Internet Speed Tips

Today is an age of the Internet. Our every day lives are being driven by the world wide web no matter what corner of the globe we are located. Most people are online for at least 2-3 hours a day, and if you are like me who likes to spend hours browsing online, then there is no limit. You are aware of your ISP or Internet Service Provider who gives you the Internet connection. Depending on the schemes, you may be using one of the following - a 54 kbps dial-up connection, 128 kbps ISDN connection, or a 256 kbps to 2 mbps DSL connection or high speed cable broadband connection. If you are like me, you sometimes feel like your Internet is too slow whenever watching a favorite video clip on YouTube or having a video chat session with your friend. You may even consider changing your internet connection plan to another high speed one. You may not be aware of the fact that your Internet connection and your browser can be optimized to give you an ultimate experience with an enhanced browsing speed. There are many methods which can get the job done for you, but we will discuss only those which are used and proven by experts. Lets gets started with the following: First click to "Run" on the "Start" menu and type "gpedit.msc". Hit enter and the following window will pop up.
This window is the place where the computer administer configures various desktop settings for a particular system on the network such as start menu options, desktop properties, how different programs are associated with a particular desktop, etc. If you are not on a network and using your system yourself then obviously you are the system administer for your system, and you need to go for "Local Computer Policy" which defines the desktop configuration for the current system on which the steps are being executed. So, the next thing to do is to click on the "Administrative Templates" under "Computer Configuration" option. Whatever changes you make here are directly associated with the registry settings and so you must be very much careful before making any changes. The next window will open up


You can see there are four items listed on the right panel, "Windows Component", "System", "Network" and "Printers". Administrative Templates are nothing but simple text files to provide policy information for a particular item in the list. The files are stored on the system with an extension of ".adm". There are mainly four types of .adm files available on your system, each of which is designed for specific tasks. These are – "System.adm", "Inetres.adm", "Wmplayer.adm" and "Conf.adm". Now, we are interested in only "System.adm" files which are required to configure the system, the network, printers and Windows components. Among them, we are only interested in "Network" system.adm files. These system.adm files define the way a client computer connects to the network. This involves various configurations issues with DNS (Domain Name Server) and offline files. Some of them are "DNS Client", "Network Connections", "Offline files", "QoS Packet Schedulers", "SNMP", Background Intelligent Transfer Service" and "DFS Client Settings". We are interested in "QoS Packet Schedulers". QoS stands for Quality of Service. This setting is used to define the priority of various applications running on your system. Based on the priority a specific application receives, bandwidth is allocated to it. Mainly QoS aware applications are considered under this setting. When you click on the "QoS Packet Scheduler" on the right panel, the followings options will show up,





You will see the following entry in the list, "Limit reservable bandwidth". This option determines what percentage of your total bandwidth is reserved by the system for various system specific tasks like automatic windows update or antivirus update. You will see the entry "Not configured" under the state column i.e. the system is still using the default settings. When no settings have been specified by the local user, windows keeps 20% of the total bandwidth available for this task. It's this 20% of your bandwidth which we are after. You have to make your system give you back this 20% bandwidth! So click on it,



The above window will open up which allows you to change the default settings for this item of "QoS Packet Scheduler". If you see that the "Not Configured" option is checked in, then check the "Enabled" option and the lower percentage selector dropdown box will be activated. Make sure you reduce it to "0%". It's shown in the following screenshot,



Now click on "Ok" and all the settings will be in effect once you restart your computer. The next time you log onto your computer, you will experience an enhanced browsing speed. This trick is mostly beneficial for users who are using lower bandwidth connections like dial-up, ISDN or DSL. They can really use this extra 20% bandwidth from their internet connection. However, if you are a high speed internet user, why do you want to let your Windows reserve a significant portion of your total bandwidth. There are always ways in which you can make use of this extra bandwidth!

Improve Startup Times and Speed

When Windows starts up it automatically loads a number of programs, many of which you may not need. As you install more and more programs, this list can continue to grow. The following guide can help you improve your computer's startup times by decreasing the number of programs that startup. This will be done be disabling certain programs from running as windows starts up.

For Windows XP

Here are simple steps to Disable Programs at Startup in XP.

1. Click on Start->Run
2. Type "msconfig" and click OK. (This will bring up System Configuration Utility.)
3. In the System Configuration Utility, Click the tab called Startup.
4. Now you can uncheck any programs that you do not want running at Windows XP startup.
5. Once you are done unchecking programs, Click Okay. You will be prompted to restart your computer at this point.

Remove Spyware

The tips and help below should be able to help you make your computer run faster.

Remove Spyware
" Spyware can build up on your computer and slow your PC down over time. Spyware can sneak onto your computer from web browsing or web downloads. One way to to help your computer performance is to detect and remove any spyware."

Inserting Music and Charts on a Slide

You can also insert sound or music on a slide. It may be a sound or movie. When a slide run, movie or sound also plays. To insert music or sound on a slide, follow these steps.

• Display the slide you want to add music or sound to.

• On the Insert menu, point to Movies and Sounds, submenu will appear. Do one of the following:

• To insert a sound from the Clip Gallery, click Sound from Gallery, and then locate and insert the sound you want.

• To insert a sound from another location, click Sound from File, locate the folder that contains the sound, and then double-click the sound you want.

• A sound icon appears on the slide.

• A message is displayed. If you want the sound to play automatically when you go to the slide, click Yes if you want the sound to play only when you click the sound icon during a slide show, click No.

• To preview the sound in normal view, double-click the sound icon.

Inserting Charts on Slide

In Microsoft PowerPoint, you can create a chart on a slide. Usually charts or graphs are created for numerical data. The Microsoft Excel is a best program for creating charts. In PowerPoint, the default chart is the standard 3D column chart.

To insert a chart on the slide, follow these steps.

• Select the slide into which you want to insert chart.

• Select "Chart" from the Insert menu, a graph of sample data is automatically created on the slide and datasheet including sample data is also opened.

• Replace the labels in the first row and first column with the labels of your choice. For example to create chart of maximum and minimum temperature of different cities, follow these steps.

• Starting from second cell of first row enter names of cities.

• Type "Maximum" & "Minimum" into first cells of second and third rows respectively and also type data of temperature under the headings.

• Delete other data by selecting it.

1. The graph is automatically created (or modified) according to the data. Click anywhere on the empty space of slide, the chart is inserted and datasheet is disappeared.

How to use any favorite text as bullet in Word?

In Microsoft Word, lists of items or important points of a specific topic are presented in the documents in a prominent way by applying default bullets and numbering. By default, word provides only few built-in bullets and numbers to prominent your important points. But if you wish to use your name or any favorite word as a bullet then you can modify the default bullets lists.

Follow the given steps to modify the default bullets with your favorite name:

First click on Start button, go to Program then click on Microsoft Word to run the word page.

Now go to File menu and click on Open option to open any word file then go to Format menu and click on Bullets and Numbering option.

Here a small dialog will appear with title "Bullets and Numbering", now click on one of the number formats that you are not using in the document and click on Customize button.

In the number format box, type your favorite text (in this case, we are using Tony, Google and MSN as bullets, you can set a different font if you like, or the underlying paragraph font will be used).

You can enter 30 characters in the box which should be sufficient for most of the uses to which this is likely to be put.

Creating Charts in Excel.

In excel, you can create chart very easily using the Chart Wizard. The chart created can be inserted into the same worksheet or into different worksheet of same workbook.

To create a new chart, follow these steps.

• Select the data for which you want to create chart. For example to create chart of student marks, the worksheet with data is given below.

Name	Math	Urdu	Total
lilly	25	50	75
Joni	20	55	75
jhon	22	60	82
Eizo	21	45	66

• Click the Chart Wizard button on the Standard Toolbar.

• Select chart type, chart sub-type from dialog box and then click “Next” button, a dialog box is displayed with a sample of chart you have selected.

• Check the Data range and correct it if required and also specify whether you want to plot chart of data series in rows or columns.

• Click ”Next” button of dialog box ,Chart options dialog box appears.

• Specify chart title, X-axis title Y-axis title, legends, Data-labels etc. Click” Next” button.

• Specify chart location in dialog box. The chart can be created in different sheet. By default, the chart is inserted into the same worksheet.

• Click the “Finish” button of chart location dialog box to complete the chart creating process.

How to recover the corrupted files in Microsoft Excel?

This tip will help you to recover the corrupted files of Microsoft excel. There is no need to use any third party software to manage these types of corrupted files, because Microsoft provides built-in support in Excel to deal with these files in better ways. You can use the SYLK (Symbolic Link) format to restore the corrupted files in previous state.

Follow the given steps to recover the corrupted files in MS excel:

First click on Start button, go to Program then click on Microsoft Excel to run the excel page.

Now go to File menu and click on Open option to open the corrupted file.

Now again go to File menu and click on Save As option to save the file as type SYLK. Click on Save button to continue.

Here if you want to recover the multiple sheets then save each sheet separately as type SYLK.

Click on Yes button when you receive the message “Book2.slk may contain features that are not compatible with SYLK (Symbolic Link). Do you want to keep the workbook in this format?".

Now close the all opened excel files then again go to File menu and click on Open option to open the .slk type file that you saved in previous step.

Now again go to File menu and click on Save As option to save the file as type Microsoft Excel Workbook. Click on Save button to finish the process.

Splitting a Single Cell into Multiple Cells

You can also divide a single cell of a table into multiple cells. For example, you can divide a single cell into multiple cells to create table subheadings etc. To divide or split a single cell into multiple cells, one of the following ways is used.

Select the cell you want to divide into multiple cells.

Right click the mouse and select "Split Cells" from the popup menu.

OR

Click Table menu and select "Split Cells" from the drop down menu.

OR

Click "Tables and Borders" button, "Tables and Borders" toolbar appears. Click "Split Cells" button.

If one of the above commands is selected, "Split Cells" dialog box will be displayed as shown below.

Enter number of columns and rows; you want to create in the selected cell.

Click "OK" button of the "Split Cells" dialog box.

Converting Text into Table

You can also convert the text of a Word document into table. Usually, the tab is used as separator between columns. It means, the text is arranged into columns by inserting tabs and then it can very easily be converted into table. You can also use commas as separators to create the columns.

To convert text into table, follow these steps.

• Separate the text of document by using commas, tabs etc., press Enter key after each record and then select these texts.

• Select "Convert" command from Table menu, a submenu appears.

• Select "Convert text to Table" from submenu, "Convert Text to Table" dialog box appears.

• Enter number of columns, text separator and select other options from the dialog box and click "Ok" button.

EXAMPLE: Convert the texts that are given below into table.

John USA 23

Miacal UK 20

Tony Canada 52

Tome Turkey 02

Steps to convert the above text into table are:

• Select the text.

• Select "Convert" command from Table menu, a submenu appears.

• Select "Convert text to Table" from submenu, "Convert Text to Table" dialog box appears.

• Enter number of columns, text separator and select other options from the dialog box and click "Ok" button. The above texts are converted into table as below.

• John	USA	23
  Miacal	UK	20
  Tony	Canada	52
  Tome	Turkey	02

Converting Table into Text in Word File.

After creating a table and entering data into it, the table can be converted into text. To convert a table into text, follow these steps.

• Select the entire table.

• Select "Convert" command from Table menu, a submenu appears.

• Select "Convert Table to Text" command, a dialog box appears as shown below.

• Select desired option from the dialog box to separate the text of cells and then click "Ok" button.

The text in cells is separated as:

Paragraph Marks: The data in each cell is converted to a paragraph of document.

Tabs: The tabs are inserted between the text of cell

Commas: The commas are inserted between the text of cell.

Others: User defined character is inserted between the text of cell.

For example, a table is given below having four records of students.

John	USA	23
Miacal	UK	20
Tony	Canada	52
Tome	Turkey	02

The above table is converted to text by using the Tabs separator. The text of the above table is given below after conversion.

John USA 23

Miacal UK 20

Tony Canada 52

Tome Turkey 02

How to perform automatic Saving & Backup of your Word file?

Microsoft Word also has an important feature of saving your work automatically into the current document after specified time. By default, word automatically saves your current document after every ten minutes but you can change this time. It is also good idea for you to create backup of your files automatically. Because in this global network a computer can crash, a virus problem, or a hard drive failure can wipe out everything.

Follow the given steps to change default save time and enable auto backup feature:

First choose Options command from Tools menu.

A small dialog box will open, here select the Save tab in the dialog box.

Check the option "Always create backup copy" to set your word to create backup copy of file each time, you save document. Word saves this backup copy in same folder as your original document with .wbk extension.

Now click the "Save AutoRecover info every" check box and enter the time in minutes.

Click the Ok button of dialog box to finish the process.

search and replace text in word file

In Word, text can be searched in the current document and the searched text can also be replaced with other text. The searching and replacing processes are explained below:

The process of searching or finding a specified text in the document is called finding text. In Microsoft Word, it is performed with Find command. To apply Find command in Microsoft Word, choose one of the following.

• Select Find command from Edit menu, or press Ctrl+F shortcut key.

• Enter the text (up to 255 max. characters) you want to search in the document. It may consist of single character, word, punctuation marks, special characters etc.

• Click Find Next button of dialog box to search the given text. If the specified text is found, it is appeared in the document as selected. The Find and Replace dialog box again box again appears. Click again the Find Next button of dialog box to search for the next occurrence of the text in the document.

• Click Cancel button of dialog box to stop the search process.

The process of finding text in the current document and replacing it with another one is called replacing text. In Microsoft Word, it is performed with Replace command.

To apply Replace command in Microsoft Word, choose one of the following.

• Select Replace command from Edit menu, or Press Ctrl+H shortcut key.

• In the Find what text box enter the text you want to search and replace with another one.

• In the Replace with text box enter the text you want to replace with the searched text.

• Like the Find command, you can various search options to make your search more refine and accurate.

• Click Replace button to replace each occurrence one by one. In case you want to skip an occurrence click the Find Next button to jump to the next occurrence.

Deleting Rows & Columns from the table

You can also remove columns or rows from the table. Once a row or column is deleted, it can be undeleted by using Undo command. You can delete the columns or rows or cells by using one of the following ways.

By Table Menu

To delete a row or column by Table menu, follow these steps.

• Place the insertion point in the column or row that is to be deleted.

• Click Table menu and then select "Delete" from Table menu, a submenu of Delete is displayed.

• Select Columns or Rows or Cells command to delete the selected element (column or row or cell) from the table.

By Popup Menu

To delete a row or column by popup menu, follow these steps.

• Select the column's you want to delete.

• Right click the mouse, a popup menu is displayed.

• Select "Delete Columns" command, the selected columns will be deleted.

OR

• Place the insertion point in the column or row that is to be deleted.

• Right click the mouse, a popup menu is displayed.

• Select "Delete Cells" command, "Delete Cells" dialog box is appeared.

• Select "Delete entire row" to delete a row or select "Delete entire column" to delete a column etc. from the dialog box and click "Ok" button.

How to convert digit list into Roman numerals automatically?

In Microsoft Excel, you can covert the digits list into Roman format automatically. MS Excel allows you to perform conversion by using a mathematical formula. The sentence structure for the Roman function is:

Roman( number, type )

Here number is the any specific digit or cell number that you want to perform conversion to roman and type is optional operator. Roman function will generate error message if you will try to enter here any negative number or values greater than 3999.

To apply a roman formula to MS Excel document, follow the given steps:

First click on Start button, go to Program then click on Microsoft Excel to open a new excel page.

Now enter any list of numbers in cell A1 to cell A15. In this example we are trying to insert any 15 numbers.

Here select the cells B1:B15 and then insert the Roman function =ROMAN(A1) in formula bar.

Now press "Control+ Enter" button to apply this formula to selected areas.

Views document with different styles in Word

You can display document in different views in document window. When you switch from one view to another, the document contents are not affected and only the layout of the document is changed. A word document can be viewed in four different ways.

You can select a view form the View menu or by clicking their respective icons located at the leftmost section of the horizontal scroll bar. The document views are described below.

Normal View

In normal view, only the text and the text formatting is viewed. The headers &footers, graphics or layout of the page is not shown. This mode is used to type and edit text quickly.

Web Layout View

In Web layout view, the document is viewed on the screen as it would be appeared in the Web Browser. This mode is used if you want to create a Web page or document in MS-Word and save it as Web page.

Print Layout View

In Print layout view, the document is viewed on the screen as it would be printed on the printer. The headers &footers, graphics etc. are also viewed in this mode. This view is useful for editing headers& footers, for adjusting margins, and drawing objects etc. This mode is very slow for creating and editing documents.

Outline View

In outline view, the structure of the document is displayed. The structure of document may include main headings or you can expand it to see all headings and even body of text. In this view, page boundaries, headers footers, graphics and background are not appeared. This view makes easy to work with master document. A master document is used to organize and maintain a long document, such as a multipart report or a book with chapters.

How to configure speech recognition in Microsoft Office XP?

Microsoft Office XP has working with built-in speech recognition features. The main purpose of this feature to understand the speech and then coverts to text file. You can run this feature in any Office XP applications, for example Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word.

Follow the give steps to install the speech recognition features in office XP:

First click on Start button, go to Control Panel then click on Add or Remove Programs.

Now find and select the "Microsoft Office XP Professional with FrontPage" option in Add or Remove Programs list, then click on Change button.

Here select the option "Add or Remove Features" Change which features are installed or remove specific features", and click on Next button.

Here expand the "Office Shared Features"> Alternative User Input > Speech. Now click on Speech option and select "Run from My Computer" from menu and click on Update button to start installation process.

Now system will takes some time to install this feature.

After you have installed, open Microsoft Word > Tools > and click on Speech option.

Now click Next on welcome page.

If you are running it first time, then system will ask you for voice training, you can skip it but the voice training increase the chance of accuracy.

If the training is over, now try to speak "File" to open the File menu and check speech recognition feature has been working or not.

How to Create your own Keyboard Shortcuts keys in MS Word?

THis tip will help you to create your own keyboard shortcuts keys in MS Word. Before reading this tip, may be you are using only the default shortcuts keys which are available in MS Word application. You can select any specific key combination that you want to use to perform a particular task.

If you are not an expert user then you can take many clicks and lot of menus navigations to perform a basic task. With shortcut keys, you can speed up your working pace without lifting your hands on the keys; otherwise require a conventional mouse to select menus and buttons options. You can create your own keyboard shortcuts for every word command. For example, if you are using Word Count feature constantly then you can assign any key combination like Alt+Z to run Word Count command.

Follow the given steps to create your own shortcuts keys for your favorite command:

First click on Start button, go to Program then click on Microsoft Word to run the word page.

Now go to Tools menu and click on Customize option.

Here a small dialog box will appear with title Customize, now click on "Keyboard..." button.

Now again a small dialog box with title Customize Keyboard, the list of all the categories of commands with appear on the left side of the dialog box. You should click on the category that contains the command which you want to assign a shortcut keyboard.

Choose the command you want to assign a keyboard combination on the right side of the customize keyboard dialog box and then click the key you want to create shortcut.

Now click on Assign button to final the shortcuts key combination then close it.

In future whenever you type the keyboard combination, word will work according to that command you have assigned this shortcut.

How to password protect a PowerPoint presentation?

Microsoft PowerPoint is a powerful tool to use for creative presentations. Today, the latest technique to present you is by using computer slides. You can say it is very attractive and proper way to present the ideas to others. In office network your computer can be accessed by any other user and made some undesirable changes to it. You can prevent this by protecting your document by applying password so that unauthorized person can not display as well as modify your document.

Password to open the document:

If it is applied then you have to give the correct password to open the document, otherwise you cannot open the document.

Password to modify the document:

If it is applied then you have to give the correct password to modify the document, otherwise your document is opened but you cannot modify the document. It means that your document becomes read-only.

To apply a password to your PowerPoint presentation, follow these steps.

• Open Save As dialog box by selecting "Save As" command from File menu.

• Click "Tools" button of Save As dialog box and choose "Security Options" from drop down menu, "Save" dialog box appears as shown in figure below.
• Enter first password in "Password to open" text box and second password in "Password to modify" text box (if required) and click "Ok" button of dialog box. Microsoft PowerPoint will open "Confirm Password" dialog box for the confirmation of passwords. The maximum length of password is 15 characters.

How to add Picture into Header/Footer in Excel?

In MS excel header and footer option is used to display the repeated graphics or text on the top or button of each pages in a document. You can insert a picture (company logo or other related picture) in the bottom or top margin of each page. For reference, you can add the data, time and path for where you saved excel file on your computer or on any network server. Both the header and the footer are displayed in print layout view and save your time to enter the same items in pages again and again. You can use the same header and footer throughout a document or change the header and footer for part of the document.

You can leave the header or footer for the first page and can also use different headers and footers on odd and even pages or for part of a document.

To apply header or footer, follow these steps.

Select "Header and Footer" from View menu, "Header and Footer" Floating Toolbar will appear. The header and footer sections of document are also activated.

Now under Header/Footer tab, click on Custom Footer button then select left section.

To insert the picture, click on Picture icon (the 2^nd icon from the right side) to select the company logo that you want to add.

Select other options if required, for example you can add date, time file name and file path also.

Now click Ok button to finish the process.

How to Insert your Digital Signature into Word Documents?

Follow the given steps to insert your signature electronically in Word documents:

First of all scan your signature page and then save image using (.GIF or .JPEG) extension. Now you have scanned image of you signature, save the image on your computer and note that file name where you save it.

Click on Start button, go to Program then click on Microsoft Word to run the word page.

Now go to Insert menu, click on Picture> From File then browses your scanned signature file and click Insert button to add this file in word.

If your signature is not looking so good and its size is wrong then you should rescan your signature then repeat all the steps to insert it again.

To save your signature for reuse in future documents, highlight the signature graphic, and then choose insert AutoText-New. Here a new Create Auto Text dialog box will appear. Name your signature and click ok.

Now just type the name the file of your signature and press Enter to insert your signature in the future or choose insert AutoText-Normal then click on signature name. There is no need of ink, Word jump down in your digital signature.