Thursday, April 30, 2009

Resolving an unrecognized USB Thumb Drive

After spending a lot of time troubleshooting a problematic USB thumb drive it was discovered that HP equipment plugged into USB ports can cause the problem. If you have an HP scanner and/or printer connected using USB ports, temporarily unplug them before you use your USB thumb drive.

Hopefully this tid bit saves you a lot of time...

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Email Merge

The Email Merge feature will allow you to send multiple CUSTOMIZED emails simultaneously. For instance, you will be able to create one email and send to many people at the same time all while inserting each recipients name to give it a custom touch.

In order to send email’s using the email merge feature you will first need to create a spreadsheet with any pertinent information. For starters, column headers named Title, First Name, Last Name, and Email Address should suffice. Once that spreadsheet is created and populated you are now ready to begin the email process.

You will need to use a MAPI-compatible email program such as Microsoft Outlook. Follow these steps to get started in Outlook 2003:

1. Begin a new message and on the Tools menu, point to Letters and Mailings, and then click Mail Merge.

2. Under Select document type, click E-mail messages.
The active document becomes the main document, where you will type the body of your e-mail message.

3. Click Next: Starting document on the bottom right of the screen and follow the remaining steps on-screen.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Microsoft Word and Excel open slowly

To resolve the issue with Microsoft Word and Excel opening slowly follow the steps below.
  • go to Control Panel, Folder Options, File Types
  • scroll down to and select DOC (for Word files) or XLS (for Excel files)
  • click Advanced
  • select Open entry
  • click the edit Button
  • Now uncheck "Use DDE"
  • put your cursor in the Application box
  • arrow all the way to the right and put in "%1" (include the quotemarks)
  • if there is /dde remove it
  • then OK you way out

You should now be back to working normally.