Fix PC Errors

Scheduling events in you Outlook (97, 98, and 2000) can make life easier for you as you don’t have to remember things (like anniversaries!), you just add the date to your Outlook and it reminds you.

You can add events as both a one off thing, or a recurring event by using the calendar in your Outlook. To add an event in Outlook just follow these points;

• Open the calendar in your Outlook
• Right click in the calendar and select New All-Day Event
• Type a description in the subject box
• Add a location if it is appropriate
• Enter any other notes in the box
• You now select if the event is recurring
• Click save and you are done

Windows Vista has got a pretty cool wallpaper collection. So if you are still using the default wallpaper, check out some of the others that are available. To select a new desktop wallpaper:

right click on your desktop -> personalize, then click “Desktop Background”. You can then choose a new wallpaper.

Below is a link to some more awesome wallpapers that were taken during the Windows Vista photoshoot back in 2005. The guy that did these photos has 2 of them included in the default Vista installation, so he obviously knows what he is doing. You can also download his Vista wallpaper pack, which is about 30mb. You will never have a boring desktop again!

Vista Wallpaper Photo Shoot

Do you find it very annoying on your keyboard when trying to do shortcuts, but one of your hands are on the mouse. Let me explain - you are surfing with your mouse and want to bring up your task manager (Ctrl + Alt + Del), you have to take your hand off your mouse and type the key combos. You can get around this by enabling sticky keys.

Sticky keys enable you to press shortcut buttons one at a time instead of all at once, so you no longer have to have both hands to use shortcuts. To enable sticky keys just;

Windows XP

• Click start then Control Panel
• Click Accessibility Options
• Now open up the Keyboard tab
• Check on Use Sticky Keys (check the help area for more on the settings)\
• Click OK and you are done

Windows Vista

• Click start then Control Panel
• Open Ease of Access Center
• Click on make the keyboard easier to use
• Check turn on sticky keys (click on setup sticky keys to play with settings)
• Click apply and you are done

After more than a year of development Google has just released Google Health on Monday, an online service where anyone can get a membership and store their health records.

Although many people will be debating about the security issues about giving out your private medical records to Google, many others are talking up the benefits of such a service. Google Health comes only months after Google’s main rival Microsoft released a very similar service, HealthVault.

“We’ve been talking about Google Health for a year,” wrote Marissa Mayer, the Google vice president, Search Products & User Experience, in a blog posting.

“How many of us have touched, or even seen, our medical records? In this day and age of information, isn’t it crazy that you don’t have a copy of your medical records under your control? You could use those records to develop a better understanding of your health and ultimately get better care. It’s your data about your own health; why shouldn’t you own and control it?”

To access Google Health you must either sign up to Google, or you can use your existing account;

• Sign in here, https://www.google.com/health
• Follow the steps and you will be able to add and access your medical files.

I often get emails regarding problems and issues with Windows Media Player, so I thought I’d blog today with a few cool hints and tips regarding a few of the problems people are getting with WMP.

How to Erase Songs From Your Windows Media Player

• Click Library in your WMP
• Now select the artist you want to delete, and find the song
• Highlight the song you want to delete
• Now simply right click and select delete; or just press delete on your keyboard

Creating a Playlist in Windows Media Player

• Click Library in your WMP and find the playlist on the right side
• In the playlist dropdown select clear List
• Now go back to your left column and navigate to find the song you want
• When you have found the song you want in your playlist you can add it in two ways;
  • Right click on the song and select ‘add to playlist’
  • or, simply click on the song and drag it to the playlist

Add Music to Windows Media Player

• Open your WMP
• Click on library and select add to library…
• Here you can select a folder to add or you can add a folder you want
• Click OK and all the music files will be added (note: music already in you WMP will not be added)
• Done

How to Change the Color of Your Windows Media Player

• Open up your WMP
• Click on Now Playing and then select Enhancements
• Here select color chooser
• You can now select the different Hue and Saturation you want for your WMP
• Just play around with the colors until you have found one you like

Play Music Randomly on Windows Media Player

• Open your WMP
• Click on the shortcut ‘alt + P’
• Now go down and select Shuffle
• You will now play songs at random

If you have any other questions or other tweaks/tips on Windows Media Player just swing us an email or leave a comment. Thanks and talk to you guys tomorrow.

Most of us at one point in time have used Microsoft Office, but most are not aware that there is a great free alternative - OpenOffice.

So if you think MS Office is too expensive, or you just want an excellent alternative, then go and download this product now. It does pretty much everything that MS Office does: word processing, spreadsheets, databases, presentations and more.

Most of the interfaces are pretty similar to MS Office, so you won’t have any problems immediately using this product. The files created in OpenOffice can also be opened in MS Office and vice versa.

Download OpenOffice

Once you have OpenOffice installed, here is a cool little trick you can do to increase productivity with macros.

Create a Macro and add it to the toolbar

You can really increase productivity by creating macros for your repetitive tasks. Once you have created a macro(s), it can be added as a keyboard shortcut or even added to the toolbar for even easier access.

1) Create the macro. For this example I am just going to insert a basic table with 2 rows and a heading.
2) From the menu click Tools -> Macros -> Record Macro
3) Now perform the action you want as the macro. For my example I just went to insert table.
4) Click “Stop Recording” on the Record Macro dialog box. In the next dialog box, give your macro a name and click on “Save”

5) Now we can add the macro to the toolbar
6) Click Tools -> Customize, then click on the “Toolbars” tab

7) Click on the “Add” button
8) From the left menu browse to the macro you created, then click “Add”
9) You now have a cool macro in your toolbar

You can also add the macro as a keyboard shortcut using the exact same process.

You may have received a runtime error when attempting to open a webpage, the error will commonly say;

‘A Runtime Error has occurred. Do you wish to Debug?
Internet Explorer Script Error. An error has occurred in the script on line 1. Do you wish to continue running scripts on this page?’

You have to disable your script debugging to resolve this problem, to do this just;

• Open Internet Explorer
• Click Tools
• Click Internet Options
• Click the Advanced tab
• Click on the tick for Disable script debugging (Internet Explorer)
• Click on the tick for Disable script debugging (other)
• Uncheck the tick for Display a notification about every script error\
• Click Apply and OK

Have you ever wanted to make your Windows XP look and feel just like Windows Vista, without paying for OS upgrades and new hardware?

Well this can be achieved quite easily and for FREE - thanks to the Vista Transformation Pack.

We were extremely impressed with this product as it does a fantastic job of pretty much turning XP into Vista. You get all the nice visuals as well as some of the cool new features like the Vista sidebar gadgets.

OK, installing the Vista Transformation Pack is very simple.

1) First download the FREE Vista Transformation Pack. You can get it from the link below. Don’t worry, it is safe (spyware and adware free)

Download Vista Transformation Pack

2) Run the program

3) During the installation you will get various options. An important one is whether or not to install the transformation pack into the OS or as an integrated install. The integrated option offers more features but will be more difficult to uninstall.

4) Select whether or not you want third party apps. Make sure you select this option if you want to have cool features such as the sidebar.

5) After finishing the installation wizard, the files will take a minute or two to install and you will then need to reboot.

6) Here are some screenshots of our Windows XP machine after it had the transformation pack installed.

Here is the Vista sidebar in XP

OK, now go and install it!!

An easy tool you can use to make your everyday use on your computer easy is shortcuts. Everyone knows about shortcuts (ctrl+c, ctrl+v etc), but did you know you can create shortcuts for any program you want. So instead of using your mouse to open up a program you can simply make a shortcut, this can be very handy if you use certain programs a lot.

In this example I will show you how to create a shortcut for Internet Explorer, but the method is just the same for any program;

• Click start and all programs
• Find the program you want and right click on it
• Click properties
• Click the shortcut tab
• Find the shortcut key area
• Here you just have to type a key that you want to be used with Ctrl + Alt in a shortcut
• Once typed it will show up automatically
• Click apply and OK and you have made a shortcut

As you can see in the image below I set Ctrl + Alt + K as the shortcut for Internet Explorer, and it works fine.

If you are using Outlook Express but you have your address book still on a Hotmail account, you can move all your contacts across.

To get started on the transfer you first need to configure your Outlook Express to use a Hotmail account, you do this by Windows Live Mail which I have talked about in this post.

When you have configured your Outlook Express to use Hotmail account just follow these points and you will be able to access all of your address book in Outlook;

• Access your Hotmail account and verify the contacts are in the address book
• Open Outlook Express
• Open the Tools menu
• Click Address Book
• In the Address Book display click Synchronize Now on the Tools menu

You will now be able to access all your contacts from your Hotmail account in your Outlook Express.