Faster Internet access with an Address toolbar

Internet Fixes has instructions on creating an Address toolbar so you can quickly enter a web address.

This avoids having to keep your browser open all the time.  Just type in the address, and your default browser loads and goes to the address.  This is a neat trick!

Microsoft Office 2007 without a mouse

Okay, some of us keyboard-oriented types hate to take our hands off the keyboard to use a mouse to navigate. It’s hard on the ol’ carpal tunnel problem.

Office 2007 has a neat little trick to help: press the Alt key while in any Office 2007 program, and the ribbon with the menus instantly has a batch of little labels with the keystroke to use.  You can then use H for Home, and N for Insert, etc.

Recommended by PC Magazine, June 2008.

Tame Acrobat Reader to avoid browser lockup

To avoid Acrobat Reader taking over your browser window (which sometimes locks up the browser):

• open Adobe Acrobat Reader from the Start > Programs menu
• then Edit
• Preferences
• choose Options (or Internet in 6.x)
• uncheck the box for “Display PDF in Browser” (make it blank).

After that, you’ll get a file download box when you access a PDF file, and Acrobat Reader starts automatically when you choose Open.

Zamzar goes for the conversion

Zamzar will convert a number of formats to other formats, for free, and email you a link to the new format’s file.

Zamzar does documents, images (graphics), music (audio/sound), video, and compressed formats — far too many to list. Check the list for all the current files.

While you do have to wait for the email to get the link to your converted file, it’s free and will convert things like Real Player files to mp3, and Windows .wma to mp3, and so on.

It will also convert YouTube videos to formats that work in PowerPoint.

Recommended by Tech Support Alert newsletter.

Six Techniques to Get More from the Web

CIO.com has an article called Six Techniques to Get More from the Web than Google Will Tell You which has advice from expert librarian researchers.

Lots of these are useful methods and resources, including links to a number of places that will help you search for all sorts of information.

Of course, once you get there, how do you know a web resource is worthwhile?

Says a section from the article (to show how useful this article really is!):

What’s Trustworthy Online?

How do you know what information you can trust online? Here are five tips from a research librarian:

1. The URL domain: If a URL ends in .edu, .gov or .org, you can bet the information you’ll find there is primary. Primary sources are more authoritative than secondary sources.

2. Website audience size and reach. This is especially true for blogs. The more people who link to it or subscribe to it, the more you can trust it.

3. Membership ranks. For trade associations, check out what companies are listed as members. Big names that you recognize will tell you the association is reputable.

4. Source materials. Think about Wikipedia. Wikipedia itself is not trustworthy because it is written by anyone, not necessarily an expert, and includes articles by contributors with an agenda. Scroll to the bottom of the entry and go to the links that are cited under References. The more references (ideally to news articles or books), the more trustworthy the wiki entry.

5. Quality of links and listed resources. Generally, the more primary the information, the better. But you’re busy. So look for a good aggregator of firsthand information. For example, a blog might cite a book that cites a white paper. You can’t necessarily trust the blog, or even the book. And the white paper is the result of months of research.

If you can access that raw research itself, that’s the most perfect source of information, but “the white paper is where a CIO should go, not to the research,” says technology librarian Jessamyn West. “Half the trick of being CIO is finding good, secondary cultivators of primary sources.”

Shortcuts for IE 7

60 keyboard shortcuts to move faster in Microsoft Internet Explorer 7
from TechRepublic. Free registration is required for this PDF file.

Why can’t IE 7 be like IE 6?

IE 7 Support includes the User Agent String Utility under the FAQ question “My favorite websites don’t load correctly, or don’t seem to work at all in Internet Explorer 7. What should I do?”. The Utility lets 7 emulate the way 6 worked, so you might be able to use sites with that, until they update their sites.

IE7 security settings

Windows Secrets has a list of settings you should make in IE7 to keep it as secure as possible.

NetSwitcher for laptop use many places

NetSwitcher is NOT freeware; it is shareware with a 30-day trial.

It saves your network settings for a particular place. Save your laptop settings for home, for the campus, for the internet cafe, and use whichever one you need when you need it, without having to go through all the setup every time.

Recommended by PC Annoyances

Scheduling Tasks for Windows XP

For Windows XP: Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Scheduled Tasks. If your Tasks are not running, be sure you assigned a password to your user in the User Accounts in the Control Panel.

Updating your XP reinstall disk

So, you’ve upgraded your Windows XP to Service Pack 2 since you bought it? Then your old reinstall disc is outdated. The answer is called slipstreaming, and Smart Computing magazine recommends Paul Thurrott’s slipstreaming guide for creating a new WinXP installation disc.