Tips & Tricks-January 2002

Computer magazines have moved away from providing information to individual users and place more emphasis on corporate or business user. They are becoming less relevant to the average home user. There is one magazine that I can recommend for the average user, Smart Computing in Plain English. The magazine is full of useful tips and information, product reviews, and how-tos. For example, in addition to the usual gift recommendations, the December issue has articles on file associations, dealing with corrupted files, tips on setting up your new computer, how to do a PowerPoint presentations, guidelines for reinstallation of software, tips for a number of specific software products and more. The articles are clearly written and there is something for different levels of expertise.

It's available on newsstands for $4.95 an issue or by subscription. The web address is www.smartcomputing.com. They have additional articles on the web site that are not in the magazine.

Do you visit one web site frequently? You can create a shortcut on your desktop that will take you there without having to select it from the Favorites list or your Bookmarks. Open the web site and right click on the main part of the page. Select "Create Shortcut" and Windows will place a shortcut to the web site on your desktop. Now you can just click on the shortcut and go straight to your site.