PC Annoyances | O'Reilly Media

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If you're like me, you live in email. That means you also live with all the dumb things your email program does-like hide your attachments or turn them into gobbledygook, or delete messages without permission. It also means that you have to deal with all the joke lists, chain letters, and productivity-gobbling spam filling your mailbox at all hours of the day.

First, I'll show you how to solve general email problems that drive me up the wall. Then I'll guide you through the annoyances in most of the popular email programs-Outlook and its kid sister Outlook Express, Eudora, AOL, Hotmail, Netscape, and Gmail.

Since few people use all of these email programs-unless, of course, they have too much time on their hands-you'll probably find yourself skipping over the parts of this chapter that don't apply to your mailer. Then again, if you're the kind of person who likes to gloat, study them so you can later lord it over your unfortunate friends. But remember: people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, and people who use Hotmail should be careful when making fun of AOL.

The Annoyance:

It rankles when I get an email and the list of email addresses is longer than the message.

The Fix:

When you're sending an email to more than one person, just hide the recipient list using your email application's Blind Copy (Bcc) feature. You can either address the message to yourself or leave the "To" field blank (if your mailer will let you). Then Bcc everyone else.

To display the Bcc field in Outlook Express, select View and select All Headers.
In Outlook, choose View and select Bcc Field.
In Netscape, click the "To" field and scroll to Bcc.
Eudora's the easiest-just fill in the Bcc field.

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The Annoyance:

It rankles when I get an email and the list of email addresses is longer than the message.

The Fix:

When you're sending an email to more than one person, just hide the recipient list using your email application's Blind Copy (Bcc) feature. You can either address the message to yourself or leave the "To" field blank (if your mailer will let you). Then Bcc everyone else.

To display the Bcc field in Outlook Express, select View and select All Headers.
In Outlook, choose View and select Bcc Field.
In Netscape, click the "To" field and scroll to Bcc.
Eudora's the easiest-just fill in the Bcc field.

The Annoyance:

My email program works overtime to protect me from headers, and most of the time, that's just fine. Usually, all I want to know is who wrote the email, who received it, and when it was sent. But every now and then I have to dig up email headers to report a problem to tech support or find out why something is bouncing back. How do you find headers in an email?

The Fix:

Each email application has a different way of showing headers. To display the header info, follow the steps for your mail program:

Outlook Express 5 and 6: Open the email message, select File → Properties, and click the Details tab.
Outlook 2000 and 2002: Open the email message, click View, and select Options. The data you want is in the Internet Headers dialog box.

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The Annoyance:

Outlook Express's preview pane is not only useless, it's dangerous. By default it marks any message as read if it spends more than five seconds in my preview pane, which means I sometimes miss important messages (because OE thinks I've already read them) simply by leaving the preview pane open. Worse, some email-particularly nasty spam-contains scripts that are activated when a message is "read." How can I stop this?

The Fix:

First, close the preview pane. Launch Outlook Express and select View → Layout. In the Windows Layout Properties dialog box, uncheck the "Show preview pane" box. Click OK to close the dialog box. In Outlook, choose View → Preview Pane to toggle the pane on and off.

Now tell Outlook Express to stop marking messages as read just because your cursor happens to land on them. Select Tools → Options and click the Read tab. Uncheck the "Mark messages as read after displaying for 5 second(s)" box, click OK, and you're done. In Outlook, select Tools → Options, click the Other tab, click the Preview Pane button, and uncheck the "Mark messages as read in preview window" box. In Outlook 2003, follow the steps above, but in the Other tab, click the Reading Pane button instead.

The Annoyance:

One of my big complaints about Outlook Express is that its default layout makes no sense. For example, the contact window that OE opens by default when you first use it is pointless. And those huge toolbar icons are wasted real estate. And why doesn't OE open the inbox by default? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The Fix:

Start by selecting View → Layout. To nuke the contacts window, click the box next to the Contacts bar, then click Apply. Now squeeze the icons down to size. With the Windows Layout Properties box still open, click the Customize Toolbar button. Another dialog box opens with two scrollable lists and a bunch of toolbar icons in each one. Under the left list, click the Text Options drop-down menu and choose either "Selective text on right" or "No text labels," depending on how familiar you are with OE's icons. In Icon Options below that, select Small Icons.

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The Annoyance:

Call me a grump, but whenever I hear AOL's chirpy "You've got mail," I feel a migraine coming on. If I want to check my mail, I can do it without AOL's prompting, thank you very much.

The Fix:

Good thing there's an easy way to tell it to pipe down. Log onto AOL, and on the AOL toolbar, select Settings → Preferences and click Toolbar & Sound. At the bottom of the dialog box, uncheck the line "Enable AOL sounds such as the Welcome greeting and Instant Message chimes" box. Click Save, and the next time you check your mail, you can do so in blessed silence.

The Annoyance:

I installed AOL 9 and found I'd gotten myself a new sidekick-and not one I particularly wanted. The AOL Companion pops up onscreen whenever I have a Net connection-and keeps hanging around until I forcibly remove it.

The Fix:

Giving the Companion the permanent boot is pretty simple. Click the little X (the Close icon) in the upper-right corner to close the AOL Companion. AOL will ask whether you really, truly want to do this. You do, but first deselect "Autolaunch AOL Companion" and check the "Do Not Show This Message Again" box. That should banish the little bugger-at least until AOL gets corrupted and you have to reinstall it.

While you're in AOL's Preferences window, you might as well fix a few other AOL irritants. Hate pop-up ads? In Version 9, type Keyword: Popup controls and select "Block all web pop-ups" and on the Pop-Ups from AOL tab, select "Block pop-ups from AOL". In Version 8, click the Pop-Ups link, then check the "Suppress AOL member-only special offers" and "Suppress pop-ups from Web sites I visit using AOL software"boxes. Click Save and OK. For Version 7, click the Marketing link, click the Pop-Up button, and click the radio button labeled "No, I do not want to receive special AOL members-only pop-up offers." Click OK twice, but leave the Marketing Preferences window open. Here's where you can also tell AOL and its advertising partners to stop sending you special offers via email, snail mail, and over the phone. (In Version 8, click Marketing Options

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The Annoyance:

I switched from Outlook to Eudora and I have to know-are folders mailboxes or are mailboxes folders?

The Fix:

Eudora's designers went to great lengths to make their mailboxes and folders annoying and confusing. Mailboxes, which are designated by tiny inbox icons, store messages. Folders, on the other hand, aren't meant to hold messages, only mailboxes. I know, it's bass-ackwards. One smart cookie at Eudora decided mailboxes ought to be alphabetical, which is fine, except that unlike Outlook, you can't drag and drop them out of order. So if you want to place your mailboxes in some other order, like with "Really Really Important Stuff" up top, it takes a workaround, such as renaming them to something that'll push them to the top of the alphabetical list. For instance, I access my PC World mailbox often, so I renamed it "1 PC World." Same thing for "1 VIP," a mailbox for my wife and others in my family. Less important stuff goes at the bottom of the stack, tagged by the letter "z," as in "z pesky editors."

By the way, you can transfer a message from one Eudora mailbox to another by highlighting or opening the message, right-clicking, selecting Transfer, and scrolling to the new mailbox. (A neat alternative: copy the message by holding the Shift key while transferring it.)

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The Annoyance:

I check my Hotmail inbox more often than I check my wristwatch. But what a hassle! I go to http://www.hotmail.com, and instead of landing in my mailbox, I get a page of news briefs, ads for other MSN gewgaws, newsletter solicitations, and various other items I never asked for.

The Fix:

Take a minute and set things up so you can zip right to your mail. First, go to http://www.hotmail.com and type your email address and password into the appropriate fields. Check the "Sign me in automatically" box and click the Sign In button. (Heads up: this allows anyone who gets access to your browser to get into your Hotmail account without supplying the password, so don't try this if you have snoopy coworkers or nosy relatives.)

Click the Inbox tab and bookmark this page in your browser. From now on, use the bookmark and you'll land smack dab in your inbox, no additional clicks required.

The Annoyance:

I sometimes think that the only reason Hotmail exists is to attract spam. (Wait-isn't that AOL's job?) If I wait a few days before checking my inbox, I'll sometimes rack up 150 pieces of junk mail. And getting rid of them takes way too many clicks, since you have to select them one at a time. There's got to be a better way.

The Fix:

How about using Outlook Express to do some heavy-duty spam weeding?

Launch Outlook Express and select Tools → Accounts, click the Add button, and choose Mail. A wizard will pop up; enter your name, then your Hotmail address. (Outlook Express will fill in the "E-mail Server Names" screen automatically). You're then asked for your password. Enter it, click Finish, and then click Close to leave Accounts. Outlook will ask if you want to download folders from the mail server-click Yes, and supply your password again.

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The Annoyance:

Everyone's talking about Gmail and you may already have an account. That's swell for you-but I don't have one. And I haven't a clue where to get one.

The Fix:

It's a bummer. At press time, Gmail was still in testing (known cryptically as "beta"), and most of us can't get a Gmail account until it's publicly released. The trick is to find someone with an account, because they can send you an invitation. Beg, plead, and, if necessary, grovel until they send you the invite. One way to get an account is at the Gmail Forums page (go to http://snipurl.com/swapgmail, scroll down a bit, and click "Accounts and Invitations"). Traders desperate for an invite have offered such goods as a "one slightly used husband," "6 months of homemade cookies," and "a pound of 100% pure kona coffee." Another approach: do a Google search for "gmail invites" or "gmail invitations" and find a web site that may let you trade your first born for an account.

Google's new web-based email service-named Gmail-is getting lots of buzz. And well it should: it's a hot product, and I like it for lots of reasons. Why is Gmail so insanely popular even before its official release? First, it offers one gigabyte of storage, which competing services have yet to match. (At press time, Yahoo! Mail was offering 250 MB.) Second, Gmail doesn't bludgeon you with ads. Gmail reads your incoming email (no humans read it; it's scanned by a computer), determines the content, and posts a text ad on the page. The ads are unobtrusive, just like the ones you see on a Google search results page. This beats MSN Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, which clutter the screen with banner ads.

The Annoyance:

I like Gmail well enough to give up my Hotmail account. But how do I import my 500 names and email addresses into Gmail?

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Annoyances and Windows-the two words are inseparable. Windows is your portal to every application on your PC and is therefore your first source of irritation each and every day.

In this chapter, I'll arm you with simple workarounds, subtle tricks, and nifty configuration tweaks to circumvent the multitude of Windows annoyances. Some of the tips involve fiddling with the Registry, but don't worry-I'll make it as safe and painless for you as I possibly can.

The Annoyance:

I'm using Windows 98 and I hate it when-

The Fix:

Hold it right there. After years of frustration, I've found a solution to lots of Windows annoyances: dump what you're using and upgrade to XP. I'm not kidding. If you're using Windows 98 (or Windows Me or, worse, Windows 95), you should seriously consider upgrading to Windows XP. I don't like to shill for Microsoft, but Windows XP is the finest operating system to come out of Redmond since Bill Gates made his first billion. It offers better stability (no more daily reboots or frequent blue screen crashes), memory management (you won't run out of resources, even when you open dozens of windows simultaneously), and security (you can't bypass the password prompt merely by pressing Esc!). In short, Windows XP has far fewer annoyances.

Figure 2-1: PC Pitstop's XP Readiness Test runs a slew of diagnostic tests to determine how ready your PC is for a Windows XP upgrade. While you're on the site, you might as well let PC Pitstop examine your PC and give you some pointers for tuning it up. See http://snipurl.com/pcpitstop_full.

Before you throw your current Windows out the window, however, be sure that Windows XP is compatible with your hardware and software. You can perform a quick compatibility check with PC Pitstop's XP Readiness Test (http://snipurl.com/pcpitstop_full

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The Annoyance:

I'm using Windows 98 and I hate it when-

The Fix:

Hold it right there. After years of frustration, I've found a solution to lots of Windows annoyances: dump what you're using and upgrade to XP. I'm not kidding. If you're using Windows 98 (or Windows Me or, worse, Windows 95), you should seriously consider upgrading to Windows XP. I don't like to shill for Microsoft, but Windows XP is the finest operating system to come out of Redmond since Bill Gates made his first billion. It offers better stability (no more daily reboots or frequent blue screen crashes), memory management (you won't run out of resources, even when you open dozens of windows simultaneously), and security (you can't bypass the password prompt merely by pressing Esc!). In short, Windows XP has far fewer annoyances.

Figure 2-1: PC Pitstop's XP Readiness Test runs a slew of diagnostic tests to determine how ready your PC is for a Windows XP upgrade. While you're on the site, you might as well let PC Pitstop examine your PC and give you some pointers for tuning it up. See http://snipurl.com/pcpitstop_full.

Before you throw your current Windows out the window, however, be sure that Windows XP is compatible with your hardware and software. You can perform a quick compatibility check with PC Pitstop's XP Readiness Test (http://snipurl.com/pcpitstop_full), which tells you how your system stacks up against XP's minimum and recommended hardware specs. (See Figure 2-1.)

Windows XP Upgrade Advisor, a far more comprehensive compatibility checker, is a Microsoft tool that takes stock of your current setup and warns you about programs or devices that won't work with Windows XP. If a new, compatible version or driver is available, Upgrade Advisor tells you about it. If you can get your hands on a Windows XP CD, you've got Upgrade Advisor. Insert the CD, and on the main menu that appears, click Check System Compatibility. If you don't have access to a Windows XP CD, you can download Upgrade Advisor from

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Doing a major operating system upgrade is like cleaning out rain gutters or checking under the bed for the bogeyman-it's gotta be done, but most of us (me included) put it off for as long as possible. If you haven't upgraded to Service Pack 2 (SP2) yet, come out from under the covers. SP2 won't hurt you. In fact, it might already be on your PC and doing it some good.

First, see if your PC hasn't already been upgraded. Open the System control panel. If you see Service Pack 2 on the General tab, you're in like Flynn. Of course, SP2 has been known to introduce some annoyances with Outlook Express and other programs. And some SP features, such as the new Security Center, can drive you crazy with alerts. We'll get to those and other annoyances in a sec. If you haven't upgraded yet, you gotta. SP2 provides important protection against the Internet's e-thugs, and there are enough behind-the-scenes fixes and enhancements to make the SP2 upgrade hoop worth jumping through. For instance, Internet Explorer's new Information Bar alerts you whenever a site tries to download software onto your system. SP2's Security Center keeps a watchful eye on your antivirus and firewall programs, makes sure they're up to date, and faithfully-and automatically-downloads and installs any new critical patch or fix to XP.

In the following pages, you'll learn how to iron out the wrinkles in the upgrade process. (Before upgrading, wait until Scorpio is rising, Venus and Mars are aligned, and there's no full moon.) I also show you how to handle SP2's firewall, security alerts, and a plethora of annoyances that can crop up after you've upgraded.

The Annoyance:

Why doesn't Microsoft's Windows Update process let you resume a failed download? It's infuriating. I've tried twice now to download Service Pack 2, but my dial-up ISP disconnects me after six hours or so (I know, time to switch to broadband).

The Fix:

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There's no doubt that the Internet has revolutionized the world, but there are lots of things about it that tick people off-and rightly so. Like visiting a web site and discovering it's changed your home page without permission. Like launching Internet Explorer and having it sometimes open in a maximized window, and sometimes...not. Like dealing with pop-up ads, fiddling with bookmarks, searching, and more.

Put down that Valium and turn the page. You'll find over 40 tips that untangle and streamline browsing (both for Internet Explorer and Netscape), unleash Google, pound AOL into compliance, make IMing feasible and fun, and otherwise make your Internet experience nuisance-free.

The Annoyance:

Macromedia Flash allows web developers to create some really neat animations, movies, and interactive elements on a web page. It also allows developers to create really annoying stuff, including intrusive ads. How do I stop the Flash Player cold in its tracks?

The Fix:

If Flash animations really make you want to hurl, you have a couple of options:

You could uninstall Flash Player. But that's not as easy as you might expect; you won't find it in Add/Remove Programs. You'll find a Flash Player uninstaller at http://snipurl.com/remove_player. If the uninstaller doesn't work, http://snipurl.com/remove offers instructions for removing Flash Player manually, namely the Flash Player ActiveX control (if you're using Internet Explorer) and the Flash Player plug-in (if you're using Netscape, Opera, or Mozilla).
A better solution is to use a web-filtering product like Proxomitron, a free program you can download from http://www.oreilly.com/pcannoyances. Proxomitron replaces Flash elements with a simple hyperlink, which you can click if you

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The Annoyance:

Macromedia Flash allows web developers to create some really neat animations, movies, and interactive elements on a web page. It also allows developers to create really annoying stuff, including intrusive ads. How do I stop the Flash Player cold in its tracks?

The Fix:

If Flash animations really make you want to hurl, you have a couple of options:

You could uninstall Flash Player. But that's not as easy as you might expect; you won't find it in Add/Remove Programs. You'll find a Flash Player uninstaller at http://snipurl.com/remove_player. If the uninstaller doesn't work, http://snipurl.com/remove offers instructions for removing Flash Player manually, namely the Flash Player ActiveX control (if you're using Internet Explorer) and the Flash Player plug-in (if you're using Netscape, Opera, or Mozilla).
A better solution is to use a web-filtering product like Proxomitron, a free program you can download from http://www.oreilly.com/pcannoyances. Proxomitron replaces Flash elements with a simple hyperlink, which you can click if you want the animation to play. Proxomitron does much more, including blocking pop-up windows, preventing animated GIF files from playing, managing frames, stopping scripts and applets, and so on. You can learn a lot more about the capabilities of Proxomitron at http://snipurl.com/prox_scripts.

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The Annoyance:

When I do a Google search and click a result, it generally leads me to another page, then another, and so on. A half hour later I'm done and want to go back to my original search page and start over, but it's nowhere to be found. (OK, I can find it in my Internet Explorer History, but who needs that hassle?)

The Fix:

There's a better way to do this, and it's easy to set up. First, go to http://www.google.com. To the right of the search field, click the Preferences link. Scroll down to the very bottom of the Google Preferences page and check "Open search results in a new browser window." Click the Save Preferences and OK buttons to return to the Google home page. Now when you click one of Google's hits, it will launch a new browser window, leaving the original search results untouched.

If you use Google, then Google: The Missing Manual (Pogue Press/O'Reilly) is a goldmine. Even though I thought I knew Google inside and out, I still learned some new tricks. For instance, if you want a listing of all the barber shops in Altadena, California, type phonebook: barber altadena CA. (The word phonebook cannot be capitalized, but the state abbreviation must be in caps.) Only need business listings? Type bphonebook.

Another approach is to use the new Google Local service (local.google.com). Just type in the What (say, car dealerships) and the Where (Altadena, CA), click a button, and Google will generate a pinpoint results list, complete with addresses, phone numbers, maps, and directions.

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The Annoyance:

Call me a Web geezer, but I can remember when the online world was virtually ad-free. Now it looks more like a NASCAR event, and AOL Instant Messenger is no exception. My Buddy List sports a little blinking ad window that does nothing but hog space. Worse yet, many of the ads it plasters on my screen are for AOL itself!

The Fix:

Erasing ads from AIM is something of a national pastime-type "REMOVE AIM ADS" into a search engine, and you'll get links to a bevy of approaches, including firewall tricks, configuration-file tweaks, and software tools. Problem is, many of these techniques are needlessly complicated, or so long in the tooth they don't work with the current version.

My AIM ad zapper of choice is James Dennis's DeadAIM, which works with AIM 4.8 and up. DeadAIM doesn't just eradicate ads; it also gives you an array of options for tweaking AIM's look and features, including the ability to log chat sessions and make windows semitransparent (two features I like in AIM competitor Trillian). DeadAIM isn't freeware, but it's close enough: at $4.99 (payable in advance via PayPal), it provides loads of bang for your sawbuck. Download DeadAIM from http://www.jdennis.net.

An even better deal is Freddy's No Ads for Yahoo! Messenger. Not only can you block ads, you can substitute something in the ad's space. Download noads.zip from http://snipurl.com/noads.

Messenger Service Ads, sometimes known as DirectAds, are the latest craze in spamming. Spammers shower a range of IP addresses, and if you're within that range, you get blasted with an ad. Messenger Service Ads are seen mostly on broadband systems-cable or DSL-and increasingly, dialup connections.

Despite the name, the pop-ups have nothing to do with MSN Messenger or other IM software. This facility has long been used by network administrators to broadcast these messages to others on a LAN. If you're using Windows 95, 98, or Me, don't worry, be happy-you don't have this feature. But if you're using Windows NT, 2000, or XP without a firewall, you may see the ads. There are three free, easy fixes:

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If Windows is the King of Annoyances, Microsoft Office is the Queen. In this chapter, I'll guide you through the strange things that can happen in Word's find feature, design flaws using styles, and printing problems. And I'll help you conquer Public Enemy #1: numbering in Word. I'll also give you nifty workarounds, well-buried Microsoft tricks, and some of the coolest tools and utilities available to help you make Office work smarter.

The Annoyance:

The recently opened documents list at the bottom of the File menu provides a quick way to pick up where I left off on a file. But there are five specific documents I need to use quite often-just not frequently enough to keep them on that list.

The Fix:

You've probably already figured out that you can increase the number of recently used items shown at the bottom of the File menu (if not, see the "Lengthen the List" sidebar on the next page).

If you're looking for a better solution, Word has it. You can add a Work menu to your menu bar or a toolbar that stores those five documents you always need. It works a lot like the Favorites menu in Internet Explorer.

I use the Work menu all the time (see Figure 4-1). For example, I have a document where I jot down ideas and notes for columns or books-and it's always available on the Work menu. It's also really handy for keeping shortcuts to online reference documents. And when I have a flurry of projects and one of the documents I'm working on keeps sliding off the File menu, I add it to the Work menu.

Figure 4-1: In addition to shortcuts to documents I use often, I've customized this Work menu by adding a Remove Menu Shortcut command so that it's easy to remove documents from the menu.

Before you set this up, though, a word of caution: don't let anyone borrow this book. It's a killer to remove files from the Work menu. You'll want these instructions close at hand.

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The Annoyance:

The recently opened documents list at the bottom of the File menu provides a quick way to pick up where I left off on a file. But there are five specific documents I need to use quite often-just not frequently enough to keep them on that list.

The Fix:

You've probably already figured out that you can increase the number of recently used items shown at the bottom of the File menu (if not, see the "Lengthen the List" sidebar on the next page).

If you're looking for a better solution, Word has it. You can add a Work menu to your menu bar or a toolbar that stores those five documents you always need. It works a lot like the Favorites menu in Internet Explorer.

I use the Work menu all the time (see Figure 4-1). For example, I have a document where I jot down ideas and notes for columns or books-and it's always available on the Work menu. It's also really handy for keeping shortcuts to online reference documents. And when I have a flurry of projects and one of the documents I'm working on keeps sliding off the File menu, I add it to the Work menu.

Figure 4-1: In addition to shortcuts to documents I use often, I've customized this Work menu by adding a Remove Menu Shortcut command so that it's easy to remove documents from the menu.

Before you set this up, though, a word of caution: don't let anyone borrow this book. It's a killer to remove files from the Work menu. You'll want these instructions close at hand.

To set up a Work menu, select Tools → Customize and click the Commands tab.
In the Categories box, scroll down and select Built-In Menus.
In the Commands box, scroll down and drag Work to your menu bar or a toolbar (see Figure 4-2). Click the Close button.

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The Annoyance:

I copy and paste lengthy tables of sports schedules and stats from web pages into Word, mostly without success. Word can't seem to import tables correctly and things just never look quite right.

The Fix:

Don't even consider using Word. Excel is the premier tool for handling tables. Here's how:

Highlight and copy info on the web page (see Figure 4-27).
In Excel, right-click the cell where you want to start the table.
Select Paste Special and-here's the important part-select HTML format.
The data pours beautifully into the cells to form a perfect table. While the data's still selected, choose Format → AutoFormat, and you can fiddle for countless hours choosing a style to display the data (see Figure 4-28).

Figure 4-27: If you're into thoroughbred racing, you'll recognize this table. Copy the section of the table you want to export into Excel.

Figure 4-28: Top: The table from the Web pours smoothly into Excel using the "Paste Special"' HTML format. Bottom: Use Excel's AutoFormat tool to tweak the table so it looks just right.

The Annoyance:

I often need to enter a bunch of repetitive data in a worksheet. Sometimes it's a column of numbers that are all the same; other times it's a row of numbers or dates that increment. I often need to do this across a row, such as when I have a series of dates at the top of each column.

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The Annoyance:

My color PowerPoint presentations look smashing on-screen. But when I print them out on my trusty monochrome laser printer, they're downright atrocious. My vibrant colors get turned into icky grays I can barely tell apart.

The Fix:

Ask your boss to buy a color laser printer. And after the old tightwad's done laughing in your face, try a cheaper solution: PowerPoint's extensive features for making grayscale printouts look good. They work well; they're just tucked away where you might not stumble across them.

If you're using PowerPoint 2002, you'll find these features by selecting View → Color/Grayscale → Grayscale. You'll get a little floating window with no fewer than nine different grayscale print options; pick one and you'll see exactly what your printout will look like. For instance, if your problem is due to light text on a dark background, the Inverse Grayscale setting can work wonders. Once the presentation looks more presentable, click the Close Grayscale View button, and it will be restored to vibrant on-screen Technicolor.

Credit where credit is due: PowerPoint often does a perfectly good job of figuring out appropriate grayscale choices by itself, so try its default printout before you futz with the grayscale features.

You'll run into one related annoyance if you do have a color printer but want to print in grayscale (an intelligent move if you plan to distribute black-and-white photocopies of that printout): just because you're in grayscale mode on-screen doesn't mean PowerPoint will print in shades of gray. When you print, make sure Grayscale is selected in the Print dialog's "Color/Grayscale:" section.

The Annoyance:

When I paste or insert graphics onto a slide, all the other elements are pushed aside. My carefully organized slide becomes an eyesore, and undoing the damage gets old real fast.

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The Annoyance:

All of a sudden Outlook is opening Microsoft Word when I create a new email, and I can't seem to get things back to normal. How did that happen, and more importantly, how do I stop it?

The Fix:

Yours is a very common grievance. It occurs when you fiddle with Outlook's settings, inadvertently click something, and forget that you've done it. (I do this all the time.) In Outlook, choose Tools → Options. In Version 97, select the E-mail tab if it's not already selected, uncheck the "Use Microsoft Word as the e-mail editor" box, and select OK. In Versions 2000 and XP (2002), select the Mail Format tab and uncheck "Use Microsoft Word to edit email messages."

The Annoyance:

There are so many creeps on the Internet, and some of the email messages I send contain information they'd love to get their mitts on. To prevent that from happening, I got a digital certificate for signing and encrypting certain messages. But the Sign and Encrypt buttons don't appear in the Outlook Express toolbar, so I can't sign or encrypt a message with a single click.

The Fix:

You can get these buttons on the message toolbar, just not on the toolbar of the main Outlook Express window.

The Sign and Encrypt buttons appear by default in the toolbar of a message-editing window (where you compose a new message or newsgroup post, forward a message, or reply to a message). If the buttons don't appear in the window, do the following:

Be sure the toolbar hasn't been truncated because the window is too narrow to display all buttons. If a >> symbol appears at the right end of the toolbar, make the window wider or click >> to display the buttons that don't fit, as shown in Figure 4-37.

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If you've ever buried a file in the Tomb of the Unknown Folder and then gone on an hour-long treasure hunt to find it, you know what it's like to be annoyed with Windows Explorer. A huge 200 GB drive is terrific while you're happily saving files, but a nightmare when you have to find them again. It's like buying a 47-room castle: a dream come true, until you can't remember where you left your eyeglasses.

With over 100,000 files and folders on my system, I've developed lots of workarounds for many of Explorer's annoyances. I'll also tell you about a handful of free file management utilities and two terrific alternatives to using Windows Explorer at all.

I hated Clippy and you showed me how to dump it. [See "Give Clippy His Walking Papers (Really)" in Chapter 4.] How about eliminating the irritating animation in XP's Search feature?

Animation begone! In Windows Explorer, press F3 and you'll take your last look at the dumb animation. Click the Change Preferences link at the bottom of the Search pane, click "Without an animated screen character," and say adios to the creature.

Here's an odd time-saver: if you press F3 from the Windows desktop, you jump right into the Search pane's "All files and folders" search. Why? Ask Bill.

The Start menu's My Recent Documents is a handy way to quickly retrieve files I've been working on. But the list is limited to 15 documents.

With a quick fix, you can have access to a heck of a lot more of your recently used files. The trick is to place a shortcut to the secret folder that tracks recently opened files on the desktop. Navigate to the My Recent Documents folder (its location varies depending on your version and setup of Windows; it's often at C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Recent Documents in XP and 2000 and at C:\Windows\Recent

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I hated Clippy and you showed me how to dump it. [See "Give Clippy His Walking Papers (Really)" in Chapter 4.] How about eliminating the irritating animation in XP's Search feature?

Animation begone! In Windows Explorer, press F3 and you'll take your last look at the dumb animation. Click the Change Preferences link at the bottom of the Search pane, click "Without an animated screen character," and say adios to the creature.

Here's an odd time-saver: if you press F3 from the Windows desktop, you jump right into the Search pane's "All files and folders" search. Why? Ask Bill.

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The Start menu's My Recent Documents is a handy way to quickly retrieve files I've been working on. But the list is limited to 15 documents.

With a quick fix, you can have access to a heck of a lot more of your recently used files. The trick is to place a shortcut to the secret folder that tracks recently opened files on the desktop. Navigate to the My Recent Documents folder (its location varies depending on your version and setup of Windows; it's often at C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Recent Documents in XP and 2000 and at C:\Windows\Recent or C:\Windows\Profiles\username\Recent in 98 and Me). Once you find it, right-click and drag it to the desktop, release the button, and select "Create Shortcuts Here" from the menu to create a shortcut. Double-click this folder and you get a mondo list of recently opened documents going back months. Just double-click the desired file to open it.

Like any folder, you can customize it to your heart's content. I deleted dead links and files that I'm not likely to access again. You can also sort on name or date by clicking the respective headers.

Are you tired of staring at the same old bland, lifeless Windows folder icons? Give them some sizzle with Change Icon, a cool little freebie that'll let you do just that. The colorful icons make it much easier to find the folders by topic. For instance, I changed my Book Chapters folder icon to a set of keys, and my Photos folder now looks like a camera-handy for spotting folders when you're rummaging through a folder tree list. Grab a copy at http://www.oreilly.com/pcannoyances.

Figure :

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Every time I load Windows Explorer, it takes me to My Documents. Call me a dinosaur, but I liked it better when Windows Explorer opened My Computer instead.

If you want to open Windows Explorer with My Computer selected and the folders pane displayed on the left side, and if you have a Windows keyboard (that is, a keyboard with the Windows logo key), simply press WinKey-E.

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Is there a quicker way to access a folder? Or to automatically open a specific folder in Windows Explorer?

You bet. The possibilities:

If you want to open a folder—any folder—from the Start menu, simply drag the folder's icon from Windows Explorer to the Start button. Without releasing the mouse button, wait until the menu pops up, and drag to the desired location on the menu. A heavy black bar indicates where the link will end up when you release the mouse button. You can drag the folder from just about any place you can view it, such as a Windows Explorer window, the Windows Explorer Address bar (drag the folder icon), an Open or Save dialog box, and so on.
If you want to open a folder in Explorer by clicking a button on the Quick Launch toolbar, drag the folder to the Quick Launch toolbar.
If you want to open a folder from a desktop shortcut, right-click the folder, and drag it to the desktop, drop it, and choose "Create Shortcuts Here."

If you left-drag the folder as you do for creating Start menu and Quick Launch shortcuts, Windows moves the folder and its contents to the desktop instead of creating a shortcut.

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I work with the same six folders, and what I really want is a way to choose which folder to open before launching Windows Explorer.

That's such a handy (and obvious) feature, no wonder Microsoft didn't include it! Until they do, you'll need to create a shortcut for each folder you want Windows Explorer to open.

First create a shortcut on the Start menu, Quick Launch toolbar, or desktop of the desired folder. Right-click the folder shortcut and choose Properties. On the Shortcut tab, edit the contents of the Target field by inserting explorer /e, (including the comma) before the folder name (see Figure 5-1). The /e switch forces Windows Explorer to open in "explore"

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