Are you looking for a free PDF creator/generator? You don’t have to spend high prices to create a decent PDF document.
PrimoPDF (http://www.primopdf.com/) is a free to use PDF converter program. When installed, it works like a printer device that you can print documents from any Windows Application such as Microsoft Word and Firefox Web browser.
For example, if you would like to create a PDF document for a Yahoo Website, visit Yahoo.com in your favorite Web browser and click on the Print menu.
When you see the Print Popup windows , select ‘PrimoPDF’ from the Printer selection list. Then click on the ‘OK’ button to print.
Then a new PrimoPDF window shows such as below.
Now you can just define the new PDF file name to save as by clicking the “…” browse button. After selecting the filename, you can finish by click on the ‘OK’ button.
Here is the captured image of the PDF file opened with Adobe Reader 8. You can click on the image to view the enlarged image.
Another great thing about PrimoPDF is that it does not print any kind of Watermark in the generated PDF file unlike some freeware/shareware PDF softwares. So you get the exact document that you want to print.
Here is the actual PDF file , Yahoo!.pdf, created with the PrimoPDF.
There are several similar products when it comes to Desktop Widgets. There are
- Apple DashBoard
- Microsoft Vista Gadget
- Google Desktop Gadget
- Yahoo Widget
Here is the article from Yahoo Widget Blog The Ever-Changing Widget Landscape with the comparison and the explanation between the different version of Widgets or similar products.
I agree with the blog in regards of Apple DashBoard and Vista Gadget that they are heavily depended on the OS. I can’t even try Dashboard and Vista Gadget cause I don’t have the OS (Mac OSX or Vista). With the current Windows XP, I have two options Google Gadget and Yahoo Widget anyway. But since Goolge Gadget is much less dynamic and intuitive, so my only option is Yahoo.
There are about 4000 widgets in yahoo widget gallery. That is just too many and I already wasted quite amount time browsing and testing one by one.
I hope that there is some featured articles or guides to introduce only few outstanding widgets everyweek or so.
RocketDock ( http://www.punksoftware.com/rocketdock) is Windows Application Launcher similar to the Mac OS X’s launch bar.
I was longing for such App launcher for Windows and tried some yahoo widget previously but they were very disappointing. When I first found this free software and I was very excited and satisfied with its powerful features that I always wanted.
Actually there are several similar Dock App for Windows, but this is good enough for me not to try other Dock / Launcher softwares.
- You can add and remove icons by just drag and drop.
- You can change the icon image with the regular image files (jpeg, gif, png)
- Multi language support
- Full control setting of its behavior (Icon Enlargement, Menu hides…)
Take a look at this movie that they made for showcase of RocketDock.
http://one.revver.com/watch/160224/flv
You may need 3rd party ICON images to decorate your dock. Try Everaldo’s free Crystal Icon Series. They are great and comes in various sizes from 16X16 to 128X128. If the above site does not work, try CrystalXp.net. They host many icon image sets, and I believe that they are free for personal use. But I guess you need to contact the author for the commercial use.
Other similar Windows Docking products are ObjectDock and AquaDock.
I have been using Yahoo widget (http://widget.yahoo.com) for about a year now. At first, I found that many widgets are fun and eye-catching and placed them in my desktop. I liked Yahoo widgets.
But at certain point, I realized they consume too much memory that each widget took at least 4 or 5 MB of physical memory even if they weren’t doing anything important. So I decided to remove one by one. Most of them are not productive and taking up too much spaces anyway.
And there are only 3 widgets survived in my desktop as of now.
- Simple Monitor :
Shows CPU, Memory, Network bandwidth In/Out , IP Address, and Uptime information as a graph in a single rectangle area. Very neat. But beware, since it’s a monitoring widget, it consumes more system resources than other widgets.
- WidescapeWeather:
Shows five day forecasts, but you can minimize to view only today’s forecast.
- Slickies:
This is the best notepad that I have used. You can set it up so each note can be hidden to the 4 sides of the screen and appear only when you click on the note. That function is very useful so you don’t have to search for your notes again!
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