Tech Tutor Mark

Are you tired of all of the core desktop applications including unneeded toolbars with every installation, even on updates?  Are you tired of having to click through every installation?  Don't you wish that applications were just simpler and quicker to install, and available from one location...almost buffet style?  Then you really need to check out Ninite.com .  This simple site makes all of your basic computer application installs so much easier and more convenient.    Install and update all of your programs at once.  Tick the check-boxes for all of the apps you want, click "Get Installer" and run it, and then run it again later.  Your installer will update apps to the latest versions.  If something is already up-to-date, Ninite will skip it.  It doesn't include any unnecessary toolbars, it doesn't require you to click through a lot of buttons.  It just installs updates automatically.  You download what ev...

Here's the scenario.  The person you replaced at your new office desk created a form in Microsoft Word and password-protected it.  To make matters worse, the person who created the form is now: 1) unreachable, 2) in the hospital, 3) in jail, or something even more bizarre.  How to remove the password?  Well, in order to remove a password, you usually need to know what the password is.  That is the challenging part.  I found a fix for Excel today, which is to just install Apache Open Office and open the Excel file in Open Office Calc, then go to the Tools>>Protect Document  and un-check "Protect Document" and/or "Protect Sheet."  This un-protects the document, which can then be re-saved as an Excel file and re-opened in Excel without the protection.  In Microsoft Word 2010, for example, this method didn't work as well for me in Open Office Writer.  Instead, it opened as a "Read Only" file in OpenOffice....

In my continued effort to provide people with the tech tools they need the most, here is a list I am asked about a lot.  Known as Alt Codes , and found at fsymbols.com (among other places), these are the various keys when, pressed in combination with the Alt and the NumLock keys on a standard Windows keyboard, result in the various symbols and foreign language accents found on this list . Don't forget to click on the German Symbols, Spanish Symbols and Shortcuts links at the top of the page, and let me know if you keep coming back to this page for future reference.  I know I will.