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If you've ever closed a Firefox tab but wish you hadn't, here's an easy way to bring it back:

1. Right-click on any open tab

2. Clilck "Undo Close Tab"

3. Repeat if necessary, to bring back the tab you're looking for.

And if you prefer keyboard shortcuts, you can also use the Ctrl + Shift + T key combination to bring back a closed tab.

If you find yourself often entering the same "boilerplate"
text, headers, footers, images, or formatting into a Word 2007 document, try using the Quick Part feature to create re-usable "building blocks".  Here's how:

1. In a Word 2007 document, use your mouse to select the text and/or images you want to re-use.

2. Click on the Insert tab. 

3. In the Text section,
click "Quick Parts".

4. Click "Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery".

5. In the box that opens, you can give this "building block" a unique name and description.

6. Click the OK button.

The next time you want to insert this chunk into a Word document, here's how to access your gallery of building blocks:

1. Click on your document where you want to insert the info.

2. Click the Insert tab again, and in the Text section, click "Quick Parts".

3. Click the thumbnail image of the building block, and the info will be inserted into your document.

More details on this topic are at this Microsoft Office Word page.

[via Kim Komando]

The Windows XP Quick Launch Toolbar is a small toolbar that sits next to the Start button. It holds the icons (which are actually shortcuts) for programs on your computer. Simply clicking on the program's icon starts the program, saving your time.

To add a program to the Quick Launch Toolbar, just drag the program's icon to the Quick Launch Toolbar.

If your computer's Windows XP quick launch toolbar isn't visible, follow these steps to display it:

1. Right-click on the Taskbar

2. Put your mouse over Toolbars

3. Click on Quick Launch

You can preview Outlook email messages without opening them by using the Reading Pane.

To control if you want the Reading Pane open, and where you want it to appear in Outlook...

1. On Outlook's menu bar, click "View"

2. Hover your mouse pointer over "Reading Pane"

3. Click on your preference.

Repeat for any additional folders for which you want to customize the Reading Pane.

More info on customizing Outlook 2007's Reading Pane can be found at this Microsoft Office Outlook page.

 

Choose from four templates, click the button to upload a picture from your computer, add some optional text, and it's ready to download & save!

This would be a fun way to post a profile picture on a social network or your blog.

Jenny Levine (The Shifted Librarian) asks that if you post your poster to Flickr, be sure to add it to the Read posters pool.

[via The Shifted Librarian]

In last month's Ides I talked about downloading Firefox 3 on Firefox 3 Download Day.  If you've done so, you might find the Field Guide to Firefox 3 useful. 

Here’s a list of the features covered; just click on each link to go right to that section of the Guide:

• Add-on manager
• Bookmarks
• Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
• Color profile support
• Download manager
• Font and text rendering
• Full page zoom
• History
• HTML Canvas
• Location bar UTF-8 support
• Malware protection
• Microformats API
• Offline web application support
• Password manager
• Performance improvements
• Phishing protection
• Plugins
• Site Identification button
• Smart Location Bar
• Tabs
• Themes
• Video and audio feeds
• Vista parental controls support
• Web application protocol handlers
• Conclusion

P.S.  Yep, Mozilla set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloads in 24 hours. With your help, they reached 8,002,530 downloads on Firefox 3 Download Day!

When you receive an email message that has information about a meeting or a training session, you can easily add it to your Outlook Calendar by simply dragging & dropping it.  From the view of the folder where the message is (most likely your Inbox), click on the little envelope icon, and drag it to the Calendar icon.

Outlook will create a new appointment for you -- you'll need to enter the time and date information, but the note field of the appointment form will contain the text of the email, which is convenient if the message contains details about the appointment, such as the address and travel directions, or link & login information for an online meeting.

You'll probably want to change the subject line of the appointment, so it shows up as something like "Selection Committee Meeting", instead of "Doodle poll to set the date of our next meeting".

An easy way to put common symbols into a Microsoft Word document is to let its AutoCorrect feature do it for you.

Here are some handy examples:

Type (c) to create this symbol: ©

Type (r) to create this symbol: ®

Type (tm) to create this symbol: ™ 

Type -> to create this symbol: →

Type <- to create this symbol: ←

Note: If text isn't replaced with a symbol, you may need to turn on Word's AutoCorrect
feature.  You can do that by following these steps:

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button (in the upper left-hand corner of the ribbon).
2. Click the "Word Options" button.
3. In the left-hand menu column, click "Proofing".
4. Under AutoCorrect options, click the "AutoCorrect Options" button, and then click the AutoCorrect tab.
5. Click the checkbox next to "Replace text as you type".
6. Click the "OK" buttons to exit out of the Options menu.

If you want to discontinue being reminded to clean off unused icons or shortcuts you've put on your Windows XP desktop, follow the easy steps at the How-To Geek's web site.

 

To make it easier for you to find tips in The Ides, I've begun tagging posts with keywords -- and you can use the blog's Tag Cloud to quickly go to tips about a topic.

You can also find the 10 most recent posts in the Recent Blog Posts block.

And as always, you can still find all the tips on the blog's 5 general subject areas (e-mail, internet, Windows, Office, and fun) by clicking on the tabs that are located above the Search box.