Today’s ‘Must Read’

Folks, not only does everyone need to read this article, but pass it along to their friends and family.

* How your connected home or office is a gift for hackers, criminals, and cyber spies

“The Internet of Things needs to learn how to secure devices — and fast.” Read more..

[ Note: I also highly recommend clicking on some of the embedded articles.. Like, the Snowden one.. ]

Related articles: (In my way of thinking..)

* Britain has passed the ‘most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy’

“The law forces UK internet providers to store browsing histories — including domains visited — for one year. Not only that, the law also gives the intelligence agencies the power to hack into computers and devices of citizens.” Read more..

* Distracted minds: 3 tips to disconnect from tech and increase productivity

“Adam Gazzaley, neurologist and author of The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World, explains how multitasking damages focus, and offers advice for workplace productivity.” Read more..

.. But the truth is, no one’s going to read those. And no one’s going to change their thinking or behavior. I’m wasting my time.

* * *

Today’s quote: “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” ~ Aesop

Copyright 2007-2015 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Find important emails faster

Working with a client the other day reminded of this simple tip for “organizing” your email, and helping make those important ones easy and quick to go back to again.

Ready?

Change the Subject line.

Yes, that’s right. When viewing your emails in Outlook, or the other email clients (Windows Live Mail, Thunderbird, etc.), simply (use the cursor to) “highlight” (turn blue) the unhelpful text the author put there, and type something helpful in its place — something that more relates to what you want to respond to, or something (aka “keywords”) to help the Search feature return the particular email you’re trying to find again.

For example, you might get an email on a Tuesday regarding a mandatory meeting scheduled for Friday, and the author had put, oh, say, “Tuesday’s reminders” as the Subject. What’s that got to do with Friday’s meeting?

Simply changing “Tuesday’s reminders” to “Friday’s meeting” might make it a bit easier to remember/see, and go back to quickly when you need to remind yourself of the meeting’s time.
Better, why not change the Subject to “Friday’s 10 am meeting“?

This is a real good habit to get into, IMHO.

Today’s quote: “That the birds of worry and care fly over you head, this you cannot change, but that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent.” ~ Chinese Proverb

Um….
Yeah.
Okay…

Today’s fun video (because it’s summer):

Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

A Word About Word #2 (Some Useful Tricks)

Folks, I have been using Microsoft’s document maker (aka “text editor”, or “word processor”) –  Word – basically since it first came out, back in the Paleozoic Age of computing (circa 1984, or so) so I was pleasantly surprised when I reviewed a Word Tips article where I actually learned something new.

Here it is (you might not know all these either..) Five tips that will increase your Word productivity

“Most of us don’t have time to discover all the ins and outs of the software we use on a daily basis. We learn on the fly, we occasionally pick up a tip or shortcut, and we grudgingly plow through the Help system when we absolutely have to.” Read more..

Also, down at the bottom, there’s: Additional resources

• 10+ lesser-known shortcuts for formatting Word text
• 10+ keyboard shortcuts for entering special characters in a Word document
• 10 things I can never find in Word 2007 (aka “That *dang* Ribbon!)
• The 10 most useful Word shortcuts
• 10 obscure Word tricks that can expedite common chores

And, yes. People still use Office (Word/Excel/Access/PowerPoint/Outlook) and yes, they “own the disc”. (Frankly, I think you always want to have the disc..)

Audience participation: Is anyone out there actually using Toucan for backup/sync? Or.. tried to? I’d appreciate some ‘feedback’, if you’d be so kind.

Today’s quote: “A man’s health can be judged by which he takes two at a time – pills or stairs.” ~ Joan Welsh

Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Work With Two Documents, Side-by-Side

Windows 7′s Snap feature lets you arrange your open windows side-by-side simply by dragging them to the edge of your screen. This greatly enhances the ease of working with multiple documents, and “increases your productivity”.

Today’s Tip shows the shortcut method for those who are using XP or Vista. This window arranging (or “stacking”) is called “tiling”.

First, hold down the Ctrl key. Then click on the tabs in your Taskbar for the windows you want to arrange and work with. (In this screenshot, I have ‘select’-ed Firefox and Word.)

Now right-click on a blank area of the Taskbar, and a context menu window will open.

XP: choose “Tile Vertically“.
Vista: choose “Show Windows Side by Side“.

That’s it. When you are done, and want to return to normal, right-click a blank part of the Taskbar and choose Undo. (Or, drag and resize manually with your cursor.)

*     *     *

Bonus Quick Tip: Press the Windows logo key and the “D” key, together, to quickly show your Desktop.

*     *     *

Today’s quote: “Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” ~ Mark Twain

Copyright 2007-2012 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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Corel’s WordPerfect (Updated)*

I have mentioned to my readers before that I have been using Windows computers since the days when we looked forward to the release of Windows 95 (think “Jurassic period”).

I was reminiscing with a fellow tech enthusiast, who has been using computers since the very beginning of the PC, and who survived the early days of DOS (think “Triassic  period”), and the name WordPerfect came up.

Wow. I haven’t heard that name in… a really long time.

Folks, I know this may be hard to believe, but there was a time before Microsoft Word and MS Office. Back then you composed your documents with WordStar, or more likely, the (then) premier app — WordPerfect.

WordPerfect could do it all. If you had WP, you could actually do fantastic things like use italics and bold and (this was super neat) you could see a preview of what your document would actually print out like.
Before WordPerfect, you kind of had to guesstimate, as your (monochrome) screen used a generic font. (At least, that’s how I remember it…)

But eventually, Microsoft bundled its upstart new word processor – called simply “Word” – with Windows, and so new machines came with Word already — spelling doom for WordPerfect. Us techy-types then spent lots of time training people on Word and converting old WordPerfect documents into the Word format.
Sigh. Those were the ‘good old days’…

Anyway.. after our conversation, I decided to look up WordPerfect on Wikipedia to see what year it went extinct, and I was guessing it would be somewhere about 1992… I confess I was stunned by what I learned -WordPerfect is not dead.
What?!

Yes, Corel’s office suite – featuring WordPerfect – is not only still around, but I read it has a loyal following. It’s current version is called WordPerfect Office X5, and it comes in a “Home and Student” ($100), “Standard” ($180), and “Professional” ($280) versions. I looked at their website and I must say I’m intrigued.

Surely it must have something “going on” for it to still be in the game, and I think it does, so I’m going to download the trial and play with it some. I’m curious about its PDF features and Open document formats…
[update: I never did get time to do this, but I have since come across several more WP loyalists. (I found a good deal on Office 2010, and went with that..)]

Today’s free link(s): WordPerfect Universe calls itself the “first stop for WordPerfect Office users”, and I must say you can find pretty much anything WP-related here. There’s also OfficeCommunity.com – The official WordPerfect Office Community.

Today’s free download: To fit with my theme today, I’m going to break my rule about no “trialware” in this section. If you would like to see what today’s WordPerfect can do, there’s a 30 day trial that is full-featured (everything’s enabled) here, WordPerfect Office X5

Orig post: 5/28/09

Today’s quote: “To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.” ~ Confucius

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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7 features to boost your productivity in Windows 7

Windows 7 has many new features that can speed up your work. Some are obvious, but others are more like ‘hidden jewels’. Tony Bradley’s article over on ComputerWorld is a great place for you to find out about 7 of these new efficiency-boosters and learn good advice for best using them.

Here is the direct link: Windows 7 efficiency tips “Master these features to boost your productivity in Windows 7.”

Or.. you can click on the sections of interest..

1. Get the most out of Jump Lists
2. Beef up context menus
3. Enable AHCI
4. Navigate with the Aero interface
5. Organize your files with libraries
6. Use keyboard shortcuts
7. Windows search trumps all

Raise your Geek Quotient, click a link or two!

Related: And for those of you who aren’t interested in these – because you are still using Windows XP – see, It is time to face facts and finally dump Windows XP

“I have been saying this for a while now; but, sometimes people want to know what other professionals are saying..“

Unrelated: (But hopefully fun) I have been meaning to mention this for some time now, and perhaps it is no longer relevant, but I have been hearing from many, many places that it has been hot and humid and insufferable. Quite different from here, where we have had days that did not break 70° (though today is nice and warm) and I thought I was going to get jobbed out of summer…

Today’s quote: “If it weren’t for the fact that the TV set and the refrigerator are so far apart, some of us wouldn’t get any exercise at all.”  ~ Joey Adams

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

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Memories of a Perfect Word

I have mentioned to my readers before that I have been using Windows since the days when we looked forward to the release of Windows 95 (think “Jurassic period”). Recently I was reminiscing with a fellow tech enthusiast, who has been using computers since the very beginning of the PC, and who survived the early days of DOS (think “Triassic  period”), and the name WordPerfect came up.

Wow. I haven’t heard that name in… a really long time.

Folks, I know this may be hard to believe, but there was a time before Microsoft Word and MS Office. Back then you composed your documents with WordStar, or more likely, the premier app — WordPerfect.

WordPerfect could do it all. If you had WP, you could actually do fantastic things like use italics and bold and (this was super neat) you could see a preview of what your document would actually print out like.
Before WordPerfect, you kind of had to guesstimate, as your screen used a generic font. (At least, that’s how I remember it…)

But eventually, Microsoft bundled its upstart new word processor – called simply “Word” – with Windows, and so new machines came with Word already — spelling doom for WordPerfect. Us techy-types then spent lots of time training people on Word and converting old WordPerfect documents into the Word format.
Sigh. Those were the ‘good old days’…

Anyway.. after our conversation, I decided to look up WordPerfect on Wikipedia to see what year it went extinct, and I was guessing it would be somewhere about 1992… I confess I was stunned by what I learned -WordPerfect is not dead.
What?

Yes, Corel’s office suite – featuring WordPerfect – is not only still around, but I read it has a loyal following. It’s current version is called WordPerfect Office X4, and it comes in a “Home and Student”, “Standard”, and “Professional” versions. I looked at their website and I must say I’m intrigued.

Surely it must have something “going on” for it to still be in the game, and I think it does, so I’m going to download the trial and play with it some. I’m curious about its PDF features and Open document formats…

Today’s free link: WordPerfect Universe calls itself the “first stop for WordPerfect Office users”, and I must say you can find pretty much anything WP-related here.

Today’s free download: To fit with my theme today, I’m going to break my rule about no “trialware” in this section. If you are like me, and would like to see what today’s WordPerfect can do, there’s a 30 day trial that is full-featured (everything’s enabled) here, WordPerfect Office X4

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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