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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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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by David Hakala
For some baffling and extremely frustrating reason, Windows Media Player is the only major Windows application that does not have a “Help” button or any clue how to get help. You have to search Google or subscribe to Tiplet’s RSS feed to learn that help is available simply by pressing the F1 key.
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by David Hakala
If you are overwhelmed by the tons of email messages that flood your inbox each day, take heart! There are lots of tools in Outlook 2007 that help you sort the wheat from the chaff and prioritize the wheat. Most of these tips work in earlier versions of Outlook, Outlook Express, and Windows Live Mail, too.
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by David Hakala
So you used Windows Media Player to “rip” music from an Audio CD to your hard drive. Then you burned the files to a data CD, popped it into your PS2 game console, and nothing happened. “Unsupported format.” You tried transferring the music files to your iPod only to learn that the device will not play Windows Media files. You need MP3 files in both cases.
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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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by David Hakala
Imagine buying an expensive, slick new TV, taking it home, unwrapping it in eager anticipation, and finding its shiny new screen covered with stickers advertising things that you have no intention of buying:
Thai Kick Boxing Pay Per View – First Month FREE!
Universal Remote Control – FREE With Subscription to Quilting Channel!
Best TV Screen Cleaner – Only $29.95!
Worse, these stickers have that evil sort of glue that won’t let you peel them off cleanly. They tear and leave shreds of paper stuck to the screen, forcing you to scrape the remnants off with fingernails.
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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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by David Hakala
Suppose you are shopping for a car. You know your budget and you have an idea what interest rate you will have to pay. You want to play around with some “what if” scenarios to see what your monthly payments may be. This is where Excel’s interest calculation functions come in.
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by David Hakala
If you are planning to get into P2P (peer-to-peer) BitTorrent networking, you will be shopping for a client program to do your downloading and manage your shared files. There is an awesome comparative list of Bittorrent Clients on Wikipedia. But let me save you a lot of trouble.
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by Gabe Goldberg
For many people, the Windows mouse hasn’t evolved much since the dawn of the PC. This is especially true of bottom-bargain gadgets often provided as standard PC purchase accessories: two buttons boringly labeled Left and Right, wired to the computer, and sensing motion through a small rotating sphere in contact with a desk or mousepad. If you’re using one of these, a very economical upgrade can greatly improve your mousing game.
Perhaps the most basic mouse-tech enhancement was the scroll wheel, first available a decade or more ago, allowing easy up-and-down motion within most applications’ files. If your hand is already on the mouse for file editing, spinning the wheel can be much more convenient than moving the cursor to the scroll bar and then back to the file area.
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