Digital Simple » Software

Open newer Word documents

Sherman — Mon, 17 May 2010 21:27:27 +0000

I get a lot of Microsoft Word documents as email attachments. Recently I’ve started getting a lot of them as DOCX files. That’s the newest version of Microsoft Word and if you have an older version of Microsoft Office you can’t open them without help. Here’s how to solve that.

You’ll need to download the Office Compatibility Pack for Office XP and 2003. You can do that by clicking here then choosing “download” from the page provided.

You can get to the mac download directly by clicking here. Once you download the software you’ll need to run the installer.

Once you install one of these you should be able to open DOCX files without any hassle.

Should I upgrade my web browser?

Sherman — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:30:38 +0000

Yes.

There’s no simpler answer. Whether you’re using Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome or Opera; newer = safer and better in almost every case. When you computer asks you to upgrade your browser, say “Yes”.

Growl

Sherman — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:22:17 +0000

If you’re like me there are a lot of things happening on your computer that you may or may not want to know about…

You get an email and just want to glance at the sender and subject.
You started downloading something and want to know when it’s done.
Your random song mix changed and you want to know the artist.

Let “Growl” give you a heads up. Once it’s installed other programs on your computer (that support Growl) can send notifications message to your screen. If it’s something you want to ignore you can; if it’s important you know.

Growl is a simple way to know what’s going on. Download it now and get the message.

Click here to download Growl for your Mac.

Click here to dowload Grown for Windows.

You think you have problems?

Sherman — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:24:29 +0000

My wife Amanda was given a task: change the file names on up to 1000+ files; some she had to create names for, some she had to remove the date from the file name. It was a bit daunting.

After an hour she had new names for about 100 files, but there were 800+ left to remove the dates. Thankfully there are programs out there that can help make this task a lot simpler.

That’s one of the key reasons to use a computer: make things simpler. In this case we took a task that could have taken hours and got it done in minutes.

What’s taking you a long time on your computer? How can we help make it simpler? Ask a question and find out!

Have a great weekend!

When gmail went down…

Sherman — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:51:17 +0000

Gmail – google’s email service – was down for over an hour yesterday. The question I got from several coworkers and friends was “Is my Email Safe?”

Yes. But it’s a good idea to back it up anyway.

Like anything else; when I trust my (whatever) to someone else I run the risk that it’ll never come back to me. The same is true for email; if something happened and my email was lost by google that would be that. That’s why I have a backup.

The simplest way to have a “back up” is to use Outlook, Mac Mail, Thunderbird or another “Email Client” to access mail. Not all the time, but if I open Outlook once a day and it goes and gets my mail I then have a copy on my computer in case something happens.

Using web email like gmail, yahoo or hotmail is simple and convenient; using Outlook or Mail once in a while is smart.

Here’s how to set up gmail with a mail client
Here’s how to set up yahoo
If you use another program, ask your network administrator for help

If you would like help managing your personal or company email give me a call. I’d love to help.

Dropbox for multiple computers

Sherman — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:29:45 +0000

I use several computers and need to move files between them often. I could use a USB drive or email, but the simple solution for me is Dropbox.

Dropbox a program that runs on each of my computers – home, laptop and work. It creates a folder where I can store documents, images, other folders or whatever. Anything that’s put it a folder on one of my computers is copied by Dropbox to that same folder on all my other computers. Once it’s installed this happens automatically. Simple.

If i’m not at my one of my computers I can access my Dropbox files online or on my phone. And If I screw something up on a file they keep revisions for me so I can recover.

Dropbox works on my PC and My Mac. A “basic” account is free for 2 gigabytes of storage, so give Dropbox a try if you need a simple way to use multiple computers.