November 28, 2011

10 Great MS-Office Tips from the HowtoGeek


10 Quick Tips to Get the Most from Microsoft Office




We have published some useful tips and tricks for getting the most out of Office 2010 and 2007. This article compiles 10 of the best tips and tricks we have covered.

Create a Customized Tab on the Office 2010 Ribbon

 

 

Office 2007 included the new Ribbon interface which some people found awkward and confusing to use. However, Office 2010 added a new feature that allows you to create your own custom tabs on the Ribbon. You can group specific commands that you use most often on your custom tabs for faster and easier document creation and editing.
Create a Customized Tab on the Office 2010 Ribbon


Save Time by Customizing the Quick Access Toolbar in Office 2007

The previous tip showed you how to add a custom tab so you can group often-used commands in one place. You can further customize the Office interface by adding commands to the Quick Access Toolbar. This provides one-click access to your most-used commands.
Save Time By Customizing the Quick Access Toolbar in Office 2007


How to Backup and Restore Your Office 2010 Ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar Customizations

Now, that you learned how to create custom tabs on the Office 2010 Ribbon and how to customize the Quick Access Toolbar, you can backup both the Ribbon and the Quick Access Toolbar so you can import the same customizations into Office 2010 on another computer. The following article shows you how to backup the Ribbon and the Quick Access Toolbar in Word, but the same method works in the other Office 2010 programs.
How to Backup and Restore Your Office 2010 Ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar Customizations


How to Find Office 2003 Commands in Office 2010

Have you just upgraded to Office 2010 from Office 2003? If you skipped over Office 2007, you may be having trouble locating your favorite commands from Office 2003 on the new Ribbon interface. Microsoft created and interactive guide to the new Ribbon interface in Office 2010 to help smooth the transition from Office 2003 to Office 2010. The following provides a link to the interactive guides and also shows you how to install them on your computer for offline access.

Link: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/learn-where-menu-and-toolbar-commands-are-in-office-2010-and-related-products-HA101794130.aspx

NOTE: The article also provides a link to interactive guides for learning where commands are in Office 2007.
How to Find Office 2003 Commands in Office 2010


Bring Office 2003 Menus Back to 2010 with UBitMenu

The previous tip showed you how you can make the transition from Office 2003 to the new Ribbon interface in Office 2010 and 2007 easier. However, if you really miss the familiar menus and toolbars from Office 2003, you can get them back in Office 2010. The following article shows you how to use a tool, called UBitMenu, to bring back the Office 2003 menus and toolbars in Office 2010, and even how to hide the extra Ribbon tabs to make Office 2010 more like Office 2003.
Bring Office 2003 Menus Back to 2010 with UBitMenu


Insert Horizontal Lines in Word Documents Quickly

Generally, when inserting a horizontal line in Word, you need to access the Borders and Shading dialog box. However, there is a quicker way of inserting different styles of horizontal lines. The following article shows you the keyboard shortcuts for inserting the different styles of horizontal lines to save you time.
Insert Horizontal Lines In Word Documents Quickly


How to Crop Pictures in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2010

When inserting a picture into your Office documents, you might need to crop it to show only a specific part of the picture and remove other areas. You can do this directly in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The following article shows you how to crop pictures in Word, but the method is the same in Excel and PowerPoint.
How to Crop Pictures in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2010


Center Pictures and Other Objects in Office 2007 & 2010

Once you insert your picture and crop it, if needed, it may be difficult to get your picture perfectly centered in your document. The following article shows you how to center pictures and other objects in Word and PowerPoint 2010; however, the method is nearly identical in 2007.
Center Pictures and Other Objects in Office 2007 & 2010


How to Take Screenshots with Word 2010

If you’re working on a document in Word 2010 that includes screenshots, you can easily use Word to create the screenshots, rather than another third-party tool, thus saving you time. The following article shows you how to use Word to take screenshots and paste them directly into your document.
How To Take Screenshots with Word 2010


Add Security to Your Important Documents in Office 2010

If you’re sharing Office 2010 documents with other employees through your company’s network, you might want to add security to the documents so only certain employees can access the documents. The following article shows you how to restrict editing and encrypt your documents in Word. You can also apply encryption to Excel and PowerPoint documents. However, you can only restrict editing in Word and Excel.
Add Security to Your Important Documents in Office 2010

We hope these tips and tricks help improve your productivity and efficiency when using Microsoft Office.

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/98499/10-quick-tips-to-get-the-most-from-microsoft-office/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=271111

November 4, 2011

How To Reduce Win7 Memory Usage

How to Prevent Windows 7 From Using So Much Memory



Picture this: You have a computer with two gigabytes of physical memory, you turn it on, and just after Windows 7 finishes loading, it’s already using about half of all that memory when you look into your task manager (hold “Ctrl + Shift + Esc” on your keyboard to access it quickly). Even if it looks a little scary, don’t panic!

What Gives?

In case you didn’t know, RAM (also known as physical memory), serves the purpose of storing pieces of every program you open. When you type “I’m Superman” into a text box in an open program, whether it’s true or not, each letter fills a space in your physical memory. This space can be deleted once you erase the phrase.

Windows has always used RAM to store components of every program, service and library it runs. Windows 7, however, does one more thing with your RAM: it stores the data of every program it thinks you might use. This feature is otherwise known as Superfetch, and has many people complaining of W7’s memory usage. Windows basically pre-records the memory for certain applications you often use in order to reduce the time it takes them to load. If you have 2 GB of physical memory or more, you usually end up benefiting from this extra feature. Any less memory, and Microsoft turns your computer into a snail begging for mercy. For those of you with underprivileged computers that don’t have plenty of memory to work with, you may benefit more from disabling Superfetch.

How to Disable Superfetch

If you don’t feel like you need this feature and would like Windows 7 to stop making decisions for you, disabling Superfetch isn’t difficult and might take at most a minute of your time if you follow these instructions.
1. click your Start menu and click “Control Panel”. In Windows 7, the Start icon is depicted as an orb with a “Windows” icon on it, instead of the traditional text that says “Start” on the lower left corner of the screen. When the control panel window loads, click “System and Security” as depicted below. In Vista, however, this section of the control panel is called “System and Maintenance” and it sits in the same location.

windows-control-panel
2. Once you’re in the “System and Security” area, click “Administrative Tools”.
windows-system-maintain
3. In “Administrative Tools”, you’ll notice a “Services” icon. Double-click on that icon and scroll down to “Superfetch” once in the “Services” window. Right-click “Superfetch” and click “Properties”.
windows-superfetch

4. Once in “Properties”, click the box that says “Automatic” to expand it and then click “Disabled.” Click the “Stop” button below the box you clicked and wait for the application to stop. Once it stopped, click “OK”. The image below shows you what to do.

windows-sfproperties

Once you disable Superfetch, you’ll notice your computer has more breathing room. If this effect doesn’t occur immediately, just restart your computer. There are, however, other reasons your computer might be using a lot of memory. You could have a virus, or run a program that has a memory leak. To troubleshoot this issue, close each program you run one-by-one and monitor your memory usage after the program closes using the task manager (remember: Ctrl+Shift+Esc). Having a healthy amount of memory is essential to your computer’s daily functions.

Source:
http://maketecheasier.com/prevent-windows-7-from-using-so-much-memory/2011/11/04?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MakeTechEasier+%28Make+Tech+Easier%29