Polly's Tips

Here you will find some of my favorite computer tips plus products I use and recommend.

Windows Tips!	My Favorite Software, Hardware and Other Assorted Goodies!
What the heck does that thing do?
I know some people are mouse people and some people are keyboard people. Me? I'm a keyboard person, so I will share you with some of my favorite keyboard tricks! Many people do not know that the funny little "Windows" key on the bottom left of your keyboard actually has a function! You can do many cool things with it! Here are some examples. Hold down the Windows key and hit "M", this will minimize all your open Windows and take you to the desktop. Hold down the Windows key and hit "E", this will bring up Windows Explorer. Hold down the Windows key and hit "F", this will bring up the "FIND" program. Hold down the Windows key and hit "R", this will bring up the "RUN" box. Easy and cool, huh? Expect more to come!	You've heard it over and over and over again -- Back up, Back up, Back up! But are you actually doing it??? Tsk, tsk! Okay, I know it's a pain, but guess what is even more painful? Getting ready to go to work and finding that your hard drive is pushing up the daisies. Personally, I use both local and offsite backups (I'll give you the low down on the external hard drive another day), but I recently ditched my other on line back up service for CARBONITE. Seriously, this program rocks! First of all, you can try it without having to hand over your credit card number and then marking your calendar for the day your free trial expires. They actually let you try the program for FREE. Really! It runs quietly in the background and once the initial back up is done (which can take a week or more by the way -- I have over 20Gigs in my backup) it will continuously back up all the changed files. Oh, and I did I mention that there is only one fee no matter HOW MUCH YOU BACK UP???? That's right, boys and girls, $50 a year. That's it! I was paying more than that a month for a "generous" 5G back up with the other guys. You gotta get it! Then you can be smug and tell everyone, "Of course, I back up my computer every day!" Won't that feel good? Go to www.carbonite.com right now and get it. P.S. Oh, there is one little caveat. If you run a CRM program such as ACT! or Goldmine make sure you turn off Carbonite while you are doing maintenance. Even that is easy -- one little right click and it goes to sleep for 24 hours or until you turn it back on.
Excel Duplicate Records
If you work with lots of cutting and pasting in Excel or if you use Excel to work with SQL data or other database information you know the pain of sifting through duplicate records! Help is at hand! Below are the instructions for getting rid of all those duplicate in one fell swoop! Select the column or click a cell in the range or list you want to filter. On the Data menu, point to Filter, and then click Advanced Filter. Select the Unique records only check box, and then click OK. On the Edit menu, click Office Clipboard. Click Copy. On the Data menu, point to Filter, and then click Show All. Press the DELETE key. In the Clipboard, click on the filtered list item. Voila! All the duplicates are gone!	Do you use more than one computer at a time? If you are like me, I always have two going and sometimes even three! Maybe you have tried a KVM switch (that's keyboard, video, mouse), but get sick of all the wires or maybe you just twist around in your chair a lot, either way I've got a better idea for you! Go check out www.kavoom.biz. They make the most wonderful software program that lets you easily switch between your computers just by using your keyboard! It is one of my absolute favorite programs. I really couldn't live without it! Keep checking here for more of my favorite products.