Author Archive
Excel Tips on Formulas & Circular References
Posted by: | CommentsThis week I have some video tips on some things I recently figured out while using Excel and I thought I’d share them on my blog.
Some spreadsheets I use daily gave me an annoying message every time I opened them about a circular reference error. A circular reference is created when you refer to same cell either directly or indirectly. For months I never stopped to figure out exactly where it was as I thought it would be too time consuming since my spreadsheets have multiple formulas in them.
I use Excel 2010 and it’s ridiculously easy to fix a circular reference. It’s up first here in the video.
Check your Formulas
When in Excel, click on the ‘Formulas’ tab at the top and you’ll find some very useful functions. In the video, I demonstrate how to ‘Trace Precedents’ and ‘Trace Dependents’. These tools tell you what cells are included in a formula and tell you what cells are affected by the value of the currently selected cells—well, it all makes more sense when you watch the video!
I hope you enjoy and please stop over at my YouTube channel as I have more short videos with tips and shortcuts that may be helpful to you.
How To Close Your Microsoft Small Business Live Account & Transfer Your Data
Posted by: | CommentsIf you are one of those small business people who took advantage of Microsoft’s free website tools and hosting, you’ve certainly heard Microsoft
is discontinuing these services effective 4-30-12. I found the Microsoft Small Business Live free website and hosting irresistible, so I built one for myself as well as several clients. This was before I found WordPress. Now I exclusively use WordPress and the great themes, plugins and support from iThemes.
Steps to Close Down Microsoft Small Business Live
1. Before your account closes, take the time to export your email, contacts and calendar. If you’re going to move your account to Office 365, then the instructions are here. I transitioned one of my email accounts to O365 and for $6/month, it’s wonderful to have Exchange email for one person. If you don’t want to move to O365, how will you save your email from your Small Business Live Account? It depends on what mail client you prefer. We’ll look at transitioning to a free Hotmail/Live account or a Gmail account.
Transfer to a free Live/Hotmail account using Outlook
This is how we accomplished this for my daughter who opened a new, free Live mail account with Microsoft. She has Outlook 2010 and already had her Office Live Mail coming into Outlook 2010 via the great Outlook Connector.She added her new Live account into Outlook and then made sure she had the same folders in that account and simply copied them from the old folder to the new one. For me, I moved my personal domain to hover and set up my email account with them. I then added my Hover email account to Outlook and did the same copying over of the emails, making sure I made the same folder over in my Hover account. To make a new folder in Outlook, simply right-click on your email name and scroll down to ‘add new folder’ and do so. Contacts – go back to your Office Live account and click on ‘Contacts’, then click on ‘Manage’, there you will see the export option, click on that and you’ll most likely want to export to a .csv file. Then in Outlook, import them by clicking on ‘File’, ‘Open’, then a box will come up and select ‘import from another program or file’, click ‘Next’ and select ‘Comma Separated Values’, locate your exported file and import it. I just used the defaults and didn’t try to do anything fancy.
Calendar –here are instructions from Microsoft:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/980534
Exporting Calendar from Windows Live Mail to Microsoft Outlook 2010:
- Open Windows Live Mail.
- Select the Calendar folder and make sure that you are logged in by using your Windows Live ID.
- Click Send/Receive to sync your calendar.
- Close Windows Live Mail.
- Visit the Windows Live Calendar webpage http://calendar.live.com and logon by using your Windows Live ID.
- Click the “Share” button and select the calendar that you want to export.
- Select the option “Share this calendar”.
- Put a check mark in the item topic “Send people a view-only link to your calendar”.
- You will see some links to share your calendar. If the links are not displayed, click “Get your calendar links (this will also save your settings)” and then click OK to confirm.
- Under the category “Links that show event details”, click “ICS: Import into another calendar application”.
- Select and copy the URL displayed without the webcal:// prefix.
- Open a new Internet Explorer window, paste the URL without the webcal:// prefix in the address bar and press Enter.
- Save the calendar .ICS file on your Desktop.
- Repeat the steps 5 to 13 for each calendar that you want to export.
Note: After complete these steps your Windows Live Calendar settings from the webpage are saved as Shared. You can make the calendar private again following the steps 5 to 7 above. Select the option “Don’t share this calendar (keep it private)” and then click Save.- Close the Internet Explorer window after you save all the .ICS files that you want.
- Open Microsoft Outlook.
- Click File, select Open and then the Import option.
- Select the option “Import an iCalendar (.ics) or vCalendar file (.vcs)” and then click the Next button.
- Select the .ICS calendar file in your Desktop folder and then click Ok button.
- Click the “Import” button in the dialog box and wait for the import process to be completed.
- Repeat steps 17 to 20 for each calendar that you want to import.
Transfer Your Live Mail to Gmail
Perhaps you don’t want to use Microsoft mail anymore and you have a Gmail account. You may know that you can import mail from IMAP and POP mail into Gmail and have it integrate with your main inbox, or make a filter and have your Live Mail go into a folder. The best instructions I’ve ever found is from the How-To Geek website. So I’ll just provide the link and you can follow those instructions. Once you have your mail, contacts and calendar transferred to Gmail, that will serve as the backup for your live mail. Then when you cancel your account, you know you have a copy of all your email, contacts & calendar over at Gmail.
What Happens To My Old Email Account and Website in Small Business Live?
From what I’ve been able to find, your website, contacts, email and calendar will all cease to function as of end of 4-30-12. I’m assuming it’s not accessible, but they don’t say. I’ve also read that your free fourth-level domain will still exist and in fact, they’ve said it can’t be canceled (don’t know why). A sample of a fourth-level domain would be – skipchilcott.Web.officelive.com. So don’t cancel your account before you take action to keep your email, etc. that was mentioned above. If you have a website, you can export it, but it really won’t do you much good because from what I’m reading, it can’t be imported into Dreamweaver or really any other program that I’ve found. It can not be exported as an .html or any other kind of website file either. I exported mine, but it’s most likely worthless.
Now On to Canceling Your Small Business Live Account
You’ll sign into your Office Live account and click on ‘Account Management’, then you’ll see the choice to ‘Cancel Account’ over on the left. When you click it, it’ll bring up details and ask you to make sure of the account you’ll want to cancel.
If you click the ‘Keep the account…’, it’ll just take you to the O365 offer. I did have a custom domain on my account and they didn’t send me any information, but I had already taken my custom domain off the site and transferred it to Hover, so perhaps that’s why.
You’ll get a warning of what will happen when you close your account. When you click the ‘cancel’ button, I think they even sent me an email to make me confirm I wanted to cancel, so you will have several opportunities to change your mind.
Here’s one of the final warnings!
Success!
Conclusion
I hope my experience helps you navigate through what you’ll need to do to close down your account. There is a pretty good community over at Office Live, where you can read and search for answers. If you register, you can post questions. They’ve been good at getting back to me. Good luck with your transition and if I can answer any questions, leave a comment or email me directly at lynn (at)extremevirtualsupport.com. If you find yourself in need of a new website, I’d certainly like to visit with you about that too.
LastPass for Security and One Time Password Feature
Posted by: | CommentsFor LastPass users, you already know how great this free service is. It’s the best way to keep your passwords secure. Today, I want to talk about another feature I heard about on the Steve Gibson Security Now Podcast.
One Time Passwords
Perhaps you’re traveling and have internet access on a public computer and you need to get something from your LastPass vault. Of course, you wouldn’t want to enter in your master password at a public site – there could be a keylogger on the machine for all you know.
With LastPass, you can generate your own One Time Passwords and print them out and put in your wallet. While at a public hotspot, enter in one of the numbers and wa-la, you’re in! Since it’s one time, that’s the only time that password will get access to your Password vault. You’ve gained access to your password list, and if a keylogger or other sniffer got your password, it’s of no use to them. If you’re then going to use LastPass to log on to one of your sites, I’m not sure if a keylogger can capture an autofill from LastPass or not.
There’s another use for this One Time Password that I feel is very useful.
In Case I Die
If you’re the person in your family who takes care of finances knows where the money, insurance and legal papers, etc. are and you use LastPass, here’s a great idea. Print out a few of the One Time Passwords and put in your Safe Deposit Box, leave it with your attorney or let your spouse/family member know where it is in case you pass away suddenly and perhaps aren’t totally prepared with all your documents. If you do this, be sure to write your email address on the paper too because you need both in order to log into LastPass.
How-To Make One Time Passwords
First, you need to be at a trusted, and most likely, your home computer. Log into LastPass and go to http://helpdesk.lastpass.com/security-options/one-time-passwords/. I found this under Support and then clicked on the One Time Passwords link.
Then you’ll be taken to a page that explains how to generate one or more passwords for your site.
Using a One-Time Password
When you need to use your One Time Password, just go to lastpass.com and you’ll see the one-time password area – click on that and you’ll enter in your email and password on another page – it won’t work on the regular sign in page. Complete your sign-in using one of the passwords you’ve generated and you’re in!
Be advised that your one time password is long – here’s a couple of samples: 
If you still aren’t using LastPass, the free service is great and fits most people’s needs. It has saved me much in time and frustration trying to locate and remember my passwords.
Looking at Ooma Phone Service
Posted by: | CommentsDo you still have a land line? Is it really a land line or a VOIP line? If you have your phone service through a cable company, it most likely is VOIP. We have the Cox service and we started out with their ‘digital’ phone lines, not realizing it 
was really VOIP. When the power went out, the phone line went out too.
I like to research phone possibilities and when we switched to T-Mobile for our cell service a couple years ago, I saw they offered their own VOIP phone service. For $15/month, we could use their router and plug our phone into it and it’s been working great. I blogged about it a couple years ago. However, T-Mobile no longer offers the service, however, we are able to keep ours, but you never know when they will announce they’ll discontinue service. So, I’ve been doing some research once again and I’ve pretty much settled on Ooma.
Why Ooma
- Longevity – It’s been around for 4-5 years now and has very positive reviews over on Amazon
- Number Porting – I want to keep my number and with Ooma, I can ($40 fee for porting and it can take 2-3 weeks)
- I own the equipment – no renting or monthly fees anymore
- Features – all the ones you’d expect: caller ID, call waiting, voicemail (one-touch voicemail from anywhere in the house)
- Use my same phones – no need to get new phones and the phones I have plugged in around the house will work with the telo unit
- Free calls in the U.S. (5,000 minutes/month) and low price international calling
- Only monthly fee is for taxes (usually $3-5)
- Optional features to add are a wireless adapter (frees you from keeping your telo next to your computer/router) and a bluetooth headset
- There’s a mobile app (Android or iPhone) for $10. You get 250 free minutes per month – could come in handy for some people with limited minutes
As far as comparing features among Skype, Vonage and Ooma, I read this article by Michael Bluejay that gives a nice synopsis and comparison of the three services. Head on over there and check it out.
The upfront cost for Ooma is $199 and you can buy on-line from them, or from Amazon, Best Buy, Costco and others. I did see some coupons at retailmenot.com that I will definitely try to use when I place my order.
If you’re a Vonage or Skype user, let me know why you prefer that service. If you like Ooma, I’d like hearing from you too.
Get Free Windows Themes
Posted by: | CommentsIf you have Windows 7, you probably noticed a big improvement in screensavers, desktop themes, wallpaper – whatever you like to call them. They brighten up our screens and days with the different sceneries and themes offered.
Microsoft offers free themes (a series of pictures), or wallpapers (one picture suitable for your desktop) to continually refresh your desktop. They’ve continued to bring new themes out since the release, so you’ll find quite a selection. Some categories include:
- animals
- movie themes
- branded themes
- holiday and seasons
- cars
- nature
- landscapes
- from the community (you can submit your own photos for consideration)
How to Download & Install
It’s easy to download and install the theme. I chose to ‘Open’ the download from Internet Explorer – it’s the quickest way, rather than saving the themes and going to find it and installing. So click on ‘Open’ and it will unpack it.
After it’s installed, your Control Panel ‘Appearance & Personalization’ will come up and you’ll see your new themes installed and it’s also been selected and applied to your desktop. So minimize your windows or go down to the lower right part of the window and click in that rectangle and check out your new theme.
If you use Firefox, then click to ‘open with’ and it’ll unpack and install the theme for you – pretty much the same process as IE.
Go check it out and spiff up your desktop.
Reflections on This Week
Posted by: | CommentsThis week has flown by in some ways and crawled by in others. I’m taking a break this week from reviewing or writing about software and gadgets because I’ve been keeping up with more things than usual this week. So I’ve decided to write a bit about what’s been going on.
- I finished up a website for a client, presented it to them and now I’m completing the documentation (written and video), so they will be able to update their WordPress website on their own. I believe every business – no matter how big or small needs an on-line presence – preferably multiple presences such as a website, a Facebook page, LinkedIn, Twitter – the major ones anyway.
- Along with finishing the website, I used this great plugin from iThemes called BackupBuddy to move my site from my test site to the client’s hosting site. I’d used it just once before and had someone walk me through it. This time, I wanted to do it on my own and I did it! It took awhile to go through each step since I hadn’t done it for awhile, but with some good tutorials and a great video I found, it all worked!
My 'new' iMac-you can see the reflection of my Windows monitor!
- I’d been working after hours on a project getting some computers ready to be donated to a non-profit for a client. Some of the computers were Macs and since I’ve never owned one, I asked my client if I could exchange my fee for one of the Macs and she said ‘yes’! After I asked, I thought, ‘do I really want to do this? Maybe I’d be better off taking the money.’ But then I decided to go ahead and take it. I brought it up to my office yesterday and plugged it in and did a bit of personalization. Almost anything I want to do I have to ‘Bing it’ as it’s just not intuitive for this Microsoft person.
- Started on another website for a client with a due date of early April. It’s always exciting starting a new project and trying to make it the best I can and come up with creative ways to display their text and pictures.
- I’m taking calls all this week for a client who is on vacation, so I never know what each day will bring and how I might need to shift and adjust my schedule to cover for him and make sure his clients are happy.
- Today I started working on moving some domains over to Hover.com. I set up an account last year with them, but ended up transferring some domains somewhere else. In the meantime, I kept hearing all these great things about Hover and what great support and customer service they have, so I decided to call (and I never call-always do things on-line). To my great shock, someone answered the phone – no phone tree! Wow. I had a very cordial and informative conversation with the rep and there was no pressure or anything else. I’m going to call them to help get some email services set up before initiating a transfer with this particular registrar because they pointed out on their website that they will disable email, DNS services and a few other things when a transfer is initiated – yikes!
- Another interest of mine is Pinterest. I asked for and received an invite a couple of weeks ago, but really haven’t spent much time with it yet. I’ve been reading about its history though. Just found this article by Denise Wakeman about using Pinterest to boost visibility to blogs/websites, so I’ll check that out.
It’s nice to take a break and just write about what’s been happening – how about your week? Leave a comment.
Tweetchat-Blinders for your Twitterstream
Posted by: | CommentsTweetChat is web-based software that let’s you follow a hashtag – yes just one hashtag. (A hashtag is the # symbol followed by key words and is used for just about any imaginable topic.) Perhaps you’ve been at a meeting or event and the speaker will announce, “follow the social conversation at #meeting”. In order to do this, sign into your Twitter account and up in the search box, type in #meeting (or whatever the topic is). 
Then, you’ll be taken to a page with this hashtag and you can keep refreshing and following the conversation.
TweetChat is a great app to use instead of the steps above because the web app allows you to participate in the conversation right from the page. Since the app requires you to sign in to TweetChat with your Twitter ID, they already know who you are, so when you’re ready to jump in and comment, just type in the box. You won’t be bothered with any other twitter streams going by – you’ll only see conversations associated with the hashtag you entered in. This is really great for a hot topic going on – perhaps a popular event, or a natural disaster.
Control the Speed and Block Irritating People
There are two great features to mention:
- Refresh Speed – for monitoring fast-breaking situations, you may want to slow down the refresh rate – otherwise things may go by too quickly to respond. Perhaps there’s a tweeter you’d like to respond to, but it disappears because the stream is going by so quickly.
- Block – of course there are always the party-poopers in a group – those who are there to heckle or object or make someone’s life miserable. Just put their twitter handle in this space and poof – they’re gone!
Even if you’re not at a meeting or following an event, use TweetChat to monitor subjects of interest to you. Just try typing some words in – there’s probably a hashtag for it. If you want to know what hashtags people are using, go to http://hashtags.org. It’ll show the trending hashtags. Hover over one and see the popularity trend.
Thanks to @marismith, a huge Facebook Diva, but also she also does Twitter. I got the idea to research TweetChat because she mentioned using it in one of her articles.
Get Genuine Windows Kit (get a legal copy of Microsoft Windows)
Posted by: | CommentsToday we’re going to go over how to make your copy of Windows legal (assuming it isn’t). Perhaps you bought a computer from Ebay or Craigslist or a friend or family member ‘worked’ on your computer and installed a bootleg copy of Windows from a shady site.
The latter happened to a client of mine and she called saying she was getting pop-ups (from Microsoft), letting her know her copy of Windows wasn’t valid.
If you get WAT (Windows activation tool) popups saying your copy of windows isn’t valid, the fastest and easiest thing to do is click on the popup and then you’ll be taken to a Microsoft site where you can purchase your ‘Get Genuine Windows’ kit. I tried to find a link to the site, but there’s not one that I can find. This may be because the price is less than buying a full version of Windows. (Of course use caution when you click on a pop-up as it could be a phishing scheme. Verify you are at the Microsoft site by looking at your URL.)
There’s a comprehensive site called Genuine Windows, that gives a lot of information on how to tell if your copy of Windows is genuine or not. From what I’m reading, you won’t be given a link to purchase the Windows Kit unless it’s determined your copy is not valid.
After you place your on-line order and pay, you’ll get an email from Microsoft with instructions and your product key – so keep that email!
Next Steps
- You’ can update your existing product key (no DVD needed). This is the quickest way to get your computer going again-no waiting for a DVD in the mail. Keep in mind that you can only use the key to activate the same version of windows you currently have. For example, if you have Windows 7 Home Premium on your computer, and you pay for a Windows 7 Home Premium kit, then you can simply apply the key (again your instructions will be in your email, so keep it), and your computer will be legit. Microsoft states in the email that you must visit the URL they give you to apply the key from the same computer you purchased the kit from. This keeps people from trying to use the key on a different computer.
- You can wait for your DVDs (one 32-bit & one 64-bit) to come in the mail – usually takes a week or so. Put it in and a setup screen will present. Now you can choose to either do a fresh and full install or you can choose to input the new product key.My client wanted a fresh install and I recommend this to blow away all the cruft and start fresh. Before doing this, be sure to transfer your documents and other data to an external drive before doing the fresh install. A complete reformat of your computer erases everything on the drive. If you are just going to activate, I’d still backup everything just to be on the safe side. My client had a bootleg copy of Windows Ultimate, but I easily installed Windows 7 Home Premium in about 30 minutes. Of course, the updates following made it take longer. It should be noted that if you have Windows Vista (or another Windows version), and want to ‘get genuine’ and purchase Windows 7, you must use the DVD to do a full install.
While I was going through the install process, I saw one of the screens said that the copy of Windows could not be transferred to another computer, sold or put on a new computer.
If you’d like more in-depth information, here’s a link to one of Microsoft’s support forums that gives more information on the process from a user who had problems.
If you happen to get a bootleg copy of Windows, I hope this helps prepare you for the process. Yes, it’ll cost some money, but not as much as buying a full version. Good luck and let me know your experience with the Get Genuine Kit.
How To Handle Clutter
Posted by: | CommentsDo you make New Year’s resolutions? I’m not one to do that because I feel that if something needs to change, why wait for a new year – just get going with it! Perhaps many of you have thought about having a cleaner office or home in 2012.
Do you find yourself postponing opening mail or organizing small stacks of paper and then the small stacks get larger and soon you’re avoiding the stack and hoping it’ll all resolve itself? Here are a few tips and suggestions that seem to help me.
A Paper Gathering place my husband uses
- Set aside a block of time to take action. A block of time can be 5 minutes. In fact, if you dread facing the piles, telling yourself 5 minutes might make it seem more bearable and you may end up wanting to go just a few more minutes.
- Pick up each piece of paper and handle it – you have three choices, trash/recycle, file/for future reference or handle it right away. This may mean there’s a bill to pay, an entry to make on a calendar, a phone call, etc. Don’t put it back on the pile!
- Put like things together. If you have receipts scattered about, collect them together. Then decide if they need to be archived, recorded or otherwise handled. You’re feeling better already, aren’t you?
- Do you have a reading stack? Most of us do – a stack of “I really want to go through this material – someday’. If your some day stack has been there for over a month, it’s time to toss it, it’s probably not going to happen. You probably won’t be missing that much and it probably won’t matter much. If it was truly important, you’d have read it by now.
- Sentimental items – your kid’s artwork, an old stuffed animal, an aware from long ago—what to do with them? Recently, I blogged about how I started handling this. I took photos of the art work and other mementos and took pictures of them, put them into Windows Movie Maker and then narrated the video using Jing. Then I put all the artwork and misc. into a bag and put it in the trash. Now I admit, I still have one bag that hasn’t made it to the trash yet, but perhaps this article will motivate me to follow my advice!
- Remember the 6-month rule? It really makes sense. If you think you have to keep something because you’ll ‘need it some day’, but it in a box, label it with the date and go back to it 6 months later and look in it. If it wasn’t needed, it probably won’t be. Unless it’s a tax or otherwise related item, give it away, take a picture of it and get it out of your office//house
These are a few of the methods I use and although I’m not always clutter free, I do make time for a couple de-cluttering sessions every week. My reward is seeing clean counter-tops and desktops in my house and office.
What are some of your tips and recommendations?
How To Back Up Windows Live Mail
Posted by: | CommentsIf you have a Windows Live Mail account, have you thought about backing up your mail? Yes, I know it’s in
the cloud, but the unforeseen can happen. Your account could get hacked and you might want to close that account and start over but want to keep your messages. Something could happen with the cloud and your messages could get wiped out. Lastly, it’s your mail, and you need to be in control of it.
Backup Windows Live Mail
If you’re using hotmail or livemail on the web only, you may want to consider getting the free desktop client to install on your desktop. This way, you’ll have off-line access to your mail account and the desktop client has a few features that the web doesn’t. You can get it here by itself, or as a suite of free downloads from Microsoft.
Here’s a quick 3” video that shows you how to export your Windows Live Mail into an .ini file that you can store on your computer or a backup drive. Of course, you’ll want to back up at regular intervals to be as up-to-date as possible.
Backup Windows Live Contacts
Contacts are also important, so there’s a section here on how to export your contacts into a .csv file. This file can be imported into Outlook or Gmail, if you wish.
Windows Live Calendar
Calendar items can’t be backed up at this time. But if you use the web-based calendar along with the desktop client of Windows Live Mail, your calendar items will be synced. If you lose your account though, this won’t help you, will it? There are third party programs (for pay) out there that will back up your Live Calendar if you have that need.
Do you use Windows Live Mail or Hotmail for your business or just personal use? If you are a business, I’d suggest Office 365 at $6/month from Microsoft. For $6/month, you get Exchange mail that’s backed up for you – peace of mind. Read here for other advantages of O365.
