Q: How can I tell how much space I’ll free up by emptying my Recycle Bin?

A: When your computer runs low on storage space, most people tell you to empty your Recycle Bin. Like taking out the trash, it permanently deletes your recently deleted files, freeing up storage space.

To empty your Recycle Bin, right-click its icon on your Desktop, shown above, and choose Empty Recycle Bin.

But how much space will you actually gain by emptying your Recycle Bin? Recycle Bin doesn’t give up that information easily.

Instead, you’ll find the answer in Windows’ Disk Cleanup tool: Right-click the C drive icon from within My Computer (or Computer), choose Properties, and choose Disk Cleanup. There, next to the words Recycle Bin, you’ll see the amount of space you’ll retrieve by emptying the Recycle Bin.

Microsoft didn’t add that informational tidbit into the Recycle Bin itself because Microsoft designed the Recycle Bin to delete older files automatically when it reaches a certain limit. In theory, you never need to empty your Recycle Bin.

You can see your Recycle Bin’s storage limit by right-clicking your Desktop’s Recycle Bin icon and choosing Properties.

A window like the one below appears:

Click to read more »

Q: My computer has Windows 7, and I am using Windows Live Mail.

When I place an apostrophe into an email (such as “I don’t understand”) my recipient sees a strange Greek-like symbol. I would like to fix this and would really appreciate any suggestions.

A: Windows Live Mail uses “smart quotes,” which are typesetting symbols to “fancy up” the quotes and apostrophes so they curl in the appropriate direction. As shown in the figure above, smart quotes change quote marks from "this" into “this.” (Note the subtle change in the shapes.)

Unfortunately, not every e-mail program recognizes smart quotes, and some e-mail programs confuse them with characters from other languages. That’s when you end up with people saying, “it’s all Greek to me.” (I’m sure the Greeks have their own phrase for the problem.)

There’s no way to turn off smart quotes from within Windows Live Mail, but here’s a workaround:

Click to read more »

Q: I attempted to eliminate an unwanted Yahoo toolbar on my Firefox browser.

Now, I’ve lost my browser bar, menu bar, and the standard buttons toolbar. I can’t do anything with Firefox.

I tried System Restore. I also tried to drag the screen down, but nothing will move. How do I put the normal toolbars back on top of my browser?

A: Toolbars sit atop nearly every browser, offering a variety of menus, bars, and options. When they’re working fine, we barely notice them. But when they disappear, they’re sorely missed.

On your computer, for example, Firefox now resembles the screenshot above, where all the toolbars have fled.

Since toolbars are optional, they can be added or removed at will. In fact, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and other companies all want you to install their own toolbars, so you can access their products that much easier.

But sometimes uninstalling a single unwanted toolbar can strip them all from the top of your browser.

When that happens in Firefox, follow these steps to put them back:

Click to read more »

Q: When I press and hold down a key in Windows 7, it takes a long time for the cursor to move to the place where I want to start typing.

I remember that in previous Windows versions, the cursor moved across the page at lightning speed. That was just as annoying as moving too slowly.

How can I have a happy medium?

A: When you hold down a key, how fast should your computer respond? Your computer can repeat the key (or the cursor) as quickly or as slowly as you want.

The problem is finding how to tell it your preferred speed.

Windows 7’s Control Panel doesn’t even list the keyboard, for example, much less how to change its settings. (Windows Vista, covered at the end of this post, coughs up the Keyboard Settings window much more quickly.)

So, to find your keyboard settings area and change how quickly Windows 7 should repeat your held-down key, you need to follow these steps:

Click to read more »

It’s the 20th Anniversary of “For Dummies” books, so the publisher is offering a special deal this month: Buy any “For Dummies” book between March 1 – 31, 2011 and receive a five dollar rebate with this mail-in rebate.

You’ll see my cameo at about the 1:34 mark in the video.

You can buy your books at Amazon’s Dummies Store, or through the links on my site’s Books page. Be sure to download, fill out, and mail in the rebate form!