Workers' Edge

Microsoft claims that Office 2007's ribbon interface saves time by putting the features people use most often closer at hand. For those of us who spent years learning where those functions were in previous versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, the changes aren't the productivity boosters Microsoft envisioned.

I've done more than my share of rummaging around the ribbon in Office 2007 trying to find a particular command, and I've even used Microsoft's user-interface guides to hunt down the feature I needed. Now Microsoft Office Labs has developed the free Search Commands add-on for Office 2007 that lets you type in a command and access it in an instant.

After you download and install the add-on, the Search Commands tab is added to the ribbon. Click it (or press the Windows key and Y) and type the name of the command you need.

For example, the other day I was looking for the Reveal Formatting option in Word 2007. I eventually found it under the Display tab in Word Options (off the Office button menu). It would've been much faster for me to simply open Search Commands, type "reveal formatting," and enter the number that appears next to that option ("5" in this case).

The free Search Commands add-on for Office 2007 makes finding options almost instantaneous.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Office Labs' only other offering to date is the Community Clips add-on designed to facilitate finding and sharing how-to videos relating to Office 2007. The ... Read more

I'm always looking for a little bit more performance from my PCs, so I regularly use Piriform's free CCleaner utility to clear out the clutter on my systems' hard drives. (Note that CCleaner is donationware, so if you find yourself using it regularly, drop a few ducats in the virtual coffer.)

The last time I ran CCleaner on my XP test machine, it freed up almost 2GB of hard-drive space by removing temporary Internet files, sweeping out the Recycle Bin, and deleting various Windows updates and other system and application files I no longer needed. Then I clicked the program's Tools option to view the applications installed on the PC.

Use CCleaner's Tools options to view the programs installed on your PC, and remove those you no longer need.

(Credit: Piriform Software)

Along with the programs I expected to find on the list were two names I didn't recognize: "Otto" and "PS2". CCleaner wasn't any help identifying the programs, nor was XP's own Add or Remove Programs applet. After searching the Web for both "otto.exe" and "ps2.exe", I figured out that the former was a game that accompanies Windows Media Center Edition, and the latter was a keyboard utility from the PC's vendor, HP.

That was all I needed to know to decide that Otto could go, but PS2 should hang around lest I someday plug in an "enhanced" keyboard and might actually want to use the specialty control ... Read more

A family member contacted me this morning about a problem a friend of his was having in Microsoft Word. It seems there were little dots in every blank space, paragraph marks at each "carriage return," and other formatting symbols that she didn't want to see.

To hide formatting in Word 2003, click Format > Reveal Formatting (or press Shift-F1) and uncheck "Show all formatting marks."

Uncheck "Show all formatting marks" in Microsoft Word's Reveal Formatting pane to hide the unwanted symbols in your documents.

(Credit: Microsoft)

In Word 2007, change this option by clicking the Office button in the top-left corner, choosing Word Options, selecting Display in the left pane, and unchecking "Show all formatting marks."

Deactivate formatting marks in Word 2007 via the Display window in the Word Options dialog box.

(Credit: Microsoft)

We now return you to your Web browsing, already in progress.

Too often we choose a security program based on the reputation of the vendor. That's why I was happy to learn that the results of recent tests of antivirus software conducted by AV-Test.org found several with near-perfect virus-detection rates, including Avira's free AntiVir Personal.

The tests didn't distinguish between antivirus programs that reside on your PC and virus scanners that run in a browser. I wasn't able to find any test results specifically for online virus-scanning services, though the same handful of names popped up repeatedly: Secunia Software Inspector, Trend Micro HouseCall, Kapersky Online Scanner, F-Secure Online, Microsoft's Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner, and the Jotti Malware Scanner.

Over the years I have used all of the above services at least once, with the exception of Jotti. While I've never experienced a problem using any of them, neither can I be certain that the services didn't miss a virus that had infected the PC being scanned. Even running multiple virus scanners in succession is no guarantee that one of them will find the bugs the others missed.

PC Flank offers more scanning options
Absent any third-party test results, how do you choose from among the many virus-scanning services available? If you're looking for a service that lets you choose which type of scan to perform, PC Flank offers a battery of tests that you can run individually or together.

If you're looking for a quick check of your PC's ... Read more

Any task you perform on the Web can be automated by writing a script. But you don't have to know how to use Javascript or some other scripting language to create your own custom scripts. The Chickenfoot add-on for Firefox makes it easy for nonprogrammers to devise scripts that do their bidding.

Chickenfoot was developed by MIT's User Interface Design Group. It's similar to the Greasemonkey scripting extension for Firefox, but its scripts tend to be simpler and easier for nonprogrammers to customize.

After you download the scripting engine, click View > Sidebar > Chickenfoot (or press F8) to open the Chickenfoot Script Editor. Enter the script in the top pane of the sidebar, and click the Run icon to activate the script for the current page. You can also run scripts by copying and pasting them into the editor, or by clicking the sidebar's Open icon and navigating to the .js file. By placing the scripts in the Triggers window, they will run as soon as the target page opens in Firefox.

A silly example of a Chickenfoot script is one that changes the image on the Google home page. First you copy the script from the Chickenfoot site, and then you paste it into the Chickenfoot script editor, swap out the image-source URL for the one of your choosing, and click the Run icon. Gone is the universally recognizable "Google" icon, and in its place is whatever image you chose. Not especially practical perhaps, but a ... Read more

Your computer's dashboard is that small row of icons located along the bottom of the screen--at least that's where it's located on most PCs. Windows' taskbar shows you at a glance which applications are open and which programs are running in the background (represented by the icons in your system tray just to the left of the clock, though it's not an exhaustive list).

If you have your Quick Launch toolbar active, you also see shortcuts to open various apps, show the desktop, or perform other operations with a single click. Your taskbar's skills go far beyond simply lining up your shortcuts, however.

To customize your taskbar, you must first unlock it: right-click a blank area of the taskbar and make sure Lock the Taskbar is unchecked. Now you can resize or move the Quick Launch area, the system tray, and other elements residing there. To add an item, right-click the taskbar again, choose Toolbars, and select one of the elements listed.

Customize Windows' taskbar by right-clicking it and choosing an option on the Toolbars menu.

(Credit: Microsoft)

For example, I like to keep my desktop free of shortcut icons, but I still want fast access to items I store there. By placing my desktop in the taskbar, I can open items by choosing them off the menu that appears when I click the double chevrons. I save space by dragging the Desktop toolbar to the right until only the word "Desktop" and the ... Read more

Faster is almost always better, at least when it comes to computers. So what's the fastest way to open a word processor?

You can create a keyboard shortcut to open Notepad, WordPad, Word, or any other word processor on your PC by right-clicking the program's shortcut on the Start menu, choosing Properties > Shortcut > Shortcut key, entering your keystroke combination of choice (be sure not to overwrite one that's already in use), and pressing Enter. I described how to get fast access to all your keyboard shortcuts in a post from last week.

Now press the keystroke combination to open the program, and start typing (or navigate to an existing file you want to open). When you're done working in the file, press Ctrl-S, give the file a name (if it doesn't have one already), choose a location to store it (or accept the program's default storage folder), and press Enter. What could be simpler?

Well, skipping the file-naming and storage location-choosing steps, for one thing. And having access to the notes from any Internet-connected computer, for another.

Web word processors auto-save files
You can create a keyboard shortcut that opens Google Docs or any other Web word processor. Start by opening a new document in the service. Select the URL in the Address bar, and type Ctrl-C to copy it to the clipboard. Now open Windows Explorer to the Desktop or any other folder, right-click anywhere in the folder, choose New > Shortcut, paste the ... Read more

Well, Microsoft has finally come clean about the real motivation behind Vista's User Account Control feature. As Tom Espiner's reports from the recent RSA Conference in San Francisco, Microsoft UAC Program Manager David Cross admits that UAC was designed to annoy users.

Espiner quotes Cross telling the security-conference audience that negative user reaction was the only way to coax independent software vendors to update their applications for Vista. As fewer programs violated Vista's rules, users would have to click through fewer UAC prompts.

I'd feel worse about being manipulated by the biggest corporation in the world if UAC weren't such a good idea, though less-than-perfectly implemented. It's true that disabling the feature may allow a balky application or process to work, but too many important Vista features rely on UAC.

To change your UAC setting, press the Windows key, type user accounts, and press Enter. Click "Turn User Account Control on or off," and check or uncheck Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer."

Alter Vista's User Account Control setting via the User Accounts Control Panel applet.

(Credit: Microsoft)

You get more granular control over UAC's behavior via the Local Security Settings. To access these options, you must be logged in as an administrator, and the PC must not be on a domain. Press the Windows key, type secpol.msc, and press Enter. (Note that the Local Security Settings aren't available on all Vista PCs.)

The eight ... Read more

Since I started using Gmail as my primary e-mail program a couple of years ago, I haven't missed much about Microsoft Outlook. However, there's one useful Outlook feature that Gmail lacks: the ability to delay sending all of your outgoing messages, or to set individual messages to be transmitted at a particular time in the future.

Have you ever wished you had reconsidered sending that e-mail to your boss, explaining in detail his shortcomings as a manager? Or perhaps you regret complaining to a client about her unprofessional behavior for canceling a meeting at the last minute--before learning that the cab she was riding in hit a bus.

We all react inappropriately on occasion, but some of us (myself included) have a chronic case of e-mail foot-in-mouth disease. I've managed to stay on the good side of my boss since I enforced a cooling-off period before any mail addressed to him actually gets sent. Outlook's rules make implementing the automatic delay simple.

Create a transmit-delay rule
To put your outgoing messages on hold in Outlook 2003 or 2007, click Tools > Rules and Alerts > New Rule. In Outlook 2003, choose "Start from a blank rule." In both versions, select "Check messages after sending," and click Next.

Choose "Check messages after sending" in Outlook's Rules Wizard to delay outgoing mail.

(Credit: Microsoft)

If you want to delay messages only to certain people, those with attachments, or mail sent from a specific account, make the ... Read more

At a report-planning meeting last week I volunteered to add a timeline to a Word document that would ultimately become a PDF file. I could've used Word or Excel to create a horizontal timeline with about a dozen events, each denoted by a text box big enough to accommodate five or six words.

Instead, I went to Microsoft's Office templates site and downloaded one of the free service's many timelines for Word. Enter "timeline" (or the term of your choice) in the site's search box to retrieve links to a couple dozen time-related diagrams available for download.

Simply create, reposition, and resize as many text boxes as the timeline requires, and then overwrite the template's text. Makes any changes you want to the format, background colors, and other aspects of the template, save the file with a unique name, and the project's done.

Find free Office templates of every description at Microsoft Office Online.

(Credit: Microsoft)

If you have created an Office template you would like to share with the world, use Microsoft's template-submission tool, which requires an Office Online login (a Hotmail or other Passport account will work). The template has to be less than 2MB in size and meet other restrictions. The submission tool scans the file and attempts to categorize it, but you can pick the category and describe your template. Accept Microsoft's terms of use, and then click the Upload button.

Other free and commercial Office templates
HP
... Read more