Email attachments are wonderful things. Long gone of the painful and inefficient days of snail-mail and sending faxes (Perhaps dating myself here.) With just a few clicks, you can almost instantly send a document, picture or computer file of umpteen other different formats to one or more people located anywhere on the planet. This is truly amazing – and we do take it for granted.
And thankfully, our e-mail administrators have increased attachment size limits. Do you remember when you could only send attachments that were under 1Meg or even 500k? (Probably dating myself again here.) You still can’t send an 80Meg PowerPoint as an attachment (YouSendIt comes to the rescue on these), but most of the attachments most of us send on a daily basis can get through.

Here is my rant: If someone sends me an attachment, don’t send it back to me if you reply to my message. I already have the attachment in question. I don’t need it back. Save some electrons and hard drive space by deleting it from the reply! I will like you better (and my system administrator will too).
And even worse – when someone does a Reply All and resends the attachment to everyone that got it the first time – please don’t make me scream!!
Some mail systems are programed to automatically delete attachments from reply messages. Some email programs have a toolbar button that will create a reply that automatically deletes the attachment from a reply. Check to see if you have this button. If you don’t have these features, just delete the attachment manually.
I feel better now. And my systems administrator is smiling too.

Windows 7 introduced some really neat new keyboard shortcuts for manipulating windows. Here are some shortcuts that every Windows 7 user should know:
Windows key + Up and Windows key + Down: If a window isn’t maximized, pressing the Windows key + Up arrow key will make it fill your entire screen. Windows key + Down arrow on a maximized window will restore will restore the window to its previous dimensions filling only part of the full screen. Pressing it again will minimize that active window.
Windows key + Shift + Up and Windows key + Shift + Down: Hitting these three keys will vertically stretch an active window to the maximum desktop height (but the width of the window will stay the same). Pressing Windows key + Shift+ Down will restore the window to its previous dimensions.
Windows key + Left and Windows key + Right: These two shortcuts will make your active window fill up exactly one half of your screen, on either the right or left side. And once a window is fixed to one side of the screen, you can repeat the shortcut with the same arrow key to flip it to the other side, with an intermediate step of being restored to its previous dimensions filling only part of the full screen.
Windows key + Home: This shortcut minimizes every open window on your desktop except the active window. Pressing this shortcut again restores all the minimized windows.
Windows key + Shift + Left and Windows key + Shift + Right: If you’re using two or more displays, this shortcut lets you easily move a window from one screen to the other. The window retains its size and relative position on the new screen, which is useful when working with multiple documents.
There you go – make an effort to memorize these shortcuts. You will find them very helpful next time you want to see multiple windows on your desktop.

Most new devices sold today will include USB 3.0 connectivity. At home or work, many of your older devices will have USB 2.0 (or even 1.0!). So how does USB 3.0 compare with USB 2.0?
USB 3.0 is faster – mush faster! USB 3.0 data transfers have a theoretical maximum speed of 5 gigabits per second. This compares to a theoretical maximum speed of 460 megabits per second for USB 2.0 devices. Of course, you won’t get close to 5-gbps transfers during regular daily use, but you will find that you can move files significantly faster between USB 3.0 compatible devices. Transferring data between USB 3.0 devices is also more efficient as USB 3.0 permits simultaneous data transfers in both directions. USB 2.0 devices transmit data in only one direction at a time.
To take advantage of USB 3.0 you’ll have to have USB 3.0 capable devices and USB 3.0 cables. USB 3.0 is backwards compatible and an USB 3.0 device will work with older USB 2.0 devices, but you must use a USB 3.0 cable if you want your newer USB 3.0 devices to exchange data at full speed.

While it is intended to prevent you from accidentally deleting a file, the file delete confirmation box (the little box that pops-up when you delete a file and asks if you are sure you want to delete it) can be a tad annoying, especially if you are deleting a lot of files (say for instance when you are cleaning up your photo collection).
You can easily disable this confirmation (meaning it won’t appear every time you delete a file) by right-clicking the Recycle Bin and selecting Properties. Next, uncheck the delete confirmation box, click Apply and then OK, and you’re done. No more file delete confirmation box.
And remember this trick, you can bypass the Recycle Bin entirely by holding down the Shift key while deleting files. Doing this means you can’t go to the Recycle Bin to restore a file.

It is difficult to see trends or patterns when you are presented with a table full of rows and columns of numbers. A graph – like a picture – can be worth a thousand words when it comes to visually representing data, but creating a graph takes time.
Sparklines come to the rescue. They are a new feature in Microsoft Excel 2010.
Sparklines 101
A sparkline is nothing more than a tiny graph in a worksheet cell. With a few clicks, sparklines enable you to easily and almost instantly create visual representations of data in rows or columns of a table. They give you a clear and compact graphical representation of your raw data adjacent to it. Although it’s not mandatory for a sparkline cell to be directly next to its underlying data, it kind of defeats the purpose to put them elsewhere. Another advantage of using sparklines is that, unlike charts, they appear on a worksheet when it is printed.
Unlike charts or other elements in an Excel worksheet, sparklines are not objects — a sparkline is an actual tiny chart in the background of a cell. The following picture shows a column sparkline in cell F2 and a line sparkline in F3. Both of these sparklines get their data from cells A2 through E2 and they display, based on the data in these cells, the performance of a stock.

In the above picture the sparkline in cell F6 shows the 5-year performance for the same stock, but displays a Win/Loss bar chart that shows only whether the year had a gain (as in the years 2004 through 2007) or a loss (2008). This sparkline uses values from cells A6 through E6.
Creating a sparkline
Creating a sparkline is easy. Select an empty cell or group of empty cells in which you want to insert one or more sparklines. Click on the Insert tab, and in the Sparklines group on the Ribbon, click the type of sparkline that you want to create: Line, Column, or Win/Loss. In the Data box, type the range of the cells that contain the data on which you want to base the sparklines (or you click on the range selection button to selection your range with drag and drop). Click OK and bingo – you have a sparkline.
Doing more with sparklines
And you can do more with sparklines. As they are tiny charts embedded in a cell, you can enter text on top of them as labels. You can apply a color scheme to your sparklines by choosing a built-in format from the Style gallery (Design tab, which becomes available when you select a cell that contains a sparkline). You can use the Sparkline Color or Marker Color commands to choose a color for the high, low, first, and last values (such as green for high, and orange for low).
And it doesn’t stop there, you can to lots more with sparklines. .

The staff and lawyers in most law offices use a fraction of the functions and features in the programs on their computers. This is because most law firms don’t follow through on the one critical step necessary for people to learn and do more with the technology on their desk: formal training.
But, while not a replacement for training, cheat sheets or quick reference guide that list features, settings and keyboard shortcuts can help people do more. These guides typically cost $10-15.
However, the people at Custom Guide Online Learning have more than 100 quick reference guides available for free – yes – for free! You can get Outlook 2010, Word 2010, Excel 2010, PowerPoint 2010 and Office 2010 for free without registration. You can get more than a 100 other quick reference guides for free with registration (they state they have a no spam policy). They have a guide for all or most of the programs you use.
I really like these guides because they list the common tasks that people will want perform along with a simple explanation on how to complete them. These guides are two pages and in colour (you can put them front and back on a single page). And even better, at no cost they are yours to use, distribute, and share at your firm.
Check them out – you won’t be disappointed.

As we all know too well, the basic Windows clipboard holds only one item. This can be a pain when you have multiple items to copy and paste. Some people resort to installing third-party apps for greater clipboard functionality. However, if you have Office 2010 installed on your computer, remember to use the Office Clipboard. It can hold up to 24 items at a time – amazing!
Unfortunately, you need to dig a bit for the Office clipboard. Click on the Home tab. On the lower left edge of the Ribbon you will see a “Clipboard” in a light grey colour. There is a very small diagonal arrow on the right – click on it to launch the Clipboard Task pane.
Everything you copy to the clipboard will be displayed in this pane – up to 24 items. You can select any item on the list and select Paste or Delete. The “Paste All” button will paste every item in the clipboard.
Remember to use the Office Clipboard – you can use it to be more effective when you are editing documents.

Forbes published a fantastic article on ten simple and essential things that everyone should doing to protect their privacy. The ten steps outlined in the article are really and truly very simple things that all of us can and should be doing to keep casual intruders from invading our privacy. You don’t need to be a techie to do these things. This article is a must read for everyone. Please read it – and follow the steps it recommends. You can find 10 Incredibly Simple Things You Should Be Doing To Protect Your Privacy here.

Facebook is very complicated and can be confusing to use and configure. Many people are not using Facebook to its full potential.
Do you want to do more with Facebook? Look to Mashable’s Facebook Guide Book, a complete collection of resources that will help you do more with Facebook. It has “Facebook 101” content for people that are new to Facebook, directions on doing more with Facebook apps, practical advice on using Facebook for promoting a business, and more advanced information for those that want to take Facebook to a higher level. You can find Mashable’s Facebook Guide Book here.

Want to easily see all the apps running on your iPad?
Double-clicking the Home button will show you all the apps that are running on your iPad as icons on a bar along the bottom of the screen. To switch to a running app, just tap on the icon for it.
To remove the bar, just swipe the screen downwards.
Not quite like Alt+Tab for switching apps, but darn close!

• Nicholas on Software Tools for Editing
• Jamie on Software Tools for Editing
• Steve Coughlan on ‘I Hope This E-Mail Finds You Well’
• Lyn on Womxn
• Celia Chandler on Gross Negligence

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