Tips
HP changed their automatic network printer configuration. It’s now downloadable from http://www.hp.com/cposupport/networking/support_doc/bpj06765.html and it’s pretty nifty.
Get extra functions in IE5 by going to the following page: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/webaccess/default.asp
Download the Microsoft Web accessories and the Power Tweaks. Don’t bother with the rest of the stuff there, especially Alexa, it slows the machine down too much and does some pretty nasty stuff!
Want to take all those strange formatting characters out of documents you receive (including e-mails?). Here's how in Microsoft Word:
First of all the full information can be found in Help/ContentsandIndex / Find in Word and type in the word Special (with the upper-case S). When the answers come up, select the one that says "Examples of special characters and ........".
This gives a list of the special characters in Word docuements. An example:
How to take Paragraph markers out of a document to reformat it: Select Edit/Replace. Put ^p in the top box and space in the bottom box. Then replace in the document where necessary.
Another. Take e-mail segment and highlight it. Then select edit/copy (cntl-C). Open Word and do Edit/Paste into the document (cntl-V). You'll see that the lines all end too short and have the manual carriage return character on them. Very annoying. Fix this by using Edit/Replace. Put ^l (that's an L) in the top box and a space in the bottom box. Remove all the un-necessary ones.
Cool, huh? Even if you don't use Word as your final document formatter, at least you can quickly go via Word to re-format and then export it to your favorite package. When an e-mail is several pages long this can be a big time saver!
Word 2000: Help/Index, type in special, select Find and replace text or
formatting, select Find and replace paragraph marks, page breaks and other
items.
Want to close down Windows fast?
Do the following: Make a new desktop shortcut (right click, New/Shortcut).
Enter
C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL.EXE user.exe,exitwindows
in the program to run (you can copy and paste that from here).
Enter Shutdown in the name. Click OK.
Want the Date and the time to the second in the Taskbar clock? Download the TclockEx here and install it.
Want to open your Outlook Express address book without starting OE5? Place an icon on the desktop as follows:
Right click on the desktop. Select New/Shortcut. Browse to c:\programfiles\outlookexpress\wab.exe. Then press next. When you get to naming call it Address Book. Finish and the address book will be a desktop icon.
Want to know what fatal exceptions are when Windows crashes? Here's the list.
Don't want to be caught by Scams on the Net? Check out Scambusters.
Microsoft's latest y2k tester is located here.
Browsing on the net and forgot a site you went to and that crummy URL window history didn't hold it (it never does)? Track your complete history by creating a folder in the start menu and giving it the name:
History.{FF393560-C2A7-11CF-bff4-444553540000}
Go to Start / Settings / Taskbar and click Start Menu Programs, then Advanced. Click in the right side and then right click and create a New / Folder. Give it the name above. Presto! The Start menu now has a history in it.
This works for 98, but not sure about 95 or NT. I haven't found a way of clearing the history yet, so it's a good way for parents to see where their browsing kids are going!
