Gmail Date Searching

In your Gmail search bar, enter the following search operator:

after:YYYY/MM/DD
before:YYYY/MM/DD

To ensure you are searching for a specific date, the date you set in the before operator should be one day later than the date set in the after operator.

Tip Source: Emailanalytics.com

How to Batch Resize Images on a Mac

Batch Resize multiple images with the Preview app.

1.  Open all the images you want to resize in preview.
2. In the left pane of Preview, select all the images.  Use the Command-A keyboard shortcut, or go to Edit > Select All.
3. To choose the new (smaller) size, go to Tools > Adjust Size.
4. After all the images appear smaller, go to File > Export Selected Images to choose your saving location.

via: Batch Resize Images on Mac [OS X Daily]

How to Disable Auto Logon in Windows XP

To enhance security and prevent Windows XP from automatically logging on:

Click on the Start Button, select Run, and type rundll32 netplwiz.dll,ClearAutoLogon

No confirmation will be displayed, but when you restart the machine the Welcome Screen with a login prompt will appear.  (A plain login box could also appear, depending on your system settings.)


There are two other working methods to stop the auto logon, at the link below.

Thanks to Ramesh for detailing several methods to stop the auto logon in Windows XP 

Why I shared this tip:
Last night I setup a Windows XP virtual machine in Parallels (on a mac).  This was on a shared computer and so I needed to prevent the others users from having immediate access to Windows XP until they were given access.

How to put the Character Palette or Character symbols in the mac menu bar

To add a shortcut to Character Palette in the Mac menu bar, go to System Preferences and select the International option. From the International Pane, choose the Input Menu tab (as seen above). Select the option for "Character Palette". Now you have easy access to Spanish, German, and French accented characters, as well as other commonly used symbols.

If you do not already see a little U.S. flag in your menu bar, also check the "Show input menu in menu bar" option at the bottom of this same option screen.

After you've enabled the Character palette, and assuming you are using an American English mac, there will now be a U.S. flag icon in your menu bar. Under that menu the Character Palette is now readily available.




Don't forget to add your most used accented characters and symbols to the favorites tab.

Easy Cloud Backup with Dropbox

This week my family's iMac ran into some error messages that essentially made the computer unusable. At this point, we're taking the computer to a local certified Apple tech, because one of more of the RAM memory sticks is probably bad.

We've made no backups of any computer files since the iMac computer was setup at our house in August 2010. Luckily, even though error messages prevented the computer from being usable, I was able to transfer all the family's documents to my computer with Target Disk Mode and a Firewire cable. This also reminds me that I should have setup a separate "troubleshooting" account, which would have allowed me to test whether another account was also having problems loading the Finder.

With the near minor tragedy of loosing all of our family's documents, I remembered that I had not made a backup of my own documents in a few months. In comes Dropbox. The DMG installation file is 21.6MB as of version 1.0.28. The installation and setup is dead simple and fast. You get 2GB of storage with a free account and 250MB of extra space for each person you invite that signs-up for Dropbox.



Dropbox uses a folder on your computer to sync your files with their server. Any time you copy files or folders to your Dropbox folder, they are automatically backed-up to the Dropbox server. Your online Dropbox account gives you access to all these files from any computer or mobile device with web access.

While finishing my taxes, I copied my business report spreadsheet as well as my State and Federal tax returns to my Dropbox folder and they are now backed-up in case anything happens to my computer, and in case I don't make a regular backup to my external hard drive.

Why use Dropbox:

• Backup to an off-site location protects your files from fires, floods, and other acts of nature.
  
• Get peace of mind that the important document or project you are working on is backed-up.
• No log-in required for backups once Dropbox is installed on your computer
• Access your stored files from any internet connected computer or mobile device.

Mac Solutions: Eject stubborn discs

When a CD/DVD disc will not eject, or does not show up on the mac desktop, enter this command in the Terminal application to eject the disc:

drutil tray eject 0

Fine tune volume adjustments for mac

To get extra fine volume adjustments on your mac hold Shift + Option + volume key to adjust each volume block by fourths.

Mac special volume adjustment with keyboard shortcut.

Javascript date updated alert

Paste this into the browser address bar to see the last time a webpage was updated:
javascript:alert(document.lastModified)

It will show a pop-up message with the date and time that the page was last updated. This only works for static .HTM and .HTML files. It will display the current date and time for .PHP and .ASP pages since these are dynamically generated by the server at the moment you visit the page.

iTunes - find what songs are in what playlists

In iTunes you can see all the playlists that a song has been added to. Right click on any song and go to "Show in Playlist". You can now see all the playlists that have the selected song. Playlists with the gear icon mean that it's a smart playlist.

How to Save Images From any Website

To save images from IMDB or any other website that tries to disable saving images from their pages, download the Web Developer extension for Firefox.

After installing this extension for Firefox, right click in a blank area on the page that has the image you want to save.

Go to Web Developer > Images > View Image Information. A new tab will open in Firefox that lists all the images included on that page. Scroll down the page until you find the image you want. Right click on the image and select 'Save Image As'.

(If the image does not appear at full size, click on the link for the image you want. Now you can save the image by right-clicking on the image and choosing 'Save Image As'.)




How to save images and photos from IMDB.

How to add the new Google Analytics tracking code into Thesis

The new google analytics tracking code is supposed to go after the opening <body> tag and Thesis, as of version 1.7, only has an option in the admin area to add the tracking code just before the end of the HTML, which places scripts just before the closing </body> tag.

To get the analytics tracking code onto your Thesis site, just after the opening body tag, add the code below into your custom functions file to add the new version of the Google Analytics tracking code (as of May 24, 2010).

function google_analytics() { ?>

Paste your analytics tracking code here

<?php }

add_action('thesis_hook_before_html', 'google_analytics');

How to Clean CDs and DVDs

Netflix recommends using water with a lint free cloth and a drop of dish soap for very dirty discs.

According to Whatsinproducts.com, the Radio Shack brand CD cleaning fluid is 55% Isopropanol and 45% water.

Care and Handling of CDs and DVDs: A Guide for Librarians and Archivists

The consensus (after reading several articles).

• Blow off dirt with an air blower before applying liquid
• Use distilled water to avoid leaving mineral deposits or spots
  

How to Take Mac DVD Screenshots with a Terminal Command

"Screen grabs are unavailable during DVD playback". How to create a DVD screenshot and work around this:

Running this command in the Mac Terminal will allow for screen shots during DVD playback, which is otherwise disabled.

screencapture -i ~/Desktop/dvd-screenshot.png

After running the command, a selection can be drawn for the screenshot, or press spacebar to select a window and save the screenshot to desktop.

How to compress a PDF on a Mac without Acrobat

To compress a PDF on Mac that does not have Adobe Acrobat, open the PDF in Preview. Then go to File > Save as. (Warning: If you go to File > Save, you will over-right your original high quality PDF file.)

From the Quartz Filter option menu, choose "Reduce File Size" and save a new copy of the PDF.
(This option will compress the images to produce a smaller PDF file.)

The new copy of the PDF should have a much smaller file size that is more useful for quick web viewing. I was able to reduce a 7.2 MB PDF that included several images into a 252 KB PDF file using this feature of the Preview application.

Straighten Curly Quotes in TextWrangler

TextWrangler has a built in command to remove the curly quotes created by Microsoft Word under Text > Straighten Quotes.

Textwrangler tip: Close and Delete

TextWrangler can close and delete files at the same time. It does display a confirmation before deleting the file, but this is still faster than finding the file in the Finder and then deleting it.

Discovered this tonight when I was going through some old text files.

Allowing blocked right click in Firefox

When a website blocks right-clicking with javascript, there is an easy workaround to get the links or images you need.

In Firefox options go to Content and click on the Advanced button across from the enable javascript option.



When the dialog box appears, uncheck the option to Disable or replace context menus.



Done. Even if a website pop-up an alert/status message, the right click context menu will still appear after it goes away.

How to Repeat Header Rows in Excel Spreadsheets

To repeat a set of header rows in Excel

• Go to File > Page Setup
• Click on the "Sheet" Tab
  
• Click on the pyramid icon next to the "rows to repeat at top" field.
• Select the cells to be repeated
• Click on the pyramid icon again to return to the Sheet options
• Click OK.

Here's a screenshot from the Office 2004 Mac version.

How to Print Empty Cells with Borders in Excel

Normally, Excel will not print empty cells, and will only the print the header row that contains data in the cell. Here's how Excel can print empty cells with gridlines/borders

• Add the Borders
• Select the cells to be printed
• Go to File > Print Area > Set Print Area
• Go to File > Print and now all the cells that were selected will display in the print preview.
  

Facebook: Create a list of adult and parent friends for better privacy

To have easier and faster privacy for photos and updates that you want to share with friends, but not share with certain adult friends, create a friend list of all the people who you want to have restricted access to new photos.

Then, after adding a new album of photos, restrict this list of people from seeing the photos