Today’s time-saving tool is a little gem which you most likely won’t use every day, but when you need it, you’ll be looking up our blog just to kiss the screen in thanks!

If wasting time typing doesn't make you this happy, you need JOCR!

We all have things that we don’t use all the time, but come in extremely handy every so often. Things like the tire wrench, the stack of old books out in the garage, and the vacuum cleaner. You just don’t need them every month [yes, even in the case of the vacuum cleaner ], but when your in-laws are headed over or you back over a set of tire spikes, they’re invaluable. Okay, maybe I do use the tire wrench every month…

It’s the same with this free Optical Character Recognition Tool that allows you to extract text from images without re-typing the whole thing. If you’ve ever been emailed a scan of a document by a non-tech savvy colleague or friend, that you needed to edit slightly and send back, you’ll be very, very excited right now. You’ll be avoiding one of the sneakiest work time-warps of all.

JOCR is a simple, no-fuss application for recognizing characters within an image. It uses screenshots, but you can also set it to capture an entire window – useful for the scan scenario. It’s a two-button operation, and the program itself is fairly fast.

However, be aware that you’ll need to manually proofread the recognized characters against the original image, especially if it is something like a scan from a magazine, where captions and breakout boxes will get jumbled up with the main text. You’ll end up with genius like: “To list, or not to list? 1. Use both hands on your computer, save time learning – for many of us are mousebound, using only our right hands …”. We did mention the program was simple!

You'll need to proof your JOCR text, sometimes it gets a bit mixed up...

JOCR then lets you know the number of characters that have been recognized, and stores them on the clipboard. Just go into Notepad or your word processing program and hit Ctrl+V or Edit-Paste, and voila!

You’ll need Microsoft Document Imaging for this specific program. It comes standard with Office 2003 or higher, and is usually in your ‘Microsoft Office Tools’ folder in the Program list. If this additional feature wasn’t installed on your computer originally, first go kick your computer-setter-upperer, then return and go to Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel to activate it.

Yes, this time saving tool can also be used for evil, as well as good – copying from copy-protected documents, etc – but we’ll leave that dilemma to your conscience.

What your computer looks like at bootup

Isn’t it funny how technology gets us so far … yet in some ways, we are really just back where we were fifty years ago?

Computers can be a lot like cars. When you first get them, they start up fine – just a light touch of the key, and they roar into life, ready to do your bidding. This startup process will slow down a little each week or month, though, until eventually you are holding your key on for twenty seconds at a time while your computer goes ‘eh-heh-heh-heh … eh-heh-heh-heh’! This is especially embarrassing when it happens in the shopping center carpark .

Anyhoo, what do you do about it? The fact that there are multiple files all calling for the same portions of hard disk space at the same time spells trouble for computer startups – in comes Startup Delayer to the rescue. I have it on good authority … from the blog owner (!), that this is an excellent tool. It is freeware, and only takes up 979kb.

Startup Delayer screenshot

You simply check either your MSconfig file, or your startup folder in Vista or XP to see which programs are set to run on startup. Often you’ll have antivirus software, java, the internet, Skype, and various knicks and knacks that came with your computer. If you’ve been saving time by setting programs you frequently use to run at startup, you can choose to load these before all those non-essentials that like to think they’re king of the OS.

You simply stagger the programs you have starting up when your computer does, so that the system is less taxed, and you can start working on things sooner … rather than finishing off your ninth sonata while your computer is stopping, blinking, stopping, resetting the desktop, and blinking some more.

To check what programs you have running through MSconfig, you’ll need instructions specific to your version of Windows. Netsquirrel has clear, precise instructions for all versions for checking and changing your msconfig file.

If you find you have a hundred programs that you never use running at startup, you can go one better than simply staggering them, and get rid of the sorry things altogether. I know from experience, that if you have an Acer laptop, you’ve probably got a Video Conference manager, Arcade Delux, E-Audio Management, Gamezone and Gridvista installed. You probably use 0% of these, give or take 0%. Vista4Beginners tells you how to get rid of them.

You’re stepping as quietly as possible … slowly, purposefully … tiptoeing through the cyberforest in your boots and fatigues… looking for bent clock-hands and footprints in the cosmic dust that might indicate where your working time escaped to!

We’ve got five great tools that make time-hunting less of a specialized skill. Rather than stepping quietly through the woods, searching for time-droppings and hour-tracks, they create a nice wide bitumen road, with clear green-and-white signs to follow!

This way to working efficiency!

Hit the jump to check them out. Read More…