Use FoxIt for filling in forms in PDFs

Needed to fill in a form in a PDF which had not been made originally in such a way that Adobe Reader could understand there were fields in it. Most probably it was a scan & print to pdf of a word document.

In such a scenario, FoxIt Reader came to the rescue! It has a tool called the Typewriter which allows you to click anywhere on the PDF and type in text in desired font, size & color - viola! Used that to fill in the form and print it out. Only problem is if you save this PDF, free version of FoxIt reader adds a watermark so better print it before saving the changes.

You can get the portable version of FoxIt Reader from here or if you prefer the full version, you can get it from here.

Change format of Date displayed in SQL Developer

To change the format of Date column displayed in SQL Developer worksheets (output of SQL queries) do the following:

1. Select Tools > Preferences
2. Expand the Database section
3. In the NLS Date format field, enter the desired date format as supported by Oracle

My preferred format is DD-MON-RR HH24:MI:SS

11 Free Productivity Tools for the office

Here's a list of 11 Free Tools to increase productivity at Work:

1. 7-Zip:
   Category: Compression/Decompression
   Details: Compression utility that can handle almost all possible formats
   URL: http://www.7-zip.org
   
2. Eclipse:
   Category: IDE
   Details: Very popular IDE that supports a vast array of languages and configurations
   URL: http://www.eclipse.org
   
3. FileZilla:
   Category: FTP Client (& Server)
   Details: FTP Client and server with lots of options
   URL: http://filezilla-project.org
   
4. PuTTY:
   Category: Telnet/SSH
   Details: Very simple but powerful Telnet/SSH client
   URL: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
   
5. PuTTy Connection Manager:
   Category: Telnet/SSH
   Details: Allows docking of multiple PuTTY session windows as Tabs and allows user to create a database of connections that includes user names, passwords, script to run after login, etc.
   URL: http://puttycm.free.fr
   
6. Notepad++:
   Category: Editor
   Details: Very simple, but powerful and full featured editor that supports syntax highlighting, plug-ins, macros, regexes, etc.
   URL: http://notepad-plus-plus.org
   
7. OpenOffice:
   Category: Office Software
   Details: Full featured replacement for the cos$tly M$ Office Suite of products. Includes software for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more.
   URL: http://www.openoffice.org
   
8. PDFCreator:
   Category: Office Software
   Details: Create PDF files from any application.
   URL: http://www.pdfforge.org/pdfcreator/
   
9. VirtualDimension:
   Category: Desktop Manager
   Details: Fast and full-featured virtual desktop manager that allows you to create virtual desktops on Windows just like X-Win.
   URL: http://virt-dimension.sourceforge.net
   
10. VistaSwitcher:
    Category: Task Manager
    Details: Replaces the default Windows Alt-Tab dialog with a nice box that shows a list of all running tasks, with their names and preview snapshots, and enables the user to take actions on them using the mouse and keyboard shortcuts.
    URL: http://www.ntwind.com/software/vistaswitcher/
    
11. WinMerge:
    Category: Development
    Details: Visual diff and merge tool for Windows that can compare both folders and files
    URL: http://winmerge.org
    

Other good free softwares that I also considered were:

1. PSPad:
   Category: Editor
   Details: Another powerful and full featured editor that supports syntax highlighting, plug-ins, macros, regexes, etc.
   URL: http://www.pspad.com
   
2. PDFReDirect:
   Category: Office Software
   Details: Another simple software to create PDF files.
   URL: http://www.exp-systems.com
   
3. DiffMerge:
   Category: Development
   Details: Visual diff and merge tool for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux that can compare both folders and files
   URL: http://www.sourcegear.com/diffmerge/
   
4. Toad Free:
   Category: Database Access
   Details: Free version of the powerful Toad for Oracle with a few features disabled.
   URL: http://www.toadworld.com/Freeware/tabid/680/Default.aspx
   
5. SQLDeveloper for Oracle:
   Category: Database Access
   Details: Oracle client provided by Oracle
   URL: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/sql-developer/overview/index.html
   

Please let me know if you see other good free software worthy of including in the above list!