CHRISdotTODD

In moving my music onto a new computer, I copied my backup music folder, which contained my iTunes library definition, onto my new drive. Then when I installed iTunes, I had duplicate entries of each file, with one being a bad link (as the path was different on my new computer). With nearly 4000 files (8000 listed), I didn't want to manually go through my list and delete the Songs that were broken (Exclamation point next to the Name in iTunes.) Fortunately with some searching, I found Paul Mayne , who had a solution. Through the use of 2 Smart Play Lists and a Play List, I was able to quickly remove the dead, duplicate listings. See Paul's post for the specific details. You can may also find yourself in trouble if you let iTunes scan your backup drive and your primary drive. This would actually create duplicates, one pointing to each drive. To correct this, temporarily rename the music folder on your back drive, which will make all the listings on the backup drive to now have i

I hope you're all using anti-virus software, and are having it self-update. I want to give a plug to Avast! Free Antivirus . I've been a user of Avast! for years, and have never gotten a virus on any of my computers. There has been the occassional trapping of a virus, but Avast! has stopped them all. If you're looking for a good, reliable, and free anti-virus software, I would recommend Avast!.

Perhaps it happened with prior versions of Word and Excel, but I definitely noticed for the first time switching to Office 2007. As a laptop user, I don't always work while connected to my office network, or it may just be that I'm connected via a much slower VPN connection. Regardless, every time I start Word and Excel, they ping the Default Printer, which happens to be on the office network. Due to this, whenever I'm using Word or Excel outside the office the applications hang for several minutes. Apparently so the onscreen display will match the Default Printer specifics, such as margins, Word and Excel will perform this action when started. When over 95% of my documents are never printed by me, and the great possibility that when printed by someone else, they won't have the same printer, I fail to see why Microsoft has chosen this path. From the research I've done, the workarounds are limited. For the Word/Excel VBA Power Users, you can write some code and have

I may be a little late to the party, but I finally upgraded to Office 2007 a few months back. While I like the new styles and themes, and I can still use the keyboard shortcuts I've learned, I'm still struggling with find other features within the Ribbons. Top of my list has been switching windows (view another open file) within Excel. In prior versions of Excel, I could go to the Windows menu and select another file. With Office 2007, you have to first select the View ribbon and then click Switch Windows, where you can select a different open file. As with many of the changes, I had to hunt for a while to find the Switch Windows option. In the mean time I did learn a new keyboard shortcut for switching windows. Use Ctrl-F6 or Ctrl-Shift-F6 to go in reverse order. As with the View >> Switch Windows menu, this also works in Word and PowerPoint as well as Excel.

Unlike XP, Vista does not provide the same privileges by default, and therefore it can be difficult to repair your PST file. The trick is to run the scan and repair program with Admin privileges. Here are the steps: Close Outlook -- likely it's already closed, because if the PST file is corrupt, Outlook wont run. Find the Command Prompt, right-click, and run as Administrator. At the command prompt, enter "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\SCANPST.EXE", including the quotes. If you have a different version of Outlook, you may still have a repair program -- find it and replace with the string I have here. When prompted to Repair, select Repair. Enter 'Exit" at the command prompt to close the Command Prompt window, and run Outlook again. That should do the trick. Some folks may not have an Admin password for Vista. If that's the case, check out these instructions for further help.

Sometime you need to manage music on your iPod that iTunes doesn't allow. I tried iDump, and it didn't recognize my music, so I tried SharePod . While iDump has a 30 day trial before purchase, SharePod is completely free -- donations accepted. SharePod installed quicker, and was very simple to use.

I noticed in my video viewing that when I set the view mode to full screen, the message "Press Esc to Exit Full Screen" is never going away. I tried searching Google, and while many people have asked the same question, there was no clear answer. Through some experimentation, I learned that in locking down my Flash Player (see New "Cookies" and your Privacy ), I introduced this new issue. Apparently the Flash Player wants to store information as third-party content in order for the message to go away. You need to go to the Global Storage Settings panel and check "Allow third-party Flash content to store data on your computer." Interestingly, you can keep the storage setting on "None", and it will still work. (Remember, the Flash setting for your installation is reached by going to a website, with each tab having its own URL. There is no application you can open locally to make configuration changes. Learn more here .) This seems like a real mista