I still make the ridiculous assumption that if I have updated to Office 2007 then EVERYONE must have updated, right? Wrong (right dad?). So, if you are tired of calling or email the folks who forget to save their documents in a 2003 (or earlier) compatible format before sending them to you (sorry dad), or sending your documents to a friend to convert, this this tip is for you.
By installing the Compatibility Pack along side of Microsoft Office XP, or Office 2003, you will be able open, edit, save, and create files using the Open XML Formats new to the 2007 Microsoft Office system. Office 2000 users, as well as users of Windows 2000 SP4 and later, can convert Open XML Formats to binary file formats from within Windows Explorer.
Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats
The above link will bring you to the Microsoft download center where you can find out more information and instructions for download.
After this installation you will never have to make that phone call again!
So I have been out of touch the last couple of days because I officially began my “Office Makeover” on Thursday evening. I pulled everything out and every surface in the main and lower level of my home has stuff from my office trying to take root. The resounding words are “All of this was in your office?” With a Holy $h!t buried somewhere in there. I am amazed as well. My office is slightly smaller than 10 feet by 8 feet when it is empty but like I said the stuff that was in it is taking up the better part of three rooms during the transition. My friend Simone (at least I hope she is still my friend after we are done) and I worked until 2am Thursday (I was up until 4am) and she left here at 4am this morning (I was up until 6am) and we have completed the “construction” phase of the project. New paint, cabinets, molding and trim. I am really believing the old adage of double your cost and triple your time for renovations. Also, next time you see one of those people in the hardware store that is ripping open a box and checking the piece count of an item they need to assemble, don’t laugh – it may be me. (finding out you are missing a “cam shaft” at 8pm with 40 plus little pieces spread all over your floor is nothing less that a wet cat experience)
Today we will begin the process of moving back in the furniture and over the next week gradually sort and sift through all of the crap I have accumulate in the last six years (jeez, I can not believe it has been that long since I opened my doors, so to speak, of my new business – almost to the day!) and toss what is no longer needed and craig’s list the rest. (When did “craig’s list” become a verb?).
It has been a long two days and the coffee is finally ready. About that, I know I am beyond tired when this is my morning recap…
9am:I got out of bed at and pulled out the coffee pot
9:45: I remembered I was going to make coffee and put the grounds and water in and pressed start.
10:30am: I went to get a cup and realized the machine was not plugged in (plugged in)
11am when I went to get a cup I realized I had not pressed start.
It is now 11:30am and I am going to have the first cup. Now to mention it the house doesn’t smell like coffee? – there had better be coffee!
Ironic – I just received an email from the Improvements Catalog to check out their new items.
Do you ever create documents on your computer that you don’t want anyone else to be able to open? Most of use do. Or maybe you want to send a document by email but want to make sure only the intended recipient can open it. Follow these simple instructions to restrict access to certain documents on your computer to only those with the password.
This process needs to be completed for each document you wish to place a password on.
- Open the Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Publisher, etc) document you wish to protect.
- On the menu, select FILE > SAVE AS
- Select TOOLS > GENERAL OPTIONS
- A new window will pop up. Somewhere in that window you will see a place to enter a “Password to open”.
Each window will be slightly different based on the document you are saving and the version you are using due to a variety of options. Type in your desired password, click OK, Reenter password, click OK, click Save (if you are prompted to replace an existing file, choose yes) Close the original document. Next time the document is opened there will be a prompt to enter a password.
- If you would like to restrict modification to the document you can also enter a “Password to modify”.
This will add a second prompt for a password to allow only the users who know this additional password to make modifications to a document. 
If this password is unknown (but the password to open is known) the user can choose to open as a read only document but will be unable to make changes or save to the original document. (They will be able to save the document by giving it a new name however)
- Additionally, you can also choose to let anyone have access to view the document without a password but restrict modifications to the document to those with a password by leaving the password to open blank and only entering a password to modify.
That’s it. Don’t forget your password or you won’t be able to get back into your document without extra effort and cost.
If you do forget your password, you have two options. The first is to buy password recovery software ($20-$100) or hire somebody (like me 
) to recover it for you.
- July 20, 2009 – 9:35 pm
- Posted in Just Me
So I am still! waiting on the Dept of Revenue website and I have one return left to file. I decide to take a break and find something to eat. I say “find” because I have yet to go to the grocery store (remember my post a few days back about the grocery store?). So I am at the point that I have a few lemons, coffee and condiments in my fridge – no joke. (oh and a gallon of milk I sent my son to the store for, there are limits to being a HORRIBLE mom. (breaking news…my husband just made contact with his birth mother for the first time in 36 years – exciting!). So like I was saying, finding something to eat was a search. I open the freezer and lo’ and behold WAAAAAY in the back is a box of taquitos – SCORE! I pull out the toaster oven and set ‘er for 12 minutes. I pull out the salsa and grab a beer (PS – ALWAYS beer in the fridge) and I am set to sit for a spell and eat for the first time today. I start a program from the DVR (93% full) and decide I am just going to take 30 minutes to myself. The teen is locked in his room doing the current version of socializing which is simultaneously texting and chatting via an internet war game and the hubby and youngest are out loading a buddies ATV onto our trailer for the “dud’s”, I mean “dude’s” trip – yuck – won’t even go there. So I am enjoying my breakfast/lunch/dinner (should I be using separate paragraphs here? I get confused) and my DH (Darling Husband) pulls in. I have one taquito left. Dilemma, scarf it down or go out and say “hi” and come back in and enjoy – I go for the latter. I go out and exchange pleasantries without a lot of enthusiasm (as I mentioned I haven’t consumed much in the way of solids today, I did have a hard bolied egg for lunch though ). As I head back to my well worn place on the couch with the faint taste of taquito in my mouth and a smile on my face I glance at the end table and see my plate is EMPTY! ARE YOU FRICKIN’ KIDDING ME – I look over at the dog and just stare – hard! Like she is going to give me an explanation? At that precise moment she licks her chops loudly to which I exclaim – REALLY! and then I grab the camera and snap this picture. Does she look guilty?
To add icing, I turn around and my youngest is in the hall brushing the cat with my hairbrush “DO NOT use my brush for the cat” “Why? I always do” – I need a vacation.
So I have been up to my eyeballs in sales tax today. The MN Department of Revenue has been off and on all day so it has been a frustrating day. That’s what I get for waiting until the last minute 
. I have a post coming up tomorrow that I am putting the finishing touches on about creating password protection for Microsoft Office documents – stay tuned!
- July 19, 2009 – 5:41 pm
- Posted in Just Me
Puuurrrrrfect example of a cat nap!
So I just made a pot of hard boiled eggs and when I was talking to my girlfriend she mentioned how her hard boiled eggs always are a pain in the rear to peel and have a green ring around the yolk. I rarely have that issue (and I say rarely since I do not always follow my own instructions) so I thought I would share my “recipe” for hard boiled egg success. Here are the two keys; the age of the egg is the most important factor in ease of peeling, and overcooking is the main reason for a discolored yolk.
So…age of the egg?
Yep – the older the egg the better. If you know you are going to be making hard boiled eggs in the future get eggs that will expire as close to the day you are making them as you can. If not, just buy the eggs that are closest to the expiration date. I usually find that the local “mini-mart” type stores sell eggs closer to expiration than supermarkets. Eggs don’t necessarily expire on the expiration date of the container (and that date is usually a sell by date anyway) . A simple test in water will answer the freshness question for you. Place the egg in a bowl of water; if it lays on its side, it is very fresh. As it ages, the air pocket inside the egg grows, which buoys the egg up so it stands on one end. If the egg floats to the top, it is ready for the trash. Sidetracked: This brings me back to a story about my mom from when I first ventured out on my own. I was making hard boiled eggs and reading the instructions from a cook book (yep). Something was not working out correctly so I called my mom at work and the conversation went something like this…”Hey Mom, I am trying to make hard boiled eggs and the instructions say to cover the eggs with at least an inch of water?” Mom: “yeah, sounds right” Me: “What if they float?” Mom: “I have no idea, hold on…” Now yelling over her cubicle at work to whomever is in ear range and can answer her “What do you do if your eggs float when you’re making hard boiled eggs? What? Eggs EXPIRE?” Now back on the phone “Throw them away, apparently eggs expire” Apparently? Well, I am still around so I must not have eaten too many bad eggs as a kid!
Now for the cooking part.
- Place eggs in a pot with enough COLD water to have an inch of water above the eggs.
- Place the pot with the eggs and water over high heat until the water comes to a full boil. IMMEDIATELY take the pot off the heat and cover with a tightly-fitting lid. The eggs will continue to cook from the heat of the water. The eggs do not need to be (and should not be) boiled. Overcooking eggs is what causes the iron in the yolk and the sulfur in the white to combine, and this makes that ugly greenish color around the yolk.
- Let the eggs sit in the pan in the hot water for 12-18 minutes depending on the size of your pan and the size of your eggs (the larger the pan the less time you need since it takes longer to boil the water and obviously smaller eggs need less time).
- Drain the eggs and fill the pot with cold water. I like to empty and re-fill the pot several times to make sure the heat of the eggs doesn’t heat the water back up again. You can also put ice cubes in the water. The water should be very cold. Letting the eggs sit in the cold water until the eggs are completely cooled helps the membrane stick to the shell, instead the egg, and makes the egg easier to peel.
- Hard boiled eggs in the shell can be refrigerated up to one week. Hard boiled eggs out of the shell should be used right away.
Worth a mention, never tried: I have heard the following… If you are making deviled eggs, place carton of eggs on its side for a day or so. The yolk will then center itself so you have it directly in the middle of the white. No more off centered deviled eggs.
Well, my youngest has been asking for a hamburger for the last three days and I have had neither buns or bread for the “wrapper” as he calls it. I am not sure what my deal is but the thought of going to the grocery these days makes me cringe, literally. Like… I drove by the supermarket today and made an audible sound of disgust. I have just been going to the local mini-mart to grab milk as needed but things are starting to run low. Do you know how bad I don’t want to go to the market? I am making homemade bread AND hamburger buns just to avoid it. It is going to take me the better part of three hours (and the store would take twenty minutes) but right now baking makes me smile and the thought of the grocery store makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Maybe it’s time to revisit that online delivery service that used to be called SimonDelivers? I think it was bought out by Coborn’s or something. I used that WAAAAAY back in the day when I was lucky if I made it home before dark each day. Ah the good ol’ days, now I am lucky to get 4 hours of sleep before the sun starts peeking out.
Excerpt from a fantastic post written by Sonia Simone
- I don’t need you to be perfect, but I do need to know I can rely on you.
- Telling me what you don’t know makes me trust you.
- It means a lot when you take the time to thank me for my business or a referral.
- You don’t need to do all that much to be a superhero. Just do exactly what you say you will do.
- A friendly voice on the other side of the phone means more than you can imagine.
- Your employees treat me about as well as you treat them.
- I don’t mind spending the money, as long as I feel I’m getting real value.
- My life is really stressful. If you can reduce that stress, you become immensely valuable to me.
- I want to tell you what would make this relationship better for me. Why don’t you ever ask me?
- I don’t understand a lot of the messages you send me. Can you make them clearer?
- My life is very complicated. If you make it easy for me to just buy a simple all-in-one package that I can use without learning anything, I’ll take it and be grateful. (I’ll even pay a premium for it.)
- I want to trust you, but it’s hard for me to trust anyone.
- Once you’ve won my trust and loyalty, the truth is you can screw up once in awhile and I will forgive you. If I don’t think you’re taking me for granted, that is.
- When I refer my friends and you give them exceptional service, that makes me look and feel smart. I love that.
- I spend an awful lot of time being scared to death.
- The wealthier I get, the more I like free stuff.
- A lot of the time, I secretly feel like a lost little kid. I don’t admit it, but I want to be taken care of.
- I’m lousy at admitting I was wrong, but I respect you when you do it.
- I like to get little goodies no one else is getting.
- I don’t understand how to use your Web site, but I can’t admit that because it would make me feel dumb.
- There’s no worse feeling than feeling like I was suckered into trusting you. If I’m screaming at you or one of your employees, that feeling is probably behind it somewhere.
- Our relationship isn’t equal and it never will be.
- I get crazy jealous if I think you love another customer more than you love me.
- I don’t have any interest in your excuses. In fact, I usually don’t notice them at all, and if I do, they annoy me.
- I find myself endlessly fascinating.
- I hate salespeople, but I really like to buy things.
- I only like to communicate over the phone/Web/mail and I hate when you try to make me communicate with you over the mail/phone/Web.
- I want to buy your product, but I need you to help me justify it to myself.
- There’s something in my life I’m afraid of losing. If you can make me feel like you’ve protected it for me, my gratitude will be intense and eternal.
- I’ll give you anything you ask if you can help me not feel silly.
- I want you to do the hard work for me. Even better if I can get all the credit.
- I’d rather do it the convoluted hard way than learn something new.
- I’d love to know something about your product that I could use to brag at a dinner party.
- I have the attention span of a goldfish. Go too long without contacting me and I’ll simply forget you exist.
- Money is no object when it comes to my obsessions.
- What you think you’re good at is not what you’re good at. Ask me, and I’ll tell you what you do better than anyone else.
- I like it when I feel like you’re talking just to me.
- It infuriates me when you answer the phone while I’m talking with you face-to-face.
- Embarrassment scares me more than death.
- I’m lazier than I would ever admit.
- I’m more selfish than I would ever admit.
- I’m more vain than I would ever admit.
- I’m more insecure than I would ever admit.
- Despite all that, I secretly think I’m a better person than most people. Help me believe that and we’ll be fast friends.
- I believe I deserve much more than I’m getting.
- I want to tell you everything you need to know in order to sell to me, but I’m lazy. Make it easy enough and I will. (Especially if you flatter me a little.)
- I don’t know what I want most of the time. You need to figure it out for me.
- I mostly daydream about making life better for myself, but I’ll take action to keep from losing what’s mine.
- I believe that most of what’s wrong in my life is someone else’s fault. Let me keep that cozy illusion and I’ll believe anything you say.
- It really is all about me.
