Fix Windows Vista Errors

Normally to change between windows you would have to click your mouse, but there is a feature in Vista that lets you set your mouse so it will change windows just by hovering over it.  To set this up just follow these points;

• Open control panel
• Click ease of access
• Click ease of access center
• Open Make the mouse easier to use
• Select the box Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse
• Save this
• Done

Do you use Windows Media Center on Windows Vista and get awfully annoyed at the noises it makes when you navigate around, well there is an easy way to stop those sounds.

• Open your Windows Media Center
• Select tasks
• Click settings
• Click general
• Click visual and sound effects
• Uncheck play sounds when navigating Windows Media Center
• Done

You will notice in the Vista start menu that your name will be at the top of the right hand column, with it linking to your documents. If you want to remove your name then follow these points;

• Right click somewhere on your taskbar
• Click properties
• Click the start menu tab
• Click customize (notice: your name should not show if you are running the classic start menu)
• Scroll down to don’t display this item under personal folder
• Check it
• Click ok
• Done

Anyone who is using IE7 will probably thinking “where is that menu bar at the top”, well just like all the other million people out there I also thought it was an odd move to hide the menu bar.

You can do 2 things that will permantely bring the menu bar back to your browser, and also make it stay at the top of the page.

Bring Back the Menu Bar

• Simply click on the tools dropdown
• Select menu bar
• This will permanently bring back the menu bar (so you don’t have to keep pressing alt)

Send the Menu Bar to the Top

You will notice that they have moved the menu bar in IE7, well if you want to move it back to the position it has always been then you will have to do a basic registry edit.

• Go to this location
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\WebBrowser
• Create a new DWORD - ITBar7Position
• Set the value to 1
• Done

This option is for people who may be having trouble finding their mouse cursor on the desktop (or those who just think it looks cool). Basically it is a setting that leaves a trail at the back of your mouse whenever it moves, comet style.

You can select whether you want a long or short trail, depending on your need. To setup a pointer trail on your mouse just do the following;

• Open control panel
• Go to mouse settings (hardware and sound > mouse)
• Click on the pointer options tab
• Check on the box display pointer trails
• Select the length of your trail
• Click apply and ok

It finally been released!! (I’m not that fussed, I’m a firefox user)

After what seems like years of beta testing (it was needed!) and speculation Microsoft has finally released their latest browser, Internet Explorer 8.

Some of the supposed new features of IE8 include;

• Accelerators
• Enhanced Navigation
• Increased Performance
• Improved Favorites and History Management
• Instant Search
• Web Slices

But you guys can make up your own mind on what sort of improvement have been made, I havn’t had time to test it out so I cannot give much of an opinion yet.

Here is a quick video overview of Internet Explorer 8;

Click this link if you want to download this browser - Internet Explorer 8 Download

Google has announced the release of the beta version of their latest browser Chrome 2.0.

“Some of the new features you can try out include form autofill, full page zoom and autoscroll (both thanks to a new version of WebKit), and a cool new way to drag tabs out to get a side-by-side view.” they said on their blog.

Here is a video showing the new feature of dragging tabs in Chrome 2.0

If you want to try the beta version out for yourself click here - Chrome 2.0 Beta

You will notice on your start menu that it shows a list of programs you have recently used or opened. This can be handy if you regularly use that program (ie word), but some people on public computers would rather not let everyone know what programs they have been using.

You can easily remove this list of recently used programs from your start menu;

• Right click your taskbar
• Click properties
• Select the start menu tab
• Uncheck “store and display a list of recently opened programs”
• Apply and OK
• Done

Just like most other applications in Windows you can also use shortcuts in Windows Explorer. These become very handy if you use explorer often as it can get annoying clicking up a level etc all the time.

Here is a list of some Windows explorer shortcuts;

• Alt + Left Arrow: Back to Previous Folder
• Alt + Right Arrow: Forward to Next Folder
• Alt + Up Arrow or Backspace: Up one folder level
• F2: Rename object
• F3: Find all files
• CTRL+X: Cut
• CTRL+C: Copy
• CTRL+V: Paste
• SHIFT+DELETE: Delete selection immediately, without moving the item to the Recycle Bin
• ALT+ENTER: Open the properties for the selected object

Have you tried using Google Docs yet? I haven’t done much stuff on Docs at all yet so I can’t give an opinion but I can give you a few hints and tips on using it.

Google Docs Headers and Footers

• Open your document
• Click insert
• Click header or footer
• To add text you have to click on the box and type
• Alignment options are on the toolbar

Add Page Numbers

• Select file
• Click print settings
• Check the ‘Annotations: Include Page Numbers’
• Select the number position

Google Docs Shortcuts

• Ctrl-J: Full justify
• Ctrl-Shift-L: Bulleted list
• Ctrl-L: Left alignment
• Ctrl-E: Center alignment
• Ctrl-M: Insert comment
• Ctrl-Space: Remove formatting
• Ctrl-1, 2, or 3: Header style 1, 2, or 3
• F2: Edit active cell (spreadsheets)
• Ctrl-Spacebar: Select entire column (spreadsheets)
• Shift-Spacebar: Select entire row (spreadsheets)

Google Docs Wordcount

• Located in the drop down file menu

Google Docs Demonstration Video