If you want to have more than one version of Microsoft Office installed on your computer you can do so by creating a side by side installation. This can be for a number of reasons, including convenience and compatibility. For instance, you might need to share a database with users running an older version of Office. New versions of Microsoft Access are not backward compatible with older versions. Let’s take a look at how to setup a side by side installation.

Your scenario might depend on whether you have an older or newer version of Microsoft Office installed. Only the 32 bit version of Office 2010 can be run side by side with Office 2003 or older. 64 and 32 bit versions of Office cannot co-exist. For the purposes of this article, I will be installing Office 2003 alongside an existing installation of Office 2010.

The first thing you will need to do is create a folder for the desired version of Office you want to install in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office folder. The folder will have a specific name.

Office 2010 has the filename Office14 and Office 2003 has Office11 as its filename.

Navigate to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office to begin.

Create a folder for the version of Microsoft Office you would like to install. Office14 or Office11.

If you are running a 64 bit version of Windows 7, C:\Program Files(x86)\Microsoft Office is the folder you want to create.

Insert your Microsoft Office disc.

Start the installation.

Select the option on the setup page to Customize your installation.

Browse to the folder where you created the folder for Office.

Click Open.

Click Next to proceed with the installation.

Setup will take care of the rest.

The Start menu > All Programs will now display Office 2003 and Office 2010 applications.

If you are install Office 2010 32 bit along side an older version of Office, click Customize during the setup wizard. Then select the File Location tab and click Browse. Then navigate to the Programs folder for Office 2010 (aka Office14).

There you have it, the above screenshot displays two different versions of Microsoft Word running on the same installation of Windows 7.

How to create a side by side installation with different versions of Microsoft Office is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.

Many of you have Microsoft Access installed on your computer and aren’t taking advantage of it. But a database can be a tool that solves many of your problems.

What is a database?

A database is a container which stores a variety of information. The principal way of storing information in a Microsoft Access database is with tables. You can use a database to store information about the students in a school, members of a church, your friends or varieties of plants in your garden. You can then use that information to search for particular information for referencing purposes, do mathematical operations and sort your data using simple commands from customized menus.

A description of the Microsoft Access 2010 interface (click to enlarge).

What is a Table?

A table contains all the information about a specific subject. Each row in a table is called a record. Every record is unique and made up of elements called fields. Before creating a table in Access, decide on all the fields that will make up your record. Each field in the record must be given a:

• field name
• field type
• field description

Other field properties become necessary depending on the field type chosen. For our first database, we will focus on creating our first table.

Create your first database

First, launch Microsoft Access. Click Start, type: access 2010.

Hit Enter on your keyboard. Alternatively, you can click Start > All Programs > Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office Access 2010. Please note that Microsoft Office Access is only available in the Professional edition of Microsoft Office, and as a standalone application. If you would like to try it out for the purposes of this article you can download a free trial, which you can use for 60 days, here.

In Microsoft Access, select Blank Database under Available Templates.

Give the database file a name. For the purposes of this article I will call mine “Youth Group.” Click Create.

By default, Microsoft Access will setup a preconfigured table for us. But we want to customize it a bit. In the Home tab, click in the View group and click Design View.

In design view we can customize the attributes of our database. Before proceeding we are prompted to give our table a name. I will call this table ‘Members’ since I am creating a database of all the members in my local youth group.

Click OK when complete.

We are now in what is called the Data Dictionary view of Access. Here we have control over designing our database. Specifically, we can control details about the table that will contain the information about the members of my youth group. As we noted earlier, a database is used to store information. So we will create a table of some information we would like to keep about members here. This can include things like: first name, surname, phone number, age and membership. These attributes will constitute the fields that make up the table in our database of members.

Let’s start entering the information.

In the above screenshot I entered my first field, which is “First Name.” the Data Type for this field would be Text. When we define the data type it lets Access know what kind of value to allow in a field. This lets us keep strict control over the information entered into the database. So if more than one person uses and updates the information, they have to enter the right information every time.

As you can see, there are a variety of data types. Let’s describe some of the common ones we will use:

In the above screenshot, we provide a description of the purposes of this field. This can be quite useful if more than one person is involved in designing the database.

Once we have filled out all the necessary information for our database dictionary, click Save on the Quick Access Toolbar.

We can now start entering information into our database. To do that, click the View button.

Entering information into our first Access database

To enter information, just click in the cell and enter the text appropriate for each field. You can quickly move to the next field by pressing Tab. Repeat these steps until you have filled out all the fields.

You can save the database, close, open and update it at anytime. You can also create other tables with other unique information related to your database, such as a table with the members’ parent information, for instance.

A database is not something you create on a whim, though. It should be carefully planned so maintenance and updating can be easier. Here are some tips to consider when building your database.

• What type of information you would like to have stored in your database.
• Define the type of fields that will make up your database
• Consider keeping it simple and not have too many fields in a table for a particular scenario, consider creating additional tables to store related information.
• Make sure you use the data dictionary to help define your database, this will be essential for future purposes when you start using advanced features in Access such as Relationships, Queries and your database starts to get large.
• Think big, databases are meant to store large amounts of information, so design your database with growth in mind, this encompasses everything previously noted when designing your database.

How to create your first Microsoft Access database is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.

ToneCheck is an Outlook plugin that checks the tone of your email to prevent unintentional angry emails from exploding into workplace disasters. With more corporate communication relying on emails instead of phone calls and face to face conversations it can be easy to unintentionally send an email that sounds angry or demeaning to a fellow employee. That’s where this Outlook plugin steps in.

ToneCheck will “read” your email before you send to figure out if you have used phrases or terms that would convey anger or sound humiliating to the recipient. The plugin automatically scans for these key phrases and terminology to figure out if your email is angry, bitchy, arrogant or mean and can help you figure out how a recipient will respond to your email.

This is an important functionality since many users cannot correctly figure out the tone of emails they receive. In the business place an email that accidentally conveys anger or makes the recipient upset can affect the bottom line in terms of lost productivity and even in turnover down the line.

The ToneCheck tool essentially replaces asking another user to read your email before you hit send, which is very helpful for supervisors who may not want to share a sensitive email with a third party.

The tool will identify key phrases that could upset or humiliate the email recipient, but it won’t change the email automatically. So, if you want to be a bit demeaning the software will still let you, but you won’t be able to feign ignorance later.

If you find that ToneCheck is suggesting too many changes, you can adjust the sensitivity of the tool to make it less sensitive, or if the complaints continue to pour in, you are able to make ToneCheck more sensitive.

Right now the ToneCheck plugin is free, but the company hopes to see adoption by businesses down the line as HR departments and managers recognize the cost of upsetting and angry emails. The company is working on versions of the tool for Google Apps and for Lotus notes according to CNet.

ToneCheck works with Outlook, so it is designed for a corporate setting and you should be able to integrate it with your workflow and your IT system.

You can see a review of ToneCheck from CNet below.

ToneCheck Stops Angry Emails in Their Tracks is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

If you like to keep your email organized and filed away, there’s great news for users of Gmail. There is a new lab feature in Gmail called Smart Labels, which will automatically label your incoming mail into “buckets” or “folders” for easy organization and management. If you’re already managing email with rules that apply labels to incoming mail, don’t worry because the new Smart Labels will play nice with your existing setup.

What are Smart Labels:

Smart labels are automatically applied labels that help to group and identify incoming email as one of three types so that you don’t have to sort through so much incoming email. Smart Labels work with Priority Inbox to make reading and responding to important emails easier and faster.

The three current Smart Labels are as follows;

• Bulk – mass mailings such as newsletters and promotions from stores you have shopped at or signed up for emails from.
• Notifications – account statements and receipts.
• Forums – emails from group discussions and forums.

How Do I Turn on Smart Labels in Gmail?

Step 1. To start using Smart Labels in Gmail you need to log into your account and click the labs icon in the upper right corner. You can also click this Settings Link to open Labs in your Gmail account.

Step 2. Scroll down to the Smart Labels settings and click “Enable”.

Step 3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Save Changes”.

How do you edit Smart Labels?

Step 1. To edit Gmail Smart Labels, click on “Settings” and then click on the “Filters” tab.

Step 2. Scroll to the bottom where you will see your Smart Labels.

Step 3. Click Edit on a label you want to edit.

Step 4. From here you can add emails from senders or that contain certain words to a specific category by choosing it from the drop down.

Step 5. Click Next Step and if the results look right you can click Update Filter to make the change.

Gmail Smart Labels Automatically Label and Sort Your Email, How to Get Started is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

With the release of Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft has focused on improving the synergy between online services and the productivity suite. The buzz word these days is ‘Cloud’. The cloud refers to web services replacing or complimenting existing resources such as storage, backup, communication etc. Microsoft has been pushing into Cloud computing heavily through its Windows Live Online services such as Hotmail, Windows Live Photos, Messenger and SkyDrive.

Windows Live SkyDrive in particular represents the online storage component of this cloud strategy. It offers users 25 GBs of free online storage, but is limited to 50 MB files. To use Windows Live SkyDrive, you need a Windows Live ID: Hotmail or MSN account. You can sign up for a free one here. If you are looking to sync files between computers, you can sync up to 5 GBs of data using Windows Live Mesh.

Saving Microsoft Office files to your SkyDrive account

Saving to SkyDrive is only supported in Microsoft Word 2010, Excel 2010 and PowerPoint 2010.

Click File

Click Save and Send

Then click Save to Web

You will be asked to sign in if this is your first time saving to your SkyDrive.

Click any of the listed folders you would like to save the file. Please note, if its sensitive information, be careful not to save it in any of the Shared Folders.

Give the file a name and click Save.

In the Microsoft Status Bar, you will notice it says ‘Uploading to the server’

The key advantage of this is, your document is now accessible from any Internet connected device. If I go to my Skydrive account in Internet Explorer and open the My Documents folder where I saved the file, I will now see it listed there:

If I want to edit the file, all I need to do is click on it to open it in Microsoft Office Word Web App. So, if you are working on a computer that does not have Microsoft Office installed, you won’t have any problems.

Please note, you won’t get the full experience of Microsoft Word on the desktop while using the web apps, but it’s good for minor edits and collaboration. If you want to make significant changes to your document, you can open it in Microsoft Word and save any changes.

This is definitely a cool feature worth checking out and most of all, its free when you sign up for a Windows Live ID.

How to save Microsoft Office files to Web (Quick Tip) is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.

One of the major improvements in Windows 7 is the Taskbar. It introduces a new approach to using it with more flexibility and power built in while remaining familiar and easy to use. In this article, we take a look at one of the unique benefits of using the improved Taskbar.

What is Jump List?

A Jump List is a contextual menu built into applications pinned on to the Start menu or the Taskbar when you right click on a program or folder or hover a recent item on the Start menu. Jump List functionality varies across programs, some might include standard functionality while others might include unique functionality specific to that application. Common functionality includes recently accessed files, some Jump Lists will include a Task you can actually ‘Jump into’ when you start the program.

How to access a Jump List for a program on the Taskbar?

For this example, I am going to be using Microsoft Word pinned to the Taskbar. Say I have a document I would like to access that I was recently working on? All I need to do is right click the Microsoft Word shortcut and it will display a list of the most recently accessed documents, see below:

Another lovely feature of Jump list items with a program such as Microsoft Word is that when you hover over the item itself, it provides a description of its location.

Windows 7 Quick Tip: How to Show More Recent Documents on a Jump List

How to access a Jump List for a program on the Start Menu?

Again we are going to be using Microsoft Word. In this case, I have Microsoft Word as a recent program item on the Start menu, if I want to access a document, all I have to do is hover its icon and the menu will expand to reveal the most recently accessed documents. See below:

Jump List Unique Functionality

Programs such as Internet Explorer 8 offers unique Jump List capabilities, in addition to accessing my recently visited websites, I can even Start a private mode session which will provide a secure browsing site that does not leave any cached information behind when you end your web browsing session.

Unique Jump List benefits in Internet Explorer

With the recent release of Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft is introducing greater synergy between the desktop and web. One of the great ways of doing that is by building app centric functionality into Internet Explorer 9 ready websites. When You pin a shortcut to one of your favorite websites on the Windows 7 Taskbar, you will be able to access Jump List functionality too. Take a look at just a couple websites that support it:

Windows Live Hotmail and Twitter Jump Lists

How to Pin Hotmail To Your Windows 7 Taskbar

Windows Media Player

Media Player also provides some basic Jump List functionality for accessing recent media such as videos or audio. You can even access your recent Play Lists or your last Play Lists you listened to.

How to Pin an item to your Jump List

You will notice that the Jump List share similar functionality with the ‘Recent Items’ menu. They do, but it’s the personalized experience you are able to have with each application to gain better and quicker access to capabilities built into the program. Another highlight is pinning items to your Jump List. For instance, I work on a lot of drafts in Windows Live Writer that I do not immediately publish. Often times, there is a file in that Jump List I would like to have immediate access to, but the more documents I create, this will push the older documents off the Jump List. A quick work around for that is to Pin the documents I consider my favorites I can always have access to.

To pin a file, just right click the application, hover over the item, and click the thumb tack next to the file name. You will now notice a new category called Pinned with your file listed.

If you would like to remove an unwanted Item on one of your Jump List, just right click it and click ‘Remove from this list’

Power User tips:

You can keep the contents of your Jump List private if you often work with sensitive information, especially on shared or public computers.

To clear lists

1. Click to open Taskbar and Start Menu Properties. (Or right click on your Taskbar and select properties.)
2. Click the Start Menu tab.
   • To prevent recently opened programs from appearing in the Start menu, clear the Store and display recently opened programs in the Start menu check box.
   • To clear recently opened files in the Jump Lists on the taskbar and Start menu, clear the Store and display recently opened items in the Start menu and the taskbar check box.
3. Click OK.

You can also drag files from a Jump List into another program. For example, suppose I am authoring an email message and I would like to attach a document I have listed on my Microsoft Word Jump List?

To do this, right click the Jump List, select the Item on the Jump List, hold down your left mouse button, then drag and release into the body of the email message.

The document will be automatically attached.

These are some of the powerful ways you can start using Windows 7 efficiently and take advantage of its productive capabilities.

How to use Windows 7 Jump Lists is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.

One  of the great things about using Windows Explorer in Windows 7 is how much easier it is to access areas of the system, whether its using Instant Search or Bread Crumb menus in the Address Bar. The Favorites pane in Windows Explorer is another one of the quick ways to access commonly used folders.

How to add a folder to the Favorites Pane

First you need to add a folder to the Favorites pane itself.

To do this, select the folder, use the left mouse button to drag and drop the folder on the Favorites icon in the Navigation pane.

That’s it!

How to Add a Folder to Favorites in Windows 7 (Quick Tip) is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.

For a new switcher to the Mac, one of the early questions to answer is this: “Should I buy iWork or Microsoft Office for Mac?” The Unofficial Apple Weblog has a good article that attempts to help Mac users answer just that question. The decision centers around three basic issues – cost, environment, relationships and tolerance.

Cost

iWork carries a retail cost of $79. The good news is you can download the suite of apps for a 30-day trial from Apple. Also there are some deals to be had from Amazon or if you purchase at the time of your new Mac computer purchase, at which point it is a $49 add-on.

Purchasing Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac directly from Microsoft will set you back either $149.99 for the Home and Student version or $279.99 for the Business version. Again, there are deals to be had so look around; you won’t likely have to pay full price if you get it from another retailer. The differences between the three price point options can be seen as follows:

As you can see the only real difference between the two versions of Office is Outlook. If you need a powerful email, calendar and task manager all in one installed on your computer, then you have once choice. And it will cost you. Office for Home and Business is $279 retail. But for most people that is not the case. The built in Mail program in OS X or an online solution, like Google’s Gmail with Google Calendar will suffice for most people. That brings us to the second major question in making this choice.

Environment

If you work in a collaborative environment with people who all use Office and you will be sharing documents frequently, then choosing Office is likely your best bet. iWork plays nicely with Office if you are creating simple Pages documents or Keynote presentations. But get complicated and conversion will be a nightmare. And Numbers is just not comparable to Excel for complex spreadsheets. If you work in an environment where you will be making or sharing complex spreadsheets, then again you have one choice – Microsoft Office. Go with the Home version if you don’t need Outlook or Business if you do.

Another environment that will affect your decision is your own home. If you have a number of Windows PCs running Office and only one Mac, you will have to export documents from iWork to edit them on the PC. There is a way to open pages documents on a PC if you only want to read those documents, and we showed you how previously.

I have found that while I am using my new MacBook Air for a larger percentage of my work, I am still having to edit documents in Office 2010 in Windows. I have Pages and like it, but it is inconvenient to have to export documents to Word format when I also have Office for Mac and it saves documents in the same format as Office 2010 for Windows. I have my documents synced with DropBox and it is so convenient to be able to quickly open a document on my Windows machine without much thought of converting.

Relationships

This is much the same questions as above. Many people work in environments like those described above, but the people they share documents with don’t use Windows. Maybe nearly everyone uses Windows but the two people you collaborate with both use iWork on a Mac. There is no need to go with Office. So ask around. The people you typically share documents with at work or in your circle of family or friends will help you with your choice. If the majority are using one over an other, then it might be worth the time or effort to pay more (for Microsoft Office) or learn a new office suite (for iWork). This leads us to the final issue.

Tolerance for Change

Are you a creature of habit who bristles at change? Maybe you’ve just switched to a Mac and have really struggled with that transition. Going with either Office for Mac or iWork will involve some change; each looks and behaves differently than Microsoft Office for Windows (see screen shots below). However, if you used Office 2007 or 2010 on Windows, the change to Office for Mac will not be as significant. The environment is not as different as the change to the iWork applications. The above screen shot is of a brochure in Word 2011. The one below is of Pages 09. And below that is Word 2010 for Windows.

Some of what you are used to in the Windows version of Word is there including some of the buttons along the bottom and the presence of the Ribbon. There are also some big differences. But looking at Pages, you will see that the differences are far greater. If you are a longtime Office user, then the presence of the Apple menu will bring back a familiar friend that has been gone in the Ribbon focused environment of Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010.

Recommendation

From one switcher to another, if you don’t have to share documents and don’t mind learning the new environment, I would suggest iWork. It is cheaper, not that hard to learn and handles most of what Word does and some of what the Microsoft Office Publisher application does. If you are a Publisher users, you will not find Pages that hard to learn in its layout mode. Keynote is also a very nice Presentation application and interfaces with the iPad well if you have one. Unless you do complicated Excel spreadsheets, Numbers will handle the simple things fine. And do yourself a favor and kick Outlook to the curb in favor of Google’s Gmail and Calendar service.

On the other hand, if you share documents with Windows or Mac users of Office a lot, then stick with Office.

What’s Better? Office 11 for Mac or iWork 09 for a New Mac User is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

One of the major changes Microsoft made to the desktop in Windows 7 is to make the Windows Aero user experience more productive. Windows Vista included a couple of fancy effects such as Flip 3D and Alt-Tab Preview, but they were not as productive as the improvements Microsoft introduced in Windows 7.

One of these desktop improvements is Aero Snap. For me personally, I do a lot of reference work and I know you probably do too. What Aero Snap does is intelligently resize windows on-screen side by side so you don’t have to do any work of having to manually resize the window perfectly.

How to Snap?

Here you can see I have two Microsoft Word document files open as indicated by the Taskbar thumbnail previews. In this example, I would like to reference information from one of the documents. To arrange both documents where they fill each half of the screen, simply begin by dragging the title bar of the window to the opposite side of the screen, see below:

As you can see, dragging the window to the side composes a preview of what the resized window will look like on screen. After completing this action you can then release the mouse. Repeat this step for the other window and you will see both windows side by side:

You can do this with any type of window, its not limited to any specific application. When you have completed the task of referencing information, simply double the title bar of the active window to restore it.

You can also snap a window to the left by pressing Win+left arrow, or to the right using Win+right arrow.

Mac users can achieve similar Snap functionality in OS X with SizeUp.

Technorati tags: Windows 7, Aero Snaps, Desktop Effects, Aero, Microsoft, Productivity, Applications, Window Management

How to Use Windows 7 Snap To Be More Productive is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.

One of the things I love about Windows 7 is the ability to quickly access features and functionality. Particularly access to your information is one of the great benefits of the OS, Instant Search is one example, but there is another significant improvement, its called a Jump List.

Jump Lists are contextual menus built into Taskbar and Start Menu list displaying your most recently accessed files along with common Task in some apps you can quickly start (jump into). In Windows XP, your only option was either the Recent Items menu (which still exist in Windows 7), the application File menu recent list or searching for the in a folder.

Jump List in Windows 7

There are several applications I use day in day out, Microsoft Word, Windows Live Writer and Paint are a few examples. There are either articles I am currently working on or would like to reference. As I write more articles, the oldest ones will be removed from the list. If you want to keep more items in the list you can change that easily, here is how you do it.

1. Right click your Taskbar (or click Start, type Taskbar, hit enter on your keyboard).

2. Click Properties > Start menu (tab) > Customize

3. Under Start menu size, enter the number for the amount recent items you would like to see displayed in your Jump Lists

4. Click OK > then Apply and OK

Increased Jump List size

The Jump List will now display more recent items for you to access.

Windows 7 Quick Tip: How to Show More Recent Documents on a Jump List is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.