Washington - More people are using Microsoft's Office 2007. But unless you have that office suite, you won't be able to view files created with it. However, you can download the free viewers for various office applications from Microsoft. The individual viewers for Word, Excel, or PowerPoint are at http://www.microsoft. com/downloads. --------
Washington - Your Vista computer may not be able to fix its own problems, but at least it can diagnose them. Vista can run a complete diagnostic test and present a report that highlights any system problems. In the Control Panel, click System and Maintenance, Performance Information and Tools. Then, in the Tasks list along the left, click "Advanced tools." The last item on the resulting list is "Generate a system health report."
--------
Washington - Suffering from e-mail overload in Outlook? Run the Rules Wizard to identify a type of message that, in the future, you'd rather see in a different folder. Right-click the message in your inbox for which you'd like to create a rule, and click Create Rule from the resulting pop-up menu. Specify how you'd like that type of message treated in the future.
-------- Washington - With Microsoft Word, you can get two views of the same document without opening the document twice. From the Window menu, select Split. In Word 2007, click View and then click the Split button. Splitting a screen allows you to view and work on two different areas of the same document at the same time. You might, for instance, create a link to one part of a document and then in the split view create an anchor for that link. --------
Washington - Vista has special power-saving features for notebook users. The operating system can automatically reduce the brightness of the screen when a notebook is running on battery. Go to Control Panel, Power options, Advanced Settings, Display, and set the brightness to 50 per cent. This can result in up to an extra half an hour of battery life per charge.
