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In troubleshooting PC problems in Windows, you often have to copy text from message boxes that look like this:

If you try and highlight the text with the mouse, nothing happens.  But there’s a little known trick that works like a charm.  Simply, press Ctrl-C.  It will copy the Window title, message text and button labels.  It’s a very useful trick for when you get an error message and need to do a Google search on that error.  I just stumbled upon this recently and for years, I’ve been manually typing the error text in.  When trying to fix these problems, it’s no fun having to type in “Access violation at address 10002593 in module ‘LIBMYSQL.dll’…” Especially with the arcane wording usually involved with Windows error messages.  I’m not sure why this “feature” isn’t well documented somewhere, but I’m glad I finally found it.  It’s just a quick tip but, I hope this helps you as much as it helped me recently.

By default, Microsoft Outlook prevents you from opening file attachments that are potentially "malicious".  These include .EXE files which are programs or applications that launch when you click on the attachments.  The danger is that somebody could write a program and when you click on it, your entire hard drive would be erased, or something like that.  For the general public it's a good idea not to allow .EXE files for incoming emails.  However, this is a big inconvenience if you really need to receive a legitimate executable from a friend or colleague.

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These days with cheap memory prices and multi core processors, it's becoming increasingly useful to install virtual machine software on your computer. VMware is an excellent piece software, that provides great compatibility and useful features.  Here are some effective ways to use it.

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The Opera browser is great for a number of reasons.  A superior rendering engine, good memory management, and a wealth of functions that provide a great browsing experience.  But what I appreciate most about Opera are its keyboard shortcuts. You can get a list of keyboard shortcuts from Opera Help, (Press F1).  Here I'd like to highlight some of the most useful and interesting shortcuts.

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I'm a firm believer that everything you do on a computer should be accessible through the keyboard.  I guess this comes from working on computers back in the days of MS-DOS where the mouse was an afterthought. Actually, at the time, a mouse wasn't even available on most computers.  So, I got used to doing everything with the keyboard.  I'd argue that remembering keyboard shortcuts makes you a more productive user.  Over the years, I've probably accumulated hundreds or even thousands of keyboard shortcuts stored in my head.

One easy "trick" that I like to do is utilize the start menu to run commonly used applications.  If you go to the Start menu in Windows XP and right click on an application in "All Programs", you'll get a context menu that'll let you "Pin to Start Menu".  So, what you can do is pin a bunch of frequently used icons onto your Start Menu, for easy access. Continue reading »

In Microsoft Outlook, I find the AutoComplete function to be quicker and more useful than the address book.

  When sending emails, I usually start typing the first few characters of the email address and Outlook magically figures out who I want to send it to, based on emails I've composed in the past.  The problem is, every time I install Outlook on a new computer, I lose the AutoComplete and have to start from scratch.  Continue reading »

There is one hugely annoying problem with Gmail and many people are frustrated with it.  It's the spam folder falsely identifying legitimate email as spam.  This happens to me quite regularly and I've lost several important emails this way.  Many people including myself use Gmail with an email client like Outlook, or Thunderbird over POP3.  Everything works fine until someone calls you up and asks why you haven't responded to their email.  It turns out that their email was delivered directly into the spam folder.  When this happens there is no way for you to know unless you use the browser interface to check.  On top of this, the "spam" gets automatically deleted after 30 days, so you have to check at least once a month and wade through potentially hundreds of emails if you don't want to miss anything. 

I've done some research and discovered a few things.  I looked into creating a filter to move spam to the Inbox.  Unfortunately Google allows you to move it into any folder (more accurately, tag it with any label) except the Inbox.  That seems strange. Continue reading »

What's an easy and effective way to protect yourself from viruses?  Connecting your cable modem or DSL modem to a router instead of directly to your computer.  The reason is simple, when you connect your computer directly to your modem, attackers have access to and can interface directly with your computer.  By default, unless you are running a good firewall, all ports are exposed.  Theoretically this shouldn't be a problem since the operating system should be secure and won't allow unauthorized access.  Unfortunately, virus writers are quite good at circumventing security. 

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