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Getting Along With Your Computer Column Archive

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Readers' Tips
By Cate Eales
Appeared January 17, 2008 on castanet.net

I love it when you folks send in suggestions. Please send more! I have a couple to pass along to you this week, along with a few things I thought you might like. Enjoy!

Uninstall a program in Vista
Several readers and clients asked, "Where in the heck is the Add/Remove Programs thing in Vista? And why did they move it? I just want things to be like they were in the last century!"

Hey, if I understood WHY Microsoft did most of the things they did in Vista, I'd be sipping umbrella drinks in a tropical climate instead of working for a living! But I can tell you where to find the "missing" Add/Remove Programs.

	Click on Start \| Control Panel \| Programs \| Programs and Features
	Select the program you want to uninstall
	Click Uninstall

Poof!

Space Cadet
Windows XP shipped with a great pinball game. Vista has some games, too, but not the XP pinball. Good news! You can easily bring the game over to your Vista machine.

	On any Windows XP computer, click Start \| My Computer
	Navigate to C:\Program Files\Windows NT
	Copy the folder called \Pinball to a USB drive, Vista computer's Public folder if the two computers are networked. (If all else fails, email it to yourself and collect it on the Vista machine's email.)
	On the Vista computer, move the \Pinball folder to C:\Program Files\Games
	Double-click the \Pinball folder and locate the file called pinball.exe
	Click Start \| Games
	Click and drag pinball.exe into the Games folder.

Now you can open your games folder and double-click on Pinball when you feel like a little Space Cadet.

Free calculator...with printable tape
Offset FreeCell is a basic calculator. It's similar to the one that comes built into Windows XP, but there are added features. The best one is a printable tape, so that when you're through calculating, you can see what you've done. Check it out here: http://www.moffsoft.com/freecalc.htm. This works for XP but not Vista.

Reinstall System Restore
Previous columns, for instance this one, have discussed System Restore. Reader "Nabco" recently had a problem with System Restore, and had to reinstall it on his XP machine. That's not really easy, but he pointed me to this site: . He adds:

"I encourage anyone using Windows XP to visit that page and print it out for future reference (3 pages), and note also there is a difference between how you do it on machines that have been upgraded to Win XP Service Pack 2 and those which have not and are still running on Service Pack 1. System Restore is one XP/Vista O/S program I would not want to have dysfunctional. Just thought I would share to save anyone who runs into the same problem a lot of time and frustration (as well as potential expense).

Thanks!

Cool iris
Thanks to "Rudy" for writing in about this one. He says:

"One of my favorite add ons is "cool iris". Hover your mouse over any link and it will pull up the site over the page you are on at about 1/2 the screen. Try it if you haven't used it."

Cool iris works with Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari. It's completely free, and free of spyware. You can get it here (Scroll to the bottom of the page.)

Thank you everyone who emailed with comments, questions, and suggestions. You guys keep me on track. Please email cate@rlis.com with more of the same. Remember, can always look over the column archives. Don't forget our special offer of a 10% discount through January 31, 2008. Just mention this column when you contact us.

If you'd like to subscribe to this column by email, please visit this link. It's easy, and free. If you'd prefer the RSS Feed, click here.

Links
Offset FreeCell http://www.moffsoft.com/freecalc.htm
System Restore http://rlis.com/columns/column113.htm
Cool iris Previews http://www.cooliris.com/
Getting Along With Your Computer Column Archives http://rlis.com/column.htm
Get Cate's column by email http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?Sub=20618
RSS Feed http://rlis.com/rlis.xml

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Cate Eales has been helping people make online computing safe, accessible and fun for over 20 years. She lives in Kelowna with her husband, Eric, and her dog, Sandy. Cate is a partner in Real Life Internet Solutions, helping individuals and small businesses with virus, spyware and malware eradication; personal computer training and management; digital image management; music transfer; and website design, hosting and management. Email Cate at cate@rlis.com with your comments, suggestions, or questions. To browse the column archives, visit the Real Life Internet Solutions website at www.rlis.com.

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