It seems to me that the language would be pretty difficult to master, especially when you consider that there are separate schools of thought on topics such as:

• Should you include a comma after the last item in a list?
• Should you include one space after a sentence, or two?
• Should punctuation be placed inside or outside of quotation marks?

I personally prefer to include a comma after the last item in a list. This is called a serial comma (or an Oxford comma) and it helps avoid ambiguity when typing a list of items. Consider the following sentence:

I enjoy eating popcorn, apples, mustard and spaghetti and meatballs.

“Spaghetti and meatballs” should be counted as one item in the list, so it makes sense to not type a comma after “spaghetti.” But if there’s no comma after “mustard,” it seems like it’s part of the spaghetti and meatballs combo. The result is quite obvious: people will think you’re a freak because you put mustard on your spaghetti and meatballs. And quite frankly, I’d agree with them.

But since nobody can agree on which is the “right” answer to the above grammar questions, you can do one or the other and still be grammatically correct. Some might critique it anyway if it’s not their preference, but the important thing is that you remain consistent with your style. If you’re going to type two spaces after a sentence, do it for every sentence in your document.

Microsoft Word’s grammar checking options can help you maintain consistency throughout your documents by highlighting errors in your grammar based on your preferences. For example, you can tell Word that you prefer to have one space after a sentence. Then, when you run the spelling and grammar check, Word will underline any instances where your sentences are followed by two spaces.

In addition to the grammar checking options, Word also has features to help out with spelling errors. You’re probably already familiar with the standard spell-check feature and you’ve no doubt seen those red squiggly lines beneath typos in your documents. But what about when those red squigglies are found under words that aren’t really typos, but words that just aren’t recognized by Word’s dictionary? In these cases, you have the ability to add words to the dictionary so they stop showing up as spelling errors.

This week’s tips will focus on the tools you need to find and use the best words, with the correct spelling and grammar, in your documents. The links can be found on the blog entry for this podcast, at www.productiveUpodcast.com.

• One Space or Two? It’s Up to You – Using Word’s grammar settings for punctuation
• What’s Another Word for Thesaurus? – Using Word’s thesaurus feature to find synonyms
• Banish the Red Squiggly Lines – Adding words to the custom dictionary in Word
• Write Your Own Dictionary – Editing the entries in the custom dictionary
• Back Up Your Word Words – How to back up the custom dictionary
• Words That Are Rarely OK – Creating a dictionary exclusion list

Armed with these new tools, you’re all set to head over to iTunes to write a raving review of our podcast, complete with impeccable grammar! Also, don’t forget that you can follow us on Twitter @productiveUcast.

That’s all for this week. Until next time, keep learning English as a first or second language, and don’t be afraid to let Word do some of the work for you.

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

One of the more thoughtful gifts I received recently was a GPS system. I am plagued by a complete lack of direction, so before acquiring this device, I had a keen ability to take two turns while driving and promptly find myself lost and very afraid.

Eventually, I would find a road that would lead me to something familiar, but having a GPS guiding me along is like knowing secret shortcuts to every destination. What was once a three hour journey along the scenic route is now a twenty minute trip in the express lane.

I’ve always been fond of shortcuts. There are levels in Super Mario World that I can’t even describe because I always used the Warp Zones to skip them. Life is short! I’ve got places to go and naps to take once I get there! Show me the shortcut and then get out of my way!

I guess I’m just a true product of our impatient society. We like our oatmeal instant, our photos developed in under an hour, and our computer files close at hand. Just look at a typical Windows Desktop: it’s a beautiful mosaic of icons that open programs and network folders. Without them, we’d be digging around in the Start Menu to launch an application, or spelunking in the darkest depths of a network server to reach a folder that’s buried ten levels deep.

So for this week’s tips, we offer you quicker ways of getting there. The tips include:

• Man, He’s Quick – Using the Quick Launch toolbar in Windows
• Favorites Folders Faster – Creating shortcuts for the Office applications’ Open and Save dialogs
• Short and Sweet – Creating shortcuts in Windows
• Files in Files – Embedding a file as an object in a Word document
• Ready for Action – Linking to a file with Action Buttons in a PowerPoint presentation

You can find links for these tips on our blog at www.productiveUpodcast.com. If you’ve got any feedback, comments, or suggestions, let us know in an iTunes review, and write a review of our podcast while you’re there. You can also find us on Twitter @productiveUcast.

That’s all for this week’s edition. Until next time, get lost—and let modern technology swiftly guide you home.

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

Welcome back to the podcast!

This week’s edition…

“Out with the Old and in with the New”: Using Find and Replacê in Microsoft Office

I’m a bit of a digital packrat. I keep everything. Not only do I keep stuff, I also have multiple back-ups of the documents I have saved.

I suspect I am not unique, either. Recently, I was talking with a colleague and she admitted that she keeps everything too – but she never goes back to use it again. She said she makes backups so she has “just-in-case” copies, but readily admits that she creates the same documents over and over again from scratch.

When I hear her complaining about how she cannot remember how she worked around a particular glitch, I ask her the same question: “Why didn’t you just copy the old one and change it?” Her reply: “It’s too much work.”

It may seem like too much work, but repurposing content is an age-old practice. For example:

Did they cancel “Bewitched” when the first Darren didn’t work out? No, they just found another Darren

And then there’s Shakespeare. Why create new content when you can just replacê Romeo and Juliet with Maria and Tony and call it “West Side Story”?

Make your life easier; use Find and Replacê.

Almost every Microsoft Office program enables you to Find and Replacê, even the basic text editor Notepad.

In this week’s podcast, we offer Find and Replacê tips for a gaggle of Office apps. Among them:

• Change is Not Always Hard: Using Find and Replacê in Microsoft Excel
• Presto-Chango: Using Find and Replacê in Microsoft Word
• Go Green with PowerPoint: Recycle slides using Find and Replacê in Microsoft PowerPoint
• Adding can be Maddening: Using paste special to alter numbers in a worksheet
• Up to Date: Using update queries in Microsoft Access to update values in a table

That’s it for this week’s podcast. Until next week, and keep this in mind: It’s OK to reuse files, but not OK to reuse tissues.

You can find all of our tips on our blog at www.productiveUpodcast.com. Hate us? Love us? Have a suggestion? Tell us in an iTunes review. We would love to hear what you have to say.

See you next time!

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

Welcome back to the podcast!

This week’s edition…

“My Keys are in the Freezer” OR “Lost and Found”

We have all had one at some point in our lives – you know the interesting little morning argument with your spouse about why he or she moved your keys. Darn her incessant tidiness! Why did I marry someone who is so clean and neat?

In my case, I usually continue the argument while frantically wandering around looking for my lost keys. After all, I have to get out the door and off to work. Meanwhile, she keeps insisting that she didn’t move them. I remind her that I am a creature of habit and that I would have never placed them anywhere except on the table by the door.

This nonsense continues for a time, and then I give in and ask for the spare key just so I can get on my way (still kicking myself and blaming her, mind you).

In one such recent spat, I found my keys later – in the freezer. Yes, in the freezer. Apparently, I was so exhausted the night before that when I came home I when straight to the freezer to put ice in a glass. I remember almost dropping the glass and thinking “That’s gonna make a mess!” I put down my keys on the shelf and poured my drink.

I have begun to think that, in my old age of 35, I might be facing early onset of dementia, or perhaps I’m just a little more distracted. Heck, I am known around the office for borrowing pens and never remembering to return them.

Responding to e-mails can be just as much of a challenge for me. Even after my spam filter traps the junk, there are still volumes to keep up with.

Hence, this week’s tips, which are all about dealing with e-mail mania and precisely how to find where you “stored” your important information.

Our tips include:

All is not lost — Maybe those deleted items can be recovered after all.

Find it fast — Locating a lost message in your e-mail folders. Using Outlook’s Find feature to narrow down the list of hiding spots.

Searching 101 — Having trouble remembering where you placed an e-mail message? Using Advanced Find feature in Outlook.

Finding it on the go — Fast searches you can perform on your BlackBerry.

The search is on — Defining search parameters on your BlackBerry.

That’s it for this week’s edition. Until next time, and remember to say you are sorry to your spouse when you blame her for freezing your keys

You can find links to all our tips at www.productiveUpodcast.com, and don’t forget that you can always stop by iTunes and write that glowing five-star review you been meaning to give us.

Thanks for stopping by!

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

Sounds kinda Twilight Zone-y, doesn’t it?

“You’re traveling through another dimension—a dimension where there is no screen less than a light-year wide. On this journey into the unforgiving abyss of your imagination, maximum resolution spans multiple infinities. You’ve just entered…the Widescreen Zone.”

Not everyone has a monitor that requires a yardstick to measure, but a lot of people enjoy multi-monitor setups for their computers. Having two or three monitors at your disposal can be just as useful, especially when you need to have several windows open at one time.

Whether using multiple monitors or a high screen resolution, the problem you occasionally run into is one of increased distance. It was once only a stone’s throw from the bottom of your screen to the Formatting toolbar at the top of a Microsoft Word document; now it feels like your mouse cursor is trekking across the Sahara. I think I see the Bold button! Nope, it was just a mirage.

Well, let go of that mouse and rest a while at the oasis, and I’ll let you in on a little secret: there’s a shortcut. In fact, there are hundreds of shortcuts, right at your fingertips. They’re called keyboard shortcuts, and once you get comfortable using them, you might just want to bury your mouse in the sand.

That Bold button that you wish could be just a little closer? You don’t need it. Just hold down the Ctrl key and the B key together to toggle Bold on and off. Ctrl+I for italics, Ctrl+U for underline. Looking for more advanced formatting options? Use Ctrl+D to open Word’s Font dialog, chock-full of all the wonderful checkboxes you need to add Strikethrough, Small caps, and Shadow effects to your text. I know what you’re thinking:

“Checkboxes, eh? Sounds like something I’ll need to click on. I’ll just reach for my mouse…”

Not so fast! Even within the Font dialog box, you can keep your hands on the keyboard and still apply any of the options you see before you. In fact, you can use keyboard shortcuts to navigate through any menu. While you’re still in the Font dialog box, take a look at the underlined letters for each option. Those are little cheat sheets for keyboard shortcuts that work in conjunction with the Alt key. Hold in the Alt key and press K, and you’ve got Strikethrough.

These keyboard shortcuts work in every Microsoft Office application, and some extend to other programs, too. There are links in this week’s blog entry to some great tips on using keyboard shortcuts. This week’s tips are:

• Showing Off Your Keys - displaying keyboard shortcuts in menus and ScreenTips
• Feeling Bold? – using keyboard shortcuts to apply text formatting
• Ctrl+D, Alt+K – navigating through menus and dialog boxes with the keyboard
• Text Downsizing – increasing and decreasing font size with the keyboard
• One Touch Formatting – applying number formats in Excel with keyboard shortcuts
• Hands-On Control – learning the keyboard shortcuts for Office applications

Thanks for joining us for week’s podcast. Armed with these keyboard shortcuts, hopefully you’ll find that the Widescreen Zone isn’t so scary after all.

Until next time, be sure to stop by www.productiveupodcast.com to leave us your comments. Also, follow us on Twitter @productiveUcast and visit our podcast on iTunes, where you can write a 5-star review for us!

See you next week!

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

Have you heard? We’re all doomed! You may have even seen the signs. Well, you may have at least some signs being held by some very “out-there” kind of people wandering the streets in front of your favorite coffee house.

According to some doomsday predictors, the next apocalypse is scheduled for December 21, 2012, when all the planets in our Solar System will supposedly be aligned. What can we expect to happen? Floods, earthquakes, and other natural calamities? Or will it be just another day, like Y2K—where I spent my New Year’s Eve with my friend from a telecom company on call with our cell phones and pagers strapped to our waists like we were wearing Batman and Robin’s utility belts.

Before you go stocking up on bottled water for your bomb shelter, try to keep in mind that much of the hype surrounding this galactic phenomenon is pure sensationalism. Once every few decades, someone conjures up a similar theory to get everyone into a panic, and it always fizzles out into nothing. But at least we’ll get another box-office hit depicting a gruesome demise of the human race by natural disasters. Or a sudden surge in Kool-Aid sales. Those are always fun. Oh, yeahhh!

While we’re on the topics of alignment and disasters, we might as well mention how a misaligned list of bullets or numbers can have cataclysmic effects on your Word document. If you’ve ever struggled hopelessly trying to get those bullets or numbers to line up the way they’re supposed to, you know where I’m coming from.

Don’t get caught in a crossfire when your disaster moment hits! Stray bullets can be dangerous!

Thankfully, there are a few tricks you can try out to wrangle those lists into formation. Here are links to some tips that should help you avoid a catastrophe when working with bullets and numbering:

• Stray Bullets – A few things to try to get your lists in order
• Off the Mark – Using the Format Painter to align bullets and numbers

Having alignment issues with something other than bullets and numbering? Here are some more tips to set you straight:

• Where Does It Stand? – Using Word’s text alignment feature
• Start a Tab – Setting up tab stops in Word
• Get to the Point – Using decimal tabs in Word to align numbers on decimal points

That’s all for this edition of the podcast, but be sure to leave us your comments at www.productiveupodcast.com, visit us on Twitter @productiveUcast, or write a review of our podcast on iTunes.

Until next time, keep watching the skies…but don’t hold your breath waiting to see those planets line up. And certainly don’t drink the Kool-Aid!

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

Well, it happened again. I’m almost positive I put both socks into the dryer, but only one came out. Tell me: where do the lost socks of the world go when they disappear? The Island of Misfit Socks? An exclusive club for singles? Maybe they have their own dating website, and they all go online in the hopes that they’ll find their perfect match. If so, I hope my argyle sock reads this:

Dear sock,

Your perfect match is here, in my dresser drawer, and it’s lonely. This is where you belong; come home.

What a frustrating experience. Sure, I could go buy a new pair, but then my original old sock would be a third wheel. The new pair of socks would try to have some time alone together and then this old sock would be hanging around and it would eventually just get awkward.

What I really wish is that life had something like Excel’s MATCH function. In case you’re not familiar, let me take a moment to explain it. If you have a worksheet that contains a column of data—let’s say, for example, articles of clothing—and another column that contains some or all of the same data, but in a different order, the MATCH function can help you determine which items appear in both columns. Not only that, it will also give you the row number in which the item appears in the first column. So if you know that one of the items in column B is “Sock,” and you want to know where that item can be found in column A, you can create a MATCH formula to tell you where in column A that item appears. It’s like map coordinates—better than GPS for misfit socks!

Once you have that formula mastered, you might want to try a more advanced formula like a VLOOKUP. This function will find a matching value in another set of data and return a value from an adjacent column. How does it work?

Well, let’s say you’re working in Excel and you have two worksheets of data. One contains Employee Names in column A and Employee IDs in column B. The second worksheet also has a series of Employee Names in column A, but they’re in a different order than the ones on the first worksheet. So if you want to find out the Employee IDs for these names, you can use the VLOOKUP function to look on the first worksheet for a match for each Employee Name on the second sheet, and it will return the correct Employee ID.

This can be extremely useful, especially in cases where you have thousands of records for which you need to return corresponding data.

There’s a lot you can do with Excel’s lookup functions if you know how to properly set them up. Here are links to some tips that will help you get started.

• Does This Match? – Using the MATCH function
• Vertical Challenge – Using the VLOOKUP function
• Look It Up – Using the LOOKUP function
• Data on the Horizon – Using the HLOOKUP function
• Show Me the Money – Using absolute references in formulas
• Go Away, #N/A – Checking for errors in formulas
• Pass or Fail? – Using VLOOKUP in a grading system
• Getting Clean Results – Nesting other functions in a VLOOKUP

You might also want to check out the tips in our previous podcast, Excel Hates Me! When 2+2 Isn’t Always 4 (VOL029), to make sure your data is clean. Otherwise, you might run into some errors when trying to find a match with these formulas.

Well, Excel’s lookup functions are really handy for locating data, but it looks like I’m going to have to hunt for this sock on my own. Shhh…be vewwy, vewwy quiet!

Thanks for joining us for this week’s podcast. Be sure to leave us a comment if there’s anything you’d like to see featured in a future episode.

And don’t forget that you can follow us on Twitter @productiveUcast, and you can also find the podcast on iTunes if you want to write a review.

See you next week!

Music provided by Clayton & Fulcrum

This week’s edition: “Inventing the Wheel was a One-Time Deal”

If you hang around any business office long enough, you’re likely to hear workers uttering the same banal buzzwords or expressions:

• “Is it Friday yet?”
• “Take that off-line and we’ll circle back later.”
• “There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.”

Some of these are examples of corporate jargon and some are just phrases that have become so overused that they no longer have any real impact on the listener.

I know someone who asks, “Is it Friday yet?” every day of the work week. Yes, even on Friday. The phrase has just become so deeply entrenched in his vernacular that it’s now as common a greeting as “Hello.”

You probably know people like this, too. Maybe they don’t use these particular phrases, but I’m sure you’ve heard them spout off common business slang without ever giving a thought as to how frequently these expressions are being used. Don’t they ever stop to listen to themselves? Can no one stop them??

Sadly, no. Tell your boss you’re sick of hearing him use the phrase, “thinking outside the box,” and you may find yourself living inside a box on the side of the road.

But let’s back up a moment to the expression, “There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.” As tired as I am of hearing people use this phrase over so many years, its meaning still rings true: “Why create something new when you can reuse something already created?”

To me, this points to one simple solution: templates.

Templates, in their many forms, serve the purpose of allowing us to create a basic design for something once, then apply that design toward creating many more similar things. Templates promote efficiency in many different industries. Even the clothes you’re wearing started out as templates in the form of clothing patterns. From just one pattern, several thousand identical t-shirts were created. Now don’t you feel unique?

In much the same way, template files can be created in many software applications. Microsoft Word, for example, allows you to create a document template. You can start with a new, blank document and then set all the options to your liking: create styles, set a default font, include some text in a header or footer, even include AutoText entries. Save this file as a document template, and now you can reuse it to create countless other documents that require the same styles, font settings, and other options. You can then add or subtract anything you like from this new document without changing the original template.

Sounds useful, doesn’t it? Maybe you’ve found yourself in this situation before: every month, you need to create a document on company letterhead. This might include a logo in the header with some contact information, and maybe a very specific font size and page margins. Maybe what you do every month is find the document you created the previous month, delete all the text from it, re-save the file with a new name, then type in your new text. Well, those days are gone. Today you can find that document you created last month, delete the old text, and then save it as a template. When you open the template, it’s already blank and ready to go with all the proper settings. Using this method greatly reduces the chance that you’ll accidentally overwrite any changes to that previous document.

Word isn’t the only application that makes use of template files, either. The tips included in this week’s blog entry will show you how to create templates for Excel, PowerPoint, and even Outlook.

This week’s tips include:

• Set the Standard: Creating new document templates in Word
• Making Normal Your Own: Setting formatting defaults on Word’s global template
• You Set the Rules: Creating a default template for Excel workbooks
• Put Some Style Into It: Creating and applying design templates in PowerPoint
• Déjà Vu: Creating an e-mail template in Outlook
• Give Your E-mail a Makeover: Using Stationery in Lotus Notes

So think about the files you work with on a frequent basis and consider creating a template for these. You’ll save yourself some time and effort, and you’ll avoid having to reinvent the wheel or anything else.

Thanks for joining us this week! If you have any other examples of corporate jargon that gets under your skin, let us know in the comments! Also, feel free to keep up with us on Twitter by following @productiveUcast, or visit our podcast on iTunes and write a review.

See you next week!

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

This week’s edition: “The Cybercouth Tiger Returns.”

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from our friend and loyal listener, the Cybercouth Tiger. Today he joins us with more tips for how you can observe common courtesy when communicating at light speed.

Delighted, as always, to be here. Productive U listeners, I come to you today to present some simple methods for minding your manners in e-mail.

When I was just a cub, my mother instilled in me the most basic elements of good etiquette. I was taught to properly introduce myself when meeting others, to keep my stories brief so as to allow others a chance to participate in the conversation, and to refrain from being a snitch to the others in my streak.

In the cyber world, carelessness will allow you to offend more people faster than ever before, but those simple lessons from my cub days can still be applied to help you avoid doing so.

I pose a conundrum: you receive an e-mail from a business associate (let’s call him James) who proposes a meeting to discuss an exciting opportunity to advance on the corporate ladder. He informally concludes this correspondence with the following statement, “Call me to discuss. -j.” Hands trembling with nervous excitement, you lift the telephone receiver and prepare to dial—but alas, you realize you have no contact information for this individual!

Oh, James. Your pitiful e-mail signature offers nary a method for contacting you; indeed, it lacks even your full name. Loyal listeners, I beseech you: take the time to compose an informative and comprehensive e-mail signature to be appended to your outgoing mail messages. Be sure to incorporate basic identification and contact information such as your full name and the best way to reach you. On a business e-mail account, this should include your telephone number, and a fax number if applicable. Your recipients will thank you, and I will personally applaud your courteous efforts.

Now a word about brevity. While an e-mail signature is clearly beneficial for those messages that require a body of message text, let us now observe how a brief message may not even necessitate a body. In such cases where only a short message needs to be conveyed, consider typing it directly into the subject line, followed by the acronym “EOM.” For those not in the know, this stands for “End of Message.” To your recipients, it means, “Don’t even bother opening this message, since there is nothing more to read.” Once they catch on, however, it will sound much more like, “I’ve extended the courtesy of being so concise as to eliminate the need for you to open this e-mail message. Please use that extra time as you see fit.” I feel compelled to inform you that I’m paraphrasing here; I can only assume they might actually be thinking something similar.

(I elaborate further on the topic of e-mail brevity in a recent letter I sent to the computer support staff at Productive U Podcast. You can read it here.)

While we’re on the subject of subjects, I might add this recommendation: never send an e-mail with a blank subject line. Common features in most e-mail applications include the ability to sort and search for messages according to their subject text. Quickly locating a message with no subject can become quite an ordeal. Do your fellow e-mailers the simple service of including some informative text in the subject line, so that they may properly prioritize and categorize your message.

Lastly, dear listeners, we are far past due for a discussion regarding CC and BCC. Allow me to clarify the purpose of these oft-abused fields.

When you include an e-mail address in the CC field, you are notifying your direct recipients in the To field that others are listening in because this message might also pertain to them. CC should not be used as a means of coercion. I recently observed an instance in which a manager was suddenly CC’d on an e-mail conversation between two co-workers. The intent in this case was to notify the manager of some petty squabble that was arising between the two co-workers. If a referee is required to resolve a dispute, there are proper channels that should be used. If a referee is required to resolve a dispute, there are proper channels that should be used. Don’t simply invite someone’s office superior to the conversation as a mediator.

Similarly, the BCC field should not be used to secretly or sneakily include a recipient on an e-mail message. While it is true that the addresses in this field remain hidden to all recipients, the actual purpose of this feature is to protect the privacy of your recipients when sending an e-mail to a group of people. Wanting to prevent everyone’s e-mail addresses from becoming public property on such messages is an acceptable use of BCC.

I shall now take my leave of you, but you can expect to find me here again. When there is a lapse in cybercouth, the tiger shall pounce! Of course, I prefer to educate rather than pounce, so I will return to share more tips to help you avoid becoming a cyboor. Cheers!

Links

• Create an e-mail signature: Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007
• Show the BCC field: Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007

We’d like to thank the Cybercouth Tiger for sharing his netiquette advice with us, and we’d also like to thank you for listening! If you have any comments for us, feel free to share them at www.productiveUpodcast.com.

Don’t forget to visit us on iTunes! While you’re there, you can write a review of the podcast. Or, see what we’re up to by following us on Twitter @productiveUcast.

See you next time!

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum

This week’s edition: “The Un-Dirty Dozen: Fighting the War on Computer Slowness!”

Atten-hut! You are hereby recruited to combat the evil forces that have infiltrated your computer, causing it to run slowly, display error messages about a lack of space, and above all, prevent you from being able to do your work efficiently! In your training, you will be armed with the proper weapons needed to effectively rid your computer of these annoyances. What is your computer’s major malfunction?

Actually, there could be a variety of maladies causing your computer to slow down to a snail’s pace.

Think about how hard these machines work for us. As we go about our day of browsing the Web, sending and receiving e-mail and attachments, and all the other daily tasks for which we rely on our computers, they are under constant attack. Your computer might be struggling to keep up with too many running programs. It might be bogged down by the sheer volume of unnecessary files that you’ve accumulated, either intentionally or in the form of temporary files. Or it may have even contracted a malicious computer virus.

Whatever the cause, there are some simple steps you can take to help reduce the amount of stress your computer is under. Once you’re done, your computer will feel like it just got back from taking leave—calm, at ease, and ready to get back to work! And just as we humans enjoy frequent vacations, be sure to spoil your computer often with this tips.

Let’s start with the simplest method: the tried and true system reboot. For many computer issues, it’s a panacea. Against the war on computer slowness, it’s heavy artillery. If you’ve ever called the help desk at work, it might be the first suggestion they make for a lot of different issues. Well, believe the hype. Restarting your computer actually can work wonders. It frees up the system’s resources, closes any programs that might have processes running in the background, and gives you a clean slate to work with. To reduce the chance that your computer will even need a reboot, it’s a good idea to shut it down at night or when it won’t be in use for extended periods of time. Here’s another perk of shutting down: reduced electricity bills! Saving money is pretty hard to top, so let’s move on.

Next on the list is keeping your computer’s anti-virus software up to date and running at all times. Most of the time, you won’t even have to worry about it. It typically runs silently in the background; crushing worms, battling vicious viruses, rejecting tiny Trojan horses (you know, the pink ones; the little pony types), and generally doing all it can to keep your computer out of the infirmary, all without interrupting you. But pay attention to the little icon that usually shows up in your System Tray, right by the area that displays the time. The appearance of the icon will vary depending on what brand of anti-virus software you have, but if a notification appears to let you know that virus definition updates are available, make sure you click it and follow the instructions. These updates keep your computer protected against the most current threats, so don’t ignore them.

Sarge here again! Now it’s time to roll up your sleeves and do some real cleaning. Don’t worry, this won’t be anything like scrubbing the latrines with a toothbrush. We’re just going to clean out some old files from your computer. If you’re anything like me, you’ve got files of all kinds stored away in various folders throughout your computer. I’m sure you have files that serve no real purpose any more—old documents, music or video files, maybe some pictures that you just don’t need—but where are they? Fortunately, you won’t have to scour through every file in your computer to find these files; you can just make Windows do it for you. Here’s how. Listen up!

The Search feature makes it easy to locate files of a specific file type. Want to locate every Word document on your computer? Just search for *.doc. The asterisk (*) is a wildcard character, pretty similar to the “Wild Draw Four” card in Uno—it can be anything you want. The asterisk wildcard indicates that the actual file name can consist of any combination of characters, followed by .doc for the Word document file extension.

So once you’ve found all files of a specific type, you can select one or several of them and delete them all at once, right from the Search Results pane.

That’s a step in the right direction, but those deleted files aren’t gone yet—they’re still sitting in the Recycle Bin. This really does you no good because they’re still taking up space on your hard drive. So the next step we need to take is to empty the Recycle Bin to permanently delete those files.

Well, recruits, that’s it for this week. Think you’ve got all the ammunition you need to head into battle? If not, don’t retreat; just check out the whole list of the Un-Dirty Dozen tips for keeping your PC clean. You can find them down at our bunker, at www.productiveUpodcast.com.

Here’s the Un-Dirty Dozen (plus a few bonus tips)

1. Shut Down Your Computer Frequently
2. Keep the Recycle Bin Empty
3. Clear Temporary Internet Files, History, and Cookies
4. Disk Cleanup
5. Keep Anti-Virus Software Up to Date and Running All the Time
6. Change Virtual Memory Settings
7. Search for Files by File Type
8. Compress Folders, Files, and Pictures to Save Hard Drive Space
9. Keep Hard Drive to Only What is Used
10. Clean My Recent Documents
11. Scan Hard Drives for Errors
12. Run Hard Drive Defrag
13. Search for Files by File Size
14. Search for Files by Modified Date

And if you’re enjoying these tips, I’d like to see you over in front of my tent at iTunes; write me up a review—5 stars, please. Then we’ll see you back right here at Productive U Podcast next week for another edition of our tips.

Dismissed!

Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum