Computer and Web Articles

It can be quite annoying when Microsoft Word butts into your business and assumes you’d like to create a numbered list in your document … when in fact you have no such desire. In fact, Word assumes that you’re creating a numbered list every single time you place a number in front of a new line.

Let’s take a moment right now and tell Word to stop making these annoying assumptions. Just follow these steps:

1. Go to Tools > AutoCorrect Options.
2. Click on the AutoFormat as You Type tab.
3. Uncheck the box that reads Automatic Numbered Lists.
4. Click Ok.

In the future, you can tell Word when you’d like it to make a numbered list for you by clicking the numbering icon in your toolbar (the icon with “1 2 3″ listed vertically, on the left of three horizontal lines).

By default, clicking on any of Microsoft Word’s menu items at the top left of your screen won’t reveal the associated pull-down menus in full.  Instead, you’re shown abbreviated menus. And of course, the feature you’re looking for usually isn’t visible, meaning you’re forced to then click again at the bottom of the pull-down menu (or sit there and wait several seconds) just to see the full, complete menu.  How annoying!

So, let’s tell Word that we want the full pull-down menus to immediately appear when we click the menu items, shall we?

First, click Tools at the top of your screen, then click Customize. Now click the Options tab. Last, make sure that the “Always show full menus” checkbox has a check in it and click Close.  All done!

If you’ve used a PC for any length of time, chances are you’ve seen one of Windows many oh-so-fun error messages that read something like “SYSTEM ERROR. CODE: 32”. And chances are that you had absolutely no idea what caused the system error, let alone what the meaning behind the code number displayed in the alert box was all about.

“Error Messages for Windows” is a free little program you may download and install onto your PC that does nothing other than provide you with specific information about Microsoft Windows System Error messages. This tool is especially useful for people who do not have continuous internet access (and therefore can’t simply hop online and conduct a quick Google search when an error pops up).

Pistaschio is a free, teeny-tiny, overachieving little program for PCs that provides little bits of additional functionality to help with everyday computer tasks.

Pistaschio does quite a lot. Some of the tasks it will gladly handle for you include snapping a window to other windows when moving/resizing, disabling the Insert key, locking the mouse or keyboard while you clean them, minimizing a window to the system tray, allowing you to control sound volume using your mouse wheel, and restricting a window’s position to inside of your screen.

Might Pistaschio be a useful program for you to download? Learn more about the various bits of functionality it can provide and decide for yourself: http://pitaschio.ara3.net/index.htm.

I’ve long known about the option to change the case of text in a Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, etc.) file via the menu option drop downs at the top of the screen or via a toolbar button, but it wasn’t until fairly recently that I learned how you could toggle the case of text straight from your keyboard.

Toggle between all uppercase, all lowercase, and title case capitalization by highlighting the text you’re looking to update, holding down the Shift key on your keyboard, and then tapping F3. I’ve found this to be quite a useful, time-saving trick to have in my Microsoft Office arsenal.

Question: Hi Erin. In a recent article you mentioned the VLC DVD player… I just had a quick question for you about that. Does it rip a DVD if the DVD is protected? I just tried to rip one with Roxio and the message came up that it was protected. – Barb W.

Answer: In cases such as these, you’ll actually need to remove the protection from the DVD before you’ll be able to successfully rip it; luckily it’s not a difficult thing to do. In fact, just Googling “remove DVD protection” will provide you with a plethora of options.

Some DVD protection-removal programs are free, others are not; I recommend comparing some of the various programs out there to determine which would best take care of your needs.

Specifically, a few popular programs that could assist you are:

1. http://www.slysoft.com/en/download.html
2. http://www.qweas.com/download/video_dvd/dvd_backup/clone_dvd.htm
3. http://www.dvdfab.com/dvd-fab-platinum.htm

One day a fellow by the name of Michael Scrivo got fed up with having to go through a series of windows to access his Outlook Calendar. Being that people use their calendars to organize their daily lives, he didn’t appreciate the unnecessary number of clicks it took just to access the Outlook calendar.

To address this nuisance, Michael developed a program called “Outlook on the Desktop,” which he now allows people to download and use for free. The program places Microsoft Outlook’s calendaring system right smack dab onto your monitor’s desktop. Your calendar is pinned there (so that no windows can show up behind it) and it stays there “all the time in plain sight so you can always see what’s upcoming.”

The Outlook calendar keeps all its functionality — such as direct editing, drag and drop file capabilities, and switching between calendar, inbox, contacts, and tasks views — and suddenly the task of staying organized takes far less effort.

Michael’s program runs on Windows XP and Vista with Microsoft Outlook 2000 SP3 or higher. Learn more at www.outlookonthedesktop.com.

Perhaps you’ve run into a situation like this: You’re type, type, typing away in Microsoft Word. Your letter/essay/review/article/report is coming along splendidly.

You finish up your brilliant conclusion, punch in the final period, and sit back in your chair.

And then you realize that your last few lines spilled over onto a new page — and my goodness does it ever look sloppy. Your document is just so perfect that you can’t remove any of the words — you spent far too much time carefully crafting them into grammatically gorgeous sentences. What to do?

Don’t waste time playing around with font-sizing or page margins. Let’s handle this in the easiest manner possible. Let’s shrink-to-fit, shall we? Click on File, then Print Preview. A new window will open — and you’re looking for the Shrink to Fit button.

Click the button and Word will instantly work a little bit of magic to reduce your document’s total number of pages by one. Pretty sweet, eh?

Hi there Photoshop users. Today I’m going to share the secret to getting out of a common predicament.

Let’s say you’re working on a file and you hit the Tab key to hide your palettes. You then hit the T key to enter text mode, you draw your text box, and you start typing away.

Then you finish typing. Uh oh. How are you supposed to get out of text editing mode?? If you hit Tab, your palettes won’t reappear because Photoshop assumes you’re trying to add a Tab space within your text box. Hitting the Esc key doesn’t do anything. Hitting the Enter key of course won’t do anything as your cursor will just bump down to the next line inside your text box. And you can’t hit the V key to turn your cursor into your black arrow because . .. . you’ll just end up typing the letter v inside your text box. Looks like you’re stuck, eh?

So what can you do? Something that took me far, far longer to figure out than I’d like to admit. You simply hold down the Ctrl key and then hit Enter. That’s it. You’re out of text editing mode and free to do whatever you’d like once again.