How to put symbol characters in email messages or documents

Click Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools and click Character Map or on Vista click Start and type charmap in the Search box. Select the font in the drop-down box at the top. Scroll through the symbols to find the one you want to use (for example: ©). You can double click the character and click Copy, then paste it into your document. But a faster way if you’re going to use the same characters often is to note and memorize the keystroke shown in the lower right corner (for example, ALT+0169 for the Copyright symbol). Then when you want to insert that character in the future, just type the keystroke combination instead of going to the Character Map. Some characters are not available in some fonts.

Remove user information from Windows Messenger

you can delete your user name from the list that Windows Messenger saves. How to do it depends on whether the computer is a member of a workgroup or a domain. Here’s how:

1. Click Start | Control Panel.
2. Click User Accounts.
3. On a workgroup computer, click your user account in the list. Under Related Tasks, click Manage my Network Passwords. Select the user account in the Stored User Names and Passwords box and click Remove.
4. On a domain computer, click the Advanced tab, click Manage Passwords, and in Stored Users and Passwords, select the user account and click Remove.
5. Click OK.
6. Click Close.

Now your user name shouldn’t appear in the list in Windows Messenger.

Make a Recovery Partition

Many PCs come with recovery CDs that will restore your system to factory-new condition, but you can get the job done faster—and add all your favorite programs and system settings to the restoration—by creating a recovery partition. A partition, of course, is a cordoned-off section of your hard drive that gets its own drive letter. All you need is the right software and enough available space to hold your stuff.

The “right software,” in this case, is a partition utility and a backup program that can create a compressed “image” of your newly reformatted and reloaded hard drive. We’re partial to Symantec’s Norton PartitionMagic 8.0 and Norton Ghost 10.0, respectively but you can use any nondestructive partitioning utility and the backup app of your choice, of course. And all you need to do is create a partition that’s large enough to hold your stuff; then back up your primary drive to the partition. If and when the time comes to restore, run Ghost and expand the backup image to your primary drive. Presto: You’re back in business.—

Side-by-Side Instances of Windows Explorer

I often need to move files and have found that the best way to do it is to open two instances of Windows Explorer and then size them so they fit side by side on the screen.

Windows makes it easy to get the effect you want. Start by launching your two instances of Windows Explorer. If Windows combines the taskbar buttons for the two windows into a single one with a title like “2 Windows Explorer,” simply right-click that button and choose Tile Vertically from the pop-up menu. If each of them has its own button on the taskbar, do this: (1) Click one button; (2) Ctrl-click the other; (3) right-click either button; (4) choose Tile Vertically from the pop-up menu.

Here’s another method, possibly necessary if you have more than two instances of Windows Explorer sharing a button on the taskbar: (1) Minimize all windows except the two Explorer instances; (2) right-click the taskbar itself; (3) choose Tile Windows Vertically from the pop-up menu.

How to create keyboard shortcuts for programs

Want to start a program with a key combination instead of clicking through menus or clicking on desktop icons? It’s easy in XP:

1. Right click the program icon in the Start menu (or a desktop shortcut to the program).
2. Select Properties.
3. Click the Shortcut tab.
4. Click in the Shortcut Key field.
5. Now press the combination of keys that you want to use to start the program. The combination must include two of the following keys: CTRL, ALT, SHIFT, plus one alphabetical, numeric or symbol character (for example, CTRL+SHIFT+Y).
6. Click OK.

Fold and drop

Go to http://www.kmonos.net/lib/orimado.en.html and check it out. Nice little feature and handy to use