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Quick fixes for five Windows 7 shortcomings

Quick fixes for five Windows 7 shortcomings

Windows 7 is an unqualified hit, but it's not perfect. Here are five easy ways to make a good operating system better.

Show the selected folder in Explorer's left pane The first time I realized Windows 7's version of Explorer wasn't showing the active folder in the left pane, I thought I discovered a bug. In fact,  Microsoft disabled automatic folder tracking by default in Windows 7. To see the selected folder in Explorer's left pane, click Tools, Folder options,  and check "Automatically expand to current folder" under "Navigation pane&… Read more

Repeat text entered in Microsoft Word

Repeat text entered in Microsoft Word

The company I work for relies on Microsoft Word templates to create all sorts of documents, from one-page letters to reports several hundred pages long. The templates allow us to ensure all the documents we send to clients and partners share a similar look and feel.

One of the most-used templates in our collection is a multipage letter that shows the date on the top of the first page, just under the company logo, as well as in the header of subsequent pages. Unfortunately, the letters are usually composed several days before they're sent, and the send date often … Read more

Blend portrait, landscape pages in Word docs

Blend portrait, landscape pages in Word docs
The company I work for creates very technical reports. Many of the Microsoft Word documents I edit are loaded with complicated tables, charts, and other figures. The pages frequently switch between portrait and landscape orientation, so I have to relocate the page number and remove the other header and footer information on the landscape page and then add it back to subsequent portrait pages.

You might think a sophisticated program like Word would make it easy to reformat a single landscape page and revert to the original formatting afterward, but it isn't.

In Word 2003, the steps required to … Read more

How to update your GPS maps: TomTom edition

How to update your GPS maps: TomTom edition

We're back with another installment of our How to update your GPS maps series. This week, we're taking on TomTom's Ease, One, XL, and XXL models. The process is the same for any model in TomTom's line up, and  thankfully, it is much simpler than our last update was.

The relative ease with which you can update a  TomTom's software can be attributed to the TomTom Home software, a one-stop shop for updating map data, grabbing new firmware, downloading custom voices, and syncing Map Share, and IQ Routes data. Garmin could stand to … Read more

Don't let your PC wear out your eyes

Don't let your PC wear out your eyes

If you spend more than 2 hours a day peering at a computer display, you have at least a 50-50 chance of experiencing vision problems or other physical ailments related to your PC use. That's according to Dr. Wendy Strouse Watt, O.D., in her 2003 article Computer Vision Syndrome and Computer Glasses.

The advent of flat panels may have minimized the risk somewhat, but most office workers now spend more time each day at a computer than they did at the time of the study. In a series of articles on Computer Vision Syndrome, the American Optometric Association (… Read more

How to connect your laptop to a TV

Laptops once used to be the domain of word-processing programs, file databases, and light gaming, but more often than not most people currently use their laptops as makeshift do-it-all interactive televisions. With the abundance of streaming video sites and TV/movie content available, they're often the most versatile entertainment products on the market, pound for pound.

Unfortunately, you're locked in to a screen that often has limited viewing angles and a resolution that's often less than 1080p. There's good news, though: connecting to an HDTV is a lot easier than most people think--provided you have an … Read more