But it’s a little early to be thinking of summer, isn’t it? So why would I mention this in the middle of February?

Oddly enough, even in the dead of winter, with temperatures in the single digits and several feet of snow piled up around the house, I still love a good ice cream sundae. Especially if it has peanut butter ripples, frozen pieces of candy, or chunks of cookie dough.

Some things are just better when they’re frozen, but a computer is definitely not one of them.

When your computer decides to freeze up or hang, it usually does so at a crucial moment, like when you’ve just spent several hours editing a Word document and haven’t saved it yet.

That feeling of dread sets in. You begin to panic, and then you fear the worst: that all your hard work will be lost.

Sometimes, unfortunately, this is the case. But there are some steps you can take to ensure that your work will be recovered in the event that Word crashes.

If you enable the AutoRecover feature, which is available in several of the Office applications, it will periodically save a backup version of the file you’re working on. Then, if the program quits unexpectedly, it will prompt you with the recovered file the next time you open that program.

There is no guarantee offered with the AutoRecover feature, and at times it will fail to recover your work, so your best bet is still to save frequently when working in a file. You may find it much easier to use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+S to save your work as you’re typing, without your fingers ever leaving the keyboard. If you can get into this habit, you might just find your left hand automatically reaching for those keys without you even realizing it!

When the Deep Freeze sets in, whether it’s Windows, an Office application, or a mobile device, we don’t want you to be left out in the cold. The tips for this week will provide you with a starting point for when it seems like all is lost.

• What’s Frozen? – How to determine whether it is Windows or an application that is frozen
• An Ounce of Prevention for File Loss – How to enable the AutoRecover feature for Microsoft Office applications
• Mittens for Your Computer – How to clear out temporary Internet files, cookies, and browsing history
• Save Your Fingers By Letting Your Fingers Save Your Work – Using a keyboard shortcut to save while working in a file

And since you can also experience crashes on mobile devices, here are a few tips that can help you with BlackBerry and Windows Mobile:

• Just In Case – How to back up your BlackBerry data
• How to Thaw a Frozen BlackBerry – Resetting a frozen BlackBerry device
• Frozen In Your Hand – Resetting a frozen Windows Mobile device

We hope you’re enjoying the podcast and all the tips. If there are any topics you’d like to see covered in a future episode, please let us know in an iTunes review, or leave us a message on Twitter @productiveUcast.

That’s all for this week. Try to stay warm even when your computer is freezing, and we’ll see you next time!

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

A fluke ice storm recently had me back to kicking myself, and I grabbed my trusty lock de-icer and scraper and headed outside.

After finally getting into my car (20 minutes of X-ACTO knife-style cutting on the edges of the driver’s side door), I started it up. Then I had to go out into the cold and spend another 15 minutes scraping ice off the windshield. Talk about your losing productivity. If I just had one of those starters, I could be unfrozen AND get other things done while it happened.

How much does this remind you of the virtual scraping we all end up doing with our computers at work? I find there is always junk causing my computer to freeze and lock-up. Most days it seems unavoidable and certainly kills my ability to be productive, and even some days lays ruin to my almost completed work.

How many times have you found yourself editing a Word or Excel file for an hour or more and realize, just as the computer freezes, that you haven’t saved any of your changes yet?

So I polled a few of our support and productivity specialists and found that almost 90% of the time they receive a call where someone’s computer locked up, the person has NOT saved the work and what they have done can be recovered less than only 30% of the time.

Wow! Picture large and small companies that lose data that will take longer to redo than it originally did to create — all just because most people (myself included, just ask my wife about my son’s 2nd birthday party pictures) are not aware of some basic built-in features and functions of software applications they use daily.

Well, this week our tips are focused around the topic of AutoRecover and what to do if it doesn’t work. I will also include a few other tips in separate entries on proactive measures you can take so you won’t be left out in the cold.

Here are the links for this week’s episode:

Turning on the AutoRecover Feature in

• Excel 2003
• Excel 2007
• Word or PowerPoint

Enabling the AutoRecover Feature in Visio

What to Do When Your Computer Freezes

What to Try When AutoRecover Fails

Recover Information in a Frozen or Damaged File

How to Reset a BlackBerry

and Understanding the Reasons to Reset Your Device

If you would like to receive our expanded text edition of the Tips and Tricks Newsletter click on the link for Sign-Up on this site.

Until next time, remember to save frequently and don’t get left out in the cold the next time your computer freezes.

Thanks for stopping by!

Special thanks to Clayton and Fulrum for providing our theme music.

Who’s who is a book that can really help you keep from putting your foot in your mouth (But if you are proned to this, I recommend wearing Crocs because taste the best with their gummy freshness).

In this complex world of technology, trying to manage relationships is very hard. If you were to see my facebook page, you would find a mix of friends, co-workers, and family. Not to mention people who I follow and those who follow me on Twitter.

It seems these days really knowing the connection between individuals is crucial to not getting yourself into those embarrassing situations (like that time I told a friends uncle: “you have a beautiful daughter”, just to find out it was actually his new girlfriend).

Professionals in Sales know managing these networks of relationships are a requirement of daily work and your company can fail without the right tool.

In the course of doing your job, you’ve probably developed a good sense of how you fit into your company. Chances are, you know who your boss is and can also identify the roles of the coworkers in the cubes or offices near yours. However, it might not be apparent how you or somebody outside your immediate area fits into the company’s overall plan or organizational structure.

One way to clarify this is by using a diagram that shows the relationships between managers, supervisors, and coworkers. This type of digram is called an Organization chart, and you can create one quite easily in Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, Excel, and Visio.

When working with people at all levels of business I have found that most people only know about 10-15% of their software tools. That can really be an issue if the 10% you know doesn’t include the features you need to be effective or even worse causes you to spend more money to purchase something you already own but didn’t know you had.

As we all know, many jobs are all about relationships, and knowing who’s who can help us do our jobs better. There are many tools to help us keep track of this information in the form of Organization Charts or places to record relationships for individuals.

Here are the links mentioned in the podcast:

Using an Organization Chart to Show Relationships Within a Company
Who’s Who – How to create an Organization Chart
Changing How Subordinates are Displayed in an Organization Chart
Changing the Size of All Shapes in an Organization Chart
Change Spacing Between Shapes
Storing Relationship Information in Your Outlook Contacts

This week’s recommended online eTraining class is: “Getting the most out of Outlook Contacts”

Thanks for joining us and we look forward to your return next week for more Productive U Tips!