1. Six Great Time Saving Ideas - Get more done in less time

2. Holiday Idea - How To Be A Pop Star - your digital photos to music on DVD

1. Six Great Time Saving Ideas - Get more done in less time

You wouldn't normally think to be creative with 'Drag and Drop'. You use it now to move emails into folders I bet.

Drag and Drop can save you a fabulous amount of time - over time
You don't have to click; use drop down menus; copy; paste; re-write.

1. Instant new Contact. Or Task. Or Appointment
Drag an email from your inbox and drop it into another folder. For example into Contacts or Calendar. You'll open a brand new contact with the senders name and email address filled out (in the proper spots) and the entire content of the email in the text portion. Now most people have a signature in their email (name, company, position, address, phone etc). Where you hit super genius status is when you drag and drop those signature contact details in the respective field in the contact. Voila - no typing!!!!!!

2. From inbox to database
Want to move contact details from an email into your database? Open the email on half your screen, then have your database open on the other half (they're both minimised to fit side-by-side). You can use the highlight, drag and drop technique here too, from the email straight onto your database.

3. Copy or move
For all programs:
To Copy - hold down the control button when you Drag and Drop.
To Move - just drop it where you want it moved.

4. From one program to another
Have a group of people you want to contact? If you have their details in a column (such as an Excel column, Access column or a table in Word) you can highlight the entire column of email addresses, drag and drop or copy and paste them straight into the To; CC; or BCC address field of your outgoing email.

5. Quickly add an attachment to a new email
Locate the file, for example a .doc file in your My Documents folder, and then drag it to your Inbox. Outlook opens a new email with the file attached. You can also drag multiple files.

6. Open something quickly
When in Windows Explorer - drag a document from the folder view and drop it into the toolbar at the bottom of your screen (make sure you see the + sign). That document will open.

2. Holiday time: How To Make A Music DVD With Your Digital Photos

Ever wanted to make a DVD movie of your digital photos set to music for friends and family?
You most likely have all the tools you need (but didn't know it).

Windows XP comes with a program called Movie Maker. It allows you (amoung other things) to synchronize your picture transition to the beat of your music, but more importantly, it allows you to precisely edit the timing of your slides and your music.

To open Movie Maker, click Start>All Programs> Accessories>Entertainment>Windows Movie Maker.

To load your pictures, movies etc and music you click File>Import into Collections.

At the bottom of the Movie Maker window is a timeline. You can drag the photos and music clips to the timeline to set the order you'd like. Then you can adjust the duration of each slide and edit the music. You'll have to match the duration of the slides to the beat of the music manually. You may have to play back the music repeatedly to note where each beat strikes the timeline, but it can be done.

For less involved slide shows, you can use Photo Story. It's free at the Microsoft site. Photo Story is easier to use than Movie Maker and still produces excellent slide shows. You can add transitions, captions, music tracks and voice-overs. You can even use different music for each slide. However, Photo Story does not give you exact editing or timing control.

To burn your final result to DVD, you need to follow the instructions that come with your DVD software.

* I found this great tip on the Kim Komando website http://www.komando.com