Taskbar Options

Windows Taskbar Options

I'm sure we've got a few different tips that show you all the stuff you can do to your Windows Task Bar, but I wanted to get them all in one place for convenience.

So, right-click a blank area of your taksbar and select Properties. In the resulting window, make sure the “Taskbar” tab is selected.

Under Taskbar appearance you'll see:

Lock the taskbar – Obviously named. If this is selected, you cannot re-size or move your taskbar. This is perfect for folks who find their taskbar on top of their screen one day and can't remember why.

Auto-hide the taskbar – Great for the neat-freak who wants a perfectly blank desktop. Select Auto-hide and your taskbar with peek-a-boo when you mouse-over the bottom portion of the screen.

Use small icons – If you think the icons on your taskbar are too big, then select this option.

Depending on which version of Windows you have, there may also be an option to relocate your taskbar on the screen (you can also click, hold and drag your taskbar to a different place, too!) as well as a drop-down box to set whether or not open taskbar buttons combine when more than one instance of the program is open.

I hope this enlightens you on all the things you can do with your Windows Taskbar!

I got an attachment but I can't seem to open it. How do I know which program to use? What if I don't have the program needed?

A:
First off—before you open any attachment, make sure you know who sent it. Even if you do know the sender, if you aren't expecting it, you might want to send a quick note to your friend and make sure they really sent it—especially .pps files since they can contain viruses. Also, do not open any attachments with .exe , .scr or .pif file extensions.

Nothing worse than getting a file from a friend and you don't have the right program to open it. Here are some common file extensions and the programs needed to open:

.doc - Microsoft Word
.pps - MS PowerPoint
.xls - MS Excel worksheet
.wpd - Corel WordPerfect
.pdf - Adobe Acrobat
.jpg - JPEG graphic file
.zip - Zip (compressed) file
.sit - Stuffit (compressed) file
.scr - Windows Screen Saver (DO NOT OPEN)
.pif - Program Information File (DO NOT OPEN)

The good news is that most software developers offer freeware viewers that will allow you to see, but not alter, content.

.doc - Microsoft Word Viewer

.pps - PowerPoint Viewer

.xls - Excel Spreadsheet Viewer

.wpd - Wordperfect
Corel no longer offers a viewer, but there is a third-party application called "Lightning" that includes a Wordperfect viewer.

.pdf - Acrobat Reader

.jpg - You can view these in your web browser or most imaging software.

.scr - USE CAUTION if you receive a screen saver via email. They can contain worms or viruses.

.pif - DO NOT OPEN! This is most likely a virus. Clicking it will run a program or code that can mess up your computer.

As for compressed files (.zip & .sit), I recommend 7 Zip, because it's free.

There are also freeware/shareware programs for opening .zip files such as WinZip . In addition, with Windows XP you can save any zipped file to your desktop or a folder and access the files without unzipping (just click it like any other folder—drag items out to run them).

So, next time you get an attached file in your email but don't have the program to open it, just grab a viewer.

Q:
Checking system properties. How do I do that?
A:
Well, you *could* click the Start button, Settings , Control Panel , then open the System icon.
Here's the quicker way...
Hold down the ALT key and double click the My Computer icon on your desktop.

And you get this:

Now you can find out almost everything you need to know about your system.
A quicker way, holding the Windows Key press the Pause/Break key. That will give you the system properties.

Here's a trick from back in the day for all of you long time computer users. It may not seem too useful, but I still think it's fun! Depending on which version of Windows you use, you're going to want to open a command prompt. Windows XP users will go Start>Run, type Command and hit OK. Windows Vista and 7 users will just type Command into their Search Bar and press Enter. This will open the command prompt.

I saw something online the other day about some hidden features in Google. Do you know anything about this? If so, what's it referring to?
A:
Well, I'm not sure where you got your information, but I do have some Google secrets of my own that I can show you. The post included a link to a Google video you could watch that showed exactly how to do all of the "hidden features" on your own. I watched the video through a couple times and then tried a few of them on my own.
1.) Display the Current Local Time Anywhere - If you're interested in what time it is in different cities around the world, this is the perfect search tool for you. With this feature, you can find the local time for any major city anywhere around the world. To do this, go to Google's Web site (www.google.com) and in the search box, type "time in city name Now, what's even better is that it will give you the time for any other cities around the world by that name as well.
2.) Currency Converter - The next "hidden feature" allows you to use the built in currency converter to look up the current exchange rates for any city in the world. For example, let's say you wanted to find the exchange rate for a U.S. dollar to a British pound. To do that, just type in something like "5.99 usd in gbp." By doing that, you'll learn that $5.99 in U.S. dollars is 2.89022919 British pounds. (Note: You'll want to leave the dollar sign ($) out or you won't get the results you're looking for). Now, if you don't know the abbreviations for all the currencies, you can type something like "Currency of France in American Money" instead. That search will show you that 1 Euro equals 1.4448 U.S. dollars.
3.) Find Documents of the Specified Type - With Google, you can search for up to 12 different file formats right from your Web browser. Wow! Those formats include MS Office, PDFs, Lotus files and so on. If you want to search for a specific one, just type "filetype:[extension]" into the search box. For example, if you wanted to find an MS Word document on a certain dog breed, you would just type in the dog breed, followed by "filetype:doc." You can do that for any subject and for any file type. Oh yeah!
4.) Site Specific Search - This feature works perfectly when you want to search through a Web site that doesn't have a search engine included. To do this, you just need to type in a subject, followed by the Web site's URL. For example, you could type in "puggle:puppyfind.com." You can do that for whatever topic you're interested in and for any site you like to visit on a regular basis!
5.) Four Day Weather Forecast - With this Google secret, you can search for the weather forecast for any city around the world. Let's say you're planning a trip to London, England. In that case, go to Google and type in "weather London." I just did that and I can tell you that it is 63° F and mostly cloudy there right now. Your search results will also give you the next four day's worth of weather. On Sunday, it's supposed to be 55 and mostly cloudy. You can do this for any city, anywhere!
6.) Google Calculator - Did you know that Google has a built in calculator? Well, now you do and you can start using it right away! With it, you can actually solve basic to advanced math problems. If you have a math problem that you just cannot solve (maybe you're helping your children or grandchildren with their homework), go to Google and type it in. Just for an example, here's an easy one: "2 + 3." Type that in and your answer will be revealed as "2 + 3 = 5." You can enter in any math equation, no matter how easy or how hard it is!
That's all I have for you today, but I'm sure there are several other Google secrets to be found. You just have to play around with the search engine to see what you can come up with. Hopefully the above six features will get you started though! If you want to see the full Google video about their "hidden features," you can do so right here. Watching it will give you some more ideas of what you can search for as well. Now, go on and have fun with these. What will Google think of next?!