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Q: I have an interesting issue after purchasing a new IPhone. For several years I’ve logged into ITunes with my AOL account. However, a few weeks ago I had difficulty logging in and ITunes required me to retrieve my password. For some reason the question asked was my birthday and ITunes would accept my birthday and then I requested the password emails to me. Nothing has arrived, and I have requested the email no less than 20 times! After several failed attempts, ITunes had me make an Apple ID, which I did. However, now I can’t update any of the current applications. I’ve written AOL Support nine times and spoke to the IPhone help desk twice (over 30 minutes each) and they have no clue what the problem is or how to solve.

– Mickey W.
Fort Walton Beach, Florida

A: I’ve got a hunch that the reason AOL and iTunes technical support can’t help you is that the problem isn’t being caused by either one of the services. It’s just a guess, but since none of the e-mails that iTunes is sending to you are getting through, it’s likely your e-mail address is wrong in their system. There are certain characters in the ASCII set that computers use that are not printable or even displayable. On the rare, but possible chance that one of these characters accidentally got in your e-mail address (by a system error, or a glitch in data transmission over the Internet) your e-mail address might appear correct to a technician looking at your account, but in reality it contains an extra character that makes it a completely different address. E-mails sent to that address would, of course, never arrive in your inbox. Rather, they would get bounced by AOL’s mail server, since the account in question does not exist. It’s virtually impossible to test this theory, but it’s pretty easy to do an end-run around the problem, if it exists. One thing you can do is go to a free e-mail service, such as Gmail, and create an account. Then change your address in iTunes to the new address. Once you finally start getting e-mail from iTunes, try changing it back to your old address. If that doesn’t work, stick with the new, free address. Once you have e-mail flowing, the rest of the problems with syncing applications and other data will be much easier to solve through iTunes support.

Q: I have Word 2010, and do not use double spaces between paragraphs in my documents or letters. I must always open Home – Paragraph – and click the small box that says “Don’t add space between paragraphs of the same style,” then click OK. I have tried to change the default setting so I don’t have to do this every time, but cannot. My questions is: How do I change the default setting to eliminate double spaces between paragraphs?

– Ray H.
Fort Walton Beach, Florida

A: You are mixing up a paragraph’s individual attributes with its style, Ray. When you change attributes such as type face, spacing, alignment, etc, the change only applies to text that’s currently highlighted, or to any text you type from that point forward. To change what Word uses by default, you must change the paragraph’s style sheet. In this case, you’re probably using the one named “Normal”, which you should see in the tool ribbon. Right-click on it, and select “Modify…”. In the “Modify Style” box that comes up, you’ll see a little drop-down near the lower left corner that says “Format”. Drop it down, and select “Paragraph…”. This box should look familiar! From here, select “Don’t add space between paragraphs of the same style” like you usually do, then click “Ok”. Once you’re back in the “Modify Style” box, be sure and check “New documents based on this template” before you click “Ok”. From now on, all your paragraphs that use the “Normal” style will retain the attribute you selected. You can use this technique to change a lot of the default attributes that Word applies to your documents.