pastes text as "plain text" without formatting.

If you are used to using command line tools for Copy & Paste, i.e. CTRL+C to copy and CTRL+V to paste then this little tool is a gem: You simply copy as usual using CTRL+C, but instead of using the CTRL+V hot-key to paste, you use the WINDOWS+V hot-key. (The WINDOWS key is the key with the Windows logo to the left of the [most-left] ALT key). PureText can be configured to use another hot-key combination, but the default makes sense and works for me.

PureText – plain text copy and paste app.