Norm

Norm is a a Canadian IT professional with 12 years of experience under his belt as a Technology Architect, Microsoft Certified Application Developer and as an Analyst. He has written numerous articles for multiple technology blogs, in addition to his own blog http://www.geekeleet.com.

Recent Posts

View .Docx Files With Word Viewer For Windows

By | April 25, 2009 |

Word ViewerIs this a familiar scene for you?  Someone has sent you a file with the .docx extension and you can’t open it?

Fear not, help is on the way.

Since the early days of Office 2003, Microsoft has been offering a free download of an application called Word Viewer that allows users to open documents created with Microsoft Word on Windows-based computers that don’t have Office installed.

The caveat here is that you have to download to different installers.  The first one installs Word Viewer 2003 and the second installs the Office Compatibility Pack.  This second download is what allows Word Viewer to open documents created with Word 2007.

In this walkthrough, I’ve created a test.docx file and sent it to a bare bones Windows XP installation.  Let’s have a look at how I was able to view it.

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Manage Your Ebook Library with Calibre

By | April 12, 2009 |

Calibre LogoHow many times have you stared at the vast collection of ebooks that you have and wondered if there was a better way to keep track of them?  I certainly have. Time and time again I sift through my ebooks as I attempt to locate one that I knew I had somewhere. I knew that there must be a better way and finally I found it!

Calibre is a “one stop solution to all your ebook needs”. The site wasn’t lying. This handy application is a free, open-source, cross-platform (Windows, Linux, OS X) ebook library that offers incredible value and useful features.

In this walkthrough, we’ll look at installing Calibre in Windows and check out some of the basic features.

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Easily Troubleshoot Your Graphics Card With GPU-Z

By | March 20, 2009 |

5-gpuz.pngI recently wrote about a great software utility that opened up a world of information about your motherboard, CPU, and RAM. Well, I have another great utility to tell you about, only this time it’s all about your graphics card.

Though manufactured by different companies, GPU-Z from TechPowerUp does look a lot like the aforementioned CPU-Z. The interface is eerily similar and the name is a perfect match. On the positive side, these two Windows applications bring incredible value at a price that can’t be beat – free! The pair complement each other as incredible tools to have on your belt.

Let me take you on a tour of this powerful graphics card information utility.

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Diagnose Your PC With CPU-Z

By | March 17, 2009 |

0_cpuzIf knowledge is power, then CPU-Z from CPUID will make you feel like a superhero. This handy little tool was featured in the MakeTechEasier 101 best free computer software downloads list. CPU-Z is a Windows only tool that gathers information on some of the main hardware components of your computer.

The information that it collects is quite detailed and is focused around you CPU, mainboard, memory and general system info about Windows and DirectX.

Throughout the rest of the post, I’m going to walk you through getting CPU-Z and harnessing it’s awesome power on your own PC.

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Kill Problem Applications Like a Ninja

By | March 10, 2009 |

Kill - Application KillerLinux fans who run Windows (for any number of reasons) can finally rejoice, xkill has essentially been cloned and is available as a free download . This Windows copycat of the popular xkill utility is aptly named – Kill.

Kill allows you to end the process behind an application simply by clicking on the application Window.  Think of it like having the power to terminate in the tip of your finger.  When you load up Kill and left click on a window, Windows attempts to close it as though you had simply clicked the close button.  This will cause the program to close in its normal way, often prompting you to save your work.

Holding CTRL while you click the application triggers the more dangerous end-process that would normally be done through the Task Manager.  This immediately kills the underlying process and forcing the application to terminate.  No prompts this time.  Here’s a demo of Kill in action.

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How To Watch Hulu From Anywhere With Hotspot Shield

By | March 2, 2009 |

Hotspot_ShieldIf you live in the United States then you probably won’t get the Hulu.com reference, however if you live anywhere else, chances are you know exactly what I mean. 

For those not familiar, Hulu is a popular video playback site from NBC that streams many mainstream television shows right to your browser.  The biggest problem with the site is that it blocks access for users outside the continental United States.  Hulu isn’t the only site in the world that does this either.  Many sites restrict access based on the IP Address that you are currently connected with.

This is where Hotspot Shield comes to the rescue.  Hotspot Shield is a free software download that allows you to use the internet anonymously – for both Windows and Mac computers.  It works by providing you with a different IP address than you would normally get, allowing you to bypass country-type restrictions. 

Here’s a look at just how easy it is to use.

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Another Great Disk Usage Analyzer for the Masses

By | February 22, 2009 |

search-driveDon’t let the simplicity of the name fool you, Free Disk Analyzer by Extensoft is packing plenty of features.

In a previous post I talked about a great disk usage analysis tool called TreeSize Free that visually summarized how your disk was being used.  Free Disk Analyzer performs a similar task, however it also has some added features and some better graphics.

In this walkthrough I’ll show you what Free Disk Analyzer is all about and we’ll look at some comparison shots with TreeSize Free.

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Sing Along To Your Favorite Songs With Lyrics Plugin

By | February 13, 2009 |

music_notes3How many times have you been listening to a song and wanted to sing along, but couldn’t because you didn’t know the words?  Even better is when you know most of the words but there are two or three that you just can’t get.  Those days are about to become history.

There is a powerful little plug-in that you can download for Windows Media Player that will show you the lyrics of the song as it plays.  Now don’t get too excited, this has been done before, but not with the incredible simplicity of Lyrics Plugin.

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Simplify Batch Photo Processing with Bulk Image Resizer

By | February 6, 2009 |

Bulk Image ResizerWith the cost of digital cameras steadily decreasing and the perpetual increase in available resolutions, it’s easy to accept that the average household is going to have one or more kicking around.

With my wife being an amateur photographer, I’m often exposed to the trials and tribulations that come with digital photography.  Once such dilemma is the fact that pictures taken with today’s digital cameras are often incredibly large in size.

For example, I took a picture of my monitor the other day and the actual file was 2.81 MB with a resolution of 3008 x 2000 pixels.  The truth is, I’ve seen her produce much bigger pictures than that!  It needed to be about 500 pixels wide

When I took that picture, I also took about 100 more in the same session.  Imagine how quickly the post grew in size when I started writing an article using these images.  They had to be resized, but there were 100 of them and that would take forever.  Enter Bulk Image Resizer from MariusSoft for Windows.

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How To Auto-Clean Windows Vista With CCleaner

By | February 2, 2009 |

automate ccleaner If you’re not familiar with everyone’s favourite system cleaner, CCleaner, it’s a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool.  This application does a very nice job at cleaning up after you, assuming that you actually remember to run it. In today’s fast-paced world, many of us don’t have the time or capacity it takes to remember all of the little things that have to get done.  System maintenance is no exception.

In this tutorial, I’m going to walk you through setting up CCleaner to automatically run on a schedule in Windows Vista so that you can simply set it and forget it.

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