Stability -- The Newest Digicam Feature

Trying new hardware or software usually keeps me confined to my cubicle, or on a good week, my couch or den at home. But for yesterday's column, I was able to do some research at RFK Stadium.

An invitation to a Nationals game from a friend with ridiculously good seats coincided with the arrival of the first of three cameras with image-stabilization technology. I realized I had no choice but to take the new hardware to the ballpark.

So, if you saw some geek on a late August weeknight, not too far behind home dugout, taking pictures of every random thing with a particularly shiny-looking digicam, that was me. (As if to make up for that momentary enjoyment, I'm now testing a batch of Internet-security suites. Funny how things even out in this line of work...)

Read the review here: Stop-Action That Saves the Picture.

Fine-Tuning a PC, Part 2

Many months ago, I wrote a short piece about how to make Windows XP's Start Menu work for you.

At the time, I said I'd follow up by offering the same advice for Microsoft Word. I'm just now able to do this!

All this work was necessary because, out of the box, Word is an intrusive, micro-managing steward of your words, constantly offering to fix or edit things for you. These changes will push that into the background, so that Word's various automatic-editing and formatting features only come into play when you want them. They also fix a few other glitches in how Word operates.

(This is written based on Office 2003, the current release -- can you believe it's been around that long? -- so if you run an older release, be prepared for some commands and dialogs to look slightly different.)

First, go to the Tools menu and select Options.

Under the General tab, change the "Recently used file list" setting so it lists the last nine files opened, not just four.

Under the Spelling & Grammar tab, uncheck "Check grammar as you type" and "Check grammar with spelling."

Then, go to the Format menu and select AutoFormat.. Then click the Options button in the AutoFormat window. Here's where you can shut off the worst of Word's mischief:

Under the AutoFormat As You Type tab, uncheck the boxes next to everything except "straight quotes with smart quotes."

Under the AutoCorrect tab, uncheck the boxes next to "Correct TWo INitial CApitals," "Capitalize first letter of sentences" and "Replace text as you type."

Click Close in the AutoFormat window to confirm your choice -- not OK, which will instead cause Word to AutoFormat your text.

Step three is to alter parts of Word's interface. Hit the Tools menu, select Customize and click the Options tab.

Click the checkbox next to "Always show full menus" to stop Word from hiding menu items it thinks you won't need.

Click the Keyboard button, then select "Edit" from the "Categories" column at the left. In the right-hand column, scroll down to select "EditPasteSpecial." Click in the blank space next to "Press new shortcut key" and hit Shift-Ctrl-V; this will let you paste plain text, without any formatting, by hitting those three keys. Click the Close button to save your changes.

To rearrange Word's menus, leave the Customize window open, then select commands in menus and move them up or down as you see fit. To delete one, right-click it and select "Delete."

You can rearrange Word's toolbars in the same basic way, dragging icons to and from the Customize window.

When you're finished, contemplate the resources Microsoft had at its disposal while developing this interface, then wonder why it's such a mess at the start and so grotesquely complex to fix, afterwards.

In Case You Missed It

Besides my column about image stabilization, the line-up of personal tech stories in Sunday's paper included:

* Frank Ahrens's Web Watch column about the YouTube antics of Lazydork.

* Tips from writer Chris Barylick about managing your e-mail in box.

* And in Help File, I suggest that it's time to bid adieu to Netscape; I also try a Mac program that can free up gigabytes of disk space in a hurry.