Dave "Bytes"

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January 11, 2008

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Here's A Microsoft Outlook Tip

Creating a Signature for Your Outlook Email

Many people like to add a signature to the end of every message that they send. A signature is usually a small piece of text that identifies you to everyone reading your message and tells something that you want everyone to know. Many people include their name, the name of their business, their motto, a little sales slogan, or some squib of personal information.

You can tell Outlook to add a signature automatically to all your outgoing messages, but first you have to create a signature file. To create your signature file, follow these steps:

1. Choose Tools --> Options. The Options dialog box appears.

2. Click the Mail Format tab. The Mail Format dialog box appears.

3. Click the Signature button. The Create Signature dialog box appears.

4. Click the New button. The Create New Signature dialog box appears.

5. Type a name for your new signature. The name that you type appears in the Signature box. You can name a signature anything that you want.

6. Click the Next button. The Edit Signature dialog box appears.

7. Type the text of the signature that you want to create. The text that you type appears in the Signature text box. You can put anything that you want in a signature, but try to be brief. You don't want your signature to be longer than the message to which it's attached.

8. Click the Finish button. The Signature Picker dialog box appears.

9. Click OK. The Mail Format dialog box appears.

10. Click OK. The Options dialog box appears.

11. Click OK. Your new signature now appears on every message that you send. If you create more than one signature, you can switch between signatures by following Steps 1 and 2 and then choosing the signature that you want from the scroll-down menu next to the words Use this signature by default.

If you use more than one email address, you can set up Outlook to use different signatures on different email addresses. For example, if you have one email address that you use for business and a different address that you use for personal messages, you can create a businesslike signature for the messages that you send from the business address and a more casual signature for your personal messages.

To designate which signatures go with which address, follow these steps:

1. Click the scroll-down menu labeled "Select the signatures to use with the following account."

2. Pick the signatures that you want to use.

3. Click OK.

An article from Computer World says the Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) beta, recently released to about 15,000 testers, runs Microsoft's Office Suite 10% faster than Windows XP SP2. Performance testing was done by Devil Mountain Software, with the results leading to further speculation that Windows XP is going absolutely nowhere.

The tests were also performed with Windows Vista and Windows Vista SP1. Benchmarks from the tests show Windows XP SP3 to be more than two times faster than Vista SP1, which doesn't bode well for Windows Vista.

Craig Barth, Devil Mountain's chief technology officer, said in a recent blog, "we are pleasantly surprised to discover that Windows XP SP3 delivers a measurable performance boost to this aging desktop OS." He also noted that SP3 is shaping up to be a 'must-have' update for the majority of users still running XP.

The OfficeBench suite of performance benchmarks run by Devil Mountain Software were run on a laptop equipped with Office 2007. The laptop, the same unit used in the Vista/Vista SP1 tests earlier, featured a 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 1GB of memory.

Microsoft wasn't available over this past weekend to comment about XP's performance, but a spokeswoman said in an email that Vista SP1 is still in the development phase and will undergo several changes before being released.

Recently, Forrester Research said that Windows XP remained Windows Vista's biggest rival, citing survey data showing that American and European businesses would delay Vista deployment. Why? Well, in the past it has largely concerned application incompatibility issues, causing a wait-and-see approach to Vista...but now corporate IT teams can add one more reason to the pile.
 

Here's An Word Tip

 

Find the Right Word with the Word Thesaurus

If you can't seem to find the right word to use in your Word 2003 document, give the Thesaurus a shot. Start by right-clicking the word that's not quite right, and choose Synonyms on the shortcut menu that appears. With luck, the synonym you're looking for appears on the submenu, and all you have to do is click it to enter the synonym in your document.

To do a deeper synonym search, click the word in question and press Shift+F7, or choose Tools, Language, Thesaurus, or right-click and choose Synonyms, Thesaurus. The Research task pane opens. Now you're getting somewhere:

Choosing a synonym: Move the pointer over the word, open its menu, and choose Insert.
Finding a synonym for a synonym: If a synonym intrigues you, click it. The task pane displays a new list of synonyms.
Searching for antonyms: If you can't think of the right word, trying typing its antonym and then looking for an antonym in the Research task pane. The task pane sometimes lists antonyms for words.
Revisit a word list: Click the Back button as many times as necessary. If you go back too far, you can always click its companion Forward button.

 

Dave's Cool Downloads

 

Flash Slideshow Maker is a Flash album creator to make animated photo slide show with SWF file as the output format. It transforms your digital photo collection to Macromedia Flash file format ( SWF ). Flash Slideshow Maker is the ideal tool for create slide show widget for your website quickly and easily. With ANVSOFT Flash Slideshow Maker, you can easily turn a folder full of still images into a stunning Flash slide show presentation with background music and special transition effects. Key Features: its friendly user interface enables you to create amazing slide shows out of your digital photos with quick and simple steps. No Flash knowledge or programming skills are required. Lots of built-in transition effects and prepared Flash templates can definitely add sweet to your entertainment. Flash Slideshow Maker integrates more than fifty cool Flash template, so you can make a stunning Flash in minutes with a few clicks. Flash Slideshow Maker support embedded the photo and background music to create a single FLASH file. It also support to generate XML-driven slideshow

.

TaxACT Standard
Tax-year 2007 software for Windows. Prepare, print, & e-file your federal return free

TaxACT walks you through your free tax return, asking you plain-english questions and automatically filling in the tax forms for you. TaxACT Alerts meticulously inspect your return for errors, omissions, and valuable tax-saving opportunities. E file for FREE to get an even faster refund.

Key Highlights:

  • Prepare FREE - Print FREE - E file FREE!  No hidden charges, rebates, or gimmicks. You won't pay a penny to prepare, print, AND e file your federal IRS tax return.

  • New! TaxACT® TaxPayer Support. Doing your taxes is stressful – especially when you're stumped by a tax question. Many do-it-yourselfers need the guidance of a tax specialist to walk them through specific tax situations. Via e-mail, TaxACT TaxPayer Support provides Standard desktop and Online users access to a highly qualified panel of TaxACT experts at no additional cost.

  • No Limitations or Missing Functionality!  Unlike other free tax software products, TaxACT Standard supports 1040, 1040A, and 1040EZ income tax returns.

  • 100% Accuracy Guaranteed!  If you are assessed a penalty due to a calculation error in TaxACT Standard, we'll pay the penalty & interest.

  • Alerts help you steer clear of problems - TaxACT meticulously inspects your return for errors, omissions, and valuable tax-saving opportunities you may have missed.

  • FREE Technical Support by Email and Over the Web  Receive technical support from TaxACT absolutely FREE by Email and Over the Web using our extensive online FAQs.

  • Includes the IRS Forms & Schedules you need to complete your personal income tax return. There's no hassle getting those last-minute copies of the right tax forms

Here's A Vista Tip

Setting Desktop Colors in Windows Vista

Vista ships with eight prebuilt designer color schemes, with Aero being the scheme of choice. You can change to a different designer scheme or invent one all your own. To change color schemes, follow these steps:

1. Right-click any empty part of the Windows desktop and choose Personalize.

The Personalize Appearance and Sounds dialog box appears.

2. Click the Window Color and Appearance icon.

Vista opens the Window Color and Appearance dialog box.

3. If you want to speed up the display on your computer (but zap one of Vista's coolest features), you can deselect the Enable Transparency check box.

If the Enable Transparency check box is grayed out, you either don't have a powerful-enough video card to run the so-called "Glass" interface or you bought the Vista Home Basic edition.

4. Make sure that you click the Show Color Mixer down arrow, and then in the Pick a Color box, click the Default, Graphite, Blue, or Teal icon, or whichever color scheme appeals to you.

You see the Hue, Saturation, Brightness, and Transparency sliders move when you click new color schemes. The eight designer color schemes are just recommendations for specific Transparency, Hue, Saturation, and Brightness settings.

5. Choose one of the prebuilt color schemes, or mix and match your own by moving the Transparency, Hue, Saturation, and Brightness sliders. When you're done, click the OK button.

Your chosen color scheme takes effect immediately.

If you want to make Vista look a little bit like the older versions of Windows, you can click the Open Classic Appearance Properties for More Color Options link. That opens the old-fashioned Appearance Settings dialog box, which hasn't changed much since the days of Windows 95

And if you're feeling nostalgic about detailed appearance settings for old-fashioned programs and a few backwater Windows utilities, you can click the Advanced button in the Appearance Settings dialog box. The Advanced settings there haven't changed much since Windows 3.1. Vista doesn't warn you about one key feature of these advanced settings: Everything here is virtually obsolete. You can make all the changes you want, but you will see very little effect in Vista itself.
 

Pause For Thought

Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done.
                                                  Andy Rooney
 

 

 

 

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Last Updated
11/28/2007 09:59 AM