To remove Yahoo! toolbar, follow this steps:

1. Click the Tools menu in Firefox browser;

2. Choose Add-ons from drop down menu;

3. In extensions tab find and select Yahoo! toolbar.

4. Press Uninstall.

5. Press Uninstall again when you will be prompted.

6. Restart Firefox to apply  

Among a host of power management options available in Windows 7, sleep mode is a convenient way to save power and reduce wear and tear on your computer’s hardware while it isn’t being used. Unfortunately, your mouse is set by default to wake up Windows 7 from sleep mode.

This can be a problem for some people with a sensitive mouse because one slight tap or vibration of the mouse and Windows 7 wakes up from sleep mode. Luckily, you can disable the mouse from waking Windows 7 up.
What is Sleep Mode?

Windows 7 Sleep Mode is a convenient power-saving state that allows you to quickly resume working with your computer, usually within just a few seconds of bringing your computer out of sleep mode.

Unlike turning on your computer with a cold boot, sleep mode remembers all of the programs that were running and the information in memory when you activated sleep mode. To switch from sleep mode to normal mode, you can simply press a key on your keyboard, click a mouse button, or move the mouse a short distance.

The problem with moving your mouse to exit sleep mode is that some mice are extremely sensitive and wake Windows 7 out of sleep mode at the slightest tap or vibration of the computer desk or table. Disabling the ability to exit sleep mode with the mouse eliminates this problem of unintentionally ending this power-saving mode.
Disable Mouse Sleep Mode Wake Up

To disable mouse sleep mode wake ups, begin by clicking on Start>Control Panel>Mouse.

In the Mouse Properties window, click on the Hardware tab and select your mouse from the list of devices. Normally, there will only be one mouse listed here but that will depend on the hardware you have connected to your computer. When you have selected your mouse from the list, click the Properties button.

In the Properties window for your mouse, click on the Change Settings button on the General tab.

In the window that opens, click the Power Management tab and uncheck the option titled Allow This Device to Wake The Computer. Click the OK button on this window and click the OK button on the Mouse Properties windows that is still open. From now on, you cannot wake up Windows 7 from sleep mode by clicking a mouse button or moving the mouse around.

Some computer mice that have high DPI and polling rates are often too sensitive to allow them to wake Windows 7 up from sleep mode. This is especially true of high-end optical and laser mice. By turning this feature off in the mouse properties window, you can avoid the accidental wake up from sleep mode and save more power.

If Sleep Mode is giving you other problems, check out these articles on disabling sleep mode and troubleshooting Windows 7 when the operating system won’t enter into sleep mode at all.

So you just received an email with an attachment that someone sent you, but the extension on the file is .DAT. What exactly is a .DAT file and how to you open .DAT files? Those are two questions I’m going to try to answer as this is an issue that I’ve seen many times in my IT career!

The first thing to understand about .DAT files is that it indicates a file that has arbitrary data. That means it’s not associated with any one particular program or application. When you see a file with a .XLS extension, you know it’s referring to an Excel file, and so on. But with .DAT files, you have to figure out how to open it yourself and it may not be the same program each time.

The best way to open a .DAT file is to use the program that created it. However, if you’re not sure, you can always try Notepad. Now when you open it in Notepad, you may be able to recognize some of the data, but the rest will most likely be junk spewed out by the program that created it.

You’ll normally only see this file format when receiving emails with attachments. Most common programs today do not generate .DAT files and only computer programmers use these files on any kind of regular basis.

So your first step would be to ask the person who sent you the email if they know which program was used to create the file. Now if they tell you that they actually sent a picture or a document and they are not sure why it’s a .DAT file, it could be that the file extension was changed in the process of having the email routed to you.

For some strange reason, some email programs automatically change the file extension on email attachments to .DAT. So if the person sent you a picture and now it’s a .DAT file, you first need to save it to your computer and then change the file extension to JPG or GIF or PNG or whatever you think it’s supposed to be. If they sent you a Word document, change it to .DOC, etc.

You can change the file extension on a file by first going to My Computer, clicking on Tools and then Folder Options.

Next click on the View tab and then scroll down to the option “Hide extensions for known file types” and UNCHECK it. In this way, we’ll now be able to see the file extension and change it to something else.

Now simply right-click on the .DAT file and change the file extension after the dot to the desired file format.

You should also see the icon representing the file change to the appropriate program use to open that file type, i.e. Excel in the above picture.

So what do you do if you’re not sure which program it came from or what the original file extension was supposed to be? You can also try right-clicking on the file and then choosing Open With and try different programs. For example, I changed one of my Excel files to a .DAT extension and then right-clicked on it to open it with Excel and it worked!

Now I just chose Microsoft Excel from the list and Excel was able to read the file since the data was written by Excel, it just had a wrong file extension.

You can also try other programs like Windows Media Player since it will open it if it happens to be a video, MP3, or similar media format. So hopefully you are now able to open your mysterious .DAT file using one of the above mentioned methods! If not, post a comment and I will try to help! Enjoy!

Compared to older displays, LCD monitors are an excellent low cost, low power consumption solution to our need for a computer’s display. Unfortunately, some monitor settings can make an LCD screen appear to flicker.

A flickering LCD monitor is more than just an annoyance. It can cause eye strain, headaches, and a host of other ailments, especially if you spend a great deal of time in front of your computer. Luckily, there is something you can do to stop the flickering and avoid these problems. Learn how to stop your LCD monitor from flickering in Windows 7.
What Causes an LCD Monitor to Flicker

Although your computer’s monitor may appear to be just sitting there even when no one is using it, your LCD monitor is constantly updating to make it appear that there is motion. Much like a film strip is just a bunch of static images, your monitor updates at a fast rate to make it look like things are moving on the screen.

The rate at which your monitor updates is measured in Hertz. One Hertz is equal to one cycle per second. If you monitor is set to update at a rate of 100 Hertz, then it is refreshing 100 times per second. The Hertz used to measure monitor refresh rates is similar to the Gigahertz used to measure the speed of your computer’s processor except that Gigahertz is a measure expressed in a billion cycles per second.

If the refresh rate on your LCD monitor is set too low, it can appear to be flickering since there are too few updates per second. While some people are comfortable with around 60 Hertz, others can see the flickering and require a higher refresh rate.
Setting the Refresh Rate for an LCD Monitor in Windows 7

The rates at which you can set your LCD monitor to refresh is largely determined by the capabilities of your monitor. While some LCD monitors can take advantage of several different refresh rates, others are confined to just one or two.

To choose a new refresh rate for your LCD monitor in Windows 7, begin by clicking on Start>Control Panel>Appearance and Personalization>Display.

On the left hand side of the window, click on Change Display Settings.

Finally, click on Advanced Settings.

Click on the Monitor tab and you will notice a few things. First, notice the setting labeled Screen Refresh Rate. This is your LCD monitor’s current refresh rate. Click the drop down menu and Windows 7 will display all of the refresh rates of which your monitor can take advantage.

It is possible that your monitor can only use one or two refresh rates so this list may not be long. Some manufacturers build monitors that can display from 40 Hertz to 200 Hertz. It all depends on who made your LCD monitor.

From here, you can try a higher refresh rate and see if the flickering stops. Usually this does the trick. If it doesn’t work or there is only one refresh rate listed, there are two things you can do.

First, make sure you are using the latest driver for your LCD monitor. If the driver is outdated or Windows 7 is using a generic driver, the number of refresh rates available to you may be limited. Visit the manufacturer’s website and download the latest driver for Windows 7.

If that doesn’t work, you can force Windows 7 to use a refresh rate that is not technically supported by the monitor. Be careful, though, because it is possible to damage the monitor permanently by doing this.

On the Monitor tab discussed above, you may have noticed that there is an option that is checked by default titled Hide Modes That This Monitor Cannot Display. By unchecking this option, you can force Windows 7 to use any refresh rate for your monitor that you want.

Notice that right underneath this option, Windows 7 warns you about an unusable or damaged display. Uncheck this option and set your monitor to an unsupported refresh rate at your own risk.

Placing date and time stamps into Excel is easy enough but sometimes you need to know the number of days, months, or years between two different dates. Researchers often do this to figure out how old a research subject was at a given point in time and financial calculations often involve analyzing money from different points in time.

Learn how to subtract dates in Excel to figure out the number of days, months, or years between two dates in your worksheet.
Number of Days

The most basic application for subtracting dates in Excel is when you need to know how many days there are between the two dates. Suppose you have two dates in Excel and you want to use the number for days between them in another calculation. In such a situation, you may have a worksheet that looks like this:

Suppose in cell A4 you want to calculate the number of days between these two dates. To do this, simply make the calculation as you would any other:

=B2-B1

This formula returns a value of 812 days between these two dates.

One problem you may run into when subtracting dates is if the first date in the formula occurs after the second date. In this case, Excel would return a negative number. If you only want to know the number of days between two dates without regard for which date is entered into the equation first, you can use Excel’s ABS (absolute value) function to subtract the two dates.

Number of Months

Calculating the number month between two dates in Excel is useful when you are figuring out loan, mortgage, or other annuity payments. However, subtracting dates to get months in Excel is a bit trickier and rarely returns the result you expected. This is because Excel can only calculate the number of months between two dates within the same year. Excel will ignore the year in a date and simply subtract the month portion of the date.

To calculate the number of months between two dates, you need to use a built in Excel function specifically designed for this purpose. The formula to do this looks like this:

=month(b2)-month(b1)

Notice that although there are clearly more than three months between the two dates in our example, Excel still returns a value of three.

So, this method of finding the number of months between two dates is only useful if the two dates are within the same year. Although this may seem limited, it is actually quite useful for calculating a variety of financial figures such as dynamically calculating an APY from a partial-year APR.

Like the example above, you can also use the ABS function here to disregard whether the first date is later than the second is and vice versa.
Number of Years

Although similar to the months example above, calculating the number of years is far more useful because you aren’t stuck with only calculating within the same year. Using a similar syntax for the formula, you can easily calculate the number of years between two dates. To calculate the number of years between the two dates above, use the following formula:

=year(b2)-year(b1)

For our example, Excel returns a value of two. Again, you can use the ABS function here to avoid determining which date is later than the other.

Notice that Excel made the calculation using only the year part of each date. It took into account neither the month nor day of either date. This is a problem, for example, if you wanted to calculate the difference between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2010.

Although there are 364 days between these dates, Excel will still return a value of zero if you calculate the difference in years using the procedure above.

Although the results may not be what you expected, it is possible to subtract two cells in Excel and figure out the number of days, months, and years between two dates. Just be careful that you know about the quirks described above so you don’t unknowingly end up with incorrect data in your worksheet.

1. Click Start > Click Control Panel.

2. Double-click Network and Internet

3. Click Network and Sharing Center

4. In the left-hand column of the Network and Sharing window, select Change adapter settings

5. The following change only needs to be made if there is more than one network connection listed. For each network connection listed, right-click the connection and click Properties

6. If you see the User Account Control dialog box at any point during the configuration process, click Continue.

7. Click the Sharing tab. Under the Internet Connection Sharing, make sure that the checkbox in front of Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection is NOT checked, as shown in the following graphic:

8. Click OK to save the setting

9. Close the Control Panel window.

Do you like to monitor your system but do not want a complicated app to do it with? If you love simplicity and easy configuration then join us as we look at Desktop Info.

Desktop Info in Action

Desktop Info comes in a zip file format so you will need to unzip the app, place it into an appropriate “Program Files Folder”, and create a shortcut. Do NOT delete the “Read Me File”…this will be extremely useful to you when you make changes to the “Configuration File”. Once you have everything set up you are ready to start Desktop Info up.

This is the default layout and set of listings displayed when you start Desktop Info up for the first time. The font colors will be a mix of colors as seen here and the font size will perhaps be a bit small but those are very easy to change if desired.

You can access the “Context Menu” directly over the “information area”…so no need to look for it in the “System Tray”. Notice that you can easily access that important “Read Me File” from here…

The full contents of the configuration file (.ini file) are displayed here so that you can see exactly what kind of information can be displayed using the default listings. The first section is “Options”…you will most likely want to increase the font size while you are here.

Then “Items”… If you are unhappy with any of the font colors in the “information area” this is where you can make the changes. You can turn information display items on or off here.

And finally “Files, Registry, & Event Logs”.

Here is our displayed information after a few tweaks in the configuration file. Very nice.

Conclusion

If you have been looking for a system information app that is simple and easy to set up then you should definitely give Desktop Info a try.

Links: http://www.glenn.delahoy.com/software/

Like any other file on your computer, Microsoft Word documents can get corrupted. Sometimes the damage manifests in obvious ways, like with formatting issues. A corrupt Word document can cause application crashes, system hangs, and many other annoyances that hamper your productivity.

Every new Microsoft Word release introduces new types of file corruption, and can also cause new and different types of problems. There are a few techniques that you can use to repair damaged Word documents, or damaged areas in Word documents, that are quick and easy. None of these fixes work 100% of the time, but these techniques have been proven time and time again.
Document Crashes Repeatedly

This is one of the worst types of document corruption, but it is also one of the most common. You open a document and you’re working in it for a while, and then Word suddenly comes to a halt and shuts down. You re-open the document, and a few minutes later the same thing happens.

Once you’ve determined that the problem is limited to one document and not a larger system or Microsoft Word problem, you can easily fix IT. Open a new blank document, and then open the damaged document. Copy the entire contents of the damaged document and paste it into the new blank document.

Save the new document with a new name in another place (as a precaution incase the problem involves where you were saving the original file). Make sure that the new file has all of the formatting and elements (pictures, tables, etc.) that appeared in the original.

Once you have confirmed that the new copy of the document contains the full contents and formatting of the original document, you can continue working from the new document. This will fix a lot of corrupt documents, but if the problem is linked to a corrupt element in the document (picture, embedded Microsoft Office file, etc.), it is possible that the crashes and application halts will continue.

If that is the case, try removing some of the larger elements from the document and see if it fixes the issue.
Formatting Will Not Change

If you have a document that is heavily formatted, you may encounter issues removing or replacing existing formatting. This frequently happens in Office 2003 and Office 2007 Word documents that have a lot of styles.

We’ve personally experienced this particular issue extensively when editing documents. If you remove a few lines from a document that are formatted in a particular way (e.g., a bulleted list), sometimes the next line will either take the formatting of the lines you removed, or will refuse to take the formatting of the line you removed.

Another good example of this is when you use a Header 1 style to start a chapter after a page break, but after you move items around in the document, the chapter number in the Header 1 style disappears. We’ve all encountered issues like this, and most of us use a trial and error strategy to fix it. Here are some things you should try first.

1. Remove the formatting using Clear All from the Styles sidebar menu.

2. Remove the text that is giving problems (CTRL+X) and paste it back into the document as plain text. Try reformatting it after you do this.

3 . Insert a blank page in the document close to the area that has formatting issues, and move all of the text and document elements to the new blank page. Delete the page that was having formatting issues.

These techniques will not fix every instance of formatting problems, but they will help. If you see this happening throughout your document, consider copying the contents of the document to a new blank document.

Windows 7 or Vista automatically configures Disk Defrag to schedule defragment to run once a week, usually at 1am on Wednesday. I don’t know about you, but I’m usually awake at 1am on wednesday, and I’d rather schedule it for a different time.

To open up the defragment utility, just type defrag into the Start menu search box, and hit enter. Vista users will have to click through a UAC prompt, but you should see this screen:

Windows 7 users will see a very similar dialog, and will need to click the Configure Schedule button:

From this screen, you can disable automatic defrag by unchecking the box. You can also modify the schedule by clicking the Modify schedule button (no surprise there)

Much better.. Not like I’m ever awake at 8am.

If you are on Vista and using at least Service Pack 1, you can also select which volumes will be automatically defragmented during this scheduled defrag. (Windows 7 users can select the volumes from the start screen).

I only have one drive in this computer, but you would see the list of all the drives here.

Finding a way to easily access recently used files, folders, and websites could be annoying in previous versions of Windows. Today we take a look at the new Jump List feature in Windows 7 that allows you to quickly access recently used items.

Using Jump lists

To access jump lists Right-click a program icon on the Taskbar, like in this example of Internet Explorer. Notice too that you can pin those items to the Taskbar if you wish.

When you have the jump list open click the first letter of an item to jump between them.

Here is an example of the Jump List feature in the Start Menu. This makes it easy to access recently opened items as well.

Periodically you might want to clear out the jump list history, to do this Right-click on Start and choose Properties.

Now under the Start Menu tab uncheck one or both boxes under Privacy to clear the Taskbar or Start menu item history or both.

This is an awesome new feature in Windows 7 that makes navigating items a lot faster.