Announcements

Happy Turkey Day!

Hi, everyone! I just wanted to drop you a quick note to let all of you know that since Thursday is Thanksgiving day here in the US, we won't be publishing MS Office Tips & Tricks again until next week. I sincerely hope you enjoy your holiday.

I'll talk to everyone in December.

December, already?!?

My how time flies!

Ever Need To Fix Your PC?

Yup, we've all been there. You run into a PC problem and wish you had someone to help you fix it. Well, we can't give you your own personal PC tech, but we do have some software that's almost as good!

We have a program called Fix PC Problems and it makes taking care of PC snags easier than ever!

This program has 101 different problems - and their solutions. Just run the CD, double-click the technique or tip you need, and you'll get a multi-media answer! That's right, this program includes audio / video presentations to show you have to do each technique. It's like having a teacher right there next to you.

What will it help you fix and maintain? Tons of stuff (click here for a larger list) - Hard drive installation, keyboard problems, fixing a floppy drive, stopping junk mail, clearing your IE history, using scan disk, using defrag, error messages, uninstalling, creating a start up disk, making boot up faster, saving electricity, shutting down fast, open programs automatically, setting IRQ's, installing drivers, zipping / unzipping, adjusting taskbar, and tons more!

OK, I know what you're thinking. If this program is on CD, then what good does it do you if you need to have your computer powered off in order to do a repair or upgrade? Ahh, they cover that by giving you a book with a printed step by step procedure for each and every topic on the CD! So, you can watch it first, and should you need to power down your computer, just cross reference the tip in the book. Cool huh?

Overall, this program makes taking care of PC problems much easier. Having step by step examples explained to you is just awesome. Everything is completely explained and the procedures are very easy to follow.

The retail price on this is $39.95, but you get it for only $16.97 and US shipping is FREE! Note that the examples in this program cover win 95, 98, and ME - however, much of it still applies to XP. Here's the link for more info:

http://www.worldstart.com/store/fix-pc-problems.htm

Think about it, if it saves you just one trip to the repair shop, it's more than paid for itself. Besides, this is a fantastic way to learn the ins and outs of your PC. Don't hate yourself for missing out, get to the link above now!

MS Office 101

The Mouse-less Right Click

There are many people who are new to the right click menus that my tips are always referring to.

These right clicks are great for everyone who's comfortable with the mouse. And many people aren't even remotely interested in trying to remember all the key combinations necessary to replace all the stuff the complete with the mouse.

But… what about the rest of you? The ones who love to use the keyboard as much as possible, but still want to complete the same tasks the tips are covering.

Is there a mouse-less solution for you?

Yep - just as the title suggested - there is.

Take a look at your keyboard, to the right of the space bar, just past the Alt key…

See it?

Press this menu key and you've replaced the right-click.

From there you can use the arrow keys to navigate through the pop-up menu and the Enter key to select your choice.

Just in case: If you've hit this key accidentally or just plain need to get out of the pop-up menu, hit the Esc key.

(Here's a quick note - when I checked my laptop keyboard I found the key in the top section of the keyboard - you may have to do some searching to find it.)

Viola! Mouse-less right clicks :-)

Office Tip of the Day

Three Key Range Highlighting in MS Excel

Have you ever found yourself playing the highlighting game in MS Excel? You know, where you're trying to highlight with the mouse and find the file flying by creating incredibly huge highlighted areas?

Many of you may know lots of keyboard tricks for highlighting using the Shift key combined with the arrows, Page Up, Page Down, Home and End.

These are great tricks but let's add one more to your MS Excel key combination list.

Have you ever tried Ctrl + Shift + 8 (actually you're using the asterisk * which is the shift of the 8)?

It's an awesome little trick.

What it does is to highlight the entire range of cells that you are currently in. (Range being the group of cells around the one you currently have selected, stopping wherever there is an unused cell.)

This can be a great time saver - think about it - you can instantly highlight entire columns of continuous data, including the column title, with just one key combination.

I should add here that it does highlight several columns of data that are together.

So - the next logical question is how do I use this when I only want one column?

I did some playing around and found that I could alter the highlighted range easily by holding down the Shift key and then using the other keys we're already familiar with (arrows, Page Up, Page Down, Home, End, etc…).

Be creative! Combine the techniques to get where you need to be.

~ April