Sometimes it's the little dishes on the side—the condiments, the sauces—that make a great meal, well, great. What would Indian food be without chutney? A traditional Mexican meal minus the mole? And would the Vietnamese nix nước mắm? Answers: No, no, and (although sometimes you may wish it) no.

I feel the same way about software. Yes, I can write take research notes using OneNote, write my novel using Word, keep track of all my characters in Access, design and create my own book jacket cover with Publisher, and keep track of my royalties with Excel. But it's the little things, the tips and tricks, that make working in these programs fun, tasty, and interesting.

I think you'll find that today's condiments pair well with Excel. May I take the liberty of ordering for you?

You know when you save for a whole year to buy the hottest Manolo Blahniks only to discover two days later that a whole new line of his shoes is being released (and the pair you own is looking like nurse shoes to you)? No? Me neither (with my fallen arches??).

How about this then: You've been making it through grad school with Office 2000, and although it was workable, some things were becoming intolerable and you were really feeling left behind. So off you (finally!) go to your nearest retailer to purchase Office 2007. As you proudly ferry the package out the door, an ad on the wall catches your eye:

When the new ribbon user interface was introduced for Office 2007, good gracious, did we get an earful of moaning and groaning and gnashing of teeth. You would have thought we'd taken away your blankies... But eventually you found your way by reading up on it, using interactive guides, watching demos, and maybe just through trial and error. And now the ribbon is included in even more programs with the release of Office 2010 earlier this year.

Let's say you've already gotten through the Ribbon Elementary School—an accomplishment in itself, for certain. But now it's time to move up to the ribbon school of higher learning. So now I want to add another way to not just learn how to use the ribbon, but how to become a Master at it.

An old Crabby saying: "Work is work. Otherwise they'd call it play." Today I'm reconsidering. With this game called Ribbon Hero, your work time can also be your play time.

Today, as we continue creating our "Demystifying Chain," we move on to Outlook.

Ah, Outlook. Good old Outlook. We use it every day, all day, and still…some of its terminology vexes us. Let's see if I can't assuage some of that pain today so that we can get you to understand your right-hand program a bit better.

Today I'll talk about rules, .pst files...and a few other things.

First off, Happy New Year!

Today's short post, on this first Monday of the year Two-Thousand-and-Eleven is not a compilation of great events from the year 2010; nor is it a whimisical, train-of-thought, bit 'o fluff of nonsensical News of the Weird (that I would've had to steal and compile) before we all get back to business this week. Nope.

To be frank (who me?), I am feeling more than a titch overfed, overstuffed, and over presented-with-presents, and so am letting these few statements speak for themselves.

This week's Dear Crabby post is about turning things OFF that were ON by default.

See, sometimes the developers and other creators of these features try to imagine what you want. Sometimes their magic works...and sometimes it doesn't.

Today we'll coverScreenTips(in the image to the left, the ScreenTip is the word Themes)...

...and the Mini Toolbar   .

Updated! See the end of this post for the newest how-to-embed info.

Last July I told you about the new Office Web Apps, where all your documents are created, edited, and stored on a server...a server located somewhere in the clouds (hence the term "cloud computing"). Since then more than 20 million folks have used Office Web Apps  to work with  Office documents from anywhere with a browser and an Internet connection.

We also asked for your feedback and feed it back to us you did, in the manner of more than 25,000 comments. One of the MOST requested features was the ability to embed things in your web pages and blogs. (By "things" I don't mean gravel or finishing nails.) And so now I'm happy to let you know that you can now embed Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations (the "things") right into your web page or blog

Welcome to this week's edition of "Dear Crabby." Last week's post garnered a LOT of helpful comments from readers; so many I think it may have overwhelmed the letter writer (but at least she's not lacking in ideas). I believe that after Linda read over the possible solution, she decided to give Access a go, considering the complexity of what she was trying to do in Excel.

This week's letter is about the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) for Office 2010 and 2007. (You can read more about what the QAT is here.) Crabby reader Anne wrote to me with a question about the QAT, but by the time I managed to write her back, she'd found the answer herself. (As I've said before, Crabby readers are both smart and self-reliant). But this got me wondering if there were other folks out there who were having the same issue.

Say you have this long list (or maybe it's NO list) of recent files that are listed when open or create a new Office document (in Word, PowerPoint, Access, Excel, Visio, or InfoPath). The list—which is basically a list of links to the location of the files you've worked on in the past—is there to make it quick and easy for you to access and get to work on these files.

And here's where I confess (to better bond with you) exactly why I like this feature I'm about to tell you about: As I become, um, more... mature, I find that I often forget where I decided to put that important file and then I spend too much time searching for it. If we're all in confession mode here, I've been known to also forget what I named the file, sometimes rendering even the Windows search feature inadequate.

But then...opening up Word or Excel (or whatever program I happen to be using) and seeing that list there when I click File > Open...

...it's as if the the sun has infused the clouds with its brilliance, rejuvenating Word—I mean the world—with beams of healing light...

Today's "Use this!" tip is a bit of a lecture. I'm begging you, once again, to refrain from sending out rumors, jokes, links to adorable kitten videos, and hoaxes (even those that you don't yet know are hoaxes but most definitely are) without hiding the names of the 137 recipients who simply MUST know about whatever it is you're sending.

And what do I mean when I talk about hiding the addresses of all your recipients from one another? Am I telling you this to encourage you to be sneaky? Not really. What I'm doing is saving your email receivers from possible spam and computer viruses and worms (and other nasty stuff).

I recently became a beneficiary of a certain type of virus sent to me by some creepy spammer who got my email address from a certain acquaintance of mine who shall remain nameless because I like to have friends.

So! Let's talk about making use of the lonely, underused Bcc line.