November 7, 2009

GTalk Tips and Tricks / Shortcuts

Here are some Keyboard Shorcuts :



CTRL + Mousewheel up/down: Change the font size in a conversation window.

CTRL + E: Center text

CTRL + R: Right justify text

CTRL + L or CTRL+J: Left justify text

F9: Open Gmail to send an email to the person you talk to

F11: Start a call

F12: Stop the current call

ESC: Close the current window

Tab – Switches to next opened gtalk window. (same effect with

Ctrl+tab and Shift+tab)

Shift + Tab – The same thing does that Tab but in reverse.

Ctrl + Shift + L – Switch between points, numbers, letters,

capital letters, roman numbers and capital roman numbers.......





Bold Text : Use asterix before and after the text to make it bold.

Like *hello* will make it hello.

Italic Text : Use underscores before and after the text to make it

italic. Like _hello_ will make it hello.

Want to leave blank message : Just Press Shift + Enter together and

meassage box will become big then leave shift and Just press Enter and

the blank message will be received by your friend.

--

Amrit Heda

Install Windows from a USB drive

Install Windows from a USB drive



One might need to reinstall an operating system from time to time, but

the netbooks and ultra-portable laptops gaining popularity today have

no optical drives.





What do you do when there is no optical drive in your PC and you want

to install a new operating system on it? Before you invest in an

external drive, we will tell you about a more cost-effective solution.

Why not install Windows XP or Windows Vista from a USB flash drive

instead? All you need are the following items:

A desktop or laptop with Windows XP/Vista (according to the OS

required to be dumped onto the USB flash drive).

An optical drive in the PC.

The original Windows XP or Vista installation disk.

A 1 GB or 4 GB USB flash drive for Windows XP/Vista respectively.

A software called 'Komku-SP-usb.exe' (for the Windows XP part) which

can be downloaded from 'http://www.mediafire.com/?zlvkwwzmjmt'.

Alternatively, you can avail of the utilities from this month's CHIP

DVD or search for these on http://download.chip.asia.

This step-by-step workshop will be in two phases—Windows Vista and Windows XP.

Installing Windows XP from a USB flash drive

Step 1: Download the software 'Komku-SP-usb.exe' from the websites

mentioned earlier and execute it. The executable file will extract the

necessary utilities to a folder called 'C:komku'.



Step 2: Once the package has been extracted, go to the folder

'C:komkuPeToUSB' using Windows Explorer. Execute the file

'PeToUSB.exe'. Plug in the USB flash drive and make sure you choose

the following (see image below) before clicking the start button.

Select 'USB removable', 'Enable Disk Format', 'Quick format', 'Enable

LBA (Fat 16x)' and finally give the drive a name under 'Drive Label'.

Once it's done, click start to let the utility format the drive.



Step 3: Next you will need to start the command prompt. Click 'Start |

Run', type 'cmd' and press [Enter]. Then go to the 'bootsect'

directory by typing the command 'cd C:komkubootsect' and pressing

[Enter]. Now type the command 'bootsect /nt52 F:' and press [Enter].

(The 'F:' is the USB flash drive letter represented in 'My Computer'.

Check to verify the drive letter used by your USB flash drive). Let

the utility do the needful. Do not exit the Command Prompt yet.



Step 4: Now you will need to change to the directory 'Usb_Prep8' by

using the command 'cd C:komkuusb_prep8' and pressing [Enter]. Here

execute the command 'usb_prep8' and press [Enter]. Press any key to

continue and you will see a welcome screen with a menu appear in the

Command Prompt.



Step 5: Now at this stage, you will have to insert the Windows XP

installation disk into your optical drive. At the Command Prompt menu,

type '1' and press [Enter]. A new popup will appear asking you to

choose the location (path) of the Windows installation disk. Select

the optical drive and click 'OK'. Next choose '2' from the menu and

change the drive letter to any drive letter which has not been taken.

It is drive 'T:' by default and you can ignore this step unless you do

have a 'T:' drive on your computer.

After this, choose '3' from the menu and enter the drive letter of

your USB flash drive (in this case it would be 'F'). Finally choose

'4' from the menu and press [Enter]. Wait for a few seconds for the

process to complete and you will see a prompt to allow the utility to

format the USB flash drive. Type 'Y' and then press [Enter] at this

stage to let the utility proceed and install the necessary files from

the Windows XP installation disk to the USB flash drive. This process

will take a few minutes and depends on the speed of the flash drive.



Step 6: After the files are copied, you will see a popup window asking

you for permission to copy files from the temp drive to the USB flash

drive. Select 'Yes'.



Step 7: Next there will be another popup window asking you to allow

the utility to change the boot drive letter of the USB flash drive

from 'F:' to 'U:'. Select 'Yes'.



Step 8: Finally, after all the processes are complete, you will see

yet another popup window asking if you want to unmount the virtual

drive. Select 'Yes'. Exit the Command Prompt now and you will see that

your flash drive is ready to install Windows XP to another computer.

To install Windows XP to the computer, you will have to go to the BIOS

and enable the option of booting from a USB removable device. This

option is usually found under the boot sequence menu of the BIOS. Plug

in the USB drive to the computer before you turn it on. Now your

computer will boot from the USB flash drive and will be ready to

install Windows XP. Follow the necessary steps to install Windows XP

and your computer will be up, raring and ready to go and running

Windows in no time.



--

Amrit Heda

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn