Articles by category: Did You Know Series

TechTip: Control Panel Items from Command Line By: Mike Shinn You can run a lot of windows tools from command line or start-run.  Here's a good sized list.  Some you use daily and others you probably knew there was something there for it but never knew what it was.  At the top are my favorites: CONTROL or CONTROL PANEL: opens the control panel window SERVICES.MSC: opens Servic... read more

I have recently noticed a lot of email organization by way of making folders for various coworkers or clients and then moving all email from this person/client into their folder after it has been responded to.   If this is you, you might be interested in organizing your emails using search folders in outlook.  Creating search folders in outlook instead of the actual folders allows y... read more

When giving out your gmail account information when signing up for different websites, sign up using a +info inside of the email account such that chase@gmail.com would be entered on the website as chase+wellsfargo@gmail.com.  This email will still go to chase@gmail.com, but would let you know who has given out your email address.   read more

CIO Solutions is now certified and authorized by Microsoft to sell and support Microsoft Online Services in addition to helping clients migrate to these cloud-based services.  CIO Solutions has been implementing Microsoft Solutions in the Santa Barbara and Tri Counties area since 1986 making Microsoft Online Services a natural fit. Microsoft Online Services helps customers c... read more

You should have an email address for work, one for personal and one for junk.Your work emails are the property of your employer.  Mixing your personal emails in with your work emails makes managing your email account more difficult for your system administrator.  What’s more, if needed, your employer could gain access to your work email account and unintentionally discover perso... read more

These are just a few:Ctrl + 5 = Strikethrough text Ctrl + ; = Inserts Date Ctrl + : = Inserts Time Home = Goes to end of row Ctrl + End  = Goes to end of worksheet Ctrl + Home = Goes to top of worksheet Ctrl + PageDown  = Goes to next worksheet Ctrl + PageUp  = Goes to previous worksheet Ctrl + Space = Selects whole column Shift + Space = Selects whole row Ctrl + & ... read more

These are just a few:Ctrl + A = Select All Ctrl + B = Bold highlighted selection Ctrl + C = Copy selection Ctrl + V = Paste the copied items Ctrl + P = Print Ctrl + I = Italics Ctrl + U = Underline Ctrl + Z = Undo Ctrl + Y = Redo Ctrl + L = Aligns to the left Ctrl + E = Aligns to the center Ctrl + R = Aligns to the right Ctrl + Shift + > = Increase font by 2pts Ctrl + Shift + ... read more

Some love it, but others find it annoying to have a preview of their message below or to the side of their email.  What's more, it's unsafe to have email automatically open - theoretically a virus could self-run from there.  Also, it marks your email as "unread" as you scroll through.To Remove:  In outlook from your inbox go to View - Reading Pane - Off.  You may have to do ... read more

Microsoft Word, for example, now saves to a .docx extension instead of .docUnfortunately you cannot open Office 2007 files from Office 2003 or before.While you may be months away from considering the upgrade, your clients and friends may have already done so - you may not be able to open their Word or Excel files.  The good news is that we have a patch that we can apply to your computer th... read more

It’s called a screen capture and it’s a free feature in Windows.  Whenever you want to take a picture of something happening on your monitor, just press the PrintScreeen button on your keyboard.  This button is located on the right side of the keyboard near the Page-Up/Page-Down buttons above the arrow keys.  After you have pressed the PrintScreen button, open up a Wo... read more

Especially made for the office calendar administrator, you can have notes placed in your calendar for national and cultural holidays.  No need to look up these days and mark them in the calendar yourself!  For those already familiar with this feature, you may not have noticed that these calendar notes go through the end of 2007 and then stop.  This is due to Microsoft’s rel... read more

Here are some quick hot-keys that you can use to quickly navigate around in IE7:Ctrl-T = Open a new tabCtrl-Tab = Go to the next tab to the rightCtrl-Shift-Tab = Go to the next tab to the leftCtrl-Click = Open a link in a new tabCtrl-E = Brings you to the search boxCtrl-Q = See all tabs in a preview screen     by Mike Shinn Remote Engineer mshinn@ciosolutions.com read more

Recently there has been a huge increase in the amount of spam, or unwanted email advertisements, going to spam protection.  Even the best spam protection cannot block 100% of these.  You may receive a handful of these each day, sometimes they seem like they’re written from yourself or a coworker!  It’s best to delete these, without reading them, where possible.  ... read more

With higher temperatures, your computer has to work harder than ever to operate normally.  To help your computer, make sure that its fans and vents are clear of dust bunnies and debris.  It may be necessary to open your computer to vacuum or air-blow it out, especially if you have a pet or your computer is sitting on carpet.  If you would like one of our engineers to assist, just... read more

by Mike Shinn Remote Engineer mshinn@ciosolutions.com     For those of you who read my last article reviewing Windows 7 on why you should consider the switch to Windows 7, I’m still convinced that 7 will stick where Vista had failed.   That said, below are some new features and tips that you can use to get the most out of your Windows 7 experience.   Sha... read more

*Did you know: Microsoft Excel has a lot of Shortcut keys!   These are just a few:Ctrl + 5 = Strikethrough text Ctrl + ; = Inserts Date Ctrl + : = Inserts Time Home = Goes to end of row Ctrl + End  = Goes to end of worksheet Ctrl + Home = Goes to top of worksheet Ctrl + PageDown  = Goes to next worksheet Ctrl + PageUp  = Goes to previous worksheet Ctrl + Space = Se... read more

*Did you know: you can use Google with a little more power? Add “site:edu” or “site:gov” to limit your search to school or government domains.  To target specific sites add “site:domainname.com” to your searchConvert Currency and units by googling “9.5 cm in inches” for exampleNarrow by file type – if you need to find a specific type o... read more