PK Tip: Suppressing the Warning Message for Saving Articles

When you first start using Personal Knowbase, the software always asks you to verify that you want to save an article when you close it. As you become more familiar with the software, you may find these verification dialog boxes unnecessary, perhaps annoying.

The dialog box itself gives you the option to stop showing it for the rest of the current PK session. However, the next time you start up PK again, the warning dialogs will be back.

If you find yourself always disabling these dialog boxes, you may want to turn them off permanently and never see them again.

Computer Basics: Spring Cleaning Your Computer

As the weather warms up in the spring, it's traditional to open your windows and clean out the house. Clear up the clutter, sweep out the garage, and donate your old clothes.

While you're in the mood, consider cleaning up your computer too.

Here are 10 ideas for Spring Cleaning your computer:

PK Tip: Finding Text across Multiple Knowbase Data Files

Personal Knowbase has no built-in way to search for a text string across multiple data files.

However, within a single PK session, the Find dialog box remembers its settings, even after you've opened a different file. So you can search for the same string using the same range and search settings by opening each data file consecutively and re-running Find without changing the settings.

Using Personal Knowbase for Contact Management

A common use for Personal Knowbase is to store contact and address information. Create a Personal Knowbase "index card" file for your contacts.

In Personal Knowbase's terminology, we refer to each "index card" as an "article". Make an article for each contact containing all information and notes about that person, company, or organization. You can easily sort, print, search, index, and filter the list of entries.

PK Tip: Opening a File Automatically at Startup

Did you know that you can make Personal Knowbase automatically open a specific data file whenever it starts up?

To specify a file to open at startup:

Productivity Tips: Setting Goals

Happy New Year!

It's that time of the year again. We sit down and review the past year and map out a path for the next year. How are we doing on long-term goals? Is it time to discard some old ones? What short term goals should we attack for next year? Entire books have been written on goal-setting. But a few basic tips can help you set better goals for your resolutions for the New Year:

Computer Basics: Windows Keyboard Shortcuts

You can access many functions in Windows from your keyboard. Here is a "cheat sheet" of general Windows keyboard shortcuts and their results. These functions work in most Windows programs that use the standard Windows interface. Exact functionality varies from one application to another as needs differ.

PK Tip: Dragging Text into Personal Knowbase

You can drag whole blocks of text from most other Windows applications directly into Personal Knowbase's Index Window to create a new article.

Creating a Writing Snippets File with Personal Knowbase

Do you regularly delete perfectly good pieces of writing while editing? Do you have frequent "false starts" when you begin a writing project and stall? Do you have old unfinished attempts accumulating on your computer or in notebooks?

Consider keeping a writing snippets file where you can store miscellaneous pieces that don't have a home. You never know when these writings may be exactly what you need for a future project. And storing them away is less painful than deleting them.

Productivity Tips: 5 Tips for Nurturing Creativity

When you're stuck on a current project... When you're looking for new ideas for your next project... When you need a creative solution to a problem... Creativity moves you toward your productivity goals.

Whether you're writing a story, creating a work of art, designing a website, or planning a wedding, here are 5 tips to stimulate your creativity: