5 Minute Fix - Office Files

http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,118512,pg,5,00.asp

Problem: All of a sudden you can't open a file in Word, Excel, Outlook, or another Microsoft Office application.
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Quick fix #1: Click Help, Detect and Repair to launch a file-repair utility. Make sure 'Discard my customized settings and restore default settings' is unchecked, and click Start. If a file has been corrupted or something else is out of place, the program fixes the damage. Have your Office installation CD handy before you begin.

Quick fix #2: If an Office application won't start, open Control Panel and click or double-click Add or Remove Programs. Select the entry for Microsoft Office and then choose Click here for support information. Click Repair to reinstall all the apps (see FIGURE 4).

File Saver

Problem: Sometimes your Word file opens but contains gibberish, and other times it doesn't open at all.

Quick fix: In Word 2002 and 2003, select File, Open, click the down arrow next to the Open button in the bottom-right corner, and select Open and Repair. If these steps don't repair the document, cut all its contents except the last paragraph mark, and paste them into a blank document. If this also fails, select File, Open, and in the 'Files of type' box, click Recover Text from Any File (*.*). Then click Open. This recovers only the text without the formatting. If Word still can't open the file, click Tools, Options, General, check Confirm conversion at Open, click OK, and use the 'Recover Text' option again.

5 Minute Fix - Printer

http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/1,aid,118512,pg,3,00.asp

Problem: Your printer is comatose--you click Print and nothing happens. You've already checked that the printer is on and that both ends of the cable linking it to the PC are securely connected.
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Quick diagnosis: Perform a printer self-test using the diagnostic utility, built into the device, that checks its basic functionality. Refer to your printer's manual for instructions; typically you hold down a button on the printer while it's starting. If the test runs successfully, you know the trouble is with the connection or software.

Quick fix #1: Clear your print queue; a previous print job may be hanging up the system. In Windows XP and 2000, open Control Panel and click or double-click Printers and Faxes (select Printers and Other Hardware first if you're in XP's Categories view, or Printers in 2000). Click or double-click the icon for your printer to open the print-queue window. Clear any pending print jobs by selecting Printer, Cancel All Documents (see FIGURE 2). In Windows 98 and Me, open Control Panel, click or double-click Printers, and select Purge Print Documents.

Quick fix #2: Disconnect and securely reconnect your printer cable. If you're installing a USB printer and it's the first USB device you have used, check its listing in Device Manager for errors. In Windows XP and 2000, right-click My Computer, choose Properties, click Hardware, and select the Device Manager button. In Windows 98 and Me, right-click My Computer, select Properties, and click the Device Manager tab. Look under the 'Universal Serial Bus controllers' listing for error messages. If you see a question mark, yellow circle, or red X next to the device's listing, you've got trouble. Click the device's name, choose the General tab, and look for error messages in the 'Device status' box.

An Uneven Tone

Problem: The output from your laser printer is faded on one area of the page.

Quick fix: This commonly happens when the toner in your laser printer's cartridge gets low and becomes unevenly distributed throughout the cartridge. First, remove the cartridge from the printer and hold it level in front of you, with one hand on each end. Now rotate the cartridge slowly as if you were turning the steering wheel of a car, lifting and lowering each end about 4 inches. Doing this four or five times will redistribute the toner and may enable you to squeeze a substantial amount of printing out of the old cartridge before it needs replacement.

Changing Your Screen's Resolution

 

You chose your designer day planner, glow-in-the-dark gel pens, and solid maple inbox for your real world desktop, right? Why shouldn't the Windows desktop give you the same flexibility to make things look the way you like?

1. Right-click the desktop to display a shortcut menu, and then choose Properties.
2. In the resulting Display Properties dialog box, click the Settings tab.
3. On the Settings tab, click the slider in the Screen Resolution area and move it to a higher or lower resolution. Higher resolutions, such as 1400 x 1050, produce smaller, crisper images. Lower resolutions, such as 800 x 600, produce larger, somewhat jagged images. The up side of higher resolution is that more fits on your screen; the down side is that words and graphics can be hard to see. One option: If fonts appear too small to read, change the Font Size setting on the Appearance tab of the Display Properties dialog box to be Large or Extra Large.
4. Click OK to accept the new screen resolution.

Source: Dummies.com

Netflix - Recommended by a Friend

What Are Good Friends for? Perhaps for Recommending DVD's

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/technology/circuits/30flix.html?ex=1262494800&en=158254f76a9c1530&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt
By DANIEL TERDIMAN

Published: December 30, 2004

ALTHOUGH Netflix is the unquestioned leader of the online DVD rental business, and is known for its innovative recommendation engine, some subscribers still find it hard to navigate its more than 25,000 titles in search of movies they want to watch.

With that in mind, the company has begun testing a feature called Netflix Friends, which lets users share movie reviews and recommendations directly and automatically with selected friends. The service is scheduled to become available to all 2.5 million Netflix users next month. (Right now, because the program is in trial, you have to be invited by someone taking part in the test.)

Essentially, Netflix is trying its own form of the social networking made popular by sites like Friendster and Tribe.net. Netflix Friends works by letting members invite other members to join their network.

The system works in two directions. Once a network of friends is created, each person in it can view the ratings and comments of others about specific films. Each member of a network can also share ratings and comments about movies with any or all of the others in the network. The more films each member sees and rates, the more value each brings to the network.

"My hope is that recommendations from friends will have more weight and meaning for me," said Omar Khan, a San Francisco e-business consultant. "It's made me do the ratings more, because if I like a movie, it'll make me want my friend to like it as well."

Other users agree that making Netflix's system more personal is a good way of getting people more involved and thus bringing Netflix more business.

"Most of my friends are Netflix members, and this adds that whole social layer that was missing," said Duncan Carling, a Web developer in San Francisco. "My friends and I used to share our queues and our rental histories over e-mail, but seeing friends' histories wasn't useful because you didn't know what they thought of the movie."

Shernaz Daver, Netflix's vice president for corporate communications, points out that while people within a single Netflix Friends network can see information about others' movie preferences, that's as far as it goes. Unlike the Friendsters of the world, which connect friends to friends and friends to friends of friends, Netflix's system stops at one degree of separation, ensuring members' privacy, she said.

While Netflix Friends does not have many core features of a social networking service - connecting people through intermediaries, for example, or helping with dating and business connections - some feel that it belongs in the same category.

Judith Meskill, who writes and maintains the Social Software Weblog (socialsoftware.weblogsinc.com), a Web log about social networking, said Netflix Friends was a good example of a company's using social networking for a new business purpose.

"It is very social-networking-oriented within its context," Ms. Meskill said, "which is what I and a number of other social software geeks have been saying: Social networking will survive well with a substantial context."

In any case, the test of any new feature is whether it serves its purpose. And to Mr. Carling, Netflix Friends has.

He said that in the few weeks since he joined the Netflix Friends service, he had rented 10 to 15 movies - like "Donnie Darko," an offbeat, low-budget 2001 film that has won a belated following on DVD - solely on the recommendation of members of his network.

"I have seen some movies that I really liked that I don't think I would have seen otherwise," Mr. Carling said. "And for the most part, I haven't been disappointed by anything."

Sahalie Self Powered Bike Pedals

TIP OF THE DAY

Sahalie Self Powered Bike Pedals

LED flashing lights for cycling have been around for ages now. But they all require batteries, which will ultimately find their way into landfill. How about eliminating the batteries by being your own power station? As these pedals rotate...

they create a gyroscopic effect, not unlike those ancient dynamo lights that rubbed against a bike's wheel. The gyroscope provides sufficient energy to light up 3 bright red LEDs. According to one user they work well, except when stopped at intersections. $19.50 a pair.  Website: Sahalie
Source: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2004/11/sahalie_self_po.php