How To Add A Period By Double Tapping The Space Bar In Windows

Phones have a neat, quick-typing trick; when you hit the space bar twice, a period is automatically added. This saves time because you aren’t required to switch to a different keyboard layout to add the period. This is an OS trick and is available system-wide on phones and you can use it when you’re texting or typing a new Facebook status. Unfortunately, this features is restricted to phones for the most part. In Windows, you cannot automatically add a period by double tapping the space bar. The good news it, you can use an AutoHotkey script to add this functionality to all apps. Here’s how.

In order to use this script, you must have AutoHotkey installed. Copy and paste the following to a text file, and save it with the AHK extension. Name the file whatever you like. Double click the file to run it.

:*:  ::{NumpadDot}{space}

Pick any app that lets you input text and start typing. Any time you tap the space bar twice in quick succession, a period will be added to the text. Your text will not have any extra spaces between the period and the next word.

It might take you a little time to get used to the speed with which the script registers a double-tap on the space bar. It might seem like you need to hit the space bar abnormally fast but this prevents you from inserting a period when you don’t intend to.

The script works really well and never missed a single period during testing. It works in Google Chrome inside WordPress, in Notepad, and in MS Word. It also worked inside the Cortana search bar in Windows 10. It’s highly unlikely you will find an app where the script doesn’t work.

If you like the script, you can move it to your Startup folder so that it runs automatically each time you boot your system.

Download AutoHotkey

Find Every Service Associated With Your Google Account

Google authentication is possibly one of the greatest things to happen to the internet. If you’re signed into your Google account, you can sign up for any service that has Google Authentication with just a click. You don’t have to think of a new username or remember a password for multiple services because there is one Google account to rule them all. It’s all very convenient until you lose track of all the services you’ve signed up for and your inbox starts to clog with newsletters. Deseat.me is a web service that finds all apps and accounts that your Google account is associated with. It lets you decide which ones you want to keep and which ones you want to get rid off. It then directs you to the correct page for removing/deleting your account.

Visit Deseat.me and sign into your Google account. Allow the service to access the necessary information needed to generate a list of apps and services connected to your account. This can take anywhere between one to five minutes. The screen might appear to not load anything for a few seconds but it is working.

When the list is generated, each item has three buttons next to it. The ‘Add to delete queue’ and ‘Keep’ buttons let you add a service to the list of ones you want to delete and white-list the ones you want to keep. The danger button is for apps and services that you do not remember signing up for.

Once you’re done with the list, scroll down and click the delete button next to the service or app. You will be redirected to the service/app page for deleting your account.

Deseat.me aggregates a list of services and apps associated with you Google account but it doesn’t automate the deletion process. It also doesn’t support all services. Some apps and services that do not have a delete mechanism in place simply cannot be deleted via Deseat.me. The only thing you can do is revoke the app or service’s access to your Google account.

Visit Deseat.me

How To Pin Command Prompt And PowerShell To The Quick Access Toolbar In Windows

Windows is big on shortcuts and quick accessibility. Throughout the OS, you will see lots of ways to ‘bookmark’ frequent file locations, settings, and apps. Windows offers multiple options for how you quickly get to files; jumplists, the Taskbar, the Start Menu, the Quick Access bar, and regular shortcuts. It’s not just apps, settings, and files that are easy to access. You can easily open Command Prompt at a particular location by holding down the Shift key and right-clicking on a folder. If you want to be able to access Command Prompt and/or PowerShell in a more convenient way, you can pin them both to the Quick Access bar. Here’s how.

The Quick Access bar is what the top bar or the title bar in Windows Explorer is called. By default, it has buttons for making a new folder and viewing properties of the current folder already pinned to it.

When pinning Command Prompt or PowerShell to the Quick Access bar, you have to first decide which location you want them to open to. You also have the option to pin Command Prompt or PowerShell as a regular user or as an administrator.

In Windows explorer, go to the location you want Command Prompt or PowerDhell to open to. This location might be your desktop or it might be C:\Users\YourUserName, or it might be C:\Windows\System32.

Once you have the location open, click the ‘File’ menu on the ribbon. You will see ‘Open Command Prompt’ and ‘Open Windows PowerShell’ options listed under this menu.

The sub-menu for the ‘Open Command Prompt’ and ‘Open Windows PowerShell’ options include an option to open both programs as administrators. Right-click the option you want to pin, and select the ‘Add to Quick Access Toolbar’ option.

A PowerShell or Command Prompt button will be added to the Quick Access Toolbar. Clicking it will open a PowerShell or Command Prompt window at the location you set it for.

If you choose to pin the apps such that they open with administrator privileges, you will prompted to enter the Administrator password each time you open it. You can unpin it by right-clicking the button and selecting ‘Remove from Quick Access Toolbar’.

How To Take Screenshots Of A Video

Desktop operating systems come with built-in screenshot tools. Windows 10 has a basic screenshot tool whereas macOS has a better, more advanced one. What both have in common is that they are meant for capturing a still screen. You can use them to capture a moving screen e.g. a GIF or a video that is playing but the results may not be that great. If you often need to take a screenshot in a video, it best to use a dedicated tool for it. Here are two free apps that do the trick.

VLC Player

VLC player has a built-in screenshot tool. It’s simple with no controls for which format or what resolution the image should be captured and saved in.

To take a screenshot when a video is playing, simply hit the following shortcut;

Windows: Shift + S

macOS: Command + Alt + S

VLC saves the screenshots to your default Pictures library.

Download VLC Player

Video Screenshot

If you want better control over the screenshot, give Video Screenshot a try.

Install the app and launch it. Click ‘Open Video’ at the bottom left and select the video you want to capture a scene from. When you’re in the right position in the video, click the ‘Take Screenshot’ button at the bottom left.

This will pause the video and open an Options window where you can set the screenshot’s resolution and format, among other things.

You can take a single shot or continuous shots. The app can save continuous screenshots as GIFs. You can also select the output folder where the screenshots will be saved. By default, Video Screenshot saves images to the same folder the video is in.

Last but not least, you can choose to compress the screenshot when it is captured. Compression is available for both JPEG and PNG files. Video Screenshot is not available for macOS.

Download Video Screenshot

How To Batch Rename Files & Folders In Windows Without Using Third Party Apps

File renaming apps range from the simple to the complicated. They allow you to rename multiple files in one go based on a single or criteria or on a more complex one. You can select files based on the date they were created and their type. You can also set a renaming syntax for how the files should be renamed. If your file renaming needs are much more simple, i.e., you just want to rename all files in one folder to something more meaningful, you don’t need a app. Windows has you covered with a fairly intelligent renaming logic built into the rename function. Here’s how it works.

Open the folder that you want to rename files in. Select all the files you want to rename. Use the ‘Shift’ and ‘Control’ keys to make selection easier.

Once you’ve selected the files that need to be renamed, right-click one of them. From the context menu, select ‘Rename’. Alternatively, you can hit the F2 function key or the ‘Rename’ button in the Windows Explorer ribbon.

Enter the new name for the file. For example, ‘Screenshot’ and hit enter. All selected files will be renamed ‘Screenshot’ with incremental numbers added to them. You will effectively have files named as a series of files e.g., screenshot (1), screenshot (2), etc.

You can’t add any modifiers to the renaming convention that Windows comes with. It will always add numbers in brackets to the file name you specify.

If you want to rename only a certain file type, use the sort options in Windows Explorer to sort the files by type and then select the ones you want to rename.

The default renaming feature in Windows obviously isn’t going to put any apps out of business. It is basic whereas apps built specifically for renaming files and folders come with a slew of more useful features. This works in Windows 7 and above for both files and folders.

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