Category Archives: Software

Questions and answers about software and using programs

Q. Doesn’t a new computer come with Office?

Posted on May 17, 2011 by quill

Microsoft Office software is included on a computer’s drive only if it was purchased in a bundle with the machine.  Far more often, what is pre-installed on a hard drive is the Microsoft Office Test Drive version, a trial version … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, Mac questions, Software, Windows questions | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Q. My HP computer didn’t come with disks

Posted on May 14, 2011 by quill

Hewlett-Packard, like many manufacturers, is saving money by not including Windows recovery or install DVDs with new machines.  The customer is expected to spend a couple of hours when they first unpack the machine, and burn their own disks.  Guess … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, Software, Windows questions | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Q. How do I get a Word document into Photoshop so I can save it as an image?

Posted on May 13, 2011 by quill

Word documents are not images. Photoshop is an image editor – we’re talking apples and oranges here.  We’ll take it as a given that you will only get one page at a time into Photoshop. If you want an image … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, Mac questions, Software, Windows questions | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Q. How do I remove the singing from a song so I have just the instruments?

Posted on May 12, 2011 by quill

Removing vocals from a stereo track (or conversely removing instruments from a track, leaving the vocals) is difficult to impossible. To do it properly really means having access to the original multi-track recording studio tapes or files. When performers have … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, Mac questions, Music recording, instruments, hard & software, Software, Windows questions | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Q. How do I recover a Microsoft Word file I was working on when the machine crashed?

Posted on May 11, 2011 by quill

Microsoft Word saves temporary files of your work in progress, so you may be able to get back your document. How to use AutoRecover files Word 2010 office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/recover-earlier-versions-of-a-file-in-office-2010-HA010356735.aspx Word 2003 and 2007: support.microsoft.com/kb/827099 Word 2002: support.microsoft.com/kb/316951 Word 2000: support.microsoft.com/kb/316950 Word … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, Mac questions, Software, Windows questions | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Q. How do I transfer all my songs/ movies from one iTunes to another computer?

Posted on May 10, 2011 by quill

In your User folder, under Music or My Music, you should see a folder called iTunes. inside this are your music folders and iTunes settings. Note: This is the normal place for the files.  iTunes is capable of reading the … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, General Computer, Mac questions, Music recording, instruments, hard & software, Software, Windows questions | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Q. I want to make and edit a video but i don’t have a program to do it.

Posted on May 10, 2011 by quill

If you have a Macintosh, it came with iMovie which is a basic and easy to use movie editor. How to use: http://www.apple.com/support/imovie/ Recent Windows machines came with Windows Movie Maker Win 7:  http://explore.live.com/windows-live-movie-maker?os=other Vista: http://download.cnet.com/Windows-Movie-Maker-Windows-Vista/3000-13631_4-10729231.html?tag=mncol;3 Win XP: http://download.cnet.com/Windows-Movie-Maker-Windows-XP/3000-13631_4-10165075.html Open … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, General Computer, Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Q. I can’t open .WPD WordPerfect Files

Posted on May 10, 2011 by quill

.WPD is the file format used by WordPerfect word processing program.  FileInfo list of file extensions Rarely, WPD is used as an extension for other programs’ word processing documents. WordPerfect was the dominant word processor software in the 1980s and … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, Software | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Q. Is there any Internet security threat if I only visit reputable sites?

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Trevor

Yes there is a threat even if you only visit ‘safe’ places.  You could get a virus through emails, which redirects your links from what you thought was a reputable site to a phony site.  Banner ads on a reputable … Continue reading →

Posted in General Computer, Internet and Networking, Security, Software, Viruses and malware | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Q. I received a PDF file but I can’t get it to print

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Trevor

A PDF (Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format) file should be openable and printable on any machine with PDF reader software, regardless of operating system. It is possible that your PDF file was created with a NO PRINT option or a … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Questions and Answers, Software | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Q. I have some RAR files that were sent to me, What do I do with them?

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Trevor

RAR is a compression format, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAR, and the files you have are compressed archives of one or more original files.  First, you have to decompress the RAR archives. Here are some utilities that can do that 7-Zip (Free, Windows) http://download.cnet.com/7-Zip/3000-2250_4-10045185.html?tag=mncol;1 … Continue reading →

Posted in Mac questions, Software, Windows questions | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Q. I downloaded Audacity to edit MP3s, now how do I use it?

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Trevor

Audacity is a great open source audio editor program, available for Windows and Macintosh http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Here are some learning resources for it Audacity Tutorials http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/tutorials.html Wiki http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Category:Tutorial Tutorial Videos on YouTube Removing vocals with Audacity http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Vocal_Removal Mixing two songs together … Continue reading →

Posted in Music recording, instruments, hard & software, Software | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Q. What is the fastest disk setup for Photoshop

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Trevor

Photoshop (as well as other high-end graphic and video production software) is a heavy user of hard drive access.  The speed of the hard drive in a machine and the way that hard drive use is organized can have a … Continue reading →

Posted in Hard Drives and SSD, Mac questions, Memory, Performance, Software, Windows questions | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Q. How do you put an iTunes gift card on the computer?

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Trevor

First, do you have an iTunes Store account? If you don’t, you need to open iTunes and create an account, and there will be an option for entering the gift card in the creation process. A credit card is not … Continue reading →

Posted in General Computer, Internet and Networking, Software | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Q. Photoshop keeps coming up with message “scratch Disk Full on C:”

Posted on May 3, 2011 by quill

First of all, how much free space do you actually have on the C drive? Photoshop requires a considerable amount of free drive space on the hard disk that is designated as the Scratch drive, to write temporary files. Back … Continue reading →

Posted in Software, Windows questions | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment