Tooling A Round

I have run across several tools I use often, sometimes in spurts. Some are online calculators; some are downloadable tools to be installed on the computer. The page titles are self-explanatory. Most instructions at the sites are intuitive. Note that I cite timeanddate.com a LOT.

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"The World Clock ­ Time Zones"
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/

I used this online resource often to determine the times for co-workers in other time zones, particularly those located overseas. Timing was important when communicating or passing documents back and forth.

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"Calculate distance between two locations"
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/distance.html

Select "From location", "To location", then "Calculate distance".

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"See other locations near a city"
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/distances.html?n=24 (Austin)

Select a city, then click the button "See cities close to location".

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"Calendar for year 2010 (United States)" (default settings, customizable)
http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/

Here's my shameless plug for my article about creating monthly calendars:
http://whilldtkwriter.blogspot.com/2010/01/create-monthly-calendars-for-year.html

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"CSS Font and Text Style Wizard"
http://www.somacon.com/p334.php

Click buttons, then see the results and code.

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"Free File Converter
Convert your files into different formats."
http://www.freefileconvert.com/

Click the Convert File tab to get to the interface as follows:

1. Obtain the existing file (Browse)
2. Select the format you want (dropdown list box).
3. Click Convert.
4. Click the download button to save or open the converted file.

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"Cool Ruler 1.5: Free Download"
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Cool-Ruler-Download-40393.html

This tool's features include variable length, capabilities of launching multiple instances, rotating them for 90° positions, and marking tics at onscreen image widths. This is and excellent aid when working with mechanical images or other images where visual scaling is desirable.

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"PrintFolder 1.2" (at URL below)
http://no-nonsense-software.com/download.html

This tool makes it possible to rightclick a folder and generate an onscreen list of your folder's files and other information, suitable for copy/paste onto email.

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"EditPlus 3.12" (text editor, HTML editor, PHP editor and Java editor for Windows)
http://download.cnet.com/EditPlus/3000-2352_4-10018241.html

I had used this tool for html coding for about year or so before I acquired Dreamweaver.

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"Irfanview ...one of the most popular viewers worldwide!"
http://www.irfanview.com/

I had used Irfanview initially for its thumbnail features. My graphics tool of choice has been PaintShopPro; however, I will probably soon explore more recent Irfanview's features that have caught my eye, such as playing movies, playing sounds, and creating slideshows.

Create Monthly Calendars for the Year

Did you get a 2010 calendar recently? Get one for a Christmas gift? Buy one for yourself? Bank give you one? Some other business give you one? Calendars used to be assumed freebies, which seemed to be in short supply this season. The other day, I asked a bank teller about calendars. She pointed out a small stack of pocketbook-sized ones. Well, it’s adequate for viewing month to month, but the cells measure only 1.2" wide by 1" high.

I decided to visit an online calendar utility for viewing and creating custom calendars. I wound up creating and printing out all 12 months for the year in landscape orientation, double-side printing them onto six sheets. This type of calendar is good for scribbling short notes on a month-to-month basis. I myself like the days-of-week column arrangement to reinforce weekly occurrences.

For making the calendar, I used a Firefox browser with PaintShopPro7 (PSP) graphics editor, and selected options at http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar. (The default view shows a 3-row by 4-column setup for an entire year, tweakable for preferences.) I experimented with the browser screen sizes for graphics capture, then previewed and tweaked the page setup in PSP for printing maximum cell sizes.

If you want to make your own monthly calendar, start at http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar and click Advanced customization. At the new screen, the critical selections are as follows:

• Calendar period=1 month
• Format=[your preference]
• Add space for notes=[some vertical spacing per cell]
• Main template=[your preference]

When done with selections, click Show calendar. For the rest of the procedure to set up and print the first month, YMMV. To prepare the browser to capture screens, I set my browser for maximum size; i.e., clicked the Maximize button (restored to full screen). To obtain more vertical viewing space, I turned off the navigation and status bars (browser view menu), and pulled down the task windowshade to close it.

To set my graphics editor to capture screens, I opened PSP and set it to use a cursor for dragging and defining a capture window.

An alternative to setting the browser for maximum and setting the graphics editor for windowing the area: Resize the browser so only the calendar appears, then set the graphics editor for Object capture. This setting enables capturing only the object inside the window.

To prepare the application to print, I set up page settings to Landscape and Fit to page. I then tweaked settings by unchecking Fit to page, and accepting the new default margins.

I created the rest of the months for the year by doing the following:

1. Scrolled the browser upward until I saw the links for previous/next month.
2. Clicked the next month.
3. Scrolled the browser downward until I got the full view of the month.
4. Captured and printed the months as I did for January.

Yup, I'm set up for the rest of the year now.