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Recovering text from Word documents (Part 1)
2008-04-16 17:08:00
If Microsoft Word runs into a problem with a file it usually offers a recover option when you open the program the next time. But sometimes this option is not given to you, and you have to try to recover text from a corrupted file manually.To do this pull down the 'File' menu in Word and select 'Open...' to see the appropriate dialog box. From the 'Files of type' drop-down list select 'Recover Text from Any File'. Then browse to the file you wish to try to recover text, select it, and click the 'Open' button. With any luck Word will extract the text from that file. This process may work with files of types that Word does not support too.In the second part of the article I will look at what to do if this method fails.
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Keyboard shortcut of the week: Sub and super
2008-04-13 17:06:00
Occasionally we have to make use of subscripts or superscripts in our documents. The most common use of these is with dates, as in 20th. There the 'th' is a superscript; that is, smaller text that is raised. Subscripts are most often used in technical language such as if we refer to water as H2O. There the subscript is the '2'; smaller text that is lowered.To switch to subscript mode or to change the selected text to a subscript, hold down the Control key and press the = key. This same combination will also set selected subscript text back to normal and switch out of subscript mode, as with the keyboard shortcuts for bold or italic mode.To switch to superscript mode or to change the selected text to a superscript, hold down the Control key and the Shift key, and then press the = key. As with subscripts the same combination switches back to normal text to if presses again.This tip applies to Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, but unfortunately not to Excel.
More About: Super , Week , Keyboard , Keyboard shortcut , Shortcut

Jargon Busting: BIOS, boots and flashing
2008-04-11 13:25:00
What has booting to do with my computer?The term booting is short for bootstrapping, which refers to a process by which a simple control system starts up a more complicated system such as an operating system. The term may have been taken from a story about Baron Münchhausen who pulled himself out of the sea by tugging on his own boot straps.What is BIOS?On PCs, the simple control system that starts up the operating system is called a BIOS. The acronym stands for Basic Input/Output System. When your PC starts up the first few things you see are managed by this BIOS system. It resides in a chip on the motherboard of the computer and manages the computer's hardware. It is rare for anyone to have to do anything in the BIOS, and it is not recommended for the novice to fiddle with it. The most common change to BIOS settings that has to be made is to change the boot order; that is, the order in which the BIOS looks for an operating system on the various drives. Usually the main hard driv...
More About: Boots , Bios , Flashing

Password problem in Firefox
2008-04-08 13:44:00
My recent post on new releases of web browsers provoked a number of comments from people who have been having problems with Firefox remembering to stay logged on to various websites and forgetting passwords. I looked into the issue, mainly because I was having problems with this myself, and have come up with a fix that seems to have sorted the problem for now. It is a little extreme because it involved deleting all password information from Firefox.The first thing to do is to export all the passwords that you have set up on Firefox, unless you are one of the few people who is confident that they can remember every single username and password they use on websites that require them to log-on.To export these details this you need to install an add-on, called (unsurprisingly) Password Exporter. After Firefox has restarted, you can run the exporter by pulling down the 'Tools' menu and selecting 'Add-ons'.Click on the 'Options' button in the Password Exporter entry to open up the a...
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Spring Cleaning: How to clear out temporary files
2008-04-06 13:00:00
Occasionally it is worth checking to see if you have any temporary files collected. These should be deleted whenever the application that created them is finished with them, or whenever Windows closes down, but bad programming and crashes mean that they can sometimes be left behind.In order to delete these files we must first make the folder that contains them visible. To do this you need to open Windows Explorer - by double-clicking on 'My Computer', holding down the Windows key and pressing E, or whichever your preferred method is - pulling down the 'Tools' menu and selecting 'Folder Options'. Select the 'View' page and make sure that 'Show hidden files and folders is selected'.Next you will need to open your system drive; which, for most people, will be the 'C: drive.' From there double click on 'Documents and Settings'. This will open the folder that contains all the profiles for all the users on the PC. Open up the folder for your user, if you are not sure what yo...
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A Safari through Windows and a new Firefox
2008-04-03 17:30:00
SafariApple's web browser is now available for Windows XP and Vista. Safari had previously only been available on Macintosh operating systems. The browser is certainly quick and uses about as much memory as Mozilla Firefox ; however, Safari takes up more hard drive space than Firefox: around 60Mb. Nevertheless, Safari is yet another alternative to Internet Explorer.You can download Safari for Windows for free from here.FirefoxThere is also a new version of Firefox in the offing. At present it is still in Beta, which means that it is being tested by users and should not be considered to be finished software. According to Mozilla, Firefox 3 uses less memory than the old version - a particular complaint of mine.You can download the Firefox 3 Beta 5 for free from here. (But be aware this is far from bug free software).
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Keyboard shortcut of the week: The Case of MS Word
2008-03-31 17:24:00
When using a word processor it is quite common to forget that that the CapsLock key has been left on, or you might decide that a piece of text looks better in capital letters (also known as upper case: small letters are known as lower case).Thankfully MS Word has a keyboard shortcut that lets you cycle between different cases and formats. All you need to do is highlight a piece of text, hold down the Shift key and press F3.Each time you press F3 the case of the letters will change (don't release the Shift key!). So, 'testing' will be replaced with 'Testing' on the first press, and 'TESTING' if you press it a second time. Press F3 again and the text will return to 'testing'.If you type 'tESTING' by mistake, you can change it to 'testing', then 'Testing', and 'TESTING'; however, it will not return to 'tESTING', probably because it is highly unlikely you'd ever want text to be in that format.[Addendum]As one commentator has pointed out, a particular word does not ne...
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Announcement: The Third Carnival of Computer Help and Advice
2008-03-29 01:56:00
I am pleased to announce that the Third Carnival of Computer Help and Advice has been published at http://prash-babu.blogspot.com/2008/03/th ird-carnival-of-computer-help-and.html.Ma ny thanks to this months host Prashanth and all our contributors and readers.p.s. If you would like to submit an article for the next carnival or host a future carnival on your blog use the contact forms over at the Carnival of Computer Help and Advice page.
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3rd Carnival of Computer Help and Advice
2008-03-26 21:50:00
The 3rd Carnival of Computer Help and Advice will probably be a couple of days late this month (it is due to be published on the 27th March). This is due to me having been ill for the last few days, and so I haven't had chance to pass the Carnival on to this month's host Prashanth.Apologies for the delay.K

How to install new fonts
2008-03-20 15:51:00
There are many web sites from which you can download extra fonts for free, such as 1001 Free Fonts , Urban Fonts and many more. The downloaded fonts will be in a zip file, so the first step is to unzip them to your 'Desktop' by simply dragging the font file there. There is no need to copy the text documents that are in the zip file to the 'Desktop'.Once you have copied all the new fonts you wish to install onto your 'Desktop' you can install them. To do this open up the 'Control Panel'. Your control panel will either be set to the new 'Category views' on XP or Vista or the old 'Classic view'. I will deal with each method of opening the font installation program separately. Vista users can simply right-click on each font file and click on 'Install'; users of other versions of Windows have a few more hoops to jump through.XP Category ViewClick on 'Appearance and Themes' to open that category.Click on 'Fonts' in the 'See also..' list on the left of the window. This w...

Keyboard shortcut of the week: email name look-up
2008-03-18 16:50:00
When using MS Outlook, Outlook Express and Outlook Web Access on Internet Explorer you can quickly look up names in your contacts and address books with a keyboard shortcut.Let us assume you are looking for a 'Thomas Jones', you can type 'tho jo' in the 'To..' field of a new email and hold down the Alt key and press K. Your email program will then either put the right address into the 'To..' field or it will present you with a list of matches, for example, there may be a 'Thomas Johnson' in your address book too, in which case both will be listed. Highlight the one you want in the list and click 'OK'.As I mentioned, this shortcut works on Outlook Web Access if you access it using Internet Explorer. In order to see the list of matching names you may have to disable pop-ups for that site. To do so click on the yellow bar at the top of the new email page if it appears and set IE to always allow pop-ups from that page.If you open Outlook Web Access using Firefox or another ...
More About: Email , Week , Keyboard , Keyboard shortcut , Shortcut

How to stop Windows asking you to select an operating system
2008-03-11 13:15:00
If you have upgraded Windows or, sometimes, when you have reinstalled it, you will be asked to select which version of Windows you want to run when it boots up on a screen like this:If you only ever use one version of Windows you can switch this off, or you can reduce the countdown time before it continues automatically.To do this right-click on your 'My Computer' icon and select 'Properties' (alternatively, hold down the Windows key and press the Pause/Break key), select the 'Advanced' page, and press the 'Settings' button in the 'Startup and Recovery' section.From here you can switch off that selection screen by unticking 'Time to display the list of operating systems'. You can also adjust the time that the screen will be shown before it automatically continues, and you can change the default version of Windows (or indeed any other operating system you have set up on your PC).
More About: System , Operating System , Stop , Operating

Full screen ads
2008-03-08 23:05:00
I noticed today that my blog seems to be hosting full screen ads. At first I thought it was my PC that was infected, but the ads were only showing on my blog, and I know that I didn't set them up. So either the whole of Blogger, my site, or one of the widgets I use has been hacked. I apologise for any inconvenience caused by these ads and I am trying to remedy this problem as quickly as possible.[Edit] I have removed a number of widgets from the blog, none of which were essential, and as far as I can tell the ads have stopped appearing. If you see any pop-up ads on this page, either full screen transparent ones, or those that open in another window, please leave a comment on this post giving details about the ads and I will continue my investigation.Thank youK
More About: Screen , Full , Full screen

Keyboard shortcut of the week: undo and redo
2008-03-07 13:34:00
Just about every windows application has an 'undo' feature and most have a 'redo' feature. These are a lifesaver on those frequent occasions that we make a mistake in what we are doing, and in the case of 'redo', when we realise that we were right the first time.The undo/redo feature will either be available as toolbar buttons (as shown) or from the 'Edit' menu. Alternatively there are, unsurprisingly, a couple of keyboard shortcuts for them. To undo the last thing you did hold down the Ctrl key and press Z; to redo the last thing you undid, hold down the Ctrl key and press Y.
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How to quickly enter lists of numbers, dates and times in Excel
2008-03-05 15:43:00
Excel spreadsheets often have a column or a row of incremental data. That is, information in the form of a list of numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, etc), times (09:00, 10:00, 11:00, etc), the names of months or the days of the week. You could type all this information into the row or column yourself, or you can let Excel handle it for you.To try this out open Excel and type 1 in any cell, and 2 in the cell below it. For lists of numbers you need to enter a couple of numbers so that Excel knows where to begin and what interval to use.Select both the cells (by hovering the mouse pointer over the top of one, holding down the left button, moving to the other cell and letting go).You will notice that there is a small square in the bottom right hand corner of the selection box. If you hover the mouse pointer over this square the pointer will change to a + symbol. If you hold down the left mouse button and drag downwards Excel will fill in the cells continuing the series of numbers.You can do the same...
More About: Dates , Lists , Numbers , Times , Excel

How to stop error messages closing down a program
2008-03-03 16:37:00
A short-and-sweet tip today. Sometimes, a program will throw up an error message that will close the program when you click the 'OK' button. This inevitably happens when you are doing something important in that program and don't have time to sort the problem out. Sometimes, you can continue using the program even though it is throwing up errors. So all you need to do is move the error message to the edge of the screen by clicking on the title bar and holding the mouse button down while you move it to the edge of the screen. You can then return to the cause of the error later, when you are not quite so pressed for time.
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More spelling and grammar information from Word
2008-02-29 13:30:00
I doubt many people do not make use the spellchecking facility in MS Word . Most people probably run a grammar check too. Nevertheless, few people will use Word's readability statistics report.To switch this report on, open the 'Tools' menu in Word and click on 'Options', select the 'Spelling & Grammar ' tab, tick the 'Show Readability Statistics' box, and click 'OK'.Now, when you click on the 'Spelling and Grammar' button (shown left), Word will go through any errors it finds in the selected text, or the whole text if none is selected, and then it will show you the 'Readability Statistics' report.This report is particularly useful to anyone who wishes to make their writing more legible. The report not only contains general information about the number of words, characters and sentences etc, but also the average number of sentences per paragraph, words per sentence and the like.The bottom section includes three very useful measures. The first gives a percentage of ...
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The 2nd Carnival of Computer Help and Advice
2008-02-27 11:00:00
Firstly, let me thank everyone who submitted an article for inclusion on this carnival. I received forty-eight submissions and I am sorry that I could not include them all.Getting us started this month, Ashutosh Mishra presents an article containing fourteen tips for making Windows run faster in Speed Up Your Computer at PC TON!C. In a similar vein Jose DeJesus MD gives advice for Tuning up Windows on his Physician Entrepreneur blog. Jose also identifies a common problem and a software solution for it in his article, Renaming All those Files Your Camera Makes.While we are on the subject of software, "Here's a very useful free pdf download for you" says Andrew Edgington of Learn Photoshop Now with reference to Getting Started With Photoshop - Volume 1 and Volume 2. Nesher at Freeware Reviews wrote two excellent freeware round-up articles: the first a list of 18 Free Password Managers, the second 17 Free Utilities for PDF Files Reading. For the network analysts out there, Nim at ...
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Windows Folder Options Explained (Part 4)
2008-02-25 17:16:00
Continued from part 3...File TypesThis tab contains a list of all the file types that Windows knows about and which programs are configured to open them if you double-click on their icons.As the image shows, if a .doc document is double-clicked on it will open in MS Word. You can change the program that is associated with a file type by selecting its entry and pressing the 'Change...' button.Occasionally you might want to delete file types from the list, if you do not use files of a certain type any more. Highlight the entry for the file type and press the 'Delete' button. This will reduce the size of the Registry (a file that contains most of the settings for Windows and other applications), but not by enough to have a significant impact on performance. So, the chances are that you will probably want to leave this list alone.There is an option to create a new file type for the list, using the 'New' button, but frankly, you are better off just double clicking on a file of the ...
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Windows Folder Options Explained (Part 3)
2008-02-23 16:41:00
Continued from part 2...View Settings continuedHide protected operating system files (Recommended)This option is selected by default, to protect users from themselves, as is explained in the warning message that appears if you try to switch it off.If you click 'Yes' on this dialog box you will be able to see these special system files. The image below shows various system files that are required by Windows to run, such as 'pagefile' which is the swap file which Windows users to manage memory. As the setting suggests, most users will want to leave this option selected.Launch folder windows in a separate processThis setting, if selected, changes the way that Windows runs different instances of Explorer by running them in separate processes, so if one crashes the others should continue running. You may want to select this but according to user experience it seems to make little difference.Managing pairs of Web pages and foldersThis setting is made available when MS Office XP or 20...
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Windows Folder Options Explained (Part 2)
2008-02-22 13:45:00
Continued from part 1....View SettingsThe 'View' tab has two sections. In the first section, 'Folder Views' you can either set Explorer to show all folders according to the current settings using the 'Apply to All Folders' button; or, by clicking the 'Reset All Folders' button, Explorer can be set to display folders as they were when Windows was first installed - this excludes any changes made to the toolbars.The second section has a number of 'Advanced settings' to change the look and the behaviour of Explorer.Automatically search for network folders and printerIf this setting is selected Explorer will hunt round the local network for any shared folders or printers. The effects of this setting will be negligible for home users or anyone who is not on a large local area network within a company or other organisation.Display the size information in folder tipsIf this setting is ticked, Explorer will show the size of the contents of a folder if you hover the mouse over it. A...
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Windows Folder Options Explained (Part 1)
2008-02-21 18:11:00
In the 'Tools' menu of any Explorer window there is a 'Folder Options ' item. This opens a dialog box that enables us to change the behaviour and the look of Explorer windows. This series of articles explore these various settings. The first part will deal with the 'General' tab.Note: This article refers to Windows Explorer, the in-built file manager program, not to Internet Explorer, the web browser.General SettingsThe 'General' page has three settings, and a 'Restore Defaults' button that you can press to return to Windows' original settings.TasksThe first setting, 'Tasks', can be used to either show or hide the left hand pane in Explorer windows. The default setting - 'Show common tasks in folders' -will make Explorer windows look like this:Selecting 'Use Windows classic folders' will make the windows look like this:Browse foldersThis setting can be used to change the way that Explorer responds to a double-click on a folder. If you have 'Open each folder in the ...
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Freeware round-up
2008-02-19 11:02:00
To celebrate six months of Bloody Computer! I have decided to list all the freeware software mentioned here blog so far (partly to prompt me to update the 'Quality Freeware ' list in the left-hand column - now renamed 'Recommended Freeware') So, without further ado, here is the list...Audacity: audio file editor.AVG anti-virus free edition: anti-virus software.Beneton Movie GIF: An application to create animated GIFs from a series of images, like a flickbook.CamStudio: record what you see on your screen.CCleaner: removes many non-essential files that Windows and other programs leave on your hard-drive.dBpoweramp: convert audio files from one type to another.dscaler: view television on your PC, if you have the appropriate hardware.Foxit Reader: a fully featured PDF reader and a much slimmer alternative to Adobe Acrobat.FreeUndelete: a user-friendly program to recover deleted files.The GIMP: a fully featured image editor developed for linux but available for WindowsIcoFX: an icon c...
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How to defrag your drive efficiently
2008-02-15 14:29:00
If your computer is running slowly you may have been told to defragment your hard drive. This because as large files are saved to the hard-drive they are often broken up into file fragments and stored in the gaps between other file fragments. This increases the time that Windows takes to access your files.To check whether your drive needs to be defragmented go to My Computer, right-click on the drive's icon, and select 'Properties' from the menu. Go to the 'Tools' tab on the dialog box that opens. Click the 'Defrag ment now' button to open the defrag program. Click the 'Analyse' button to get a report. Do not defrag yet, even if the software says that the drive needs defragmenting.In order to get the most out of the defragmentation process it is best to do a little preparation beforehand. Firstly, close all the applications you are running and reboot your PC. When you are logged back in, go to your web browser and clear out the cache of files. Instructions are available on t...
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Keyboard shortcut of the week: Explorer
2008-02-12 16:53:00
A short and sweet post today, after so many lengthy ones.Here is a shortcut that I have mentioned in passing before: to open Windows Explorer (the Windows file browsing software) hold down the Windows key (the one with the Windows logo on it) and press E.Note: this may not work if you have certain applications open, to remedy this hold down the Windows key and press D then E.
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How to reboot Windows using the keyboard
2008-02-03 17:15:00
I was writing a post on how to reinstall the mouse using the keyboard when I realised that rebooting the PC using the keyboard would be a required step in the process. So I decided to dedicate a whole post to that topic. I will give a few examples of how this can be done.Using the Start Menu· Press a Windows key (the ones with the Windows symbol on as shown right), this will open up the Start Menu.· Use the cursor keys (the ones with arrows on) to highlight 'Turn off Computer' and press Enter to select it· A dialog box will open. Use the cursor keys to to highlight 'Shutdown computer', 'Turn off' or whatever your version of Windows says, and press Enter again.Using the 'three finger salute'Hold down Ctrl and Alt, and press Delete.Windows 2000 users will be presented with a dialog box with buttons on:· Use the cursor keys to select the 'Shut Down' button and use Enter to select it.· Select 'Shut down' from the list using the cursor keys and press Enter one more time....
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How to rename multiple files
2008-02-01 16:39:00
Whenever you want to rename multiple files with the same piece of text and an individual number for each file, as in photo1.jpg, photo2.jpg and so on, you usually either have to do this manually or use a batch rename program. Yet, Windows has the facility to do this, albeit in a rough-and-ready way.To rename multiple files, select all the files you wish to rename (in a previous post I looked at various ways of selecting multiple files). Then either right-click on any of the files and select Rename from the context menu (this method is demonstrated in the following video), or press F2. Type in the new name of the file - including the file extension if it is visible (eg. .doc, .jpg, etc) - and press Enter. All the other selected files will be renamed with an individual number in brackets. So, if you type in photo.jpg, the next file will be called photo (1).jpg, the next photo (2).jpg and so on. If you think this is a little messy, you can type in the (1) yourself. For example, if yo...
More About: Files

Keyboard shortcut of the week: don`t bin it, delete it
2008-01-30 15:44:00
Whenever you delete a file it will be sent to the Recycle Bin so that it can be restored if you change you mind (unless the file is too large for the recycle bin).Sometimes, however, you may want to bypass the Recycle Bin and delete a file completely(ish), to do this highlight the files you wish to delete, hold down the Shift key and press Delete . As with a normal deletion you will be asked to confirm the action.These files can still be restored by using appropriate software, as I have explained in a previous post, unless the drive they were deleted from is defragmented - even then it may be possible to restore the files, although this requires sophisticated techniques beyond the reach of most users.
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Jargon busting: software
2008-01-28 15:59:00
In a new regular feature I will try to translate a few technical terms into plain English. In the first post I will look at some terms about software that you may have seen.FreewareSoftware that the authors retain the copyright for, which is free to use for an unlimited period. The term has come to refer to any free software, such as public domain and open source.SharewareSoftware that can be used for free for a limited period, after which the user will have to pay to continue using it.Public DomainAny software that is free to use, which the authors do not retain copyright over.AdwareSoftware - free or otherwise - that displays advertisements to generate income for the authors. This type of software often contains spyware.ProprietaryTechnically, any software for which the creator retains copyright or has a patent etc. Generally it used to refer to any software which can only be used with limitations.Source CodeThe actual code authored in a programming language (such as Visual Basic ...

Carnival of Computer Help and Advice
2008-01-27 17:28:00
I have decided to start a blog carnival to provide a monthly digest of the best blog articles that offer computer help and advice, preferably those that are written in novice-friendly language.This carnival will be published on the 27th of each month.The submission deadline for new articles is the 20th of each month.Like all blog carnivals, this is a community effort. If you wish to host a carnival you can leave a comment on this article or click here, and if you wish to submit an article for inclusion please click here. The carnival's website can be found here.So without further ado, may I present...The First Carnival of Computer Help and Advice To get the ball rolling I have trawled the web for some useful blog articles as examples of what would be suitable for future carnivals.Jim at Simple PC Talk provides some good advice on How to Update to Office 2007. Speaking of installing software, on the IT Guys blog, CodeWizard has posted a fix for those of you getting Error code 2738 Wh...