Your Computer Minute with Peter Kay

If you use Microsoft Outlook, I’ve got a great tip for you. The next time you get an email from someone that you want to add to your contacts list, try this. Open up their email and then right-click on their email address. You’ll see a little handydandy menu pop up and one of the choices is to “add to contacts”. Click on that and you’ll see that Outlook creates a new contact item and fills in the name and email address. All you gotta do is save it and you’re done. Very cool. There’s another way to do the same thing and it that works just as well if not better. Simply drag the email from your inbox and drop in over your contacts folder. Outlook handles the rest. Keep this up and you’ll have more contacts than you know what to do with in no time!

Do you want the best protection against viruses? Sure, you can and should get anti-virus software. But what I think is even more important is to make sure your software is fully up to date. Luckily there is a really easy way for you to check up on this in Windows. Go to start, programs, and then click on Windows Update. You’ll be sent to a Microsoft Web site that will analyze your computer and let you know what free updates have been released. Now if you are not comfortable with installing updates you should get a technical person to help you. Either way using the Windows Update is a great way to make sure your computer has maximum protection against nasty viruses.

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The next time you need to use a dictionary, don’t reach for the little fat book on the shelf. If you have a high-speed, always on connection, finding the right word is faster, easier, and only a mouseclick away if you use an online dictionary. I personally use the Merriam-Webster online edition. I love it because it’s faster than the book and will even properly pronounce words for me (very cool). Another thing that’s great about the online dictionary is that it can help spell words correctly. I never did quite figure out why my teacher told me to use a dictionary to get the right spelling. How can you look up a word if you don’t know how to spell it? Anyway, I’ve been using the online dictionary for a few years now and haven’t picked up the book version since. Of course this won’t work well if you have dialup because you have to take the time to connect but if you have a high speed, always online connection using an online dictionary is the only way to go.

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If you use Outlook I’ve got a great tip for you. There are probably a few people that you send a lot of email to. This could be friends, family, or co-workers. You can save a lot of time by creating a desktop shortcut that allows you to create a new email and also address it with only a single click. Here’s how to do it. Right-click on your desktop, then click new, then shortcut. When Windows asks you for the location, type in “mailto:” followed by the email address of the person you normally send mail to. Finish it up and you’re done. Now all you do is double click on this desktop shortcut and Voila, an email is opened and automatically addressed.

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If you use Microsoft Office I’ve got a great tip for you. There are a few commands that each of us use in Office over and over again and sometimes those commands take several clicks to get to. One example is adding someone to your Junk senders list in Outlook which takes 3 clicks and if you have to do that often, you end up spending a lot of time. Create a custom toolbar button instead. Just right-click on your toolbar and choose “customize”. Then click on the “commands” tab. Find the command you want to turn into a button, then drag and drop it on your toolbar. Next time all you need to do is just click on that button! Very cool.

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