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By Brian Livingston

Every time I think I'm learning my job around here, new people show up who make me work harder to keep up with them.

The latest role models making me pale by comparison are a new technical editor and a new full-time administrator for the Windows Secrets Lounge.

I'm proud to announce that WS has hired Tracey Capen to oversee the content of the WS newsletter, Web site, and discussion board. You can see his head shot at the top of today's Lounge Life column, so I've pasted at right a rather bundled-up photo of this inveterate mountain climber scaling Alaska's Mt. McKinley with a team of 12 in 2000.

Tracey (whose last name is pronouned "CAY pen") was executive editor of reviews at PC World magazine for 10 years, from 1995 to 2005. In that capacity, he was executive manager of the PC World Test Center and assigned stories to a staff of eight editors.

Prior to PC World, Tracey was managing editor of reviews at InfoWorld magazine from 1993 to 1995. There he oversaw a staff of 34 editors, technical analysts, and test developers. Earlier, he worked from 1989 to 1992 in InfoWorld's test center and as networking editor. (My long-ago InfoWorld column, Window Manager, ran from 1991 to 2003 and overlapped Tracey's tenure, but he and I never met because I seldom visited the mag's old San Mateo offices.)

Between his gigs at InfoWorld, Tracey was senior labs editor at Corporate Computing magazine, a Ziff-Davis publication that lasted one year, from 1992 to 1993. He oversaw Corporate Computing's product testing and wrote First Looks reviews of networking and mobile products.

Tracey takes over as Windows Secrets' technical editor in the stead of Dennis O'Reilly, who served us well since April 2008. Dennis, a former PC World senior associate editor, owns a home in Santa Rosa, Calif., and has flown to Seattle at Windows Secrets' expense almost every week for the past two years. He's accepted a position with an environmental air-quality monitoring company, Sonoma Technology Inc. of Petaluma, which will allow him to go home every night and not commute 1,000 miles to work.

Our new full-time Lounge admin is Keely Dolan (left), an experienced participant in several Internet discussion boards. Among other environments she's endured, Keely was for several years a moderator of forums for SomethingAwful.com. That's a gigantic (300,000 posts per week) and somewhat crazy discussion board that specializes in Internet humor.

She's seen first-hand how conversations can go downhill when a Web forum tolerates crude language and bad behavior. Keely knows that the WS Lounge is intended to be safe for work, and she's committed to helping the Lounge stay as friendly and welcoming to newcomers as it is helpful to PC power users.

If you're not already a Lounge member, you should register now. That enables you to post comments and take advantage of other Lounge features available only to those who are signed in. It's free! Just use our quick registration form.

If you're already registered, you can jump right in to today's discussions. I'll see you in the Lounge!

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• Direct method: You can assign keystrokes to launch any shortcut. Right-click the shortcut and choose Properties. On the Shortcut tab, click in the Shortcut key box and then press the keys you want to use to launch the shortcut. Click OK.
  

• Search method: In Vista and Win 7, press the Windows key to open the Start menu. Then type a few letters until the search tool finds the program you want to launch; press Enter. The catch — if you have several programs starting with the same characters, you end up taking more time typing than if you simply mouse-clicked the application's icon.
  
  
• Menu method: For me, the "classic" Start menu provides a better solution. If you organize shortcuts into a hierarchy of menus, each starting with a unique character, you can navigate the menus quickly and launch most programs with only 3 or 4 keystrokes.
  

For example, to launch Photoshop (which is on my Start menu's Images menu), I press the keyboard Windows key and then type I, P (see Figure 1). For Microsoft Excel, I type Win, N, X (Start, Numbers, eXcel). Before long, you'll know your shortcuts by heart.


Figure 1. Use the first letter of each menu or menu item to launch shortcuts.

To get the classic Start menu in XP or Vista, right-click the Start button and choose Properties. On the Start Menu tab, select Classic Start menu and click OK.

This option is contained not in Windows 7, but you can get the Start menu by using the Classic Shell freeware program discussed in my Feb. 11 article.

Bonus tip. To avoid having menu items start with the same letter, either rename them or place an ampersand in front of any letter in the name. The character following the ampersand will then act as the shortcut for that item.

• Mouse methods: For fast launching using the mouse, put the shortcuts you use most often into the Quick Launch toolbar (or another custom toolbar) on the taskbar. Right-click the taskbar to open its properties; add the Quick Launch toolbar if yours is missing. (Personally, I prefer not to pin shortcuts to the taskbar because it quickly fills with open-program icons.)
  
  If you have Windows 7, you can also "pin" shortcuts to the taskbar. Right-click a running program on the taskbar and choose Pin this program to the task bar to make a launch button stay there.
  
  
• Open another window (Win 7): To quickly launch another instance of a running program, Shift-click its taskbar button. Not all applications support multiple instances.
  

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• Unwanted address book updating in Thunderbird 3
  
  Sometimes our computers have more automation than we want. Lounger K32rem wants Mozella's Thunderbird 3 to stop automatically adding incoming e-mail addresses to her address book. It's easy to imagine how that could clutter your contact list in short order. But RussB came up with an answer that's concise and easy to follow. More»
  
  
• Working with OCR in OneNote 2007
  
  Diannne18 likes to stay organized with Microsoft's OneNote organizer. She discovered it has OCR capabilities but couldn't get OCR to work. Numerous fellow Loungers have offered tips and advice. OneNote users: you're welcome to add your experiences to the discussion. More»
  
  
• MySQL, Drupal, and PHP, oh my!
  
  Tracy Hartley has a social-networking site in need of programming help. Picking the right programming language for such a project is a daunting task. Loungers have already offered some sage advice, but you might have your own ideas to contribute. More»
  

• Pasting a workbook into Powerpoint leaves Excel partly open
  
  
• Disappearing Restore Points in Vista and Win7
  
  
• Programs in an update loop — SOLVED
  
  

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By Stephanie Small Remember as a child, getting excited when you dug a prize out of the cereal box? Eating became secondary, as you dumped out the edibles — at least that's what I did — in search of the buried treasure. Imagine if there was a cereal box that was, in fact, completely comprised of toys. Watch this hilarious parody as over-zealous children jump for joy at this exact scenario. It might just make you break out your shovel — er, spoon — and eat your way to plastic riches! Play the video

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INTRODUCTION By Brian Livingston WS has a new technical editor and Lounge admin TOP STORY By Scott Dunn Windows shortcuts can boost your efficiency Launch your favorite applications faster Faster ways to close open windows Manage multiple windows and apps more quickly LOUNGE LIFE By Tracey Capen Loungers thinking about upgrades and apps The most interesting questions raised this week WACKY WEB WEEK By Stephanie Small From Lucky Charms to . . . toy charms?

	LANGALIST PLUS By Fred Langa Solving Windows 7 Networking Problems Win7 can't see his network shares Is TechNet snooping on you? Where did 'Documents and Settings' go in Win7? Kill those darned thumbs.db files!
	BEST SOFTWARE By Ian "Gizmo" Richards Free software sheds light on PC activity Is it computer maintenance or a hacker? Built-in diagnostic tools can help — some Process Hacker: a more-powerful tool A simple but effective solution
	PATCH WATCH By Susan Bradley MS patch causes BSOD if PC has Alureon malware You may need tools to eliminate a gnarly rootkit Firefox needs a patch now, one later Adobe Flash, AIR, Reader, and Acrobat need updates Apple protects iPhones from malicious videos Skip Microsoft's upcoming WAT licensing patch Microsoft rolls out browser-choice update .NET updates usually mean big headaches A needed program compatibility update

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