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Q: My e-mail program is Outlook.  Even though my address book has the correct e-mail addresses, when I create a new e-mail and type in the first letter, every address that was ever in the computer under that letter pops up.  Is there a way to delete these old invalid addresses so this won’t happen?

– Fran P.
Navarre, FL

 A: You can either remove them one by one, or turn the feature off completely.  To remove them, when the list of names pops up just use your up and down arrow keys to highlight one and hit the Delete key.  If you want to turn the feature completely off, click the Tools menu, and select Options.  In the dialog, click the Preferences tab, click E-mail Options and then click Advanced E-mail Options.  Uncheck the box near the bottom that says Suggest names while completing To, Cc, and Bcc fields.

Q: All of a sudden my touchpad and clicker keys don’t work.  My mouse works.  I can move the curser around the screen with the touchpad but can’t select anything.  It seems to want to draw a dotted square – maybe in a graphics drawing mode?  I have restarted with and without the mouse plugged in which doesn’t help.  I have looked at the control panel options for the touchpad and the mouse and don’t recognize anything that might help.

– Susan S.
DeFuniak Springs,FL

 A: Based on your description, Susan, I’d have to say that the left button on your touchpad is stuck down.  The dotted line you see is Windows attempting to do a group selection of icons as you drag the cursor around on your desktop.  You can verify this on a computer that doesn’t have this problem. Move the cursor to an empty space on the desktop, hold down the left mouse button and move the mouse around.  You should get the same behavior.  If you can confirm it’s a stuck button, try gently lifting the edge of the button with your fingernail, to see if you can unstick it.  If not, the button might be damaged.  In that case, you’ll need a computer technician to fix it, but you should be able to disable the touchpad driver and use the mouse instead.  E-mail me again if you need instructions on how to do that.

TIP OF THE WEEK: It can be tough printing things from the web. Many web sites have banner ads and other content that you probably don’t want to print.  More and more sites are offering a feature called “Printer Friendly” that you can click to get a “clean” version for printing.  Look for it on a page next time you want to print something.  If the site you’re trying to print doesn’t have this, or if you want to reduce the printing even further to save paper and ink, you can use your mouse to highlight only part of the page, then click File and select Print.  When the print dialog comes up, click the Selection option under Page Range before clicking Print.