Daily Tech Tip

Xdn Tweaker

Paul Cyopick — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 05:37:19 GMT

Version tested: 0.8.7.7

Description: Xdn Tweaker is a free Windows tweaking program that can perform a number of useful and interesting Windows customizations. It features some interesting tweaks and a well designed interface.

I do not like most so-called Windows tweakers, and while I know that the more options a tweaker has the more it actually is able to do I find many of these programs to be (a) too much to handle because of all the possible configurations and tweaks, and (b) interchangeable; ultimately they all do the exact same thing, don’t they? The exception is Microsoft’s own TweakUI, which is a favorite of mine.

I recently tried Xdn Tweaker and liked it very much. The reason this one is different is that it seems to be a compilation of interesting tweaks that are presented in a very user friendly way. Each category in the left hand side panel contains 2 to 4 tweaks that are very well presented. Here are some of my favorites:

Removing Windows Media player entries from the right-click context menu. (Yesss!)
Adding a context menu entry when selecting a folder to open a command prompt within that folder.
Ability to switch on/off the option to view zip & cab files as folders in explorer.
Increasing the number of folder views Windows will remember to up to 50,000. (Normally, Windows will remember your custom or default folder views for up to 400 folders in XP; after that, it may give you folder views which you do not want).
The ability to remove any file extension association. Don’t want your .MOV files to automatically be associated with ITunes? You can use Xdn Tweaker to do it.
Classic search: do you prefer Windows old classic search (the one with the cute puppy) to the new Vista-like search? Xdn can restore it as default.
IE7 search box: Xdn can remove it for you (say, for example, you use the Google toolbar search and don’t care to have 2 search boxes showing).
Remove “shortcut to” from being used by default in newly created shortcuts.

There are a number of other cool tweaks, but I will only mention these for now.

The verdict: Xdn Tweaker is a nicely designed program that is free and useful. Most importantly, it is user friendly and accessible and does not give you that overwhelming “everything thrown in but the kitchen sink” feeling that some other Windows tweakers do. Get it now.

Compatibility: Windows Vista and XP/2003, 32 and 64-bit.

Original Link

Microsoft Word 2007 Tips: Part 3

Paul Cyopick — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 05:51:43 GMT

So far in our mini series covering Microsoft Word 2007, we’ve offered tips and tricks to help you get the most from one of the most widely used programs. Last week we covered mail merges which can save you loads of time, and are easy to do. This week we’re going to take a look at some of the options that Word has built in for formating your photos and making them more lively in just a few clicks using Picture Styles.

Microsoft Word 2007 has made it easy for you to format your photos and make them look like you spent a lot of time adding effects. To make use of these features, you’ll want to start by inserting either a picture or clip art. You’ll do this by clicking on the “insert” tab, and then clicking either picture, or clip art, depending on what you want to work with.

Next, you’ll want to make sure that your picture is selected. If it’s selected, you’ll notice a “picture tools” tab at the top, and then you’ll click on format.

One thing that you will notice under the format tab is a “picture styles” section. You’ll want to click the arrow (circled above) to expand the list so that you can see all of the different options that you have for styling your pictures (pictured below).

By hovering your mouse over each of the different styles, you will see a live preview of how it will look on your picture before you actually click to apply it. When you find the style that you want, click on it, and it will apply it to your picture.

That’s all there is to it! On most computers, selecting a picture style will probably cause your computer to run slow. It’s definitely a work-out for your computer, so you may need to give it a few seconds. But be patient, it’ll be worth it.

The examples above only took less than a minute for each one. It’s the easiest way I’ve found yet for adding something extra to your photos before you post them on the Internet, or send them off to family and friends.

Original Link

Xbox 360 Tip Archive

Paul Cyopick — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 05:43:52 GMT

Tip Archive

The complete archive of tips shown on various pages. These tips are meant to be small, helpful bits to help you operate your Xbox 360 better. For more in-depth help, check out our articles database, or post a comment in our forums.

Tip #1

It is important that you don't leave your console on for more than 6 hours. Doing this can result in a 'burnt' image on your television set. Be sure to set your Xbox to shut off after 6 hours (this can be done through the Xbox Dashboard).

Tip #2

Your Xbox can store music files by ripping music from a CD. The Xbox 360 can read regular CD's as well as CD-R and CD-RW formatted disks.

Tip #3

Playing music in a game can make the volume of sound effects seem low. You can lower the sound of the music player through the Xbox media player (hit the speaker icon in the Guide).

Tip #4

Are people bothering you online, but you are playing a game with a couple of friends? You can set your online status to 'Away', 'Busy' or even 'Appear Offline'. These will mask your online status so that your buddies won't bother you. To do this, click the Guide-button and click 'Personal Options'. In there, you can change your 'Online Appearance'.

Tip #5

If your using a wireless controller, don't forget to keep it's batteries charged, ready for elongated periods of play. No one likes it when your controller dies before the final boss! If you don't want to worry about keeping good batteries in your controller, you should purchase a Play and Charge Kit. Submitted by: JPOGDNA

Tip #6

The HDD on top of your Xbox 360 can be removed, so you can put in another one or take it with you places (say to your friends house). Just click the button towards the front of the HDD, pull, and viola! To place it back in, slide in the back end first, and bring down into it's place until you hear a small click. Be careful, you don't want to press too hard. Submitted by Xathaec

Tip #7

The Xbox Live Marketplace is your one-stop shop on Xbox Live. Download game content, demos, trailers, arcade titles, card/ board games, themes, and gamer pictures. You can access it via the Xbox Dashboard, in the Xbox Live blade. Note: You must be connected to the internet to download content! Submitted by ShadowFury

Tip #8

Tired of your gamertag? Want to change it to something new and exciting? Now you can, but it will cost you. On the Xbox 360 dashboard, hit your profile and go to "Edit Gamer Profile". From there, hit "Gamertag". From there, you can continue on to change your gamertag to something new. Be warned however, that doing so will cost 800 Microsoft Points.

Tip #9

You don't have to be friends with someone to send them a message. Now, you can send a message to anyone just by putting in the Gamertag who you want to send a message to. You can send messages via the Guide button, or through the dashboard.

Tip #10

A Microsoft Point (MP) is the currency used with the Xbox Live Marketplace. You can purchase MPs in 500, 1000, 2000 or 5000 denominations. $1 (USD) is worth 80 MPs. The typical gamertile download is 20 MPs, or $.25. Themes are around 150 MPs, or about $1.85.

Tip #11

Charge your controller when your not playing - keep your Play & Charge cable plugged in before you shut off your Xbox 360. Doing this, will continue to charge your controller while your console is powered off!

Tip #12

Wireless is love. The Wireless controller is capable of a range up to 30 feet. With that kind of ability, you can easily get up, controller in hand get a snack, and never lose contact with friends as they continue their battle online. Or, you could play the game "Pass the Controller" without tangling the lines. (But don't pass too hard, this could be lethal)

Tip #13

You can set your Xbox 360 to Busy or Away when watching a movie, or you just want to temporarily stop nofication pop-ups. You can also stop notifications by changing your personal settings.

Tip #14

When you leave your play-and-charge kit connected to your controller, and turn the Xbox 360 off, the system goes into a stand-by mode where low power is used, and fans stay on until your controller is finished recharging. When that happens, your Xbox 360 turns off the fans, but maintains the low-power mode. So really, your Xbox 360 is never off if you have your play-and-charge kit in.

Tip #15

When in a game you can open the guide and choose music you've ripped to the Hard Disk or even stream from a Media Center PC or a PC with Media Connect. Doing so will mute the music in the game and allow you to listien to your own music. Do you have the IR Remote? If so you can use the next/previous remote buttons to jump tracks. Submitted by BadmamaJ

Original Link

Excel 2007 Rocks, but....

Paul Cyopick — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 06:02:09 GMT

I've been using Excel 2007 since October 2005. It is the best new release of Excel ever. With 1.1 million rows and great new features, Microsoft completely outdid themselves.

Except for the #$%@ Ribbon.

When you upgrade, you will spend the first couple of days wondering, "Now where would they have hidden the XYZ feature?". It is absolutely maddening.

In the past, I have sold a laminated tip card. I redesigned the tip card for Excel 2007. One entire side of the larger tip card is designed to get you over the hurdle of figuring out where things are on the new Excel 2007 ribbon. Now, I have to be honest. I WANT you to upgrade to Excel 2007, because I have written a bunch of new books about Excel 2007. If your only hurdle against upgrading is finding things on the ribbon, then it would be in my best interest to give you the tip card for free. So, here it is:

Free Download Excel 2007 Tip Card (pdf).

If you don’t want the hassle of printing the card in color, you can buy our laminated version of the card:

Purchase a single laminated Excel 2007 Tip Card.
Purchase a 5 pack of the laminated Excel 2007 Tip Card.

If you access to a color printer, please print at least side 1 in color and hang it on your cube wall while you are new to Excel 2007.

If you like free stuff, you can also get a chapter a week of one of my new books, Excel 2007 Miracles Made Easy. Really - there are no strings attached - you can get the whole book, free, although slowly. I did this with Learn Excel from MrExcel and the results were fantastic - 5 million chapters given away, 60+ 5-star reviews at Amazon, and sales ended up outpacing my previous book by a factor of three. It seems like a good formula - I give the book away, and karma takes care of the rest.

Of course, If you want to spend your company's money, then please feel free to buy some of my Excel 2007 books listed here.

Here is the concept behind the front side of the Excel 2007 tip card:
I show every menu from Excel 2003. To the right of each menu item, I've added a block of color. As an example, here is part of the Data menu:

At the bottom of the card, I have color-coded the Excel 2007 ribbon tabs. Here is a part of the ribbon:

It is easy to follow the logic:

Data Subtotals is in Green in the Excel 2003 menu. That means you can find it on the Data ribbon in Excel 2007.
Data Sort is in both red and green. That means it is either on the Home tab or the Data tab.
Data Form is in black. That is bad...it means that Microsoft left it off the ribbon, and you will be diving into customizing the Quick Access Toolbar if you need this feature.

The front of the card translates all of the Excel 2003 menus, plus the standard and formatting toolbars to the Excel 2007 ribbon in this way. Other tips talk about customizing the Quick Access Toolbar and some ribbon hints.

The back of the card give you more tips on using Excel. This is similar to the old tip card that I probably sold to you for $2. If you did pay $2 for the old card, consider this your free upgrade! Actually, I have a few thousand of these being printed and laminated, so I will probably try to convince you to buy one with the nice glossy lamination as part of an Excel 2007 bundle some day, but for now, download the card from above.

Original Link

Download full messages from an IMAP account

Paul Cyopick — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 05:28:09 GMT

The default setting for an IMAP account in Outlook 2007 is to download only headers from the Inbox, but you can change that setting to make it download complete items instead. Follow these steps:

Press Ctrl+Alt+S to bring up the Send/Receive Settings dialog.
Select All Accounts (or the group that contains your IMAP account’s send/receive settings), and click Edit.
Under Accounts, select your IMAP account.
Under Receive mail items, select Use the custom behavior defined below.
Under Folder Options, select Inbox, then select Download complete item including attachments.
Click OK, then Close.

The next time Outlook performs a manual or automatic send/receive for that account, you should see full items download into the Inbox folder.

Original Link

Tips for Searching Google

Paul Cyopick — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 05:34:30 GMT

Limiting by date can be a problem. Genie Tyburski and I wrote an article about this last year. Date searching is reliable only when Google can consistently identify them as it does with Usenet message (Google Groups) and news (Google News).

A potentially useful way to limit the scope of a search is to use the syntax for file type (filetype. For example, filetype:ppt google finds mention of Google in PowerPoint slides. Other formats include .pdf (Adobe Acrobat), .doc (Word) and .xls (Excel). Other search engines also let you query these formats.

You can use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard. Example: "George * Bush" finds George W. Bush. Example: "To * * * to be" finds "To be or not to be". I've used this strategy to find email addresses: "email * * <domain>".

Some documents are not completely indexed by Google. Indexing of the text in Web pages stops after 101kb (For PDF, it's 120kb.)

Google limits the number of search terms to ten.

Not every Google version offers all of Google's features. For example, Google via the Washington Post does not offer the cache or similar page options.

Finding out who links to a Web page is popular. You use the link (link syntax. However, you cannot limit the search using additional syntax. For example, you cannot discover which .edu sites link to the home page of The Virtual Chase. The search link:www.virtualchase.com site:edu does not work. AllTheWeb, on the other hand, lets you add additional syntax to a reverse link search.

For the most part, search engines display one result per domain. For example, enter "competitive intelligence" "new york". Google returns two listings from SCIP. To see additional pages from the same domain -- scip.org, you have to click the "more results" link.

Search terms are linked to dictionary definitions via Dictionary.com. Find the link near the top of the page in the blue bar. Other engines also offer this feature.

Using Google UncleSam, limits your search to material from government sites.

Findlaw also offers a focused version of Google. The filter boosts the relevancy of legal and government information. See LawCrawler.

Google is wonderful, but it is not the only Web search tool. Take a look at Teoma, AllTheWeb and Vivisimo.

Finally, learn about and bookmark specialized or, as a professor at Penn State calls them, niche databases. This can save you time and aggravation. Examples include the new keyword searchable version of The Wayback Machine or the even newer SMEALSearch, which indexes freely available, scholarly business information.

Original Link

Convert MS Word 2007 .DOCX files for a Mac

Paul Cyopick — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 05:56:06 GMT

Convert MS Word 2007 .DOCX files for a Mac.

In Office 2007 Microsoft introduced a new file format called the Microsoft Open Office XML Format (.docx). This format is not compatible with older versions of Microsoft Word. The Mac version (Office 2008) isn't expected to ship until the second half of 2007.

So far this month, several clients have called to ask how to open, convert, or place Word 2007's new .docx file format on a Mac. For the next couple months, this issue will be a problem for many Mac-based studios.

Here are some conversion options for now:

Free Mac converter coming soon: Microsoft will be releasing a free Office 2007 converter for the Mac in March/April. Which obviously does you no good today. You can read about it in a recent post on Microsoft's Mac Mojo blog: Converters Coming! Free and (Fairly) Fast.

$20 converter available today: Meanwhile, Panergy Software has released a $20 utility that does the trick today. Their docXConverter utility converts .docx files into a format which can be opened in almost any text editor, or placed in Quark, InDesign, or most other graphics applications. Download a free trial which lets you convert up to 20 documents: Panergy Software Download Trial.

Free web service: Docx-converter.com provides a free web-based service that will convert a Microsoft Office .docx file into a simple html file. Upload your file on their website, and you can read the results in your web browser. From there you can copy any needed text and paste it into your layout. A free Mac OS X Widget is available as well: Docx Converter Widget.

Original Link

More Wii Tips

Paul Cyopick — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 05:45:57 GMT

Here are some tricks to make your gaming experience with the Wii much better.

Adjust Wii Remote's Volume/Rumble:

Press Menu on any screen,
Click the Wii Remote Settings on the bottom.
You can now adjust Remote Volume and Vibration.

Rearrange the Main Menu/Channel screen:

Just place the cursor over the channel you want to move and hold A and B keys on the Wii remote and drag and place your channel.

Adding Friends to Wii:

To add a friend to your console, both of you need to add each others Wii numbers in your address book. Once you are done with it, you can send a message or Mii's to them.

Move/rearrange message on your message board:

Just place the cursor over a message, hold A and B on your remote and it will let you drag and drop the message.

Tips on Mii Channel:

You can move using the control pad and zoom in and out with the help of (- and +) buttons. If you hold down the B button you can scroll by pointing.
Check out www.miipages.com to find some friends to add them to your Mii's.

Tips on Photo Channel:

You can have a slide show all the pictures you have taken. Ideal for a party environment. Viewed best on a HDTV.
Also, you can take a screenshot of any video clipping thats playing on your Wii and can be posted on your message board. This can be sent to any of your friends. This also applies to photographs.

Original Link

5 Windows Vista Tips

Paul Cyopick — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 05:52:03 GMT

Published: April 11, 2006

By Joli Ballew, Windows XP Expert Zone Community Columnist

Access More Media with Spotlight

Almost all versions of Windows Vista come with enhanced Windows Media Center functionality, which allows you to create, store, organize, edit, and view personal and public media. The Start menu choices in Windows Media Center in Windows Vista are Pictures + Video, Movies, TV, Music, Spotlight, Tools, and Tasks. If your computer is outfitted with the proper hardware, you can turn your PC into a complete home theater system, including a DVD player and recorder, a movie theater, a movie studio, a television, a personal video recorder, a jukebox, a music server, and a photo library.

One feature of Windows Media Center really stands out for me though: the Spotlight. As you can see below, there are currently two choices under Spotlight, More Programs and Online Spotlight.

Figure 1: Spotlight currently offers two subcategories, More Programs and Online Spotlight.

From More Programs, you can play games such as Chess Titans, Spider Solitaire, and FreeCell, or select Online Spotlight to gain access to online media. You can also add applications or services to your More Programs area for easy discoverability.

In the following image, you can see Online Spotlight in Windows Media Center. As you move the mouse—or click with your remote control—over each choice, the icon comes to the forefront and an explanation is offered regarding what the service or choice actually does. In this example, you can use MSN Remote Record Service to schedule your TV recordings from anywhere in the world, as long as you have access to the Internet! This particular group of icons is available from Showcase.

Figure 2: Online Spotlight offers many choices for online media.

Here are a few more things you can do with Online Spotlight, including but not limited to:

•	Access free television shows, Internet radio, news, movie trailers, podcasts, and videos from AOL, Yahoo!, Reuters, MSN TV Today, and ABC.
•	Download and purchase movies and TV content through subscription services such as Movielink, TVTonic, CinemaNow, and Comedy Central. The following figure shows Movielink. Figure 3: Movielink offers downloadable movies you can watch on your PC.
•	Purchase, Save, and/or Play Music from Napster, Satellite Radio, and MTV Overdrive and from VH1, MusicMatch, and Live365.com.
•	Share photos with Kodak Share and view image collections from Gallery Player.
•	Play games alone or with others from Gaming on Demand and DISCover Games.
•	Burn DVDs of your favorite TV shows from PrimeTime and ARcSoft QuickDVD.

Spotlight makes it clear though: If you've been putting off getting an "always on" connection to the Internet, now's the time. Windows Media Center in Windows Vista will work to its full potential if an always-on connection is available.

Top of page

View and Manage Pictures and Videos with Photo Gallery

Check out the new Photo Gallery in Windows Vista. You can sort pictures and videos by keywords, tags, the date the pictures or video were taken, ratings, and other metadata. You can even create Search Folders that contain up-to-date and "live" data, which changes each time you open the folder. You can create your own metadata to totally organize your photos and videos using any type of organizational set you'd like.

Windows Photo Gallery is shown here with March 2006 selected for viewing, and the image of the dog is highlighted. In using the hover preview, notice how the image comes to the forefront and information about the image is shown.

Figure 4: Photos can be organized in a number of ways, including date taken.

I prefer to sort my photos by their folder names. As you can see in the next image, there are multiple named folders and subfolders. Selecting any folder on the left produces its contents on the right. Using the mouse to hover over any picture offers information about that picture as well. In this image, the folder My Pictures is selected, and two of the subfolders are showing, Nikko and Photo Album. On the right side, you can see there are 719 photos in the My Pictures folder.

Figure 5: The new, sleeker, and redefined interface offers easier access to pictures and picture information.

If you choose to sort folders by name, organize your images by subject such as Home, Weddings, Vacations, Friends, Family, Special Events, and Pets, and create subfolders for each. You can then browse images by their subject category. Because images from digital cameras automatically register the date taken in the metatag, it's just as easy to then organize the images by date taken. You can do this with a simple click of the mouse.

Top of page

Improve Your Media Experience with Windows Media Player 11

Windows Media Player 11 is another new feature included in Windows Vista. Windows Media Player 11 has a deeply integrated music library for both online and offline content, with an interface that looks more like a Web site than computer application. And with a new integrated feel, Windows Media Player 11 makes online, network, and offline content indistinguishable. Windows Media Player 11 also connects to additional hardware easily and offers easy-to-use tools for following the process of any task (downloading music, burning CDs, synching music, or streaming video, just to name a few). You can learn more about Windows Media Player 11 at this Windows Vista Community Web page.

One of my favorite additions to Windows Media Player 11 is the Global and Sync Status tools. In older versions of Windows Media Player, you never really knew what was going on during a task. Isn't buffering finished yet? How's that sync going? Will all of this fit on a CD? And which songs can I put on there, based on the song's license? And, of course, why won't this song sync to my MP3 player? Windows Media Player 11 has ended these aggravations with Global Status and Sync Status.

In addition to the new status features, there are new search features too. With WordWheel, for instance, you can type part of the artist's name, song title, or genre—whatever you can remember—into the Search bar. The Library "prunes" through your entire collection with a query across relevant fields and offers up what options most closely relate to your entry. Here's an example. I've typed PA in the Search bar and selected Artist. There are four artists in my library whose name begins with Pa. The more letters I type, the shorter the list gets. It's a "smart" search and will change the way to locate data, including all media, on your computer forever.

Figure 6: WordWheel is an integrated search tool specifically used for Windows Media Player 11.

Top of page

Organize and Find Data with New Search Tools

Speaking of new search features—using Search Tools and Search Folders you can locate all of the data on your PC, including the data you have in Windows Mail, Windows Media Player 11, Windows Photo Gallery, and your personal files and folders quickly and easily. No more having to remember where you've stored a file. Those days are over. Now, you only need to remember something about what you're looking for, such as a word contained in a document, part of the title of a song or album, or the month or day a picture was taken. This search feature provides the same functionality detailed in the previous section.

You can also help the new Search Tools provide more accurate results by adding your own tags to data. For example, you can add a keyword to all documents related to a specific project after you save them to your computer. Later, just search for the project keyword in the Quick Search box on the Start menu, and all the project-related pictures will be displayed. This search works with any type of data, including music, pictures, and videos.

Another new search tool in Windows Vista is Search Folders. An easy way to get started with Search Folders is to click Start, and then click Search. The Search window opens, and you will type your search keyword(s). You can then save that search to your hard drive. That Search Folder becomes an excellent tool for finding up-to-date information about the files on your computer that you create, save, and search for often. Opening a saved Search Folder instantly runs that saved search again (behind the scenes), displaying brand new results immediately. Here's an example:

Figure 7: With Search Folders you can create "Saved Searches," which are updated automatically each time you open the folder.

In this image, I've searched for "Jennifer." The search results include a contact, an Office Word document, a folder, several images, a Journal page, and a shortcut. Now all I have to do is click the item and gain access. As shown on the left side of this image, a Saved Searches folder also exists. When you click that folder you can see all of your saved searches as well as default saved search folders. The default folders are already set up and include automatic searches for Last 7 Days E-Mail, Favorite Music, Last 30 Days Documents, and more. As noted earlier, these new search features will change the way you use your computer forever.

Top of page

Manage Your PC with New Choices in Control Panel

The Control Panel in Windows Vista offers many new features too, as you can see in the screenshot below. Although each of the new items in Control Panel merit their own stand-alone articles, I'll introduce a few of the new items briefly.

New Control Panel items include:

•	Network Center. You can use this feature to view your Network Map and uncover connectivity problems, configure basic security settings, and view network details.
•	Parental Controls. You can use Parental Controls to enable, configure, and manage the new parental controls in Windows Vista.
•	Pen and Input Devices. You can use this feature to configure and manage alternate input devices including pens and input panels.
•	Sidebar Properties. With this feature, you can configure and manage how the Windows Vista sidebar appears on the interface.
•	Sync Center. You can use Sync Center to manage synched hardware such as PDAs, portable media players, and other devices.
•	Text to Speech. With Text to Speech, you can set up, train, and run speech recognition, and to configure and run text to speech translation.
•	Windows Defender. With this functionality, you can check for unwanted or harmful software, scan your computer, view quarantined items, and visit the Windows Defender Web site.
•	Windows SideShow. You can use the Windows SideShow to connect a secondary display that accesses information like e-mail or media from a mobile phone or other mobile device. And you can use Windows SideShow to check your mail while you are away from your computer.

Windows Vista truly is a giant leap into the technological future. Beyond the sleek, new, Web-like interface, new Windows Media Center 11 features, the increased security, hands-off approach to keeping your computer safe, and Windows Vista ease-of-use, there are a thousand things to keep you electrified, excited, and enthused. Just be careful, you may end up like me, doing more playing than working!

Joli Ballew is a technology trainer and writer in the Dallas area. She holds several certifications including MCSE, A+, and MCDST. Joli has almost 20 books available, including Degunking Windows (Paraglyph Press), Hardcore Windows XP (McGraw-Hill), and Windows XP: Do Amazing Things (Microsoft Press). Joli is also a regular Microsoft Expert Zone columnist. Joli can be contacted at Joli_Ballew@hotmail.com.

Original Link

Recovering Lost Memory Cards

Paul Cyopick — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 05:48:47 GMT

Almost every digital camera these days uses some sort of memory card. If you're like me, you carry an extra card or two in your camera bag. But unfortunately, taking your camera in and out of the camera bag can lead to dropping one of the memory cards, and they're so small you'll never even notice it's missing until you're long gone from where you lost it.

Here's a good idea to possibly getting you're lost memory card back. In notepad, create a file containing your contact information, Name, address, phone numbers and email addresses, then put the file on each card. If someone finds your card, they can read the file and contact you. It's a long shot, but better than nothing.

Bioshock Demo Review

Paul Cyopick — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 06:41:02 GMT

First of all, let me start by sayig that I'm not a first person shooter fan. Not only am I not any good at these type of games (my nickname was "Deer In Headlights" when I played Quake at work years ago), but I found out that I get physically sick, dizzy, sweats etc. when playing most first person games.

That said, after hearing about the Bioshock demo on Major Nelson's podcast, I figured that since it was free, it wouldn't hurt to download it and have a look.

Needless to say, I wasn't disappointed. Not only was I fine playing the demo health-wise, but I wasn't horrific at the shooting aspect, and actually enjoyed myself.

The scenario is: it's 1960, and you're thrown into an underwater art deco-style world, named "Rapture", complete with sky scrapers, and a bathesphere transit system. Everything initially seems fine, utopian in fact, until you realize that all the other people in the game have become zombies after some horrific accident.

There's no training, your only guide being a narrative from your radio, from someone who is helping you along. This is part of the beauty of the game, as it creates full immersion, and leads you to being very inquisitive as to what actually happened to "Rapture". You can knock over lamps, check every nook and cranny for information, food, drinks, cigarettes, first aid kits etc. It's actually not just a first person shooter, in the sense that your goal isn't just to shoot everything that moves, it's your natural wonder about "Rapture" and it's inhabitants that seems to be your main goal, you just happen to have to kill a few zombies along the way.

Another unique aspect of the game are the "plasmids", or genetic manipulations, that you can apply to yourself. The two you get in the game are electroshock and flame thrower, and can be used to attack zombies at a distance. I found them a lot better than simply making extra weapons. You can toggle between using your selected weapon and selected plasmid easily, and like i said, if it's easy for me then you'll definately have no problem figuring out the controls.

There are a few more suprises in the demo that I'll leave for you to discover. I think the game overall is best described as a movie analogy: it's as if 28 Days Later met Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Definately worth the download, and a must purchase on August 24th.

Mail Keyboard Shortcuts (Outlook 2007)

Paul Cyopick — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 10:18:24 GMT

With the introduction of the Ribbon in Outlook 2007, the number of available keyboard shortcuts has grown tremendously. The old keyboard shortcuts from Outlook 2003 and earlier still work, but there are a bunch of new ones you can use when working in places within Outlook that use the Ribbon, such as the New Message window.

Ribbon shortcuts differ from the old-style ones in that they all begin by pressing and releasing the ALT key, instead of holding it down while pressing another key. When you press and release the ALT key while the Ribbon is visible, little Key Tip badges appear on the screen to show you what pressing each key will do.

This figure shows a few of these Key Tips.

Key Tips show you what you can do next as you enter a keyboard shortcut.

Outlook treats the next several keys you press as part of the shortcut, and each time you press one, the Key Tips on the screen change to reflect the keys you can press next.

Note: If you want to cancel a shortcut you are entering, press and release the ALT key again.

The following table contains several Ribbon-style keyboard shortcuts that are useful when you are editing e-mail messages:

Shortcut	Action
ALT, H, A, C	Center the selected paragraph
ALT, H, A, L	Align the selected paragraph with the left margin
ALT, H, U	Open the Bullet Library so you can turn the selected paragraphs into a bulleted list
ALT, H, N	Open the Numbering Library to turn the selected paragraphs into a numbered list
ALT, H, M	Check the email addresses in the To, Cc, and Bcc fields to see that they match one of your contacts or are at least properly formed.
ALT, H, F, F	Select the Font list. Use the DOWN ARROW to open the list and ENTER to switch to the selected font
ALT, H, A, I	Increase the indentation of the selected paragraph
ALT, H, A, O	Decrease the indentation of the selected paragraph
ALT, H, S, S	Start the spelling checker
ALT, O, Q	Open the Zoom dialog box to zoom in or out on the editing area. Useful for those of us who need reading glasses!
ALT, O, F, Y	Display a list of styles to apply to the selected text
ALT, H, A, A	Select the Insert Business Card option
ALT, N, P	Open the Insert Picture dialog box to insert a picture at the location of the cursor.
ALT, N, A, M	Open the Insert Item dialog box to attach an Outlook item to the message.
ALT, N, A, F	Open the Insert File dialog box to attach a document or other file to the message.

Shortcut Master at Work

Mastering individual keyboard shortcuts is effective, but if you want to get the full benefit, you can go one step further. You can learn to do entire routines using only the keyboard. Once you make this a habit, you can really fly. For an example of this kind of keyboard shortcut mastery, see this page on using only keyboard shortcuts to send email

Try it yourself and see the real benefits of using keyboard shortcuts.

Original Link

Exploring Office 2007: PowerPoint 2007 Tips and Tricks

Paul Cyopick — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 07:57:21 GMT

PowerPoint 2007 is one of the Office 2007 applications that supports the new next-generation Office interface, complete with the new Ribbon layout and interactive galleries.

Most of the functionality of the older PowerPoint releases is still there — with a few exceptions — but a host of new features will take your PowerPoint presentations to a new level of graphic excellence and functionality.

In this article we look at some of the improvements in PowerPoint 2007 that you can put to work in your presentations today.

Get Started with New Templates
PowerPoint has always been very generous in the templates it provides. Now you can access templates from the Office Bar — click New and you can view templates installed on your computer as well as templates available on Microsoft Office online.

There are a range of templates, including some with content in them, available in the New Presentation dialog.
(Click for larger image).

These include calendars, schedules and resumes as well as content slides. Click the More Categories link to find more templates including those for instructional presentations, evaluations and sales presentations. Gone is the old Auto-Content Wizard, although some of the templates include the basic structure for a typical presentation of that type.

To match the larger monitors now in vogue, you can configure your presentation to take advantage of letterbox format screens. To do this, on the Design tab click the Page Setup button and from the Slides Sized For option choose On Screen Show (16:9) or On Screen Show (16:10) for a letterbox format presentation.

If the monitor you are designing on is not a letterbox format monitor you can still preview your show — the top and bottom of the screen will be filled with black so your letterbox format slides will show in the correct aspect ratio. To be safe, set up letterbox format before you start designing the rest of the presentation.

Picture Perfect with Themes and Effects
When you open a template or start a new blank presentation, you can apply one of PowerPoint's new Themes from the Design tab. Themes are richly featured tools that provide well-designed and attractive formatting options for your slides. Each theme comes with fonts, effects, background styles and customizable colors. If the built-in themes aren't enough, you can download more themes from Microsoft Office online.

Once you apply a Theme to a presentation many of the elements that you add will be automatically formatted according to the theme's design. For example, tables that are inserted using Table on the Insert tab now come preformatted with the theme's coloring and style. As in other Office 2007 applications, when a table is selected the Table Tools options include Design and Layout tabs from which you can select a look for your table. Those at the top of the gallery are offered as the best match for the document's theme.

The new Picture with Caption layout gives you an attractive presentation for images.
(Click for larger image).

When you change the Theme you're using, all the elements in the presentation, charts, SmartArt and your tables will change to match the new theme. And all of these elements can have quite sophisticated effects such as shadows, bevels and reflections applied to them using the Effects icon on the Design tab.

If there is a theme that you want to use repeatedly (such as one designed for your business), you can set it as the default theme by right-clicking it in the gallery and choosing Set as default theme. If you have made changes to elements of a selected theme, such as selecting different colors, fonts and effects as well as background styles, you can save this configuration of your theme by selecting the Save Current Theme option in the themes palette.

You can also configure this as the default theme if so desired. As in earlier versions of PowerPoint, you can right-click a theme and select to apply it to all slides in the slide presentation or only to selected slides.

Other theme options include the ability to change the background for any theme. So if you like the theme's look and feel but need to use a different background, select the Background Styles dropdown gallery from the Design tab and select a different background. These backgrounds vary from light to dark, and when you select a dark background, text on the slides will change color so it can be read on the new background color.

The Slide Master option on the View menu lets you configure the design for your slide layouts and you can now add additional placeholders.
(Click for larger image).

Recoloring Art
PowerPoint now has the capability to recolor an image such as a photo in much the same way as you have been able to do in Publisher. The Recolor tool appears on the Picture Tools, Format tab when you have a picture selected. Click the Recolor option in the Adjust area to preview the duotone effects, which range from dark variations to light variations. You can choose one of the color variations or create your own with a color selected from the current theme.

It is also possible to use a photo as a slide background and, for images used this way, you can adjust the image so it works better behind text and other graphics. To do this, from the Background Styles option choose the Format Background, Fill option and select the Picture Or Texture Fill.

Click the File button and locate a file to use as the background and click Insert to insert it. You can now vary the transparency of the image, and from the Picture options adjust its brightness and contrast to wash it out if desired. You can also select the recolor option and recolor the image.

Get Organized with New Layouts
There are now nine built-in slide layouts available from the Home tab when you click to create a new slide. These offer plenty of scope for creating slides that have a more designer-styled look than those in earlier versions of PowerPoint.

The new Picture With Caption slide lets you add a picture to a slide — it is displayed at a large size with an attractive caption. Click the Picture Tools, Format tab and you can choose from one of 28 styles for your picture frame. When you change the theme the image is reformatted to suit.

When you click the Chart option on the Insert tab you now create charts for your PowerPoint presentation in Excel
(Click for larger image).

While PowerPoint does a good job of sizing and cropping the image to fit the layout, you can crop the image differently, if desired, to create a unique look.

Unlike previous versions of PowerPoint you can add additional placeholders to your slide layouts; so for example, if you need a two-column layout you can create one with a second placeholder. To do this, select the View tab to get access to the PowerPoint slide master.

Click the Slide Master button, select the layout to alter, click the Insert Placeholder option, and drag a new placeholder of the desired type onto the slide and size it to suit. Click Close Master View to return to the slide-editing window.

Charts in Presentations
When you design a chart for your PowerPoint presentation it will be created in Excel rather than using the old PowerPoint charting tool. Excel opens with a worksheet showing the categories and series for a basic chart.

You can edit this data, expand it if desired, and then return to PowerPoint to complete formatting the chart. You select Chart styles from the Chart Tools, Design tab that appears whenever you highlight a chart. Like other elements in PowerPoint, the chart's look, colors and effects match the theme that you are using and, when you change the theme, the look of the chart changes to match the newly selected theme.

Only PowerPoint lets you convert an existing list to a SmartArt object.
(Click for larger image).

Get Smart with SmartArt
You may have read our previous article on SmartArt. SmartArt is a new feature in Office 2007 that offers an easy way to create very smart diagrams and business graphics. Like other elements, these are formatted to match the current PowerPoint 2007 Theme.

Typically you create SmartArt objects by choosing SmartArt on the Insert tab and then type the data for the graphic. If you already have a list prepared, you can select the text and, in the Home tab's Paragraph area, locate and click the Convert to Smart Art Graphic icon. It's not easy to see, but it's there and is only available in PowerPoint.

Ready, Set, Present
Come presentation time, PowerPoint offers a much-improved Presenter View that you can use when you have multiple monitors attached to your computer. Presenter View gives you two views of your presentation — one for your audience and one for you.

Your view can include slide notes, which are notes you create for individual slides and which may contain additional information or reminders. You can make your notes as large or small as you like so they are easy to read.

You can also see a preview of the slides coming up in the presentation so you can prepare for what's next. And a handy on-screen indicator tracks how much time you have spent making your presentation so you can keep track of time.

Saving options for your presentation include saving the presentation in the default new file format or as a PowerPoint 97-2003 compatible file. You can also download and use the PowerPoint PDF add-in to save your presentation as a PDF file or, as with PowerPoint 2003 you can use the Publish Options to package the presentation for burning to a CD.

There are plenty of new features in PowerPoint 2007 that will make it easier for you to create graphically consistent and attractive presentations and to craft those presentations more efficiently. Of all the applications in the new Microsoft Office 2007 suite, people will most likely appreciate the new graphic tools such as Themes and SmartArt.

Original Link

7 Tips to Get the Most Out of MS Word

Paul Cyopick — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 05:52:52 GMT

Many of us writerly types spend a lot of time in Microsoft Word, and I even know a few Web designers who like to use it and Microsoft Excel for doing simple site prototyping work. Whether you’re sentenced to use Word all day by a dictatorial IT department, or it’s simply your word processor of choice, you can save time and have more options by mastering a few easy shortcuts.

The seven tips I’ll list here are very easy to learn. They work in most versions of Word, and under Windows or on a Mac:

Where Was I? I get up and walk around frequently when I’m writing—gets the blood flowing. Sometimes I close a document I am editing, and when I come back to it and open it up, I just hit Shift + F5 to return to the exact place in the document where I was editing.

Serial Saves. If you’re like me, you often have many documents open at once. For safety’s sake, I like to frequently save all of them at once. To do this, hold down the Shift key when you go to the File menu. This changes Save to Save All.

Paragraph Hopping. You can circumvent the multi-step process of cutting, pasting and deleting to move paragraphs with an easy paragraph hopping feature. Often when I’m writing, I decide that a given paragraph would work better above or below another one. Do this: Go into a document with several paragraphs and put your cursor at the beginning of one of the middle paragraphs. Hold down the Shift and Alt keys in unison, then use the up and down arrow keys to “hop” the paragraph to new positions in the document.

One Fell Swoop Word Deletion. You can delete entire words with your keyboard. Just put your cursor at the beginning of the word and press Ctrl and Del together. This is very useful when editing.

Customize Line Spacing and Alignment. The Ctrl key is your best buddy when you want to experiment with line spacing and alignment variations. Ctrl + 1 provides single spacing, Ctrl + 2 provides double spacing and Ctrl + 5 provides 1-1/2 line spacing. Ctrl + R right aligns a paragraph, Ctrl + L left aligns one, and Ctrl + E centers one.

Quick Selecting. You can select all text between the current location of your cursor and the end of the current paragraph by hitting Ctrl + Shift and the down arrow.

Serial Undo. Many Word users are familiar with using Ctrl + Z to undo the last change that was made to a document, but did you know you can serially undo the last several changes you made? Just keep hitting Ctrl + Z to do so.

Original Link

Wii sports tips

Paul Cyopick — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 04:51:03 GMT

Bowling

If you position yourself far enough to the left (or the right) and aim towards an opponent’s lane, you can knock down their pins. Try putting spin on the ball and experiment with the angle, it is quite difficult to knock down their pins, but if you manage to hit any of their pins it counts toward your score!

The bowling ball seems to go much straighter if you release it high in the air, or if you throw it slowly with no spin.

Change bowling ball color: As The screen is fading to black for bowling, hold down the control pad until it fades to bowling for these colors:

Code Effect
Control Pad Up Blue Ball
Control Pad Right Gold Ball
Control Pad Down Green Ball
Control Pad Left Red Ball

Scare the crowds while bowling: Start the regular motion for bowling and let go on the back swing. The ball will fly backwards and the crowd will scream and jump.
Get a Strike on the 91 Pin lane: In training mode you can get a strike on the 91 pin lane by rolling the ball along either the left or right rail all the way to the end. This will trigger an explosion and all the pins will fall down adding 182 (91 * 2) to your score.

Boxing

Here is a list of control motions for Wii Boxing (from GameSpot Forums posting):

High Guard: Hold Wiimote and Nunchuck vertically, then tilt both controllers inward toward your body to cover face.

Mid Guard: Hold Wiimote and Nunchuck parallel to ground, then tilt both controllers inward if still not covering center of body.

Left Dodge: Hold Wiimote and Nunchuck vertically, then tilt both controllers to your left.

Right Dodge: Hold Wiimote and Nunchuck vertically, then tilt both controllers to your right.

Right High Jab: Hold Wiimote vertically, with controls facing yourself, and jerk it forward with the wrist. Helps to keep arm stationary, and just let the Wiimote fall forward.

Right Mid Jab: Hold Wiimote parallel to ground, and jerk downward. Again, keep arm stationary and just push Wiimote downward with wrist.

Right High Hook: Hold Wiimote vertically, with controls facing yourself, and rotate it quickly to the left, as in this (please forgive my ASCII art):

BEFORE:
____
| D |
| A |
| 1 |
| 2 |

AFTER:
___________
|D A 1 2|

Right Uppercut: Hold Wiimote parallel to ground, and then jerk upward. It’s the exact opposite movement from the Right Mid Jab.

Right Low Hook: Hold Wiimote parallel to ground, but turn it 90 degrees COUNTER-CLOCKWISE so that the face of the Wiimote is looking out to your left, then jerk it in the direction of the face of the controller. It’s exactly like the right uppercut, except the entire motion is rotated to the left 90 degrees.

Left High Jab: Hold Nunchuck up vertically so that the analog stick is facing you, and then jerk it forward. Just like Right High Jab.

Left Mid Jab: Hold Nunchuck parallel to ground, and jerk it downward. Just like the Right Mid Jab.

Left Uppercut: Hold Nunchuck parallel to ground, and jerk it upward. Just like Right Uppercut

Left Hook: Hold Nunchuck parallel to ground, but turn it 90 degrees CLOCKWISE so that the face of the controller is looking out to your right, then jerk it in direction of the face of controller. Basically just like the Right Mid Hook.

Turn your Boxing Gloves Silver: After you’ve beaten the Grand Champion, Matt, in a boxing match you’ll be able to wear silver boxing gloves. To do so, hold (1) when the screen becomes black before a boxing match.

Golf

Putt better: Press (1) on the controller to see the break of the green and use this to line up your putt. You can also press (2) to get a lower, closer view of the green.

Play Golf without maps or meters: To disable the power meter, map, and the wind speed indicator, press and hold (2), then make a selection at the “Select a Course” screen.

Baseball

Pitch ~~Underhand~~ sidearm(thanks dan): While pitching, press 2 before throwing. To return to normal pitching press 1

Tennis

Change the tennis court: To change the tennis court to the blue practice court, press and hold (2) at the warning screen that shows after selecting characters.

Play Ping-Pong Tennis: You can place yourself on both sides of the net in a single player game and play against yourself, which is quite challenging. In addition, if you’re really masochistic, you can do a 4 player doubles with only you involved.

Original Link

Tasks and Time Management in Outlook

Paul Cyopick — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:41:10 GMT

Make your To-Do Bar only show tasks

For some of you, flags may have had a whole different meaning, and the fact that the To-Do Bar is cluttered with your flagged mail and flagged contacts may not be working for you. Here is a solution: filter the To-Do Bar to just show tasks!

To filter the To-Do Bar to just show tasks, click on Arranged By: in the To-Do Bar and then select "Custom…" In the dialog that appears, select "Filter…" In the next dialog, click on the "advanced" tab. Click on the "Fields" button in the middle of the dialog and choose All Mail Fields->Message Class. Create the criteria "Message Class" "Contains" "Task" and add it to the list. Click Ok, then Ok again to exit the dialog.

Viola! Now there are only tasks in your To-Do Bar.

You can do the same thing if you only want to see e-mail in the To-Do Bar by swapping the value of Task with "IPM.Note."

Original Link

PowerPoint Tip: Play show while working

Paul Cyopick — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 05:29:52 GMT

Have you ever wanted to have a presentation play on it’s own on one monitor while you work on another? With Vista, you can!

Here’s how you can do it:

Open your presentation and use Set up Show to set it to play in a window on your secondary monitor.
Make sure that the animations and transitions are set to go after a certain amount of time, rather than on mouse click.
Play the presentation.
The presentation will start on your second screen. Continue working on the first screen and you will see that what you do has little effect on the presentation.

I have not tested this with Office 2003. It may work, it may not. I’ll update this entry when I know one way or the other. I have tested this on Office 2007 and there it does work - quite well.

If you are running Vista on a Virtual Machine, it seems that this process doesn’t work. I am not sure why. If you don’t have two monitors, you can run a presentation while doing other things. While I couldn’t see a reason to use this process on a single monitor system, Bruce (my hubby) came up with a great one. If you need to see how long it takes a presentation to run clear through, you can start it, work on other things. If you have a sound run as the last animation on the last slide, you won’t even have to check for the end - it will tell you!.

In that case, you can switch between the window with the presentation and the other open application windows on your machine by using the Windows key and the tab key. Use both keys to bring up the rotating windows, then hold down the Windows key until your presentation is up front. Let it play for a while. To go back to other work, use the same key sequences.

Why does this work? Well, Vista is set up to continue processing even when the window isn’t active. I had this idea when I saw a demonstration of a video being played while the windows were being tabbed through. Once I knew this was possible, I asked if PPT presentations should do the same thing. Turns out they do - if they are in their own window. Vista seems to see the playing presentation the same way it does a video playing in a window.

If the presentation is playing full screen, it won’t work. So, you will need to live with the bar at the top that tells you the presentation title. But, if you need to play presentations and work at the same time -you now have a way!

Original Link

Xbox Live connection problems? Here's a tip

Paul Cyopick — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 06:08:33 GMT

Xbox Live connection problems? Here's a tip

If you've been having problems connecting to your friends on Xbox Live for games or chat, here's a tip that'll help you determine the source of the problem--and hopefully fix it.

Go to the System blade, select Network Settings and then Test Xbox Live Connection. You'll be able to see what sort of NAT your system is behind, and if it's set to Moderate or Strict then you will only be able to connect to certain other users.

To fix this, set your NAT to Open by opening the following ports on your router: 88 (UDP), 3074 (UDP), and 3074 (TCP).

Original Link

Finding Excel 2007 Commands

Paul Cyopick — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 16:00:20 GMT

Summary: Excel 2007 introduced a radically new user interface that does away with the traditional program menus. If you knew where some commands were in Excel, this can make finding them in Excel 2007 a challenge. Here's a tip on a handy workbook you can use to make finding commands much easier in the new interface. (This tip works with Microsoft Excel 2007.)

When you install Excel 2007 and use it for the first time, you may feel like you jumped overboard, without a life preserver, from the comfortable ship on which you were cruising. This is not unusual; Microsoft has changed just about everything in the old Excel interface. This can make it very difficult to find many of the commands you previously used with nary a second thought.

One thing you might find helpful is an Excel workbook that details where to find the old Excel 2003 commands in Excel 2007. Microsoft developed this to help ease the transition to the new software. You can find the workbook at this URL:

http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?AssetID=AM101864291033&CTT=5&Origin=HA100860481033

Download the workbook to your system, and then open it. You'll find a worksheet tab for each of the Excel 2003 menus and toolbars, and each worksheet contains a list of the old commands from that menu or toolbar. To the right of these commands you'll find the way to accomplish the same task in Excel 2007.

The workbook can be opened either in Excel 2003 or Excel 2007.

Original Link

Daily Tech Tip

Xdn Tweaker

Microsoft Word 2007 Tips: Part 3

Xbox 360 Tip Archive

Tip Archive

Tip #1

Tip #2

Tip #3

Tip #4

Tip #5

Tip #6

Tip #7

Tip #8

Tip #9

Tip #10

Tip #11

Tip #12

Tip #13

Tip #14

Tip #15

Excel 2007 Rocks, but....

Download full messages from an IMAP account

Tips for Searching Google

Convert MS Word 2007 .DOCX files for a Mac

Convert MS Word 2007 .DOCX files for a Mac.

More Wii Tips

5 Windows Vista Tips

Related Links

Access More Media with Spotlight

View and Manage Pictures and Videos with Photo Gallery

Improve Your Media Experience with Windows Media Player 11

Organize and Find Data with New Search Tools

Manage Your PC with New Choices in Control Panel

Recovering Lost Memory Cards

Bioshock Demo Review

Mail Keyboard Shortcuts (Outlook 2007)

Shortcut Master at Work

Exploring Office 2007: PowerPoint 2007 Tips and Tricks

7 Tips to Get the Most Out of MS Word

Wii sports tips

Tasks and Time Management in Outlook

Make your To-Do Bar only show tasks

PowerPoint Tip: Play show while working

Xbox Live connection problems? Here's a tip

Xbox Live connection problems? Here's a tip

Finding Excel 2007 Commands