Aug 3, 2013

Windows: Stop Sticky Keys Dialouge from Hampering Your Gaming Experience

Just wonder, you're playing some awesome game like Call of Duty, Assassins' Creed, Crisis, etc. and you had to press the famous "shift" key for some obvious reasons. Then you hear some funny sound on your speakers, your game freezes, your graphics cards wastes your valuable time to change your screen resolution, your game minimizes and this famous 'Sticky Keys' dialogue box appears. Well, that's annoying right? 

All you need to do is to disable the Sticky Keys "keyboard shortcut". In order to do so follow these simple steps:
  1. Press "shift" repeatedly. (5 times to be exact. That's the keyboard shortcut.)
  2. Now that the Sticky Key dialogue box is on screen, click on the blue text "Go to the Ease of Access Center to ..." (on Windows 7) or, if you are using Windows XP, click on the "Settings" button.
    Or, you could go to the Ease of Access Center (Accessibility Center) from the Start Menu.

  3.  Now uncheck the "Turn on Sticky Keys when SHIFT is pressed five times" option, under the Keyboard Shortcut section. Also make sure that the "Turn on Sticky Keys" option is not selected. Believe me, you don't want Sticky Keys turned on while your gaming.
  4. Now save settings and return to you gaming heaven. 
 Enjoy!

Jul 13, 2013

Photoshop: Big Quotation Marks

Ever wondered how to make those big quotation marks?

"Because quotes are not deep enough without big quotation marks" Facebook Cover Photo
It is a very easy and simple. It could be easily done using Photoshop. I am using Photoshop CS6 here. You may use older versions (Photoshop 7 through CS5) to make it. The steps are same, however the interface could be a little different in your version.

Here is what you need to do:

1) Let's start from a simple background image.

2) Select the "Type Tool".
3) Click on the page and type whatever 'deep' quote you want to type.

4) I recommend to use separate layers for each line of text. It makes them easier to arrange and modify there aligns and line-spacing.

5) Type a double quotation mark in a separate layer.
6) I recommend using "Times New Roman" or similar font for the marks. So that the shapes are clear. It is also recommended to use bold fonts.
7) Select the mark.

8) Type in a large number in the "Text Size" box. You can also use the shortcut key "CTRL+SHIFT+>" to increase the font size. Make sure the quotation marks are large enough.

9) For the closing quotation marks, type two quotation marks. You'll notice the the second set of quotation marks  are inverted (closing quotations).

10) Remove the first set of quotation marks.
11) Repeat step 8  and make these marks larger too. You can simply copy the font size from the first set, and paste it for the second one.

12) Use the move tool to position the quotation marks.

13) Select the text layers that contains the quotation marks.
14) Decrease the opacity, so that the quotation marks blends in with the background.
15) Save the file.

That was simple, wasn't it?

Bonus Tips

  1. The cover photo size for Facebook is 851px by 315px.
  2.  Make cover photos in larger scale keeping the 851:315 ratio. It helps to ensure image quality.