Saving Office 2007 Projects - Backwards Compatibility

Have Office 2007 or 2010? Have friends or colleagues with Office 2003? You can't open Office 2007 or higher files in Office 2003 without downloading a compatibility pack, but there's a very easy solution. Just save your 2007 projects as 97-2003 files. Go to the Office button and click "Save as". See the example from Word 2007 below. It's as easy as that. The file will be saved with an extension (.doc, .xls, etc) that Office 97-2003 will recognize and accept. Now you can send files you've created in a new version of Office to friends who are still using older versions.

Saving/Retrieving Attachments

A common problem that novice computer users face is losing track of where their email attachments went on their computer, how to save them to their documents, the difference between viewing and saving, etc. Here's an intuitive article that may help clear up some of your confusion:

Saving and Retrieving Attachments

Freebies I Recommend

I know it's been forever since I've posted on this blog. Today I'm going to list a few freebie programs that I have installed on my own laptop and have found very useful.

1. PrimoPDF

This is a great little program for creating PDFs from Microsoft Word or other word processing programs. It acts as a printer, but instead of printing to a physical device it outputs the file to a PDF. Of course, make sure you have a program to read it (like Adobe Reader).

2. LogonStudio Vista

Tired of the Vista welcome screen? Here's a fun fix that allows you to create your own background. I prefer to use pictures. It makes the "welcome" to Vista a little less painful.

3. Active@ ISO Burner

There are a lot of free ISO burning programs available, but this is the one I've used most extensively. Burn ISO images to CD or DVD easily and quickly. I've used it for live CDs such as Ubuntu, Gparted, and Clonezilla, as well as operating systems and other bootable images.

4. Revo Uninstaller

I don't know about you, but I don't like how uninstalling programs from Add/Remove Programs (in XP) or Programs and Features (in Vista) doesn't completely erase the program and all the folders/files it created. Revo Uninstaller was a great solution for me. I use it whenever I'm uninstalling something. It goes all the way down to the registry and finds everything the program created, to erase it. I can't absolutely guarantee that it won't mess something up on your computer, because deleting registry entries is always a little risky. But it's never failed for me.

Changing Resolution

Do you feel like everything on your screen is too big? Too small? Do websites feel too crowded, or graphically messed up? It could be your resolution, and if so, there's an easy fix.

In Vista:

1. Right click your desktop and click "Personalize."

2. Click "Display settings."


3. Adjust your resolution. The higher the resolution, the smaller or more distant everything on your screen will appear. Personally, I always keep my computer at the highest resolution possible.


Note: XP steps are very similar. Right click Desktop, click Properties, and go to the Settings tab for resolution settings.

Backup Reliability

Regular backups are important. But they must be reliable. This funny video drives home the point. Enjoy! :)

Enabling Telnet in Windows Vista

By default, neither telnet server nor client is installed in Vista. This is very easy to fix.

1. Go to start, Control Panel, and open Programs and Features.

2. Click on the "Turn Windows features on or off" hyperlink.


3. In the Windows Features dialog box that appears, check one or both of the Telnet boxes, depending on your needs.

How to Disable Word Verification for Comments

Do you get tired of typing jumbled characters to post a comment? This feature is supposed to keep blogs from getting spammed with advertising comments, but in my experience, this doesn't typically happen unless the blog has been left dormant and without updates for quite some time. If you have a Blogspot blog and you'd like to disable this feature for your readers, it's easy.

1. When on your Blogger dashboard, go to "Settings". Click on the "Comments" tab.
2. Scroll to near the bottom, and disable the word verification requirement.