Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability.

I need to use Microsoft Publisher documents on my MacBook. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out how to do this. I have tried to run it on Microsoft Word, but this didn’t work.

As far as I know, neither Microsoft nor Apple nor anyone else makes a native Mac program that can open or edit Microsoft Publisher documents, which use their own special format, rather than any common cross-platform format.

However, there may be some workarounds. If you own or can borrow a PC and a copy of Microsoft Publisher, you could export the documents as PDF files from within Publisher, and then open them on a Mac. Or you could run Publisher itself on your MacBook, since Macs can run Windows and Windows programs, if you buy and install Windows.

Your Mossberg Solution column recently recommended an add-on for Firefox called Surf Canyon that improves searches. But I am wondering if it’s safe to use, since it is labeled “beta.”

I have been using Surf Canyon in Firefox for months, without any problems. (It also works in Internet Explorer.) You are correct that it’s a beta, but that label doesn’t usually mean a product is unsafe, just that it’s incomplete or unpolished. In the old days, a “beta” product was usually pretty flaky and available only to a very small number of testers until the kinks were worked out. Now, especially with Web-related products, a “beta” is often just another word for version 1.0 of a product. It is open to all, and may not work perfectly, but is usually not dangerous to your computer.

Is there a legal way to use a smartphone as a modem for a laptop?

Yes, indeed. It depends on your carrier, and your plan, and your phone, but it can be done, perfectly legally, either using a cable or Bluetooth wireless to connect the phone to the laptop. Note that, depending on your plan, the carrier may well charge you an added monthly fee for this privilege. Also, the speed of your connection may be a bit slower than the speed you’d get from a cellular data card you insert directly into the laptop or from one that’s built in.

• You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free of charge at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

We need a new DVD player but are completely confused about the Blu-Ray versus HD DVD war. We want to purchase something that will last us many years, but I’m afraid to splurge on it when it’s still unclear what the preferred format will be. One option looks to be buying a DVD player that can “upscale” to high definition. How much worse is this in terms of quality?

The good news is that the war appears to be winding down. Because I never saw any significant quality difference between the two high-definition formats, I never recommended one over the other. But most of the major studios have defected to Blu-Ray, so industry experts believe HD DVD is likely to recede as a movie format, though it may find a market as a data format for computers. However, the companies backing HD DVD haven’t given up, so the battle isn’t formally over.

Meanwhile, I have found that, for everyone but videophiles, “upscaling” DVD players are effective at making most regular DVDs look better on high-definition TV sets. And name-brand models can be found for as little as $45, which is less than Blu-Ray players are likely to commonly cost for quite awhile.

In your review of the new MacBook Air laptop, you said it lacked a wired Internet jack but that Apple plans to sell an adapter. Did you test this? When will it be available? And is there any way to use the MacBook Air with a cellphone network for Internet access?

Apple says the $30 wired Internet adapter will ship when the laptop does. I tested an early unit and found it worked fine. As for working on the cellphone data networks, you can use a cellphone modem from one of the network operators that connects via USB instead of a card slot. Unfortunately, I tested one of these, the Novatel USB727 from Verizon, and found that it was too wide to fit in the cramped space around the MacBook Air’s USB adapter. So you will need an extension cable, making for an ungainly attachment.

There are two other options. If you already own a cellphone data modem meant to fit a PC Card or ExpressCard slot, you can buy an adapter that allows these cards to work via a USB port. I tested such an adapter, a $40 model from a company called Siig that allowed me to use my older Novatel V640 ExpressCard modem with the MacBook Air. It worked well but is relatively large and is attached by a cable, so it is also bulky and ungainly.

The final option would be to pair the MacBook Air with a Bluetooth-equipped cellphone that is able to act as a wireless modem. No cables are required for this, but there is some setup. Ironically, one of the phones that lacks this capability is Apple’s own iPhone.

What happened to the Tablet PC version of Windows? Since Vista has come out, I can’t find a Tablet edition.

Microsoft decided to drop the separate tablet edition it produced for Windows XP and build its capabilities into Vista. Unless you have the least expensive version of Vista, called Home Basic, the full Tablet PC capability should be usable on any tablet PC running Vista. But there’s no longer a specific edition labeled that way.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

This week, I was swamped with questions about Apple’s hot new iPhone, so this is a special all-iPhone edition of Mossberg’s Mailbox.

Can you physically remove the included AT&T SIM card from the iPhone and replace it with another AT&T card or one from another wireless carrier?

Yes, and no. The SIM card, which carries the iPhone’s account information, can be removed by inserting a paper clip into a tiny hole at the top of the phone. However, Apple says that if you replace the included card with one from another carrier, like T-Mobile in the U.S., or Orange in Europe, the phone won’t work. According to Apple, some non-iPhone AT&T cards may work, but some may not.

It’s possible that hackers will figure out a way to override this lock on other carriers’ SIM cards. But, as of now, the iPhone will work only with AT&T. Even overseas, at least until Apple does deals with foreign partners, you won’t be able to use SIM cards from other carriers. The iPhone will work overseas, but you will have to roam with AT&T and pay high charges. For instance, according to an AT&T spokesman, if you make a call in Europe, it would cost $1.29 a minute. It would cost 99 cents a minute if you are on one of AT&T’s $5.99 per month international plans.

Since the iPhone battery is sealed in and can’t be easily replaced by the user, what happens when it dies? Will you have to buy a new iPhone?

No, but you will have to send the phone to Apple, or drop it off at an Apple store, to have the battery replaced. The battery is covered during the phone’s one-year warranty period. After that, replacing the battery costs $79, plus $6.95 for shipping, and takes three business days. Details are at apple.com/support/iphone/service/battery/. Some small companies may eventually offer to do this for less, or in less time, as they have for the iPod.

One twist: because a phone is a necessity, Apple is offering loaner iPhones for $29 while your phone’s battery is being replaced, or for the period of any other repair on the iPhone. You will have to switch the AT&T SIM card from your own phone to the loaner, and then back again. Details are at apple.com/support/iphone/service/faq.

In addition, Apple warns that all the data on your iPhone will be wiped out during a battery replacement, but notes that it can easily be restored by simply syncing again with the iTunes software on your computer once you get it back with a fresh battery. That’s because, whenever you sync your iPhone with iTunes, it backs up the data on the phone. You can also use this method to fill your loaner iPhone with your own data.

Can I use the iPhone via a Bluetooth wireless connection in my car? Can I use Bluetooth to transfer files or other information between the iPhone and a computer?

In my two-week test of the iPhone, I succeeded in connecting it without much trouble to the built-in audio system and microphone on a friend’s BMW. Almost instantly, the over 700 contacts I had on my test iPhone were displayed on the car’s dashboard screen and calls could be made and received through the iPhone.

However, this first iPhone can use Bluetooth to connect only with cars and with wireless phone headsets. It cannot use Bluetooth to transfer any data to or from a computer, to play music through stereo wireless headsets, or for any other purpose. As with many other missing features, Apple has the ability to add these to the iPhone through software updates delivered by synchronizing with your computer.

If the iPhone’s Web browser is so good, why can’t it play video on Web sites I visit?

At launch, the iPhone version of the Safari browser is missing some plug-ins needed for playing common types of Web videos. The most important of these is the plug-in for Adobe’s Flash technology. Apple says it plans to add that plug-in through an early software update, which I am guessing will occur within the next couple of months. However, a separate program included on the iPhone can play a limited selection of videos from YouTube, and the phone can play videos you purchase from Apple’s iTunes store, and certain videos you create yourself.

You have been critical in the past of some smartphones that don’t allow you to delete emails with a single click. Can the iPhone do this?

Yes. If you are reading an email and want to delete it, you just tap on a trash can icon at the bottom of the screen and the message disappears into the trash can with an animation that resembles water being poured through a funnel.

However, in the iPhone email program’s list view, it takes two steps to delete an email. You have to swipe across the message header or preview with your finger, and then tap the red delete button that appears. You can also press an “Edit” button, which allows you to delete emails in the list view, but this still requires two taps per message.

Unlike on a BlackBerry or Treo, the iPhone doesn’t allow you to delete whole groups of email en masse by date, or even to select large groups and then delete them en masse. This would be a good feature for Apple to add down the line.

Can you buy an iPhone and just use it to play music and videos like an iPod, and to surf the Web or get email over Wi-Fi, without signing up for an AT&T service contract?

No. None of the iPhone’s functions, except calling 911, will work unless the phone is covered by a two-year AT&T service contract, and has been “activated” by AT&T. That will cost you $60 a month at a minimum. If you are thinking of buying an iPhone, you should plan on being an AT&T customer, and if AT&T coverage is poor where you live, work and travel frequently, I advise you NOT to buy an iPhone.

You and many others have criticized AT&T’s EDGE data network, which the iPhone uses, as slow. You have noted that AT&T has a much faster data network. Can the iPhone be upgraded to use that faster network?

No, it can’t. This first edition of the iPhone can’t use any cellular network faster than EDGE, which is much, much slower than the fastest cellphone data networks available from AT&T, Verizon or Sprint. It can, however, use very fast Wi-Fi wireless networks, when you are in range of them.

Apple hasn’t said anything about future iPhone models, but I fully expect a future model that can use these faster cellular networks, which are usually called 3G networks. So, if this is very important to you, I’d suggest waiting to see if such an iPhone emerges. But I don’t expect this to happen anytime soon.

In the past few days, AT&T seems to have tweaked its EDGE network, at least in some locations, so it runs faster than it has in the past. In my own speed tests, around Washington, D.C., I have seen repeated speeds of around 150 kilobits per second, roughly 50% better than the 100 kbps I have seen with EDGE in the past. However, I have also recorded speeds as slow as 82 kbps. And, even the new, faster speeds are way below those of the faster American cellular data networks, which can easily reach 500 to 800 kbps on a phone.

How good is the iPhone’s To-Do list or Task function?

Awful — in the sense that it doesn’t exist. The phone does have a calendar, of course, which syncs with the most popular calendar programs on Windows and Macintosh computers. And it has a Notepad, which doesn’t sync with any program on any computer (though you can email notes to yourself and others). But it has no To-Do list function at all.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about printing wirelessly from a digital camera, Intel processors, and playing iTunes songs on a Treo.

Is there a way to print wirelessly from a digital camera to a printer?

Yes. A number of digital cameras include Bluetooth, and a few even have Wi-Fi. These wireless technologies allow you to send your pictures to a wireless-equipped printer, over varying distances. In some cases, you can also use this wireless capability to transfer the pictures in the camera to a computer, without the use of cables or the need to remove the memory card.

I am a high-school student and am buying a Dell laptop for use during a semester in Israel. I plan to use the computer only for word processing, watching videos, listening to music, viewing pictures and using the Internet (no gaming whatsoever). Does it matter whether I get Intel’s Core Duo, or Core 2 Duo processors? Also, would you recommend purchasing 1 or 2 gigabytes of memory?

Assuming you are on a budget, I would suggest the Core Duo, since the extra speed and power of the Core 2 Duo won’t make any significant difference in the kinds of tasks you will be performing. However, I would advise spending extra for 2 gigabytes of memory if the computer comes equipped with the new Windows Vista operating system. If you opt for the older Windows XP operating system (assuming it’s available on the model you choose) you will be giving up some degree of security, but you can also get away with just 1 gigabyte of memory.

Is there a way to “authorize” the copy-protected songs I bought from iTunes so they play on a Treo 700wx? Are there any cellphones that can play these songs?

No, you can’t directly play copy-protected songs you have purchased from iTunes on a Treo, because Apple hasn’t licensed the decoding software to Palm, which makes the Treo. The only way to make them playable on your Treo is via a laborious work-around, in which you burn the songs to CDs on your computer, then reimport them as nonprotected MP3 music files and manually input the artist and title data. After that, you could move them to the Treo and play them.

There are only a few cellphones that can directly play copy-protected music purchased from iTunes. One is the new iPhone, which comes out tomorrow from Apple itself, and contains a full-blown iPod that can hold more than 1,000 songs. The others are a handful of Motorola models, which contain a version of iTunes that can hold and play back up to 100 copy-protected songs.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

I don’t know that you can alter the pressure directly, but Windows does have a setting that might be useful in your case. It’s called SlowKeys, and it allows you to specify how long the computer will wait before it accepts the input from a key you have depressed. It also allows you to tell the computer to ignore quick keystrokes and to slow down the process of repeating a character when a key is held down for a longer time than is considered normal.

Unfortunately, this setting is buried several layers down in the Accessibility control panel. To find it, open Control Panel, then Accessibility Options, then find the FilterKeys option in the Keyboard tab. Click on Settings, and when the next screen appears, click on “Ignore quick keystrokes and slow down the repeat rate.” Then, click on the Settings button next to that option. SlowKeys is at the bottom of the next window that appears.

By the way, for Macintosh users reading this who have a similar need, the Macintosh has a similar function that’s spelled slightly differently. It’s called “Slow Keys,” and is available from the Universal Access system preference panel, in the Keyboard tab.

I have a house beyond the range of DSL or cable-modem service. Dial-up Internet is all that is available, and that is S-L-O-W. There is, however, a cellular tower in plain sight on the horizon which provides excellent BlackBerry and cellphone service, through which Internet access is much faster than dial-up. Is there any way for me to take advantage of this cellular service for obtaining fast Internet capability for my PC?

Almost certainly. Figure out which cellphone carrier operates the tower and purchase a data card from the company, with an accompanying monthly plan. These cards, which are essentially cellular modems for PCs, plug into laptops via their external card slots and connect them to the high-speed cellphone networks for the purpose of accessing the Internet.

If you don’t have a laptop, you can buy an adapter for a desktop computer that will allow you to plug in such a card, and there are even a few base stations for homes with a slot for such a card. Some cellphone carriers offer a data modem that plugs in via USB, instead of via the card slot.

Another option: some high-end cellphones can be used as data modems, connecting via either a cable, or a wireless Bluetooth connection.

Last week, you recommended a program called GreenPrint, which allows you to avoid printing wasted pages from Web sites, the ones with only a line or two of useless text. How could you overlook the much more powerful program called FinePrint, which does all that and more?

The two programs are very different and address different audiences. FinePrint, which costs $50 at fineprint.com, is really for power users who want to tweak every aspect of their printouts. It gives you a detailed preview and lets you manually cull items you don’t want, and do much more, including turning printouts into booklets. It’s very nice, but it’s a niche product for a class of user willing to invest time and effort.

GreenPrint, available at printgreener.com, does have a preview mode that allows some manual tweaking of a printout, but that’s purely optional. Its main virtue is that it will automatically analyze print requests and eliminate wasted pages without any preview or user intervention. It also costs half as much as FinePrint and includes the built-in ability to save Web sites as PDF files, a function that requires the installation of a second program with FinePrint. So, GreenPrint is for mainstream users who want to save both paper and time.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about downloading email to both home and work computers, the differences in Treo models and transferring files between Windows systems.

If you have a question, send it to me at mossberg@wsj.com, and I may select it to be answered here in Mossberg’s Mailbox.

I want to download all my daily emails to both my home and office computers, which are both Dells. I am told that, in order to achieve this, I have to instruct my email program to keep my email on the server. How do I do that?

With most corporate email systems, and with a type of consumer email called “IMAP,” email is synchronized among your computers. But many home users have a type of email called “POP,” which isn’t synchronized.

To get the same email messages on multiple machines, POP users have to instruct the email software on each computer not to delete messages from the remote server when they’re downloaded to one of the PCs. That way, they remain available for downloading onto your other PCs. This is generally accomplished by turning on an option in the settings for your email account, which can be a convoluted process.

In Microsoft Outlook 2003, go to the Tools menu, select Email Accounts, then pick “View or Change Existing E-mail Accounts.” Select the account you want, click Change, then, in the next window, click More Settings. In the next window, select the Advanced tab and click in the checkbox called “Leave a copy of messages on the server.” Then click OK, then Next, and Finish, in the windows that follow. Whew.

In Outlook Express 6, it’s a little easier, but not much. On the Tools menu, select Accounts, then Mail, then the account name you want. Click on Properties, then select the Advanced tab. Check the box next to “Leave a copy of messages on server.” Then click OK, OK and Close.

Both programs allow you to set a number of days for the messages to stay on the server. I recommend setting that to 1 or 2, which is long enough so they’ll be downloaded to all your PCs, but short enough so your mailbox on the server won’t exceed its limits. I also suggest clicking an option that does delete from the server any messages you actually delete on any of your PCs. You’re not likely to want to see those everywhere.

Since the Treo 600 is much cheaper than the newer Treo 650, I am considering getting a 600 instead of a 650. What will I be missing if I do so?

The two models are very similar in their look and feel and their core functionality. The key differences are that the 650 has a much better screen, a removable battery, a slightly better keyboard and a better (but still not great) built-in camera. It also has Bluetooth wireless networking, and it is built much better, because Palm is using a different contractor to assemble the 650 than the one it used for the 600, which was plagued by quality complaints.

I am about to buy a new computer running XP Pro. I want to selectively transfer some, but not all, files from my old Windows 98SE computer over a cable. What is the best program for the job?

I generally recommend IntelliMover by Detto, at www.detto.com. Note, however, that IntelliMover won’t move application programs — only files, like Microsoft Office documents, pictures, songs, etc. If you want to move programs, try Alohabob PC Relocator, at www.alohabob.com.

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Because of the volume of e-mail I receive, I can’t routinely answer individual questions by e-mail, or consult on individual problems or purchasing decisions. I read all questions I receive and select three each week to answer in the column.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com