Tiplet expert tips & tech support

February 28, 2009

How and Why to Move the My Documents Folder to Another Drive

Filed under: computer performance,Windows — Tags: , , — admin @ 2:00 pm

by David Hakala

Most Windows users store their personal data in the My Documents folder. By default, this folder is located on the same drive as the Windows operating system, usually the C: drive. This poses certain problems.

First, your data collection – documents, pictures, music, videos, etc. – will keep growing while Windows overall does not. Performance degrades as the drive fills up. Eventually, you will run out of hard disk space. Then you will have to delete some files, a hard choice and a tedious exercise.
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February 27, 2009

How to Compress and Uncompress Archive Files

Filed under: computer performance,Windows — Tags: , , , , — admin @ 9:00 am

by David Hakala

If your hard drive is filling up, you can recover quite a bit of space by compressing files that you do not use often, or by compressing all the files in selected folders or an entire hard disk. Windows XP Pro and Home Editions support file compression natively. There are a few things to consider before compressing files, however.

You must have your drive volume (i. e., C:) formatted with the NTFS file system. Compression is not supported on FAT16 or FAT32 volumes.
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February 23, 2009

How to Restore Your Computer to an Earlier Configuration Using System Restore

Filed under: computer hardware,computer performance,data storage and recovery,Windows — Tags: , , , — admin @ 2:00 pm

by Tina Gasperson

If you get into trouble with some spyware, or you install a program or a piece of hardware that just doesn’t play nice with your computer, what can you do? You may have heard that using System Restore is a good way to “reset” your PC back to an earlier time, before the problems started happening. But what is System Restore, and how do you use it?
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February 21, 2009

How to Troubleshoot Your DirectX Installation

Filed under: applications,computer hardware,Windows — Tags: , , — admin @ 2:00 pm

by Tina Gasperson

If you’ve had trouble installing a new game on your Windows PC, it may have had something to do with your DirectX installation. DirectX is a set of instructions that allows games and other media-intensive applications to run on many different kinds of hardware. If there’s a problem with your DirectX, then your application may not know how to work with your computer. DirectX comes pre-installed on your Windows computer, and you can run a built-in DirectX troubleshooting application called DirectX Diagnostic Tool to see if there are any problems.
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February 20, 2009

How to Change the Boot Order On Your Computer

Filed under: computer hardware,computer performance,Windows — Tags: , , — admin @ 2:00 pm

by Tina Gasperson

Chances are your computer is set to check your main CD drive for a bootable CD at boot time, and if there’s not one there, to boot from your main hard drive. Most of the time, that’s exactly what you want and there’s no need to change the order in which your computer looks for booting instructions. But if you wanted to run an alternative operating system from a memory stick, you’d need to tell your computer to look there first for its “marching orders,” so to speak.
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February 19, 2009

Change the Behavior of the Enter Key in Excel 97, 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2007

Filed under: applications,Windows — Tags: , , , — admin @ 9:00 am

by David Hakala

When you press the Enter key in an Excel worksheet, it normally drops you down to the next cell in the column. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Excel allows you to specify to which cell the selection goes after you press the Enter key, or whether the selection remains unchanged.
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February 18, 2009

How to Free Up Space on Your Hard Drive

Filed under: computer performance,Windows — Tags: , , , , — admin @ 2:00 pm

by Tina Gasperson

If your computer is running slower, it could just be that you’re running out of space on your hard drive. It’s easy to check and see. Find the icon called “My Computer,” either on your desktop or in your start menu, and click on it. What you’ll see next is a list of the hard drives and other drives on your computer. “C:” is almost always the letter that represents your main hard drive. Right click on Local Disk C: and then click on Properties. You’ll see a window with a graphic representation of your hard drive space. Blue is the used space, and pink is the free space. If a very small percentage of your hard drive is free, go ahead and click on the “Disk Cleanup” button to the lower right of the graphic. The Disk Cleanup utility will take a few seconds to calculate how much space you can free up. Good time to go get a soda.
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Create new Worksheet from Master Using Macro in Excel 97, 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2007

Filed under: applications,Windows — Tags: , , , , — admin @ 9:00 am

by David Hakala

Sometimes you have a repetitive task that cannot be recorded by Excel’s macro recorder. Take, for instance, this fairly common example. You need to create a new worksheet, give it a name, place it at the end of all the tabs in your workbook, and save the updated workbook.
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February 17, 2009

How Can I Capture PC Screen Contents?

Filed under: applications,Windows — Tags: , , , , — admin @ 2:00 pm

by Gabe Goldberg

It’s often desirable or necessary to capture — that is, record into a file — what’s on your Windows screen. Windows has two basic tools for this: the Print Screen (or PrtScreen or some other variant) key captures the contents of your entire Windows desktop onto the Windows Clipboard; pressing Alt and PrintScreen captures only the active program window. Sometimes one of these choices is exactly what you need.
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February 14, 2009

Repair and Restore Corrupted or Damaged Outlook Data

Filed under: applications,data storage and recovery,e-mail,Windows — Tags: , , , , — admin @ 9:00 am

by David Hakala

If you use Microsoft Outlook, your address book, contacts, mail, etc., you are using either a Personal Folders file (.pst) or an Offline Folders file (.ost) to store your mail and other data. If the file becomes damaged for some reason, there are tools available that may be able to repair it.
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February 12, 2009

How Can I Read Office (Word, Excel, etc.) Files without Buying Expensive Office?

Filed under: applications,Windows — Tags: , , — admin @ 6:00 pm

by Gabe Goldberg

While Microsoft’s Office applications suite dominates the Windows landscape, it’s expensive and not universally used. And if you only need occasional access to Office-format files, you surely don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars to buy software you’ll rarely use, and even then only in limited fashion.

Fortunately, several free alternatives let you read these files!
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