Category: Software

  • Farewell Bear, hello … OneNote?

    In December of 2016, I discovered Bear Writer. At the time, I had been using a number of different solutions for note-taking and organisation, none of which had really done the trick for me. That all changed with Bear. Arriving to critical acclaim, Bear is certainly a very pretty app, and its iCloud sync feature has served me well enough. There has just been one issue; it is only available on Apple devices.

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  • Outlook: Not all folders are synced

    Shared email boxes are a useful tool for departments needing to have a single point of contact, but whose needs do not extend so far as to need a CRM or ticket management tool. I’ve talked before about how to add them to Outlook, in which I noted that I usually uncheck the box for downloading shared folders to avoid downloading what tends to be a huge mail box, which will lock up Outlook. Another reason to do so, is that a locally cached mail box often does not display all mails and folders, a complaing I see from time to time. It has been my experience that most users leave the settings in their default state, so today, I thought I’d tell you how to disable that retroactively: (more…)

  • Adding a shared mailbox in Outlook

    A not infrequent question at work, is how to add a second mailbox in Outlook. Here’s how: (more…)

  • Word: “Track changes” shows up as “Author” instead of author name

    A user called in, reporting that Word’s Track changes-function tagged her as “Author”, instead of her name. I opened a remote session, and started out by confirming that everything else was working correctly, and that her name had been set as the author in the settings for Microsoft Word. Stalling for time while I researched the issue, I found that it seemed to be a problem affecting particular documents. Knowing this set me on the path to the solution, as follows:

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  • Excel freezes on 10 MB file

    A few months ago, I had a user call in complaining that Excel would freeze and become completely unresponsive when she was working in a specific workbook. It was fairly large (10MB), but well within what the computer should have been able to handle. I opened a remote session to the computer, and started troubleshooting. My first step, as always in these cases, was to look at the event logs, which showed no relevant entries. Next, I inspected one of the files in question.

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  • OneNote keeps asking for a password to sync with OneDrive

    One of the tools I use in my studies, is OneNote. I find it does a good job of being a place to sort my study notes, and offers the benefit of search, which lets me easily find what I’m looking for. While there are certainly other tools out there that could offer much the same benefit (EverNote comes to mind), I’ve already got OneNote installed as part of the Office suite, so it made sense to use it.

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  • Excel: Quickly remove blank cells

    From time to time, Excel worksheets fill up with blank cells interspersed among the content. While the judicious use of whitespace can be useful, it may also make reading the worksheet somewhat challenging. Luckily, Excel has a tool to help us get rid of the blank cells. Here’s how: (more…)

  • Reviewed: GoPro Studio

    Recently, I’ve covered how to use GoPro Studio; first the basics, and next how to add a bit of flair to your video. In writing those posts, I’ve also thought quite a bit about what I like about GoPro studio, as well as what I don’t like. Here are my thoughts.

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  • GoPro Studio: Adding some flair to your videos

    Two weeks ago, I showed you the basics of working in GoPro Studio. This week, I want to show you a couple of techniques that I use to add some flair to my videos.

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  • GoPro Studio: Video editing basics

    Action cams are made – more or less literally – to create content for streaming video services, such as YouTube or Vimeo, and while you could certainly just upload your raw footage straight to such services, a better option is very likely to be to edit them before you do so. For the time being, my needs are very simple, and I am able to get what I want done using just GoPro Studio, GoPro’s free video editing suite.

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  • Outlook: Meeting invitations added to other mailboxes

    A while back, I had a user call in, telling me that all meeting invitations she received for some reason also showed up in the inboxes of a couple of shared mailboxes. I logged in to her computer remotely, and started poking about. I tried a number of fixes, including deleting her profile and recreating it, at which point i stumbled across a reference to delegates.

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