Things you can do to safeguard your computer

• STAY ALERT! Sounds simple? But do you really know if you have the latest patch for your browser, the software you use everyday or even the operating system that you run all your programs on? Don’t expect to hear about security issues and other software bugs in the traditional media such as the TV and news papers. Even if you subscribe to a technical journal, you may not get the news in time.
  • Use email notification services : Subscribe to email notification services related to the software you use. Don’t forget to include your operating system, web browser and any other software that will connect to the Internet in this list. Almost all of these notification services are free and subscription information is usually found on the software publisher’s web site or the software registration card.
  • Periodically check related web sites : If an email notification service is not available, add a task to your calendar to check your software publishers’ web sites at least every month, if not every week. You may have to search their news archives to find any security bulletins.
  • Search newsgroups : Some software publishers may not provide timely information about their software glitches openly. In such instances, newsgroups dedicated to open discussions may help you to find related messages posted by other users. Be aware that the quality and the credibility of information gathered from newsgroups maybe lower than information retrieved using above two methods. Searching, rather than browsing messages one by one, is recommended when it comes to newsgroup postings. For example, search for:
    “product name” AND bug OR fix
• TAKE ACTION Once you become aware of a bug or a security issue, carefully read the documentation for it and take the recommended action. For example, if applying a software patch is recommended by the software publisher, do so as soon as possible. Don’t delay taking action until the end of the month. Some software patches must be applied in a particular order. Applying fixes as they become available could make it easier to keep this order.
• KEEP DEFECTIVE SOFTWARE OUT OF REACH After applying patches to your current software installation, be sure to remove defective software from circulation and to document the actions you took for future reference. For example, if you receive a replacement CD or a floppy with a fix, remove obsolete disks from the circulation to avoid future confusions. If the fix was provided in a form of a patch (if you still need the original installation disks in case you have to reinstall the software), be sure to make a note of the patches you applied for future reference. You may want to keep a separate notepad for this purpose or simply label or mark the disks as a reminder to yourself.

Workspaces in Excel

Do you find that you often have a need to work on two Excel files at one time? Are you opening both files every time you do it?  Well, you don’t have to.  You can save the files as a “Workspace” and they will open together every time you want to use them.

Here’s what you do:

Open Excel and open one file.  Now, with that file open, Open the second file.  Go to the Window menu and select “Arrange”, then choose “Tile”.  You see both of your spreadsheets open side by side.

This is real convenient for dragging and dropping or copying and pasting information from one to the other.  It is also an easy way to compare the data in one to the other.

Now comes the cool part.  Go to the File menu and choose “Save Workspace”.

You will see the Save Workspace dialog box come up. Name your file (see it is being saved with an .xlw extension instead of the usual .xls extension given to Excel files) and save it in the same location where the original two files are located.

Now, whenever you want to work on these two files together, you can just open up your .xlw file and they will both open side by side.

And the really great thing is you still have the individual files so you can work on them separately any time you want and the changes made in the individual files OR from within the workspace file will be made to both.

Understanding Tables of Contents in Word

Tables of Contents in Word are one of the more commonly misunderstood features.  To understand them, you must first understand Heading Styles, because Tables of Contents are produced from Heading Styles.  If you are trying to add a Table of Contents to an existing document that does not use Heading Styles, you must go through the entire document and add them manually.  However, if you add them as you produce the document in the beginning, the Table of Contents will be a snap to produce. 

Try this.  Open a blank new document and go to the Style box at the left end of your Formatting toolbar (the toolbar that includes your bold, italic, and underline buttons).  The Style box, by default, should say “Normal”.  Click on the dropdown arrow at the right end of the box and choose “Heading 1”, then type a word or two.

 

Hit the Enter key on your keyboard and go back to the Style box.  This time choose “Heading 2” and type another word or two.  Now, hit Enter again and go to the Insert menu and choose Break.  When this box comes up, make sure Page Break is selected and click OK.  You should now be at the top of Page 2.  Choose “Header 1” again from the Style box and type a word or two.  Hit Enter and add another Heading 2 entry, then hit enter and add a Heading 3 entry. 

Now, hold your Control key down and hit your Home key to move you back to the very top of your document and go to the Insert menu and choose Index and Tables.  Click on the tab at the top that says Table of Contents, accept the default settings and click OK. 

View Conversations

Outlook 2003 lets you view messages by thread, which is a convenient way to scan your in-box much faster. Just choose View | Arrange By | Conversation to see your mail arranged this way. If you have the reading pane on the right, you can get to this setting faster by clicking on Arranged by at the top of the message list. You’ll find that if each message contains the earlier messages, you can read just the latest message in the thread instead of working through each one, so you can easily clean out your in-box by deleting earlier notes and keeping only the latest one.

How to Convert a FAT Partition to NTFS

To convert a FAT partition to NTFS, perform the following steps.

Click Start, click Programs, and then click Command Prompt.

In Windows XP, click Start, and then click Run.

At the command prompt, type CONVERT [driveletter]: /FS:NTFS.Convert.exe will attempt to convert the partition to NTFS.

NOTE: Although the chance of corruption or data loss during the conversion from FAT to NTFS is minimal, it is best to perform a full backup of the data on the drive that it is to be converted prior to executing the convert command. It is also recommended to verify the integrity of the backup before proceeding, as well as to run RDISK and update the emergency repair disk (ERD).

Convert.exe will attempt to convert the partition to NTFS.

Set the Search Screen to the Classic Look

When I first saw the default search pane in Windows XP, my instinct was to return it to its classic look; that puppy had to go. Of course, I later discovered that a doggie door is built into the applet. Click “Change preferences” then “Without an animated screen character.” If you’d rather give it a bare-bones “Windows 2000″ look and feel, fire up your Registry editor and navigate to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ CabinetState.

You may need to create a new string value labeled “Use Search Asst” and set it to “no”.

How to Remove Windows XP’s Messenger

Theoretically, you can get rid of it (as well as a few other things). Windows 2000 power users should already be familiar with this tweak.

Fire up the Windows Explorer and navigate your way to the %SYSTEMROOT% \ INF folder. What the heck is that thingy with the percentage signs? It’s a variable. For most people, %SYSTEMROOT% is C:\Windows. For others, it may be E:\WinXP. Get it? Okay, on with the hack! In the INF folder, open sysoc.inf (but not before making a BACKUP copy first). Before your eyes glaze over, look for the line containing “msmsgs” in it. Near the end of that particular line, you’ll notice that the word “hide” is not so hidden. Go ahead and delete “hide” (so that the flanking commas are left sitting next to one another). Save the file and close it. Now, open the Add and Remove Programs applet in the Control Panel. Click the Add / Remove Windows Components icon. You should see “Windows Messenger” in that list. Remove the checkmark from its box, and you should be set. NOTE: there are other hidden system components in that sysoc.inf file, too. Remove “hide” and the subsequent programs at your own risk.