More spelling and grammar information from Word

I doubt many people do not make use the spellchecking facility in MS Word. Most people probably run a grammar check too. Nevertheless, few people will use Word's readability statistics report.To switch this report on, open the 'Tools' menu in Word and click on 'Options', select the 'Spelling & Grammar' tab, tick the 'Show Readability Statistics' box, and click 'OK'.Now, when you click on the 'Spelling and Grammar' button (shown left), Word will...

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The 2nd Carnival of Computer Help and Advice

Firstly, let me thank everyone who submitted an article for inclusion on this carnival. I received forty-eight submissions and I am sorry that I could not include them all.Getting us started this month, Ashutosh Mishra presents an article containing fourteen tips for making Windows run faster in Speed Up Your Computer at PC TON!C. In a similar vein Jose DeJesus MD gives advice for Tuning up Windows on his Physician Entrepreneur blog. Jose also...

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Windows Folder Options Explained (Part 4)

Continued from part 3...File TypesThis tab contains a list of all the file types that Windows knows about and which programs are configured to open them if you double-click on their icons.As the image shows, if a .doc document is double-clicked on it will open in MS Word. You can change the program that is associated with a file type by selecting its entry and pressing the 'Change...' button.Occasionally you might want to delete file types from the...

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Windows Folder Options Explained (Part 3)

Continued from part 2...View Settings continuedHide protected operating system files (Recommended)This option is selected by default, to protect users from themselves, as is explained in the warning message that appears if you try to switch it off.If you click 'Yes' on this dialog box you will be able to see these special system files. The image below shows various system files that are required by Windows to run, such as 'pagefile' which is the...

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Windows Folder Options Explained (Part 2)

Continued from part 1....View SettingsThe 'View' tab has two sections. In the first section, 'Folder Views' you can either set Explorer to show all folders according to the current settings using the 'Apply to All Folders' button; or, by clicking the 'Reset All Folders' button, Explorer can be set to display folders as they were when Windows was first installed - this excludes any changes made to the toolbars.The second section has a number of 'Advanced...

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Windows Folder Options Explained (Part 1)

In the 'Tools' menu of any Explorer window there is a 'Folder Options' item. This opens a dialog box that enables us to change the behaviour and the look of Explorer windows. This series of articles explore these various settings. The first part will deal with the 'General' tab.Note: This article refers to Windows Explorer, the in-built file manager program, not to Internet Explorer, the web browser.General SettingsThe 'General' page has three settings,...

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Freeware round-up

To celebrate six months of Bloody Computer! I have decided to list all the freeware software mentioned here blog so far (partly to prompt me to update the 'Quality Freeware' list in the left-hand column - now renamed 'Recommended Freeware') So, without further ado, here is the list...Audacity: audio file editor.AVG anti-virus free edition: anti-virus software.Beneton Movie GIF: An application to create animated GIFs from a series of images, like a flickbook.CamStudio: record what you see on your screen.CCleaner: removes many non-essential files...

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How to defrag your drive efficiently

If your computer is running slowly you may have been told to defragment your hard drive. This because as large files are saved to the hard-drive they are often broken up into file fragments and stored in the gaps between other file fragments. This increases the time that Windows takes to access your files.To check whether your drive needs to be defragmented go to My Computer, right-click on the drive's icon, and select 'Properties' from the menu. Go to the 'Tools' tab on the dialog box that opens. Click the 'Defragment now' button to open the defrag...

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Keyboard shortcut of the week: Explorer

A short and sweet post today, after so many lengthy ones.Here is a shortcut that I have mentioned in passing before: to open Windows Explorer (the Windows file browsing software) hold down the Windows key (the one with the Windows logo on it) and press E.Note: this may not work if you have certain applications open, to remedy this hold down the Windows key and press D then...

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Tag those audio files and show them to the World

If you have a large collection of MP3s, WMAs and other audio files, you probably have quite a few where the tag information isn't set up properly. In other words, they don't come up with the correct track name or artist in your media player.Editing these tags manually can be a laborious task, but fear not, the contributers at MusicBrainz offer a solution to your problem. As they say themselves:MusicBrainz is a community music metadatabase that attempts...

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Jargon Busting: OSs, GUIs and Shells

What is an Operating System?An operating system, or OS, is software that enables you to operate the computer. It manages the opening of files, the monitor display, printing, access to networks, and so on. The chances are you are using a version of Windows as your operating system, but this is not the only OS available. Others include the various versions of linux (such as Ubuntu) which are generally available for free, and OSX, which is the latest...

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Mouse stopped working: how to reinstall

The first thing to do when your mouse stops working is to check the cable connection. There is no point reinstalling the mouse if it isn't plugged in.The next thing to try is to reboot the PC. I have written instructions on how to reboot a PC using the keyboard.If after checking the cables and restarting the PC, the mouse still does not work you should try reinstalling the mouse. To do this you need to open the Device Manager, which can be accessed...

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How to reboot Windows using the keyboard

I was writing a post on how to reinstall the mouse using the keyboard when I realised that rebooting the PC using the keyboard would be a required step in the process. So I decided to dedicate a whole post to that topic. I will give a few examples of how this can be done.Using the Start Menu· Press a Windows key (the ones with the Windows symbol on as shown right), this will open up the Start Menu.· Use the cursor keys (the ones with arrows on) to...

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How to rename multiple files

Whenever you want to rename multiple files with the same piece of text and an individual number for each file, as in photo1.jpg, photo2.jpg and so on, you usually either have to do this manually or use a batch rename program. Yet, Windows has the facility to do this, albeit in a rough-and-ready way.To rename multiple files, select all the files you wish to rename (in a previous post I looked at various ways of selecting multiple files). Then either right-click on any of the files and select Rename from the context menu (this method is demonstrated...

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