~*~ If you have a word processor that can handle hyperlinks (like MS Word or Corel WordPerfect), then you can create a sort of "Favorite Web Sites" document that's much more descriptive than the bookmarks / favorites menus of most browsers. Here's how: 1. Create a new document if needed. 2. Now, copy a hyperlink into it. 3. Above the hyperlink, add a description. 4. Save the file to your Desktop. Name it something like "Favorites" That's it. When you need to get to a favorite site, double-click the favorites document and click on the appropriate link. Need to add a link? Just copy and paste it into the document. What's nice about saving your favorites this way is the ability to provide good descriptions with the links. Plus, you can use the word processor's Find feature to locate specific keywords if your list gets too long. ~*~ Why not add a little spice to your screen life this week and give your pointers a new look? I) Start > Settings > Control Panel II) Double-click the Mouse icon, then choose the Pointers tab. III) Click the Scheme dropdown box, and choose from available schemes such as Large and Animated Pointers. A preview of each pointer in a given scheme will be displayed in the bottom section. If you're really into customization, you can select individual pointers, tap the Browse button, and pick from all available cursor shapes. ~*~ Yahoo Mail can block all mail from up to 100 email addresses. All mail from these senders will be automatically deleted before you see it. To add an email address to the list of blocked senders, follow the Options link on the left and then select Block Addresses, which you can find under Mail Management. On the page that comes up, enter the email address you want to be blocked under Add Address and select Block Address. Yahoo Mail asks you whether you really want to add this address to the list of blocked senders. Select Yes to stop receiving mail from that address. ~*~ On mailing lists, individual messages often spark lively discussions. As these discussions get longer and longer, their topic can change substantially. Often, it has nothing to do any more with the subject of the original message. This is why you should change the Subject: header line of a message thread on a mailing list when it becomes apparent that the topic of the thread changes. To make it clear what has happened (that you are continuing an old thread and not starting a new one), you can include the previous Subject line with the new one. If the original Subject was "New cloud form discovered!" and you want to change it to "The finest English umbrella" the complete new Subject line could look like "The finest English umbrella (was: New cloud form discovered!)". You can abbreviate the original Subject, of course. ~*~ Q: AOL plays the "You've got mail!" thing every time new mail arrives. Is there a way to do something similar with Outlook Express? A: Yes! Go to the Start button, Settings, Control Panel. Open the Sounds icon. Find the "New Mail Notification" item. Click the "Browse" button and locate a sound file you would like to use instead. Hit OK and you're all set. If you aren't happy with the Windows sounds that are available, head to your favorite search engine and look for "wave" or "WAV" files. You can use any wave file you locate in your Windows sound scheme. What do you do when you locate wave files on the web? Most of the time, you can click a link to the file to hear the sound. If you like it, right-click the link and select "Save target as" from the resulting menu. Save the file to a location you'll remember then head back to the "Sounds" screen (under the control panel), select the sound item you want the new sound for, then browse to the file you just downloaded. ~*~ This tip applies to Windows 98 and Windows Me. You can run the start menus with your keyboard. The most important keyboard combination is Ctrl+Esc (press Ctrl and then press Esc), which displays the main Start menu. The Windows key on the Windows keyboard also displays the Start menu. You can use the arrow keys to move you through the Start menus. The up and down arrow keys move you within a menu. When you get to the bottom of a menu, pressing the down arrow again takes you to the top. (By the same token, pressing the up arrow when you're at the top of a menu takes you to the bottom.) The right and left arrow keys move you forward and back between the cascading menus. When you reach a menu item that you want to run, press Enter. ~*~ This tip applies to Windows 98 and Windows Me. You can change the name of a shortcut. If a shortcut icon is already highlighted, press the F2 key to invoke the Rename function. If it isn't highlighted, right-click the icon and then click Rename on the context menu. When you see a black box around the name, type the new name and then press Enter. ~*~ Q: How do I save pictures off of web pages? A: To save a picture from a web page to your computer, just right-click the image and select Save Picture As... from the little menu that pops up. You'll get a nifty little Save As dialog box that lets you select the location on your hard drive where you want the images stored. If you're not sure where to put it, you can always click the "new folder" button on the Save As box and create a folder called "Pictures" on your C: drive (or better yet, in your "My Documents" folder). If you really like the picture, you can even set it as your wallpaper from that same menu. Just make sure the image is big enough. If it's too small, it won't work out real well. Finally, remember that many of the pictures you see are copyrighted, so do not save them and post them on your web site or other public places. Use them just for your computer. ~*~ Here's a quick little trick you'll like. If you need to get the properties for something (like an icon, for instance), just hold down your ALT key and double-click it. Instant properties! Try it with "My Computer" or one of your regular desktop icons. And yes, I know that you can also right-click an item and select Properties from the resulting menu. ~*~ Magnify your view If you don't happen to be one of the lucky ones who own a nice 17" monitor, seeing what's on your desktop can be a challenge. However, it doesn't have to be if you take advantage of Windows 98's new Magnifier accessibility tool. The Magnifier displays a magnified view at the top of your screen of the area where your mouse pointer or insertion point is located. To use the Magnifier, select Start|Programs|Accessories|Accessibility|Magnifier. If the Accessibility menu doesn't appear on your Start menu, you need to install the Accessibility Tools through Add/Remove programs. ~*~ Free Up Memory If Windows says that it doesn't have enough memory to do something and you're sure that your computer DOES have enough memory, check your Clipboard (clipboard viewer). If you copied a big picture to the Clipboard, press Delete (edit->delete) to delete it or copy a single character to the clipboard; that picture or large amount of text may rob Windows of the memory that it needs to do something else. ~*~ More KB Shortcuts Explorer, Shift-click a link to open it into a new, separate window of its own. To type a Web address without using the mouse, in IE; click, Alt+D Don't bother typing out the "http://www" and ".com," . Just type "CNN" (or whatever) into the address bar, and then click Ctrl+Enter. ~*~ If Windows says that it doesn't have enough memory to do something and you're sure that your computer DOES have enough memory, check your Clipboard (clipboard viewer). If you copied a big picture to the Clipboard, press Delete (edit->delete) to delete it or copy a single character to the clipboard; that picture or large amount of text may rob Windows of the memory that it needs to do something else. ~*~ Adding Your Own Screen Saver If you've ever wanted to nab one of those neat screen savers off the Web, but were not sure how to actually implement it, this tip is for you. It's really easy! Download the screen saver to your Hard Drive or a disk. (If you already have it on disk, then that's fine, too.) Save the file in the C:\Windows\System directory. If your Windows system is not on drive C, then substitute the proper drive letter. After saving the file, right-click on the desktop and select the Screen Saver tab. Scroll down through the list of screen saver names and the one you saved should be there. Click on the name and apply any settings (if applicable) and do a preview to see what it will look like. Then click Apply and you are done! There are two things to note: Make sure the Screen Saver you download is for your operating system (for example, Windows NT, 98, 95, Me) and always do a virus scan on any downloaded file. ~*~ With IE4/5 installed, we can customize the look of every folder on our system. It's super simple to set a background image in an Explorer window. Right-click on a blank space in an open folder. Now, select 'Customize this Folder' from the menu. We're looking to 'Choose a background picture' here (before pressing the 'Next' button and browsing for an appropriate image). Is this feature functional? It can be. You can use solid color graphics to help define folders. Red for 'sensitive' folders, Black for 'data' folders, yellow for 'media' folders, etc.. ~*~ Cleaning Up The Microsoft Internet Explorer Toolbar You may well not need all the icons in the Microsoft Internet Explorer toolbar. Why not remove the ones you never use? To do this, run Microsoft Internet Explorer and choose View|Toolbars|Customize. When the Customize Toolbar dialog box opens, click any object in the right pane that you don't need and then click Remove. On the other hand, if you'd like to add some buttons to the toolbar, you can click on the desired button in the left pane of the dialog box and then click Add. When finished, click Close. ~*~ This tip applies to Windows 98 and Windows Me. Many menu items have an underline under one of the characters. For example, the F in the File menu item is usually underlined. If you press the Alt key to activate the menu bar, you then press the underlined character to activate the associated menu or menu selection. ~*~ Moving Backward And Forward In Microsoft Internet Explorer If you use Microsoft Internet Explorer, you know that you can click the back or forward arrows at the top of the window to move to other pages. But, this is not the only way to move backward or forward. You can press Backspace to move backward and Shift + Backspace to move forward. You'll also find that Alt + left arrow will work to move backward and you can press Alt + right arrow to move forward. ~*~ "If you are typing a lengthy e-mail message, namely something that's really important, I strongly suggest pressing CTRL+S at regular intervals. This action should save a (temporary) copy of your work in the 'Drafts' folder in Outlook or Outlook Express." This tip may also work in other e-mail programs (Eudora, Pegasus, Netscape, et al)... refer to your e-mail program's documentation to see if copies are automatically saved for messages which take a while to compose. This way, if something happens to your PC while you're in the middle of a message, all will not be lost. ~*~ BACKUP GUIDELINES TO LIVE BY You've probably heard it many times before: Back up your hard drive! It's essential. Considering the increasing sizes of hard drives, it may be even more important than you think. If you download lots of software from the Internet, chances are you don't have a backup. If your hard drive crashes, you'll have to take the time to download again. Here are some guidelines for establishing a good backup system: * Develop a backup plan. At a minimum, plan to back up daily, using removable media. Rotate backup sets offsite weekly. * Automate your backups. Get a backup device that holds about twice as much as your hard disk, so you can schedule backups for times when you're not there. * Back up every hard disk. Every hard disk contains critical data, so don't just back up servers. And make sure you include portable computers. * Back up more than just documents. Don't limit backups to just certain files. You may end up needing one that wasn't backed up. Good backup software backs up only those files that are new or modified. * Make several copies. Make at least three different sets of your data. Even an old copy is better than no copy at all. * Keep a backup set offsite. You never know when a fire, flood, theft or earthquake makes your offsite copy your only copy. One idea: Create a backup set weekly and send the previous week's backup to a secure offsite location. * Verify your backup. You need confidence in your backups. Make sure your backup software has full read-back verification. And try restoring a few files yourself, just in case. * Implement a network backup strategy. If you're on a network, network backup software lets you share a storage device and ensures that every system is backed up. * Don't procrastinate. Far too many new customers of backup software are people who recently lost data. Develop your backup plan before a crash!