THE RIGHT ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

A reader writes: “My Norton anti-virus is coming up for renewal and  I’m thinking of trying to go for free with Avast anti-virus. Is that what you guys use and, if so, are you reasonably happy with it?” We’re not surprised that he thought we were using Avast,  because our last two mentions were positive. Avast won PC Magazine’s “Editor’s Choice” award in the freebie category. Techlicious recommends its cell phone app. But one of our readers said he got overcharged by Avast tech support. And our favorite tech guru said: “I have heard about this. Avast is outsourcing their tech support to scammers! Someone told me that they followed the support links from Avast only to get a scammer […]

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BALANCING YOUR CHECKBOOK ON THE COMPUTER

A reader told us his disability is making it tough to balance his checkbook with pen and paper, and he is unhappy with software like Quicken. Here’s an easy way to do it using a free program.

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GETTING A NEW WINDOWS 8 COMPUTER

Just when we thought we’d heard every complaint about Windows 8 computers, we heard a new one. A friend wondered where in the world she should save her files, because now she sees two choices: “Skydrive,” and “This PC.”

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EXCEL TIPS HELPED HIM KEEP HIS JOB

Udemy.com/blog/excel-formulas/ includes spreadsheet tips, like: “10 Excel Formulas that Helped Me Keep My Job.”

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BACK TO THE GOOD OLD DAYS

Microsoft Office just came out in a new version for 2013. But some of us (Joy’s looking at you, Bob) haven’t upgraded Microsoft Word since 2003. This can be a problem when Joy sends Bob a file created in a newer version.

If Joy forgets to save a Word document in the “Doc” f

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NEW MICROSOFT OFFICE

Previewing the new Microsoft Office 2013 is a blast. It’s totally unlike our experience trying to preview Windows 8, which crashed our test computer every few minutes. Office 2013 Preview is a free download from Microsoft.com/Office/Preview. The preview leaves your existing copy of Office in place, so there’s no risk of overwriting it. Unfortunately, 55 percent of Windows users won’t be able to try it, since it doesn’t run on the still widely used XP or Vista operating systems. But here’s our take for the Windows 7 users: While the Office 2013 preview is installing on your machine or tablet, you can experiment with a PowerPoint presentation that comes up automatically to tell you about the new features. You can […]

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BOOKS: EXCEL FORMULAS & FUNCTIONS

“Microsoft Excel 2010 Formulas and Functions, Inside Out,” $60, Microsoft Press.

There are more than 350 functions built into the Excel spreadsheet, and several experts have gotten together here to explain how to use them. Spreadsheets were originally written for accounting but they quickly expanded to enable users to do statistical analysis and probabilities. Their primary use remains the “What-if?” scenario. What if we changed some things like price, size, availability, etc. How would the business change? The answers usually come back in seconds. Believe it or not, experienced spreadsheet users say they’re fun.

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TIPS AND TRICKS FOR EXCEL AND WORD

One of our techie friends gave us a tip on how to load Excel files faster. Previously, she said she’s had delays of 30-60 seconds when opening Excel files in Windows 2007. “Now it’s like 20 times faster.” For the fix, go to martin.von-gagern.net

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USING MICROSOFT OFFICE ON FACEBOOK

You can share Word docs, Excel spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations on Facebook.

(CLICK UNDERLINE BELOW HEADING FOR MORE.)

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NEARLY WORD PERFECT

New version of Corel WordPerfect includes PDF editor and file organizer.

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