Plan your holiday online(Internet, navigation)

             You want to calculate various routes and variants for optimum travel planning. The problem here is that your navigator often stops functioning because it requires satellite reception.

             Online travel planning via your computer at is simple and easy. Go to routes.tomtom.com. In the fields 'From' and 'To', define the start and end locations, wherein accurate address specifications are possible. It is also possible to search directly on the tab. Here, right click the desired position and follow the “Start here” or “End here” link. You can define a time for starting so that intelligent time-dependent data from IQ routes can be correctly used for calculation. Then click “Plan route”.
              After a little time, you see the result and can list the individual steps with “Display navigation instructions”. You can go through all the individual sections, save the address displayed in the address line of the browser as a bookmark and then call it up later. This address can also be copied and sent via email.
Note: Tomtom.com doesn’t have data for India.

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Prevent undesired error messages in Excel 2007(Excel 2007 and 2010)

              You are searching for information in Excel from other table fields with Vlookup and want to adapt it. You often get error messages if the search term is not present. Here is an example for the functioning and advantages of “Vlookup”. For instance, you have a table that records names and telephone numbers. And if you include some of the names elsewhere in the sheet then you can enter the relevant number using the “Vlookup” function. “Vlookup” will search for the name accurately in the sheet. The formula used is as follows:
=VLOOKUP(H2, A1:B16, 2, FALSE) 
             Here H2 is the name, A1:B16 is the table field, 2 is the column that contains the numbers, whereas false will search for the exact corresponding name. In case of success the formula outputs the relevant number in I6 or else it will show “#N/A”. This is not an error, as it means that the name is not present in the list. If you wish to change this output to “Not Present!” for your convenience, then you can easily do so. Using “IfError”, you can change the output message to let’s say “not present!”, with the help of the following formula.
=IFERROR(VLOOKUP(H6, A1:B16, 2, FALSE), "Not Present!")

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Minimize programs in the taskbar or the info field(iTunes)

             You play music on iTunes 24x7, but you don’t like the fact that the icon of iTunes occupies space in the taskbar even though you seldom access it.

              In the program options, you can configure a setting so that the icon is automatically minimized in the info field of the taskbar. You can also decide with the functionality of Windows whether the icon should be displayed or hidden. For this, select the command 'Edit | Settings' and click the Advanced icon in iTunes. Activate the 'Display iTunes icon in taskbar' option there. This is deceptive because the icon is still displayed but the option moves the display in the info field. Then activate the 'Minimize iTunes window in the taskbar' option.
             The next time the program window is minimized, it is visible only in the info field and disappears from there after some time. If you want to see the icon, click the small triangle there and then the “Adapt” link. Search for the “iTunes” entry in the list and change the setting to “Display icon and messages” in the relevant combination field to its right. The icon will be visible after you click “OK”.
Note: The mini mode of iTunes is a practical alternative. For this, minimize the program window and right click a free place in the taskbar. Then select the context command “Toolbar → iTunes”. Both these space saving variants are however mutually exclusive. You see a mini control bar that gives you direct access to the important playback and volume functions instead of the program icon only if iTunes is normally minimized.

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Record the last modified date internally(Excel 2003, 2007, 2010)

             You want to keep a track of when your Excel sheet was last modified. You want Excel to insert and update the date automatically.
             As a solution for this, you need a VBA code in the working folder so that a macro automatically ensures an update. Open the relevant working folder for this and select the command"Tools → Macro →Macros”. From Excel 2007 onwards, activate the “View” tab in the taskbar and click the “Macros” icon. Now enter a macro name and click “Create” or if a macro already exists, click “Edit”. In the VBA editor, navigate to the “This working folder” entry in the upper left of the project explorer under “VBAProject" of the current file. Double click and open the relevant code window that is now ready for your entries.In the right combination field, select the “SheetChange” system procedure whereupon the relevant number of macros is added below. Add all the further rows as follows:

Private Sub Workbook _ SheetChange(ByValSh As Object, ByVal Target As Range) Application.EnableEvents = False Sh.Range("A1").Value = Date Sh.Range("A1").NumberFormat = "mm/dd/yyyy" Applications.EnableEvents = True End Sub
               The sample code is triggered on the current sheet by the result of the change. The value of the current date is then entered on the sheet in the “A1” cell. It is mandatory to switch the event processing off within the macros in this example; else, the change in the A1 cell automatically triggers the next SheetChange event. This would always lead to an endless recursions. Instead of a separate entry for every table, you can also access the document property and update it centrally in the same table. Then also specify the relevant work sheet, for instance:
Worksheet("Sheet1").Range("A1"). Value= ThisWorkbook. BuiltDocumentProperties(12)
               This command will change the A1 cell in Table1 and assigns it with the document property specified with the last change. This is the information that can be called up in the file properties under Windows. After entering the script, close the VBA editor and save the Excel file in your document folder. When calling up the sheet, ensure that the contained macros are activated; else, the security settings prevent the functioning of the macro.

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Set up quick and easy direct start for important tasks(Kaspersky Internet Security)

               In addition to the automatic protection from threats, you also want to conduct regular checks like system errors. For that, you will need to rummage through the entire menu.

               In Kaspersky Internet Security, you can create new links to directly start regularly used tasks. For this, right click the program icon in the info field of the taskbar and then select the context command “Settings”. Now click the “Scan” tab and then select “General Settings”. Here in the “Scan Tasks Quick Run” section you will find options to create shortcuts for specific tasks. You can use them to create a separate link for the “Full Scan”, the “Quick Scan” or “Vulnerability Scan”. After a click on it, you can change the target location “Desktop” to another one that is less visible and create the link by clicking “Save”. In the other available categories such as “Full Scan”, you also have the option of setting up an automatic, time-controlled execution of the relevant tasks, namely the “Start Mode” option.

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Translate documents directly from Word(Word 2003, 2007, 2010)

             You want to translate a complete German document into English without investing too much of time. You know a few online services but they are just too tedious.

             With Office, you can easily send a document to an online translation service and request machine translation. Here, you need to keep in mind that the quality of a machine translation is usually not up to the mark. It can however definitely be a good starting point for your work. Before using any online translation service, you first need to enter its Internet address to the Word Processor.
              For this, activate the research options in the task field. In the new versions, click “Research” in the “Review" tab in the ribbon. In Word 2003, go to “Tools → Research”. Then select “Research options” at the end of the task field. Then in the dialog box with the same name, click “Add Services”. Now enter the Internet address of the online translation service under “Address”, e.g. for the Microsoft Translate, http://www.microsofttranslator.com/OfficeTrans/Register.asmx. Click “Add” and a set-up for the service starts. Word is now ready for the work.
               Select the text you need to translate and click on “Research” and select the entry “Translation” under “Search for”. In “Translation”, select the source language under “From” and the target language under “To”. Here in addition to the common language such as English, German and French, you can also select other languages such as Italian, Greek, Russian and Thai. In order to translate the entire document, you can use a small white arrow with a green base near “Translate entire document” or “Send document online for translation in unencrypted format”. Confirm with “Send” in the next dialog box so that the Word Processor transfers your data via Internet. The result is displayed to you in the browser. If you have several translation services installed, you can click “Translation Options” and then specify which service the Word Processor should use for which translation.

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Automatically update the time and date(PowerPoint 2003, 2007)

              In PowerPoint, you can automatically update time and date for every slide.
              If you regularly use the same presentation, but want to keep it updated with the current time and date then you can easily do so. Instead of doing it manually, you can change the settings to auto. To configure PowerPoint so that it automatically updates the date and time, go to ‘Insert’ menu, click ‘Date and Time’. Then on the ‘Header and Footer’ dialog box that appears, click on the ‘Slide’ tab. Here ensure that the ‘Date and time’ check box is selected. Select the ‘Update automatically’ option and here from the drop-down list, select the required date and time format that you want to show in your presentation. Also, select the ‘Don't show on title slide’ check box if you do not want to display the date and time on the title slide. Finally, click on ‘Apply to All’. The date and time will be updated whenever you reload the PowerPoint document or begin a slide show.

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Retrieve deleted data from USB pen drive and memory cards(Windows XP, Vista, 7)

              You have accidentally deleted files from a USB pen drive or photos from an SD card. Since there is no recycle bin there, there is simply no way to restore this data.

             There is no guarantee for data restoration but it is also not impossible that you can recover deleted files. What is of utmost importance is that after the deletion, you should not write anything on the disk in question because that could cause the required content to be overwritten. In order to prevent this, install the free tool Recuva on your hard disk. It is available from www.piriform.com/recuva.
               After a quick installation, a wizard comes up that helps you with the following steps. First select the file type such as ‘Images’ or ‘Documents’ or use the ‘Other’ option for a complete search. Click ‘Next’ and then select the relevant memory location. Then search for a drive or partition, select the option ‘At a specific location’ and then enter the memory location or navigate there via ‘Browse’. You can also select ‘Recycle Bin’ or can search the entire computer with ‘I am not sure’. Then click ‘Next’. In the following dialog box, keep the option ‘Activate deep scan’ deactivated since this analysis can take very long. You quickly get a result after clicking ‘Start’.
             The list shows all the deleted data and highlights files that can be restored. By clicking the ‘Advanced Settings’ button, you can select every rediscovered file, see a preview of it to the right and view detailed status information in the ‘Info’ tab. In case of files marked in red that cannot be restored, you can immediately see what they have been overwritten with. When restoring, activate the checkbox for the required files and then click ‘Restore’. Always select a folder on another drive as the storage location and then click ‘OK’.
Note: The restoration usually works for defective or garbled files as well, but of course the result will also be garbled. In case of a text file however, this can still be of a little help if certain parts of the text become legible once again.

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Deactivate the new Windows function called Aero Shake(Windows 7)

               Shaking inactive windows away with a couple of clicks is a practical feature, but it is annoying when you accidentally activate it when moving windows around.

               Windows does not have an option to disable Aero Shake. You can however still manage this by means of an additional entry in the registry. For this, enter ‘regedit’ in the search field of the Start menu and press Enter. Confirm the user account control query with ‘Yes’. Then navigate to the ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced’ key. Click in the right part of the window and go to ‘Edit | New | DWORD Value’. Enter the name ‘DisallowShaking’ and press Enter. Now open the new entry for editing by double clicking it, set the ‘Value’ to ‘1’ and confirm the change with ‘OK’. Now close the registry. Aero Shake is now completely deactivated and can no longer be called up with usual key combination [Win]+[Home] either.
Note: If Aero Shake is activated, you can also restore the windows that you have accidentally shaken away. For this, just shake the active window or press [Win]+[Home] again.

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Assess the condition and service life of SSD drives(Windows XP, Vista, 7)

              You use an SSD as a super-fast drive. You want to check the status in order to be able to act on time before there are any problems.
              The free tool SSDLife determines the current parameters of an installed SSD drive and forecasts its service life on the basis of your personal typical usage. The tool is available free from ssd-life.com where a premium version is also available for a cost but has additional features.
               Under Downloads, look for the link for the ‘free version’. The scope of functionality of this free version is usually sufficient. You need the paid version only if you want to check the status regularly and on time and want to request additional information or use several SSDs simultaneously.
               In order to install, double click the downloaded file to open it and follow the instructions. Administrator rights are required for executing the program due to which the user account control query must be answered with Yes. In a while after this, the tool identifies your SSD and shows a lot of information about it. In addition to the model and the size, you also see information about how long the disk has been in use and how many times it has been booted. Together with the transfer data in GB, you also get a prognosis of the remaining service life calculated on the basis of this information. The additional SMART parameters are not immediately available in the free version, but can be easily requested. Click the ‘S.M.A.R.T.’ button for this and then click ‘No’ in the following dialog box. The data is prepared as a HTML page and displayed in the default browser.
Note: The values for the data throughput and the expected service life are not yet available for a completely new drive and are displayed only after it has been in use for a while. In case of repeated installations, the expected remaining service life decreases with every subsequent installation, but this gets normalized after a while since the program is based on an average rate of writing processes.

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Check copied files for transfer errors(Windows XP, Vista, 7)

              In case of extensive copying activities, you would like to check whether everything has actually gotten copied properly. You are thus looking for a suitable quality control tool.
              With ‘fciv.exe’, Microsoft provides a command line tool that calculates checksums and hash values of files but is not very widely known. The program name stands for ‘File Checksum Integrity Verifier’. You can use it for checking the copying process of files. The tool can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/841290.

              Start the installation with administrator rights via the right-click context command ‘Run as administrator’. After accepting the license agreement, click ‘Browse’ in the next dialog box and navigate to the Windows folder. There you can unzip the program so that it is available on the system path.
              In order to use it, open a command line window via ‘cmd’ in the start menu. With ‘fciv’, you can get additional information about using the individual parameters. In principle, the tool generates checksums from the output data and saves it in a database file such in the XML format. These values can later be compared with the calculated checksums of the copied files.
              In order to check the files from c:\ data’, type fciv c:\data -r -bp c:\data -xml result.xml. Here, the ‘r’ option ensures that all the sub-folders are also recursively included and the ‘bp c:\data’ option ensures that the basic path ‘c:\ data’ is not taken into account. The results are saved in the ‘result.xml’ file.
              The copied files can later be checked against the database with their checksums. For this, you can use the command fciv v bp g:\data xml result.xml. It checks the folder ‘g:\ data’ that for instance should contain the copied files against the checksums in ‘results.xml’. If this is not the case, you get an error message; else, a confirmation stating that all files have been successfully checked. Moreover, you can also list the checksums of all individual files with ‘fciv list xml results.xml’.

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Move user profiles to another disk for security(Windows Vista, 7)

             For proper segregation of system and data, you want to move a user profile from the boot drive to another hard disk. Windows however does not think this should be easy.
             It is usually not possible to move user profiles under Windows. You thus have to use a trick to move the profile data to another location of your choice and let Windows continue to believe that everything still is where it should be.

              For this, set up a junction (connection). The prerequisite for this is that you are using the NTFS file system. Since the following steps are not reliable with Windows already running, start the system with the installation DVD and follow the steps up to the language selection. Use the key combination [Shift]+[F10] to open a command line window. Check the individual drive alphabets with ‘dir’ because they might become different from the normal assignments in Windows. Then copy the existing profile data to the new location via ‘robocopy’. The options you will need might include ‘/mir’ for a complete transfer of the directory structure, ‘/ sec’ for copying the security information and then ‘/xj’ for excluding the existing junctions. Since it is not very practical to move one single user profile and to leave the rest of them on the system disk, use the action for the entire folder ‘c:\users’. The command should then be robocopy c:\users d:\Newusers /mir /sec / xj if you want to save the profiles under ‘d:\Newusers’ for instance.
              Here, you must delete the original folders completely with the command rd c:\users /s /q. Then create the required junction in the file system with mklink c:\users d:\Benutzer /j. Then close the command window and cancel the Windows setup. Windows can now start normally and uses the profiles from the new location.
Note: The new path must be available at all times. If you need to restore the system for instance, the action cannot be undone. In order to bring the user profile back to the original location, you need to undo the specified steps in the same manner. For this, first delete the junction using the command rd c:\ users. The real data at ‘d:\Newusers’ is retained and can be copied to ‘c:\users’ on the system drive.

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Reuse search requests in Windows Explorer(Windows 7)

              You often enter search requests with the same search terms and settings in Explorer. The repeated execution of these requests is annoying and takes just too much of time.
              In order to solve this problem, open Windows Explorer with [Win]+[E]. On the left side of the window, navigate to the desired drive or folder in whose substructure you want to look for files. Enter the search term in the input field to the upper right corner. The OS comes up with results even as you enter the search term and the number of hits in the list reduces with every alphabet that you type.
              You can also refine your search by entering more criteria. For this, click in the input fields and select the ‘Type’, ‘Date Modified’, ‘Size’, ‘Name’ and/or ‘Folder location’ links in the following menu. Another menu or a dialog box is displayed in which you can select the desired limitations. In case of just ‘Name’ and ‘Folder location’, you need to enter the searched character string right after the colon in the search request. Wildcards such as ‘*’ are unnecessary since Windows lists all results containing the search term. If you are unable to see any of the specified options, move the cursor to the left border of the input field, click, keep the mouse button pressed and drag and increase the size of the field.
              Click ‘Save Search’ in order to save the search request that you have just defined for reusing. You can find the command in the toolbar right below the address field. In the next dialog box, name the search and ‘Save’ it.
               Windows manages your search requests with the ‘.search.ms’ file extension under your profile in the ‘Searches’ folder. In order to repeat the search, just double click the entry of this saved file in Windows Explorer.

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Show preview images in Explorer as attractive film strips(Windows XP, Vista, 7)

              You use the integrated image preview of Windows Explorer and ask yourself how you can improve the display.
              Simple built-in Windows tools can help you create individual frames to the image preview in Explorer. You can thus equip the icons with film strips for instance. You can find the setting for this in the registry.

             Enter ‘regedit’ in the search field of the start menu and press [Enter]. In case of XP, go to ‘Run’ and then enter ‘regedit’. Now navigate to the ‘HKEY_CLASSES_ ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\image’ key. Here, ensure that the spellings are accurate. Then in the right side of the window, double click the DWORD value ‘Treatment’ for editing. If it is not present, create it with the command ‘Edit | New | DWORD Value’. Now enter the value ‘3’ and confirm with ‘OK’. Every image now gets a border that looks like a film strip. The border can be completely disabled using the value ‘0’ but even the narrow borders resulting from the values ‘1’ and ‘2’ are hardly visible and thus unsuitable.
            Close the registry and restart Windows Explorer. Individual images now have perforated borders in the Tiles and Thumbnails views, just like classic film strips.

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Start the anti-malware tool Windows Defender directly(Windows Vista, 7)

            You sometimes use Windows Defender for detecting malware. In order to automate this process, you want to be able to start the required checks with a script.

            Windows Defender can be directly run using the command like ‘mpcmdrun.exe’. Here, you can give the relevant parameter for several tasks. The tool is located in the ‘Program Files\Windows Defender’ folder on the system. Administrator rights are required for using the tool. Therefore in case of scripts, ensure that you always use the right path for calling up the tool and run the script with administrator rights. The most important commands are ‘mpcmdrun signatureupdate’ for updating the signature lists and ‘mpcmdrun scan 1’ for a quick system check or ‘mpcmdrun scan 2’ for a complete check. You can get information about additional options, especially about work logs, from the command line with ‘mpcmdrun ?’.

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Add your own ‘Favorites’ to Windows Explorer(Windows 7)

             In the left pane of the Explorer, Windows displays various shortcuts for quick access such as ‘Desktop’, ‘Downloads’ and ‘Last Visited’. But these folders aren’t the only ones you need quick access to.

             Open Windows Explorer with [Win]+[E] and navigate to the folder that you want to add to Favorites. Then click to the folder icon and keep the left mouse button pressed. Drag the icon into the navigation pane over the position in the ‘Favorites’ area where you want to drop it before releasing the button. Done! The folder is added to Favorites. If you want to delete an entry from the Favorites, right click the entry and select the ‘Remove’ context command.

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Display ‘&’ in the footer(Excel 2007)

             The ampersand sign (&) is a special symbol which is not printed by default.

             The ampersand sign (&) is a special symbol which is not printed by default. If you have ever tried to add an ampersand symbol in the footer, you might have also noticed that the ampersand sign disappears on print. If you need to print this symbol, you can do so with very little hassles. Open the workbook which requires to be printed, then on the status bar, click the ‘Page Layout’ option. Now place your cursor on any one of the three sections where you need to enter the "&" symbol. Now press [Shift] + [7] combination twice from your alphanumeric keypad. Notice the & sign appears twice (&&). Click outside the footer area, you will now notice the ampersand symbol in your footer.

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Value-based shading(Excel 2007)

              Differentiate between data without sorting it with the help of Conditional Formatting.

              If you need to differentiate between data with out sorting it, you can do it with ease in Excel 2007. Using the Conditional Formatting rules in Excel 2007, you can easily segregate even numbers from the odd numbers in your data. First select the cells with the data values, then go to the ‘Home tab’. Here under the ‘Styles’ group, select ‘Conditional Formatting’. In the dropdown list click ‘Manage Rules’ and then select ‘New Rule’. You will be asked to ‘Select a Rule Type’, here choose the ‘Use a Formula to Determine Which Cells to Format’ option. In the ‘Format Values Where This Formula Is True’ textbox, enter the formula as "=MOD(A1,2)-1" and select ‘Format’. Then click on the ‘Fill’ tab in the ‘Format’ dialog box and select the color yellow, press ‘Ok’ to continue. Then go back to the ‘Conditional Formatting Rules Manager’ and select ‘New Rule’. In the ‘Format Values Where This Formula Is True’ textbox, enter the formula as "=MOD(A1,2)-0" and select ‘Format’. Then click on the ‘Fill’ tab in the ‘Format’ dialog box and select the color orange, press ‘Ok’ to continue. Click ‘OK’ to apply the conditional formatting to the selected cells.

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Hyperlink Manager for Word(Word 2003, 2007)

            Manage the hyperlinks in your Word document and check for accuracy.

            If you are writing a report, which has a lot of hyperlinks then checking them for accuracy can be quite a task. Instead of manually checking each hyperlink, you can download the Hyperlink Checker for Word. It can be downloaded form http://www.ablebits.com/word-hyperlink-manager-addins/index.php. Once installed start Word 2003, right click on the toolbar and check on the Ablebits.com toolbar. In the toolbar click on the Hyperlink Checker button, it will instantly check the documents for the hyperlinks and display the result. Although it doesn’t check if the link is active, it basically connects the linked word to the website or document name. This way you can make sure that you have linked the right word with the right website without manually going through every hyperlink in your document.

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Change the default Save Location.(Word 2003, 2007, 2010)

             You can change the default location where the files are saved in Word 2007, 2010.

             By default Word saves the files in My Documents folder. You can easily change the location where you want Word to save your files. In Word 2003, go to Tools tab, here select Options. Then select the File Locations Tab, under here you will see the various options. From here you can change the default location, by specifying a new path. In Word 2007, click on the Office button and then select Word Options. Here select Save, which will show you several options. Now here you can change the default file location. In 2010, select the File tab and then go to Options to change the default file location.

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Test the memory load of the browser with a direct command.(Firefox)

             You often have a feeling that your system becomes slower when you open Firefox with few important tabs in the background. You want to get to the bottom of it.

             Type ‘about:memory’ in the address bar and press Enter in order to get information about how much memory Firefox has reserved and how much memory is the browser actually using at the moment. You can get cache information on the screen with the command about:cache. You will come to know where Firefox buffers its data (RAM, hard disk and network), how memory space is utilised on the whole and how much memory is still unused. If you want to know this in detail, you need to also know which entries are saved. They are listed as links on request (click the link).

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Link websites to branch listings in the task bar specifically.(Browser)

             Branch listings of browsers show frequently used elements as well as the last used elements. You can use a trick to specifically anchor certain websites in order to request them quickly.

             The elements shown by Windows in the lists depend on the browser used. What is common for all the surf programs is that the elements can be permanently linked. For this, open the branch listing by right clicking the relevant icon in the task bar. Then right click the desired element and select the context command ‘Attach to this list’.
             You can also click the displayed pin icon to the right of the entry.
             This can also be easily done via Drag and Drop. If you want to link an open website, then click in the address bar of the browser and drag the preceding favicon and drag it into the task bar with the left mouse button on the browser icon pressed. Here, allocation to another browser is also possible. If you drag a favicon from Firefox with the mouse button pressed on the Internet Explorer icon, then the relevant website is immediately linked. Only links from Opera cannot be dragged in this manner. A link that is directly dragged to a free spot in the task bar is automatically linked to the default browser.

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Cancel hanging tabs or tools individually.(Google Chrome)

             Individual scripts or websites are sometimes defective and hang, or an add-on in the browser starts giving problems. Restarting the browser is what you usually need to do.

             Chrome is the first browser to introduce a consistent separation of individual tabs at the process level. You can check that when you start the task manager with many tabs open in the browser. Press the key combination [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[Esc] and switch to the ‘Processes’ tab. For instance, if there are four tabs open, you will see the ‘chrome.exe’ process displayed at least five times. You can end the processes here itself but you cant see which process entry belongs to which tab.
              It is this information that the internal task manager of Chrome provides. You can call it up from the Chrome program window either by pressing the key combination [Shift]+[Esc] or by right clicking a free spot above the address bar and selecting the context command ‘Task Manager’. The following dialog shows the tab or plug-in to which the process is correlated. Select the desired entry and click ‘End process’.
              You can call up detailed information about memory usage of individual processes via the link ‘Statistics for nerds’ and thus identify which websites are low on memory. Moreover, the overview also shows the memory requirements of all other currently open browsers. You can thus end a hanging Flash Player without problems or close a tab with defective websites without affecting the remaining browsers. The closed page displays a message in the tab, thus enabling immediate reloading of the page.

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Search for information about someone on the Internet(Internet)

              You are searching for an old school friend and want to know the options that the you have on the Internet. Your first attempt with Google has not been successful.

              In addition to the general search engines like Google, there are other special person search engines like 123people or Yasni. For research, go to the website 123people.com. Then enter the complete name in the search field, change the country if required and click ‘Find’.
              The service works with a realtime query of various sources thanks to which the search does not take more than a blink. You will then get several columns full of results which are thematically grouped as per telephone directories, e-mail addresses, domains and web links as well as other information like photos, blogs, documents and social network.
              You can always call up more results in each of the columns. Every entry will be preceded with an icon for the source of the information so that you can switch to the relevant website quickly. However do not rely blindly on the results. There is no clear attribution. There are often cases of many persons with the same name due to which it is unclear which blog or which photo belongs to which person. Sometimes random photos from an Internet site are displayed along with the name. But if you are searching for an old school friend, you will obviously know which result is applicable.
NOTE: Try a search request with your own name once. This will help you know what others can find about you on the net or want to know about you. Moreover you can review the obtained results better. If you want to delete any unwanted personal data, you will need to go to the original website since 123people only carries out searches and does not archive any data.

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Display the country of origin of e-mails symbolically(Thunderbird)

             You want to know where the numerous spam and advertisement emails that you receive come from, or you want the check the country of origin of a new e-mail contact.
             With the free Country Lookup add-on, you can find out the country of origin of a message immediately with the help of an allocated flag icon. This enables a quick check of whether a message has actually come from Germany or from your known contact in Austria, France or the USA. If on the other hand the mail of your supposed friend has come from an unknown country, you should be careful and sceptical when viewing the content.
              You can download Country Lookup free of cost from addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/countrylookup/.
              First download the XPI file. Then go to ‘Tools → Add-ons’ in Thunderbird and click the ‘Install’ button. Now navigate to the new XPI file and ‘Open’ it. Click ‘Install Now’ to provide the necessary permission. Then ‘Restart Thunderbird’.
              The add-on does not need any additional configuration. In future, you will automatically see the respective country flag in the header of a message and in the preview. If you point the mouse cursor to the flag, the displayed info text will also show the name of the city along with the name of the country in which the last hub point lies in some cases.

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Activate menu bars and tool bars as you want(Internet Explorer 9)

             The functioning of the new Internet Explorer 9 seems to be decent even without menu and tool bars. But you still wish to have some of those bars and want to activate them.

            With its minimalist interface, Internet Explorer is following in the foot steps of Google Chrome. This display takes a little getting-used-to but proves to be absolutely advantageous once that is done since it leaves so much more space for the website without changing the functioning too much. But anyone who does not want to do without the usual bars will keep bringing that up again and again. This however cannot be done via the options in the setting dialog. Right click a free spot of the title bar. Then activate the ‘Menu bar’ or the ‘Status bar’ in the context menu. You can also enable a ‘Command bar’ in Windows Vista as well as the ‘Favourite bar’ from here.
             What is a little confusing is that the tabs are arranged near the address field. Although this saves space, it can at times lead to confusion between the tab and the address field and cannot display a lot of tabs simultaneously. If you want to see the tabs and the address fields separately, right click on a free space of the title bar and select the context command ‘Show tabs in a separate row’.
NOTE: If you opt for this compact user interface, you can always access the menu bar with [Alt].

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Send a copy of your outgoing e-mails automatically(Outlook 2007, 2010)

            You want to mark a BCC of all the emails, which you send, to a particular email address without installing a special add-in or a tool for it.

            You can make this wish come true with VBA programming. For this, open Outlook and press [Alt]+[F11] to start the editor for Microsoft Visual Basic for Application (VBA). Enable the view of VBA modules in a tree structure in the editor via ‘View → Project Explorer’. Then in this structure, click the small plus symbols in front of ‘Project1’ and ‘Microsoft Outlook Project’ and double click ‘ThisOutlookSession’.
             In the code editor window, choose ‘Application’ in the drop-down menu on the top-left. In the drop-down menu on the top-right choose ‘ItemSend’. Then type the following VBA program in the editor after ‘Private Sub Application_ ItemSend(ByVal Item As Object, Cancel As Boolean)’ and before ‘End Sub.’. Replace email@internet.com there with the desired mail address to which Outlook should send BCCs of the sent message automatically. After the input, save your program with [Ctrl]+[S] and close the editor with ‘File → Close and Return to Microsoft Outlook’.
              Note that your security settings may deactivate the macro when you start Outlook. In such a case, either change the settings accordingly or mark your macro.

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