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Tip of the month: Accessing temporarily zipped files from installation archives

Many hardware manufacturers still offer only large all-in-one programs for installing sound or graphics cards drivers that also install some applications that you don't need. You want to update only one driver.

More installers first unzip their contents to a temporary folder and then follow the remaining steps. You can manipulate the process here. Start the setup and wait till the welcome dialog appears, but don't click 'Next' when prompted.

Under XP, open Windows Explorer, enter "%userprofile%" in the address bar and press [Enter]. Navigate to the hidden folder "Local SettingsYTemp". Click "View | Details" and look for a folder with the ".IMP" extension, which shows the current time in the "Modified on" column. You will find the unzipped files here.

You can use Vista task manager; open it with [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Del]. Look for the installation which has started in the "Applications" tab. Right-click it and select 'Go to process'. The task manager now selects the relevant entry in the next tab. Right-click this process and select the "Open file path" context command. Windows Explorer opens the temporary folder. Then just browse through the files for the installer file you need.

Also in this month's Tip & Tricks Section

Windows

1. Vista Home Premium, Ultimate: Checking the reliability of the OS and applications
   
2. Windows XP: Access your computer after forgetting the password
   
3. Windows 2000, XP: Accessing system files that are blocked to the user by Windows

1. Word XP, 2003: Preventing format multiplication and deleting redundant entries
   
2. Microsoft Word 2007: Selecting and editing text without the annoying minitoolbar
   
3. Excel 2000, XP, 2003,2007: Displaying and printing formulae used in the cells.
   
4. PowerPoint XP, 2003,2007: Prevent arbitrary changing of selected font size.
   
5. Adobe Photoshop: Saving a lot of time with a fully automatic photo editor
   
6. Internet Explorer: Assigning your own favicons to websites.
   
7. Internet Explorer: Reactivating full screen mode when it becomes blocked
   
8. Firefox2.x,Thunderbird: Displaying new Thunderbird messages as icons in Firefox
   
9. Firefox2.x: Quickly identifying the actual data type of links.
   
10. Firefox2.x: Automatically display the quick search bar when making keyboard entries.
    
11. Opera: Displaying the security status of browsers on the XP desktop
    

1. iPod: Identifying the exact model number of an iPod
   
2. Digital cameras: Taking sharp photos using the mirror lockup
   
3. Photo editing: Better color rendering by calibrating the monitor
   
4. MP3 players: Troubleshooting Sony Walkmans when they suddenly start behaving strangely or don't work anymore.
   
5. Notebooks: Making internal card readers compatible with SDHC memory cards
   

doPDF is a free PDF converter for both personal and commercial use. Using doPDF you can create PDF files by selecting the "Print" command from virtually any application. With one click you can convert your Microsoft Excel, Word or PowerPoint documents or your emails and favorite web sites to PDF files.

From the developer

doPDF installs itself as a virtual PDF printer driver so after a successful installation will appear in your Printers and Faxes list. To convert to PDF, you just have to print the document to doPDF, the free pdf converter. Open a document (with Microsoft Word, WordPad, NotePad or any other software), choose Print and select doPDF. It will ask you where to save the PDF file and when finished, the PDF file will be automatically opened in your default PDF viewer.

Main benefits for using this free PDF converter:

• It’s free - PDF converter free for both commercial and personal use.
  
• 64-bit support - can be installed on 64-bit operating systems.
  
• No GhostScript - doesn’t require 3rd party programs to do PDF files (like GhostScript). This makes the setup file to be incredibly small compared to other free PDF converters.
  
• Customizable resolution - you can choose any resolution from 72 to 2400 dpi.
  
• Predefined/custom page sizes - choose a default page size (Letter, Legal, A4, A5, A6, ...) or enter your own custom page size.
  
• Searchable PDFs - you can search for text within the created PDF file (and search engines will also index the text from the PDF).
  
• Multi-language - choose a language for the user interface from the 20 languages currently supported (credits).
  
• Do your part in saving the planet - instead of consuming paper to print your document, why not create a PDF file out of it and spare a couple of planet-saving trees?
  
• Barely uses any computer resources - compared to other free PDF converters, doPDF barely uses any memory or CPU resources when doing the actual conversion to PDF.

Clipx and Clipomatic are excellent.

They are both fast, lightweight, easy to use and use few system resources. When you press a programmable hotkey they launch a pop-up menu of clips to select.

The clip selection can be made via mouse or keyboard shortcut thus enabling completion of the entire copy/select/paste process to be made by keyboard alone.

They have options to record and display a variable number of clips, as well as to store permanent clips such as text snippets. Both use less than 1MB memory so any system can afford to have them running continuously.

Clipomatic is a bit slicker to use and has more robust permanent item functionality but its real limitation is that it is text only. ClipX will do everything Clipomatic will (although you need to add a plug-in to enable the permanent clip function, available from the same site as ClipX) plus copy images.

The only main drawback using those two is because they only keep a limited number of clips. They can hold 30+ but everything they hold is displayed on the hotkey popup and if you set them high the popup gets pretty big and cluttered. If you keep the popup slim and small, you only get to keep a limited clip history.