Example: I am a PC game freak and try out newer computer games which gradually fills up the space allocated to the primary Windows partition. When I try to install new games or software programs, I get this low disk space warning.

In such situations, you have to remove some programs, games and other software installations to free up disk space in the primary partition. You can’t cut and paste the files or folders to another drive because this will break the registry settings and those programs won’t work.

However, this free tool for Windows will allow you to move installed programs or games to another partition and free up disk space in the drive where operating system is installed.

How to Move Installed Programs To a Non Windows partition

1. First download Steammover ( ~ 1.14 MB)– it’s a free program for Windows7 and Windows Vista which will allow you to transfer the installed programs to another non operating system drive. The program does not supports Windows XP.

2. Next create a new folder on a non operating system drive ( e.g E:\Steam)

3. Run the Steammover.exe file and you will see the following window.

3. Now select the folder in your C drive (or operating system drive) which you want to transfer to another drive. For the sake of this tutorial, I will try to move my Skype folder out of the OS drive

4. Select all the sub-folders and hit the right arrow button. This will immediately open a command prompt window and some random commands will be executed. On successful transfer of the chosen files and folders to the destination directory, you will see the following window:

5. You are done. Now browse to the custom directory and run the program – it will run normally.

This is a really neat way to move installed programs to another drive without the remove programs / reinstall shuffle. Thanks Aaron

Watch the Screencast

I have squeezed the entire procedure of moving program setups in the following screencast. Check it out!

If you share your computer with multiple users, make sure to read our earlier tip on how you can restrict users from opening a hard disk partition.

Low Disk Space ? Move Installed Programs To Another Drive Without Reinstallation originally published on Ampercent

Advantages of Google Docs Survey Templates

While there are many third party sites which lets you create survey forms and templates for free, I would prefer using Google Docs for two reasons.

First, the submissions and data are stored in your Gmail account and can be accessed quickly. You don’t have to sign up in another website, learn the procedure and use the survey form on your site.

The second advantage of using Google docs for survey forms is that the entire data can be exported in an Excel CSV format, you can then use several Excel formulas or functions to find a particular submission.

nother neat thing about these forms is that they can be edited later and embedded anywhere in your website, just copy the embed code and insert it in the source of your website’s page. No plugins or other customizations are required.

Google Docs Template Gallery

The Google Docs template gallery consists of a wide variety of already available templates to choose from. There are templates for students, teachers, resumes, calendars, organizations and so on. Following is a list of Google docs survey templates:

Blank Survey Template:  This is a very basic template which you can use to create a simple survey form with Google Docs. The available questions consists of check boxes, drop down options, a small comment form and different text fields. After you add this template in your Google docs account, you can add more questions and items to the form.

Student Survey Template: This template is a very good option if you are trying to get feedback from a group of students. The available questions are related to different courses, languages and it gives a brief idea how a student survey form should be like.

Company Survey template: This is a nice survey template for a small company or business organization. If you want to get real estate feedback about your companies performance, business policies or any other metric, use this one.

Consumer insights survey template: If you sell a product and want to get feedback on how your customers rate your product, this docs template will certainly help. You can read the sample questions and modify them to suit your companies products, then embed the template in your blog or website.

A collaborative template for writers: If you want to enquire about writers and want to aggregate the portfolio of different users in a single form, use this one.

There are many more pre made sample forms and survey templates available in the Google docs template gallery, just search using proper keywords and use the template which matches closely to your requirements.

How to Create a Survey/ Feedback Form using Google Docs

If you want something very specific and want to create the survey form with your own questions and design, go to docs.google.com and choose “Create New Form”.

This will open a sample page where you can customize the survey form and add your own questions. You can also add a meaningful title to the form and add a description, this will be useful to describe what your survey is all about.

The questions can be of different types, the available options are – multiple choices, descriptive text, selection, choose from a list and so on. If you want to make a question as “Required question”, remember to select the check box “Make this a required question”.

You can also modify the design of your survey template by clicking the “Theme” button. There are a wide variety of themes, but I would prefer the default one for simplicity and better readability.

Once you are done adding all the questions to your survey form and want to embed it in your blog, click the “More actions” dropdown menu and select “Embed”. Next, copy the iframe code and add it to the source of your website’s template.

Now that the survey or feedback form is live on your website, your site visitors can start submitting information and each time someone inputs a result, you will get an email notification straight to your Gmail inbox. Later, you can download the entire spreadsheet of answers and responses as an Excel document.

Watch The Video Screencast

Here is a short video demonstration on how you can create forms in Google Docs:

Example: We have a very basic survey form created using Google Docs on this website. Please visit the feedback page to see the form and give your valuable feedback.

More Tips on Google Docs:

1. How to use Google Docs for publishing blog posts
2. How to create or edit Google Docs documents from Microsoft office
3. Use Google Docs to create pie charts and diagrams

How to Create Survey And Feedback Forms Using Google Docs originally published on Ampercent

Earlier there was real time updates for Google Alerts and a small experiment where you can see search results as you type in Google Search box. Google has just rolled out Google Instant , which displays search results as you type.

Another thing worth noticing is the small suggestions which appear right inside the search box. Start typing anything and Google will offer relevant words or phrases, selecting which will automatically complete the “probable” search phrase.

You can also select the options from automatic drop down, as shown below:

Turn off Google Instant – use Classic Google

To turn off Google Instant and revert to the classic version of Google, all you have to do is click the small dropdown placed just right of the search box and select “Instant is off”

The Google Instant feature is only available from the main Google.com homepage. If you visit any country specific Google domain (e.g Google.co.in), you will see the older Google search interface. Users on domains other than Google.com can only access Google Instant if they are signed in to a Google Account. The same is also true for Google news and Google blog search as well.

Advantages of Google Instant Search

Dynamic results: The results are dynamic in nature and thus will save you time.  Example: Typing “w” will show you weather forecast instantly.

Search predictions: The newer interface tries to predict the need of the user and shows available options directly in the search box.

Scrolling search: If you use the down arrow key after typing a word, you will notice that the search results get refreshed. This will be useful when you want to have a quick look on the search results without refreshing or reloading the page.

Somehow, I have this feeling that the Google logo has slightly grown bigger. More information on Google Instant is available on this page

Google Instant Shows Real Time Search Results, And It’s Really Fast originally published on Ampercent

Here is a time lapse video of how Joe Walker and his team of researchers are going through all the footage submitted for Life In A Day:

A team of researchers, film makers and multi linguists are searching and filtering through 80,000 user submitted clips. At the end of the process, the team will shortlist 100 to 200 hours of video clips, from which the film will be made.

In case you have missed, you can watch the user submitted clips from the official Life In a Day Channel on YouTube. Following is the Trailer video of the Life In a Day project:

Life In A Day Trailer

How the Life In a Day Videos are Processed – Time Lapse Video originally published on Ampercent

BitmeterOS is an awesome little program for Windows, Linux and MAC which can be used to know the amount of daily upload and download usage of your internet bandwidth. Some of you may be on a limit internet usage plan and thus it’s necessary to track the amount of data usage, otherwise your ISP may charge you extra fees for using extra bandwidth.

Apart from monitoring your daily internet usage, BitmeterOS can also be used to find the speed of your internet connection. Before downloading the tool you may want to check out the online demo of BitmeterOS.

Find the Upload/ Download Speed of your Internet Connection

The monitor tab shows a graph of your connection’s current upload and download speed. The values are updated in real time and you can monitor the upload or download speed of your internet connection by looking at the title of the opened tab. The current, average and peak speeds are shown in the sidebar.

Monitor the Amount of Data Usage for any Day

The history tab shows the amount of upload and download usage according to minutes, hours and days. So you can precisely calculate how much internet usage has been consumed and how much is still remaining. The data can also be exported in a CSV format.

The summary tab shows a complete gist of internet data usage for the current day, month and year. I tested the tool for my internet connection and the total download amount came out to be 46 GB while the upload amount was a whooping 315 GB.

In addition to that, you can also create new alerts which will notify you when you before you cross your internet usage limits. All in all, BitmeterOS is a great program for monitoring your connection’s download/upload speed and I am going to use it for sometime now.

Monitor Internet Usage For Multi User Networks

One of the downsides is that the program does nothing for multi user networks. Suppose you have a shared internet connection in your office and want to monitor the internet usage limits of different employees. You want to track which computer in the network is consuming more bandwidth and may want to assign a usage quota for each computer in your network.

In such situations you can try another program called  NetWorx Portable which we have reviewed here.

Thanks to Himanshu for the tip.

How to Monitor Your Internet Bandwidth Usage And Connection Speed originally published on Ampercent

Show PC Information as Windows Screensaver

UsefulSaver is a free program from SDSoftware that shows CPU/RAM Info, disk activity and free space, top 5 processes, remaining battery life and how long the screensaver’s been running. Apart from this it also features custom messages and ScreenWash.

[You may like: Show RSS Feeds as Your Desktop Background on Windows 7]

What is ScreenWash ?

ScreenWash is a feature that prevents LCD burn-in. After the screensaver starts, it will wait for a period of 10 mins (set by default) and then the screen goes black. Now it shows the date and time in 4 colors with each color shown for 1 min. Once that is done, the screensaver again resumes.

To setup the tool download it and install it on your PC. Right-click on your desktop and choose Personalize. In the Personalization window choose Screensaver. Choose UsefulSaver from the dropdown and then press the Settings button beside (refer screenshot above). Customize the screensaver and choose OK. The screensaver shows real time info. The program also offers a photo viewer if you have multiple screens attached to your PC. Try our tip to display RSS feeds as screensaver in Windows.

Show PC Information as Desktop Wallpaper

Now that we have shown how to show system info as your screensaver let us see how we can show the same as your desktop wallpaper. Windows Sysinternals has tool named BGInfo that can help you do that. Download the zip file and unzip it anywhere on your PC. Now you can use the executable file straight away. Start the app and configure the wallpaper settings.

[Wallpaper Trick: Rotate desktop backgrounds in Windows 7 and Windows XP]

You can play around with parameters like background image, screen position of the displayed system info, multiple monitors and you can also choose items of the system not listed by default. Here is a sample of my desktop after I applied BGInfo.

You may also like other wallpaper and screensaver tips like auto-rotate Windows desktop and custom screensaver from your pictures or can try downloading free Windows8 wallpapers and 10 free animated clock screensavers for Windows and Mac.

Show System Info As Desktop Wallpaper and Screensaver in Windows originally published on Ampercent

There are some browser plugins available which lets you save any webpage as a PDF document, but Wikipedia has a built in PDF export tool which will let you create a PDF ebook of any Wikipedia page.

What’s interesting to note is that the tool will also let you combine multiple Wikipedia pages as “Chapters” and then the book can be downloaded in PDF format.

How to Create an Ebook Using Wikipedia Pages

To create chapters using multiple Wikipedia pages, first click the “print/Export”  option from the left sidebar and choose “Create a book”.

Create an Ebook from Wikipedia Articles

This will open the Book creator tool which can be used to add any Wikipedia page to your sample ebook. To add a page to your ebook, click “Add this page” as shown below:

Now you can continue browsing and add as many pages as you wish. When you are done, Click “Show book” and you can organize the different pages or download the entire collection as PDF.

Tip: How to read deleted Wikipedia pages

Combine Multiple Wikipedia Pages to an EBook and Download as PDF originally published on Ampercent

Other Inbox is one such application that can access your Gmail or Google Apps account and can assign the relevant labels to all your emails. Like all your Twitter and Facebook notifications go to the label “Social Networking” after sorting.

Go to Other Inbox sign-up page and enter your email in the space provided. Now press the button “Sign Up with Gmail or Google Apps”. You will be asked to authorize the service. Depending on the number of your emails will be sorted into labels. Once done you can go to your inbox.

Now as you can see all your mails have been automatically enlisted under new labels. Now you can manually enter each of them and cleanup unnecessary emails.

[via Labnol]

Other Inbox: Assign Mails Relevant labels Automatically originally published on Ampercent

Download and install the extension for Google Chrome or Firefox. Once installed, just open the Settings to customize the button. To open the settings button use the Settings icon ( ) beside the services icons in both the browsers. Here are some changes that you can make to make it work better.

1. Choose Your Favorite Services

• For Chrome: Open the settings and choose your favorite Google services from the left window. To choose the services click on it and it will be selected and moved to the right pane. In a similar way you can remove entries from the right pane.
  
• For Firefox: Click the settings icon to open the customization window. Now in the left pane the supported services are listed while the selected services are listed in the right pane. To move something from the left pane to right pane you have to select the item in the left pane and then click the topmost green button (pointing right) to move it to the right pane. If you wish to remove a selected service click the item in the right pane and press the yellow arrow button (pointing left). You can also add custom URL in the Firefox add-on.
  

2. Change the Appearance

• For Chrome: Scroll down to the section named General Appearance and Behaviour. You will now have options like icon appearance, showing labels, whether to open in a new tab and choose the main button for the extension.
  
• For Firefox: Go to the 2nd tab in the settings window and choose the appearance and behavior of the Google Shortcuts button.
  

3. Setup Your Google Apps

• For Chrome: This is really great feature that I haven’t found in any previous extension. You can actually setup your Google Apps Custom domain tools also. Just scroll to the last section named Custom Domain for Google Apps and type your Google Apps domain name in the place provided. Now select the services of the domain you wish to add as a shortcut. That’s all. It is important to note that if you have any custom domain activated, all the corresponding services will be overridden i.e as I have mine set to a custom domain, clicking the Gmail link will open my Google apps mail and not the Google mail.
  
• For Firefox: You can add the Google Apps custom domain in the 2nd tab of the setting window. It is located at the bottom. Refer previous Firefox screenshot.

I am happy that every time I wish to see a Youtube video or even check my apps email I do not have to open my bookmarks or type in the URL. Hope you will enjoy it too.

Get All Google Services On Chrome and Firefox originally published on Ampercent

1. Open Run (Windows Key + R) from Start Menu and type gpedit.msc and hit Enter.

2. Now in the Local Group Policy editor window go to

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer

3. Now in the right pane you will see a list of settings. Scroll down until you find the setting named “Prevent access to drives from My Computer“.

4. Double click the setting to open the setting window. Now select Enabled. Now in the left pane you will find a drop-down where you can select the drive you want a restricted access. You can also choose to restrict all the drives. Now press Apply and then OK.

Now that you are done, double clicking the selected (restricted) drives will throw an error window as shown below.

Next time you choose to revert back to the default state just follow the Steps 1-3 and in the Step 4 select Not Configured or Disabled.

NOTE: The restrictions are valid only for the same Windows account.

Restrict Users From Opening a Hard Disk Partition originally published on Ampercent