Tuesday, 27 August 2019
How to Play Adobe Flash SWF Files Outside Your Web Browser
Web browsers are dropping support for Flash, but what if you have an SWF file to open? Never fear: Adobe offers a hidden Flash Player download for Windows, Mac, and Linux. You can open an SWF file outside your browser.
Adobe hides the standalone Flash Player very well. It’s actually called the “Flash Player content debugger” on Adobe’s website.
To get it, visit the Debug Downloads page on Adobe’s Flash Player website. Click the “Download the Flash Player projector content debugger” link under Windows, Mac, or Linux, depending on which operating system you’re using.
On Windows, you’ll have an EXE file that needs no installation. Just double-click it to run it.
You’ll get a simple Adobe Flash Player window. To open an SWF file, either drag and drop it to the window or click File > Open. You can browse to an SWF file on your local system or enter a path to an SWF file on the web.
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Source: How-To Geek
Command Lines: Why Do People Still Bother With Them?
The command line is almost 50 years old, but it’s not outdated. Text-based terminals are still the best way to accomplish many tasks, even in the age of graphical desktops and touch-screen gadgets.
In fact, the command line is becoming more respected than ever with Microsoft creating a powerful new Windows Terminal application. Windows 10’s PowerShell environment is surprisingly powerful, but Microsoft still went out of its way to add support for basically the full Linux command-line environment to Windows 10.
The Command Line Was Once the Only Option
At one time if you wanted to interact with a computer, you typed. That was it. There was nothing else. That might sound restrictive and archaic, but as a step-up from having to use punched cards or perforated paper tapes, typing was radical and transformative. And migrating from teletypewriters with their rolls of paper to terminals with cathode ray tube (CRT) screens was another ground shift in human and computer interactions.
That step paved the way for the interactive shell to really come into its own. Now you could send instructions to the computer and very quickly have responses displayed on your screen. No more clack-clack-clack as you waited for your paper printout to clatter its way out of your teletypewriter.
Fair enough, but that was then, this is now. Computing is a whole different ball game. Apart from the obvious locked-in cases like using a computer that doesn’t have a graphical desktop environment installed, or using a remote computer via SSH over a low bandwidth connection, or controlling a headless or embedded system, why use the command line over a graphical desktop?
Jargon Explained
Terms like command line, terminal window, and shell are used almost interchangeably by some people. That’s incorrect jargon. They are all quite different. They’re related, but they’re not the same thing.
A terminal window is a window in a graphical desktop environment that runs an emulation of a teletype terminal.
The shell is the program that runs inside the terminal window. It takes your input and, depending on what you typed, tries to interpret and execute the instructions itself, pass them to some of the other utilities that make up the operating system, or find a script or program that matches what you have typed.
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Source: How-To Geek
Monday, 26 August 2019
Geek Trivia: The Japanese Word For Bad Is Incorporated Into Which Video Game Character’s Name?
The Japanese Word For Bad Is Incorporated Into Which Video Game Character’s Name? |
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Think you know the answer? |
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Source: How-To Geek
How to Blur an Image in PowerPoint
If your background image is drawing unnecessary attention, or you need to blur part of an image that contains sensitive information, you can do so directly in PowerPoint. We’ll show you how.
Blur an Entire Image
First, open PowerPoint and navigate to the slide containing the image you want to blur. Select the image, and that automatically opens the “Picture Format” tab.
Next, select “Artistic Effects” from the “Adjust” group.
In the drop-down menu that appears, click the Blur option.
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Source: How-To Geek