This weekend, an emailer asked the question of how to use the backups that we describe on our site. An excellent question I’m sure others have had as well.
Over the years, I laid out step-by-step methods for backing up your email address book, favorites/bookmarks, and even your email. To use these backups, simply use the “Import” function to bring them back into a new installation of a program or even a new computer.
As of today we are declaring the HD disk format war as over. Best Buy and Netflix are now backing Blu-ray. This brings the number of big companies that remain exclusive to HD DVD or remain uncommitted to a format down to a handful.
If you are debating over whether to go Blu-ray or HD DVD, there are two schools of thought. You can buy a Blu-ray and prepare for the future or you can buy an HD DVD and buy all of the cheap movies on clearance in a year or so when the format goes obsolete.
Microsoft and Toshiba were the biggest backers of HD DVD, but even Microsoft has said that they will follow the public demand.
I fielded a call from a client today who wanted to know how to transfer a PDF (Adobe Acrobat) form he received via email to Microsoft Word so he could fill it out using his computer, save it, then email it back. My short answer was that he couldn’t do it.
Technically, it can be done through a series of computer hocus-pocus, Jedi mind tricks, a great deal of knowledge about the Windows clipboard, Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word and a lot of time. Knowing that this client didn’t have these tools at his disposal, I elected to tell him that it couldn’t be done.
Adobe Acrobat forms (PDF files) are not easy to edit or annotate because the purpose of a PDF is to preserve the formatting and integrity of the original document. Some PDF form designers can make their forms fillable using our computers, if they choose to do so. For example, many government sites like the IRS have forms that can be downloaded and printed or filled out right from our computers. Again, these forms are designed this way and not all PDF forms can be filled in via computer.
It bothered me all day that I still didn’t know of a better solution for this common question; how to fill in a PDF (Adobe Acrobat) form on the computer. I did some research tonight and found that our new favorite PDF reader (Foxit Reader) has this capability built-in (see illustration). However, the free version will let you fill it in, but if you save, print, or email the filled in form, it will have some verbiage along with it stating that the feature is a pay feature. If you pay Foxit $40, you can use the feature and not have the trial verbage printed on your form. If you need to fill out a lot of PDF forms, this looks to be a great solution.
I write and talk about Web 2.0 all the time and lo-and-behold there is a
Today, I helped my customer who I installed Ubuntu for almost four months ago. “It has been working great so far”, he informed me. We mainly worked on fine tuning some aspects of the desktop and panels (Ubuntu toolbars). He also wanted to use a calendar, but didn’t know how to approach the included Evolution program which is similar to Microsoft Outlook. However, as I pointed out last summer during my “14 days with Ubuntu”, I like the direction Evolution is heading, but it is far from polished.
Although Evolution comes with Ubuntu automatically, I still recommend using
As I move more and more of my computing away from my desktop computer to the Internet and Ubuntu, my computing life becomes less complicated and quite mobile. I can access documents, calendar information, contact information, and more from my phone (Treo 755p at the moment) and any Internet connected computer any where I happen to be.
Please read the headline of this article correctly – it does not say, "Reasons why you should upgrade to Windows Vista." Windows Vista is still a nasty operating system that hogs resources and hides or eliminates important features, but there are some cool features hidden within and I feel that I must list them here so that I can be fair to Microsoft.
If Microsoft had added any or all of these features to XP, it would have been an upgrade worth the price. Instead they had to add all of the other junk to confuse users too.
Windows Vista still doesn’t seem to be gaining any momentum in the fans department after 10 months. Today, I discovered this new feature (see the 53 second video below) that Microsoft took 7 years and billions of dollars to develop and implement in Vista. Once again, instead of Wow, I’m asking, “Why?”
After getting off the “grid” this year with our meetings and covering some very different territories, I decided to go with a mainstream topic today. In today’s meetings, we discussed some word processing and spreadsheet basics.
Our site has a plethora of word processing tips (mostly Microsoft Word), and you can find them all by clicking here.
For spreadsheets, you can just search for spreadsheets in our search engine.
I ran into a problem today with a Windows Vista machine that apparently isn’t unique. This tip only applies to Windows Vista users who use Windows mail.
Problem: Can’t delete any messages in Windows Mail…which also prevents new messages from being read.
Symptom: When you try and delete a message in Windows Mail, you get an “Internal Error” message then have to restart the program.
Solution:
If this tip doesn’t change your life, it can change your cube mates life or someone’s life who uses Excel a lot.
This short (4 minute) video demonstrates the power of knowing how to quickly navigate around a spreadsheet without using the vertical or horizontal scroll bars.
Even if you don’t use Excel, watch the video…it is like a magic show you might see in Las Vegas.