There are conflicting ideas about how hard it is to make use of Microsoft Access. One school of thought suggests that it’s difficult, complex, and beyond normal folk. The other is that it’s just as easy to use as Excel. I’m here to tell you the truth. And it sits somewhere between the two. Access [...]

Sometimes the old ways are the best. Word provides too many features to throw it aside for web documents all the time. If you need to share a rich document with someone else, it’s hard to beat it as a platform. Track Changes lets you share your documents with other users and track changes and [...]

Okay, I admit it. I’m a time freak. I hate to be late, and I usually carry backup means to tell the time. Sometimes though, it’s not the devices in my pockets, but the websites. We’ve discussed all sorts of things about time before. Simon posted a great list of alarm clock applications for various [...]

There are generally two distinct reasons for attaching images to blogs. Firstly, there is the photoblog where photos are the main feature. Secondly, photos can also used as an accompaniment in blogs for visual effect. Let’s take them separately, but first some thoughts on what makes a good photograph generally.

Recently I told you something about face recognition in Picasa 3.6. The other big change in this version is photo geotagging. These are both follow-ups to my posts on getting started, views, editing, special effects and exporting with Picasa. We’ve talked about this in MakeUseOf before. Shankar mentioned geotagging in a post on managing photos [...]

I wrote a series of posts early last year on Google Picasa 3.0. The posts covered getting started, views, editing, special effects and exporting. That’s still an entirely valid introduction to the product, but along with the rest of the world, things have changed at Picasa. Google have, along with a plethora of other products, [...]

I want to help you get a handle on the handle. Excel has, for quite a few versions now, had a number of shortcuts for using the mouse rather than the keyboard. I want to clarify how some of them work, so you can make the most of the tools at your disposal. Cell handles [...]

We’ve posted a lot of information here in the past about backups and file synchronisation, but I’ve been doing some work recently moving a huge quantity of data and ensuring that it has actually arrived, and it’s great to find something that just works. I’ve been using both Vista and the Windows 7 RC, and [...]

Most of the discussion on styles these days is about web pages and CSS, but everyone seems to have forgotten how styles can help in Word. I’m going to show you how to use styles in Word 2007, but if you have an older version you’ll be fine. This stuff is largely unchanged since Word [...]

Flickr isn’t a dating agency, and if you’re looking for the love of your life we have better advice, but it’s a great place to find people who care about the same things, at least photographically. Step 1 ““ Show off your best No one is ever going to know what sorts of photos you [...]

There are almost countless ways to create a blog these days. Blogger and WordPress are the big players. We’ve discussed them both before at great length, but there is no shortage of other options and tools. However, if you want to create a blog which contains rich media, and you don’t know (or don’t want [...]

I mentioned in an earlier post that there was a new feature in Windows 7 called libraries, but I was mean enough not to provide any details. Here’s my attempt to make up for it. First off, this isn’t difficult or complicated, and it is very cool. Windows XP and Vista used something called Known [...]

Flickr has a great ability to create Sets of images, and then group the sets as Collections. I’ve talked about Flickr sets before, in terms of how to best get your images noticed. The Collections are live. That is, if you add more images to the member groups, then the Collections are updated accordingly. Unfortunately, [...]

We’ve supplied quite a few Google Reader (GReader) articles in the past, including Mark’s help with keyboard shortcuts, a set of general tips from Aibek, productivity hints again from Mark, and a set of eight features you might have missed altogether from Abhijeet. But this one is a little different. What’s that all about? Just [...]

So, if you’ve read my previous post on Windows 7, you should have it up and running, ready to see what’s different. First off, hear this. Most things are the same. Whether you were using XP or Vista, you’ll generally find things in the same places, and find that they work in a similar way”¦ [...]