For example, I have a printer attached to my Windows 7 computer in my home office and I wanted to be able to print to it from my MacBook Pro running Lion. I thought it was going to take a long time, but luckily it didn’t! In this post, I’ll walk you through the steps to share a printer from Windows XP or Windows 7 to your Mac.

Note that the part about adding the printer to your Mac is the same regardless of whether it’s from Windows XP or Windows 7. The only difference is the way your share the printer in XP and 7.

Share Windows XP Printer

The first thing that needs to be done is the share the printer. In Windows XP, you can do this by going to Control Panel and clicking on Printers and Faxes.

Next, right-cick on the printer and choose Properties.

Finally, click on the Sharing tab and choose Share this printer.

It’s probably a good idea to keep the name of the printer short (less than 8 characters) and also not to include any spaces or special characters. Just keep it to letters and numbers. Click OK and you’re done. Now skip down to the adding printer to your Mac section for the rest of the instructions.

Share Windows 7 Printer

In Windows 7, the process of sharing a printer is slightly different. First, go to Control Panel and click on Devices and Printers.

Next, right-click on the printer and choose Printer Properties. In XP, you had to choose just Properties.

Finally, go to the Sharing tab and check Share this printer. That’s it for the Windows part!

Add Windows Printer to OS X

Now for the final part. In OS X, go to System Preferences and click on Print & Scan.

Now click on the little + button at the bottom of the box that shows you the currently installed printers.

Now you’ll get a pop up dialog that has a few options across the top. In our case, we want to click on Windows. This will automatically find all the Windows computers on your network! Sweet!

Click on the name of the computer with the shared printer and you’ll be asked to connect to it as a guest or registered user. In my experience, I was only able to connect as a registered user and only to Windows computers that had a username AND password. If you don’t have a password on your Windows user account, you won’t be able to connect and therefore won’t be able to see the shared printers. I can’t figure out a way to get it to work without having a password on the Windows account.

Now you’l see the last box on the right will have the name of the shared printer(s).

Click on the printer and then at the bottom you have to choose how to print. You have an option for Generic Postscript or Generic PCL, but normally you’re going to want to choose Select Printer Software. By default, OS X has a lot of drivers for the most common printers.

They even had my Lexmark 7600 printer in the list, meaning I didn’t have to worry about downloading the latest Mac driver for my printer and installing that.

And that’s about it. The software will be installed and you should be able to print. If your printer is not in the list, then you had to choose Other in the drop down and then choose the driver manually. You’ll have to download the latest Mac driver for your printer in order to do that.

Having trouble connecting to the shared printer on your Windows machine? If so, post a comment here and tell us where your process failed. Enjoy!

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Of course, I could not immediately find it and had to go flipping through all the ribbons before I finally saw it! By default, in Word 2010, it’s located on the Review tab under the Proofing section.

Clicking on that will give you not only the number of words, but also other stats like pages, characters with and without spaces, paragraphs and lines.

I still find this quite annoying since I use it so often, so I wanted a quicker way to access this same info. Luckily in Word 2010, there is an option to add the word count to the status bar at the bottom. Just right-click on the status bar and you’ll see an option for Word Count.

Once you select that, you’ll see the word count at the bottom left of the status bar:

That’s pretty much it! If you want, you can also add Word Count to your quick access toolbar by right-clicking on the icon in the Review tab and choosing Add to Quick Access Toolbar.

Now it’ll also show up at the very top, but this is really no different than it being in the status bar, it’s just a personal preference. You have both options.

As an extra bonus, I’ll just throw in a few more features that I used a lot but took a minute to find in Office 2010. For example, where is the Find & Replace in Word 2010? On the home tab, at the very far right, click on Replace.

Where is spell check in Word 2010? Again, this is on the Review tab under Proofing.

And finally where is the developer tab for those of us who need it? For that, you need to click on File, Options and then click on Customize Ribbon. Under Main Tabs, you need to check the box next to Developer Tab.

This will allow you to open Visual Basic and record macros, etc. If you’re looking for something else in Word 2010, let us know in the comments and we’ll get back to you! Enjoy!

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When you open a Metro app in Windows 8 and you go back to the desktop, let’s say, you’ll notice that the taskbar remains empty. The metro app that you opened is no visible in the taskbar like you would normally think. With every release of Windows, when you open a program, it appears in the taskbar. In Windows 8, this is true of most normal programs, but not so with the full-screen metro apps designed specifically for Windows 8.

Previously, I wrote about how to exit a Metro app because it was not very clear! That was a first release of Windows 8 and things have changed in the Consumer Preview. According to Microsoft, there were over 100,000 changes between the first preview release of Windows and the current one!

In the latest release, to exit a Metro app (but no close), you have to move your mouse to either the top left or bottom left of the screen. If you move to the top left, you’ll see the previous window you had open. This is kind of like the Back button in IE.

As you can see in the screenshot above, I’m in the Mail app, but if I move to the top left, I get a screenshot of the desktop, which was the last thing I had open. At the bottom left, you’ll see the option to go back to the Start screen with the tiles:

Now how about closing those open apps? Well, it’s a continuation of the two methods I have shown above. When you move your mouse to the top or bottom left corner, if you have open apps, you’ll see a very small outline alone the left side:

Now if you simply move your mouse pointer down towards those outlined apps, a whole bar appears and you can see all the open apps:

Now you can simply right-click on any of the Metro apps and choose Close.

This is totally not something I would have figured out on my own, so I’m guessing this will make a lot of people mad. Now that I’ve gotten used to it, it’s kind of nice not to have the taskbar around. I have been using OS X Lion for a while now and the full-screen apps are really handy. However, in Lion, you can simply move your mouse to the bottom or side and see all your open apps. It would have been nice if they had defaulted it to show the entire bar instead of having to first move the mouse to a corner and then move it down to see everything else.

So there you have it! An entire post on how to close an app in Windows 8. Enjoy!

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Well, Windows 8 is an even bigger change. If you thought Windows 7 was different, wait till you see Windows 8. For some users, it will be a welcome change, but for others, the changes will be a shock. Again, be prepared for these changes.

1. No Start Button – Metro UI

Never liked the Start Button? Well, it’s gone in Windows 8 by default. It’s now replaced by the Metro UI. Yes, Microsoft has said there will be a way to revert back to the traditional desktop we are all used to (thank god), but by default it’ll be set to the new UI interface. I’ve played around with Windows 8 on a few test machines and I have to say that even though I think it’s a great interface for a tablet, I was not at all excited about using it with a mouse and keyboard. It looks a little nicer, but that’s about it. And clicking at the bottom left and not getting my typical start menu pop up was just too much change, even for me.

2. Simpler Task Manager

Ever noticed what tabs you actually used in Task Manger up till now? Probably just Applications and Processes. That’s about all I ever use and normally just to kill off some processor hungry rouge program. What you see above is the new Task Manager! Yeah, that’s it. Just a list of apps running that you can kill with one click. What about processes you ask? Well, click on More Details, and you get a nicely split list of applications and background processes along with a heat map of CPU and memory usage.

Pretty nice actually! That’s one change I am looking forward too. The current task manager was too detailed and overly complicated for the average user. This one makes it a breeze for anyone to use.

3. Improvements to Copy, Move, Rename and Delete

Yes, this may sound trivial, but if you really think about it, you probably move, delete, rename or copy a file/folder several times a day, if not more. These four basic operations have pretty much been the same for years and through all versions of Windows. In Windows 8, they get vastly improved!

Firstly, when you copy stuff around, especially when you perform multiple copy operations, all of the info is consolidated into one dialog. No more doing 10 copies and having 10 different windows pop up. Now it looks like this:

What you’ll also notice is the new pause feature. Finally, you can pause a copy operation in the middle of it! Yay! What’s really cool, though, is if you click More Details, you can see the speed of the data transfer, the trend and the amount of data left in the transfer.

4. The New Windows Explorer

Say hello to the ribbon interface! You’ve probably already been introduced to it in Office 2007 and Office 2010 and now it makes its way into Windows itself. Love it or hate it, it’s there as a permanent fixture. Here’s what the new UI will look like:

What do you think about this change? Like it or not? Like I said before, Windows 8 has been completely reimagined and you can clearly see that with all the major differences.

5. Fast Startup Mode

Boot times have always been an issue with Windows and they have tried their best to fix that with new power states like hibernation and sleep. Unfortunately, those have their own set of problems. In Windows 8, there is a new fast startup mode (probably going to be called something else later on), which is a combination of a cold boot plus hibernation. Basically, this will be like “restarting” your PC without actually fully restarting it. You’ll still get a fresh user session with everything closed, etc like you just restarted Windows, but it’ll take significantly less time.

6. Plug-in Free Browsing

Not only does IE 10 significantly change the UI, it also changes the way you will be browsing. IE 10 is favoring HTML 5 over the traditional plug-in architecture and will actually run by default with no plugins. If you need to use something like Adobe Flash for a site, you can switch to a “desktop” view, but for the most part, they are phasing plugin support out. WOW! That is huge. And pretty bad news for Adobe Flash. Even though Apple doesn’t support Flash on their devices, Microsoft also moving in that direction is a major paradigm shift for the entire Internet.

7. Reengineered Boot Experience

Haven’t we all gotten sick of the same tired list of “Safe Mode”, “Safe Mode with Networking”, etc, etc when booting Windows with advanced options. It still looks a DOS command prompt, even in Windows 7. With Windows 8, that all changes. The boot experience is now very pretty and reminds me of setting up my iPhone when I upgraded it to iOS 5. You get nice screens to help you join a wireless network, pick your settings, etc.

8. Sign in using Windows Live ID

With Windows 8, you can now sign into your PC using your online credentials at Windows Live. That’s right, Windows 8 is moving to the cloud (a little). With SkyDrive integration also coming in Windows 8, you can sign in using Windows Live credentials and have your files, settings, apps, etc stored in the cloud. You can log into another Windows 8 machine and all of that will follow you automatically.

It’ll keep track of all your favorites in IE, your desktop wallpaper, and lots more. You can buy extra storage and store your files on SkyDrive and access them online or on your mobile device including the iPad, iPhone, and Android devices.

9. Refresh/Reset Your PC

Two cool new features of Windows 7 are the refresh and reset options. Reset will remove all your personal data, apps, and settings and reinstall Windows. Refresh will keep all data, apps and settings and reinstall Windows. If you ever had to do this before in Windows XP or 7, you know what a real pain it is to try and restore Windows without deleting your personal data. And what happens if your PC doesn’t boot at all? Well, you can now refresh or reset from the boot screens.

10. Scaling for Different Screen Sizes

Along with the new UI interface, there have been many improvements in Windows 8 for scaling to different screen resolutions, screen sizes and pixel densities. Even though this may seem minor, you will be able to use Windows 8 on everything from a small Windows phone to a giant 30 inch screen with a 2560×1600 resolution! A lot of the apps in Windows 8 will be designed to automatically adjust to these different screen sizes and provide more/less content based on the size.

Overall, the Windows 8 team has spent a lot of time trying to get things right and Windows 8 will be a huge step forward for PCs. What are your thoughts about Windows 8? Are you excited or not? Let us know in the comments! Enjoy!

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Not so with Outlook 2010 or any previous version of Outlook. Nothing is stored in the cloud and therefore everything is based on local files. That is true for the autocomplete suggestion feature also. Basically, every time you type in a name or an email address in Outlook, it stores this into a file and so the next time you type that name or email, it will autocomplete it for you.

If you have used Outlook for years, then your autocomplete database could be huge and if it suddenly stops working, it becomes a real pain to email someone! Sometimes autocomplete stops working because of problems with the PST file and other times it’s because of upgrading to a newer version of Outlook from previous versions. I’ve also run into the problem where the autocomplete will work within one session of Outlook, but the second you close it and open it again, the entries are all gone.

In this article, I’ll go through a few methods I’ve learned over the years to fix the autocomplete problem in Outlook 2010 and also how to transfer the autocomplete suggestions from one Outlook to another.

Repair PST File

The usual problem when your autocomplete stops working has something to do with your PST file. The first thing to try is to repair the PST file and see if your autocomplete entries come back or stop resetting. You can do this by going to the following location on Windows 7 64-bit

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14

and running the scanpst.exe file. Click Browse and navigate to your PST file. If it’s in the default location, browse to C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook. By default, it should be called Outlook.pst.

If you see that the repair tool fixed some problems with the PST file, then you’ll probably be lucky and your autocomplete should be working normally again, especially if it was resetting each time you closed and opened Outlook.

Method 2 – Import NK2 Files

All versions of Outlook before 2010 stored this name/email information in a file with a NK2 extension. Outlook 2010 stores it differently and therefore you have to import this file if you’re trying to get suggestion data from an older version of Outlook into Outlook 2010.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/980542

Check out the above Microsoft KB article on how to do this. You can download their FixIT program and simply choose the NK2 file and it will do the rest for you. If you want to do it yourself, you can find the file in the following location for Outlook 2003/2007 running Windows 2000 or XP:

 C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

For Outlook 2003/2007 running Windows Vista or 7:

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Outlook

Now in order to import it into Outlook 2010, you need to make sure the NK2 file is located in this directory:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming

Finally, click on Start, type run and in the Open dialog box, type in the following command:

outlook.exe /importnk2

That should import the name cache from an older version of Outlook into Outlook 2010.

Method 3 – Empty the Autocomplete Cache

In some instances, to get this working again in Outlook 2010, you may have to clear out the Autocomplete cache. If everything is gone already, then this won’t matter, but it should help with the problem of the cache resetting over and over again.

To empty the cache, go to File and click on Options. Then click on Mail and scroll down to the Send Mail section.

Click on the Empty Auto-Complete List button. It’s also a good idea to uncheck the Use Auto-Complete List to suggest names when typing in the To, CC, and Bcc lines box. Exit out of Outlook and then re-check the box. Try typing in a few email addresses and then exiting Outlook and opening it again and seeing if the names are still there.

Method 4 – Rename the RoamCache

You can also completely get rid of your current cache and start from scratch, which might be the only way to get the problem to go away. You simply have to rename the RoamCache folder to something else and Outlook will create a new one when you start up the program again.

For Windows Vista & 7:

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\RoamCache

For Windows 2000 & XP:

C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\RoamCache

Method 5 – Edit NK2 File

Even though Outlook 2010 does not have a NK2 specifically, it does still store the info in a file, but with a different name. The name of the file is;:

Stream_Autocomplete_X_AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.dat

And it’s located in here:

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\RoamCache

If you are on Windows XP with Outlook 2010, then it’s here:

 C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\RoamCache

In Method 4, we renamed this RoamCache folder, but that delete everything and makes you start from scratch. If you just started having this problem, then you might be able to recover some of the name suggestions by opening this Stream.dat file in a program called NK2Edit:

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/outlook_nk2_edit.html

The first thing you can try is to simply open the .dat file with NK2Edit and then close it. Make sure Outlook is closed when you do this. Then open Outlook and see if that fixed the problem. Note that this program will automatically detect if you have Outlook 2010 installed and will load up the cache file for you if it’s stored in the default location. You should see your autocomplete list instantly:

If it didn’t open or you can’t open it manually, then you need to create a new cache file and replace the current stream.dat file.You can do this by opening NK2Edit and going to File – New .NK2 File.

Then go to Actions and choose Add Records from Address Book.

Now select the contact that you want to use to create the new NK2 file. You don’t have to select all the contacts if you don’t want. You can also click the drop down and click on Suggested Contacts and see if anything is there. If not, just choose Contacts and then Control + click to choose individual contacts.

Now do a File – Save As and browse to the location of the current cache file (stream_autocomplete) and change the Save as type to .dat instead of NK2.

For the file name, just select the current file that you will be replacing. That’s it! Kind of a long process, but it does work! And now you know how to totally fix and edit the autocomplete list yourself if you ever wanted to!

If you are still having problems or something is not clear, post a comment here and I’ll try to help! Enjoy!

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