Keep Your Precious Favorites Safe etc

[sheem]

Instant Properties
Here's a quickie way to view the properties of a file or program.

If you need to get the properties for something (like an icon, for instance), just hold down your ALT key and double-click it .

Instant properties!



Try it with "My Computer" or one of your regular desktop icons.

And yes, I know that you can also right-click an item and select"Properties" from the resulting menu. I just thought this was cooler.

~Steve

Q:
I always have too many programs open at the same time and I can'tremember which icon belongs to which program on my toolbar. Isthere an easy way to tell which button is which?

A:
By hovering over an item a balloon should come up telling you whatthe program is.

One easy way to switch between programs you have open is to hitALT+TAB . A small box will pop up with icons forall the currently open programs (even settings windows that don'tdisplay on the tool bar - like display properties forinstance).

Hold down ALT , then simply hit TAB until thewindow you're looking for is highlighted. Notice that as you tab,the title bar information is displayed below the icons.



Oh, also—hold down the ALT & SHIFTkey while hitting TAB to go backwards through thelist.

Open a couple of programs and try it. Happy hunting!

~Steve




Exponents in Excel

Have you ever needed to use exponents in an MS Excel formula, but you didn't know how?

I mean, maybe you need to square the value of a cell or something similar.

Either way, wouldn't it be nice to know how to enter the power properly? You know, so you can avoid the whole multiplying the same number over and over in your formula kind of thing.

Well, to tell you the truth, there are a couple of ways to accomplish your goal.

Let's say you need to enter six to the third power.

The first way you can enter the power is:

=6^3

The first number is the base and the second is the exponent.

The second option would be the formula of:

=Power(6,3)

Again, the first number is the base and the second is the exponent.

The numbers could also be replaced by cell references, which really gives you a flexible formula.

Here's to "Excel-ing" in flexibility!

~April

Save IE favorites and back themup!

Save your ghost stories and haunted houses. Let's talk about a real nightmare: losing all your internet favorites. I don't know about you, but I have a lot of these. They're organized by subject: photography, writing, travel, friends, online 'zines, crafts, stores, humor sites, podcast pages and directories, sports, webcomics, cool stuff I plan to afford someday but like drooling over now -you name it. If they were lost in a computer crash, I'd never find them all again.

Here's a simple way to save all of your favorites. In Internet Explorer, go to File and click the Import/Export... option. The Wizard window will appear. Choose Export To a File and click Next.



You'll then be asked what you would like to export: favorites, feeds and cookies. Pick whichever you like and click Next.

Click the top folder Favorites to select them all and pick the destination for your new backup favorites file. Click Next.



Save it to your Documents folder or Desktop with a unique name like "favebackup1.htm" to help distinguish it from any other program's bookmark files on your system.

Back up a spare copy of the file by saving it on a flash memory device, CD, or DVD, just like the rest of your important information!

~Chris


io9

If you love Science Fiction like I do, you are going to love io9. It is a great collection of news, articles, and reviews – all there for your delightful partaking.

You should definitely check out this article on the site about the ten monsters that have been named in the last 10 years. So you can definitely bet you are going to get a heaping dose of interesting science news here.

You can also be commenter. In order to do so you need to register, and then read the FAQ for the posting guidelines. It makes for an interesting way of dealing with the community aspect of the site.

You can navigate several ways. You could just explore around the main page, which has a little bit of everything from each section that they cover. Or you can use the tabs at the top of the page to browse the different sections. The main sections are:

Science – here you can get straight to the science you love so much! You’ll find featured articles about all things scientific (and more than likely weird).

Over mind – here you will discover articles, news, opinions, and even reviews for movies, comic books, novels, and video games! This section gives you a great look into what is out there now, and what great or interesting thing you missed! I’ve discovered some books I need to pick up to read, and some movies I definitely don’t want to miss.

Kotaku - this section appears to be all about video games, and their fans.

Gizmodo – this section is all about the gizmos we love to use. You’ll find everything from the latest gadgets and consoles to the latest technology being invented to make our lives better – like transparent goldfish so that people don’t have to dissect animals to study the way organs work.

I’m such a fan of this site, it was really hard to write it up – I just wanted to explore and read everything. Check it out today.

http://io9.com/

~Amanda

[naz]

[Mohammad Sajid]