Customizing your Vista Desktop

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How to get rid of those blue vertical lines in email

There are probably several answers to this and other people have their own way of eliminating those blue vertical lines that appear in email - the more the email is replied to and/or forwarded, the more blue lines appear. We're going to give you one solution which is the simplest solution and the one we use. When replying to an email with one or more indented blue lines, click "Format" (on the toolbar) and click "Plain Text". The blue lines will disappear. Now, click "Format" then "HTML" and you'll be back to HTML email with nicely formatted text, etc. If there are pictures embedded in the email you will lose them when you click Format, Plain Text, but the text content of the email will be preserved. After you click "Format" "HTML" you can add embedded pictures to your reply.

We want to remind you that the best way to prevent indented blue lines or carets is not to put them in your email in the first place. So if one of the people you email often does not know how to prevent forwards and replies from being indented and blue lines or carets added to their replies and forward, you would be doing them and you a big favor by showing them how to set up Outlook Express (or Windows Mail on Vista) so it does not indent on replies or forwards - hence no blue vertical lines or carets (in plain text email) will be added. Here's how to do that:

Click Tools/Options then click the "Send" tab. You'll see a dialog similar to the one below. First, while you're here, uncheck "Automatically put people I reply to in my Contacts list (or Address Book, in some versions of Outlook Express). Otherwise, every person you've ever replied to or ever will reply to will be added to your contacts list or address book - not good. You'll wonder who some of these people are someday and how they got there.

OK, now on to making sure you're not adding vertical blue lines to your HTML replies (or carets to your plain text replies). First, let's take care of your HTML mail. Next to "Mail Sending Format" click the button labeled "HTML Settings..." click "Plain Text Settings..." Uncheck "Indent the original text with '>' when replying or forwarding.

The best way to remove vertical blue lines from HTML email and carets from plain text email is preventing them in the first place. If every one of you who are annoyed by those vertical lines or carets told your friends about this tip, you wouldn't have to worry about removing vertical blue lines or carets - and email would look much neater.

By-the-way, "Indent.... on reply...." is the default setting for Outlook Express and Windows Mail (on Vista). So, unless you've changed that setting, your messages will be indented on reply and you'll be adding blue vertical lines or carets to your replies too.

Protect Your Computer

Have you noticed anything weird going on with your computer lately? Maybe it's been running rather slowly or you've been receiving several error messages. Various other things could be happening too, but if either of those two things have been going on, it sounds like your computer is not up to par. When those sort of errors occur, it means that your computer is not running efficiently and it basically just means that it's time to do some cleaning up!

below are six common practices that you should do with your computer on a regular basis. There are obviously other things you can do too, but these are the most needed. They will help your computer to run at its best (for example, much faster) and error free.

1.) Make sure you have the most up to date operating system that you can. No, I'm not telling you that if you have Windows 2000 to go upgrade to XP. I mean to make sure you have the latest security patches updated on the operating system that you do have. It's very easy to check on this. Just go to Start, All Programs and choose the Windows Update option. This will take you to a Microsoft Web page where you can run a test on your computer to ensure that you have the most recent updates. This is very important to do to keep your computer as safe and protected as possible.

2.) This next one is meant to help keep the contents within your operating system safe. I know you've heard this before, but be sure to have an updated antivirus software program on your computer. This is extremely important to protect your system against any threats that may come along (including viruses, worms and Trojans). You also need to run updates on this regularly. Depending on the software you use, download the updates even on a daily basis if need be. Do whatever you need to do to keep your system secure.

3.) The third most important thing is to know what actually is running on your computer. If you have knowledge of everything that's there, you will be able to identify potential risks much easier. If you need to, bring up the Task Manager on your computer right now. (To open it, just press Ctrl + Alt + Del on your keyboard). Once there, look through the list of programs that are running. If you know you don't need some of them, stop them. Most of those programs will be there from the time you boot up your system, so if you need to stop some of them, go to Start, Run and type in "msconfig." From there, click on the Startup tab and uncheck any processes that you don't think you need running. For some more help with this, read here.

4.) The next thing is to have a firewall on your computer. (Yes, I know you've heard this one before too, but it's so important, I just have to mention it again). A lot of the antivirus programs come with built in firewalls. You can also get firewall software and install it on your computer yourself, but in case you don't have one, you can always use the Windows firewall instead (and for free!) To get that, go to Start, Control Panel and click on the Security icon. From there, click on the Windows Firewall link to get it all set up and going. It will keep you safer, I promise!

5.) It's also important to clean up your toolbar. If you have some programs in your toolbar that you don't usually use, remove them. They don't need to be sitting there taking up space. Getting rid of a few of these will help your computer to run faster.

6.) Here's the last one! This is the one that includes several other things, but I'm just going to group them all into number six. You need to do complete maintenance procedures on your computer at least once a month, if not more often. These include such things as a defrag, disk cleanups and clearing out your Internet history files. Read here for just about everything you should do on a regular basis.

Vista Program Compatibility

I'm going to take a guess and bet that most of you who have upgraded to Windows Vista are having a little trouble getting your older programs to work. Am I right? You know, programs that worked fine for you with Windows XP (or even older versions of Windows) just don't work so well anymore. So, is there anything you can do to get the programs you love back up and running with your new Vista PC?

Well, as a matter of fact, there is! Microsoft is good at making sure all of that is covered. They have integrated what is called a Program Compatibility Wizard into Vista. So, if you have an older program that is not working with the new operating system, you can run it through this wizard to simulate earlier versions of Windows to try and get it to work again. To get to the wizard, just go to Start, Control Panel and click on Programs. Next, click on the option that says "Use an older program with this version of Windows" and the wizard will then open.

You can then just go through the steps and see if the program will actually work with Vista. Now, most of the programs that worked with XP also work with Vista, but you may have some trouble with a lot of the older programs. Also, you shouldn't use the wizard with any older antivirus programs, disk utilities or other system programs. Doing that could cause some security holes or even data loss. So, if you feel like you're in a rut with getting your programs to work with your new Vista computer, give this wizard a try!

Turn That Off: In Vista

Have you recently made the switch over to Windows Vista? Or, have you been using it for awhile? Either way, are there some features on the 3D desktop that you'd just love to turn off? I mean, some of them are quite overwhelming and you might have a better Vista experience if you cut them off. I've heard so many varying views about the Vista operating system. If you want to change your Vista computer around a little, have at it!, one of the new features in Vista is the 3D desktop sometimes, it can also be a little too much. The 3D desktop has to do with Vista's appearance and performance and all the other Windows versions allowed you to make some changes within those realms, so why would Vista be any different? Come along with me as we make your Vista desktop all that you want it to be!

First, right click on the Computer icon on your desktop and choose Properties. From there, click on the Advanced System Settings link that is located off to the left side of the dialogue box. Once you click that, you will be asked if you're sure you want to continue on (since they're advanced settings and all). Just click Continue and go on. Next, choose the Advanced tab and then hit the Settings button. From there, you want to be under the Visual Effects tab.

Once you're there, you will see four options at the top of the window: "Let Windows choose," "Adjust for best appearance," "Adjust for best performance" and "Custom." Below those options, you will see a list of settings. The list is pretty long, so it may take you awhile to scroll through them all. As you look through them, you may want to start picking and choosing the ones you want to keep on your computer. Think about each one and picture in your mind what it would do to your PC. Here are some of the settings you have to choose from:

• Animate controls and elements inside windows
• Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing
• Enable desktop composition
• Fade or slide menus into view
• Fade out menu items after clicking
• Show shadows under menus
• Show shadows under mouse pointer
• Slide taskbar buttons
• Smooth scroll list boxes

Okay, I think you get the picture. There's so much to choose from! Now, let's go over a couple of the options I mentioned above again. If you click on the first one (Let Windows choose), the Windows operating system will choose what it thinks are the best choices for your computer. Now, this may be a good choice, but it still may leave you wanting more (or less) from your desktop experience.

if you click on the Custom choice, you can make your own decisions. You can just check or uncheck certain settings and everything will come out just the way you want it. I think this is the best option for anyone who likes to do things on their own. That's why I told you to really pay attention to the options in the list as you're reading through them. If you picture in your mind what a certain setting will do to your computer, you'll have a better reason for choosing what you choose.

When you're all done customizing your 3D desktop, just click the OK button and all will be saved. You can then go and test your new settings out. See how everything changed? Do you like it? Not so sure? Either way, you now know how easy it is to change those settings and you can go back time and time again until you have everything set perfectly for your Vista experience