Get With The Times!

The 3.5" floppy disk was introduced in 1982, and the 1.44 MB version that exists today was introduced in 1987. Also in 1987, Beverly Hills Cop II was a top-grossing film, president Ronald Reagan's Iran-Contra policy was all over the news, the cost of gasoline was 96 cents per gallon, and people actually looked like this.

Floppy disks have long been made obsolete by writeable CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, and USB flash drives. Why? CD-ROMs hold almost 500 times as much data as floppy disks and DVD-ROMs hold over 3000 times as much data. Flash drives hold almost as much data as CDs, are rewriteable just like floppy disks, and transfer data much faster than either format.

More importantly, the failure rate of floppy disks is significant. We've seen as many as 50% of floppy disks fail within the first couple years of use. With odds like that, you'd be safer putting your master's thesis on an Etch-a-Sketch and hoping that we don't have an earthquake.

Not all PCs have a CD "burner", but every PC has at least one USB port that you can plug a flash drive into. Consider purchasing a flash drive -- also known as a "thumb drive", "memory key", or "pen drive" -- and try to limit your use of floppy disks to absolute emergencies. (And for heaven's sakes, back up anything that you save to a floppy disk.)

Diagram A. Fashion and practicality have never been so in harmony.

Flash drives are reliable, durable, capacious, and best of all, cheap. Some are as low as $10, and you can find a good one for $30 to $40. Many stores carry them, from Best Buy and Circuit City to Wal-Mart and Target. Or you can use a search site such as www.pricewatch.com to find the lowest prices on the market for flash drives. Computer nerds like to shop on sites such as http://www.newegg.com/ and http://www.tigerdirect.com/. Make sure you look for a flash drive that is at least 128 MB in size (preferably 256 MB or more).

Viewing Multiple Calendars

In Microsoft Office 2003, you can view public calendars alongside your own calendar. Here's how to do it:

1. Navigate to a public calendar in the Folder List view. (Select "Public Folders", then select "All Public Folders" to access all the public calendars.)
2. Right-click your 'favorite' public calendar in the Folder List and select “Add to Favorites”. Then click “Add”.
3. Now go to your Calendar view. (Click on the button below the Mail button.) You’ll notice that in the left pane, the calendar you just added appears under “Other Calendars” with an empty checkbox.
4. Check the box for this calendar and it will pop up alongside your own calendar in the middle pane. Uncheck the box to remove it from view.

You can actually view several more calendars side-by-side…I’ve seen as many as 5 or 6!

Email Flags

Ever receive an email that prompts you to do something, then forget about it days later when it's buried in the depths of your inbox? Microsoft Outlook has a built-in way of reminding you.

While viewing the message (you have to double-click on it in the Inbox view), click on the red flag in the toolbar. You then can specify what you need to do with the message (follow-up, etc.) and you can set a deadline for yourself. Outlook will automatically notify you when the deadline hits.

Once you complete the task, you can click on that same red flag icon later on and check off the "Completed" box. Alternately, in your inbox view, you can simply click on the red flag in the right-hand column to change it to a check mark.

The Hard Copy

This week, a few tips about printers.

[A] Adding a printer to your user account is easy. Here’s how you do it:

1. Click Start and select “Printers and Faxes”.
2. Select “Add a printer” from the left side of the window.
3. Click “Next”, then click “Next” again.
4. You want to “Find a printer in the directory”, which should be the default.
5. Click “Next”.
6. Now we’re going to search for a printer, but we’re not
going to enter in any search criteria, so click “Find Now”.
7. A list will appear that contains most of our network
printers. Double-click on the printer you want to add.
8. It will now ask you if you want this to be your “default
printer”. Select “Yes” or “No” as appropriate and click “Next”.
9. Click “Finish” and you’re done!

[B] Preview before you print!

Far too many people leave stacks and stacks of wasted printouts in print trays every single day. Not only is this practice environmentally-inconsiderate, but it wastes thousands of dollars every year. Consider this: printing on a color laser printer costs about 10 cents per page. Printing on a color inkjet printer can cost anywhere from 4 cents per page (text-only) all the way up to a full dollar per page when printing photos.

If you're unsure how your printout will look, don't print! Go to File/Print Preview in whatever application you're running. You'll get a graphic of exactly the way your printout will look. Once you've finally got things looking exactly right, then hit "Print".

[C] Inkjet ink...ignore the warnings!

If you're using an inkjet printer, you'll eventually get warnings that certain ink tanks/ink cartridges are "running low" and that you "need to replace" these cartridges. IGNORE THESE WARNINGS. They're most likely an attempt by the manufacturer to get you to purchase ink tanks/cartridges more often! You can continue to print normally for weeks after you first receive these messages. Only replace an inkjet cartridge when the printer states that the cartridge is totally empty and won't continue until you replace it. Your printouts will not suffer in quality during this period.

Also, once the ink tank for a particular color is empty, please just pull that one ink tank for replacement...not all 6 of them. The odds of all 6 ink tanks drying up at the exact same time are slim, yet people frequently try to replace all ink cartridges at the same time. Consider replacing them one at a time.