The 17th Carnival of Computer Help and Advice

Welcome to the seventeenth monthly Carnival of Computer Help and Advice. Another collection of blog articles to help you avoid problems and get the most out of your PC.

He start this month with some relief for Vista users. Krissb explains how to get rid of the annoying dialog box that opens everytime you want to perform some sort of administrative task. See the Get rid of the UAC! article at SEEPEYU.

Jules of PCauthorities.com says, "If you are using Microsoft Outlook for your email, then there is a simple add-on from Microsoft that can help you make regular backups." To find out more go to Backup Outlook PST Files.

We often include articles about Firefox hacks in this carnival. This month's supply comes from kemei, who presents 8 ways to hack Firefox to load faster posted at infomaniac.

On ths subject of Internet apps, Ivan at PC Hacks has written an excellent article that answers the question, What Is A Proxy Server And How To Use It?

"For those of you, who have to work for long hours on the computer, your eyes are put to undue strain. Here are a few tips on how to relax them." So says Aparna of Beauty and Personal Grooming. Do yourself a favour and see that article: Eye care for computer users.

For those of you who have made the switch to linux or are considering making the move, Yonit Gruber-hazani lists 13 books and magazines for linux sysadmins at yonitg.com.

We round up this month with a post from regular carnival contributor, Andrew Edgington, who presents Adobe Photoshop Elements Tools - How to use the Smart Brush on his Master Adobe Elements blog.

If you have a blog with posts about computer issues and would like to host the next carnival then please leave a comment on this post or use the contact form over at our Blog Carnival page, where you can also submit your blog posts for inclusion in a future carnival.

If you would like to host a future carnival but don't wish to have the responsibility for selecting articles or writing the carnival post, don't worry I can do that for you.

More next month.

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Putting new buttons on toolbars in MS Office (before the 2007 version)

A while ago I published an article that suggested that rather than printing directly from web browsers, such as Internet Explorer, it is better to copy the information that you want into a word processor and print it from there. In that article I mentioned the use of the 'Paste Special' in Word, which enables you to remove formatting from the information that you paste. In this article I will explain how to put a button for 'Paste Special' onto the toolbar in Microsoft Word 2003 and other earlier versions. This technique can also be used to add any of the other available buttons onto any toolbar.

Open up Word and right-click on one of the toolbars, which are at the top of the screen below the menu and look something like this:


From the menu, select 'Customize...', which will open a dialog box. Click on the 'Commands' tab.


Select 'Edit' from the left-hand menu, because the 'Paste Special' tool is listed in the 'Edit' menu. Scroll down through the list on the right-hand until you see 'Paste Special' then left-click on it and hold the mouse button down. The mouse pointer should change to an arrow pointing at a rectangle with a square to the bottom right, which will have an X in it initially.

Move the pointer up to the toolbars and release the mouse button when it is in a suitable position: next to the normal paste button for example. You will notice that the mouse pointer changed appearance again when you hovered over the toolbar, with the X being replaced with a + to let you know that the new button can be placed there.

Your toolbar should now look something like this:

If you wish to remove a button from the toolbar, follow the instructions above for opening the 'Customize' dialog, but rather than drag from the dialog box to the toolbar, click on the button you wish to remove from the toolbar and drag it into the dialog box.

This process also works in the other Microsoft Office applications such as Excel and PowerPoint. With Office 2007, Microsoft have replaced the old tried-and-tested menu and toolbar arrangement with something called 'ribbons' (as pictured below) and there is no way to customise these in the same way as detailed above.

This is an edited version of a post that first appeared on Bloody Computer! on 19th November 2007.

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How to password protect any file in Windows XP

Certain applications, such as Microsoft Word, enable you to password protect your files. Nevertheless, the zip functionality that is built into Windows XP enables the user to password protect any file by compressing it using a password. If you have an alternate compression application, such as WinRar installed then you can also use that to password protect files on any version of Windows.

To do so, right-click on the file you wish to password protect and select 'Send to...' From the sub-menu that pops up select 'Compressed (zipped) folder'


This will create a zip file with the same name as the original file.

Right-click on this zip file and select 'Explore'. This will open the file in a new window. From the 'File' menu select 'Add a password'.

Type the password in twice and click OK

Delete the original file, and for extra safety, empty your 'Recycle Bin'.

You may see the following message if you have another compression application installed. If so, just click 'Yes', and carry on as above.

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The 16th Carnival of Computer Help and Advice

Welcome to the sixteenth monthly Carnival of Computer Help and Advice. Another collection of blog articles to help you avoid problems and get the most out of your PCs.

I would like to thank everyone who contributed yet another bumper haul of excellent posts. As ever, limitations of space mean that not all submissions can be included.

We get the ball rolling this month with Kristofer Brozio's review post 16gb USB Drive Comparison - 17 Drives Compared from Testfreaks | The Blog. While we are on the subject of hardware, Jules of PCauthorities.com tells us how to How to Boost Your Laptop Audio.

In recent years the Linux has emerged as a viable alternative to Windows. The next two posts extoll the virtues of the two major distributions of this free operating system: Paul Dickinson presents Dumping Windows for Ubuntu posted at Live Without Work; and gadgetphix author Mike Pettinato shares his post Tired of Windows but Can't Afford a Mac? Try Fedora Linux 10.

Next up we have a selection of posts about web browsers: Nesher of Collection of Web Freebies shares his 22 Useful Google Chrome Shortcuts; Rohit explains Blocking Advertisements In Internet Explorer 8 at Advanced Technology Hacks; WindowsFixUp's Admin suggests ways of Speeding Up Internet Explorer 8; and, zangozzz from blogging tips tells us How To Speed up Firefox | Tweak internet browser speeds.

Staying with the Internet theme, the next few posts deal with various email issues: Margaret Garcia presents 100 Best Web Tools and Tips to Organize Your Inbox posted at Radiology Technician Schools; PCStuffBlog.com lists 13 tips for hiding e-mail addresses from the spammers; and, Don Salva tells us how to Stop Spam, use temporary and disposable mail inboxes!

The final few featured posts this month are a pick'n'mix. Regular contributor, Andrew Edgington explains How Adobe Photoshop Restores Old and Worn Out Photographs at Learn Photoshop Now. For those that like to customise Windows, ramaraobobby of Bloggersbase shows a Desktop.ini trick to apply image to a drive icon area. Last but not least, WrapT NoTES author JuzaNobo helps us recognise Signs of Computer Virus Infection.

If you are interested in hosting a future carnival please leave a comment on this post or use the contact form over at our Blog Carnival page where you can also submit your blog posts for inclusion. Don't worry, if you don't want to write the Carnival post I can do it for you.

More next month.

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Print the web and save the world (again)

Web browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox are notoriously bad at printing. You can end up with many disparate pages with sidebars and parts of images on, you have no idea how many pages are going to come out, and you use more paper than you need; which, can't be good for the environment - let alone your finances.

This is not the fault of the browser programmers, but rather, it is 'the nature of the beast'. One of the advantages of web pages is that they are not subject to the limitations of the printed page. Many web programmers are kind enough to supply a printable version of their pages. If there is no link to a 'printer friendly version,' then the best thing to do is to copy what you want and paste it into a word processor, which will then bypass all the problems mentioned above.

You can select the information you want by clicking and dragging with the mouse, although, this can be an irritating process, as your selection often randomly includes images that you don't want. When pasting into your word processor, you can make your life easier by using 'Paste special', which you should find in the 'Edit' menu. This will give you a selection of text formats.

If you just want the plain text from the web page and not the images, then select 'Unformatted text.'

If you wish to print both images and the formatted text, that is, keeping the same font used on the web page as well as any text formatting such as bold or italic, then select 'Rich text format'. Unfortunately this option is not available for text copied from the Firefox or Opera browsers, the latter of which does not support 'HTML format' either.

Avoid 'HTML format' as this will attempt to reconstruct the web page as a word processed document, often recreating the problems that you were initally trying to avoid. This option often takes a while to complete too.

You are then free to edit the text to your heart's content. You can change font sizes and remove 'white space' to save paper. You also have the option of adding your own notes to the text. So, reduce your printer output and save the world today.

This article is an edited and updated version of one originally published on Bloody Computer! on 1st October 2007.

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Weekend Website: PortableApps.com

I have not run this feature in ages, but I decided to bring it out of retirement to feature an excellent site: PortableApps.com. With the increasing popularity of USB flash drives and memory cards many software producers are creating versions of their software tailored to run from these devices. This means that you can carry your favourite applications round with you on your portable drives and use them on whatever Windows computer you like.

PortableApps.com not only provide links to download free portable software but also have packaged the most popular software, which can be executed using their own menu. Applications available on the site include GIMP, Firefox, OpenOffice.org, and even a portable version of the antivirus software ClamWin. The site also offers support for all the available applications and has forums where you can join in discussions about portable computing.

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The 15th Carnival of Computer Help and Advice

Welcome to the fifteenth monthly Carnival of Computer Help and Advice - a digest of recent blog articles providing top tips for PC users. Because so many blog authors submitted high quality posts for inclusion this month, this carnival is a little longer than usual. Nevertheless, there is not enough space to include every submission, so apologies to those bloggers whose articles do not appear.

We start with two posts that stress the importance of security of personal data whether it is stored on your hard-drive or, in the first case, being broadcast wirelessly. The author of Fine-Tuned Finances shares good advice about How to Safely Access Online Banking Sites from Public Wi-Fi Hot Spots. Barbara Brabec of Handmade for Profit - Cashing in on Your Creativity! says "If you've never had a total computer system crash, count yourself lucky, because it's not IF your computer is going to crash, but WHEN. How well you prepare for this inevitability will determine how painful and costly the crash experience will be." Thankfully, she helps us plan for this event in How to Prepare for a Computer Crash.

Viruses also pose a significant threat to the integrity of our computers. Thoughtfully Vikram author, VikramKir, presents Where can I Find Free Antivirus Software to Download? Review Free Anti-Virus Software Applications. Vikram also offers advice on Ways to speed up computer. Increase Performance of Windows Machine.

"Registry cleaner key clean up is the process that fixes most of the problems in the your Windows registry. What are the registry keys? Registry keys are the ones most often left behind when a program is installed. Those stray keys are some of information that the computer no longer needs, and finally they become clutter. Registry cleaner key clean up programs attempt to clear those out and make your computer running faster." So says the author of myprofit's Blog on Flixya.com. Their article Registry Cleaner Key Removal not only highlights the importance of cleaning the Windows Registry but also provides a good explanation of exactly what it is.

We have a few more Windows tips now, the first of which should be filed under 'Not for the faint-hearted': Lando presents Delete the Recycle Bin posted at Lando411 - Technology Articles, Tech Tips, Computer Tips, and more. For Vista users, The Egotistical Admin, Jason Beebe, shares his Tech Tip #1: Apply Folder Views to All Folders. For the computer novice, Kathryn explains How to Delete Browser Cookies from Internet Explorer on KathrynVercillo on eHow.

More freeware now, starting with two articles from Marco DSouza's Technology at work and play blog: Hard disk defragmentation: The easy, free way, and his review of a free backup application in Snappy, effective backups. AshPresent of ashPresentom gives us a chance to pimp our Windows desktop by telling us How to get Apple OS X Leopard Stack dock for Windows, and other docks

Finally this month, the author of gadget-cafe, switch2life, presents sensible advice for those who are Selecting a Laptop to buy.

If you are interested in hosting a future carnival please leave a comment on this post or use the contact form over at our Blog Carnival page where you can also submit your blog posts for inclusion. Don't worry, if you don't want to write the Carnival post I can do it for you.

See you all in April. Keep up the good work.

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