That Password!

Security is the most important thing to keep in mind when using the Internet. Browse only safe sites, be careful what you download. We're told, to change our password occasionally to keep the hackers guessing. Well, it does a fine job at keeping me guessing, I'll tell you that much! How may sites do you have separate passwords for? Just Try to remember all of those, plus remember to change them on a regular basis!

Here's a tip: Try incorporating a semi-colon into your existing passwords. It's easy to remember because it's in a prominent place on the keyboard, and it allows you to keep what you already have with a little spice added to it! You can put a semi-colon at the beginning, end, or if you're feeling super-secure, in the middle. Some sites require punctuation in their passwords, so you're killing two birds with one stone! You can remember easily and you're secure!

Chris

A one step duplication and positioning trick.

• First of all, you'll need to select the item you want to copy.
• Next, hold down the Ctrl key .
• Finally, click on the item, hold and drag the object to its new position.

You should have the original picture or drawing still in its original place and a new, perfect duplicate in the place where you just positioned it.

Voila! Now you can copy, paste and position with just one maneuver.

Now, if only I had a way to dust, vacuum and do dishes simultaneously!

Document That Problem

Have you ever run into a problem with your computer that happened to bring up an error message? I'm sure you have. You're really lucky if you've never had to deal with that. Well, when that happens, wouldn't it be nice if you could just capture that error message and send it to someone else so they could help you figure out what's wrong? It sure would save me quite a few times! Well, lucky for us all, there's a way. Here's how!

Find the Print Screen and Alt buttons on your keyboard and you'll be all set. The PrtScr button is located on the right hand side of your keyboard right next to the Scroll Lock key. (It's also right beside the F12 key on most keyboards). If you hit the Alt and PrtScr keys at the same time, your computer will take a "snapshot" of the active window (which would be the error message). Now, if you want to get a shot of the whole screen, push the Shift key along with the PrtScr key and you'll have it.

Once you have that image captured, you can go and paste it in another program and then send it to your "computer expert" for advice. You can put it in MS Word, Notepad, Wordpad or even in an e-mail. It's up to you. Once you have the program you want to put it in open, just hit Ctrl + V to paste the screenshot (or you may have to go to Edit , Paste ). Along with the image, you can type out a description of what you were doing when the problem occurred. That will especially help if you're sending it to someone else to look at. With both the screenshot and the description, they should be able to lead you in the right direction to get things fixed. Having all of that information documented helps if you have to call on some professional tech support as well. You gotta love that!

Internet Browser shortcuts

ALT + Home = Homepage
ALT + Left Arrow = Back to the previous page
ALT + Right Arrow = Forward to the next page
ALT + Up Arrow = Scroll page up
ALT + Down Arrow = Scroll page down

HERE'S A QUICK KEYBOARD TIP TO ‘CHANGE TEXT CASE' .

Highlight your text to be changed and hit Shift + F3 .

Don't like the case format you get?

No problem. Hit Shift + F3 again .

Poof! The text will change again. (Still don't like it? Then keep up with the Shift + F3. It will just keep rotating through the Change Case options until you find the one you need).

Wait, there's more! Here's a bonus to the whole Change Case thing.

There's actually two different types of all caps. That is, if you know how to tap into the other set, known as small caps.

"See the" was done in regular caps, whereas "difference" was done with small caps.

Next question: How do we get the small caps?

That's a good question and fortunately, it's easy to answer.

When you've got something that needs to be emphasized (but not screamed at the reader), you've got something that's a good candidate for the small caps format.

To change text to small caps, simply highlight the text to be changed and then press Shift+ Ctrl + K on your keyboard. This will take your lower case typing and turn it into small caps. If you hit the key combination again, it will return your text to lower case characters.

You can also combine this with the Shift + F3 options. The small caps will replace the lower case option in the rotation of formats.

That's it. Just another way to get your point across, without over emphasizing!

Outlook Express Ideas for e-mails

Start a new e-mail in Outlook Express, click on Create Mail and then place your mouse cursor in the e-mail body with just one click, this activates all of the formatting options for you. Then go up to the Format menu and choose what you would like to do. A few of the options you'll see are Style, Font, Paragraph, Background, Encoding and so on. For practice try all of them

The Style options. Go to Format , Style and choose Formatted . You can then begin typing out your e-mail and each line will come with a double space in between. Or, if you'd like to add a bulleted list to your e-mail, go to Format , Style and click on the Bulleted List choice. That will automatically add some bullets to your e-mail and you can then start typing.

To change the font in your e-mail. Go to Format , Font and the Font dialogue box will pop up. From there, you can change the font design, the style, the text size and you can even choose a colour to type in if you'd like. When you're done making your selections, just click OK and all of that formatting will then cross over into your e-mail. Once you start typing, you will see all of your changes come alive!

From the Format menu, you can add a background to your e-mails. Go to Format , Background and then select either Picture , Colour or Sound . If you want to add one of your pictures to the background of your e-mail, choose Picture . You can then browse through your picture files and add one to the e-mail you're going to send out. Or, you can choose Colour and change the whole color scheme of your e-mail

The Format menu is also where you can change your text from Plain Text to Rich Text (HTML) or vice versa. Or, if you'd like to add some stationery to your e-mail, you can do that from here as well. Just go to Format , Stationery and then choose the one you'd like to use.

Vista Icons

Okay, I have one more Windows Vista tip for you this week! I couldn't resist putting this one in the PSN Newsletter, because I have a feeling it's something you new Vista users have been struggling with for awhile now. So, what am I going to talk about today? Well, as you might have guessed from the title, it's going to be all about the Vista icons.

Ever since you upgraded to Vista , you've probably noticed that the icons on your desktop are a little bigger than the earlier versions of Windows ever had. You've probably noticed that the text that comes along with those icons is larger as well. Or, who knows, maybe neither of them are big enough to meet your preferences. So, how can you change them? Allow me to fill you in on a little Vista secret!

First, right click on your desktop and go to View . Once the pull over menu appears, you'll see the first three choices of Large, Medium and Classic Icons. Your icons right now are probably set on Medium , so if you want to make them smaller or larger, choose either Larger or Classic . Just click on your choice and the icons will automatically change for you. Now, I will tell you that the Larger choice makes the icons very big and they will take up most of your desktop space, but if that's how you like it, go for it. The Classic choice will make your icons the size they were in XP. So, the choice is yours, but at least you now know how to modify them when you're looking for a change!

Ever have a window that has wandered partially off the screen? Not a big problem, unless you can't get to the title bar to move it, right? For example, what do you do if you have a window that has its title bar hidden above the TOP of the screen? (It happens, sometimes due to a system error, sometimes due to a change in screen resolution). The problem is, you can't grab the title bar with your mouse to move the window. Don't worry, there's an easy way to move the darn thing. Here's how:

1. Make sure the window has focus (i.e. it's the active window).

2. Next, click Alt+Space and then press the letter M.

3. Now, use your arrow keys to move the window back to where you want it.

To change text

To change text to small caps, simply highlight the text to be changed and then press Shift+ Ctrl + K on your keyboard. This will take your lower case typing and turn it into small caps. If you hit the key combination again, it will return your text to lower case characters.

You can also combine this with the Shift + F3 options. The small caps will replace the lower case option in the rotation of formats.

That's it. Just another way to get your point across, without over emphasizing!

Q I'm running a dual boot system with both Windows Vista and Windows XP. I would like the default setting to be Vista , but I can't figure out how to do that. Can you please help me?

A: Well, as a matter of fact, I can! This question is perfect for anyone out there who is running a dual boot setup on their computer. Now, I'm talking about a dual boot between Windows Vista and Windows XP. If that's the setup you have, are you having trouble getting the Vista operating system to come on as your default system? Maybe you want to learn how to use Windows Vista, but you want to keep XP around too, just in case you run into some problems with Vista , etc.

If this sounds like your situation, make sure you keep reading to find out how you can easily change your default settings to be exactly the way you want them!

To do so, just follow these quick instructions:

1.) With your Windows Vista operating system turned on, right click on the Computer icon on your desktop and choose Properties .

2.) Click on Advanced System Settings .

3.) Next, under the Startup and Recovery section, click on the Settings button.

4.) Finally, select the operating system you want to be your default (in this case, Microsoft Windows Vista ).

That's all there is to it! Now, you could use the bc dedit command from the command line to do this same thing, but trust me, this way is much easier. Once you have the operating system of your choice selected, just hit OK and you'll be all set!

You can then shut down your computer and restart it. Your new default operating system should start right up for you and you can then go back to happy computer land. Give it a try today!

Q I'm running a dual boot system with both Windows Vista and Windows XP. I would like the default setting to be Vista , but I can't figure out how to do that. Can you please help me?

A: Well, as a matter of fact, I can! This question is perfect for anyone out there who is running a dual boot setup on their computer. Now, I'm talking about a dual boot between Windows Vista and Windows XP. If that's the setup you have, are you having trouble getting the Vista operating system to come on as your default system? Maybe you want to learn how to use Windows Vista, but you want to keep XP around too, just in case you run into some problems with Vista , etc.

If this sounds like your situation, make sure you keep reading to find out how you can easily change your default settings to be exactly the way you want them!

To do so, just follow these quick instructions:

1.) With your Windows Vista operating system turned on, right click on the Computer icon on your desktop and choose Properties .

2.) Click on Advanced System Settings .

3.) Next, under the Startup and Recovery section, click on the Settings button.

4.) Finally, select the operating system you want to be your default (in this case, Microsoft Windows Vista ).

That's all there is to it! Now, you could use the bc dedit command from the command line to do this same thing, but trust me, this way is much easier. Once you have the operating system of your choice selected, just hit OK and you'll be all set!

You can then shut down your computer and restart it. Your new default operating system should start right up for you and you can then go back to happy computer land. Give it a try today!

MS Office Tip - Here's a great keyboard shortcut for repetitive tasks!

It works great in MS Word and Excel. I also tried it in PowerPoint with very limited success and had no luck in MS Outlook or Outlook Express.

At any rate, in Word and Excel, this one can be a huge time saver.

The trick is all in one key: the F4 key .

The F4 key is set to repeat the last action.

Literally, if you simply hit the F4 key, the program will repeat the last action you completed. That's it. Really. it's that simple!

Ideas for MS Excel:

Let's say, for example, you've just inserted a row or column in Excel using the Insert menu. If you then hit F4 , you'll get a second row or column inserted, without all the menu work.

Or, with that same example (inserting a row or column), you could move to another part of the worksheet, hit F4 and have a new row or column inserted in the new location.

Repeatedly hitting the F4 key will continue to repeat the last action, allowing you to insert multiple rows or columns quickly and efficiently.

I found I could get this little trick to work with almost any action I used: bolding, underlining, cell format type, justification, etc.

Ideas for MS Word:

In Word, I found this one to work extremely well. I was able to get the F4 key to repeat text formatting, line spacing, text color changes, indenting, font changes and more.

I even found that I could get the repetition of a "just typed" phrase or sentence in Word. It's much quicker than the old copy and paste routine I often find myself using when I have repetitive statements to make.

(Actually, I could use it a lot when writing this PSN Newsletter. I often find myself creating lists of shortcuts that are so similar, I just copy and paste and then just change the relevant information to make my next point. This will really speed up the process).

Bonus Idea:

I also tried this one with the drawing tools and found that it was an excellent way to repeat things, without needing the buttons and menus constantly. I found that the F4 key would duplicate a newly drawn shape, repeat a fill color change in a newly selected shape, change line size and color and so on. Whatever you need, it can do!

The key thing to remember is that it repeats the last action you did. So, if you last drew a circle, it will immediately draw a duplicate circle. If you just changed the format of a cell to be percentages, it will change the format of the next cell(s) you select to percentages. Get the idea?

Yeah, I knew you would!

Raise Your Keyboard

Today, I have one question for you: "How do you feel about the height of your keyboard"? Okay, so that may seem like a pretty odd question, but believe me, it's legit for this quick tip! I'm talking about the height of your keyboard as it stands on your desk (or wherever you may keep your keyboard).

Some of you may know about this, but the rest of you may not, so I thought it would be a neat little entry for today's PSN Newsletter. Go ahead and flip your keyboard over on its back. What do you see? Besides some wording, etc., you should see two clips on either side of the keyboard. If you pull those clips out and then set your keyboard back down, you will notice that it gains a little bit of height. Wow, who knew?!

Those special clips are there to help you get the most comfortable feel for your keyboard. If it's better for your hands to be a little higher as you type, use the clips. If you try it for awhile and decide you don't like it, push the clips back in and your keyboard will then sit flat on your desk once again. It's just an easy way to achieve the best fit for all of your typing needs. Go check it out and let me know what you think!