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Having used your Windows XP PC for a while now, you’ve probably got into the habit of doing things a certain way. It’s time to change all that. The next few ‘Mucks tips-n-tricks’ are about innovation and thinking outside the box. This collection will make you think … “I never knew that!” … and then get you working smarter, enabling you to complete a range of tasks more quickly.
Drag-n-drop
You can quickly turn any piece of text into a file by simply highlighting it, and then dragging the text on to the desktop. This creates a “Document scrap file”, which you can edit.
Preview Music Files
Use this ‘tweak’ to add a Preview option for sampling any of your audio or video files. It uses the basic media player that’s built into Windows XP, and will save you time opening the full Windows Media Player application when all you want to do is listen to or watch a short excerpt.
To do so, open My Computer, click on Tools/Folder Options and select the Files tab. Under registered file types select the file type you want to be able to preview then click on Advanced.
Click on New and under Action type Preview. In the box, ‘Application used to perform action’, type, “C:\Windows\system32\Mplay32.exe” /play “%L” click on OK, and repeat this for each file type you want to e able to preview.
Click on OK to save the changes you’ve made. Browse your hard drive; locate one of the media file types you’ve configured, right-click it and you’ll have a new Preview option.
Control Panel Shortcuts
Access system items from your desktop.
Everybody knows you can have ‘shortcuts’ on your desktop. But did you know you can also create shortcuts that make it easier and quicker to launch Control Panel items.
Right-click your desktop and choose New/Shortcut, and then in the command line of the dialogue box type “control.exe” followed by one of the suffixes listed below.
For example, if you want to create a shortcut to Internet Options in the command line of your shortcut you would enter “control.exe inetcpl.cpl”
For Add or Remove Programs, use … appwiz.cpl
For Add Hardware Wizard, use … hdwiz.cpl
Date and Time, would be … timedate.cpl
Display Properties … desk.cpl
Mouse and keyboard … main.cpl
Power Options (management) … powercfg.cpl
Regional Settings … intl.cpl
System Properties … sysdm.cpl
Taskbar and Start Menu … access.cpl
Make your PC talk back to you.
There’s a little utility built into Windows XP called Narrator, which uses a process of text to speech to read out what’s being displayed on screen.
The voice you hear will give you a description of the contents of a window, its menu options or any text that’s within a document. It will work with all your main applications including MS Word and Internet Explorer, as well as system tools within Control panel. You may also find it useful when browsing the web.
You can launch the utility from under Accessibility tools on the All Programs menu or by pressing Windows Key + U. A dialogue box will appear, confirming that Narrator is running. All you need to do is click on OK and the program will immediately start reading out what’s on screen. To stop Narrator speaking at any time just press CRTL. You can control Narrator’s functionality using these shortcut keys;
Hear an entire window … (select it first) CRTL + Shift + Spacebar
Hear a detailed description of an item … CRTL + Shift + Insert
Hear the title bar of a window … ALT + End
Hear the contents of an edit field … CRTL + Shift + Enter
Enjoy!
Mucks.
Drag-n-drop
You can quickly turn any piece of text into a file by simply highlighting it, and then dragging the text on to the desktop. This creates a “Document scrap file”, which you can edit.
Preview Music Files
Use this ‘tweak’ to add a Preview option for sampling any of your audio or video files. It uses the basic media player that’s built into Windows XP, and will save you time opening the full Windows Media Player application when all you want to do is listen to or watch a short excerpt.
To do so, open My Computer, click on Tools/Folder Options and select the Files tab. Under registered file types select the file type you want to be able to preview then click on Advanced.
Click on New and under Action type Preview. In the box, ‘Application used to perform action’, type, “C:\Windows\system32\Mplay32.exe” /play “%L” click on OK, and repeat this for each file type you want to e able to preview.
Click on OK to save the changes you’ve made. Browse your hard drive; locate one of the media file types you’ve configured, right-click it and you’ll have a new Preview option.
Control Panel Shortcuts
Access system items from your desktop.
Everybody knows you can have ‘shortcuts’ on your desktop. But did you know you can also create shortcuts that make it easier and quicker to launch Control Panel items.
Right-click your desktop and choose New/Shortcut, and then in the command line of the dialogue box type “control.exe” followed by one of the suffixes listed below.
For example, if you want to create a shortcut to Internet Options in the command line of your shortcut you would enter “control.exe inetcpl.cpl”
For Add or Remove Programs, use … appwiz.cpl
For Add Hardware Wizard, use … hdwiz.cpl
Date and Time, would be … timedate.cpl
Display Properties … desk.cpl
Mouse and keyboard … main.cpl
Power Options (management) … powercfg.cpl
Regional Settings … intl.cpl
System Properties … sysdm.cpl
Taskbar and Start Menu … access.cpl
Make your PC talk back to you.
There’s a little utility built into Windows XP called Narrator, which uses a process of text to speech to read out what’s being displayed on screen.
The voice you hear will give you a description of the contents of a window, its menu options or any text that’s within a document. It will work with all your main applications including MS Word and Internet Explorer, as well as system tools within Control panel. You may also find it useful when browsing the web.
You can launch the utility from under Accessibility tools on the All Programs menu or by pressing Windows Key + U. A dialogue box will appear, confirming that Narrator is running. All you need to do is click on OK and the program will immediately start reading out what’s on screen. To stop Narrator speaking at any time just press CRTL. You can control Narrator’s functionality using these shortcut keys;
Hear an entire window … (select it first) CRTL + Shift + Spacebar
Hear a detailed description of an item … CRTL + Shift + Insert
Hear the title bar of a window … ALT + End
Hear the contents of an edit field … CRTL + Shift + Enter
Enjoy!
Mucks.
