Castellini on Computers - Computer help for beginners » Office

7 Google services you have never tried

Rick — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:36:08 +0000

Google started as a college project 12 years ago, then as a startup search engine just 10 years ago. Today, Google owns more than 60% of all web search traffic and employs close to 22,000 employees worldwide. You probably interact with Google via their search engine primarily. However, you are missing out on some truly great services that Google also provides in addition to their fast and accurate search engine. Today, I will tell you about 7 of the many other services Google provides.

Google News

When you arrive at google.com, click the link that says News at the top of the page or you can directly visit news.google.com. Google News is an auto-generated news page that refreshes automatically every 5-10 minutes and displays headlines from more than 4500 news sources around the world. To me, it is the ultimate newspaper?unbiased and unfiltered. And even more helpful, starting a search at Google News instead of

Changing email addresses – It’s not that difficult

Rick — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:19:45 +0000

AOL made billions of dollars for years because computer users are afraid to change their email addresses. All week long, I hear, "Oh, it's too hard to change email addresses now." Or, "It will take forever to change my email address with everyone."

Come on folks...were using computers! You don't have to fill out a change of address form and march it down to the postal office. You don't have to send out a post card to every person you know. You don't have to fill out a change of address for all your bills and utilities.

Changing email addresses is actually pretty painless and can be cathartic as well. In fact, think of it as going into the digital identity protection program. Here's how to make it a smooth transition:

Yet another reason to ditch Microsoft Office for web based apps

Rick — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:35:06 +0000

This news story has flown mostly under the radar of most computer users for weeks. In a nutshell, it’s a patent infringement suit brought upon Microsoft by a Canadian company called i4i. The suit alleges that Microsoft knowingly used proprietary technologies in Microsoft Word 2003 and 2007. Last week, a judge in Texas, ruled in [...]

Microsoft will offer Free Online Office Apps

Rick — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:13:29 +0000

Another announcement from Microsoft this week centered around their upcoming release of Microsoft Office 10 and an online version of Microsoft Office that will compete with Zoho and Google Docs. The scheduled release of the new software and web apps is the 1st 1/2 of 2010. A lot can happen between now and then, but it [...]

Using templates can save you time

Rick — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 04:02:17 +0000

The old adage of not reinventing the wheel applies perfectly to computing and document creation. Why spend time creating a document from scratch if someone else has taken the time to put the same type of doucment together already? A template, in computer lingo, is a pre-formatted document like a resume, flyer, labels, invoice, etc. that [...]

Email of the Week – 008

Rick — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:49:23 +0000

QUESTION Name: Norman B. Buckallew From: Florien, La., OS: Windows XP ———————- I have office 2003 standard addition installed on my computer. When I try use programs such as powerpoint it asks for a key word to install or activate it. I have lost the keywords that came with my [...]

5 Quick and Easy Steps to Spring Clean your PC

Rick — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:50:46 +0000

Spring has sprung and along with your other spring cleaning chores add these five computer cleaning techniques to keep your computer clean, cool, and happy.

Desktops: Unplug all of your cables (label them if necessary) and take the tower outside. Open up the side (usually thumb screws or a latch on the back of the computer) and blow the dust out of the system with a can of compressed air. I recommend starting from the top and moving towards the bottom making sweeping motions from side to side. Pay particular attention to the vents on the case so your computer breathes well. Don't over spray the fans as you might cause some damage to

2 laptop suggestions for college students

Rick — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 22:46:12 +0000

Millions of new college students will be leaving for their respective campuses (campii?) soon. These students will more than likely go to college with a computer...probably a laptop. I would like to suggest two possible laptops ideas for these students.

Both of my ideas involve good systems that will allow college kids to word process, chat, email, listen to music, watch DVD's, browse the web wirelessly(for school research of course), create presentations, spreadsheets, download and edit photos and much more. Neither involve Windows and thus don't require a degree in computer security and maintenance. One of the computers costs between $1200-1800 and the other costs less than $700.

Stop the Microsoft Office Agreement (EULA) from popping up every time you start Outlook, or Word or Excel

Rick — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 20:28:22 +0000

If you are using Microsoft Office 2003 and Windows Vista, you might run into a situation where the End User License Agreement pops up every time you start Outlook, Word, Excel or other Office programs. No matter how many times you click "I agree", the license keeps appearing. To stop the EULA from appearing, follow these steps:

Close ALL Microsoft Office related programs (Outlook, Publisher, Powerpoint, Excel, or Word)
Click Start --> Computer
Double-click the C drive (your primary hard drive)
Double-Click the Program Files folder
Double-Click the Microsoft Office folder
Double-Click the Office 11 folder
RIGHT Click on any of the Office applications (Winword, Outlook, Excel)
Click Run as Administrator
The program will start and ask you to agree to the EULA (agreement) again and click I agree or Yes
Close the program
Close all open windows

Now you can use your Office 2003 programs normally.

Windows 7 – First Impressions

Rick — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 14:28:08 +0000

I just finished installing the Windows 7 Beta version released by Microsoft on Friday. I installed it on my Toshiba Intel dual-core processor with 4 GB of RAM. It was running Windows Vista which took more than 4 minutes to fully boot (I consider the boot up process to be finished when the hard drive stops spinning and I don't have to compete with a still booting computer to do what I want to do), and running any applications was like walking through molasses. I can say that my expectations were pretty low, but I am pleasantly surprised...so far.

It took exactly 21 minutes from