Window 8 Tips, How to Customize the Windows 8 Start Screen

Posted on October 27, 2012 by admin| Leave a comment

In our last-but-one post we talked about how to cheaply and rapidly install Microsoft Windows 8 (how to upgrade to Windows 8). In the next few posts I’m going to talk about how to make Windows 8 more usable in a work environment.

The first thing you’ll notice about Windows 8 is the start screen. This is what you have instead of the nice discrete Start menu from earlier Windows versions.

Microsoft Windows 8 Start Screen

I don’t want news stories popping up on my work PC. Life is already too distracting! So, I’m going to personalize and clean up my Windows 8 Start screen.

  • The first thing I want to do is remove or “unpin” some tiles.
  • I want to get rid of all the ones that flash unnecessary info at me.
  • I position my mouse over the tile I want to remove and right click. A menu appears at the base of the screen. I click on “Unpin from Start”.Customizing the Windows 8 Start Screen
  • I unpin all the unnecessary tiles to leave me with a cleaner start screen.
  • This doesn’t uninstall the applications, but it does take them off my start screen.

Now I have a smaller number of tiles on my Start screen but I want to arrange them better. I just click on a tile and drag it where I want. If you hit “Enter” on the Start Screen then Windows 8 will execute the top left hand tile. I want this to be the desktop because I’ll go there most frequently, so I drag the desktop tile to the top left position.

Nearly empty Windows 8 start screen

Now I want to add some of my commonly used applications to the Start screen so I can launch them quickly like I used to do with the start menu.

  • In the Start Screen I right click with my mouse.
  • A menu appears across the bottom of the screen. In the far right corner it says “All apps”.

Find all your applications from Windows 8 Start screen

  • Clicking on “All apps” shows me all my installed applications.
  • I mouse over the application I want to add to my Start screen and right click.
  • A menu appears at the base of the screen. I click “Pin to Start”

Add new applications to the Windows 8 Start screen

Now I have a clean Start screen and I can easily move to the desktop by hitting “Enter” or by clicking on any of my commonly used application tiles, which launch the application on my desktop. I can get back to the start screen by hitting the Windows key or mousing over the bottom left of the screen and clicking on the start screen thumbnail that appears (see How to get back to the Start screen in Windows 8). Not bad for now.

My Custom Windows 8 Start Screen

At Qlockwork we’re Outlook and Windows developers with a keen interest in office productivity and usability. To find out more about how you use your time on your PC, try the Qlockwork free trial. Qlockwork automatically tracks how you spend your PC time.

 

Posted in Microsoft, Software, time tracking, Windows 8

Windows 8 Tips, How to Get Back to the Start Screen

Posted on October 27, 2012 by admin| Leave a comment

After spending several fruitless minutes trying to get back from an application to the start screen in Windows 8. Here are 2 things that seem to work:

  1. In any view, hover your mouse over the very bottom left of screen (where the start menu used to be). A thumbnail of the start screen will appear. Click on it and you return to the start screen.
  2. Press the Windows key on your keyboard (The key with the wobbly Windows icon). That also seems to return you to the Start screen.

If you are interested in tracking how much time you spend in Windows applications, try our Qlockwork time tracking add-in for Outlook.

 

Posted in time tracking, Windows 8

The Cheapest and Quickest Way to Buy and Install Windows 8

Posted on October 27, 2012 by admin| Leave a comment

Microsoft Windows 8 is now out! Let’s buy it and  install it as cheaply as possible on an old PC.

Microsoft Windows 8 Start Screen

According to Microsoft we can upgrade an old XP, Vista or Window 7 PC to Windows 8 Pro for $39.99 (or $69.99 if we want the CDs) plus sales tax.

I’m going to skip the CDs and go for the cheapest and fastest option of $39.99 and download the software directly to my PC.

  • First thing to check is that my old PC is powerful enough to run Windows 8. According to Microsoft, the Windows 8 requirements are:
    • Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster with support for PAE, NX, and SSE2
    • RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB  (64-bit)
    • Hard disk space:  16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
    • Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver
  • These aren’t very tough requirements and our 3 year old XP PC meets them easily.
  • You can check the processor and RAM on your PC by going to Start->Control Panel->System

Windows System

  • You can check the graphics card by going to the PC’s Start menu and in the “Run” box entering “dxdiag” (without the quotes) then hitting OK. The System tab will tell you your DirectX Version.

dxdiag screen on Windows

  • If in doubt, you can always just try running the upgrader and see if it complains.
  • Before we start, if there is anything you care about or want to keep on your PC (files, photos etc..) BACK THEM UP NOW on a separate device.
  • My next step is to go to the Microsoft site Windows 8 buy page (Microsoft Windows 8 upgrade buy page).
  • I do this using IE on the PC I want to upgrade.
  • On the Microsoft purchase page, I click on the green button to Download Pro for $39.99

Download WIndows 8

  • I’m asked if I want to save or run the upgrader. I choose Run
  • I’m then asked if Microsoft has permission to do stuff on my PC, I say Yes.
  • Now the dark blue Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant runs for ages “Checking apps and devices”….
  • Eventually it gives me a list of all the applications that I have installed that are not compatible with Windows 8. I decide can live without these applications so I hit Next.
  • The next thing I am asked is what files I want to keep on my PC. I don’t care about keeping any files on this PC so I select “Nothing” and hit Next.
  • On the next screen I’m prompted to buy Windows 8 in my local currency (that’s £24.99 because I’m in the UK, plus Sales Tax or “VAT” in the UK). I click the Order button to buy.
  • I proceed through the checkout and choose the 2GB download without the DVD.
  • Once I’ve finished and bought the upgrade, Microsoft sends me an email with my product key and the upgrader starts downloading the new OS onto the PC I am upgrading. That’s going to take a while, so time for a coffee!
  • Once the download is complete, the uploader asks me if I want to install the OS now or later. I choose now.
  • I’m asked if I want to proceed with my settings (install now, save no files). I choose yes and the install continues. I’m warned this may take some time. Time to do something else for a while and come back.
  • After a couple of reboots I’m asked to choose a colour scheme and a name for the PC, I do so and click Next.
  • On the next screen I choose the “Express Settings” and click Next.
  • On the next screen I enter my email address and click Next.
  • On the next screen I enter a password for my Microsoft account (I already have a Microsoft account so I use that password) and hit Next.
  • On the next screen I enter my phone number for password recovery and hit Next.
  • After a few more minutes of churning away with no further questions it’s done! Windows 8 is installed successfully and quite painlessly.

Of course, Windows 8 doesn’t really feel like Windows and I hate the lack of a start menu. Next post will be about how to navigate around Windows 8 with no start menu to use…

At Qlockwork we are Outlook and Windows developers with a keen interest in productivity. If you want to find out how you spend you time at your PC why not give a free trial to Qlockwork, our time tracking software for Office and Outlook. Try it free for 10 days from our downloads page.

 

Posted in Business, small business, Windows 8

Microsoft Outlook 2010 Tips, How to Run a VBA Macro on New Emails

Posted on October 26, 2012 by admin| Leave a comment

VBA (or Visual Basic for Applications) is the easy programming language that all Microsoft Office applications provide so that you can add extra function into Office. It’s very useful.

To find out how to enable VBA, set your security settings correctly and create a simple Macro see Microsoft Outlook tips, how to enable vba and use macros in Outlook

Once you have created a Macro, it is easy to have it trigger when a specific new email arrives in your inbox using Outlook Rules. First you need to create a Macro that takes an email as an input. To do this:

Open the visual basic editor in Microsoft Outlook 2010

  • Now create a macro that takes a mailItem as a parameter. See ExampleMacro2 below. ExampleMacro2 is a simple macro that displays a popup message if an email is flagged as important

Example VBA macro for Microsoft Outlook 2010

You can create this by cutting and pasting the code below into  the Visual Basic Editor:

Sub ExampleMacro2(MyMail As MailItem)
On Error GoTo Qlockwork_err
    ‘ COMMENT: create a namespace, Outlook  almost always needs this
    Dim ns As NameSpace
    Set ns = GetNamespace(“MAPI”)

    ‘ COMMENT: Check if the supplied email is flagged as important
    If MyMail.Importance = olImportanceHigh Then
       ‘COMMENT: display a message box indicating email is important
       MsgBox “This is an important email!”
    End If

‘ COMMENT: Clean up after ourselves
Qlockwork_exit:
    Set ns = Nothing
    Exit Sub
‘ Handle errors
Qlockwork_err:
    MsgBox “An unexpected error has occurred.”
    Resume Qlockwork_exit
End Sub

  • Now save amd compile this macro (File->Save, then Debug->Compile)
  • Now we need to link this macro to an Outlook rule. Go to the Home Tab and Select Rules->Manage Rules and Alerts

Microsoft Outlook 2010 Manage Rules and Alerts

  • Select “New Rule”

Create new rule in Outlook

  • Select Blank Rule Applied for new messages I receive and hit next

Create a blank rule for newly received messages in Outlook

  • Choose your criteria for triggering the macro, for example messages from your boss or a colleague and hit next

Select rule criteria

  • Next, check the action “Run a script”. This is the action that links a rule with a VBA macro.

Associate a macro with a rule in Outlook 2010

  • In the “Step 2″ window click on “a script” to assign  the script and then pick your macro from the dropdown and hit OK

Choose the Macro to assign to a rule in Outlook 2010

  • Now set any exclusions (lets say none), assign a name and click finish and OK to save

Now your macro is linked to a rule. Try it and see, when you get a new email from whoever (your boss or your colleague) you should get a popup if it is marked as important.

Obviously, that isn’t particularly impressive because the ExampleMacro2 doesn’t do that much. In the next post we’ll look at creating more powerful macros to assign to rules.

At Qlockwork we are Outlook developers with a keen interest is making your PC time more productive. If you want to find out how much time you currently spend in Outlook, or any other application, then try the Qlockwork free trial from our downloads page. Qlockwork automatically works out exactly how you spend your time on your PC.

 

Posted in Office 2010, Outlook 2010, Software

Microsoft Outlook 2010 Tips, How to Enable the Developer Tab and Use VBA and Macros

Posted on October 26, 2012 by admin| Leave a comment

VBA (or Visual Basic for Applications) is the easy programming language that all Microsoft Office applications provide so that you can add extra function into Office. It’s very useful.

Before you can use VBA, you need to tell Outlook you want to do so. You do that by enabling the Developer Tab. In Outlook 2010  you can enable the developer tab very easily as follows:

  • On the File tab, choose Options to open the Outlook Options dialog box.

select options for Microsoft Outlook 2010

  • Click Customize Ribbon on the left side of the dialog box.

Customize the ribbon on Microsoft Outlook 2010

  • Under Choose commands from on the left side of the dialog box,
    select Popular Commands.
  • Under Customize the ribbon on the right side of the dialog box, select Main tabs, and then select the Developer check box.

Enable the developer tab on Microsoft Outlook 2010

  • Click OK.

You should now see the developer tab on the main Outlook 2010 ribbon:

Developer tab in Microsoft Outlook 2010

Once you have the Developer tab in Outlook 2010, you can start creating macros. Macros are little bits of code that you can write to do some pretty sophisticated stuff in Outlook. To create a Macro, click on Macros on the Developer Tab

Create a VBA Macro in Microsoft Outlook 2010

Now enter a macro name and press “Create”

Example Macro Outlook 2010

You can create macros to do loads of things. The macro below will just say “hello world”

Basic Outlook 2010 Macro - Hello World

 

Here’s the code you can cut n paste in:

Sub ExampleMacro()
On Error GoTo Qlockwork_err
    ‘ COMMENT: create a namespace, Outlook usually needs this
    Dim ns As NameSpace
    Set ns = GetNamespace(“MAPI”)

    ‘ COMMENT: Say Hi
    MsgBox “Hello world!”

‘ COMMENT: Clean up after ourselves
Qlockwork_exit:
    Set ns = Nothing
    Exit Sub
‘ Handle errors
Qlockwork_err:
    MsgBox “An unexpected error has occurred.”
    Resume Qlockwork_exit
End Sub

Once you have created your macro, save it using the save button then click Debug->Compile Project to compile it (basically get it ready to run)

How to compile an outlook 2010 VBA macro

Then you can test it by choosing run->run:

Run a macro in Outlook 2010 to test it

At this point you’ll probably see a security error. You have 2 choices:

  • you can digitally sign the macro (Tools->Digital Signature) if you have a code signing certificate
  • alternatively, just go to Macro Security on the Developer Tab:

View Outlook 2010 Macro Security Settings

  • then set the security to “Notify” on all macros (from notify on all signed macros) click OK and restart Outlook.

Change macro security settings on Outlook 2010

  • Don’t forget to restart Outlook after doing this.

This simple macro is not very useful in itself but it shows you the basic operations of a macro. For more on macros see Outlook 2010 tips, how to run a simple macro on all new emails

At Qlockwork, Outlook development is what we do, so we are big fans. We are also big fans of automating things you do every day and saving time. Tasks you do all the time in Outlook really add up over the years. If you can write macros to do stuff for you, they’ll make you much more efficient!

If you want to find out how much time you currently spend in Outlook or any other Windows application then try the Qlockwork free trial from our Downloads page. Qlockwork automatically works out exactly how you spend your time on your PC.

 

 

Posted in Business, Office 2010, Outlook 2010, Productivity, Software, Software Development, time tracking

Cheapest way to get Windows 8

Posted on October 16, 2012 by admin| Leave a comment

Newsflash 27/Oct/12 – we now have full instructions for installing Windows 8 for $39.99 here: upgrade to Windows 8. We’ve just done it and it was pretty straightforward. It took about 2 hours to upgrade a single PC and although the PC is old and was running Windows XP before, the performance  running with Windows 8 seems very good so far.

Note – there is an interesting article on ZDNet this week on the various options for upgrading to Windows 8 on an existing PC: http://www.zdnet.com/what-are-the-cheapest-and-easiest-upgrade-paths-to-windows-8-7000005702/?s_cid=e539

We intend to stick with Windows 7 here for our main PCs, it being a very stable and usable Windows OS (certainly the best since XP). However, we’ll obviously be upgrading some of our test machines, so the XP upgrade in particular should be very useful.

We also have a general interest in PC productivity and we’ll certainly be tracking how much time we spend doing tasks in Windows 8 vs Windows 7 with Qlockwork.

Posted in Microsoft, Windows 8

Google provide small business ad credit in UK

Posted on October 9, 2012 by admin| Leave a comment

Google have announced the availability of a Google credit card, backed by Barclays, for small businesses in the UK:  http://www.google.co.uk/adwords/businesscredit/

A very interesting model. The credit card can only be used for Google adword purchasing and the interest is 11.9%. If you can get your online sales cycle short enough this could be very attractive indeed. The interest free period on purchases is max 56 days if you pay your balance off in full each month.

The cards have been in trial in the US since last year. Incidentally, in the US the interest rate will be considerably lower at 8.99% – quite a difference!

 

Posted in Business, small business

Safe Employee Monitoring

Posted on October 2, 2012 by admin| Leave a comment

A very interesting article in the Occupational Digest of the British Psychology Society this month about the potential dangers of monitoring your staff: http://bps-occupational-digest.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/monitoring-self-managing-employees-may.html

At Qlockwork, being in the time tracking business we are incredibly interested in this work and it doesn’t surprise us at all. If you are going to monitor your staff in any way you need to be very careful about it. That’s why we designed Qlockwork so that employees have control over what gets monitored and when. Employees can turn monitoring off and can review and control what will get reported about their time. Qlockwork is designed to make an employee’s life easier (who likes filling in timesheets?) Not feel mistrusted. Fundamentally, you do need your staff on your side.

Posted in Business, Productivity, Psychology, Qlockwork, time management, time tracking

Which is better, Windows 7 or Windows 8?

Posted on September 28, 2012 by admin| Leave a comment

A survey run by http://www.forumswindows8.com/ indicates that on the forum, which targets power Windows 8 users, the majority prefer Windows 7. Basically, in their survey: for 50% of users Windows 7 was their favourite MS OS, 25% liked XP and 25% Windows 8. Pretty much no one liked Vista, which is not a huge surprise. Their main concern about Window 8 was the price.

Posted in small business, Windows 8

What is Outlook 2013 Like?

Posted on September 25, 2012 by admin| Leave a comment

Well, from the previews so far Outlook 2013 seems quite like Outlook 2010, which is no bad thing. No major retraining exercise should be required. The real changes in Office 2013 seem to be around how it is delivered (ideally in the cloud) and where you might view it - it’s been optimized for tablets in much the same way Windows 8 has.

I have a tablet (an iPad) and don’t get me wrong – I love it! But I don’t use it for work. Fundamentally, if I have a load of typing to do I use my laptop or my desktop PC. Am I alone in that? Has typing gone the way of the dinosaur?

Posted in time tracking