Turn XP into Vista - Show Thumbnail Images in Windows Taskbar

Visual Task Tips is just a 90 kb utility that makes your Windows XP taskbar look like the one that ships with Vista.

You can hover the mouse cursor over any application in the taskbar and instantly see the latest thumbnail screenshot of that Window without actually switching to that application.

Pretty useful when you have tons of similar application open on your screen and the application titles aren't descriptive enough.

Get Visual Task Tips at visualtasktips.com [freeware]

Don't Lose Work If IE 7 Browser Crashes or Hangs All of a Sudden

Say you have over half a dozen websites open inside IE 7. But suddenly your Internet Explorer window closes without warning or simply freezes and stops responding. You have no other option but to kill the IE 7 process (iexplore.exe) via the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del).

In either of the cases, there's no record of web pages that were open in your IE window prior to the crash. What do you do in such a situation?

Firefox 2 users are lucky because the Mozilla browser has an excellent Session Restore feature that auto saves the browser tabs and will restart exactly to the previous state in the event of a crash or freeze.

While Internet Explorer version 7.0 has no such feature to recover work from a crashed session, you can download a free add-in called IEPlus to bring the very useful "Session Restore" feature of Firefox in your IE browser. [see screenshot]

The next time your IE crashes, you won't have to search the browser cache to recall the names of the websites that were open - IEPlus will just ask for your confirmation and will auto-restore the browser automatically to the previous state. Nothing is lost.

And if you click the "No" button in the confirmation dialog, IEPlus shows you a list of websites that were open in IE prior to the crash - you can open sites selectively, a lovely feature that's missing even in Firefox.

IEPlus on Download.com

Which Version of Adobe Flash Player Is Running On My Machine

If you are not sure whether Adobe Flash Player is installed in your web browser and if installed, what version of the Flash Player are your running - here's a simple trick.

Visit this page on Adobe.com. If you have the Adobe Flash Player plugin, the page will display the exact version of the Flash Player. If Flash is missing on your machine, you won't see the line the says "Adobe Flash Player is Installed."

Make sure you perform this check separately for IE and Firefox / Opera.

What's new in Flash Player 9 that's on Adobe Labs

While the latest version of Adobe Flash Player is 9.0.47.0, Adobe have recently released an updated version of Macromedia Flash Player 9 (9.0.60.184) that supports H.264 in addition to the original On2 VP6 codec (but not Sorenson Video).

Why upgrade to Flash Player 9 with H.264 support

What that means in simple jargon is that you can now use the same Flash Player 9 to play Quicktime .mov and the iPod .mp4, m4v videos in your web browser without installing the Apple Quicktime plugin. Video encoded in Quicktime or MPEG-4 formats (not divx or xvid) will play in the Flash Player just like other Flash Video files (e.g. YouTube) and SWF movies.

Before you download Flash Player 9 H.264 version, make sure you clean up you existing installation of Flash Player 9 / 8 else the upgrade will fail.

Adobe Labs, Tinic Uro and Dan Rayburn have more indepth information about the new Flash Player 9 and how it compares with Quicktime and the existing On2 VP6 codec.

Switch Your Laptop Between Home and Office Network Easily

People have been Shared a network connections profile manager called NetSetMan, who frequently travel with their laptops. Each time they get to a new location, they have to manually change settings of their network card and browser proxy server before connecting to the internet.

Though NetSetMan has a free full version, some comments have pointed out that the license prohibits use of the software at work or any commercial purpose.

If you need to shuttle your notebook computer between home and various office locations, the other good alternative is Net Profiles that again helps you effortlessly change your network connection settings .

With Net Profiles, you create various profiles for each of your network settings and you can easily switch from one to another. Can also be used for managing network printers, mapped drives and multiple Wi-Fi wireless networks.

Avoid Office Embarrassments; Stop Web pages from Autoplaying Music or Videos

Lot of websites (especially myspace) embed background music (and sometimes video clips) in web pages that automatically begins to play as soon as you open the site in your web browser - there's no confirmation.

Music and Videos that autoplay in the browser is not that big an issue if you keep your speakers muted or use the headphones, but it can be very embarrassing in all other cases - you don't want your cubicle neighbours to know that you just visited an amateur website.

Here's how to block autoplay of music and videos that's embedded in webpages:

Internet Explorer - Got Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced. Scroll down in Settings, and then under the Multimedia heading, uncheck Play sounds in web pages and Play videos in web pages.

Mozilla Firefox - Install the Stop Play extension available at Mozilla.org. Stop Play plugin disables autoplay of embedded media but you can play it later when you want. Alternatively, you can completely block the audio-videos files from auto-downloading that also speeds up web browsing.

Related: How to Stop GIF Animations in Browsers

Coffee Chart: What's Inside Your Favorite Coffee Drink

The next time you order some coffee at your favorite coffee shop, this coffee chart should come in very handy - it illustrates the small differences between the common espresso flavors.

This excellent coffee selection diagram is a work of Lokesh (thanks IndiaUncut) - the chart helps you with the complex pronunciation of coffee names as well as the ingredients inside.

Microsoft Hackers Now Have an Official Blog

"Hackers @ Microsoft" - that's the name of a new Microsoft blog officially launched on blogs.msdn.com which also hosts thousands of other blogs written by Microsoft Employees.

The pitch says - Microsoft employs some of the best hackers in the world and actively recruits them and develops them. At his or her core, a true hacker is someone who is curious and wants to learn how systems work. This can and of course at Microsoft is done in an ethical, legal manner.

Microsoft does have hackers, and its time to introduce you to some of them and show you what it is, exactly that they do. The new Microsoft Hackers blog is located at blogs.msdn.com/hackers.

Create Family Tree Charts inside Microsoft Office

A family tree diagram (aka pedigree charts) depicting the ancestors and descendants of your family with their pictures, birthdays, and other interesting stories can serve a wondeful personalized gift for your grandparent's upcoming wedding anniversary.

Or can you can hang them as a painting on the wall of your living room. Or just post it on your blog website so that the whole world knows about the various generations of your great family and the intresting events in their lives [like how did your great-grandpa first met your great-grandma]

Creating a family tree or even a family history book from scratch is really very simple - all you need is the names, photographs of your family members, some important dates and those special stories[probably your grandma can be a big help here].

Once this basic databases on paper is ready, download any of the following Microsoft Office templates depending on what kind of chart you want to create. It's that easy:

Family History Book for Microsoft Word

Family Tree Template for Microsoft Excel

Family History Template for Word - Theme 2

These family tree templates have everything from your mom-dad's courtship days to medical history to family traditions to past vacations.

And if you are interested in just designing the family tree, just head straight to the tree section skipping the other details. No standalone family tree maker software is required - And if you don't have Microsoft Office, you can still use templates from Zoho Writer, Writely, Zoho Sheet or even Google Spreadsheet.

Create an Organization Chart Without Visio or Powerpoint

Forbes has a new website where anyone can create org charts for their company or browse through the organizational charts of other publicly listed U.S. companies like Google, Microsoft, Dell, Yahoo!, etc.

The org chart software is completely web based and free but can help you create professional looking organization charts via a simple Flash based drag-n-drop interface just like Microsoft Visio or SmartDraw.

To make a connection, drag a person over his/her boss, wait for the boss to turn orange and then release. To make an unconnected employee the boss of someone already on the chart, drag the boss over the employee and wait for the flash. Once it flashes, move the boss above the employee and release.

Wait, there's something even more useful. You can search the Forbes org charts database for company names or even individual employees in a manner similar to Google Finance (search as you type). Clicking the employee name will show his current status / position in the organization.

You can navigate the org charts using a Google Maps like navigation controls. The charts can later be printed as picture diagrams or text outlines.

Forbes Org Charts - Corporate Org Chart Wiki

Make Flowcharts, Home Office Layouts and Other Diagrams Online

Best4c is another web based Visio to help you create flowcharts, network diagrams, floor plans and other designs online.

The application is complete web based but has the look-n-feel of a desktop application with collapsible palettes on one side and property pane for the selected shape on the right.

You drag-n-drop objects / shapes on the drawing canvas and can easily rotate or resize them - since they are vector images, they do not suffer from pixelation when you expand the size. And the inbuilt library of graphic images is impressive.

With all the baggage, Best4c flowchart editor is pretty responsive and loads quickly in your web browser. Works across all browsers.