Study, Study &... Study [Blog Is ALIVE]

I think, I should ask pardon for not being able to update the blog, due to my xtreme laziness. U know study just kinds of sucks your life energy and after a while you feel pretty tired. Chinese people can understand me better because to them Chi is a very vulnerable thing and study is kind of hazardous to this Chi.

So after all this chi chi talk, I assure you that I'll start posting more frequently after just a few days and hope that you'll keep on visiting, ignoring my laziness.

ShahrezRafiq

Media Remote - Use Keyboard To Control Any Media Player

It's Shahrez here; yup, again. Today's post is for lazy people like me,

I am kind of lazy...you see, I don't want to move my mouse all over the screen just to maximize my Media Player window in order to select next song or to raise the volume so due to my frustration over XP (Windows7 supports Jumplists... Far better!), I created this handy setup.

Basically it modifies CapsLock as a modifier (for starters: it makes CapsLock act as Ctrl, Alt or Shift Key) and then we can use A,S,D, Mouse Wheel Up and Mouse Wheel Down to Raise/Low volume or to select Next/Previous track.

If you are new to AutoHotKey [AHK] please give a whirl to your mouse and read my previous post.

1 - Create a new AHK Script file.
2- Edit it and copy/paste the following into it.

;||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||Start of Script

CapsLock&WheelUp::
send, {Volume_up}
return

CapsLock&WheelDown::
send, {Volume_down}
return

CapsLock&s::
send, {media_play_pause}
return

Caps/Lock&a::
send, {media_prev}
return

CapsLock&d::
send, {media_next}
return

;||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||End of Script

3 - Save it, Run it and Enjoy.

Most of the script is self explanatory so will dive right into what this script is supposed to do.

So pressing a,s,d or rolling mouse wheel up or down while holding CapsLock pressed will result as following.

"CapsLock + WheelUp" ( Roll Mouse Wheel Up) will rise you system volume.
"CapsLock + WheelDown" (Roll Mouse Wheel Down) will lower the system volume.
"CapsLock + a" will play the previous track you were listening.
"CapsLock + d" will select the next song in your media player playlist.
"CaspLock + s" will play/pause the current track.


AHK's documentation is a great way to get started with AHK in no time read it and experiment. Who knows you may succeed in ejecting your DVD drive door just by pressing a key.

Turn CapsLock into Mute Toggle Key

Do you know that out of  many useless keys on the keyboard, CapsLock holds the first position for being the most useless one. I have never used it or seen anybody use it. Most of time we try to hold our sweet Shift key. 

To make it really useful we'll have to use an application called AutoHotKey [AHK]. AHK basically remaps the keys and associate different kinds of action with the keyboard or mouse keys. We'll use this software to make CapsLock useful, believe me, very useful. 

Lets stat by installing AHK, setup is pretty straight forward so you can really do it on your own.

Now this is the time to take a very deep breath.

Start Notepad or any other text editor of your choice. I usually prefer Notepad2 or Sublime. [B'cause they look kinda cool ^_^]

write the following in your file:

CapsLock::

send, {Volume_Mute}

return

Now let me explain what does that script ACTUALLY  mean.

"CapsLock::" is the name of the key to which we are assigning the Toggle Mute Action. 

"send" instructs the AHK to send a keystroke or in plain simple English it asks the AHK to press the button.

"{Volume_Mute}" is a key (Present on Multimedia Keyboards) to be pressed. In our case this key may or may not be present on our Keyboard. If it's not AHK will simply simulate it and will assign its action to the CapsLock key hence giving you an easier approach to mute the babbling.

"return" asks the AHK to return from the subroutine. 

Now, Save the file with  the name of your choice but don't forget to put the extension of " .ahk ".

With AHK installed run the script you just created and viola now you can toggle the mute on or off just by pressing that old rusty CapsLock key.