Archives for the ‘Helpful Tips’ Category

September 14th, 2010
How to use Filters to Enhance Gmail’s Priority Inbox

A few weeks ago Google started rolling out Priority Inbox, a feature for Gmail that promises to sort your incoming mail so that all the important stuff is shown at the top of the page.

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March 18th, 2009
Helpful Tip: Buying a House? Best Home Buying Websites and Resources

Over the last few months, Ryan and I found ourselves consumed with the process of buying our first home. Home-buying can be a daunting experience, there's no doubt about that, but it becomes a little less daunting with the help of the Internet.

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November 7th, 2008
Helpful Tip: How to Create a Distribution List in Outlook 2007

Here's a helpful tip for those of you who have just started using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, or you've been using it but haven't figured out how to create Distribution Lists.

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October 21st, 2008
Helpful Tip: Drag and Drop Using Exposé

Seeing that Ashley and I are still relatively new to the Mac world we are still finding some little gems that demonstrate Apple's eye for detail. A fine example of this is something I saw on the help page Apple developed to explain what Exposé is. It was there that I found out you can drag and drop files from one window to another using Exposé:

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August 28th, 2008
Helpful Tip: Use Google Search to Easily Translate Words

Most of you are probably aware of Google's translation services that they offer found at http://translate.google.com, but did you know that you can also use their search bar to translate single words? It's a fairly new feature, and it's simple to use.

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August 12th, 2008
Helpful Tip: Recover Lost Bookmarks in Firefox 3

Last year we provided a thorough guide on how you can recover lost bookmarks in Firefox, but as an anonymous reader pointed out some of the tips provided no longer work in Firefox 3. This is because Mozilla revamped the bookmarking system so that it performs better, and is also capable of more advanced functionality such as tagging.

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August 9th, 2008
Helpful Tip: Remove Old Versions of Java (JRE)

Over in our forum Max inquired about whether it was safe to remove old versions of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) that had been left behind after each upgrade. Of course you can, and there's a good chance that you can free up hundreds of megabytes by removing them.

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July 15th, 2008
Helpful Tip: Getting More out of CyberSearch Keywords

We know that you've had less than two weeks to kick around our CyberSearch extension, and we hope by this point you're finding it to be an indispensable tool. The true power lies in the keyword system that it comes with, but it might take a little time to really understand how it works. Our video demonstration should be enough to get your creative juices flowing though.

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July 7th, 2008
Helpful Tip: Disable Drag & Drop Images in Firefox

In Firefox 3 Mozilla wanted to make dragging and dropping items in the browser a little more intuitive, and so they decided to show a preview of the item your dragging underneath the mouse cursor.

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June 27th, 2008
Helpful Tip: Create ZIP Archives Without .DS_Store on a Mac

One of the things that I really don't like on a Mac is how it includes hidden files and folders when you create a ZIP archive.

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June 22nd, 2008
Helpful Tip: Backup Apple Mail or Entourage

We've already shown how to backup data from email programs on Windows, and so we thought it was only fair to do the same for Mac users. Using a free tool cleverly named Email Backup you'll be able to rest easy knowing that you have a backup of your Apple Mail, Microsoft Entourage, Eudora, or Thunderbird data.

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June 16th, 2008
Helpful Tip: Track UPS and FedEx Packages via Email

We don't know why shipment tracking services are so intriguing lately, but they are. Maybe it's because we've had a handful of packages shipping (selling on eBay) and being delivered lately.

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June 13th, 2008
Helpful Tip: Add More Speed Dials in Opera 9.5

I never thought Opera was going to make this possible, but I'm pleased to say that in the new Opera 9.5 you can actually customize how many Speed Dial entries are shown at any one given time! They are so incredibly useful that I've found myself needing more than the nine that comes standard in the browser.

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June 12th, 2008
Helpful Tip: Monitor Websites for Changes

One of the Firefox extensions that I've absolutely fallen in love with is Update Scanner. It is capable of scouring any website for changes, and can display a notification within the browser when it finds that the content is different. That's handy for websites that don't have RSS feeds, or maybe you're waiting for an online store to get something in stock.

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June 9th, 2008
Helpful Tip: Show Connected Drives & Devices in Mac OS X Dock

One of the things that I found interesting when getting used to my Mac was that Apple didn't include a way to quickly access the connected drives from the Dock. Sure they place the shortcuts on the desktop for everything that's connected, but navigating to the Dock is much faster in my opinion.

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May 29th, 2008
Helpful Tip: Get Gmail 2 in Opera 9.5

One thing that Google is quite adamant on is making sure that you're using a browser they officially support, and more times than not Opera users are left in the dark. The new Gmail interface is no exception. If you try visiting the email service in Opera you'll be forced to use the old-school version of Gmail that doesn't have color-coded labels, among other things.

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May 23rd, 2008
Helpful Tip: Disable UAC for a Program in Vista

I've read about how a lot of people have chosen to disable User Account Control (UAC) in Vista because of the headaches that can result from it. That's mostly because of applications that have not yet been programmed to run in a general user mode, and they are still accustomed to running as a privileged user just as they did in XP.

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May 18th, 2008
Helpful Tip: Preview iCal Calendars in Firefox 3

One of the things that Firefox 3 has really been pushing to do is make the browser more usable, and there are some nice things they've added to do just that. I'm not sure how often you deal with iCal calendars in your browser, but I come across them from time to time. Normally it's because of friends or family that want to share their schedules with me.

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May 16th, 2008
Helpful Tip: Using Gmail as a Journal…

A bout a week ago, I came across an article over at Webware about using Gmail as a baby book. Rafe Needleman pointed out how setting up a new Gmail account would be a really simple solution for parents who want to keep a record of what is going on in their children's lives.

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May 11th, 2008
Helpful Tip: Use a Remote External Drive for Time Machine Backups

Ashley and I have been getting acquainted with our new MacBook Pro's over the last few weeks, and things are going pretty well. I really wanted to get an external hard drive so that I could do Time Machine backups, but I didn't want to fork out an arm and a leg for one.

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