IT Info

I intend to put some useful stuff about PC's, Hardware, Software, etc. on this page, along with a bit about viruses, adware & spyware...

Note: All entries on this page are given in good faith, and they've all worked for me, however no warranties or guarantees are given or implied, so you use them at your own risk - if they don't work, or cause any nasty side effects, I don't accept any responsibility.

MS-Excel:	To quickly create a series (1,2,3; Mon, Tue, Wed; etc) in Excel, type in the first entry, then position the cursor in the bottom right of the cell (it will change to a + shape) click & drag along the series of cells and the series will be filled in for you (if it doesn't work, fill in the first 2 or 3 entries, highlight all the entries, then try it again - it should work this time
MS-Excel	To quickly select entries in a spreadsheet, use "Auto-Filter" - position the cursor in cell "A1" and select [Data] > [Filter] >[Auto Filter]. This will give you a "drop down" selection at the top of each column. If you only want to select on a single column, then highlight that column instead of selecting cell "A1"
Windows - Most versions	If you're trying to de-fragment your hard disk, and it keeps restarting because something is writing to the disk, it's because you've got a background process running. In order to get around this problem you need to start Windows in "Safe Mode". To do this, shut down & restart your machine. Before the Windows "Splash" screen is displayed, hit [F8] which will show you the Windows start up menu. Choose "Safe Mode", run your de-fragment program, then restart the machine in normal mode (note: your screen will probably be displaying larger characters than normal in safe mode - this is because safe mode doesn't load the usual display drivers)
MS-Word	If you've copied an image into a word document, and it won't let you move it, select the image, do a right-mouse-click, select [Format Object], choose the "Layout" tab, then select "Tight" and click [OK] - you should now be able to move the picture to wherever you want it to be (note: the picture may have moved of it's own accord when you first go back to the document, but it should still be in there somewhere)
MS-Excel	To return to cell A1 from anywhere in a spreadsheet, hit [Ctrl] + [Home]
MS-Excel	To select an entire spreadsheet, click the grey box in the corner of the worksheet between column A and row 1.
MS-Excel	To select all entries in a spreadsheet, go to cell A1 ([Ctrl]+[Home]), then press [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [End]. ([Ctrl]+[Shift]+[End] selects every cell from the current cell to the end of the spreadsheet. Note that if you’ve deleted rows/columns, the empty rows will still be selected unless you save, close & reopen the spreadsheet first
MS-Word, Excel & PowerPoint	When drawing lines or shapes in Microsoft applications, they will tend to “snap-to” a hidden grid which can often put the drawing object in the wrong place. When you try to move it, the same thing happens making it impossible to position an item exactly where you want it (particularly annoying when drawing flow diagrams!), In order to get around this problem, press & hold the [Alt] key whilst drawing/moving items – this temporarily turns off the “snap-to” function and allows you to position drawing objects exactly where you want them.
MS-Windows 98, 2000, XP & Others	To launch Windows Explorer quickly, do a “Right Mouse Click” on the [Start] button & choose explorer (this might work for Windows 95 too, I don’t know)