At the outset, I would like to make it clear that this hub is not for you if you are so called computer expert. Information included here is for the users who just have elementary knowledge of computer operations like "start", "shut down" and the opening and closing a program or even drafting a letter using Microsoft Office Word or constructing a table using Microsoft Ofice Excel program. The tips I am giving here are simple tips for new users that will help them to perform their task at the earliest.

Search: Some people are very systematic and some are very lazy. They will save their files here and there and when they need a particular file they will forget the name of file or folder where they saved it. If you remember the name of a word in the file name, its very simple to search in Windows vista, you just type that word in the search just above the start button and it will list all the with that name. In previous versions like XP or ME, you have to take help of "Search" button. Click on the "Search" icon and it will open Search companion.

There are several options available to you like searching pictures, movies, music, videos, documents or folders. If you are looking for a picture file, you have two options: either click on the picture button or search using key words in the file name or look at all the searched pictures. If you click on the "pictures" and search, it will show you all the pictures stored on your system. You can select a particular picture file from the list displayed or looking at thumbnails.Alternative to this option is to click on files and folders. Simplest thing to do is to give complete or partial name of the file. To limit your search to only picture files you can provide .jpg extension if file format is jpg. One more thing you can do is to use a star ( moon*.jpg). You can limit your search by selecting a drive if you are sure that you have saved the file on a particular drive. You can make advance search and can exclude system files.

Likewise you can limit your search to documents, spredsheats or slide presentations by typing *.doc or *.xls or *.ppt. In this computer will enlist all documents or spreadsheets..

Using search button, you can find the duplicate files stored on your hard disk. Type a*.doc and you will find all your word file stored with "a' letter having doc extension. From the edit menu click on "select all", "copy to folder" and then make a new folder on selected drive and click on copy. All the selected files will be copied to new folder and computer will ask you to delete a duplicate file that you can do after ascertaining that file is duplicate or a new file at looking file details. In this way you can get rid of duplicate files. However, exclude the files of system files in the search before copying or moving them to another folder.

Resize your images: I have to help my friends frequently in resizing images. Resizing is needed to send images as email attachment. When you scan a picture using an scanner the image size is too big to attach it to email or if you want to send an album of your family photographs to family members residing far away it becomes difficult to attach. You can solve this problem using Microsoft's image resizer. You can download it free clicking here and its a very useful small (520 kB) tool. Save the file and double click it to install the program. Whenever you want to resize your picture/image, just right click the image and then click on resize the picture (this option is available whenever you right click a picture or a set of pictures). A snapshot of options is shown below. You can choose any size from the options available. One more thing to note - you can resize several pictures at a time by selecting all the pictures and do as suggested above. Try this tool.

Inserting tables/graphs in your hubs:

Can you insert a Microsoft Word/ Excel table in your hub? No, OK, there is a solution for this problem. Construct a table using Microsoft Excel, use colors filling rows or columns. Fill in the data. Now take a snapshot/screenshot of that table and save it in your hard disk. Once it is saved, you can upload this to your hub using photo capsule. You will need a small tool (640 KB) to take snapshot called "MWSnap3". It can be downloaded clicking this link. MWSnap is a program for snapping (capturing) images from selected parts of the screen. After download, double click the saved file it will start installing the program. Simply follow the instruction. After installation, open the program, it will reside in the system tray. Whenever you wish to take the snapshot, open the file, you wish to capture your table and right click on camera like icon in your system tray. Now click the "any area" and move the mouse across the corners of table and click. MWSnap window will open up showing the captured image. Save the file as jpg image (default) and upload this file to "photo capsule". Adjust the size of photo after upload. Your table will be displayed as photograph.

How to insert Microsoft Excel Tables in a Microsoft Word document?

Although you can insert tables using features of Microsoft Word, it's always better to insert tables prepared in Microsoft Excel as it's not only easier but convenient also to preparing tables in Microsoft Exel. If you need to insert an Excel table in your Word document, you have several options for accomplishment of this.

1. Copy the table from Excel and paste it in the Word document:

Its a simple way to copy a table from Excel and paste it in the Word document. However, it will not fit well within the potrait layout of your Word document if table has more columns. To adjust the table either you have to change the layout of your Word document from Portrait to Landscape or adjust your table by dragging corners. But it may not interest you if you want to keep your document in portrait layout and dragging corners can make your fonts in the table funny characters. What other options you can excercise?

2. Copy the table from Excel and paste it using "paste special" feature in the Word document:

After copying table from M. Excel, you should click on "paste special" to insert your table. Now select "Insert an Microsoft Exel Object". Advantage of using this feature is non-distortion of fonts in the table if you need to adjust the size of your table. You can use this feature in Microsoft Powerpoint program if you need to insert an Excel table. Another advantage of doing this is in editing the content of the table. You can directly edit the table from Microsoft Word by double clicking the table. It will open table in microsft Excel within Microsoft Window.

Working with different versions of Microsoft Office

If you work at your home and in your office on computers that have different versions of MS Office, you may face difficulty in opening your documents on different computers. Take care in saving your documents in old versions so that you can open and work with your documents.

If you find this information of any help, keep visiting I'll be adding new things every week.