Thursday, August 18, 2005
Windows Messenger is a great way to keep up with people. But before you start flinging messages around the world, you'll have to sign up for a Microsoft .NET Passport. The easiest way is to sign up for a free Hotmail account. Fill out the short questionnaire, and Microsoft assigns you a Hotmail e-mail address. Log in to Windows Messenger using that address, and you're set.
And here's a tip that you don't see every day: It's completely ethical to lie when filling out Microsoft's .NET Passport questionnaire. Your personal information is none of Microsoft's business. Let Microsoft fill its databases with information from credit card companies, like everybody else does.
And here's a tip that you don't see every day: It's completely ethical to lie when filling out Microsoft's .NET Passport questionnaire. Your personal information is none of Microsoft's business. Let Microsoft fill its databases with information from credit card companies, like everybody else does.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Overburning -- sounds like you're making digital toast, doesn't it? Overburning, a recent phenomenon in the world of CD recording, refers to a drive that can record more than the "rated" maximum capacity of a CD-R disc. For example, a drive that can overburn to 76 minutes can record 76 minutes of music on a standard 74-minute CD-R, or you can use the same drive to store 685MB of data rather than 650MB. The amount you can overburn depends on your recorder and the specific brand of discs you're using.
Overburning is mucho grande, but you must remember two important caveats:
Most CD-ROM drives made in the past two or three years have no trouble with overburned discs, although some older drives spit them back out as unreadable. Therefore, if you distribute your discs, you probably shouldn't overburn them.
Media manufacturers don't guarantee their discs past the 74- or 80-minute rating, so you overburn at your own risk.
How does a drive overburn? It uses the lead-out portion of the disc, which was not originally intended to store data; in fact, the lead-out area is supposed to indicate to your drive that it has reached the end of the disc. When you overburn, you're burning past that point. If your read-only CD-ROM doesn't care and can read an overburned CD-ROM, you're, in effect, storing more in the same space.
Important: Any CD recorder can use an 80-minute CD-R disc -- you're not overburning when you put 80 minutes of music or 700MB of data on this kind of media. Again, however, not every recorder can use these larger-capacity discs; check the specifications of any recorder you're considering to see whether it can use 80-minute/700MB discs.
Overburning is mucho grande, but you must remember two important caveats:
Most CD-ROM drives made in the past two or three years have no trouble with overburned discs, although some older drives spit them back out as unreadable. Therefore, if you distribute your discs, you probably shouldn't overburn them.
Media manufacturers don't guarantee their discs past the 74- or 80-minute rating, so you overburn at your own risk.
How does a drive overburn? It uses the lead-out portion of the disc, which was not originally intended to store data; in fact, the lead-out area is supposed to indicate to your drive that it has reached the end of the disc. When you overburn, you're burning past that point. If your read-only CD-ROM doesn't care and can read an overburned CD-ROM, you're, in effect, storing more in the same space.
Important: Any CD recorder can use an 80-minute CD-R disc -- you're not overburning when you put 80 minutes of music or 700MB of data on this kind of media. Again, however, not every recorder can use these larger-capacity discs; check the specifications of any recorder you're considering to see whether it can use 80-minute/700MB discs.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Outlook 2000 lets you see your contact information arranged in many different and useful ways, called views. Each module comes with 5 to 12 predefined views that you can rearrange simply by dragging the column title and dropping the title where you want it.
For example, to move the Business Phone column in the Phone List view:
Click the Contacts icon in the Outlook bar.
Choose View, Current View, Phone List.
The Phone List view of your contacts appears.
Click the Business Phone heading and drag it on top of the column to its left.
You see a pair of red arrows pointing to the border between the two columns to the left of the Business Phone column. The red arrows tell you where Outlook will drop the column when you release the mouse button.
Release the mouse button.
The Business Phone column is now to the left of the File As column rather than to the right. If it makes more sense to you to have File As to the right of Business Phone, you can set up your view in Outlook to put it there.
You can use the same process to move any column in any Outlook view. Because the screen isn't as wide as the list, you may need to move columns around at times to see what you really want to see. You must use the scroll bar at the bottom of the list to scroll to the right to see the last column, Categories. If you want to see the Categories column at the same time as the Full Name column, you have to move the Categories column to the left.
For example, to move the Business Phone column in the Phone List view:
Click the Contacts icon in the Outlook bar.
Choose View, Current View, Phone List.
The Phone List view of your contacts appears.
Click the Business Phone heading and drag it on top of the column to its left.
You see a pair of red arrows pointing to the border between the two columns to the left of the Business Phone column. The red arrows tell you where Outlook will drop the column when you release the mouse button.
Release the mouse button.
The Business Phone column is now to the left of the File As column rather than to the right. If it makes more sense to you to have File As to the right of Business Phone, you can set up your view in Outlook to put it there.
You can use the same process to move any column in any Outlook view. Because the screen isn't as wide as the list, you may need to move columns around at times to see what you really want to see. You must use the scroll bar at the bottom of the list to scroll to the right to see the last column, Categories. If you want to see the Categories column at the same time as the Full Name column, you have to move the Categories column to the left.
Saturday, August 13, 2005
When you visit a Web site, the site may deposit a small text file, called a cookie, on your hard drive. Cookies store information about you and enable the Web site to retrieve this information on visits subsequent to your first visit. The idea is for the Web site to serve you better. The cookie, for example, may store your preferences or user ID, which makes it unnecessary for you to state your preferences or enter your user ID on subsequent occasions when you visit the Web site. Perhaps you've had the experience of visiting a Web site, being asked to identify yourself, and discovering your user ID already entered on the Web page that asks for your ID. Your ID is already there because a cookie on your hard drive has identified you.
Some people believe that cookies violate their privacy because they leave a trail of the Web sites you have visited. For this reason, most Web browsers allow you to turn off cookies.
If cookies don't concern you, here's the path to enable these morsels of information:
Internet Explorer: Choose Tools-->Internet Options, and select the Privacy tab in the Options dialog box. Make sure that the Settings slider isn't pushed to the topmost setting, Block All Cookies.
Mozilla: Choose Edit-->Preferences and, in the Preferences dialog box, select the Privacy & Security category and then the Cookies subcategory. Make sure that the Block Cookies option button
Some people believe that cookies violate their privacy because they leave a trail of the Web sites you have visited. For this reason, most Web browsers allow you to turn off cookies.
If cookies don't concern you, here's the path to enable these morsels of information:
Internet Explorer: Choose Tools-->Internet Options, and select the Privacy tab in the Options dialog box. Make sure that the Settings slider isn't pushed to the topmost setting, Block All Cookies.
Mozilla: Choose Edit-->Preferences and, in the Preferences dialog box, select the Privacy & Security category and then the Cookies subcategory. Make sure that the Block Cookies option button
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
2003
You can clear just one tab or all tabs in a Microsoft Word document by using the Tabs dialog box. (Using this dialog box allows you more precision than the Tab Ruler.)
To clear just one tab:
Go to the Menu bar at the top of your screen and choose Format, Tabs.
In the list that appears below the "Tab Stop Position" box, click on the tab you wish to remove.
Click the Clear button.
The tab stop is gone!
To quickly clear all tabs:
Go to the Menu bar at the top of your screen and choose Format, Tabs (or double-click the bottom half of the ruler) to summon the Tabs dialog box.
Click the Clear All button.
All the tabs disappear in one clean sweep.
Click OK to return to the document.
To clear just one tab:
Go to the Menu bar at the top of your screen and choose Format, Tabs.
In the list that appears below the "Tab Stop Position" box, click on the tab you wish to remove.
Click the Clear button.
The tab stop is gone!
To quickly clear all tabs:
Go to the Menu bar at the top of your screen and choose Format, Tabs (or double-click the bottom half of the ruler) to summon the Tabs dialog box.
Click the Clear All button.
All the tabs disappear in one clean sweep.
Click OK to return to the document.
