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 Alex Censor
Microsoft Outlook (not “Outlook Express”), part of Microsoft Office, is widely used for sending, receiving, and filing email, email addresses, and even scheduling events.
If you store many older emails in it, especially those with attachments, be warned:
Outlook, for versions prior to 2003, tends to corrupt (and lose everything) if the total size of stored email exceeds 2GB (2048MB).
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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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by Tina Gasperson
Computer hard drive capacity just keeps going up and up as our storage needs increase, so we don’t feel the need to be as choosy as we used to about installing programs. After all, there’s plenty of room. Problems can crop up, however, when an application uses too many resources and slows the computer down – and as many of us discover, there really is a limit to how many things we can have on the hard drive before running out of space. If buying a new hard drive is not an option, it may be time to pare down the number of applications installed on your computer. Here’s how.
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by David Hakala
Fonts are fun. Fonts can give that special, unique touch to your greeting cards, business cards, CD covers, and any document. Windows comes with many different fonts, but there is always room for more.
There are many sites on the Web that offer “free fonts”; just Google that term. Often, the free fonts are free samples designed to entice you into buying a full package of several thousand fonts. It may be awkward and tedious to find and download one free font; that’s to keep people from downloading many fonts at once and to make the package deal more attractive. But with a bit of patience you can find the perfect font for free.
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by David Hakala
It’s not difficult to find a specific Contact in any version of Outlook. Just use the “search address books” box in the top-right portion of the main screen. But what if you want to find all business or family contacts so you can send out a request for a quote or an invitation to Sunday dinner? That’s where Categories come in handy.
Go to the Contacts view of Outlook by clicking on “Contact” in the lower-left corner of the main screen. Under “Current View” in the left-hand pane, check the radio button “By Category.”
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by David Hakala
When I first opened Microsoft Word 2007 and started typing, I nearly went blind. The default font is Calibri 11-point, which is too small for my aged, trifocal-wearing eyes. Then I started getting Word 2007 files from people and they, too were in Calibri 11-point. It seems Word 2007 is taking over the world, so it’s time for everyone to change their default font to something I can read.
The default font style in any version of Word is stored in a special document called a template – specifically, the Normal (style) template. The Normal template is loaded as the basis for any new document you start in Word. Its style elements are saved with the document. Any changes you make to font styles or other elements override the Normal template but do not change it, so the same font style is applied the next time you create a new document. You have to open the Normal template itself and modify it.
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