NOW,INTERNET EXPLORER 8 FROM MICROSOFT

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Seattle: Microsoft Corp is set to publicly launch Internet Explorer 8 early on March 19, the latest version of its market-dominating web browser.

The application, an integral part of Microsoft's eagerly awaited Windows 7 operating system, can be downloaded from Microsoft's Website from 9 a.m. Pacific time, free for people using licensed Microsoft operating systems.

Public rollout

IE8, as it is commonly referred to, has been in public beta testing for about a year, but on March 19 launch marks its full public rollout.

Microsoft, the world's largest software company, said IE8 will run with Windows Vista, its latest operating system, and also Windows XP, the previous version which some users still prefer over Vista.

Market leader

The application replaces IE7, which has a lock on the browser market. According to a recent survey by IT consultants Janco Associates Inc, Internet explorer has a 72.2 per cent market share, ahead of the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser with 17.2 per cent. Google Inc's new Chrome browser has only 2.8 per cent of the market, while Apple Inc's Safari has less than 1 per cent.

Microsoft has run afoul of US and European antitrust regulators for bundling its browser with its operating system, which competitors say is an attempt to drive them out of the market.

Formal charges

Last month, Google joined Mozilla and Norway's Opera in protesting Microsoft's dominance in the browser market. 

In January, European regulators brought formal charges against Microsoft for abusing its dominant market position by bundling its Internet Explorer Web browser with its Windows operating system, which is used in 95 per cent of the world's personal computers.

Keyword search

Microsoft has already announced that users of Windows 7 - expected later this year or early next year - will be able to turn key programs like Internet Explorer off, making it easier to use other browsers.

New features in IE8 include right-clicking on addresses or other web features to go straight to a map or put into a blog or other Website, which Microsoft calls an 'accelerator'. Users will also be able to put in keywords in the address bar to recall sites visited related to that word.

Security protection

The new browser also has enhanced security protection, for example warning users if they are about to download something from a site known to be a source of malicious software, or 'malware'.

VISTA,INTERNET EXPLORER AND OUTLOOK EXPRESS TIPS

Internet Explorer

 

Is tabbed browsing cluttering up your life?
In the Tools menu, select Internet Options. In the General tab, under Tabs, click the Settings button. Uncheck the topmost checkbox, which is labelled Enable Tabbed Browsing (requires restarting Internet Explorer), and click OK. To enable the tabbed browsing function later, just go back and select this option, and save your preferences.

 

Find on the Web Page
If you want to search for a particular word or phrase on the web page you’re viewing and can’t be bothered to read through every paragraph just press Ctrl and F together and type the word or phrase you want.

 

Display the Address bar history
A handy short cut to display the address bar history on the Internet Explorer is to press F4.

 

Open the Organize Favourites Dialog Box
To open the Organize Favourites Dialog box, press Ctrl and B together.

Windows Vista

 

Search for a file in Windows Vista
One of the ways to search for a file on Windows is the Search box available in every folder. You can type in any word associated with the file you’re looking for; Windows will look for that word in the file names, file contents, and file properties of all the files in the current view. To filter your search, say by files modified on a particular date, you can type ‘modified: ’ in the Search box. Similarly, to search only by file name, type ‘name: ’.

Now launch programs by searching for them
Starting up an application was never easier or quicker. No need to go through the Start menu and then several sub-menus. Just start typing the name of the program into the bar at the bottom and have Vista bring up the name of the program you need instantly!

 

A quicker way to launch your programs
Windows Vista assigns shortcuts to all the items in your Quick Launch toolbar, on its own, depending on the icons’ positions in the sequence. So if you want to open the program whose icon is the fourth in your Quick Launch bar, just press the Windows key + 4.

 

Clear up your Windows Sidebar
Is your Sidebar cluttering up your life? To get in a little breathing room, right-click gadgets that you don’t use frequently and change their opacity settings to 40 percent. These gadgets will now fade out of view when you are not using them.

 

Set a new theme for your PC
To change your Windows Vista theme, right-click your desktop and select Personalise. Next, click Themes; in the dropdown menu, choose the theme you want, and click Apply.

 

Clean up your temporary files
If you’ve recently been doing something with your computer that generates a lot of temporary files, you may want to make sure all those files are cleaned out of your system to free up precious space. To do this, just enter %TEMP% into your Start menu search box and press Enter. The temporary files folder will open, allowing you to delete files and prevent unnecessary clutter.

 

Speed up your system
Is your PC running slowly? Go to your Power Options control panel and look for the Power Saver setting that is set at 50 percent (default setting in Vista). Change this setting to High Performance and let your PC run faster.

Check for memory issues with your PC
Worried about memory defects in your PC? You can use Vista’s in-built tool to diagnose issues. Enter the word “memory” into your Start menu search box, and you will be taken to the Memory Diagnostics Tool. A dialog box will open and ask you whether you want to reboot your PC immediately or later. Vista will then run the Memory Diagnostic Tool while starting up.

 

Resize icons on the fly
If you want to resize the icons quickly in Windows Vista Explorer, press and hold the Ctrl key, and scroll up or down with the mouse wheel.

 

Faster shortcuts in Vista
Go to the Control Panel and search for the term “underline”. In your search results, you’ll get a link for Underline keyboard shortcuts and access keys. Click this, and in the next screen, go to the checkbox for Make it easier to use keyboard shortcuts. Select this. Now, whenever you go to any menu, the access keys for each function will be underlined. Pressing Alt with this key would enable the function.

Outlook

 

Track when your messages are read
If you’ve sent out an important e-mail and want to ensure that the recipient has received and read it, you can set an option in Outlook to do so. Once you’ve composed the message in Outlook 2007, go to the Options tab and the Tracking group. To know that your message was delivered, click Request a Delivery Receipt. To know that the message was read, click Request a Read Receipt.

 

Add Contacts quickly in Outlook 2007
From an open email message, you can add the name and email address of the sender to your Contacts. Right-click the name of the sender in the message and click Add to Contacts in the menu that appears.

 

Use the Mini toolbar for speedy formatting
The Mini toolbar in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook (2007) helps you to format selected text in these programs—you can work with fonts, alignment, bullets, and other features. The toolbar is semi-transparent when you select text in any of these programs. You can take your pointer to the toolbar and click the option that you want to use.

Change the Font size of your message list
Do you have to strain your eyes to read your email headers in Outlook 2003? Click on the View menu. Under Arrange by, select Current View, and then Customize Current View. Now click on Other Settings. Select Row Fonts and change the font to the one that you desire. Click OK.

E-mail signature in Outlook
Go to the Tools menu and select Options. Under Options, click on the Mail Format tab. Go to the Signatures tab. Click New and type in a name for the new email signature you are creating. Click on Next. Type in your desired email signature; choose the font style and sizes. Click OK.       

 

Change meetings or events created in Outlook 2007
Once you’ve scheduled a meeting or event using Outlook 2007, you can change its subject, location or time if needed. This can be done for a standalone event, for a whole series of recurring events, or one event of a series of recurring events.

 

To change the time, location or subject of an individual event, you first need to open the event. Go to the Appointment tab and make the necessary changes. Click Save and Close.

If you’re working with a series of events or a recurring event; open the event. In the Open Recurring Item dialog box, select Open this occurrence if you want to make changes to only the current occurrence. Select Open the series if you want to make changes to the entire series. For only the current occurrence, make the necessary changes in the Appointment tab and click Save and Close. To make changes for the entire series, use the Appointment tab again to change the location, time or subject. Then, if you want to change the recurrence options as well, click Recurrence in the Options group of the same tab. Change the options as needed and click OK.

 

Add or delete holidays in Outlook 2007
You may like your Outlook 2007 Calendar to display holidays for the current year. You can do this for not only your own region, but also the region in which key business partners operate.

 

To add holidays, go to Tools, click Options, and then click Calendar Options. In Calendar Options, click Add Holidays. You will see a list of countries—click the check box next to each country whose holidays you want to display in your calendar. Click OK.

 

To delete holidays, click Calendar. On the View menu, go to Current View and click Events. You will see a list of holidays. Click the calendar icon next to each row that you want to delete. To select multiple rows, keep the CTRL key pressed and click each row. Click Delete when you have finished selecting.

Add RSS feeds in Outlook 2007
There are several ways in which you can add an RSS feed to Outlook 2007. If you use Internet Explorer 7, you will see the RSS feed icon next to the Home button on the browser. Clicking the RSS feed icon will display the list of available feeds on the Web page. Click the feed that you want to add.

 

You can also do this within Outlook 2007. In the Tools menu, click Account Settings. On the RSS Feeds tab, click New. The New RSS Feed dialog box will open. You can type the URL of the RSS feed here or use CTRL+C and CTRL+V to copy and paste the URL from the address bar of your browser. Click Add and then click OK.

 

If you receive an invitation to an RSS feed via e-mail, you can click Add this RSS Feed on the Reading Pane to add it. If you’ve opened the message, go to the Share tab and the Open group. Click Add this RSS Feed and then click OK.

Schedule a new meeting in Outlook 2007

In Outlook 2007, go to File, click New, and select New Meeting Request. Type appropriate descriptions in the Subject and Location boxes, and choose start and end times of the meeting using the Start Time and End Time lists. You can also type any information or attach files that you want to share with the recipients of the meeting request. For help with scheduling the best time for your meeting, go to the Meeting tab, and click Scheduling Assistant in the Show group. Then, click Add Others and select Add Others from Address Book. You can now search and select attendees and resources for the meeting, by going to the Select Attendees and Resources dialog box and entering the name of the person in the Search box. The results list will show the concerned people—you can click Required, Optional, or Resources and click OK. After this, the Suggested Times pane will show the best times for your meeting, that is, the times at which most attendees are available. You can also manually pick a time from the free/busy grid. Go to the Meeting tab and click Appointment in the Show group. Click Send.

 

Print your Contacts in Outlook 2007

Outlook 2007 gives you the option of printing out your list of Contacts in various styles—memo, visiting card, phone directory, small booklet or medium booklet. You can also customize these styles. You can print a single Contact, all your Contacts or some of them.

 

To print out all your Contacts, open the Contacts view, go to File and click Print. In the Print dialog box, select the style you want to print in using the Print Styles box. Click Define Styles to customize the printing style. Click OK to print, after setting the number of copies and other necessary options.

 

To print out some of your Contacts, open the Contacts view, go to the View menu, take your cursor to Current View and click Customize Current View. Click Filter and use the available options to narrow down the list of Contacts to only those that you want to print. Then, go to File, click Print and follow the same steps as above.

 

Redirect Incoming Email to your Mobile Phone

With Outlook 2007, you can redirect incoming email and calendar entries to your mobile phone, by configuring your Outlook Mobile Service account. To do this, you have to select the redirection conditions in Outlook Mobile Service. For this, go to Tools and click Options. On the Preferences tab, click Notifications under Mobile. Under Message Notifications, click the checkbox against Forward messages that meet all of the selected conditions. Select the conditions from those listed. In the Forward to mobile numbers box, type the mobile phone number(s) to which you want messages to be forwarded. Click OK.

Use Instant Search in Outlook 2007

You can quickly search for messages in Outlook. Click the folder you want to search in Mail. Type the text you want to search for in the Instant Search box. The Instant Search Results pane will display all messages that contain your search text.

 

Print an e-mail with attachment

Select the e-mail in the message list, but don’t open it. On the File menu, click Print. In Print options, click the Print attached files check box. Ensure that you don’t open the message when you want to print it, or the option to print the attachment will not be displayed.

 

Use Outlook 2007 to send a Word 2007 document for review

To e-mail a Word 2007 document for review, open and save the document and click Send for Review on the Quick Access Toolbar. A new e-mail message will open with the document attached; the default text in the message is "Please review the attached document". Make changes in the message if you want, type the addresses of the recipients in the To field of the message, and click Send.

 

Add commands to the Quick Access Toolbar

In Office 2007, you can customize the Quick Access Toolbar to contain your most frequently used commands. On the Ribbon, click the tab or group to display the command that you want. Right-click the command and click Add to Quick Access Toolbar.  

NANO COMPUTERS FOR RS 500

Forget MIT's $100 laptop, "cheap" netbooks, and other crude attempts at making the computer affordable. Here comes the mother of all low-cost computers.

 

At Rs. 500, the upcoming, yet to be named, nano computer is set to be the cheapest computing device ever. Designed for students, the Government is supposedly readying a prototype of the device to be showcased at Tirupati on February 3, 2009. India's Human Resource Minister Arjun Singh will reportedly unveil the device.

 

The nano computer has been jointly developed by the IIT (Indian Institute of Technology), Chennai, and the IISc (Indian Institute of Science), Bangalore. The production of the device, however, has been handed over to private firms. It remains to be seen if this project manages to move past the "prototype" phase to actually end up in some assembly line.

SAFE INTERNET BANKING

Eight simple steps to make banking online secure

There is no greater feeling than receiving your paycheque, is there? After an arduous month at work, the number of zeroes on the cheque makes it all worthwhile. But what if one day you get up and log on to the Net and realise that your money - your hard-earned money - is reduced to nothing but zeroes! This is not fiction anymore. It could happen to any of us.

 

Internet banking has become an easy and convenient way to conduct financial transactions. But like most things on the Internet, the onus of a safe and secure banking experience is on you, the user.

 

To make sure that you can sleep soundly at night, here are some steps to follow:

 

1. Never access your bank account from a public computer - Always use your own PC to log in to your account. Public computers may have programs running on them that monitor your keystrokes, which can be used by people to obtain your account password.

 

2. Don’t fall for phishing - Sometimes you might get an innocent email, apparently from your bank, requesting you for your account details. It’s a trap. Do not fall for it. A bank will never ask you for your Internet banking password, your debit card PIN number, or credit card or CVV number.

 

3. Log off - Always. Never just close your browser. Follow the instructions on your bank website to securely log off after each session.

 

4. Protect your password - Passwords are the key to accessing your account. Do not disclose them to anyone, not even bank employees. Frame a password that is hard to crack – let it not be your nick name, birthday, your spouse’s or kid’s name. Use a combination of letters and numbers, uppercase and lowercase. Also, change your password often.

 

5. Be wary of fake websites - Always check whether the website at which you log in your account details is genuine. There are fake websites out there that parade themselves as well-known bank websites to procure your account details. Some of them are very convincing. Check the address of the website carefully before typing in your password. Also check for the 128-bit encryption seal (VeriSign) on the home page that loads up.

6. Close all other websites - Before you access your account, close other sites. This ensures that your personal information is not accessed by any other websites which could be running some malware.

 

7. Install a firewall - Firewalls can go a long way in ensuring that your computer is not subject to unauthorised access. Install the latest anti-virus programs and update your computer’s security patches regularly as well.

 

8. Look for the padlock symbol - On your bank’s website, look for the padlock symbol on the bottom right of the page to ensure that the site is in secure mode before entering your personal details.

 

Always remember that there could be people out there who are just looking for one slip up from you to get your account details. Stay alert and your money will be safe.

FIREWALL PROTECTS COMPUTERS

With Internet threats on the rise, it’s best to be safe than sorry

Most of us think that an anti-virus program is enough protection for our computers. But that’s far from sufficient. The most effective way to protect your computer is to install a firewall. A firewall is software (or in some cases hardware) that protects your computer or network from unauthorised outside intrusion. It acts like a barrier and stops unauthorised access. It monitors and scans all the information that comes through the Internet, and allows only those programs to access the Internet, which you have asked it to.

 

With malicious intrusions on the rise, anyone with access to the Net needs a firewall. Research has shown that a computer that doesn’t have a firewall installed can be compromised within a matter of minutes.

 

A firewall detects and stops any unauthorised programs from being installed on your computer. Some anti-virus programs may sometimes fail to detect Trojans or spyware, which a firewall can often stop. With the increase of malicious attacks, this kind of protection becomes absolutely imperative. 

 

If you don’t have a firewall installed on your machine, don’t worry. Windows XP and Vista come with built-in firewalls that you just need to switch on. All you need to do is go to the Control Panel and click on the Windows Firewall icon and select the On radio button. If you do not have XP or Vista on your computer, there are free firewalls can be downloaded from the Net easily. Before you download, be sure to read credible reviews so you know what’s up ahead.

 

A firewall can be personalised to suit your needs. It is designed to be suspicious of all programs. If it senses a program wants to connect to the Net, a pop-up comes up to alert you. You can either answer Yes or No, depending on whether you want the program to connect to the Net or not.

 

Remember, if you are unfamiliar with the program, it’s safer to select "No." It’s best to spend some time exploring the firewall’s features and setting permissions for various programs. This ensures that alerts don’t pop up every now and then while you work on your computer.

IS YOUR EMAIL PRIVATE?

Encryption, digital signatures, digital certificates…there are several ways of keeping your e-mail safe from prying eyes

E-mail is often likened to a postcard—it is as easy to view and read on the digital journey to its destination as is its snail-mail counterpart. While you may believe that nobody would really be interested in knowing the nitty-gritty of your workday or exchanges with your friends and family, securing e-mail is still important. Some of the vast volume of your e-mail may contain personal details—such as telephone numbers or bank account numbers, or work-related information like ideas about a new product or service, strategies, or other intellectual property that would be of interest to your business rivals.

 

Sophisticated technologies exist to intercept e-mail en route from sender to recipient, and data-mining techniques make it easier to sift through the increasing volume of electronic messages. In this scenario, you may like to consider the means available to keep your e-mail tamper-proof and private.

 

Risks to e-mail

There are several inherent risks in the way e-mail functions. When you send e-mail to a recipient, it travels to an SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) server either directly (if you’re using an e-mail client such as Outlook) or via a Web server (if you’re using Web-based mail, such as Hotmail). The recipient will receive your e-mail directly from the SMTP server or via a Web server.

 

During this journey, any unauthorized person can access your messages by exploiting vulnerabilities on the SMTP or Web servers. Your messages can be read and copied by anyone who has access to the computers and networks through which your messages travel. In fact, authorized system administrators on the SMTP servers can also read, copy, save, delete, and modify your messages before sending them on.

 

During this ‘eavesdropping’, it may be possible to gain access to your usernames and passwords. The mischief-monger can then wreak havoc by sending messages on your behalf. You may also receive messages from known e-mail IDs that have been created and sent by unauthorized users; such messages usually contain viruses, Trojans or ask you to reply to the message with sensitive personal information, such as bank-account or credit-card details.

 

What’s more, mail backups on SMTP servers store the e-mail in plain text; sometimes, messages that you sent or received years ago are easily available on these backups, long after you have deleted them.

The issues with e-mail are, therefore, manifold - the sender’s e-mail ID may be stolen and misused, without the recipient knowing about it; messages may be intercepted; or messages may be stored such that their content is easily accessible. 

 

Encryption, digital signatures, and digital certificates are some ways of securing e-mail from these threats.

Encrypting e-mail

 

Encryption means scrambling the text of your message to a seemingly gibberish combination of letters and numbers, so that anyone who reads it en route can make no sense of it. Only the recipient is able to decrypt the message.

 

Using public keys is the most common form of encryption. This requires the use of two keys - a public key and a private key. The private key resides on your computer and you share the public key with the recipients to which you wish to send encrypted messages. When you wish to send the message, you encrypt it with the public key. On the other end, the recipient needs its own private key and your public key to decrypt the message. Since the message is decrypted using your public key, it proves that you sent the message. You can encrypt messages as well as attachments.

 

If you use Outlook as your e-mail client, encryption is built into it via digital IDs, which enable you to encrypt your message and digitally sign it as well. You can also use the popular public-key encryption system, PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), with Outlook itself and with other e-mail clients. This utility is available as freeware on www.pgpi.org.

 

Digital IDs and Signatures

 

Having a digital ID enables you to add another layer of security to your e-mail via digital signatures. A digital ID ties your identity information—name or e-mail ID, for instance—with your public key.

 

When you use this ID to digitally sign your messages, a part of your message is encrypted with your private key, so that the recipient knows that the message came from you; if you encrypt the message in addition, then the signature and the message are encrypted with your public key. This enables the recipient to know whether the message has been accessed or modified en route.

 

Digital IDs are provided via e-mail certificates, which are usually issued by external certification authorities (CAs). In organizations, sometimes, the administrator of your Exchange Server generates these certificates for users.

 

If you use Outlook, you can get e-mail certificates from CAs. Some like Comodo offer these free of charge for personal use; for commercial use, different schemes are available from various CAs.

Digital Certificates and SSL

These are often used by Web servers for authentication—they help you ensure that you have connected to the right Web server and that your communication with the server will be secure.

 

SSL (Secure Socket Layer) is a security protocol used by browsers and Web servers. Sites that use SSL have URLs beginning with https, instead of http. In communicating with such sites, the server then creates a symmetric key (a key that can be used to encrypt and decrypt messages) and sends it to your computer after encrypting it with a public key. The other computer decrypts the symmetric key, so that communication between both computers is encrypted en route, and only the two computers can decrypt it. SSL is often used for transactions that require you to share sensitive information, such as online banking or e-commerce transactions. To ensure that your Web-based e-mail is secure, you could use an e-mail provider who uses SSL.

 

Digital certificates are issued by CAs to authenticate servers. They contain the name of the server (or organization), the validity period for the certificate, the server’s public key, and other information. They show that the server is what it claims to be and provide the public key which can be used to encrypt messages to the server. When connecting to some sites, you may have encountered error messages, such as the certificate has expired or that it was issued to a server with a different name. These could indicate chances of your communication being intercepted; so, it’s better to check back with the site later or to get in touch with the organization to find out if the error is due to a technical snag.

 

You may find e-mail security a time-consuming task the first time round, but it’s worth the effort in the long run. 

SNIFF IT OUT

Sniffing is the nastiest trick in the bag of people who want to harm you

Sniffing implies the use of a network to access data that is not intended for that person. A packet sniffer is a software program or a hardware device that can “listen in on” and track the data going in and out on a particular network.

 

It lets hackers figure out where the information came from, where it will go, and what it contains, giving them a complete picture of your network setup. Unlike similar acts of deceit carried out on the Net, though, like sending spam mails, phishing, the use of keyloggers, etc, sniffing is not all bad. It has its legitimate uses.

 

For example, packet sniffers are used by network administrators to test firewalls and troubleshoot network issues. A network analyser also comes in handy when diagnosing network troubles.
But the technology is only as good as the people using it - so sniffing can also be used for malicious purposes. And it has certainly picked up in the frequency of use over the last couple of years.

 

Programs and devices with this capability can be used to get hold of username and password data, read other people’s e-mail, access documents, etc. What is worse, data gathered in this manner can further be used to carry out planned attacks on unsuspecting victims. 

 

Primarily, sniffing is used to gain access to two kinds of data: passwords, or financial data. Most users need to enter a password at least once or twice a day. Often, we think that because it is password-protected, our data is safe. But this is not so.

 

The other thing that gets stolen most often is financial information. Everybody feels a little twang of anxiety when they enter their credit card information into a website. Now imagine, if somebody could access that credit card information freely? Enough to set your pulse racing? Hackers can use sniffing devices along with other malicious software, in order to keep the host machine from noticing the intrusion.

 

Several sniffing tools are freely available on the Internet. Most often, sniffers are deployed when you access a website that contains malware. Email and instant messaging are other methods used to launch such attacks.

You can never be sure if a computer on the Internet is sniffing out information in your home or workplace network. You can protect yourself against sniffing through data encryption. Instant messengers, email, Web pages and most other programs send information in the plain text format. But if you don’t want people get to your data, you should visit only those websites that are Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protected, or are protected using other tools.

 

You can also encrypt your passwords, email messages and chat sessions. There are many user-friendly programs available on the Internet that let you encrypt your data. Download and install one of these to protect yourself.  

IS YOUR PC CRASHING?HELP IS HERE

Eight simple steps to keep your PC healthy

For most of us now, the PC is our life. It is where we work, conduct financial transactions, listen to music and watch movies and chat with friends online. So what happens when your PC crashes?

 

The work that you do is now lost. All the information that you stored is gone. Almost everyone who owns a computer has had to face this grim reality at least once in his or her PC-owning life. What can you do to make sure it doesn’t happen again?

 

Follow these steps to make sure that your computer stays healthy:

 

1. Scan Your Computer Regularly: Using Scandisk to scan your computer every week is extremely important. Scanning corrects errors on the hard disk of your computer. 

2. Install Anti Virus: Viruses can wreak havoc on computers. It is among the main causes of system crashes. Installing an anti-virus goes a long way in keeping your PC safe and secure. It is also important to bear in mind that installing an anti virus is not enough, you need to carry out regular anti virus scanning of your computer, and keep the virus definitions updated.

 

3. Install a Firewall: If you are in the habit of logging on to the Internet regularly, you need to install a firewall. A firewall acts as a barrier preventing any unauthorised intrusion into your computer. It also alerts you if any program is being downloaded onto your computer without your knowledge. A firewall is essential to make sure that your computer is not compromised by spyware or adware. Windows XP and Vista come with their own built in firewall that you just need to turn on.

 

4. Defrag Your Computer: Defragmentation basically reorganizes your hard disk in a way to make sure your files are stored contiguously. It saves up disk space, improves the performance of your computer and prevents overloading. If you install many programs and uninstall them, or delete files often, you need to defrag the hard disk.

 

5. Perform Disk Cleanup: Another important thing to do to make sure your PC is running at an optimum level is to perform Disk Cleanup. This deletes the remnants of the files you have already deleted. It also compresses old files. You will be surprised to know how much disk space is freed up by performing a disk cleanup.

 

6. Download as little from the Internet as possible to prevent malware: Many people download free software from the Net. Many download music illegally from peer to peer sites. A lot of the so-called free software that you download can contain spyware.

 

7. Uninstall Programs You Don’t Use: Use the Add/Remove in the Control Panel to remove programs that you don’t use anymore. It cleans up disk space and improves the performance of your hard disk.

 

8. Clean the Computer Regularly: Make sure dust does not accumulate inside your computer. Clean your computer once a month with a dry cloth. Also make sure that your air vent is not facing a wall, as it is important to keep your computer properly ventilated to keep it cool.   

PLAY IT SAFE WHILE ONLINE

Basic guidelines to be followed to be safe on the Net

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Indeed these are the best of times for Internet users in India, with dead-slow dial-up connections making way for broadband connectivity, thus paving way for faster means to access informaton.

 

But new ways to threaten your security on the Net are being invented everyday and the dangers you face have never been greater.

 

Although the Internet is a great resource, a place that allows you to access information on almost anything, it is also a place where many thousands of people are just looking for ways to steal your identity, your bank account passwords, meet people for the wrong reasons, and so on. But if you follow certain thumb rules, you can be able to protect yourself better on the Net.

 

Here are five things that you should do:

 

1.Install Security Features On Your Computer - Security features on your personal computer are extremely important. Check the features provided by your operating system, and ensure that some of the critical settings are enabled to protect you from vulnerabilities. 

An anti -virus program that you update regularly will help protect your computer against virus threats. A firewall will act as a barrier, protecting your computer against outside intrusion while you are on the Internet. It will also notify you if spyware or adware is being installed on your computer without your knowledge. Installing an effective firewall and an updated anti-virus program goes a long way in protecting your computer.

2. Do Not Reply To Spam Emails - When you open your email account and you see a mail from someone you do not know, do not reply to it - it could be spam. Replying to the spam emails would result in your mail account being flooded by more spam. Also, never open any unknown email attachment, and be wary of attachments sent by people that you do know.
Always scan the attachment before downloading it. As a thumb rule, do not open any attachment in the .exe format. Scan first, check with the sender, and only then run it.

 

3. Do Not Fall For Phishing - Phishing is a devious way to steal your personal information online. What usually happens is that you get an email, supposedly from your bank, requesting you to give them your user ID and password. Do not fall for this - banks will never ask for your personal details. You should also check whether the website that you visit is genuine before logging in your personal details. There are a lot of fake websites out there, many of which are extremely convincing. Check the URL of the website to be sure.

 

Also check the padlock symbol on the bottom right of the page to make sure that the site is in secure mode before you type in your password. You should also never use a public computer to access your bank account or other confidential data.

4. Never Give Out Your Personal Information On The Net - Whether you are a child or an adult, never give out your phone number or your address on social networking sites or chat rooms. Always use a fake name. In chatrooms, use a gender-neutral name. Also, posting pictures or videos of yourself on the Net is not without dangers. You never know who could go ahead and misuse them.     

 

5. Be Cautious Before You Download - This holds true for software that is freely available for download. Make sure that the software is spyware-free. If you are unsure of this, then do not download it. Use only the sites that you trust to download software. Always exercise caution while engaging in P2P sharing of music and movies as well. P2P programs are a breeding ground for malicious software just waiting to be installed on your computer.  

10 WAYS TO BE SAFE ON SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

Some things to keep in mind to keep yourself safe on social networking sites:

1. The more information you put about yourself, the more vulnerable you could be. So choose what you want to put up. But some things are better not put up at all. Your address, phone numbers, and bank account or credit card numbers, for example. If someone asks you for it, don’t give it out without giving any thought to it. If you are uncomfortable about sharing some information, don’t share it.

 

2. If all your friends are on some cool new SN site, that does not mean that you have to join in blindly too. Explore how it works, and the level of security and privacy allowed. Check the privacy policies of the sites you sign up for so that you know whom to report if any online abuse occurs.

 

3. Be sure to read through the policies and understand how the information you have put up is likely to be used. How does the site handle referrals? Can the IDs of your friends be given out to others, which could include potential spammers?

 

4.Can all and sundry visit your site, or do you have options to control access? Start with controlled access to your information and that too only to people you know, and when you are comfortable with how the site works, you can explore loosening some of the controls.

 

5. Saving a photograph from the Web is as easy as a right-click. A miscreant can easily change it using any photo-editing tool. So think twice before you put up your pics on an SN site.

 

6. Do not believe everything people post on their web sites. They may not be what they claim to be. So if you don’t know them, it’s best to avoid getting friendly with them.

 

7. Flirting is fun, but can land you in trouble. Think twice about flirting with strangers and refrain from discussing about sex online. Remember sexual offenders scout SN sites and chatrooms looking for prey.

 

8. Be careful if a new online friend wants to meet you. Make sure you meet him in a public place during the day and take along a friend or family member along with you.

 

9. If you ever feel threatened by anyone or anything online, discuss it with friends, family or colleagues and inform the police if required.

 

10. Do not always run applications and fun stuff being circulated on the SN site. They could be viruses or Trojans which could harm your computer or the data on it.

MICROSOFT LAUNCHES FASTER VERSION OF INTERNET EXPLORER 8

Microsoft Corporation Friday announced the availability of Windows Internet Explorer 8, an innovative web browser optimized to the most common ways in which people use the internet today. Designed grounds up to provide consumers ease of use; faster navigation and enhanced security and privacy, Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) can be downloaded from www.microsoft.com/ie8, starting 9:30pm (IST) Friday.

In response to extensive customer research, Microsoft has developed Internet Explorer 8 to focus on what matters most to people. Key innovations in IE8 that make internet browsing faster, safer and more personalized are: Accelerators, Visual Search and Web Slices. All these features significantly cut down the number of clicks required to perform the most common tasks on the internet.

For instance, Accelerators speed up everyday online tasks like search, email, social networking etc. within the active web page; Web Slices appear in the browser’s ‘Favorites’ bar and provide customers with the simplicity of accessing updated information from their most visited websites, without physically going there; and Visual Search provides image based search results – right from the browser’s home page. In addition to these unique features, today, IE8 is also one of the fastest browsers in the market, beating other top browsers in page load time on almost 50% of the 25 top comScore websites1.

In India, Microsoft has partnered with the 12 most visited websites, across consumer interest genres, including bharatmatrimony.com, economictimes.com, games2win.com, in.com, indiatimes.com, naukri.com, msn.co.in, rediff.com, sify.com, timesofindia.com, webdunia.com and zapak.com to make web browsing with Internet Explorer more fun. Globally, 15 of the top 20 worldwide sites have partnered with Microsoft to deliver this level of functionality to customers.

Overall, IE8 provides unparalleled security, privacy, personalization and performance benefits to consumers. Besides innovations through Accelerators and Web Slices IE8 are includes features such as:

• InPrivate Browsing. Provides consumers the choice of going private on the internet, and ensuring that browsing history and related data is not retained locally on the PC they are using

• Compatibility View. IE8 provides people with an easy way to fix display problems such as out-of-place menus, images and text with a Compatibility View button that displays those pages as they were designed to be viewed

• Crash recovery. In Internet Explorer 8, if a tab does crash, it is automatically restored and reloaded, and any information the user may have already entered on the page (such as when writing an e-mail or filling out a form) is restored

 

“The amount of time each of us spends online has grown exponentially –  be it  work, play,  share, shop , socialize and much much more, the browser has become our best companion in the journey of the online world. With Internet Explorer 8, we are redefining how people explore the universe around them, by making it faster, more fun, and safer, in a very personal and customized way,” said Mr. Hemant Sachdev, Joint Managing Director – Consumer & Online, Microsoft India.

 

Customer and Partner Excitement

 
Customers in India and across the globe are seeing great value in IE8 as it provides them with a significantly enhanced online experience that is customized to their needs. Partners too are excited about the new opportunities for them to engage customers as well as drive increased traffic to their sites.

 

Talking about the innovations in Internet Explorer 8, Mr. Venkata Rao Mallineni, Head, Portals and Consumer Marketing, Sify Technologies Limited said, “Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 with Accelerators and Web Slices will help us enhance the user experience by enabling access to their preferred content on Sify.com even when browsing other websites. We believe this will truly add value to our users as they are very aware, discerning and constantly enhancing their use of the Internet. This alliance with Microsoft expands on our relationship in multiple areas.”

 

Zapak also endorsed the value of Internet Explorer to consumers. “Zapak has always believed in offering the best to its present and potential users. This partnership with Microsoft for the launch of Internet Explorer 8 will help create a never before engaging web experience for our users,” said Mr. Rohit Sharma, Chief Operating Officer, Zapak Digital Entertainment Ltd. “We have already made Zapak.com compatible with IE8 with new and unique features like Web Slices which will keep the user posted with regular updates on the new games which arrive on Zapak.com even without him going on to the website.”

 

For more information, on Microsoft Internet Explorer 8, visit www.microsoft.com/ie8.

 

MICROSOFT'S IE 8 IS THE FASTEST BROWSER:STUDY

Internet Explorer 8 is the fastest browser, based on benchmark testing conducted in a Microsoft lab.

A white paper published by Microsoft states that in a ‘real world’ test on browser speeds, Microsoft's team compared the performance of IE 8 (currently available as Release Candidate 1), Google Chrome 1.0 and Mozilla Firefox 3.05. Microsoft has made available a video on the study as well as a whitepaper, "Measuring Browser Performance: Understanding Issues in Benchmarking and Performance Analysis".

For the purpose of the benchmarking, Microsoft used 25 popular Web sites, based on a comScore ranking. The results clearly showed that IE 8 was the fastest browser at 12 sites, followed by Chrome (nine sites) and Firefox (four sites).

Microsoft also added that in addition to the exceptional page load performance, Internet Explorer 8 is also optimized to speed up the things that many users do day in and day out such as mapping an address, emailing links to friends, checking the weather, monitoring eBay auctions, etc.

Internet Explorer 8 can perform these tasks using anywhere from 10-50% fewer steps than other browsers.

  

TIPS FOR INSTALLING VISTA ON YOUR PC

Windows Vista can create a System Health Report using inputs from its Performance and Reliability Monitor.

Generate system health reports

A well-organised, information packed report always comes in handy in pinpointing problems that could crop up with your PC. Windows Vista is packed with diagnostic tools for your PC that let you do just that.

 

To get the system to generate the report, go to your Control Panel, and select System and Maintenance. Next, go to Performance Information and Tools. On the left, where you have the Tasks list, select Advanced tools. Now, click the last item on the menu before you, which is Generate a system health report. The system will spend about a minute gathering information, which means you can run several of these reports, and it won’t take up too much of your time.

 

To get an idea of what your system’s ideal performance is like, run a report immediately after a boot, before you start any programs. Then try generating reports while running the most stressful programs, and see the variation between the two.

 

Free up space on your hard disk after installing Vista

When you install Vista on your PC, it automatically backs up all the files that were replaced during the installation. However, once you are comfortable with using the OS and are sure that you will not need to uninstall it, you no longer require these files, and they are simply taking up space on your hard disk. Here’s what you can do to get rid of them.

 

In your system32 folder, there is a tool named Vsp1clean.exe, which can remove all these files. To run this tool, all you have to do is open up a Command Prompt (or press the Windows key + R), and enter: Vsp1cln.exe

 

This will remove all the backed up files from your system, which are the older versions of components that have been updated. Using this tool can free up 600-700 MB of space on your hard disk. 

 

Run Parental Controls in Vista

Are you worried about what sites your kids are accessing on the Web? Parental Controls is a new feature in Windows Vista that was made for you. It allows you to filter certain websites that you think contain harmful content, or only allow sites that you think are harmless.

 

In order to use Parental Controls, you need to be using the Administrator account, and have a separate account for your kids. Also, you should keep your children from accessing the Administrator account by password-protecting it, otherwise they may be able to log in and change the settings in Parental Controls.

 

Go to the Control Panel and choose User Accounts and Family Safety. Next, select Set up parental controls for any user. This will take you to a list of accounts. Select your child’s user account. In the screen that opens up, click the radio button to turn on Parental Controls. Then, click Windows Vista Web Filter, and check the radio button for Block some websites or content. At this point, you can choose whether you want to block sites on a default-allow or a default-deny basis. If you choose Only allow websites which are on the allow list, Vista will only allow your child to access the sites you specifically mention, and deny access to everything else. Click Edit the Allow and block list. Now, enter the URLs of the websites you want to allow or block access to, and click allow the appropriate buttons for Allow or Block. Your settings will be saved, and your child will only be able to access the sites that you allow him/her to access.

 

TIPS FOR A SMOOTH BROWSING

1. Change text size while browsing
While browsing, you may come across web pages that use too small or too large a text size to be comfortably readable. To change the size of the text, click View and then Text Size. Click the text size that you’d like from the options available.

 

2. Open links in new Internet Explorer windows
When you right-click a link on a Web page, it will open in a new Internet Explorer window. Another way of doing this is to press the SHIFT key and then left-click the link.

 

3. Set a home page of your choice
You can choose which website you’d like to view—such as your e-mail account, a favorite portal, your organization’s website, and so on—every time you start Internet Explorer. Go to Tools and click Internet Options. Under Home page on the General tab, type or copy-paste the URL of the website. Click Use Blank if you want to start with a blank page. Click Apply and then OK.

 

4. Type URLs quickly
When you’re visiting a website for the first time, you don’t need to type the whole www.thiswebsite.com in the Internet Explorer address bar. Instead, just type the name of the website (such asmsn) and press CTRL and ENTER together. However, this works only with .com pages, not with others like .org, .net, or .in.

 

5. Navigate Web pages quicker
In a long browsing session, you may find yourself going back and forth between Web pages to revisit what you saw a while ago. To simplify this task, right-click the Back button to see all the pages that you’d seen before the current page, and click the one that you want to visit. Similarly, you can right-click the Forward button to see the Web pages you visited from the current Web page.

 

6. Clear the Web cache

Internet Explorer stores frequently visited Web pages in a cache, so that if they haven’t changed since the last time you visited them, they are opened from your hard disk for faster access. However, if the cache becomes too full, IE may become slow. To clear the cache, click Tools and then Internet Options. On the General tab, under Temporary Internet files, click Delete Files. Click the checkbox against ‘Delete all offline content’ if you want to delete content that you’ve stored offline. Click OK and wait for your cursor to change from the hourglass to the arrow icon again. Then, click OK.

7. Open and close new IE windows quickly
If you like to surf for long hours, here are some keyboard shortcuts to open and close new windows for Web browsing. To open a new window in Internet Explorer, click CTRL and N. To close each window, click the ALT key and the F4 key together; or click CTRL and W.

 

8. Create Desktop shortcuts to your Favorite websites
If you have websites in your Favorites folder that you like to visit very frequently, you can create shortcuts to them on your Desktop. Open Internet Explorer and shrink its size using the square icon on the top-right corner, so that you can see your Desktop. Click Favorites and go to the saved link for your website. Drag the icon for this website and drop it to your Desktop. Your shortcut is ready.

 

9. Rename or delete Favorites quickly
You can organize the links stored in your Favorites list without going to Organize Favorites. Open Internet Explorer and click Favorites. Right-click the link that you want to rename or delete; and choose the desired option from the menu.

 

10. Arrange your Favorites in alphabetical order

You can sort your list of links under Favorites alphabetically. Open Internet Explorer and click Favorites. Right-click and link and then click Sort by name on the menu.

11. Make your Favorites pages available offline
If you have some existing links in the Favorites list that you’d like to make available for offline viewing, click Favorites and go to the link. Right-click and then click Make available offline in the menu.

 

12. Turn off alert for permanently deleting messages
When you decide to delete messages in your Deleted Items folder in Outlook, you are asked whether you’re sure you want to delete these messages. If you want to turn off this notification, click Tools, then Options, and go to the Other tab. Click Advanced Options here, and click the checkbox against ‘Warn before permanently deleting items’.

 

13. Remove messages from Outlook as you delete them

If you’d like to clear your Deleted Items folder daily, click Tools, then Options and go to the Other tab. Click the checkbox against the option ‘Empty the Deleted Items folder upon exiting’. Every time you close Outlook, all the items in your Deleted Items folder will be cleared.

14. Determine when to mark messages as read
If you view messages in the Reading Pane in Outlook, you can decide when the messages that you’ve read should be marked as such. Click Tools, then Options and go to the Other tab. Click Reading Pane. Click the checkbox against ‘Mark items as read when viewed in the Reading Pane’, and enter the number of seconds to wait before marking the message. Or, you can click the checkbox against ‘Mark item as read when selection changes’ if you want to mark the message as read when you move to another message. Click OK and then OK again.

 

15. Add or remove a column in Outlook 2007

In the main Outlook window, you can see lots of columns for your message list, such as Date, Subject and so on. To add or remove any of these columns, click View, go to Current View and then click Customize Current View. Click Fields. In the Available fields list, click the required field, and click Add or Remove.

16. Move a column in Outlook 2007
To change the order of columns that appear in the main Outlook window, click View, go to Current View and then click Customize Current View. Click Fields and go to the Show these fields in this order list. Click the required field, and then click Move Up or Move Down to change the field’s position.

 

EXTENDED TIPS ON POWERPOINT

Transition between slides in PowerPoint 2007
To add cool animation effects when you move from one slide to the next, click the Slides tab on the left side of the slide window. Click the thumbnails of the slides that you want to apply the effects to. Go to the Animations tab and the Transition To This Slide group, and select a transition effect. Use Transition Speed in to select the speed of transition. Click Apply to All.

 

Use the Mini toolbar for speedy formatting
The Mini toolbar in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook (2007) helps you to format selected text in these programs—you can work with fonts, alignment, bullets, and other features. The toolbar is semi-transparent when you select text in any of these programs. You can take your pointer to the toolbar and click the option that you want to use.

 

Create two identical slides in PowerPoint 2007
If you want to create two slides that are similar in content and design, go to the Slides tab and right-click the slide that you want to replicate. Then, click Copy on the shortcut menu. On the same tab, right-click where you want to add the new slide and click Paste on the shortcut menu. You can also copy a slide from one presentation into another.

Multiple Slide Masters in PowerPoint
If you want to create multiple Slide Masters for your PowerPoint presentation, in the View menu, select Master, and then Slide Master. Now from the Insert menu, choose Insert New Slide Master. A new Slide Master will appear with default PowerPoint settings, and a thumbnail for it will also appear in the panel on the left. Change the new Slide Master according to your preferences, tweaking the background colour, text styles, background objects, etc, to suit your taste or requirement. Then, from the Slide Master View toolbar, click the button for Close Master View. This will take you back to the Normal view. Do this to add as many more Slide Masters as you want.

 

Embedding audio files into PowerPoint
If you embed a heavy audio file into a PowerPoint presentation and mail it to someone, you often find that when presentation is run, the audio file will not play. This is because PowerPoint by default creates a link to audio files that are heavier than 100 kB. To embed heavy audio files into PowerPoint, from the Tools menu, select Options, and go to the General tab. You will see a field for Link sounds with file size greater than. Set the value for this field at 5000 kB, or whatever you think is the heaviest file size you are likely to use, and click OK. This means you will now be able to embed audio files of upto 5 MB. Any sounds you now insert into your PowerPoint presentation will be embedded instead of being linked, as long as they are under 5000 kB.

 

Inserting email addresses into a PowerPoint slide
Here’s how you can insert email addresses into a PowerPoint slide. In your PowerPoint presentation, select the object to which you want to assign the email address. Right-click it and select Action Settings. In the dialog box that opens, you will see an option for Hyperlink to:. Select this option. From the dropdown list, select URL.... A text box will open, asking for the URL. Enter the email address you want to link to into the text box. Click OK. PowerPoint will link the object to the email address you entered.

 

Review PowerPoint 2007 Presentations
To add review comments to a PowerPoint 2007 presentation slide, select the object or text for which you want to add a comment. To add a comment about the slide as a whole, click anywhere on the slide. On the Review tab, go to the Comments group and click New Comment. In the Comment box that appears on the slide, enter your comments and then click outside the box.

 

The comment will be saved as a thumbnail on the slide. If you can’t see the thumbnail, go the Review tab, and click Show Markup in the Comments group. To edit a comment, click the thumbnail and add your comments. To delete the comment, go to the Review tab, and click Delete in the Comments group.

 

To navigate between comments, go to the Comments group in the Review tab, and click Previous or Next.

Write on PowerPoint slides during presentations
During a PowerPoint 2007 presentation, you can write on the slides to emphasize a point by circling or underlining it; you can also draw arrows to show connections between pieces of information.

 

To do this, select Slide Show view (you’ll probably use this view to deliver your presentation). Right-click the slide you want to write on, point the cursor to Pointer Options, and click pen or highlighter options. You can now use the left mouse button as a pen—drag this to write on the slide.

Inserting hyperlinks
If you want to insert a Hyperlink in a PowerPoint slide, press Ctrl and K together.

 

Duplicating a PowerPoint slide
While making PowerPoint presentations if you want to duplicate a certain slide then go to the slide in question.  Then press Ctrl and D together and you’re ready to go.

 

PowerPoint print
Print a presentation without opening PowerPoint: Go to the Start menu and click on Run. Type in POWERPNT.EXE/pfiletoprint.PPT, replacing pfiletoprint.ppt with the name of the presentation you wish to print.

 

Using Add-Ins in PowerPoint
Add-Ins are programmes that add some feature to PowerPoint. To use add-ins programs, you first have to install it on your computer and then load it on PowerPoint. PowerPoint add-ins are freely available on the Internet. Microsoft has several add-ins that you can download from its website as well. After choosing the add-in of your choice, install it on your computer and save it to a location you remember. After installation, you just have to load it on PowerPoint. Here’s how.

 

In the Tools menu, select Options and click on Add-In. In the dialog box that appears, click on Add New. Now locate the add-in that you had installed previously. Do remember that PowerPoint add-ins have the file extension .ppa. Select the file and press OK. If a message appears that says that the add-in contains Macros, select Enable macros. Close the add-in dialog box. 

 

Draw on the screen during a presentation
To draw on a slide during a presentation, press Ctrl and P together. The cursor will change to a pen. Now use the left mouse button to draw on screen as required. This shortcut is useful when trying to illustrate a point during a presentation. To delete what has been drawn, press E on the keyboard. To remove the pen display, press Ctrl and P again.

 

Slide effects preview
To preview the animation effects of the slide that you are editing, press Ctrl while clicking on the View Slide Show button. This lets you view the effects while editing the slide itself, instead of viewing it during the slide show.

Displaying keyboard shortcuts in tool tip
Here’s a handy tip if you don’t want to remember all those keyboard shortcuts. Click on Tools, then on Customize. Now click on the Options tab, and then choose "Show shortcut keys in screen tips".

 

Subliminal messages animation

Here is something to spice up your presentation. Subliminal messages animation lets a selected message to flash quickly and disappear in the presentation. Select the text, then click on the Animation effects button in your toolbar (it looks like a star), then click on the “Flash Once” button. 

WINDOWS XP TIPS

Get rid of drab arrows
Tired of looking at the default Windows mouse pointer? Go to Start, click on Control Panel, select Mouse. Click on the Pointers tab. Choose a scheme from the Scheme area. Check the schemes and the kind of pointers they include. Select the one you like and click on OK to bring it into effect.

 

Super fast shutdown
Normal shutdown can take a lot of time. More so, if you have programs or background services open on your system. To shut down quickly, save all your open documents, open the Task Manager by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Delete, press Shut Down from the menu and choose Turn Off.

Create personalized icons
Creating your own icons in Windows XP is a breeze. Here's how to go about it.

 

Create an image first which you can use as an icon. Click Start, click All Programs , go to Accessories, and then click Paint. On the Image menu, click Attributes. Type 32 , 42 or 62 for both the Width and Height of the document, selecting Pixels under the Units. Click OK to create a new icon.

Have fun adding type, colour etc, to your image. You can also shrink an image to create an icon. Save the image by opening the File menu and clicking on Save As.

 

Scroll the `Save in' box to select the location where you want your icon to be saved. Give your icon a name followed by .ico (without the quotes), Now scroll down the `Save as' type box and select 24.bit Bitmap. Click Save.

 

Now create a new folder, right-click on the folder, click Properties, go to Customize and click on Change Icon. Browse and select the icon you have just created and select OK. You have a folder icon just created all by yourself.

 

Have fun adding type, colour etc, to your image. You can also shrink an image to create an icon. Save the image by opening the File menu and clicking on Save As.

 

Scroll the `Save in' box to select the location where you want your icon to be saved. Give your icon a name followed by .ico (without the quotes), Now scroll down the `Save as' type box and select 24.bit Bitmap. Click Save.

 

Now create a new folder, right-click on the folder, click Properties, go to Customize and click on Change Icon. Browse and select the icon you have just created and select OK. You have a folder icon just created all by yourself.

 

Block websites
It's very simple to block out certain websites that you do not want to open up on your computer: Click the Start button and select Run. Type the following: c:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

 

Windows might ask you which program should be used to open this application. Click on Wordpad.

It will open up a new window on your screen showing some text information. At the end of the last line of the file, press the Enter key. Type 127.0.0.1 and the name of the website you want to block.

For example: 127.0.0.1 knowiz.com

 

Save the file. The websites that you have put in this list will not open up on your system.

 

In case you want to open them, go back to the text file using the same commands and remove the names you have typed. Save the file.

Making menu text larger
When you change your screen resolution to a higher setting, the menu becomes too small to read. You can fix this, while retaining the new resolution. Right click on the desktop and click Properties. Click on the Appearances tab and click on Large Fonts or Extra Large Fonts to make the menu items readable. If you don’t like the color scheme of the menus and icons, you can click on the Color scheme drop down menu and chose any other. Similarly click on Effects to get a more snazzy Windows interface. Not satisfied? Explore the Advanced button here and you can have your own personalized Windows interface.

Reach Run quickly
Here’s a quicker way to reach the Run dialog box, if you don’t want to go through the Start menu. Just hit the Windows key + R.

 

Looking for a better screen font display?
Enable ClearType, Microsoft’s trademark font display technology, for a drastic improvement in screen font rendering. Right-click anywhere on your desktop. Now select Properties. Under the Appearance tab, click Effects. Check the box for Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts, and in the drop-down menu, select ClearType. Press OK, and apply the change.

 

Change your mouse pointer scheme
Bored of the same old arrow? To change your mouse pointer scheme, in the Control Panel, select Mouse and go to the Pointers tab. Scroll through the available schemes, pick one that you like and click Apply.

Check that your Windows Firewall is turned on
To make sure your Windows Firewall hasn’t been accidentally disabled, go to your Control Panel and click Windows Firewall. Make sure the radio button for On (recommended) is selected. Add exceptions to your Firewall by going to the Exceptions tab and adding the programs that you think should have access to the Internet to the list of exceptions.

 

Instantly activate your screensaver
In XP, you can put a short cut of your favourite screensaver on your desktop to instantly start your screen saver. Here’s how. Go to Start on your desktop and click on Search. In the help box, click on All files and folders. and then type in *.scr. Select your screen saver file and right click. Then select Send To, and then Desktop.

 

Put your Monitor to sleep
Right click on the desktop and click on Properties. In the dialog box that appears, click on the Screen Saver tab. Click on Power and in the dialog box that appears click on the Turn off Monitor list.  Select a time to automatically after which the monitor will be turned off. Click OK twice and you’re set. 

Using your Windows Key
Your Windows key can be used to for many short cuts. If you want to open your Windows Explorer quickly just press your Windows key and E. If you want to open the Run dialog box, just press the Windows key and R. If you want to open your search dialog box, press your Windows key and F.

 

Instantly lock your PC
If you have password protected your Windows, here is a quick way to lock it. Press the Windows key and L together.

 

Change the look of folder icons
If you don’t like the look of the folder icons on your desktop, you can change them. Right click on the folder, select Properties. Click on the Customize tab, and under the Folder icons area, click on the Change Icons button. Select the icon of your choice and select OK.

 

Minimize a Window to your taskbar
If you’re tired of using the mouse over and over again to minimize a window, here’s a handy tip. To minimize a window using just the keyboard, press Alt, Spacebar and N together.

Display album art in your music folder thumbnails
If your music files are in WMA format, XP automatically picks up the album art and displays it, both in the folder thumbnail as well as in the Windows Media Player display. If your files are in MP3 format, you can download the album art from the Internet and then customize each folder to display it. But this takes a lot of time. A faster way around is to save each image as ‘folder.jpg’ and put it in the correct folder. Once you do this, XP will pick up that image and use it as the thumbnail for the folder, and also use the image to display in Windows Media Player while playing songs from the album.

How to stop Windows Media Player from accessing your information
You may be uncomfortable with the idea of Windows Media Player collecting your information and sending it to various websites. You can stop this. Go to the Tools menu of Windows Media Player. Select Options and then go to the Player tab. Look for the check box that says "Allow Internet sites to uniquely identify your player?" and make sure it is not selected.

Opening folders with a single click
If you’d rather not have to double-click everything to open it, here’s the way out. Go to My Computer, and select Options in the Tools menu. Choose Folder options. In the dialog box that opens, select the check box that says ‘Single-click to open an item (point to select)’, and click OK.

 

Making web pages available offline
You may occasionally need to refer to a website, and you may not be able to connect to the Internet at the time. An easy way out of the situation is to go to the Favourites tab in Internet Explorer, and click Add to Favourites. In the dialog box that is displayed, select the Make available offline check box, and press OK.

MORE ON EXCEL

Format a chart in Excel 2007

After creating a chart, click it to add formatting. This will display the Chart Tools, with the tabs Design, Layout, and Format. On the Design tab, use the Chart Layouts group to select a layout and the Chart Styles group to select a predefined style for your chart.

 

Change the default font in Excel 2007

If you’d like to use a different font to work in Excel 2007, click the Microsoft Office button and then Excel Options. Go to the Popular category, and then to When creating new workbooks. Click the font that you want to use in the Use this font box and the font size in the Font Size box. Restart Excel for the changes to take effect.

 

Change the default number of worksheets in an Excel 2007 workbook

You can change how many worksheets are available to you in a new workbook. Click the Microsoft Office button and then Excel Options. Go to the Popular category and then to When creating new workbooks. In the Include this many sheets box, type in the number of worksheets that should be available to you by default when you open a new workbook. Restart Excel for the changes to take effect.

Password protection for Excel Workbooks
To protect your workbooks, open the workbook in question and click on Save As on the File menu. On the Tools menu at the top right of the box that appears, click on General Options. Type the password to open text box. Click OK. Your workbook is now password protected. 

 

Using conditional formatting
Your Excel spreadsheet should let you glean information from it at a glance. This can be done using formatting. Conditional formatting allows you to apply a particular format to a cell, depending on whether it fulfils a certain pre-assigned condition.

 

To apply conditional formatting to a range of cells, first select the range. Go to the Format menu and select Conditional Formatting. A dialog box opens up asking you to specify the condition under which you want the format applied. From the first drop down, select Cell Value Is. Then select the appropriate evaluator from the second drop down. For example, this may be “greater than." Password protection for Excel Workbooks 

To protect your workbooks, open the workbook in question and click on Save As on the File menu. On the Tools menu at the top right of the box that appears, click on General Options. Type the password to open text box. Click OK. Your workbook is now password protected. 

 

Using conditional formatting
Your Excel spreadsheet should let you glean information from it at a glance. This can be done using formatting. Conditional formatting allows you to apply a particular format to a cell, depending on whether it fulfils a certain pre-assigned condition.

 

To apply conditional formatting to a range of cells, first select the range. Go to the Format menu and select Conditional Formatting. A dialog box opens up asking you to specify the condition under which you want the format applied. From the first drop down, select Cell Value Is. Then select the appropriate evaluator from the second drop down. For example, this may be “greater than." Password protection for Excel Workbooks 

To protect your workbooks, open the workbook in question and click on Save As on the File menu. On the Tools menu at the top right of the box that appears, click on General Options. Type the password to open text box. Click OK. Your workbook is now password protected. 

 

Using conditional formatting
Your Excel spreadsheet should let you glean information from it at a glance. This can be done using formatting. Conditional formatting allows you to apply a particular format to a cell, depending on whether it fulfils a certain pre-assigned condition.

 

To apply conditional formatting to a range of cells, first select the range. Go to the Format menu and select Conditional Formatting. A dialog box opens up asking you to specify the condition under which you want the format applied. From the first drop down, select Cell Value Is. Then select the appropriate evaluator from the second drop down. For example, this may be “greater than." Now specify the value that the items in the selected range of cells should exceed. For example, “2300”.

 

Once you have specified the condition, click the Format button in the Conditional Formatting dialog box. Specify the formatting you want applied. For example, you might want to make all text red, or fill those cells with a particular colour. When you are done, click OK. Excel will highlight all the cells whose value is above 2300 with the colour of your choice.

 

Inserting multiple rows into an Excel worksheet
You probably know how to insert a single row into a worksheet—right-click anywhere in the row below where you want the new row, and choose Rows from the Insert option. Now, if you want multiple rows, after inserting one row, press F4. Excel will insert a new row as many times as you press F4. You can also do this: Select as many existing rows as you want new ones, and then choose Rows from the Insert menu. You will get as many new rows. 

 

Close all open workbooks
To close your active workbook in Excel, you can use Ctrl + F4. In case you want to close all open workbooks at the same time, hold down the Shift key as you display the File menu. This will give you a Close All option. Choose this option to close all your workbooks, after saving changes in each. But remember that this option is only displayed if you go to the File menu while pressing the Shift key, and not otherwise.

Working with multiple Excel worksheets
If you’re working on several worksheets in a workbook, having to use a mouse to switch between them can be a huge waste of time. To go to the next active worksheet, use Ctrl + Page Down. To go back to the previous one, use Ctrl + Page Up. To insert a new worksheet into the workbook, use Shift + F11.

 

Allow simultaneous editing of Excel 2007 workbooks by multiple users

You can enable different users to simultaneously edit an Excel 2007 workbook by setting up the workbook as “shared”. You then need to save the workbook on an allocated network share, from where users can access and modify the data.

 

Create the workbook and add the data. Then, on the Review tab, select the Changes group, and click Share Workbook. You can select your options here. In the Changes group, you can also select Protect and Share Workbook, so that other users cannot turn off Change Tracking.

Saving the shared workbook will then prompt you about changes saved by other users. If you keep the shared workbook open, you can choose to be informed at specified time intervals about changes other users have made.

 

If changes that you are making to a cell conflict with changes made by other users to the same cell, you are prompted to choose the changes that you want to keep.

Distribute workbooks for editing; merge or consolidate changes

If you want to allow users to make changes to the data in a workbook, but want to control what changes are accepted in the final copy, you can distribute copies of the workbook to each user and then merge or consolidate the changes in each copy.

 

After creating the workbook, set it up as a shared workbook from the Changes group in the Review tab. Then, distribute copies of the workbook. After users have made the changes in their copies and sent them back to you, save all the copies to a common location and click Compare and Merge Workbooks.

 

You can also send copies of worksheets for separate data inputs and then collate these into a master worksheet. For this, each worksheet should have similar or identical layouts. Once you have received completed worksheets from each user, click Consolidate in the Data Tools group on the Data tab. You can choose to consolidate data by Position, Category, or 3D Formulas.