Delete unwanted email conversations in Outlook 2010

First of all, that's define a conversation. Microsoft defines a conversation as follows: A Conversation is the complete chain of email messages from the first message through all responses. The messages of a Conversation have the same subject. 

Now, here’s how to delete a conversation:

1. Select the message in the Reading pane.
2. Click the Home tab, and click Ignore in the Delete group, or press [Ctrl]+[Delete], or right-click the message and choose Ignore from the resulting context menu.
3. Click Ignore Conversation.

This will remove all emails belonging to this conversation from your Inbox (or folder) and Outlook will automatically detour new messages in that conversation.

The conversation can easily be reclaimed if you don't have the permanently delete all items in the "Deleted Items" folder when closing option turned on:

1. Select the Deleted Items folder.
2. Select any message in the conversation that you want to recover.
3. Click Ignore in the Delete group.
4. Click Stop Ignoring Conversation.

When you stop ignoring a conversation, Outlook will move all messages in the conversation back to your Inbox. In addition, you’ll start seeing new messages in your Inbox as they arrive.

How to display the Close All command for ribbon users

1. Click the Quick Access Toolbar dropdown and choose More Commands.
2. From the Choose Commands From dropdown, choose Commands Not In The Ribbon.
3. Scroll down the list until you see Close All and highlight it.
4. Click Add and then OK.

Change the color of selected items in Microsoft Office

When you select cells in Excel, text in Word, and even e-mail in Outlook, your system displays the selected data in a contrasting color—the default is gray. Office doesn’t control the color, Windows does and it doesn’t take long to change the default. Just keep in mind that the change is system-wide and not just a subtle change to Office.

Be warned, this change impacts almost every application, so be prepared for a bit of adjustment and remember your orginal settings in case you wish to revert to them.

If you can live with that, do the following to change the selection color in your Office applications and everything else, in Windows XP:

1. Right-click the Desktop and choose Properties from the resulting context menu.
2. Click the Appearance tab.
3. Click Advanced.
4. From the Item dropdown, choose Selected Items.
5. From the Color 1 dropdown, choose the color you want to use with selected items (cells, text, email, and so on).
6. Click the OK button twice.

The process is a little different in Windows 7:

1. Right-click the Desktop and choose Personalize.
2. Click Window Color (at the bottom of the screen).
3. Click Advanced Appearance Settings.
4. Repeat steps 4 through 6 above.

Delete all the tab stops in a Word document

Tab stops are a paragraph format. That means you can assign different tab stops for individual paragraphs. Fortunately, that doesn’t mean you have to delete them all individually—or by the paragraph. There’s a quick, easy way to delete all the tab stops in a document.

1. Press [Ctrl]+A to select the entire document.
2. Choose Paragraph from the Format menu. Or, right-click the selection and choose Paragraph from the resulting context menu.
   (In Word 2007 and 2010, click the Home tab | Paragraph group Dialog launcher)
3. Click Tab (at the bottom-left).
4. In the Tabs dialog box, click the Clear All button at the bottom-right.
5. Click the OK button.

Hope this helps.

Auto-close Outlook 2010's Message Window After You Reply

When you've replied to a message you probably don't want to keep staring at it, so let Outlook close the message window automatically after you send a reply. 
To close the message window: 

1. Click on File, then Options, 
2. Select Mail, then scroll down to Replies and Forwards, 
3. Add a checkmark next to "Close original message window when replying or forwarding." 
4. Click the OK button.

 Hope this helps.

How to turn off Word's 2007/2010 Mini Toolbar

Word 2007 and 2010 have a feature called the Mini Toolbar. When you select text, Word displays the Mini Toolbar (right over the text you just selected).

If you wish to turn it off in 2007:

1. Click the Office button.
2. Click Word Options.
3. In the left pane select Popular (the default).
4. In the Top Options For Working With Word section, remove the tick from the tick box in the Show Mini Toolbar on Selection option.
5. Click the OK button. 

Or in 2010:

1. Click the File tab.
2. Select Options under Help in the left pane.
3. Click General (the default).
4. In the User Interface Options section, remove the tick from the tick box in the Show Mini Toolbar on Selection option. 
5.Click the OK button.

Hope this helps

Excel's counting functions

Excel offers three functions: COUNT(), COUNTA(), and COUNTBLANK()
COUNT()
This function counts only the numbers in a range. This function uses the following forms:
COUNT(v1, v2[, …])
COUNT(range) where v1 and v2 represent the literal values you want to count and range identifies a range of cells whose contents you want to count.
COUNTA()
Used to count all values, not just number. This function uses the same forms as COUNT() but be careful because this function considers all values–even the ones you can’t see.
COUNTBLANK()
Counts empty cells in a specified range of cells. Unlike the other two count functions, this function takes only one form: COUNTBLANK(range) which makes sense—you can’t really enter a blank as an argument.
Please note: COUNTA() counts cells that contain a formula that returns an empty string. Since COUNTBLANK() is counting blanks, you might expect it to not count cells that contain formulas that return an empty string—but it does.