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Turn a Scanned Document Into Microsoft Word Document

Posted by MN Farani at 6:16:00 pm
turn a scanned document into microsoft word document

Turning a scanned document into a Word document is fairly easy, and this process will show you how to turn a scan into editable text. For the purposes of this step-by-step procedure, I used Microsoft Word 2003 running on Windows XP Professional SP2, a Lexmark scanner and Adobe Photoshop. However, any scanner or version of Word should be fine, and Paint can be substituted in lieu of a more professional photo or image editor.
Instructions: 
  1.  Prepare your document to be scanned. If possible, select the option to scan a black and white document. It is not required, however this will allow for a more accurate read of the text later on. After this is complete, scan the document. 
  2. Open the file you've scanned with any type of image editor that can save .TIFF files. Microsoft Paint and Photoshop can both do this. Adjust the picture so that it is upright, if necessary. 
  3. Click on "File," then click on "Save As," name your file, and next to "Format", save the file as a ".TIFF."
  4. Click on the "Start" button. Go to "Programs > Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office Tools" and select "Microsoft Office Document Imaging." 
  5. Click "File," then "Open." Open the folder where you saved your scanned image, click on the file, then click "Open." 
  6. Go to "Tools" then click on "Send text to Word." It will prompt a message asking where to save the file (click on "Browse" to choose where you want it to go), then click "OK." At this point, it may prompt a warning that it will take a while to process. The overall process shouldn't take more than a minute or two. Additionally, it may prompt to install the feature that allows the Word conversion to work. In this instance, you may need a copy of your Microsoft Office Installation CD, as it may prompt for it as well. 
  7. Look for your file to open in Word automatically once the process is complete. If it does not, go to the folder where you saved it, and open the file from there. The document will not be the exact format of the original document, but it will recognize all the words and lay them out for you automatically.
Tips & Warnings
  • Sometimes after converting the scan into Word, you may see some misspellings in the Word file. This occurs because the document scan is hazy, or if your scanner saves the scan as a regular photo or color image. If you can scan as a black and white document, the amount of misspellings should diminish greatly, if not completely.
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5 tools to improve your typing speed

Posted by MN Farani at 12:41:00 pm

5 tools to improve your typing speedIf you’ve been using computers for as long as me, you can probably type quite well without looking at the keyboard. Improving your typing speed and accuracy has become increasingly important in today’s world, where computers, smartphones and other keyboard-equipped devices are almost omnipresent.

Typing faster means you can get your work done more quickly, answer your emails in a few minutes and update your blog by the end of the day, all in a much more efficient way. However, there are still people who use just two fingers to type. If you’re among them, don’t worry: you can count on software utilities, web apps and other tools to help you improve your speed and accuracy when typing. These are some of them:

  • RapidTyping - Improve your typing by learning the right hand position and training specific groups of letters. The program then lets you use custom texts for advanced typing training, and keeps detailed statistics about your performance and improvement. There’s also a portable version of RapidTyping.
  • GS Typing Tutor - Great typing tutor for beginners and advanced users. Learn to type from scratch with basic two-finger lessons, or acquire professional touch typing speed and skills with the program’s lessons and games. GS Typong Tutor keeps stats of your progress and focuses on practicing your most problematic letters.
  • Bruce’s Unusual Typing Wizard - Learn to type and improve your speed and accuracy with this simple, efficient tool. It support multiple users and customizable practicing tests, includes a bunch of lessons with different difficulty levels and keeps statistics of your improvement.
  • MaxType Typing Tutor - An advanced tutor to improve your typing speed. You can use any TXT file as training test, compete against a computer-controlled opponent in a speed test and record your own typing in order to keep track of your performance. The program measures up to 20 parameters of your typing.
  • Klavaro Touch Typing Tutor - This tool helps you improve your speed and accuracy when typing. It includes lessons that become increasingly difficult as you make progress through them, from practicing two letters to writing full texts. Klavaro Touch Typing Tutor has support for many different keyboard layouts and languages.
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How to: Stop a Windows shutdown

Posted by MN Farani at 9:47:00 am

We’ve all been there. In fact, I was there just yesterday, happily pressing “next, next” in a long installation process. Just a microsecond too late, however, I realized I had accidentally told the program to restart my system. Unsaved documents, half-finished reviews and long strings of tabs disappeared before my eyes. I looked frantically around for some way of stopping it, a big red button perhaps, or a giant STOP lever. Of course, there wasn’t one. To make sure you don’t fall victim to the same problem, I’m going to show you how to stop an unwanted system shutdown or restart.

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The easiest way is to create an abort shutdown/restart shortcut. To do this, right click on the desktop and select New > Shortcut. In the box that appears, type shutdown.exe -a. Then call the shortcut whatever you like, and place it somewhere easy to access- in the taskbar if you like. The next time you accidentally tell your computer to shut down or restart, double click the shortcut and you’ll prevent the restart. Just don’t be too trigger-happy with the “Nexts” next time!

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A look at Paltalk for Windows and Mac

Posted by MN Farani at 9:42:00 am

paltalk-logo.pngIf you like chat rooms where you can chat anonymously with different people from around the world on a huge variety of topics, then Paltalk may interest you. Note that Paltalk is also confusingly known as PaltalkScene and on Mac and Linux, where it only works in a web browser, it’s also known as PaltalkExpress.

Paltalk is a US based service that claims to have over 4 million users. One of the biggest attractions of Paltalk to those users is that you can log on at any time, activate your webcam, and chat away in high quality audio and video. A few years ago however, Paltalk hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons after a British user committed suicide online after receiving a barrage of insults in an “Insult” chat room. Since then, Paltalk have placed greater restrictions on adult content and added an adult content blocker switch to the top of the interface which you can activate at any time.

Let’s take a look at the Windows version first then. When you first install Paltalk, note that it will try and install the Paltalk toolbar but you can easily de-select this. You also need to sign-up for a Paltalk account which simply involves entering a username and password:

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Once you are logged-in, Paltalk open as an Instant Message style client sidebar. There are three options - Click with your clique, Chat face-to-face and More fun stuff:

It’s best to start with Click with your clique and then select Browse chat rooms when the option appears. There are a huge number of chat rooms to choose from with topics ranging from sport to politics. Note that one of them takes you to an adult chat room although this is clearly la labeled and as mentioned earlier, you can deactivate all adult content on Paltalk by using the Adult Content switch in the top right corner.

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Once in a chat room, you can choose to activate your webcam or even transmit audio to other users. Although the users can be from anywhere, the topics of chat rooms suggest that most users are in the USA.

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Paltalk is quite an overwhelming application because there are ads all over the place and more often than not, you enter a room only to hear music or ranting from a user. Note that you can see who is speaking by where the microphone symbol is next to the names of people in the chat room down the right hand side. More often than not however, the messages that are exchanged are just a jumbled mass of random soundbites and its hard to tell how anyone can be genuinely communicating within such an environment. You can though open a private dialog with someone by right clicking on their name. You can also have multiple chat rooms open in different tabs.

The interface on the PC version is a little cheap for my liking and the web version (PaltalkExpress for Mac and Linux) looks much better:

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The chat dialogs are also far more polished and easier to use than in the Windows version too:

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Paltalk is a hugely popular application and if you like talking and webcam chatting with random people on different topics then you’re sure to enjoy it. Be aware however that it is all a bit much to take-in at once and it will take some time before you feel competent with it.

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Top 10 tools to restrict access to your PC

Posted by MN Farani at 11:03:00 am

Folder lock logoIf you share your PC then sometimes it’s nice to know that you’ve got some control over what happens on it when you’re not there. Maybe you want to stop your kids accessing certain sites, or maybe you’ve got some confidential information on there that you don’t want prying eyes looking at. Whatever the reason, there are tons of mini-applications out there to give you a bit more peace of mind.

  • Folder Lock - Protect folders and files from unauthorised access
  • Anti-Porn - Prevent your kids and minors from viewing explicit pornography
  • Clean Slate - A network administrators dream - roll-back any activity performed on a PC
  • PC Locker Pro - Block access to your PC whilst you’re away from your machine
  • iNet Protector - Restrict both internet and program access for children or employees
  • BananaScreen - The ultimate security procedure? Unlock your PC with your face!
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How to change your voice in Skype

Posted by MN Farani at 10:54:00 am
f you fancy having a bit of fun next time you use Skype then why not try out a voice-changing app? You’ll be able to do all sorts of cool things, from prank-calling your pals as Darth Vader to faking a sore throat in order to get a day off work. There are a number of software tools around that can change your voice in Skype, and none of them are particularly difficult to use.

Skype Voice Changer is a free app that does exactly what its name suggests. Install the application on your PC, open up Skype and agree to the permission request. You’ll then be presented with an effects panel that lets you alter your voice. There are a range of presets and you can tweak each of them using the sliders to change various aspects of the sound.

A more comprehensive and easier to use solution is MorphVOX Pro. The program has some really cool preset voices, including a demon, robot, woman, kid and even a dog! You can also apply background noises to your voice as you’re talking, such as a shopping mall or a traffic jam (perfect for a call to your boss saying you’ll be late for work). Another great thing about MorphVOX Pro is the ‘Voice effects’ section, where you can apply various filters to your dulcet tones, including nasal, growl, underwater and monotone. All of the presets can be customized using the ‘Tweak Voice’ control panel. The downside of MorphVOX Pro is that it costs $39.95, although you can try the program free for 30 days.

Funny voices are easy with MorphVOX Pro

If you really want state-of-the-art then check out AV Voice Changer. This app is loaded with a multitude of options that let you really fine-tune your fake voice. There are lots of preset voices to make you sound young, old, sexy, patronizing, joyful or sarcastic. The program includes a ‘Parady Mixer’, which lets you sample celebrities voices before calling people up and pranking them. The tinkering you can do with AV Voice Changer is more akin to a professional audio production app, including a formant morpher (to alter acoustic resonance), voice equalizer and noise reduction settings. The only trouble with AV Voice Changer is the trial is pretty limited, and the program is more expensive than MorphVOX Pro.

If you really want an idea of the fun you can have with voice changers, then you must watch this video of a guy using MorphVOX Pro with some hilarious consequences.


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Ad blockers: Are they harming the websites you love?

Posted by MN Farani at 10:42:00 am

A while ago, I reviewed a program called AdBlock Plus, a popular Firefox add-on that nukes the annoying ads that get in the way when you’re browsing. It is super-effective, stripping ads from the screen and leaving only clean, white space in their place. As anyone who has ever spent more than 30 seconds on the internet knows, you’ll soon be assaulted by blinking, buzzing and flashing ads, my personal favorites being the ones that slide out and cover whatever it is you’re trying to read.

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I thought AdBlock Plus was really cool and gave it a great rating, but just the other day I read this article by Ars Technica which made me stop and think. Could blocking ads be hurting my favorite websites?

Once you think about it, it’s obvious that websites that don’t charge for content have to make money some other way. One of these ways is advertising, and if we get rid of that advertising with an ad blocker, it can’t generate the revenue that maintains the website. As the article points out, some argue that they never click on ads anyway, so there’s no harm in getting rid of them. Well, the truth is that many large websites are paid by advertisers on a per view basis, not per click. Surely once you realize that, it changes everything.

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I wonder how many people will get rid of their AdBlock Plus after reading the Ars Technica article? There’s a problem here, and its the same one I see when people get into the illegal download debate. We have spent a long time taking full advantage of the internet and all the free and accessible stuff it offers, and old habits are hard to break. The internet broke into the mainstream more than 15 years ago, but back then content providers, vendors and producers didn’t think of the future and what would happen if they gave users (or allowed them to take) their products for free.

Most users don’t think of the consequences unless we’re made to - downloading, watching and reading online are too ingrained. You turn on your computer and there it is. We expect to get lots of our content for free and see nothing wrong with sweeping ads aside in order to get it. Likewise, if users feel that advertising is too intrusive, for example, they don’t think twice about complaining. But think about it: it’s a bit like being invited around to somebody’s house for dinner and then complaining about the food.

If content providers want people’s attitudes towards paying (however they do - or don’t- do it) for their content to change, it’s going to take a lot of effort. An internet-wide change would never work, so it is going to require the long, hard slog of educating users and appealing to their better nature. Do you think it will work?

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Five ways to create your own homepage

Posted by MN Farani at 4:17:00 pm

Having a good homepage is important. After all, they’re the first thing you see when you launch the web browser, and usually the starting point of your working day. There are many different options and possibilities when it comes to choose the right homepage for you, so let’s take a look at some of them:

  • About:blank – The classic option. It’s the perfect homepage for those who can’t stand overloaded designs and don’t really need a specific point to start from. The blank page gives you total freedom to choose a different path in your web browsing every day.

Five ways to create your own homepage

  • iGoogle – The traditional option. Pretty much everyone has a Gmail account these days, so it’s only natural that iGoogle is another traditional choice for your homepage. It’s connected with all Google services, and you get lots of gadgets and themes to customize it with.

Five ways to create your own homepage

  • Fav4.org – The minimalist option. A recently launched service that displays four direct links to your four favorite or most used websites. You have to choose from a list of predefined web services, but you can also suggest ones. Clean, minimalist design for those who like to go straight to the point.

Five ways to create your own homepage

  • Flavors.me – The ‘Web 2.0′ option. Another recently launched tool that lets you tailor a totally personal starting page with links to your user accounts and profiles in various social networks (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Last.fm, and many more) and a highly customizable appearance.

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  • Genieo - The DIY option. Genieo is a small software app that generates a custom homepage automatically, based on your past browsing history and site preferences. You can then tweak this first draft homepage to adapt it to your needs: add new feeds, remove others, pick your favorite sites and so on.

Five ways to create your own homepage

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