Personal Technology Tips in Plain English
Software
Seeing Is Believing: Watching Someone Else’s Desktop From Another Room, City or Country
Jun 14th
Computers are a fact of life. They are everywhere and used by everyone…
For example, even my daughter learned how to Shut Down Windows when she was in pre-school and 3 1/2…
Nowadays, you run into situations where you wish you could show someone you know what you’re looking at on your computer screen.
Perhaps this is especially true when you’re trying to troubleshoot some problem that keeps arising, and you just know that your geeky friend can fix it in seconds — only if he saw it first hand since you just cannot describe it in words well enough to get the quick fix secrets.
Introducing live desktop sharing. Long available to IT chipheads and business webcasts/web collaboration from huge companies like WebEx, this quite useful feature is now available to the masses….for free too.
Now, you can instantly and painlessly let someone else see your computer screen as if they had a long monitor cord to your PC connected through the internet. You can let them see what you’re doing on your monitor and they can watch everything that happens.
How To Change The Default Font in Microsoft Outlook 2007
Jun 2nd
After installing Microsoft Office 2007 on my computer, I’ve been bewildered by the massive changes in the menus and features vs. the last version. It’s taken me months to find some of the routine functionality in the new version I’m so used to using.
Microsoft definitely wasn’t thinking about you and me when they redesigned MS Office from the ground up this time.
Sometimes you have to look for higher guidance when trying to find that needle in a haystack that you just KNOW is in there somewhere – especially with Microsoft products.
One of the small issues I’ve had from day one when using the new Microsoft Outlook 2007 program, is when I’m composing a new email.
For some reason, Microsoft choose to give an obsure font fame by making it the default font. The problem is that not everyone has that font installed on their computer.
Thus when a recipient receives your email, it may or MAY NOT look like what you see on your computer screen when you typed it — since the recipient’s computer may substitute some other random font in it’s place. That immediately takes away your control to present yourself in a professional and intended way.
So I finally ventured out to figure out how to change that random default font to ARIAL – a font that everyone has and is used to. Here’s how you can change your default font in Microsoft Outlook 2007 yourself:
How To Get 70GB of Music on Your 8GB iPhone
Apr 8th
If you have an iPodTouch or iPhone, you’re probably maxing out on the music playback capabilities of the device. In fact, I bet you probably shelled out a little more for the 8GB version just becuase you have so many songs you want to carry around with you.
The only problem is that from time to time, you get bored.
And you have to re-sync the Apple iPhone with your Mac or PC to swap out mp3 music files so that you have a fresh batch on your iPhone.
What if I said that you didn’t have to do it anymore! What if I said that there’s a way for you to play any song that’s on your computer at home even though you are across the globe with your iPhone?
And what if I said that you can play any song on your computer at home as well as from 30 of your friend’s computers as well? That would basically kill the need for that 8GB upgrade, no? Perhaps you could have saved a little more cash and gone with the 4GB version of the iPhone or iPod Touch?
This is one of those “must installs” for the iPhone that everyone is raving about.
Ok, ok, I’ll stop stalling…here’s how. . .
Valetine’s Day Secret: A Powerpoint Trick You’ll Love
Feb 14th
As media director for my church, I am constantly working with Microsoft Powerpoint. While most people cringe at the sound of the presentation software being mentioned, I’ve found that it’s a really useful application if you know around it.
There are some neat features in Powerpoint that are not normally utilized, but are quite useful — outside of just presentations and reports. One of them is to use Powerpoint as a graphics design program. No, it won’t come close to Illustrator, Photoshop, or any of the other nifty (and expensive!) applications out there.
But if you need to create some decent graphics for your website, flyers or any other desktop publishing scenarios, Powerpoint can be your friend.
One of the best features for graphics is Powerpoint’s ability to create and save file in formats other than the .PPT format. Did you know you can create web graphics files with Powerpoint? Microsoft has included a feature to convert any slide (or all of them) to JPG, GIF, TIFF and PNG formats.
Here’s how to do it…
3 New Mac Products Before MacWorld
Jan 8th
Next week is Macworld!
The keynote given by Steve Jobs will be on Tuesday, January 15th. Historically, this has been a very exciting time for Apple – the iPhone was announced last year. . .
But in an effort to stoke the fires that are starting to blaze about all the suspicions for huge announcements next week, the Apple Store launched 3 exciting new products today… Read the rest of this entry »
Are You Tired Of Doing All The Talking?
Nov 26th
There’s so much content out there that you need to read and consume.
Wouldn’t it be great if someone could just turn those long memos into mp3 audiobook files so you can just listen to them on your ipod on your way home from work? What about if you could have all of your emails read to you? Reading the Bible every day? Couldn’t you absorb more if you had it read to you instead?
How to unleash iTunes mp3 song purchases
Oct 2nd
Everyone loves iTunes. . .
even though there are alternatives like eMusic that sell much of the same music for 70% cheaper.
One of the downsides of iTunes is that it’s made to work with iPods in general. If you have another brand mp3 player, or like to burn CD’s and make different mix CD’s to play offline, you can run into some DRM issues that limit the ways you can use the downloaded songs from iTunes.com.
I love tech, gadgets and the web. Hope you pick-up a useful tip or two here today that helps you use technology to your advantage! Better yet, why not share your own expertise in a comment on a post today to help the other readers that land here for answers!