The new Ribbon in Office 2007 can take a while to get used to, so the Quick Access Toolbar is a great way to put your most frequently used commands on a single toolbar while you are getting used to the Ribbon.
I use del.icio.us to store all of my infrequently used bookmarks, but I’ve found that browsing by tag just isn’t very efficient for me. I always use a full text search through my bookmarks to find what I’m looking for, so what I’m really looking for is a single-click save solution similar to the star button on the Flock browser.
Many people have reported problems with synchronizing their clocks with the internet time servers, especially time.windows.com, which seems to have a ton of problems with uptime. We’ll go through a few workarounds to fix this issue.
This will really make your Monday a different experience. Make your computer look like OS X Tiger with Flyakite OSX. This neat theme will make your entire Windows system look and act like OS X. Including the same sounds, icons, and The Dock.
If you’d rather see the subject line as the top line when using the condensed view in Outlook, you can make a simple tweak to show the subject line on the top, and the from address on the bottom. I’ve found that this helps when you get a lot of emails from the same people, since you can see what the message is about more easily.
A reader wrote in a while back asking if there was a hotkey to open attachments in Outlook. Since this thought had occurred to me a number of times before, I looked for a way to do it. Turns out it’s really fairly simple, and I’m sure many of you already realized how to do this.
Windows Vista’s AutoPlay options are a great improvement over Windows XP in terms of flexibility, but unfortunately there are so many options that it can be confusing, especially since there’s no specific mention of USB Flash drives in the options.
One of the more annoying default settings in Windows XP is the Desktop Cleanup Wizard. I guess I do not need Windows telling me what I should or should not have on my desktop. Also, I have found in IT that an employee may not use a certain icon for a few months and when they need to find that icon to run a program it may be missing. Disabling this just saves a needless call to the helpdesk.
A freeware tool I use many times in IT is System Info for Windows. This small lightweight utility comes packed with a lot of power. No need to install anything on the local hard drive … just run it from a jump drive or pop it on a disc. If you need detail about a computer you’re working on, SIW will give you everything including the kitchen sink!
A very useful feature in Windows is the ability to automatically hide system tray icons when they are not in use. The problem is that over time, Explorer caches a list of every single icon that it’s ever seen, and your list might grow to hundreds of items that Explorer knows about.
If you need to hurriedly work on a computer in the office or at home changing a few options before connecting can improve the connection speed. We are only connecting to the computer to fix an issue or do some troubleshooting so the graphics on the remote machine do not need to look fancy.
I’m the type of geek that has an SSH client open at all times, connected to my most frequently used servers so that I have instant access for monitoring and anything else. As such, it irritates me greatly when I get disconnected, so I’m sharing a few methods for keeping your session alive.
In my quest to get rid of every useless tray icon wasting memory, I was very annoyed when Vista’s automatic updates installed a new driver and the icon for the touchpad ended up in my system tray again. There’s almost no benefit to this icon, so it needs to go.
Since I gave up iTunes and went to Foobar2000; I have also decided to research other portable mp3 players as well. I ended up purchasing a Creative Zen V Plus. I have always been a fan of Creative products and this little guy does not disappoint. I have the 4GB model which allows me to store enough music and podcasts for trips and long walks.
After writing the article yesterday about how to restore the show desktop icon, I received a number of emails asking if I could post the shortcut for Flip3D as well, so I’ve zipped up a copy of that shortcut as well.
SpywareBlaster is a great freeware utility to add to your arsenal to combat evilness on the Internet. SpywareBlaster is a shield against harmful malicious software that can cause problems with your PC. While nothing is 100% effective … using this light utility and keeping Spybot Search and Destroy’s Immunization Database current will protect you very well.
I’ve received dozens of emails asking how to restore the show desktop icon once you’ve deleted it, so I have a solution for everybody: I’ve zipped up a copy of the shortcut, and you can download it here.
If you switch resolutions a lot you’ve probably experienced the problem with Windows moving your icons around every time it switches to a lower resolution, such as when playing a video game or hooking up your laptop to an external display.
If you are a blogger that doesn’t want to show off your subscriber numbers, take note: Even though you aren’t displaying the Feedcount widget, if you’ve enabled it at any point we can still see your subscriber numbers if we just know the right URL to go to.
If you’re a guitar player practicing with a metronome is very important in improving your timing and rhythm. If you don’t own one or do not always carry it with you, emusicinstitute.com has a very cool free online Metronome you can use. Just make sure your speakers are hooked up and your off to practice land.
Our motto here has always been “Computer Help from your Friendly How-To Geek”, and we try to provide help in the friendliest mode possible. Since we’d like to be more efficient in helping you I decided to write up some tips on the best way to get help.
Every time I connect to my Ubuntu development server through my ssh client, I receive the same message and I’m getting tired of seeing it, so I decided to change the message to something else.
A number of people have written in asking about a Vista Sidebar gadget for our latest articles feed. I finally got some time today, so I’ve thrown one together that isn’t exactly feature-rich, but does get the job done.
As you install ever more software on your computer, your startup entries become littered with applications that slow down your boot time and typically waste your computer’s memory.
This will liven up your week a bit. You may be thinking… “oh another web browser … big deal”. Well, Opera has a lot of interesting features to play with. Right now I don’t see it replacing Firefox by any means, but it is a fun toy none the less. The people in the opening install screen are having fun! What more evidence do you need??? Let me show you.
