Memphis IT Computer Training + Certification | Tips/Tricks/News/Events | New Horizons

Calling all Facebook, Linked In, and SharePoint users…Who’s Calling? Microsoft Outlook 2010…

2011-10-18T12:58:00.003-05:00

Outlook 2010 has a feature that allows you to incorporate information from several popular networking websites. Did you know that if you use Outlook 2010 that you can see status updates, profile changes, updated picture profiles, etc.? All of these options and other social network activity can now be seen when the People Pane option is displayed. The People Pane option is an area at the bottom of your Inbox.

Usually you will see a small blue circle with the letter [ i]. “I” in this situation, stands for Information. To get more information about the available Outlook Social Connectors (OSC), visit the following website:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/en/socialconnector/default.aspx

The current website (at the time of this article) to help you connect the OSC to facebook is:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=5039

The MS Outlook Help menu has several articles that can assist you, including a Frequently Asked Question section concerning the OSC feature.

A word of caution: depending on the installation choices that were made for you on Outlook 2010, the SharePoint OSC may not be available to you.

Give it a try!

What is a Cloud? This is one of the most popular questions facing people in IT or those affected by IT.

2011-09-19T08:42:00.007-05:00

What is a Cloud? This is one of the most popular questions facing people in IT or those affected by IT. If you have a computer or are affected by a computer in any way the question of Cloud Computing is relevant.

I think the term Cloud Computing (The Cloud) is one of the best marketing terms to hit the mass media. It allows the average person to conceptualize an idea that would otherwise sound to Geeky!!! This will be an attempt to address in simple terms what the Cloud is so that the average person can get their head around the idea.

It has nothing to do directly with those fluffy white things in the sky. But the idea of something afar off that you can see and possibility interact with brings The Cloud idea closer to earth for the non-Geek and uber-Geek alike.

First simply think of the Cloud as a possible remote network that allows you to connect to it. Cloud networks can be remote like Microsoft Azure, Amazon, Google or DropBox. It allows you to share computing services, hardware, resources, software, storage and files, to name a few.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) US Dept of Commerce defines a Cloud as (paraphrased for simplicity):

A computing model that enables convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of resources (e.g. networks, servers, storage, applications, and services). These resources should be configurable and support rapid provisioning and release of resources (supplying functionality). Clouds should also require a minimal amount of effort or service provider interaction. The level of service rendered should be controlled dynamically and/or by the Client/Customer.
NIST states there are five Essential Characteristics of a Cloud:

On-Demand Self-Service – Client/Customer can obtain cloud services using a self-serve interface so that no human interaction is required from the Cloud Service Provider (CSP)
Broad network access – Available over the network and accessed through standard mechanisms using any client think or thin.
Resource pooling – Cloud Service Provider’s(CSP) resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model (isolated customer-specific traffic, data, etc using the same software interface / also referred to as SaaS (Software as a Service)). The location can be unknown or irrelevant to the customer.
Rapid Elasticity – Capabilities and resources of the CSP can be rapidly and elastically provided. This ability includes quickly scaling out or in to meet overall customer needs. Resource quantity seem limitless and may be purchased by the client.
Measured Service – Resource usage is measured, monitored, controlled and provisioned transparently to the client and provider. This can included storage, processing, bandwidth, users, ram etc.

The Service Modes as described by the NIST are:

Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS) – Customers / Clients are using the CSP’s (Cloud Service Provider) application in the cloud. An example could be a HR application, or Email i.e. Microsoft Exchange or Gmail that is hosted and partly managed by the CSP. The customer has the ability to configure their shared portion of the environment through a provided interface.
Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS) – The CSP’s infrastructure supports customer/client created application and software that is made available remotely. All underlying hardware and networking services is managed by the CSP.
Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) – This is similar to PaaS, where the customer/client has deployed software to the cloud. The customer/client does not manage the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage, deployed applications and limited control of select networking components.

Deployment Models as described by the NIST are:

Private Cloud – The organization is their own CSP. Cloud services are managed in house or by third party.
Community Cloud - Cloud services shared by several different organizations supporting a community or shared concern.
Public Cloud – Cloud services made available to the general public.
Hybrid Cloud – Cloud services is made up of two or more clouds (private, community or public). Each entity remains unique but they are bound together by standards or proprietary technology that allows data and application portability (i.e. load balancing between clouds).

I trust this New Horizons Blog post gets you started in your understanding of what a Cloud is. This idea of networking, providing and the consuming of services has been around for years but the cloud is adding the dynamic aspect of hands-off or limited hands-on provisioning.

It is a Brave New World, be ready for the change. New Horizons Memphis offers instruction in technologies that will prepare you for one of the greatest moves in IT history.

Remember: Keep you head in the Clouds and your feet on the Ground

Charles B. Watkins, Sr.
Senior Technical Instructor
MCT, MCTS-MCITP Windows 2008, Sql Server 2008, Sharepoint 2010, Sql 2005
http://www.newhorizons.com/memphis

The difference between the Selection Tool, Fill Handle, and Drag and Drop in Microsoft Excel

2011-09-09T08:33:00.009-05:00

I often find that beginners to Excel often forget the difference between the Drag & Drop arrows, the Selection Tool, and the Fill Handle. Here are some tips to help you remember.

SELECTING CELLS

To select a cell or a cell range, hover over the cell and a white-block plus sign will appear. Click the cell to choose it. For a cell range, click the 1st cell and continue to hold down the mouse clicker while pulling the mouse to the final cell in the range. The selected range will be highlighted in blue.

FILL HANDLE

The fill handle is used to fill in a series or to copy formulas to adjoining cells. It is represented by a small square in the bottom right corner of the active cell. Point directly at the fill handle and the mouse pointer will resemble a black plus sign. Click down on the mouse (while the black plus sign is showing) and pull it down or to the right.

DRAG & DROP

When using drag and drop, point to the top border of the active cell. The mouse pointer will change to four-way pointing arrow. Drag and Drop will allow you to pick up the contents of the cell and “drop” it in another location.

To learn more about Microsoft Excel, click here. To enroll in a basic Excel course, please contact New Horizons at (901) 375-1533, or visit our website to see a list upcoming Excel courses.

See you in class!!

Dawn Hunter
Instructor
New Horizons Computer Learning Center
Memphis, TN
www.NewHorizons.com/Memphis

Certified - Trained - Smart - Dedicated - Brave ... a video from CompTIA Cybersecurity...

2011-09-01T14:33:00.000-05:00

Congratulations Jason Smith! He just aced his Security+ exam!

2011-08-29T16:06:00.004-05:00

Congratulations Jason Smith from all of us at New Horizons Computer Learning Center of Memphis! He just aced his Security+ exam!

Tested your typing speed lately? Keyboarding A to Z…Come Join Us!

2011-08-29T10:12:00.004-05:00

Tested your typing speed lately? Go ahead, take a good guess! How many words per minute can you type, error free?

If you are experiencing a small chuckle right now, chances are that you may not have considered working on your typing speed and accuracy for some time now.

New Horizons Learning Center of Memphis, TN, is offering a Keyboarding A to Z class on Monday, October 3rd. I strongly encourage you to be there! Some of the many topics discussed will be:

Proper Keyboarding Posture
Home Row
Correct Reach and Placement
Timed Writings
Other Helpful techniques to build your speed and accuracy

I can recall taking a typing/keyboarding class in high school. I thought the teacher was really mean because she would use white-out on the keys, or make me close my eyes, look straight ahead, and type a sentence.

Of course this “meanness” paid off because I learned to be quite proficient in my typing, and I spent a few years being in that same “mean” club when I used some of these same techniques in my own classes.

The average typing speed is 38-40 words per minute (wpm) for adults in a professional working environment (despite many incorrect reports on the web that it is 50-60 wpm), according to www.ask.com.

Come join us on October 3rd to work on building your typing techniques, speed, and accuracy. I promise to limit the “meanness!” See you there!

Leslie Phillips
Applications Instructor

Have you ever worried at night that the password policy you have in place on your domain is not secure enough for your Administrator Accounts?

2011-08-25T14:48:00.007-05:00

Have you ever worried at night that the password policy you have in place on your domain is not secure enough for your Administrator Accounts? You probably can't make it more complex because that would blow your users mind and cause you more work. So, what do you do? Well, this week in the Active Directory Class (6425), I'm teaching we discussed how Windows Server 2008 gives you a tool called a Fine-Grain Password Policy.

This policy allows you to have one policy for your users and a different policy for your Administrator Accounts. This allows you to get more sleep and your users are happier.

Edwin Owen
MCT, CCSI, MCITP, MCTIP SharePoint 2010, MCTIP Server 2008

New Keyboarding / Typing Class Added to the Memphis Schedule!

2011-08-24T08:27:00.003-05:00

Our very own Leslie Phillips will be teaching a new Keyboarding/Typing Class. KAZ (Keyboarding A-Z) is running October 3, and it is a one day class. Increase your efficiency on the keyboard through speed, shortcuts and accuracy. Type smarter and faster! Need more information? Click here!

Description:
This course for students who want to learn how to touch-type to increase their speed and efficiency on the keyboard. The open, modular-style manual is designed for quick scanning in the classroom, and is filled with interactive exercises that will allow students to explore the intricacies of KAZ (Keyboarding A to Z). Comes with access to an online e-Learning program.

Table Of Contents:

Unit 1: Introduction to KAZ

Topic A: Getting started
Topic B: The keyboard

Unit 2: The five key phrases

Topic A: The first key phrase
Topic B: The second key phrase
Topic C: The third key phrase
Topic D: The fourth key phrase
Topic E: The fifth key phrase

Unit 3: Words and sentences

Topic A: The first two fingers
Topic B: The first, third, and fourth fingers
Topic C: The third and fourth fingers of the left hand
Topic D: Sentences

Unit 4: Capitalization, punctuation, and numbers

Topic A: Capitalization
Topic B: The number row
Topic C: Punctuation

Unit 5: The numeric keypad

Topic A: Playing with numbers

Unit 6: Speed and accuracy

Topic A: Improving speed and accuracy
Topic B: Speed drills

New webinars are scheduled for Office 2010!

2011-08-15T15:30:00.000-05:00

Microsoft Office 2010, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, offers flexible and powerful new ways to deliver your best work. Register for these webinars to get free tips and tricks for working in this new platform.

Office 365 Doesn’t Mean You’re Fired: A primer for Admins
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Time: 10:00 am Pacific

Many times, the justification for cloud solutions is to reduce cost by removing IT overhead. The reality is, Office 365 can mean freeing IT from maintenance tasks and allow them to do things that impact the bottom line. This comphttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giflementary 75 minute session provides a tour of the admin tools and tasks you’ll still perform in an Office 365 environment.

Getting the Most out of Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint 2010
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Time: 10:00 am Pacific
Presenter: Andrew Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifporation

Explore how Excel 2010 takes advantage of a new, results-oriented user interface that provides easy access to powerful productivity tools, offers a larger workspace, and delivers faster performance. Plus, discover the synergy of working with Microsoft PowerPoint to present and deliver information to your audience.

Myths of the Cloud
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Time: 10:00 am Pacific

Cloud computing represents the next major shift in the way that IT will be delivered to companies large and small. Cloud computing is a career-defining opportunity to add real business value through strategic and tactical understanding of the cloud's relationship with organizational goals. There are many misconceptions surrounding the cloud and what it has to offer. This complementary 75 minute session will address these myths and give you a better understanding of the next steps to take to enable your organization to reap the benefits of cloud computing. It can provide much more than savings, creating a foundation for new competitive advantages.

Presenter: Joey Snow, Senior Technical Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation

Joey Snow is a Senior Technical Evangelist for the worldwide Developer and Platform Evangelism team at Microsoft focusing the IT Professional audience for Windows Server, IIS and Windows Azure. Based in Redmond, WA, Joey works closely with relevant MS Product Teams to evangelize new technology and products to the IT Pro community at large.

Create new headers for your DataGrid with the DataGridItem object (ASP.NET)

2011-08-15T15:23:00.000-05:00

If you'd like to create new DataGrid headers to visually separate your grid rows, you can do so quite easily with the DataGridItem object. Creating new DataGrid headers with this object is a three-step process. You start with a new DataGridItem object. Then, you add Cells to the DataGridItem, and finally you add the DataGridItem to the DataGrid, like so:

Dim dgItem As DataGridItem
dgItem = New DataGridItem(0, 0, ListItemType.Header)

Dim dgCell As TableCell
dgCell = New TableCell
dgCell.Text = "someval"

dgItem.Cells.Add(dgCell)

DataGrid1.Controls(0).Controls.AddAt(0, dgItem)

This codë creates a new DataGrid header with one table cell and adds it to the first row of DataGrid1 on a Web form.

Homeless to HIRED

2011-08-15T10:41:00.001-05:00

A Memphis mans testimonial from New Horizons Memphis - he went from homeless to hired thanks to hard work, determination and a handful of guardian angels helping him along the way.

Tips & Tricks for Creating Complex Documents with Microsoft Word 2010®

2010-11-29T16:22:00.000-06:00

Date: Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Time: 10:00 am Pacific; 12:00 pm Central; 1:00 pm Eastern; 5:00 pm GMT
Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Hosted by: New Horizons Computer Learning Center - Memphis, TN

Click here to enroll today!

Get informative tips for Microsoft Word 2010 documents. It is now easier than ever before to save time and simplify your work while working together and doings so from more locations. Witness how Microsoft Word 2010 facilitates the collaborative process, handles large documents, and provides easier building blocks for more clearly defined content. This session is for individuals who spend significant time writing and creating documents and have some familiarity with Microsoft Word.

Win a Free Pass to the Microsoft Virtual Career Conference!

2010-11-11T09:51:00.000-06:00

New Horizons Memphis is running a Twitter Contest where we will be giving away one complimentary pass to the VIRTUAL Microsoft Career Conference!

Joining the contest is very easy, just

Follow NHMemphis on twitter.
Send the following Tweet to your followers:

I've entered to win a Free Pass to the Virtual Microsoft Certified Career Conference. Just follow @nhMemphis and RT http://bit.ly/9upIY3

The winner will be contacted via Twitter by 5 pm CST Monday, November 15.

More information on the Virtual Microsoft Career Conference can be found here: http://bit.ly/bjqwuT

Get 10% off your registration at the Microsoft Certified Career Conference – November 18th

2010-11-04T09:56:00.002-05:00

On November 18, 2010, jump-start, re-start, or catalyze your IT career at the Microsoft Certified Career Conference. The Microsoft Certified Career Conference is a 24-hour virtual event where you can:

meet potential employers
hone your technical skills
acquire job-seeking skills
network with fellow professionals
glean career advice from real-life experts in the field

Use the New Horizons discount code: NewHorizons10 to get a 10% discount on your registration.

Protect your web browser from phishing attacks

2010-10-25T10:47:00.000-05:00

Spoofing is a term used to describe methods of faking various parts of the browser user interface. This may include the address or location bar, the status bar, the padlock, or other user interface elements. Phishing attacks often utilize some form of spoofing to help convince the user to provide personal information. If a user's browser is vulnerable to spoofing, they are more likely to fall victim to a phishing attack. You can search the US-CERT and CERT/CC web sites for malicious scripting and content vulnerabilities at the following URL: http://search.us-cert.gov (use the search term browser+spoof). The US-CERT document "Technical Trends in Phishing Attacks" (available at http://www.us-cert.gov/reading_room/phishing_trends0511.pdf) has more information about spoofing and phishing techniques.

Memphis man thanks those who helped him go from homeless to hired

2010-09-24T11:10:00.004-05:00

Memphis man thanks those who helped him go from homeless to hired
Posted: Sep 23, 2010 6:26 PM CDT
Updated: Sep 23, 2010 10:15 PM CDT
By Anna Marie Hartman

MEMPHIS, TN (WMC-TV) - A Memphis man said he went from homeless to hired thanks to hard work, determination and a handful of guardian angels helping him along the way.

Greg Kirkendoll does not fit the stereotype of an American hero. But if overcoming the obstacles of a failing economy is a superpower, then Kirkendoll is Superman.

"My life has changed," said Kirkendoll.

After being laid off from his job as an inventory clerk, Kirkendoll decided to sharpen his computer skills at New Horizons Learning Center.

"First one in class," said instructor Bobbye Garrity. "And never missed a class. He was here every single day."

Three months in, Kirkendoll's life took a dramatic turn when the unemployment checks stopped coming.

"Who knows that in two months you could lose everything," said Kirkendoll. "In the snap of a finger, it was all gone."

Kirkendoll was a 53-year-old student with no job, no money and no home.

"Man, just yesterday I had a roof over my head," said Kirkendoll. "You know, today it's just the roof of my car."

Kirkendoll would not give up, and dropping out was not an option.

"To me, this was home," said Kirkendoll. "I had nowhere else to go."

Getting gas money to get to class meant donating blood twice a week at a local plasma center.

"I spent a lot of nights in my car," he said.

Kirkendoll kept his secret from students and staff for as long as he could

"I had no intention of telling anybody, but it just came out," said Kirkendoll. "And once I did ... it was like I was in God's house."

Kirkendoll was able to continue his courses with the support of his classmates, his instructors and an education grant from the Workforce Investment Network.

"The Workforce Investment Network and their team is especially equipped to assist you financially in getting back to work," said Kevin Woods with New Horizons Learning Center.

It took eight months for Kirkendoll to land his first job interview.

"When we left for the interview that day, the whole class was cheering for him," said Woods.

Kirkendoll was chosen out of 40 candidates for a warehouse lead position at International Paper.

"I thank God," said Kirkendoll. "I thank New Horizons.

Bobbye Garrity and her husband, Mike Garrity, also gave Kirkendoll a place to stay while he was learning the skills he needed to get back into the workforce.

"You can't help everybody," said Mike Garrity, "but if you can help one person, then that person helps another and that helps another."

"They're my angels," said Kirkendoll. "I sit sometimes and think, what is it that I can do for them, because where would I be without them?"

To find out if you qualify for a Workforce Investment Network grant, click here.

Copyright 2010 WMC-TV. All rights reserved.

Dual-Video Online Live! New Horizons Remote Classroom IT Training Offer

2010-04-26T15:07:00.012-05:00

New Horizons Remote Classroom offers you the flexibility of taking courses from any remote location, with LIVE Dual Screen Video and LIVE audio participation integrated with our Classrooms and Instructors. So stay home and log-in - you'll remain an interactive student with your own designated seat and computer in our on-site classroom. View more >>>

Go to http://www.myremoteclassroom.com/
to receive 25% off your online class purchase! Ends April 30!

Here's a summary of just a few unique features of New Horizons Remote Classroom that other training centers fail to deliver:

Live VIDEO with Dual Screen Views
Rotate your view during your class between instructor view and classroom view! From your classroom view, you can see the on-site students taking the class with you in real-time.

Live AUDIO with Headset: Included
We will ship your own headset to you before class begins. This headset ensures you will be able to hear your instructor clearly! Free Shipping!

Labs On Demand, Kits: Included
Unlike other IT training centers, we do not charge a separate fee for Labs on Demand or your course kits. A one-time class price includes everything you'll need for your class, without additional hidden fees!

Quicklink Resources for Remote Classroom

Put your IT Training into Practice with These Tips & Tricks

2010-03-18T16:15:00.001-05:00

Excel’s EDATE function doesn’t always give you the flexibility you need when you’re coming up with expiration dates. We’ll show you an alternative that might work better.
When you need to connect between two locations, such as a main office and a second branch, a virtual private network (VPN) can do the job. We’ll discuss how to use hardware at each end of your VPN tunnel.
Adding a drop-shadow to your website’s image can slow down your site’s load time and cause problems when you need to edit the image. We’ll show you how to use CSS styles for drop-shadows that work without these drawbacks.

Click here for details and instructions for each of these topics.

Green IT Webinar Series with Microsoft

2010-03-05T08:38:00.004-06:00

Save resources. Save money.
See more green. Save more green.

Do more with fewer resources
Learn how Green IT and Environmental Sustainabilty can help your business enhance its competitive advantage by saving money and saving carbon.

Save on energy and power consumption with current technologies.
Save on travel and communication with virtual meeting and collaboration tools.
Help reduce management and support costs with virtualization.
Save money on daily tasks including printing and transportation.

Join us for a Green IT webinar series to learn how you can combine small changes with solutions based on Microsoft software to create a large overall impact. Take advantage of offers that can help you save money, including a FREE Small & Medium Business Green IT Assessment, valued at $1,000!

Reduce Power/Energy Costs, Boost Productivity
(Windows 7 and Microsoft Office)
Tuesday, March 9
10:00 AM Central / 11:00 AM Eastern
REGISTER

Reduce Capital Costs and Improve RONA (Hyper-V)
Tuesday, April 13
10:00 AM Central / 11:00 AM Eastern
REGISTER

Improve Communication & Collaboration (Exchange/UC)
Tuesday, May 11
10:00 AM Central / 11:00 AM Eastern
REGISTER

Anywhere Decision Making (SQL/BI Mobility)
Tuesday, June 8
10:00 AM Central / 11:00 AM Eastern
REGISTER

Cloud Computing (BPOS & Hosted Exchange)
Tuesday, July 13
10:00 AM Central / 11:00 AM Eastern
REGISTER

Military Spouse Career Advancement Accounts (MyCAA) at New Horizons Memphis

2010-01-11T08:58:00.000-06:00

Advance Your Education Goals with MyCAA! The Department of Defense (DoD) currently provides financial assistance to military spouses to pay for certifications and education in high growth, high demand portable fields at no cost through the MyCAA program. The DoD will provide $6,000 in financial assistance to military spouses of Active Duty and activated Guard and Reserve service members through Career Advancement Accounts.

For military spouses who are interested in pursuing such careers, this is a FREE benefit. Let New Horizons Memphis show you how to achieve your career goals through the MyCAA program!

http://www.LearnAtNewNorizons.com/MyCAA/Memphis

Get your Windows 7 Training Courses with New Horizons Memphis

2009-10-22T15:21:00.006-05:00

Windows 7 is finally here, and New Horizons is here to help guide you through the training and transition process! We are thrilled to share the features, tools & elements of Windows 7 with our students. Throughout the next few months, we will be adding new Windows 7 courses and seminars, so check back often!

There are so many resources available to help you get to know Windows 7 right now! See what's new and see how it works...

What people are saying about Windows 7: (excellent resource!)
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/social/

Explore new features:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/what-is-windows-7.aspx

Use Snap to compare two files side by side with a quick drag to the edge of the screen.
Cruise through all your open windows with Live Taskbar Previews.
Use HomeGroup to share files, music—even printers—in just four clicks.
Got a file, photo, or website you use a lot? Open it in two clicks with Jump Lists.
Quickly find virtually anything on your PC with Windows Search.
and more...!

Take the Windows 7 tour with 7-second demos:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/videos-tours.aspx

Performance Improvements:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/features/performance-improvements.aspx

Compare Editions:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/compare/default.aspx

Windows 7 Sneak Peek Recap

2009-10-05T16:08:00.003-05:00

The Windows 7 Sneak Peek at New Horizons Memphis was a great success...Thank you to all 100+(!) students who joined us to preview the latest Microsoft Operating System throughout the day!

Our very own Charles Watkins covered multiple Windows 7 topics from Hardware Requirements to loads of Tips & Tricks. We also announced our first Windows 7 courses coming up in just a few weeks:

6291 Updating your Technology Skills from Windows XP to Vista/Windows 7 (Beta): November 30
6292 Installing and Configuring Windows 7 Client: December 9-11

Missed the Sneak Peek? Here are a few Tips for Windows 7 Users

Tip #1: Crunch The Numbers
The new Windows 7 calculator is a number cruncher’s dream. New functionality allows calculations in the following modes: Standard, Scientific, Programmer, Statistics. And that’s not all! Conversion formulas are available for: Temperature, Weight, Area, Time. Templates for gas mileage, lease estimations, and mortgage estimations are available as well!

Tip #2: Project Your Display With Ease
Plugging in a projector and projecting your display is a snap with the Windows 7 driver display utility, displayswitch.exe. Press Win+P to display the easy-to-navigate pop-up window. By hitting your arrow keys (or Win+P) you can switch through multiple display settings, such as “clone”, “extend” or “external only".

Tip #3: Command Junkies Only
One of the most popular power toys in Windows XP was “Open Command Prompt Here”, which enabled you to use the graphical shell to browse around the file system and then use the context menu to open a command prompt at the current working directory. In Windows 7 hold the Shift key down while selecting the context menu to get exactly the same effect. If the current working directory is a network location, it will automatically map a drive letter for you.

Scale an image — not its contents — with Photoshop CS4’s new Content-Aware Scale command

2009-09-15T09:23:00.000-05:00

To view the original PDF article with illustrations, please click here: http://bit.ly/8wmCC

Photoshop’s Transform command is great when you need to scale images and keep the image proportions the same. However, if you dare attempt to scale in just one direction, Photoshop will distort your image and its contents. Not anymore: CS4’s Content-Aware Scale command comes to the rescue! You can now scale an image — without constraining proportions — and prevent certain image elements from distorting, as shown in Figure A.

The new Content-Aware Scale command

CS4’s Content-Aware Scale command allows you to resize an image but preserve an image’s contents. That means that you can protect image areas with important visual content, such as the girl in Figure A, or other objects important to your image’s composition, but you can scale an image out if its original ratio. Here are a few things you should keep in mind as you use this new feature:

If you want to use this command on a locked background layer you must first press [command]A (Ctrl]A in Windows) to Select All or make a selection on the layer to transform.
If you want to preserve the aspect ratio while using the Content-Aware Scale command, click the Maintain Aspect Ratio button located on the tool Options bar. Tip: The button has a chain link icon on it and is located to the right of the Width text box.
You can’t use the Content-Aware Scale command on adjustment layers, individual channels, Smart Objects, layer masks, 3D or Video layers, layer groups, or multiple layers at the same time. The same scaling rules apply in regards to increasing and decreasing image sizes: If you scale too far in either direction, you’ll lose image quality.
If you’re going to scale your image larger, you should increase the canvas size first.

Time To Resize

To use the Content-Aware Scale command you’ll need an image to work with. We’ll use the file shown in Figure B. (Images provided by PhotoSpin. Some images modified for educational purposes.)

Our image consists of one unlocked layer so we can jump right in and access the command. We’re going to maintain the image’s height but make the width narrower. When we attempt to do this task with the Transform command, the taxi shrinks down to the size of a Mini Cooper. So we’ll preserve the taxi image in preparation for scaling.

To preserve the taxi in preparation for scaling:

Select the Lasso tool from the Tools panel and create a loose selection around the taxi.
Choose Select > Modify > Feather to display the Feather dialog box.
Enter 5 in the Feather Radius text box and click OK.
Choose Select > Save Selection to open the Save Selection dialog box.
Keep the defaults and click OK.
Open the Channels panel (Window > Channels).
Double-click on the new Alpha 1 channel to display the Channel Options dialog box. Make sure the Masked Areas option button is selected and then click OK.
Click on the RGB composite channel (not the eye icon) to select the composite channels and turn off visibility for the Alpha 1

Scale the image

With the selection saved, you’re ready to Content-Aware Scale the image:

Press [Ctrl]D ([command]D on the Mac) to deselect all.
Choose Edit > Content-Aware Scale.
Choose Alpha 1 from the tool Options bar’s Protect pop-up menu.
Hover over the center bounding box on the left side of the image until it displays a double arrow, and then click and drag the bounding box handle to the right to scale the image narrower.
Click the Commit Transform button on the tool Options bar or press [return] ([Enter] in Windows) to commit the transformation.

Upcoming Free Webinars from New Horizons Memphis

2009-08-07T08:58:00.004-05:00

AUGUST

Collaborating with Microsoft Office 2007 using Microsoft SharePoint Services

See how enhancements in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office 2007 make it easier than ever to share documents, track tasks, use e-mail efficiently and effectively, and share ideas and information. Discover the tools to create Team Sites, Document libraries, and meeting sites with Microsoft SharePoint Services.

Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Date: Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Time: 10 am Pacific; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern; 5 pm GMT
Register: http://bit.ly/qQ0zg

SEPTEMBER

Tips and Tricks for Maximizing Outlook 2007

Attend this webinar and witness how Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 delivers the functionality to provide better information sharing including publishing and sharing calendars, and exporting Outlook data. Also, see how Outlook 2007 can be configured using settings, trust, add-ins, and customized appearance and content. In this session, we also provide a better understanding of some of the terms used for communications and the capabilities; see Really Simple Syndication (RSS) versus XML, phishing, signatures, and other useful features of Outlook 2007.

Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Date: Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Time: 10 am Pacific; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern; 5 pm GMT
Register: http://bit.ly/qQ0zg

Collaborating with Microsoft Office 2007 using Microsoft SharePoint Services

See how enhancements in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office 2007 make it easier than ever to share documents, track tasks, use e-mail efficiently and effectively, and share ideas and information. Discover the tools to create Team Sites, Document libraries, and meeting sites with Microsoft SharePoint Services.

Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Date: Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Time: 10 am Pacific; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern; 5 pm GMT
Register: http://bit.ly/qQ0zg

Introduction to Tips & Tricks for Microsoft Office 2007 (Level 100)

Get the most out of Microsoft Office 2007 System. As someone beginning to use Microsoft Office 2007, you will learn about new features and timesavers to help in your day-to-day work. This session is good for beginner, intermediate, or advanced users – everyone will learn something! The Microsoft Office System has evolved from a suite of personal productivity products to a more comprehensive and integrated system. This presentation will demonstrate useful tips and tricks for Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Date: Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Time: 10 am Pacific; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern; 5 pm GMT
Register: http://bit.ly/qQ0zg

We WERE going to announce our Windows 7 Sneak Peek event, but Twitter is down...

2009-08-06T08:58:00.006-05:00

We're witholding the urge to make a separate post grumbling about Twitter being down ...again..., so we'll just announce our good news HERE first...!

New Horizons Memphis invites you to join us for a sneak peek at the latest Microsoft Windows Operating system, Windows 7!

Thursday, September 17
9:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Register today!

See what’s coming as we show you Windows 7 tips and tricks and how Windows 7 was designed with you in mind. Users get an operating system that meets the advanced needs of their businesses and they get to keep working with the applications and devices they use today. Windows 7 improves on the fundamentals, while delivering the latest in mobility and user experience. It’s fast, stable, and compatible!

Join us to discover how this powerful combination of innovation, improved performance, and productivity:

Works the way you want.
Helps you get more done.
Safeguards your work.

All attendees are automatically entered to win 1 of 10 Windows 7 Release Candidate discs. Limited seating available! Register today!

http://www.learnatnewhorizons.com/newsletters/memphis0809.html

Update to Our Remote Classroom Online Training Course Schedule | Memphis, TN

2009-07-22T16:43:00.002-05:00

We've added more courses to our Remote Classroom Schedule! To learn more about our courses and how New Horizons Remote Classroom works, just visit the portal @ http://www.LearnAtNewHorizons.com/RemoteClassroom.

We are happy to answer any questions you have, and as always, if you do not see a course listed on the schedule, just let us know! You can contact us directly or just fill out the form here. We look forward to hearing from you.

Here is the update for July, August, September, October & November 2009.

Start	End	Course Title
7/23	7/24	2276C - Implementing a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure Network Hosts
7/23	7/24	Excel VBA
7/23	7/24	Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 - Level 1
7/24	7/24	Excel 2007 - Level 3
7/24	7/24	Project 2007 - Advanced
7/24	7/24	Project Management Fundamentals (Second Edition)
7/27	7/29	2261C - Supporting Users Running the Microsoft Windows XP Operating System
7/27	7/28	2795A - Designing an ETL Solution Architecture Using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services
7/27	7/31	4994A - VB - Introduction to Programming Microsoft .NET Applications with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
7/27	7/27	5049A - Managing Messaging Security Using Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
7/27	7/29	6158A - Updating Your SQL Server 2005 Skills to SQL Server 2008
7/27	7/29	6214A - Effective Team Development Using Microsoft Visual Studio Team System
7/27	7/29	6417B - Updating your Applications Infrastructure Technology Skills to Windows Server 2008
7/27	7/28	Access 2007 - Level 1
7/27	7/31	Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
7/27	7/31	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND1
7/27	7/31	CISSP
7/27	7/31	Network+ Certification
7/27	7/27	SQL - Level 1
7/27	8/1	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND2
7/29	7/31	6236A - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services
7/29	7/31	6417B - Updating your Applications Infrastructure Technology Skills to Windows Server 2008
7/30	7/31	2262B - Supporting Users Running Applications on a Microsoft Windows XP Operating System
7/30	7/31	6215A - Implementing and Administering Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server
8/3	8/7	2277C - Implementing Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure:
8/3	8/7	2277C - Implementing Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure:
8/3	8/5	2791A - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services
8/3	8/5	2792A - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services
8/3	8/5	5047B - Introduction to Installing and Managing Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
8/3	8/5	5115A - Installing and Configuring the Windows Vista Operating System
8/3	8/7	6421A - Configuring and Troubleshooting a Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure
8/3	8/7	6425A - Configuring Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Domain Services
8/3	8/5	6460A - C# - Visual Studio 2008: Windows Presentation Foundation
8/3	8/7	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND1
8/3	8/7	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND1
8/3	8/4	Illustrator CS4 Level 1
8/3	8/3	Project Management Fundamentals (Second Edition)
8/5	8/7	5928A - Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 Managing Projects
8/6	8/7	5116A - Configuring Windows Vista Mobile Computing and Applications
8/6	8/7	50027 - Querying and Processing SQL Server Data Using Microsoft SQL Server
8/6	8/7	5051A - Monitoring and Troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
8/6	8/6	Adobe Captivate 3.0
8/6	8/7	Indesign CS4 - Level 1
8/10	8/15	AXZO Press CompTIA Security+ Certificiation 2008 Edition + CertBlaster
8/10	8/14	2278 - Planning and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure
8/10	8/12	2543B - Core Web Application Development with Visual Studio 2005
8/10	8/14	2780B - Maintaining a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database
8/10	8/12	2792A - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services
8/10	8/11	5060A - Implementing Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
8/10	8/14	6419A - Configuring Managing and Maintaining Windows Server 2008 Servers
8/10	8/12	6422A - Implementing and Managing Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V
8/10	8/14	6425A - Configuring Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Domain Services
8/10	8/14	Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
8/10	8/14	CISSP
8/12	8/14	5061A - Implementing Microsoft Office 2007 SharePoint Server
8/12	8/14	6418A - Deploying Windows Server 2008 (Beta 3)
8/12	8/14	6460A - C# - Visual Studio 2008: Windows Presentation Foundation
8/13	8/14	2544A - Advanced Web Application Development with Visual Studio 2005
8/13	8/14	6438A Implementing and Administering Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 in Windows Server 2008
8/13	8/13	Cold Fusion 8 - Level 1
8/13	8/14	Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 - Level 1
8/14	8/14	Cold Fusion 8 - Level 2
8/17	8/21	2279B - Planning Implementing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Active Directory Infrastructure
8/17	8/18	2547A - Advanced Windows Application Development with Visual Studio 2005
8/17	8/19	2778A - Writing Queries Using Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Transact - SQL
8/17	8/17	5050A - Recovering Messaging Servers and Databases Using Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
8/17	8/19	5118A - Maintaining and Troubleshooting Windows Vista Computers
8/17	8/21	6232A - Implementing a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Database
8/17	8/19	6236A - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services
8/17	8/21	6416B - Updating your Network Infrastructure and Active Directory Technology Skills to Windows Server 2008
8/17	8/21	6420A - Fundamentals of Windows Server 2008 Network and Applications Infrastructure
8/17	8/21	6436A - Designing a Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Infrastructure and Services
8/17	8/19	6461A - C# - Windows Communication Foundation
8/17	8/21	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND2
8/17	8/18	Crystal Reports XI Advanced
8/17	8/21	Network+ Certification
8/17	8/17	SQL - Level 1
8/18	8/19	5051A - Monitoring and Troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
8/18	8/18	SQL - Level 2
8/19	8/20	2544A - Advanced Web Application Development with Visual Studio 2005
8/20	8/21	5119A - Supporting Windows Vista Computers with Desktop Images and Application Packages
8/20	8/21	6462A - C# - Windows Workflow Foundation
8/24	8/26	2830B - Designing Security for Microsoft Networks
8/24	8/28	4995A - C# - Programming with the Microsoft .NET Framework using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
8/24	8/28	50028A - Managing System Center Operations Manager 2007
8/24	8/28	6421A - Configuring and Troubleshooting a Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure
8/24	8/25	6431A - Managing and Maintaing Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure Servers
8/24	8/28	Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
8/24	8/28	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND2
8/24	8/26	Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX Using Visual Studio 2005
8/26	8/26	JavaScript Programming
8/27	8/28	50051A - Architecting Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Portals and Collaboration Solutions
8/27	8/28	6432A - Managing and Maintaining Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Servers
8/27	8/27	Excel 2007 - Level 2
8/31	9/4	2278 - Planning and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure
8/31	9/4	2779B - Implementing a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database
8/31	9/4	5929A - Managing Projects and Programs
8/31	9/2	6317A - Your SQL Server 2000 Skills to SQL Server 2008
8/31	9/2	6422A - Implementing and Managing Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V
8/31	9/4	6451A - Planning Deploying and Managing Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007
8/31	9/2	6461A - C# - Windows Communication Foundation
8/31	9/4	Cisco - Implementing Cisco Unified Wireless Networking Essentials - IUWNE
8/31	9/4	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND1
8/31	9/4	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND2
9/1	9/2	Flash CS3 - Level 1
9/1	9/1	Project 2007 - Basic
9/2	9/4	6234A - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server2008 Analysis Services
9/3	9/4	6462A - C# - Windows Workflow Foundation
9/3	9/4	Dreamweaver CS4 - Level 1
9/8	9/10	2793B - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services
9/8	9/10	6424A - Fundamentals of Microsoft Server 2008 Active Directory
9/8	9/9	6463A - ASP.NET 3.5
9/8	9/9	6463A - ASP.NET 3.5
9/8	9/8	Project 2007 - Advanced
9/9	9/10	2439 - Scripting Using Microsoft Windows Management Instrumentation
9/9	9/11	6423A - Implementing and Managing Windows Server 2008 Clustering
9/9	9/9	Acrobat 9.0 - Level 1
9/10	9/11	6464A - Visual Studio 2008: ADO.NET 3.5
9/10	9/11	6464A - Visual Studio 2008: ADO.NET 3.5
9/11	9/11	Project Management Fundamentals (Second Edition)
9/14	9/19	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND1
9/14	9/18	2272B - Implementing and Supporting Microsoft Windows XP Professional
9/14	9/18	2779B - Implementing a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database
9/14	9/18	6231A - Maintaining a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Database
9/14	9/18	6232A - Implementing a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Database
9/14	9/16	6235A - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services
9/14	9/18	6425A - Configuring Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Domain Services
9/14	9/16	6434A - Automating Windows Server 2008 Administration with Windows PowerShell
9/14	9/16	Access Programming with VBA
9/14	9/15	Crystal Reports XI Basic
9/14	9/18	Network+ Certification
9/16	9/18	6424A - Fundamentals of Microsoft Server 2008 Active Directory
9/21	9/25	2274C - Managing a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment
9/21	9/25	50031A - Complete .NET 2.0 Security
9/21	9/24	5047B - Introduction to Installing and Managing Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
9/21	9/25	6231A - Maintaining a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Database
9/21	9/23	6235A - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services
9/21	9/25	6419A - Configuring Managing and Maintaining Windows Server 2008 Servers
9/21	9/25	6425A - Configuring Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Domain Services
9/21	9/25	6430A - Planning and Administering Windows Server 2008 Servers
9/21	9/25	Cisco - Implementing Cisco IOS Network Security - IINS
9/21	9/25	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND2
9/21	9/25	Computer Hacking Forensic Investigation
9/21	9/21	Illustrator CS3 - Level 2
9/23	9/23	Excellence in Servie: Basic
9/25	9/25	5049A - Managing Messaging Security Using Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
9/28	10/2	2779B - Implementing a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database
9/28	10/2	2780B - Maintaining a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database
9/28	10/2	2933A - Developing Business Process and Integration Solutions Using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006
9/28	9/29	50027 - Querying and Processing SQL Server Data Using Microsoft SQL Server
9/28	10/2	6231A - Maintaining a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Database
9/28	10/2	Linux+
9/30	10/1	2276C - Implementing a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure Network Hosts
9/30	10/1	Photoshop CS4 - Level 2
10/1	10/2	6431A - Managing and Maintaing Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure Servers
10/1	10/1	Cold Fusion 8 - Level 1
10/2	10/2	Cold Fusion 8 - Level 2
10/5	10/7	2275C - Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment
10/5	10/9	2310C - Developing Microsoft ASP.NET Web Applications using Visual Studio.NET
10/5	10/7	2792A - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services
10/5	10/6	5060A - Implementing Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
10/5	10/7	6426A - Configuring Identity and Access Solutions with Windows Server 2008 Active Directory
10/5	10/9	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND1
10/5	10/9	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND1
10/5	10/9	CISSP
10/7	10/9	5061A - Implementing Microsoft Office 2007 SharePoint Server
10/7	10/9	6158A - Updating Your SQL Server 2005 Skills to SQL Server 2008
10/8	10/9	2276C - Implementing a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure Network Hosts
10/8	10/9	6428A - Configuring and Troubleshooting Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services
10/8	10/9	Organizational Behavior
10/12	10/12	Excellence in Service: Advanced
10/12	10/16	2277C - Implementing Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure:
10/12	10/16	2780B - Maintaining a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database
10/12	10/14	2791A - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services
10/12	10/16	6425A - Configuring Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Domain Services
10/12	10/14	6427A - Configuring and Troubleshooting Internet Information Services in Windows Server 2008
10/12	10/16	Building Cisco Multilayer Switched Networks (BCMSN)
10/12	10/16	Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
10/14	10/16	6436A - Designing a Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Infrastructure and Services
10/15	10/16	2934A - Deploying and Managing Business Process and Integration Solutions Using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006
10/19	10/23	2272B - Implementing and Supporting Microsoft Windows XP Professional
10/19	10/21	2793B - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services
10/19	10/23	4994A - VB - Introduction to Programming Microsoft .NET Applications with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
10/19	10/23	6232A - Implementing a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Database
10/19	10/21	6426A - Configuring Identity and Access Solutions with Windows Server 2008 Active Directory
10/19	10/23	6430A - Planning and Administering Windows Server 2008 Servers
10/19	10/23	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND2
10/21	10/23	2278 - Planning and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure
10/26	10/30	2279B - Planning Implementing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Active Directory Infrastructure
10/26	10/30	2310C - Developing Microsoft ASP.NET Web Applications using Visual Studio.NET
10/26	10/30	2780B - Maintaining a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database
10/26	10/30	50028B - Managing System Center Operations Manager 2007
10/26	10/30	6231A - Maintaining a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Database
10/26	10/30	6417B - Updating your Applications Infrastructure Technology Skills to Windows Server 2008
10/26	10/30	6451A - Planning Deploying and Managing Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007
10/26	10/30	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND1
10/26	10/30	CISSP
10/26	10/30	Project Management Professional Certification
11/2	11/6	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND2

Give your audience the action they crave with a Flash-y animation

2009-07-17T13:13:00.005-05:00

You don’t have to be a fancy web developer to take advantage of Flash animations in your PowerPoint presentation. We’ll show you how it’s done.

Note: All images referenced in this article can be viewed @ http://bit.ly/tyqqt

In a world in which it’s rare to see a static web page — yet common to see a boring slideshow— it’s likely that your website designers have some Shockwave Flash File (SWF) animations thatyou can snag to add some zip to your PowerPoint presentations. We’ll show you how to insertand take charge of them, as shown in Figure A, so they work perfectly and are at your disposal.

Prepare PowerPoint to use SWF files

Before you can insert or control SWF files, you need to ensure that PowerPoint is set up to handle the format. If it isn’t, you can easily download the controls you need.

To determine whether you can use SWF files:

Open PowerPoint to the slide on which you want to insert your Flash file.
Select View Toolbars Control Toolbox. (In 2007, go to the Developer tab’s Controls group. If you don’t see a Developer tab, click the Office button, click PowerPoint Options, and in the Popular section, select the Show Developer Tab In The Ribbon check box.)
Click on the More Controls icon to expand the list of available items.
Scroll down and look for the Shockwave Flash Object, as shown in Figure B.
If it’s listed, you can skip to the next section. If you don’t see the control, visit www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer and download the free player.

You may have to close and reopen PowerPoint to activate the control. If you’ve updated Shockwave from a previous version, you may havetrouble getting a SWF movie to play. See the Adobe TechNote article at www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_12727 to fix the problem.

Plan your file’s resting place

Now that PowerPoint is able to play SWF files, you must decide where to store the file permanently.

If you plan to play your presentation at various locations, you can store it on the web and link to it there.
On the other hand, if you want to use the presentation solely on your computer, simply place it in a folder and use that path.
You can also embed the file, which increases the PowerPoint file’s size, but avoids the need to keep track of multiple files.

Whichever method you choose, note the path to your SWF file.

Insert the Flash file

Inserting a Shockwave Flash Object is straightforward. Just navigate to the slide on which you want the object to appear, and follow these steps:

Once again, click on the More Controls icon on the Control Toolbox toolbar and select Shockwave Flash Object, as shown in Figure B.
When the pointer changes to crosshairs, click and drag a rectangle to house your SWF movie. (You can resize it later.)
Right-click on the placeholder that appears, and select Properties. Click on the Alphabetic tab if necessary.
Note the text shown in the (Name) property text box — you’ll need it later. For instance, ours is ShockwaveFlash1.
Set the Playing property to False by selecting it from the dropdown list.
Click in the Movie property field and enter the URL or pathname for the SWF file you wish to insert, as shown in Figure C.
Close the Properties sheet and view your slideshow to ensure the movie plays correctly.

At this point, you may wish to embed your movie. To do so, simply reopen the Properties sheet, set the EmbedMovie property to True, and then close the Properties sheet.

Take control of the SWF playback

Now that your movie is in place, you can allow it to play as soon as your slide displays by setting the Playing property to True. However, if you want more control over the movie, you can add a bit of Visual Basic script and a few colorful buttons that allow you to Play, Rewind, or Pause your movie. This can really come in handy when you need to address an audience question or replay the movie a second time.

I can’t control my movie!
Some versions of Flash allow developers to disable the play, pause, and rewind navigation commands. If you use a movie file secured in this manner, the action buttons described in this article won’t work. If you know the Flash developer, however, you can request a navigable version of the file.

Let VB code do all the work

To create seamless navigational controls for Flash movies in PowerPoint, you need to enter a few lines of VB code into the Visual Basic Editor (VBE).

Choose Tools Macro Visual Basic Editor (or press [Alt][F11]) to launch the editor. (In 2007, go tothe Developer tab and click Visual Basic in the Code group or use the shortcut key.)
In the VBE, choose Insert Module and type the code in Listing A into the new module.
Replace all instances of SlideX with the number of the slide on which you’ve inserted your movie(for instance, Slide2, in our sample presentation).
Replace all instances of ShockwaveFlashName with the name of your Shockwave Flash Object we noted earlier. (We used ShockwaveFlash1.)
After you enter the code, save your work and close the VBE.

Each Sub line creates and names a new macro that you’ll use later to make your movie play, pause, or rewind on command. For instance, Sub PlayShock() created a macro named PlayShockthat, when activated, plays your ShockwaveFlash1 movie.

Check your macro security settings: The VB code creates macros that PowerPoint may block depending on your current security settings. To adjust them, select Tools Macro Security. (In 2007, go to the Developer tab, and in the Codegroup, click the Macro Security button.)

Create the control buttons

With the code in place, all that’s left to do is to create the control buttons on our slide and assign the appropriate code to each one.

On your movie slide, select Slide Show Action Buttons.
Select Action Button: Custom button (the blank square).
Click and drag a rectangular button on your slide where you want the Play button to sit. When you release the mouse button, the Action Settings dialog box appears.
On the Mouse Click tab, select Run Macro, and then select PlayShock from the Run Macro dropdown list and click OK.
Right-click on the button you just created and select Add Text.
Enter Play and click away from the button.

Adapt for PowerPoint 2007: In 2007, you need to insert a shape for your action button first; just go to the Insert tab, click the Shapes button, select a shape you want to use, and then click and drag theshape onto your slide. Then you can select the shape and click the Action button in the Insert tab’s Link group to open the Action Settings dialog box. From there, you can set up your macro to run just as you would in earlier versions.

Your button is ready to use, but you may wish to format it to match your slide. Right-click on it and use the Format AutoShape dialog box to change its appearance. Our finished button is shown in Figure D.

Repeat the process for the PauseShock and RewindShock macros. When you’ve finished, you should have three buttons on your slide, as shown in Figure A. Now, when you run your slideshow, you can use the buttons you just created to play, pause, and rewind your movie to your heart’s content.

New Horizons is Giving Away a Wii a Day!

2009-06-29T09:28:00.002-05:00

We’ve already told you that New Horizons is going to be at Cisco Live in booth #1243.

But we’ve added a little something extra just for our followers on Twitter. When you follow us @NHCisco you’ll be eligible to win a Free Wii!

So follow us today and we’ll tweet about how to enter the drawing for a Free Wii from New Horizons.

Here’s the fine print:

One entry per day per account. One bonus entry per day per account may be earned.
Winner must follow @NHCisco in order to be eligible for the drawing on Thursday, July 2, 2009.
Enter Monday, June 29 through Wednesday, July 1.
Open to residents of US & Canada only.

So start following us now @NHCisco to find out all about how to win your Free Wii from New Horizons!

Harness Photoshop CS4’s accessibility features for your design projects

2009-06-24T10:05:00.000-05:00

Learn how to accommodate colorblind viewers using Photoshop CS4

Any amount of color blindness hinders the ability for viewers to discern between certain colors in your designs. Therefore, what looks like a different color to most people simply blends into the background for those with color-deficient vision. Photoshop CS4 makes it easier to make your web and print designs accessible to those with differing degrees of color blindness.

To view the graphics to the table references in this article, please view the pdf document located here.

Color in their world

There are differing degrees of colorblindness, ranging from the very rare complete color blindness (characterized by a total lack of color vision) to the more common partial color blindness, where individuals have deficiencies in certain hues, such as red and green. In supporting Color Universal Design (CUD), Photoshop CS4 includes soft proofing features that simulate color blindness. In the U.S., “one out of every 10-12 males and 200 females is believed to be colorblind,” according to the Color Universal Design Organization. For more information on CUD, visit http://www.cudo.jp/e/. Specifically, you can now see what your image will look like for people with the two most common types of colorblindness: protanopia and deuteranopia, which are both forms of dichromacy, where one cone cell type is missing from the individual’s retinas.

Protanopia. Individuals with this deficiency have an absence of red cone cells.
Deuteranopia. Individuals with this deficiency have an absence of green cone cells.

New CS4 accessibility options

To check for CUD-compliance:

Choose Window > Arrange > New Window for file name to preview your original image alongside the soft proof.
Repeat step 1 so you have three open windows of the same image.
Choose Window > Arrange > Tile, or click the Arrange Documents button on the Application Bar and select one of the options from the pop-up menu to arrange all three images on your monitor.
Select one image window and choose View > Proof Setup > Color Blindness > Protanopia-type, as shown in Figure A.
Select another image window and then choose View > Proof Setup >Deuteranopia-type. Figure B shows our original image and the two soft proofs.

Related Courses (Search our Course Catalog)
Photoshop CS4 — Level 1
Photoshop CS4 — Level 2

Make adjustments

Your designs should have adequate tonal contrast. Colors that are too close in tonal range will blend, making your designs illegible for folks with varying degrees of color blindness. While you can’t change your viewer’s vision, there are ways you can make your images a little more visually pleasing to your colorblind audience:

Experiment with adjustment layers including Levels, Hue/Saturation, Curves, and Brightness/Contrast. Your goal is to achieve a full tonal range in your image.
Avoid using the following color combinations: red and green; yellow and bright green; light blue and pink; dark blue and violet.
Vary your designs with different patterns, shapes, or textures. These visual changes will help your audience distinguish the different design elements.

Quick Tip: Create a strong focal point with selective color (Photoshop CS/CS2/CS3)

Oftentimes you’ll want to draw viewers’ attention to just a portion of your image. One way to enhance your image’s focal point is to isolate that portion of your image’s color. We’ve got a quick-and easy technique you can use so that just the important elements of your photo really stand out, such as the barn shown in Figure A. To selectively isolate an image’s color:

Launch Photoshop and open any image or open our sample file.
Select the area you want to isolate from the rest of the image. If you’re working with our sample image, create a path around the barn and tree with the Pen tool. Tip: Make sure you select the Paths button on the tool Options bar before you make your path.
Click the Load Path As Selection button located at the base of the Paths palette. Alternatively, you can choose Make Selection from the Paths palette pop-up menu, and then click OK in the resulting dialog box to accept the default settings.
Choose Select > Inverse.
Press [Ctrl][Shift]U or choose Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.

The unselected area retains its color, and the selected area appears as though it’s grayscale.

Graphic & Design eTips to Enhance Your Work

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Upcoming Webinars | New Sessions JUST Added

2009-06-22T09:30:00.002-05:00

JULY

Tips & Tricks for Microsoft Office 2007, PowerPoint and Excel
Explore how Excel 2007 takes advantage of a new, results-oriented user interface that provides easy access to powerful productivity tools, offers a larger workspace, and delivers faster performance. See how to quickly create pivot Tables and Charts to better analyze you information, while still creating easy to read & use spreadsheets. Additionally, discover the synergy of working with Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 to present and deliver your information to your audience with presentation tools that allow you to paint a picture of what you need to convey.

Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Date: Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Time: 10 am Pacific; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern
Register: http://bit.ly/qQ0zg

Creating Complex Documents with Microsoft Word 2007
Creating Complex document with Microsoft Word 2007 Get informative tips to help you create better Microsoft Word 2007 documents more easily than ever before, and learn why the less work you do, the better your Microsoft Office Word documents will be. Witness how Microsoft SharePoint Services enhances the collaborative process. See the options available to streamline the creation of your documents and learn how to share this with other Word users, 2007 & previous.

Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Date: Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Time: 10 am Pacific; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern
Register: http://bit.ly/qQ0zg

AUGUST

Collaborating with Microsoft Office 2007 using Microsoft SharePoint Services
See how enhancements in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office 2007 make it easier than ever to share documents, track tasks, use e-mail efficiently and effectively, and share ideas and information. Discover the tools to create Team Sites, Document libraries, and meeting sites with Microsoft SharePoint Services.

Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Date: Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Time: 10 am Pacific; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern
Register: http://bit.ly/qQ0zg

ENROLL in all New Horizons Memphis Webinars at: http://bit.ly/qQ0zg

New Remote Classroom Schedule Update

2009-06-18T12:21:00.001-05:00

Start	End	Course Title
6/22	6/26	2279B - Planning Implementing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Active Directory Infrastructure
6/22	6/26	2310 Developing Microsoft ASP.NET Web Applications using Visual Studio.NET
6/22	6/26	2779B - Implementing a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database
6/22	6/26	2780B - Maintaining a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database
6/22	6/26	6231A - Maintaining a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Database
6/22	6/26	6425A - Configuring Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Domain Services
6/22	6/26	SNAF- Securing Networks with ASA Foundation
6/22	6/26	Virtualization with VMware ESX and VirtualCenter SMB to Enterprise (4 Day and 5 Day Available)
6/22	6/24	6214A - Effective Team Development Using Microsoft Visual Studio Team System
6/22	6/26	6430A - Planning and Administering Windows Server 2008 Servers
6/22	6/27	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND1
6/24	6/26	2792A - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services
6/25	6/26	Flash CS3 - Level 2
6/29	7/1	2275C - Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment
6/29	7/1	2830B - Designing Security for Microsoft Networks
6/29	6/30	2934A - Deploying and Managing Business Process and Integration Solutions Using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006
6/29	7/1	3938A - Updating Your Skills from Exchange Server 2000 or 2003 to Exchange Server 2007
6/29	7/1	6418A - Deploying Windows Server 2008 (Beta 3)
6/29	7/1	ITIL V3 Foundations
6/29	7/2	Security+ Certification
6/30	6/30	Illustrator CS3 - Level 2
6/30	6/30	SharePoint Designer L1
7/6	7/10	2274C - Managing a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment
7/6	7/10	2277C - Implementing Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure:
7/6	7/10	2780B - Maintaining a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database
7/6	7/7	2783A - Designing the Data Tier for Microsoft SQL Server 2005
7/6	7/10	4995A - C# - Programming with the Microsoft .NET Framework using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
7/6	7/10	6232A - Implementing a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Database
7/6	7/8	6235A - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services
7/6	7/10	6416B - Updating your Network Infrastructure and Active Directory Technology Skills to Windows Server 2008
7/6	7/10	6421A - Configuring and Troubleshooting a Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure
7/6	7/10	6425A - Configuring Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Domain Services
7/6	7/6	Axzo press Visio Professional 2007 Level 1 (Basic)
7/6	7/10	Cisco - Implementing Cisco IOS Unified Communications - IIUC
7/6	7/10	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND1
7/6	7/10	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND1
7/6	7/7	Flash ActionScript 3.0
7/6	7/10	PHP - Programming with Connectivity to My SQL
7/6	7/6	SharePoint Designer L2
7/8	7/10	2784 - Tuning and Optimizing Queries Using Microsoft SQL Server 2005
7/8	7/8	Illustrator CS3 - Level 1
7/8	7/8	Project 2007 - Basic
7/9	7/10	Crystal Reports XI Basic
7/13	7/14	Dreamweaver CS4 Level 2
7/13	7/15	2596B - Managing Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003
7/13	7/15	2792A - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services
7/13	7/17	2823B - Implementing and Administering Security in a Microsoft Windows Server 2003
7/13	7/14	50027 - Querying and Processing SQL Server Data Using Microsoft SQL Server
7/13	7/17	50028A - Managing System Center Operations Manager 2007
7/13	7/14	5060A - Implementing Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
7/13	7/15	6236A - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services
7/13	7/13	Acrobat 9.0 Level 1
7/13	7/17	Cisco - Building Scalable Cisco Internetwork Devices - BSCI
7/13	7/17	Security+ Certification
7/13	7/18	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND2
7/15	7/17	5061A - Implementing Microsoft Office 2007 SharePoint Server
7/15	7/17	6422A - Implementing and Managing Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V
7/15	7/15	Project 2007 - Advanced
7/15	7/15	Project 2007 - Basic
7/15	7/17	Project+ Certification - A CompTIA Certification (Second Edition)
7/16	7/17	6428A - Configuring and Troubleshooting Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services
7/16	7/16	Illustrator CS3 - Level 2
7/16	7/17	Photoshop CS4- Level 1
7/17	7/17	Excel 2007 - Level 2
7/17	7/17	Infopath 2007 Level 1
7/20	7/22	2275C - Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment
7/20	7/24	2310C - Developing Microsoft ASP.NET Web Applications using Visual Studio.NET
7/20	7/22	2793B - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services
7/20	7/24	50028B - Managing System Center Operations Manager 2007
7/20	7/24	50146A - Programming Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
7/20	7/22	6424A - Fundamentals of Microsoft Server 2008 Active Directory
7/20	7/22	Access Programming with VBA
7/20	7/24	Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
7/20	7/24	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND2
7/20	7/24	Linux+
7/20	7/20	Visio 2007 Level 2 (Advanced)
7/20	7/25	Security+ Certification
7/21	7/21	SQL - Level 1
7/22	7/24	2957B - Advanced Foundations of MS.NET 2.0 Development
7/22	7/22	SQL - Level 2
7/23	7/24	2276C - Implementing a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure Network Hosts
7/23	7/24	Excel VBA
7/24	7/24	Project 2007 - Advanced
7/24	7/24	Project Management Fundamentals (Second Edition)
7/27	7/29	2261C - Supporting Users Running the Microsoft Windows XP Operating System
7/27	7/28	2795A - Designing an ETL Solution Architecture Using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services
7/27	7/31	4994A - VB - Introduction to Programming Microsoft .NET Applications with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
7/27	7/27	5049A - Managing Messaging Security Using Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
7/27	7/29	6158A - Updating Your SQL Server 2005 Skills to SQL Server 2008
7/27	7/29	6214A - Effective Team Development Using Microsoft Visual Studio Team System
7/27	7/29	6417B - Updating your Applications Infrastructure Technology Skills to Windows Server 2008
7/27	7/31	Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
7/27	7/31	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND1
7/27	7/31	Cisco - Securing Networks with ASA Advanced (SNAA)
7/27	7/31	CISSP
7/27	7/31	Network+ Certification
7/28	7/30	6236A - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services
7/29	7/31	6417B - Updating your Applications Infrastructure Technology Skills to Windows Server 2008
7/30	7/31	2262B - Supporting Users Running Applications on a Microsoft Windows XP Operating System
7/30	7/31	6215A - Implementing and Administering Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server
8/3	8/7	2277C - Implementing Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure:
8/3	8/5	2791A - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services
8/3	8/5	2792A - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services
8/3	8/5	5047B - Introduction to Installing and Managing Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
8/3	8/5	5115A - Installing and Configuring the Windows Vista Operating System
8/3	8/7	6419A - Configuring Managing and Maintaining Windows Server 2008 Servers
8/3	8/7	6425A - Configuring Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Domain Services
8/3	8/4	6431A - Managing and Maintaining Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure Servers
8/3	8/5	6460A - C# - Visual Studio 2008: Windows Presentation Foundation
8/3	8/7	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND1
8/3	8/7	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND1
8/3	8/7	Cisco IP Telephony Part 1 (CIPT1)
8/3	8/4	Illustrator CS4 Level 1
8/3	8/3	Project Management Fundamentals (Second Edition)
8/5	8/7	5928A - Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 Managing Projects
8/6	8/7	5116A - Configuring Windows Vista Mobile Computing and Applications
8/6	8/7	50027 - Querying and Processing SQL Server Data Using Microsoft SQL Server
8/6	8/7	5051A - Monitoring and Troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
8/6	8/7	Indesign CS4 - Level 1
8/10	8/12	2278 - Planning and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure
8/10	8/12	2543B - Core Web Application Development with Visual Studio 2005
8/10	8/14	2780B - Maintaining a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database
8/10	8/12	2792A - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services
8/10	8/11	5060A - Implementing Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
8/10	8/14	6419A - Configuring Managing and Maintaining Windows Server 2008 Servers
8/10	8/14	6420A - Fundamentals of Windows Server 2008 Network and Applications Infrastructure
8/10	8/12	6422A - Implementing and Managing Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V
8/10	8/14	CISSP
8/10	8/14	2596B - Managing Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003
8/12	8/14	5061A - Implementing Microsoft Office 2007 SharePoint Server
8/12	8/14	6418A - Deploying Windows Server 2008 (Beta 3)
8/12	8/14	6460A - C# - Visual Studio 2008: Windows Presentation Foundation
8/13	8/14	2544A - Advanced Web Application Development with Visual Studio 2005
8/13	8/14	6438A Implementing and Administering Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 in Windows Server 2008
8/13	8/14	Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 - Level 1
8/17	8/21	2279B - Planning Implementing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Active Directory Infrastructure
8/17	8/18	2547A - Advanced Windows Application Development with Visual Studio 2005
8/17	8/19	2778A - Writing Queries Using Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Transact - SQL
8/17	8/17	5050A - Recovering Messaging Servers and Databases Using Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
8/17	8/19	5118A - Maintaining and Troubleshooting Windows Vista Computers
8/17	8/21	6232A - Implementing a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Database
8/17	8/21	6420A - Fundamentals of Windows Server 2008 Network and Applications Infrastructure
8/17	8/21	6436A - Designing a Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Infrastructure and Services
8/17	8/19	6461A - C# - Windows Communication Foundation
8/17	8/21	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND2
8/17	8/21	Cisco Implementing Cisco Quality of Service (QoS)
8/17	8/20	Cisco Wireless Networking Site Survey (CWNSS) v1.0
8/17	8/18	Crystal Reports XI Advanced
8/17	8/21	Network+ Certification
8/17	8/17	SQL - Level 1
8/18	8/19	5051A - Monitoring and Troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
8/18	8/18	SQL - Level 2
8/19	8/20	2544A - Advanced Web Application Development with Visual Studio 2005
8/20	8/21	5119A - Supporting Windows Vista Computers with Desktop Images and Application Packages
8/20	8/21	6462A - C# - Windows Workflow Foundation
8/24	8/26	2830B - Designing Security for Microsoft Networks
8/24	8/28	4995A - C# - Programming with the Microsoft .NET Framework using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
8/24	8/28	50028A - Managing System Center Operations Manager 2007
8/24	8/28	6421A - Configuring and Troubleshooting a Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure
8/24	8/25	6431A - Managing and Maintaining Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure Servers
8/24	8/28	Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
8/24	8/28	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND2
8/24	8/28	Cisco - Voice over IP (CVOICE)
8/24	8/26	Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX Using Visual Studio 2005
8/26	8/28	6417B - Updating your Applications Infrastructure Technology Skills to Windows Server 2008
8/26	8/26	JavaScript Programming
8/27	8/28	50051A - Architecting Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Portals and Collaboration Solutions
8/27	8/28	6432A - Managing and Maintaining Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Servers
8/31	9/4	2278 - Planning and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure
8/31	9/4	2779B - Implementing a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database
8/31	9/4	5929A - Managing Projects and Programs
8/31	9/2	6317A - Your SQL Server 2000 Skills to SQL Server 2008
8/31	9/2	6422A - Implementing and Managing Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V
8/31	9/4	6451A - Planning Deploying and Managing Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007
8/31	9/2	6461A - C# - Windows Communication Foundation
8/31	9/4	Cisco - Implementing Cisco Unified Wireless Networking Essentials - IUWNE
8/31	9/4	Cisco - Interconnecting Cisco Networking Devices - ICND2
9/3	9/4	6462A - C# - Windows Workflow Foundation
9/3	9/4	Dreamweaver CS4 - Level 1
9/8	9/10	2793B - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services
9/8	9/9	6463A - ASP.NET 3.5
9/8	9/9	6463A - ASP.NET 3.5
9/9	9/10	2439 - Scripting Using Microsoft Windows Management Instrumentation
9/9	9/11	6423A - Implementing and Managing Windows Server 2008 Clustering
9/10	9/11	6464A - Visual Studio 2008: ADO.NET 3.5
9/10	9/11	6464A - Visual Studio 2008: ADO.NET 3.5
9/11	9/11	Project Management Fundamentals (Second Edition)
9/14	9/18	6231A - Maintaining a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Database
9/14	9/18	6232A - Implementing a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Database
9/14	9/16	6235A - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services
9/14	9/16	6434A - Automating Windows Server 2008 Administration with Windows PowerShell
9/14	9/15	Crystal Reports XI Basic
9/14	9/18	Network+ Certification
9/16	9/18	6424A - Fundamentals of Microsoft Server 2008 Active Directory
9/21	9/25	50031A - Complete .NET 2.0 Security
9/21	9/25	6231A - Maintaining a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Database
9/21	9/23	6235A - Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Integration Services
9/21	9/25	6419A - Configuring Managing and Maintaining Windows Server 2008 Servers
9/21	9/25	6425A - Configuring Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Domain Services
9/21	9/25	Cisco - Implementing Cisco IOS Network Security - IINS
9/21	9/25	Computer Hacking Forensic Investigation
9/23	9/23	Excellence in Service: Basic
9/28	10/2	2779B - Implementing a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Database
9/28	10/2	2933A - Developing Business Process and Integration Solutions Using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006
9/28	10/2	6231A - Maintaining a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Database
9/28	10/2	Linux+
9/28	9/29	Photoshop CS4 - Level 2
10/1	10/2	6431A - Managing and Maintaining Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure Servers
10/5	10/7	6426A - Configuring Identity and Access Solutions with Windows Server 2008 Active Directory
10/7	10/9	6158A - Updating Your SQL Server 2005 Skills to SQL Server 2008
10/8	10/9	6428A - Configuring and Troubleshooting Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services
10/8	10/9	Organizational Behavior
10/12	10/12	Excellence in Service: Advanced
10/12	10/16	6425A - Configuring Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Domain Services
10/12	10/14	6427A - Configuring and Troubleshooting Internet Information Services in Windows Server 2008
10/19	10/23	6430A - Planning and Administering Windows Server 2008 Servers
10/26	10/30	Project Management Professional Certification

Suite Deal on Microsoft Office Suite: Buy One, Get One!

2009-06-16T15:24:00.003-05:00

Power Up and Save with New Horizons Memphis!

For a limited time, New Horizons Memphis is offering an exciting opportunity to power up your computer skills at an incredible value. Purchase any regular price Microsoft Office Suite training class with New Horizons and use promo code POWERBOGO to receive 50% off a second class of equal or lesser value. Sign up for as many classes as you like by June 30th and take the classes anytime you like.

No matter where you are in your career- just starting out, looking for change or planning to upgrade your current skills - New Horizons has plenty of classes to meet your needs.

Choose From Microsoft Office Classes Such As: Access, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, InfoPath, Publisher, Visio, OneNote, and Word

Click here to view our entire course catalog and save today! But hurry, because this "suite" deal ends on June 30.

Count your filtered data using just the right function for the job

2009-06-16T09:53:00.000-05:00

Our Excel article shows you which functions to use when you want to count data that you’ve already filtered. To view the graphics to the table references in this article, please view the pdf document located here.

If you’ve ever tried to count the number of rows in your data table, you might have felt frustrated when you filter the data and realize your row count remains the same. Even when you filter the data, your count might still include the entire data table — especially if you use the COUNT function. Instead, we’ll show you how the SUBTOTAL function can give you the accurate total you need. Your SUBTOTAL formula will update with your filtered data — whether you’re working with text or numeric data.

Cast out the COUNT function

The COUNT function comes in handy when you’re dealing with numeric data, but it doesn’t play well with filtered data. First, the COUNT function only recognizes numeric data. If you include text data in the COUNT function’s range, the formula won’t recognize the text data. If your data range only includes numeric data, the COUNT function includes every row — even rows hidden when you filter the data.

Even the COUNTA function, which recognizes both text and numeric data, still includes hidden filtered rows in its final tally.

To illustrate these functions’ failings, take a look at our comparison table in Figure A. Our data includes 12 months of expense and revenue data. We’ve filtered the data to show the five months with the highest expenses. So, logically, our row count should equal five. But even when we include different ranges — the entire data table, a column of text data only, and a column of numeric data only — none of the COUNT or COUNTA functions give us the correct result.

Adapt for Excel 2007

The SUBTOTAL function works the same way in Excel 2007 as it does in earlier versions. The only difference is that Excel 2007 allows up to 254 ref arguments (ranges to include in the SUBTOTAL formula) whereas earlier versions allow only 29 arguments.

Important:
Note that when you include the entire data table in your COUNT or COUNTA function’s range, the formula counts every cell. If you want to count the number of rows in your filtered data table, you should only include one column of the data range in your formula.

Get the right results with the SUBTOTAL function

Don’t despair! The SUBTOTAL function can give you the accurate row count you need for a filtered data table. The SUBTOTAL function follows this syntax: =SUBTOTAL(function_num, ref1, ref2, . . .) The ref1 and ref2 arguments represent any ranges or references you want to include in the subtotal. You can add up to 29 ref arguments, and they should include columns — not rows. The SUBTOTAL function is designed for columns, according to Microsoft.

The function_num argument represents the function you want Excel to use when it subtotals the data in your ref ranges. We’ve listed all of the available functions and their function_num equivalents in Table A.

Learn how hidden data factors into the equation

Table A includes function_num values that both include and exclude hidden values. You might assume that filtered data includes hidden data — after all, the AutoFilter does its job by hiding rows that don’t fit your chosen criteria. But Excel doesn’t consider filtered data “hidden” in this case. When it comes to the SUBTOTAL function, hidden data refers only to rows that you hide by choosing Format Row Hide from the menu bar (or right-clicking on a row number and choosing Hide from the shortcut menu).

So in most cases, it won’t matter which set of function_num values you use for filtered data. But if your data table does include rows you’ve hidden manually, pay attention to whether you want to include those hidden rows in your SUBTOTAL results.

Choose the right function_num value

For our purposes, we’ll need to use either the COUNT or the COUNTA function to count the number of rows in our filtered data. We’ve updated our comparison table to include SUBTOTAL formulas that use COUNT and SUBTOTAL formulas that use COUNTA.

When you use a range that includes column B, which contains numeric data, you can use COUNT with SUBTOTAL for an accurate row count. You can also use COUNTA in this case because COUNTA recognizes both numeric and text data. But when you use a range that includes column A, which contains text data, the COUNTA function_num argument gives you an accurate count. For text data, you can’t use the COUNT function.

For this reason, if you’re counting data that doesn’t contain consistent formatting (such as dates), the COUNTA function_num is your safest bet.

Watch your data flex

When you change the filter on your data range, watch your SUBTOTAL formula’s results update to match the new row count. While using the COUNT or COUNTA functions alone give you the wrong results, the SUBTOTAL function works.

To view the graphics to the table references in this article, please view the pdf document located here.

Business skills for the new world of work

In business today, productivity is key to your success. Whether that means setting up projects for success, forecasting and analyzing trends, or managing critical business information, it is vital that you have the skills to work at peak performance. You already know how to use Microsoft® Office System applications. New Horizons offers Microsoft Business Skills Series Courses to teach you how to use those applications to more efficiently manage, work with, and prioritize information to make better decisions.

Go to www.NewHorizons.com/Memphis for information on courses that cover topics such as:

4002 Forecasting and Trend Analysis Using Microsoft Office Excel 2003
4004 Managing Critical Business Information Using Microsoft Office Access 2003
4008 Building Better Microsoft Office Word 2003 Documents In Less Time

Related Course

Excel 2007 - Level 3

New Horizons Computer Learning Centers Wins United States and Canada Learning Partner of the Year Award at Cisco Partner Summit

2009-06-09T10:43:00.003-05:00

Conshohocken, PA U.S.A. – June 8, 2009 – New Horizons Computer Learning Centers announced today that it is the recipient of a Cisco Partner Summit theatre award for Learning Partner of the Year. Cisco unveiled the winner on June 2nd at its annual partner conference in Boston.

“I have the honor and privilege of recognizing New Horizons Computer Learning Centers as a Cisco Partner Summit regional award winner," said Wendy Bahr, senior vice president, U.S. and Canada channels at Cisco. “The Learning Partner of the Year recognizes New Horizons’ performance and accomplishments as a Cisco channel partner in US and Canada in 2008.”

“We believe Cisco to be a very important partner for New Horizons around the world. Throughout the year, our primary goal has been to deliver the highest quality Cisco training to our students. We look forward to growing and expanding our partnership with Cisco and it is an honor to be recognized for this esteemed award on behalf of all New Horizons Centers,” commented Mark A. Miller, President and Chief Executive Officer of New Horizons Worldwide.

Cisco Partner Summit awards are presented at three levels: regional, theater and global. Cisco Partner Summit U.S. and Canada theater awards reflect a partner’s performance across the United States and Canada.

About New Horizons Computer Learning Centers
With over 300 centers in 60 countries, Conshohocken, Pennsylvania-based New Horizons Worldwide, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: NEWH) is the world’s largest IT training company. Through an integrated learning approach that ensures that new knowledge can be applied to real life situations, New Horizons delivers a full range of technology and business skills training from basic application and desktop productivity tools to complex and integrated business systems. New Horizons continues to expand its offerings, locations, and solutions to meet the growing demands placed on organizations and their employees. For more information, or to find a local New Horizons Computer Learning Center, visit http://www.newhorizons.com/.

Cisco, the Cisco logo, and Cisco Systems are registered trademarks of Cisco Systems Inc. in the United States and certain other countries.

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http://www.newhorizons.com/content/pressReleases.aspx?id=2264&sub=3&did=125&more=1

SQL Server 2008 Free Software Offer Now Extended to September 30, 2009

2009-06-09T10:12:00.001-05:00

Smart companies will take advantage of this training and software offer!

Expert IT training and certification are more important than ever in a tough economy, because they can help companies boost productivity and get the most from their technology investments.

A recent IDC Performance Impact Study* found that teams that met most or all of their objectives typically had twice the amount of training as teams that achieved only partial success.

Take advantage of this great offer to get up to speed and certified on Microsoft SQL Server technology, plus get a free copy of the software so you can gain hands-on experience.

Click here to download the SQL Server 2008 certification path flyer and Promotion Details >>>

How to get this offer: Enroll in and attend any one of the following eight Microsoft SQL Server 2008 courses before SEPTEMBER 30, 2009 (while supplies last), and you get a fully licensed copy of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition with one client access license (CAL).

Get best-in-class training and build outstanding skills when you train with Microsoft Certified Partners for Learning Solutions.

Act now! This free software offer is available for a limited time, and only while supplies last, so enroll today in New Horizons SQL Server 2008 Training near you!

Get Hired | Get Noticed | Go Further - with Microsoft Certification

2009-06-08T10:49:00.000-05:00

The many benefits of Microsoft Certification, as articulated by real Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCPs), who share their own certification experience, and the positive impact that it has had on their careers.

Press play to view the video below, or click here to open the video in a new window.

New Horizons Computer Learning Centers conducts more Microsoft technical training and Microsoft Certification than any other company.

According to a study conducted by Applied Research Consultants, 90% of Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCP's) said certification was extremely useful in their work. In another study, managers and supervisors felt their MCP’s were significantly more competent than non-certified employees. This is valuable proof certification means increased knowledge and enhanced credibility.

New Horizons is among the largest networks of Microsoft Gold Certified Partners for Learning Solutions and Microsoft Certified Partners for Learning Solutions (CPLS) in the world. We provide courses to thousands of students each year - more than any other company. Every course follows the Microsoft Official Curriculum and is taught by a Microsoft Certified Trainer.

Word 2007 enhances the Compare And Merge Documents feature

2009-06-02T10:52:00.003-05:00

When you’re working with a team, you value everyone’s input. But trying to consolidate two versions of the same document often means overlooked changes or a final document riddled with mistakes. The Compare And Merge Documents feature from Word 2003 and earlier lets you combine two versions of the same document into one file, marking each user’s changes just as if they’d used the Track Changes feature. But you can’t view the original documents simultaneously, and with so many changes you might leave some edits unresolved. Let’s look at how Word 2007 improves on the previous Compare And Merge Documents feature.

Refresh your memory

The Compare And Merge Documents feature from the pre-2007 era did prove helpful for getting two versions of a document into one final, polished document. You just had to select Compare And Merge Documents from the Tools menu, select the documents you wanted to merge, and Word created a combined document with its differences marked up like tracked changes (even if the two documents didn’t use the Tracked Changes feature).

The feature’s major limitation was its inability to let you review either of the two original documents. If you wanted to double- check one of them, you had to open the document separately or try to arrange it in one window using the Compare Side By Side feature. And if you wanted to view both original documents and the merged document — forget it. Plus, with so many changes in one document — some of them conflicting changes — you can easily overlook some changes and mar your final version. Word 2007 gives you more control over what you view onscreen and adds a Reviewing pane, which lists all of a document’s revisions in a panel you can view simultaneously. As a result, you can even view your combined document, its two original source documents, and the Reviewing pane, all at once.

Compare vs. combine
You must decide whether you need to compare documents or combine them. Compare documents when you don’t want to make changes or consider input from multiple users; you just want to see how two versions of one document differ. Combine documents when you want to consolidate two documents edited by more than one user and reconcile the changes.

Compare two versions of the same document

In Word 2003 and earlier, you can choose to compare documents without merging them, called a legal blackline. Word 2007 also offers you this option in the case where you don’t want to compare changes from several users — you just want to compare two versions of a document to see what differences lie between them.

To compare two documents without combining them:

Launch Word 2007 and select the Review tab.
Click the Compare button in the Compare group and choose Compare from the resulting dropdown list.
In the Compare Documents dialog box, select Browse from the Original Document dropdown list and navigate to the first version of your document in the Open dialog box.
Select the document and click Open to add it to the Original Document dropdown list.
Follow steps 3 and 4 to add your second version of the document to the Revised Document dropdown list.
Click the More button to further specify your comparison settings.

Note: Any documents open in Word when you use the Compare feature, along with
documents from your Recent Documents list, will display automatically in the
Original Document and Revised Document dropdown lists. You might not need to
browse for your document, so check the dropdown list’s choices first.

Handle existing tracked changes

Ideally, if you’re comparing documents (as opposed to combining them) neither document should include tracked changes. If one or both of your documents includes tracked changes, Word displays a dialog box warning you that, for the purposes of comparison, Word will consider the changes as accepted. Click Yes if you want to continue or No to cancel the comparison.
Keep in mind that letting Word accept the changes for the comparison doesn’t affect the original document. The comparison opens as a new, unsaved document (unless you’ve changed this preference in the Compare Documents dialog box’s Show Changes section).

View more comparison information

By default, once you compare your original document with the revised document, Word displays one new document. Word marks only the changes that signify how the revised document differs from the original document.

If you want to view one or both source documents, click the Show Source Documents button in the Compare group of the Review tab. Select either Show Original, Show Revised, or Show Both from the resulting dropdown menu. If you view one additional document, it displays in a vertical panel to the right of your comparison document. If you view both documents, the right panel splits into two panels. You can dismiss any of the documents at any time by clicking the Close button in the upper-right corner.

Combine two edited documents

While earlier versions of Word included comparing and merging in one, overarching feature, Word 2007 separates them, giving you more flexibility. If you have two documents that different users have edited using the Track Changes feature, you’ll want to consolidate those changes into one document for easier review. Instead of comparing those documents, you’ll want to combine them.

To combine two documents with tracked changes:

Go to the Review tab and, in the Compare group, click the Compare button.
Choose Combine from the dropdown list.
In the Combine Documents dialog box (which looks identical to the Compare Documents dialog box), select Browse from the Original Document dropdown list and navigate to the first version of your document in the Open dialog box.
Select the document and click Open to add it to the Original Document dropdown list.
Follow steps 3 and 4 to add your second version of the document to the dropdown list.
Click the More button to further specify your comparison settings.

Tip: You can change the name attributed to each document’s unmarked changes.
Enter new text in the Label Unmarked Changes With text box.

By default, Word displays the username of the document’s existing tracked changes. Unlike the Compare feature, when you click OK to combine two documents, Word splits your window to show the combined document, the two original source documents, and the Reviewing pane.
You can dismiss any of these areas if you don’t need them in view. Or, you can modify what changes the documents show using the options in the Tracking group of the Review tab. For example, to view the document without marked changes, just choose Final from the Display For Review dropdown list.

More than two documents?
Word 2007 can only combine two documents at a time. So what if you have four reviewers who have all given you their edits for the same document? Combine two of the documents and save the result. Then, combine the resulting document with the third document, and so on.

Never miss an unresolved change

The Reviewing pane in particular boosts Word’s editing capabilities. A summary at the top of the reviewing pane tells you the number of unresolved changes in the document, along with breaking down that number into the type of change: insertions, deletions, moves, formatting, and comments.

As you’re reviewing changes and accepting or rejecting them, The Reviewing pane updates this information automatically. But if you want to force an update, you can click the Update Revision Count button at the top of the Reviewing pane.

You can also display the Reviewing pane horizontally instead of its default vertical display. Just click the Reviewing Pane button’s dropdown list in the Tracking group. Select Reviewing Pane Horizontal from the dropdown list. Now your Reviewing pane spans horizontally along the bottom of your screen.

Now you can save your combined document as a new document, keeping your two original documents intact.

IT Skills Seminar: Cisco Wireless, Voice & Security | Thursday, June 11 | Register Today!

2009-06-01T10:20:00.000-05:00

Cisco Wireless, Voice and Security IT Skills That Matter Free Seminar
New Horizons Memphis - Thursday, June 11

Register today for this half-day, interactive seminar at New Horizons to find out how you can develop and enhance your skills to compete in the growing IT space. Join our team of experts and discover:

Why 2009 is still a strong year for IT
The key IT skills you need to help you succeed today
Tips & tricks for today's fast-paced networking environment
How to successfully align IT resources to business goals
How using new technologies can help you and your network
The future of networking and what it has to offer for your long-term goals
How to increase your ROI in spite of shrinking budgets
Don't miss out on this fantastic FREE opportunity to learn how to improve your IT acumen and position yourself for success.

To register and for more information, please visit http://www.newhorizons.com/Cisco-Seminar.aspx or call us @ (901) 375-1533.

Remote Classroom Learning Portal NEW!

2009-05-27T16:52:00.000-05:00

Visit New Horizons Remote Classroom to view the newly updated Remote Classroom Schedule, Orientation Video, Online Training Resources and more!

Eliminate your commuting challenges with New Horizons Remote Classroom! Stay home and log-in - you'll remain an interactive student with your own designated seat and computer in our on-site classroom.

Remote Classroom offers students the flexibility of taking courses from a remote location, with LIVE video and audio participation integrated with our Classrooms & Instructors. This makes it even easier for you to get the course you want, when and where you need it.

New Horizons can enroll one student or an entire group of students in our online Remote Classroom courses, and virtually any course we provide through our Instructor-Led Classroom curriculum can be delivered to you through our Remote Classroom.

Want to learn more? Just submit your information via the short form located on the Remote Classroom Portal Page @ http://www.LearnAtNewHorizons.com/RemoteClassroom/index.html#contact and we'll get you the information you need to see if Remote Classroom fits your training needs.

Introducing Microsoft Windows Vista® for Microsoft Office 2007 Users (100)

2009-05-20T08:38:00.000-05:00

This webinar introduces to those familiar with Microsoft Office the features of Microsoft Vista that best suits them. You will see the advantages of using Windows Vista and Office together including better file origination, starting programs, search, communication, and Internet navigation. Get tips & tricks to better share and find your files, discover the consistency of search capabilities throughout Windows Vista, and navigate the new features of Internet Explorer. From this session, you’ll get a number of tips to help you immediately benefit from installing Windows Vista into your Microsoft Office 2007 environment.

Date: Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Time: 10 am Pacific; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern
Register Now >>> http://newhorizons.com/LocalWeb/content/ContentOne.aspx?TemplateId=41&GroupId=411
Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation

New Horizons Computer Learning Centers is proud to announce its participation at the Microsoft Tech·Ed North America 2009 Conference!

2009-05-11T17:35:00.001-05:00

New Horizons Computer Learning Centers is proud to announce its participation at the Microsoft Tech·Ed North America 2009 Conference! Visit Booth #536 to learn about our wide selection of technical classes and certification packages! And We're Giving Away An XBOX a Day!http://bit.ly/16fRuH

Microsoft Tech·Ed provides developers and IT Professionals the most comprehensive technical education across Microsoft's current and soon-to-release suite of products, solutions and services. This event provides hands-on learning, deep product exploration and opportunities to connect with industry and Microsoft experts one-to-one. If you are developing, deploying, managing, securing and mobilizing Microsoft solutions, TechEd is the conference that will help you solve today's real-world IT challenges and prepare for tomorrow's innovations.

Webinar Reminder - Microsoft Office 2007 Intermediate Tips & Tricks - Level 200 - May 6

2009-05-05T14:51:00.000-05:00

Intermediate Tips & Tricks for Microsoft Office 2007 (Level 200)

Date: Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Time: 10 am Pacific; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern

Click here to Register Now >

Get even more out of the Microsoft Office 2007 System. As someone who has worked with the Microsoft Office system for some time, you will discover efficient ways to configure, customize and utilize Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook to get the most out of Microsoft Office. The presentation will demonstrate useful tips and tricks for Microsoft Outlook, Word and Excel. In addition, you will see useful ways to interact between these Microsoft applications.

Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation

Here's a Quick Tip regarding Network security levels

2009-04-20T13:59:00.001-05:00

We often hear that network security is a multi-layered or multi-level concept, but exactly what are the specific layers? Moving from the most abstract to the most specific, we define the major levels of network security as:

• Policy level. This is all about planning, strategy, and decision-making. At this level, you define the organization’s security needs and make rules designed to meet those needs.

• Physical level. This pertains to the physical security of your network’s components. It includes the obvious—physically controlling access to workstations, servers, and network devices such as firewalls, routers, and switches. It also includes preventing unauthorized persons from obtaining physical possession of or access to the network cable (or, in the case of wireless networking, airwaves). Finally, it involves protecting network information that’s in hard copy form, such as written password lists and network diagrams, as well as smart cards, tokens, keys to removable hard disks, backup tapes, CDs, and anything else that pertains to your network.

• Perimeter level. This involves stopping unauthorized persons or data from entering your local network from across the internet, through the phone lines, or other outside locations. The most obvious manifestation of perimeter security is the firewall, but it also includes network access controls in the form of logon authentication, intrusion detection systems, network-based anti-virus systems, network-based spam filtering, remote access quarantine controls and similar methods of keeping undesirable packets out of the network.

• Host level. This includes security mechanisms designed to protect individual systems, such as host-based firewalls like the Windows firewall, host-based IDS and anti-virus programs, client-side spam filtering programs, operating system hardening and security patches, and securing individual applications.

• Data level. This pertains to security of the data stored on your computer or sent across the network, and includes encryption technologies such as NTFS file level encryption, third-party disk/partition encryption, and IPsec encryption to protect data in transit. It also includes folder and file level access controls such as Windows share and file permissions.

By implementing security at multiple levels (preferably at all of the levels listed), you avoid the dangers of a single point of failure when it comes to protecting your network.

Upcoming Webinars New Sessions JUST Added!

2009-04-09T09:12:00.000-05:00

APRIL

Introduction to Tips & Tricks for Microsoft Office 2007 (Level 100)

Get the most out of the Microsoft Office 2007 System. As someone beginning to use Microsoft Office 2007, you will learn about new features and timesavers to help you in your day-to-day work. This session is good for beginner, intermediate, or advanced users – everyone will learn something! The Microsoft Office System has evolved from a suite of personal productivity products to a more comprehensive and integrated system. This presentation will demonstrate useful tips and tricks for Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Date: Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Time: 10 am Pacific; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern
Click here to register: www.newhorizons.com/webinars

Tips and Tricks for Maximizing Outlook 2007

Attend this webinar and witness how Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 delivers the functionality to provide better information sharing including publishing and sharing calendars, and exporting Outlook data. Also, see how Outlook 2007 can be configured using settings, trust, add-ins, and customized appearance and content. In this session, we also provide a better under standing of some of the terms used for communications and the capabilities; see Really Simple Syndication (RSS) versus XML, phishing, signatures, and other useful features of Outlook 2007

Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Date: Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Time: 10 am Pacific; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern
Click here to register: www.newhorizons.com/webinars

MAY

Intermediate Tips & Tricks for Microsoft Office 2007 (Level 200)

Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Date: Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Time: 10 am Pacific; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern
Click here to register: www.newhorizons.com/webinars

Introducing Microsoft Windows Vista® for Microsoft Office 2007 Users (100)

Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Date: Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Time: 10 am Pacific; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern
Click here to register: www.newhorizons.com/webinars

Join us from the comfort of your own office… on the Web! Webinar events are quick and convenient.

New Horizons Webinars are a great opportunity for business decision-makers, training professionals, developers, engineers and project managers to see the real value these new technologies can bring to your organization. With new topics every month, there's something for everyone.

ENROLL in all Webinars at: www.newhorizons.com/webinars

Power Up Your Skills $25,000 Sweepstakes from New Horizons - Enter Today!

2009-04-01T11:10:00.000-05:00

Enter the New Horizons Power Up Your Skills $25,000 Training Sweepstakes for your chance to win the grand prize worth $10,000 of computer training classes.

Then play our Power Up scratch off game daily to win a free class instantly!

Arm yourself with the IT and computer skills you need to succeed in today's competitive job market and put the power back in your hands!

Enter today! http://newhorizons.promo.eprize.com/powerup/

You may be a Tech Whiz. But Are You Certifiable?

2009-03-20T09:19:00.000-05:00

Here's a chance to prove yourself in the ultimate knowledge game! Prepare for your next Microsoft certification exam with this free online game from Microsoft!

Are You Certifiable? has two tracks (IT professional and developer) full of certification exam questions, engaging characters, and leader board spots to compete for!

Click here to play: http://www.microsoft.com/click/areyoucertifiable/

Upcoming Free Webinars - New topics added for April & May 2009 *** Register today!

2009-03-20T09:07:00.000-05:00

Join us from the comfort of your own office… on the Web! Webinar events are quick and convenient.

APRIL

Introduction to Tips & Tricks for Microsoft Office 2007 (Level 100)

Get the most out of the Microsoft Office 2007 System. As someone beginning to use Microsoft Office 2007, you will learn about new features and timesavers to help in your day-to-day work. This session is good for beginner, intermediate, or advanced users – everyone will learn something! The Microsoft Office System has evolved from a suite of personal productivity products to a more comprehensive and integrated system. This presentation will demonstrate useful tips and tricks for Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Date: Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Time: 10 am Pacific; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern
Click here to register: www.newhorizons.com/webinars

Tips and Tricks for Maximizing Outlook 2007

Attend this webinar and witness how Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 delivers the functionality to provide better information sharing including publishing and sharing calendars, and exporting Outlook data. Also, see how Outlook 2007 can be configured using settings, trust, add-ins, and customized appearance and content. In this session, we also provide a better understanding of some of the terms used for communications and the capabilities; see Really Simple Syndication (RSS) versus XML, phishing, signatures, and other useful features of Outlook 2007.

Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Date: Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Time: 10 am Pacific; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern
Click here to register: www.newhorizons.com/webinars

MAY

Intermediate Tips & Tricks for Microsoft Office 2007 (Level 200)

Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Date: Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Time: 10 am Pacific; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern
Click here to register: www.newhorizons.com/webinars

Introducing Microsoft Windows Vista® for Microsoft Office 2007 Users (100)

Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Date: Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Time: 10 am Pacific; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern
Click here to register: www.newhorizons.com/webinars

Putting your training into practice. Elevate Newsletter 3/09

2009-03-17T12:02:00.000-05:00

In the March 2009 issue of The Elevate Newsletter from New Horizons:

Microsoft Office Productivity
Three ways to protect your Excel data with confidence
Sometimes you need to keep your Excel data away from prying eyes. But you can protect your data in so many ways that the whole process gets confusing. We’ll break it down for you so your data never stays vulnerable. more >

Information Systems Protection
Twelve ways to harden your domain controllers and prevent security breaches
Domain controllers (DCs) hold a lot of valuable information about your Windows server, which means that you must secure them. We’ve compiled a few ways for you to keep intruders out of your network by strengthening your domain controllers. more >

Web Design & Development
Employ interactive elements to keep users on your site
Finally, nothing drives away online visitors like a boring website. We’ll introduce you to a few ideas for adding interactive elements to your site so visitors want to stay. more >

_____________________________________

New Horizons' goal is for our students to become more productive and successful in their daily activities. With this in mind, we have created Elevate, a newsletter specifically created for New Horizons students. In this free monthly publication you will read articles on how to put what you learned at New Horizons into action.

Simply click on the following link to access the March issue of Elevate.
http://www.newhorizons.com/uploadedFiles/ElevateNewsletter/Elevate_March2009.pdf

Good luck on your path of lifelong learning.

Microsoft Training Giveaway from New Horizons Computer Learning Center

2009-03-12T20:13:00.000-05:00

Enter for a Microsoft training giveaway from New Horizons Computer Learning Center!
New Horizons Computer Learning Center is offering a free Microsoft training course worth up to $2,500 to be given to one lucky Microsoft Subnet reader. Deadline for entry is March 31.

http://www.networkworld.com/subnets/microsoft/

How can Microsoft Certification help you and your career?

View Microsoft Certification Movie Clip >

Microsoft Certification has proven effective for growing skills and gaining professional recognition. According to a study conducted by Applied Research Consultants, 90% of Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCPs) said certification was extremely useful in their work. In another study, managers and supervisors felt their Microsoft Certified Professionals were significantly more competent than non-certified employees. This is valuable proof that certification means increased knowledge and enhanced credibility.

New Horizons Computer Learning Centers conducts more Microsoft technical training and certification courses than any other training company. New Horizons is the world's largest network of Microsoft Gold Certified Partners for Learning Solutions and Microsoft Certified Partners for Learning Solutions (CPLS). We provide courses to thousands of students each year - more than any other company.

As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partners for Learning Solutions, New Horizons maintains the rigorous standards required by Microsoft. Every Microsoft course follows the Microsoft Official Curriculum and is taught by a Microsoft Certified Trainer.

The New Microsoft Certifications Provide a Better Fit

The new generation of Microsoft certifications was created to be more cost effective and more targeted to enable IT professionals to work toward certification that truly meets their needs. Microsoft's new certifications are more specific in order to directly relate to the latest technology and your specific job role. These new certifications, starting with Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 and Microsoft Visual Studio™ 2005, help confirm your skills as an IT Professional or Professional Developer.

New Horizons offers a full range of Microsoft offerings, including courses mapping to the following certifications:

Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP)

Individuals with expertise in a particular Microsoft® product can pursue the Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) credential. MCPs have demonstrated in-depth knowledge of at least one Microsoft technical product. The MCP credential provides a helpful first step on the way to other Microsoft technical certifications. more >

Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP)

The new Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) credentials provide IT professionals with a simpler and more targeted framework to display their technical and professional skills. Now you can distinguish yourself as an IT professional with the current skills and proven job-role capabilities to work effectively with a comprehensive set of Microsoft technologies. The Microsoft Certified IT Professional paths include: Business Intelligence Developer, Customer Support Technician, Database Developer, Database Administrator, Enterprise Messaging Administrator, Enterprise Project Management with Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, Enterprise Support Technician, Enterprise Administrator and Server Administrator. more >

Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD)

The Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD) credential demonstrates your ability to use Microsoft Visual Studio and the Microsoft .NET Framework to excel in a specific, real-world job role. There are three MCPD certification paths: Windows Developer, Web Developer, and Enterprise Applications Developer. more >

Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS)

The Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist credential enables professionals to target specific technologies and distinguish themselves by demonstrating in-depth knowledge and expertise within their area of specialization. Microsoft Certified Technology Specialists are consistently capable of implementing, building, troubleshooting, and debugging a particular Microsoft technology. more >

Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA)

Candidates for the Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator on Windows Server 2003 (MCSA: Windows Server 2003) verify their knowledge as system administrators of Microsoft Windows operating systems. MCSA certification can help advance your career by confirming that you have the skills necessary to successfully manage and troubleshoot system environments. The Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA) certification helps you advance your career by ensuring that you have the skills you need to manage and troubleshoot network environments running on the Windows operating system. more >

Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD)

The Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD) credential provides industry recognition for professional developers who build powerful applications using Microsoft Visual Studio® .NET and Web services. Responsibilities include implementing requirements, developing, testing, deploying and maintaining department-level applications components, Web or desktop clients, or back-end data services by using Microsoft tools and technologies. more >

Microsoft Certified Database Administrator (MCDBA)

The Microsoft® Certified Database Administrator (MCDBA) credential is the premier certification for professionals who design, implement, and administer Microsoft SQL Server™ databases. more >

Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician (MCDST)

The Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician (MCDST) credential proves that you have the skills to successfully support end users and to troubleshoot desktop environments running the Microsoft Windows operating system. more >

Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD)

The Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD) credential is the premium certification for professionals who design and develop custom business solutions with Microsoft development tools, technologies, and platforms. The credential covers job tasks ranging from analyzing business requirements to maintaining solutions. more >

Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE)

Candidates for the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer on Windows Server 2003 (MCSE: Windows Server 2003) verify their ability to analyze the business requirements for information systems solutions, and to design and implement infrastructures based on Windows Server 2003. more >

Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS)

The Microsoft Office Specialist program is globally recognized as the standard for demonstrating desktop skills with the Microsoft Office suite of business productivity applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and Outlook) and the Microsoft Project applications. With an Office Specialist certification, thousands of people have demonstrated increased productivity and have proved their ability to utilize the advanced functionality of these Microsoft applications. more >

Color your model’s hair many different shades — without the chemicals

2009-03-10T08:22:00.000-05:00

Design, Media & Graphics

Sometimes when creating an advertisement or marketing piece, you’ll need to convey a certain image. But does your model really want to dye her hair purple just for your photo shoot? Whether you’d like to complement your model’s skin tone, go with a funky ‘do, or simply darken those locks, there’s a simple approach to colorizing hair in Photoshop — and it doesn’t require a trip to the hairdresser.

Make a selection

We’ll start by selecting the hair on our model shown in Figure A. You can do this any way that works best for you, but we’ll make a Quick Mask selection.

To make a Quick Mask selection:

Double-click on the Edit In Quick Mask Mode button located at the base of the Tools palette to display the Quick Mask Options dialog box.
Select the Selected Areas option button and set the opacity to your liking. We set ours to 50 %, as shown in Figure B.
Click OK.
Select the Brush tool from the Tools palette, choose a soft round brush, and set the diameter to whatever size you’re comfortable painting over the hair with.
Paint over the hair.
Press Q to exit Quick Mask Mode and preview your selection, as shown in Figure C.

Tip: Save this selection as a channel in case you accidentally deselect it. Simply click the Save Selection As Channel button located at the base of the Channels palette.

Choose your dye

Now that you have an active selection, you can easily add a fill color and, with a quick blending mode switch, colorize the model’s hair any way you like.

To colorize the hair:

Click on the Create New Fill Or Adjustment Layer button located at the base of the Layers palette.
Select Color Fill from the pop-up menu to display the Color Fill dialog box. The color fill layer automatically masks around your selection so only the hair shape is colorized.
Set the color to R:149, G:51, B:4 for a reddish brown dye, as shown in Figure D, and click OK.
Set the layer opacity to Soft Light for results shown in Figure E.

Notice two things as you select colors. You can watch your model’s hair change colors as you choose different colors. You can also sample a color from your model by moving the mouse over your image and clicking on an area where the cursor displays as an eyedropper.

Clean up the edges

When we zoomed in to our model’s shoulders and face, we noticed the imperfections from the selection we made. We spotted hair color on the face and shoulder! That’s easy to fix.

To remove unwanted color:

Select the Color Fill layer’s mask thumbnail in the Layers palette.
Select a soft round brush and set the diameter small enough to paint on these areas.
Set the foreground color to black.
Paint over the areas that display fill color but shouldn’t.

Change the color

Don’t like the color you selected? It’s easy to change. Simply double-click the Color Fill layer thumbnail to open the Color Picker and select a different color. Figure F shows different RGB values and how they affect the model’s hair. So whether you’re going for punk or subdued, you can really spruce up your subject’s mane with this technique!

Related Courses

• Photoshop CS3 - Level 2
• Photoshop CS3 Photo Printing and Color
• Photoshop CS4 - Level 2

Graphic & Design eTips to Enhance Your Work
If you are an expert at what you do, then you want to sign up for FREE New Horizons Graphics & Digital Designer eTips. Each week you will receive expert advice from our experienced editors that will improve your productivity and enhance your work. Learn more about the applications you use everyday, including: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Pagemaker, Adobe Photoshop, Digital Photography and QuarkXPress. Imagine the possibilities with the skills you’ll gain!

Perfect Your Columns in Microsoft Word 2007 - Addendum

2009-02-27T16:17:00.000-06:00

Adapt for Word 2007

To create two columns in your Word 2007 document, go to the Page Layout ribbon and, in the Page Setup area, click on the Columns button and choose Two from the resulting dropdown palette. You may also select One from the dropdown palette if the technique calls for a one-column document.

When you’re ready to insert a column break, click the Show/Hide button on the Home ribbon in the Paragraph area (if necessary). Then, go to the Page Layout ribbon and click the Breaks button in the Page Setup area. Choose Column from the dropdown palette. You may also choose Continuous from this dropdown palette if the technique calls for a continuous column break.

To insert a table in Word 2007, go to the Insert ribbon and click the Tables button. Click and drag over the number of rows and columns you want to include. Format your Word table using the Table Tools contextual ribbons. On the Layout ribbon, click the Select button and choose Select Table to select your entire table. Adjust your table’s borders by going to the Design ribbon and clicking the Borders button. Finally, add space between your rows by returning to the Layout ribbon and adjusting the value in the Height spin box.

Related Courses

4008 Building Better Microsoft Office Word 2003 Documents in Less Time
Word 2003 - Level 2
Word 2007 - Level 2

Three ways to perfect your columns in every document

2009-02-27T16:02:00.000-06:00

Although columns can take your document from a text-heavy mess to an attractive and streamlined missive, many users avoid them because they aren’t always easy to format.

But if you master the basics, you can use columns to provide greater document flexibility and additional layout options. To get you started on the right foot with columns, we’ve focused on three readers’ questions with techniques that address the most common column problems.

1. Column basics

Q: I need a quick tutorial on columns. I’ve never been successful using them since I switched to Word from another word processing program. How can I set up a 2-column document that allows me to type in either of the columns at any given time?

A: Columns are a snap once you learn the right tricks for creating them. We’ll set up the two-column document you requested, and then we’ll ensure that Word allows you to type in each column separately, rather than simply flowing text from one column to another.

To create a two-column document:

Open a new Word document.
Click the Columns button on the Standard toolbar, and then select 2 Columns from the Columns dropdown list, as shown in Figure A.

Once you’ve created the 2-column document, the ruler’s appearance changes to display your two columns and the margin between them, as shown in Figure B.

Type in any column

Now that we’ve created our columns, notice that you can only type in the left column.
Let’s set up the document so that you can type in the right or left column at any time. We’ll also show the invisible formatting marks so you can observe the change easily.

To allow typing in either column:

Click the Show/Hide ¶ button on the Standard toolbar to display invisible formatting, if necessary.
Select Insert Break from the menu bar.
In the resulting Break dialog box, select the Column Break option button, as shown in Figure C, and click OK.

Now you can click in the right or left column and add text and graphics to each one.

2. Limit columns to part of the document

Q: I want columns in my document, but not the entire document. Can I insert columns for the information at the beginning of the document, and then make regular text follow those columns?

A: Your procedure for creating columns in only part of the document depends on whether you’ve already started the document and typed its text or you’re starting from scratch. We’ll show you both methods.

To set up partial columns if you’ve already created the document:

Open your document or follow along with our sample document.
Click the Show/Hide ¶ button on the Standard toolbar to show invisible formatting, if necessary.
Select the text you want to format as columns. We selected the first paragraph in our sample.
Click the Columns button on the Standard toolbar and select 2 Columns from the resulting dropdown list.

When you insert the columns for your selected text, a section break automatically appears in your document.

To set up partial columns in a new document:

Open a new Word document and click the Show/Hide ¶ button on the Standard toolbar to show invisible formatting, if necessary.
Click the Columns button on the Standard toolbar and select 2 Columns from the resulting dropdown list.
Type your column data.
Select Insert Break from the menu bar to open the Break dialog box.
Select the Continuous option button in the Section Break Types area, and click OK.
Click the Columns button and select 1 Column
Begin typing your non-column text.

Note that when you inserted the break, your column text was automatically distributed among both columns, and when you clicked 1 Column the ruler changed from two columns to one.

Balanced columns on command!

You can insert a Continuous section break at the end of columns whenever you want them to appear balanced, and then continue adding text before the section break. Word keeps the columns balanced as you add text.

3. Vertically aligned columns

Q: I’m creating an itinerary for our company retreat. I want it in two columns—the first column contains the time of day, and the second column contains a description of the activity for each hour. Of course, each time needs to match its corresponding description. Can Word do this?

A: Word definitely can do this, but you’ll want to use a disguised table rather than columns. When you periodically start a new table row, Word aligns the information for you.

To create vertically aligned “columns” in a table:

Open a new Word document.
Click the Insert Table button on the Standard toolbar and select the 1 x 2 Table option from the resulting dropdown list.
Adjust the table and column size as you prefer.
Type the first time in the first cell in the first row, and then press [Tab] to move to the second cell in the first row.
Type the corresponding activity information in this second cell. Allow Word to automatically wrap the activity information as you type.
Press [Tab] to create a new row, and repeat steps 4-5 until you’ve added all of the information for your itinerary.

To disguise and format your table:

Select the entire table by selecting Table Select Table from the menu bar.
Click the Border button’s dropdown arrow on the Formatting toolbar, and select No Border from the resulting dropdown menu. (In Word 2004, you can find this on the Formatting Palette.)
To provide more distinction between items on the itinerary, select Table Table Properties from the menu bar.
To add space between rows, select the Table tab, click Options, and change the Top and Bottom spin boxes to .08”.
Click OK twice to accept your changes.

Related Courses

4008 Building Better Microsoft Office Word 2003 Documents in Less Time
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Putting Your Training Into Practice - February 2009

2009-02-19T11:01:00.000-06:00

Microsoft Office Productivity
Three ways to perfect your columns in every document
If you create publications with Microsof t Word, you know how important it is to get your columns right — and how frustrating it gets when your columns misbehave. We’ll solve three common column issues for you.

Information Systems Protection
Overcome Vista user control hassles and prove the critics wrong
Windows Vista gets a bad rap for its sometimes overbearing security features. We’ll give you the scoop about Vista’s User Account Control (UAC) and how you can put it to use without letting its constant security prompts overwhelm your users.

Media, Design & Graphics
Color your model’s hair many different shades — without the chemicals
Your photo shoots don’t always offer the look you imagine. But Photoshop can step in when you need to match your vision in spite of restrictive resources. Here’s how to change your model’s hair color without any time-consuming chemicals.

Download the Elevate in PDF format here: http://www.newhorizons.com/uploadedFiles/ElevateNewsletter/Elevate_Feb2009.pdf

Define a new default font and text size for your presentations

2009-01-15T09:00:00.000-06:00

It can be a chore to change the size and font type of your text every time you create a text box. Presenters who prefer a more stylized font than the default Times New Roman, Times, or Arial may grow tired of repeatedly changing it. If you’re one of these presenters, you might consider modifying PowerPoint’s default text values so they reflect the combination you use most frequently.

A quick change made to the default settings can save you time, and help you maintain consistency among your presentations.

Change your defaults
First, let’s change the default font and font size for one text box. The rest of our techniques will build off of this foundation.

To modify your default font and size:

Click the Text Box button on the Drawing toolbar.
Click anywhere on your slide and type in some text.
Select all of the text in the text box, and then choose the font you wish to set as your default from the Font dropdown list on the Formatting toolbar, as shown in Figure A.
With your text still selected, select the size you want as your default from the Font Size dropdown list, also shown in Figure A.
Use the Font Color button on the Formatting or Drawing toolbars to select a new color for your default text. If the color you want to use isn’t immediately visible, click More Font Colors to launch the Colors dialog box.

Set default text only for the current presentation
If you’re creating a presentation that requires specific fonts you won’t be using again, setting up a default font for that presentation can still save you time.

To set a default font for new text boxes in the current presentation only:

Select the text you’ve just formatted.
Choose Format Font to launch the Font dialog box. Here you can further alter the text in the text box and preview the new changes by clicking the Preview button.
When you’re satisfied with the formatting, select the Default For New Objects check box in the bottom-right corner of the dialog box, as shown in Figure B.
Click OK to apply the defaults for all future text boxes in this presentation.

Note: If you don’t have any text selected on your slide, the Default For New
Objects check box isn’t available in the Font dialog box.

From here on, all new text boxes you create are automatically formatted to match the settings you selected for the initial text box. Once you save your presentation, PowerPoint uses these customized default text settings each time you return to the file. However, if you start a new presentation from scratch, PowerPoint relies on the default settings of the Blank Presentation template.

Set default text for all future presentations

To change the default text settings for all future presentations, you need to adjust the settings in the Blank Presentation template.

To change your default text in all future presentations:

Launch PowerPoint and select Blank Presentation if prompted. If you don’t receive a prompt, the Blank Presentation template should automatically open (if it doesn’t, simply click the New button on the Standard toolbar).
Create and format a text box with the settings you want saved as the default for all future presentations.
Select the Default For New Objects check box in the Font dialog box, as we explained earlier in this article.
Select the text box you just formatted and press [Delete] so you have an entirely blank slide.
Choose File Save As to launch the Save As dialog box, and choose Design Template (*.pot) from the Save As Type dropdown list.
Navigate to your PowerPoint templates folder and select Blank Presentation in the Save As dialog box.
Click Save, and then click Yes when prompted if you want to replace the existing file.

Now, the next time you start a new presentation from scratch, every text box you create initially has the new default settings you created.

Adapt for PowerPoint 2007
You can insert a text box in PowerPoint 2007 by going to the Insert tab and clicking the Text Box button. From there, you can use the formatting tools on the Home tab to change your selected text. However, remember that there’s a more comprehensive way to change your default text for a presentation in PowerPoint 2007.
Your PowerPoint presentation’s theme stores default text. You can create a custom theme that includes your text defaults. Then, when you apply the theme to any presentation, your text boxes automatically use the theme’s designated text.

Find your blank presentation template
It may be more difficult than you initially think to find your blank presentation template, since the file’s exact name and location depends on which version of PowerPoint you’re using, which operating system (OS) you have, and how you’ve installed and configured both PowerPoint and the OS.

For starters, the file is usually called either Blank Presentation.pot or Blank.pot, as shown in Figure C. If you’re a Windows user, look for the template at C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Templates or C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates. On the Mac, look in Applications\Microsoft Office X\Templates. If all else fails, simply do a search on your computer for Blank or Blank Presentation and refine it by file type to POT files. If you can’t locate a file by either of these names, the file may have been deleted at some point in the past. If this is the case, simply create a new template in one of the locations we just listed and name it either Blank.pot or Blank Presentation.pot. To be sure you’ve located (or created) the correct file and path, change a feature on your slide, save it over the blank presentation template you think is the default, and then open a new presentation to see if your changes appear.

Related Courses

• PowerPoint 2007 - Level 1
• PowerPoint 2007 - Level 2
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Upcoming Webinars - New Sessions Added for 2009!

2009-01-07T13:01:00.000-06:00

Join us from the comfort of your own office… on the Web! Webinar events are quick and convenient.

New Horizons Webinars are a great opportunity for business decision-makers, training professionals, developers, engineers and project managers to see the real value these new technologies can bring to your organization. With new topics every month, there's something for everyone.

Introduction to Tips & Tricks for Microsoft Office 2007 (Level 100)
Get the most out of the Microsoft Office 2007 System. Enroll Today!
As someone beginning to use Microsoft Office 2007, you will learn about new features and timesavers to help you in your day-to-day work. This session is good for beginner, intermediate, or advanced users – everyone will learn something! The Microsoft Office System has evolved from a suite of personal productivity products to a more comprehensive and integrated system. This presentation will demonstrate useful tips and tricks for Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Date: Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Time: 10 am Pacific; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern

Intermediate Tips & Tricks for Microsoft Office 2007 (Level 200)
Get even more out of the Microsoft Office 2007 System. Enroll Today!
As someone who has worked with the Microsoft Office system for some time, you will discover efficient ways to configure, customize and utilize Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook to get the most out of Microsoft Office. The presentation will demonstrate useful tips and tricks for Microsoft Outlook, Word and Excel. In addition, you will see useful ways to interact between these Microsoft applications.

Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Date: Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Time: 10 am Pacific; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern

Collaborating with Microsoft SharePoint Service 2007 for Microsoft Office 2007
Enroll Today! Microsoft SharePoint provides a single, integrated location where employees can efficiently collaborate with team members, find organizational resources, search for experts and corporate information, manage content and workflow, and leverage business insight to make better-informed decisions. As a Microsoft Office 2007 worker you have more coming at you than ever before. Get the tools to take on these challenges and be more productive. Business productivity solutions from Microsoft can enable more efficient collaboration and help you find and share critical information faster. Learn Tips and Tricks on how to work together and exchange information with Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007.

Presenter: Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Date: Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Time: 10 am Pacific; 12 pm Central; 1 pm Eastern

ENROLL in all Webinars at: www.newhorizons.com/webinars

Don’t land in hot water with new Vista users: Simplify the transition by migrating profiles

2009-01-07T10:32:00.000-06:00

With any OS upgrade, one of your primary concerns is making sure your users can get down to business with their new OS/computer. To migrate hundreds or thousands of users, you’ll use the User State Migration Tool to do the job. However, at this point your Vista plan may be limited to piecemeal upgrades as your company buys new computers to replace existing ones. Since the new computer users will have enough trouble adjusting to the new OS, make sure you transfer their files and settings with Windows Easy Transfer. Bonus: With your guidance, savvy users can save you time by doing it themselves.

Windows Easy Transfer in a nutshell
Windows Easy Transfer is the Vista version of Windows XP’s Files And Settings Transfer Wizard. With this new wizard you can transfer files from Windows 2000 and XP systems. If transferring files from an XP computer, you can also transfer a user’s system and program settings.

What’s an Easy Transfer cable?
Many users and IT pros alike have tried to use a USB Bridge cable to migrate settings from one XP computer to another, without success. Windows just didn’t have the capability built-in. To answer customer demand for the feature, Microsoft added USB functionality to Windows Easy Transfer, so long as you buy the specially designed cable. The Easy Transfer Cable for Windows Vista made by Belkin costs around $40.

Start at the new computer
Begin on the new Vista (target) computer by launching the Windows Easy Transfer wizard from the Welcome Center (click the Transfer Files And Settings button and click the Start Windows Easy Transfer link) or select Start All Programs Accessories System Tools Windows Easy Transfer. The Windows Easy Transfer window appears. Let’s take a look at how to transfer files from a Windows XP computer to a Vista computer using a USB flash drive.

Note: The transfer file can be large depending on the number of users you plan to migrate. For a single user who saves his personal files on the network, a 512 MB USB card will do.

To start a new transfer:

Click Next on the Windows Easy Transfer welcome page.
If you left any programs running that can’t run during the transfer, the Close Programs page appears. Click Close.
Click the Start A New Transfer link.
On the Which Computer Are You Using Now page, click on the My New Computer link.
On the Do You Have An Easy Transfer Cable page, click on the Yes link if you do, or click on the No link to designate a different transfer method. We clicked on the No link.
On the following page, designate whether you need to install Windows Easy Transfer on the old computer. Click on the No, I Need To Install It Now link.
As shown in Figure A, the following page asks you to designate the media you’ll use to install Windows Easy Transfer on the old computer. Click on the link for the method you want to use. We clicked on the USB Flash Drive link.
On the following page, specifically designate the path to the chosen media type. We selected the G: drive. Click Next.

Note: If you selected USB Flash Drive in step 7 but didn’t connect it to the computer, Windows Easy Transfer will prompt you to insert it before listing the drive letter in the dropdown list.

Windows Easy Transfer copies the wizard to the media. When complete, it instructs you to remove the media and insert it into the old computer.

Jump over to the old computer
Now remove your USB flash drive and insert it into the old (source) computer. The computer should automatically offer to run Windows Easy Transfer on the old computer. If it doesn’t, browse to the MigWiz folder on the USB drive using Windows Explorer and double-click on the file migwiz.exe. The Starting Windows Easy Transfer dialog box appears while it loads.

To collect data from the old computer:

Select the media type to which you want to transfer the data. We clicked on the USB Flash Drive link.
On the next page, select the drive letter for the USB device you want to use.
To password protect the data enter a password in the Create Password (Recommended) and Confirm Password text boxes. Click Next.
On the following page, choose which files you want to transfer: All User Accounts, My User Account, or Advanced Options. We clicked on the Advanced link.
In the Advanced Options, select the check boxes for each folder you want to transfer.
Note the Transfer Size, which we’ve highlighted in Figure B, and make adjustments according to your media’s capability. Click Next.
Windows Easy Transfer creates a Migration Store (.MIG) file and copies it and other files and folders to your media.

Bring it full circle — transfer to the target PC
When Windows Easy Transfer indicates the transfer is complete, return to the target Vista computer and insert the media. To complete the transfer process:

Launch Windows Easy Transfer and click Next.
Click on the Continue A Transfer In Progress link.
On the following page, select a username for the new user from the User Account On The New Computer dropdown list or type a new username in the text box.
On the Review Select Files And Settings page, review the files and click Next to proceed with the transfer.

When complete, Windows Easy Transfer lists the number and type of files it transferred. For a complete list, click on the Show Me Everything That Was Transferred link. Figure C shows a sample of the resulting report which you can print or save as an HTML file.

Support tip: If you ask your user to complete these steps, instruct him to save the report for you to review. Use it to ensure that he transferred all the necessary files before you take his old computer out of production.

Log in for final results
Once the transfer is complete, have your user log in to his user account on the new Vista computer and use the computer for several days. When he initially logs in, Windows prompts him to change the password from the one he used on his Windows 2000 or XP machine to a new one for Vista. Remind him to choose a strong password, and to report any problems he encounters with his new machine.

Related Courses

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Five table tricks to increase your InDesign productivity

2009-01-06T15:43:00.000-06:00

Using tables is a great way to organize your data and present it to your reader in an easily viewable fashion. But tables can stump even the advanced InDesign user. Implement these five tips to skate around table woes and keep yourself moving smoothly along your layouts.

Table trick #1: Rearrange table rows
Perhaps a Move Row or Move Column feature will appear in a future version of InDesign, but for now, when you want to rearrange your table components, you’re left to do it the down-and-dirty way: cutting and pasting.

If you’ve ever cut and pasted a table row or cell, you might be groaning now remembering some of the oddities that occurred when you pasted your row to its new location. Sometimes folks inadvertently paste rows into cells by having cell content selected when they paste, instead of having the cell itself selected.

Use the following guidelines to cut and paste table rows — and note that these steps will work for columns as well.

To cut and paste rows:

Select the Type tool.
Hover the cursor to the left of the row you wish to cut until you see the right-pointing arrow, and then click to highlight the row.
Press [Ctrl]X to cut the row contents.
Place the cursor in the row above where you want to insert a new row and choose Table > Insert Row.
Select the Below radio button in the Insert Row dialog box and click OK.
Highlight the new row that you wish to paste the content into, or just highlight the complete first cell in that row. (Make sure that you select the entire cell.)
Press [Ctrl]V to paste the content into the new row, and then press [Shift][Ctrl]A to deselect all.

Tip: With your cursor inside a cell, press [Esc] to toggle between selecting a cell or selecting the cell text.

Table trick #2: Tab inside a table
If you press the [Tab] key while your cursor is inside a table cell, the cursor jumps to the next column. So how do you insert a tab into a table cell? Well, as with most functions, there’s more than one way to do the same thing in InDesign, so we’ll show you two ways to do this task.

To tab inside a table, place the cursor where you want to insert a tab. Then select Type > Insert Special Character > Other > Tab. InDesign inserts a tab where your cursor was!

The second way is of course a little easier: press [Alt][Tab] to insert a tab where your cursor is.

So why would you use the first method? Well, if you have one hand on your java and need to do everything with your mouse hand, you’ll benefit from knowing how to do it via menu options!

Either way, once you insert tabs into table cells, choose Type > Tabs to display the Tabs panel and edit your tab stop or alignments and insert tab leaders as necessary.

Table trick # 3: Align table text without tab stops
Did you know you can align table text to certain characters even if you don’t have any tab stops in your tables? So, for example, if you have a table with monetary values and you want to align the text at the decimal point, it’s possible to do this without inserting a single tab stop.

To align text without tab stops:

Choose Type > Tabs to display the Tabs panel.
Select the table rows you wish to align.
Click the Decimal Align tab stop.
Click anywhere in the ruler to set the text alignment.
Click and drag the tab stop to adjust your text location, and then press [Shift][Ctrl]A to deselect all.

Table trick #4: Add cell padding
Anyone who’s streamlined over to print design from web design probably gets frustrated that InDesign doesn’t offer tables with the same padding options that HTML does. But that doesn’t mean you can’t trick your tables a little to mimic the same kind of padding you’d get in the web world.

To mimic web-table cell padding:

Select the Type tool and highlight your table cells.
Choose Table > Cell Options > Text to open the Cell Options dialog box.
Increase the Cell Insets. We set the Cell Insets to 1p4.
Click on the Strokes And Fills tab, increase the weight, and change the line type. For our example, we set the weight to 6 pt and selected Thick Thin from the Type pop-up menu.

Table trick #5: Speed it up
This last trick is actually a multitude of tricks: Keyboard shortcuts!
One of the best ways to become more efficient using InDesign tables, other than using them frequently, is to learn the keyboard shortcuts. First, insert your cursor into a table cell, and then use the shortcuts shown in Table A to help you build and navigate your InDesign tables easily.

Related Courses

• InDesign CS4 - Level 1
• InDesign CS3 - Level 1
• InDesign CS3 - Level 2

Automate your project planning with a few simple functions

2008-12-18T08:58:00.000-06:00

Planning a project is often easier said than done. If your staff is only in the office on weekdays, you’ll need to omit weekends when building your project schedule. There are many complex project management programs on the market that can make this task less daunting, but they don’t come cheap. Fortunately, Excel offers the only tools you’ll need — the WORKDAY and NETWORKDAYS functions.

Automate your project planning with a few simple functions

Install the necessary ToolPak
These functions are included in Excel’s Analysis ToolPak add-in. If the Analysis ToolPak isn’t enabled, the functions will return a #NAME? error.

To install the Analysis ToolPak:

Launch Excel and open a new workbook.
Choose Tools Add-Ins from the menu bar.
In the Add-Ins dialog box, select the Analysis ToolPak check box in the Add-Ins Available list box, and then click OK.

WORKDAY function syntax

The WORKDAY function uses the following syntax:

WORKDAY(start_date,days,holidays)

The start_date argument is the date to which you want to add workdays, and the days argument is the number of workdays you want to add. The holidays argument is optional; if there are any holidays you want to exclude from your workday calculation, just specify their dates as the holidays argument.

Create the sample worksheet
Let’s see how these functions can simplify your project management.

To set up the worksheet:

Enter the necessary text and formatting.
Apply Date number formatting to cells D3:E11 with the Format Cells dialog box, but leave those cells empty for now.

Calculate the due date
The value in the Due Date column should calculate the due date by adding the number of workdays specified in the Allotted Days column to the date specified in the Start Date column. With the WORKDAY function, this task will be easy.

To calculate the due date based on allotted days:

Enter 9/15/08 in cell D3 and press the [Tab] key to activate cell E3.
Type =WORKDAY(D3,C3) in cell E3 and press [Enter].

Analyze the formula’s results
The due date in cell E3 displays as 10/03/08. If you check your calendar, you’ll find that there are 14 workdays between 09/15/08 and 10/03/08. Notice that the start date, 09/15/08, is included as one of the 14 workdays; however, the due date, 10/03/08, is not. The WORKDAY function begins counting each day at 12:00 a.m. So, the six workdays our sample formula calculates fall between 12:00 a.m. 09/15/08 and 12:00 a.m. 10/03/08. Simply put, if you start the First Draft stage first thing in the morning on 09/15/08 and have 14 days to work on it, it will be due first thing in the morning on 10/03/08.

Fill in the remaining start dates
Let’s set up each remaining stage’s start date to match the preceding stage’s due date. By using a cell reference, the start dates update automatically if there are any changes to the preceding due dates.

To synchronize your start dates and due dates:

Select cell D4 and type =E3, or type an equals sign (=) and select cell E3.
Press [Ctrl][Enter] to save the formula without changing the active cell.
Double-click on the cell’s Fill handle to copy the formula down to the remaining Start Date cells.

To copy your WORKDAY formula to other cells:

Select cell E3.
Double-click on the cell’s Fill handle down to copy down the formula.

Since your WORKDAY formula contains relative references, the copied formulas update when you paste them in a new location.

Tip: In our example, you can not only plan each stage of a project before you’ve started it, but you can also revise your project schedule along the way. For instance, imagine that the Production Schedule stage took only four days as opposed to the five days you originally assigned. If you change the value from 4 to 5, all of the dates affected update automatically.

Exclude holidays from your calculation
At this point,our sample worksheet plots start dates and due dates that begin on 09/15/08 and end on 02/13/09. However, there are a lot of holidays that take place during that time period, including Thanksgiving and Christmas. Let’s account for the 11/20/08 and 12/25/08 holidays in each relevant project stage.

To add company holidays to your worksheet:

Select cell A13 and type Company Holidays.
Press [Enter], type Thanksgiving, and then press the [Tab] key.
Enter 11/20/08, press [Enter], and then type Christmas in cell A15.
Press [Tab] again and enter 12/25/08.
Select cells A13:B15, click on the Borders button’s dropdown list borders in the Formatting toolbar, and then choose Thick Box Border from the resulting palette.
Select cells B14:B15 and apply the same Date number format you applied to cells D3:E11.

Note: If you don’t want to put your holidays or other exceptions right in your worksheet, you can input the holiday argument as a date within quotes. For example, instead of =WORKDAY(D3,C3,B14), you can enter =WORKDAY(D3,C3,"11/20/08"

To exclude holidays from a time span:

Select cell E7 and click in the formula bar to place your insertion point directly before the closing parenthesis.
Type ,B14 in the formula bar and press [Enter] to accept the change.
Select cell E8 and click in the formula bar to place your insertion point directly before the closing parenthesis.
Enter a comma and select cell B15.
Press [Enter] to accept the holiday.

Note: If Excel tags a cell in which you’ve added a holiday to the WORKDAY
function with a green triangle in the upper-left corner, don’t be alarmed. Excel is letting you know that the formulas you AutoFilled in the Due Dates column are now inconsistent. If you click on the smart tag and choose Ignore Error from the
resulting shortcut menu, the tag disappears.

You can include as many holidays as you like, as long as you also include them in your holidays argument. In our example, we included two vacation days in cells A18:A19 in addition to the company holidays.

Notice that each time you add a holiday as a date for Excel to exclude from the workday count, the other dates in the worksheet update accordingly.

Note: If you’re entering your holiday argument with text (e.g., "10/12/08"), you can include more than one by putting the dates in curly braces ({}) and separating them with a comma. For instance, you can enter the formula =WORKDAY(D11,C11,{"8/22/08","8/23/08"}).

Count the workdays that fall between two dates
What if you know which dates you want to start and end your project, and you’d like to find out how many workdays you have to accomplish it? This is where the WORKDAY function’s relative, the NETWORKDAYS function, can work its magic.

Change the scenario
With the end and start dates already decided, you just determine the values in the Allotted Days column. The only difference in syntax between the WORKDAY function and the NETWORKDAYS function is that the NETWORKDAYS function’s second argument is end_date instead of days.

To find the number of allotted days:

Select cells D3:E11 and press [Ctrl]C to copy the values.
With these cells still selected, choose Edit Paste Special from the menu bar to open the Paste Special dialog box.
Select the Values option button in the Paste panel and click OK. Excel converts the date values from formula results to static values.
Select cells C3:C11 and press [Delete] to clear the values.
Select cell C3 and enter =NETWORKDAYS(D3,E3).
Press [Ctrl][Enter] to accept the formula without changing the selected cell.
Double-click on the cell’s Fill handle to copy down the formula.

You can use the same procedures for excluding holidays and vacation days from the allotted days in the NETWORKDAYS function as you did with the WORKDAY function.

Related Courses

Project Management Fundamentals
Excel 2003 - Level 2
Excel 2003 - Level 3
Excel 2007 - Level 2
Excel 2007 - Level 3

Adapt for Excel 2007
To install the Analysis ToolPak in Excel 2007, you need to click the Office button and then click the Excel Options button. Select Add-Ins in the left panel. Choose Excel Add-ins from the Manage dropdown list and click Go. Then, you’ll see the familiar Add-Ins dialog box where you can install the add-in as you would in earlier versions.

The WORKDAY and NETWORKDAYS functions operate the same in Excel 2007 as they do in earlier versions. And in 2007, a helpful ToolTip including the function’s arguments pops up as you type your formula in the Formula bar.

Business skills for the new world of work
In business today, productivity is key to your success. Whether that means setting up projects for success, forecasting and analyzing trends, or managing critical business information, it is vital that you have the skills to work at peak performance. You already know how to use Microsoft® Office System applications. New Horizons offers Microsoft Business Skills Series Courses to teach you how to use those applications to more efficiently manage, work with, and prioritize information to make better decisions. Go to www.NewHorizons.com for information on courses that cover topics such as:

4004 Managing Critical Business Information Using Microsoft Office Access 2003
4007 Creating Effective Presentations Using Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003
4008 Building Better Microsoft Office Word 2003 Documents In Less Time

Join the New Horizons Facebook

2008-11-24T15:36:00.000-06:00

New Horizons is the world’s largest independent IT training company, delivering a full range of technology and business skills training through innovative learning methods.

Become a fan on our Facebook page, where you can be among the first to learn about our newest offerings, announcements and promotions, read our blog, or start a discussion.

Log onto Facebook and then go to our Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/New-Horizons-Computer-Learning-Centers/32813801266.

Simply click on the “Become a Fan” link at the top right side of the page.

Grow your career with a computer forensics certification

2008-11-14T09:50:00.000-06:00

Computer security is one of the hottest topics on the certification front — and rightly so. However, many IT professionals are unaware of a security subspecialty that’s becoming increasingly popular, namely computer forensics. The exact job duties of a computer forensics examiner may vary, but often include:

Collecting and packaging computer hardware and digital evidence in a way that preserves its integrity and the chain of custody.
Creating an inventory and storing computer-related evidence in a secure manner.
Examining the contents of digital media, including memory, hard disks, and removable media to view and analyze the data recorded there.
Using data recovery techniques and software to uncover hidden or deleted data.
Cracking passwords to obtain access to data.
Decrypting data that has been protected with encryption.
Presenting detailed reports and charts to document the results of the examination and analysis.
Assisting law enforcement agents in preparing search warrants, assisting prosecutors in preparing cases for court, assisting civil litigants in preparing cases, assisting defense attorneys in preparing cases, and/or assisting corporate IT departments in responding to and analyzing security breaches and other incidents.
Testifying in court in computer crime cases and civil lawsuits involving digital evidence.

Related Courses from New Horizons:

Computer Hacking Forensics Investigator
Forensics Bootcamp

Best practices for handling evidence when a computer crime occurs

2008-11-14T09:36:00.000-06:00

As a database professional, you aren’t necessarily a legal expert. Yet, you may find yourself in a situation where you need to respond to a computer crime incident, assist with an investigation, or pass information to either an internal investigative committee or a judicial proceeding. If you don’t handle evidence properly, chances are you won’t be very successful in prosecuting the perpetrator. We’ll provide some guidelines to help manage evidence related to a computer crime.

Computer forensics defined

According to Wikipedia, computer forensics is "application of the scientific method to digital media in order to establish factual information for judicial review." This process often involves investigating computer systems to determine whether they are or have been used for illegal or unauthorized activities.

If a data-related crime is committed, you may work with a computer forensics expert, who will:

Identify sources of evidence.
Preserve the evidence.
Analyze the evidence.
Present the findings.

Computer forensics must adhere to the standards of evidence that are admissible in a court of law. As such, computer forensics must be techno-legal in nature rather than purely technical or purely legal.

As a DBA, you may also want to apply the principles of computer forensics to help force your organization’s established policies.

Types of evidence

Evidence is anything that proves or disproves an assertion or fact. With respect to a legal proceeding, evidence must meet these criteria:

Sufficiency. The evidence must be convincing and unquestionable.
Competency. The evidence must be legally qualified and reliable.
Relevancy. The evidence must be material to the case or have a bearing on the matter at hand.

As you may suspect, not all evidence is created equal. The most convincing evidence is that which can be proven directly through the five senses: hearing, smelling, seeing, touching, and tasting. This type of evidence is described below along with other (less convincing) types of evidence:

Direct evidence. Knowledge of the facts surrounding an incident, e.g. an eye witness’s oral testimony. The witness must have obtained the knowledge through his five senses rather than through inferences or presumptions.
Physical evidence. Real, tangible objects that prove or disprove a fact, e.g. an intruder’s possession of stolen data. This type of evidence links the suspect to the crime.
Documentary evidence. Evidence in the form of printed documentation — e.g. audit logs or video surveillance tapes. This is the most common type of evidence associated with computer crime.
Demonstrative evidence. Aids that prove that an incident occurred — e.g., models, exhibits, and charts. This type of evidence is typically presented to a jury to help them understand the facts.

Guidelines for handling evidence

You may be called upon to present evidence to an internal investigative team or to a court of law. In the former case, you need to be able to answer many questions regarding the evidence; in the latter case, you need to demonstrate credibility. To prepare for either situation, you should be familiar with established guidelines for handling evidence.

Collecting evidence

If you’re involved in the investigating an incident, you’ll need to gather as much evidence as you can. It’s critical that you start the process early because, in all likelihood, the individual who committed the crime will try to conceal their involvement. As time passes, the evidence is susceptible to tampering or even destruction. Here are some actions you can take immediately upon discovering an incident:

Print copies of audit logs, as they may be subpoenaed. A backup of the database or transaction logs may also be helpful.
Secure all types of removable media (CDs, USB flash drives, floppy disks, etc.).
Look for relevant physical evidence on the desk and surrounding areas. It can be helpful to take photos of the target system from several different angles both inside and outside the machine. If possible, use a Polaroid camera; otherwise, the defense team can claim the photos were altered during film development.

Identifying evidence

While you’re collecting evidence, it’s critical that you identify each item and its relation to the crime scene. You should be as methodical as possible and elicit the help of another individual who can serve as a witness to your actions. As you collect each piece of evidence, label it and record information about it in a log book. The information you log should minimally include the following entries:

Item name and description.
Name of individual who discovered it.
Date, time, and location of discovery.
Make, model, and serial number if available.
Identifying marks on the item.
Any perceivable physical damage to the item.

Tip:
Besides being a backup for missing labels, the log book can help you review information about the evidence prior to a formal hearing.

Protecting evidence

After you’ve collected and identified the evidence, you need to protect it from damage. Damage may result from environmental factors, such as extreme temperatures or variations in humidity, or from physical factors, such as vibration or electromagnetic fields. The best way to protect evidence is to handle it with anti-static gloves (as opposed to latex gloves).

Transporting evidence

If you need to transport the evidence, make sure that you use proper packing techniques. Even if the evidence is in a sealed bag or other type of container, avoid using foam peanuts, as doing so increases the chances that the evidence becomes tainted. Use solid foam padding to wrap the evidence container, and then store the container in a sturdy cardboard box. Label the box contents, using the log book entries you created earlier in the process.

Storing evidence

In addition to storing evidence in sealable anti-static bags and packaging it appropriately, you should keep it in a secure room. The evidence room should have minimal traffic, restricted access, camera monitoring, and entry logging capabilities.

Chain of custody

Another component of managing evidence is the concept of chain of custody. Chain of custody refers to an accounting of all persons and events related to the handling of the evidence from the time it is first collected to the time it’s submitted to the court. Here’s a list of critical steps in the chain of custody process:

Record each item collected as evidence.
Record who collected the evidence along with the date and time of collection.
Write a description of the evidence in your log book.
Put the evidence in containers; tag the containers with the name of the person who collected the evidence as well as the date and time.
Record all hash values in the documentation.
Securely transport the evidence to a protected storage facility.
Obtain a signature from the person who accepts the evidence at the storage facility.
Provide controls to prevent access to the evidence while it’s in storage.
Securely transport the evidence to the court for legal proceedings.

Special considerations for digital media

In crimes involving stolen data, magnetic and optical discs become key pieces of evidence. Here are some practical guidelines for protecting evidence related to digital media:

Don’t power down a system before you perform a RAM memory dump.
Never use diagnostic tools or utilities to analyze a system; doing so can compromise the true state of the data at the time the crime was discovered.
Use a bit-level, sector-based imaging utility to capture the state of the data; make several copies of the drive and analyze only the copies.
Don’t restart the machine and boot back into the operating system, as this can also change the true state of the media.

Related Courses

Computer Hacking Forensics Investigator
Forensics Bootcamp

Draw on Vista’s enhanced backup features to safeguard your PC from disaster

2008-11-14T09:24:00.000-06:00

Full system backups — images that contain your computers’ OS, system files, programs, and personal files — require software that can be too expensive for a company to purchase. With Windows Vista, software costs no longer keep you from protecting your users against their own hasty deletions or against hardware failure. We’ll show you how to create an image of your computer with Windows Vista backup features for simple restorations if a computer catastrophe strikes.

Note: No images for Home users
Don’t be surprised by missing backup options if you support some users with Vista Home Basic or Home Premium. The Complete PC Backup option is available only to Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise users.

Take note of backup device options

Before you even open the Windows Complete PC Backup wizard, you need to know a few things about potential backup devices. Because Windows will take a backup image of the computer, it can’t write the backup to the primary hard partition or to a partition formatted FAT32. It also can’t write to a mapped network drive or UNC path. Your only options for backup devices are:

Secondary partitions
Secondary hard drives
DVD drive

If your computer doesn’t have a secondary partition or drive, or they are not large enough to store the image, you must use the DVD option.

Downside: The DVD option requires multiple DVDs. All those DVDs increase your costs associated with buying and storing the DVDs, as well as the time you’ll spend swapping DVDs each time you create or restore a backup.

Create your first backup

Windows Vista comes loaded with the Backup and Restore Center which you can launch from Control Panel. Users who have administrative tokens can use the Center to initiate Complete PC backups and to initiate a restore of that backup. We’ll start there.

To perform a Complete PC backup from the Backup and Restore Center:

Select Start Control Panel Backup And Restore Center.
In the Backup And Restore Center’s Back Up Files Or Your Entire Computer section, click on the Back Up Computer button.
Windows Complete PC Backup scans your computer for available storage devices.
On the Where Do You Want To Save The Backup page, the wizard lists each hard drive and DVD burner available. View a list by selecting the corresponding dropdown list.
Select the option button for the type of device and the particular drive you’ll use; click Next.
On the next page you must choose which hard drives to include in your backup. Select the check boxes for each drive or partition you want to back up and click Next.
On the Confirm Your Backup Settings page, review your selections. If you selected the DVD option, the wizard estimates how many DVDs you’ll need. Click Start Backup when you’re ready.

Windows Complete PC Backup now creates the image based on your specifications. The process takes considerable time to complete — up to an hour or more — depending on the total size of your backup.

Are you prepared for a catastrophe?

You should never rely on a backup without testing it first. With Vista, once the image has been created, you should view the folder structure on your hard drive or DVDs. But don’t relax just because you can see the folders — restore the image right away to make sure you can count on it if the computer fails.

Caution:
In case your image does fail you, be sure to backup any critical files onto a protected network share, USB flash drive, or DVD before you proceed.

Restore your image

You can launch a Complete PC restore from the Windows Vista installation DVD or from the Windows Recovery Environment.

To restore your PC with the Windows installation DVD:

With your computer configured to boot from the DVD drive, insert your Vista install DVD and reboot.
Follow the prompts to continue and to choose your language settings. Click Next.
Click Repair Your Computer.
Select Windows Complete PC Restore from the System Recovery Options menu.
Select the operating system you want to repair, and then click Next. The Windows Disaster Recovery wizard opens.
Attach or insert your backup media, and then step through the wizard to complete the restoration.

To restore using Windows recovery options (if you installed them previously):

Restart the computer.
Press the [F8] key after the BIOS sequence and before the Windows logo appears.
Tip:
If your computer has more than one operating system installed, use the arrow keys to highlight the operating system you want to start, and then press
[F8].
Select Repair Your Computer from the Advanced Boot Options menu, and then press [Enter].
Select a keyboard layout, and then click Next.
Select a user name and enter the password, and then click OK.
Select Windows Complete PC Restore from the System Recovery Options menu.
Attach or insert your backup media, and then follow the instructions to complete the restoration.

Related Courses

5115 Installing and Configuring the Windows Vista™ Operating System
5117 Installing, Configuring, Troubleshooting, and Maintaining Windows Vista®
Windows Vista - Level 1
Windows Vista - Level 2

Create documents that break in all the right places

2008-11-14T08:57:00.000-06:00

Terms like soft page break, hard page break, next page section break, and odd page section break can make your head spin. Worse yet, they can lead you to choose back-door formatting options (such as repeated hard returns) when you know there must be a more logical approach to solving your problem. In this article, we’ll help you brush up on your knowledge of breaks, and we’ll help you decide the best method for breaking up your document’s pages, columns, and formatting.

Basic page breaks
There are two types of basic page breaks: automatic page breaks and manual page breaks. Both break types are easy to work with, and the effects of each are straightforward.

Automatic page breaks
Word inserts automatic (or soft) page breaks automatically as you fill each page and begin another page. The location of an automatic page break adjusts and readjusts automatically as you revise your document.

You can see where pages break in Print Layout view, Print Preview, and Normal view:

In Normal view, an automatic page break appears as a single dotted line across the page.
In Print Layout (or Page Layout) view and Print Preview mode, automatic page breaks are indicated by the graphical representations of entire pages.

Manual page breaks
Although Word’s automatic page breaks are handy, you’ll sometimes want to begin a new page before the current page is full. To do so, insert a manual page break. Use manual page breaks when you want to prevent text or tables from breaking across pages.
To insert a manual page break:

Select Insert Break from the menu bar to open the Break dialog box.
Select the Page Break option button, and then click OK. As an alternative, you can also add a manual page break simply by pressing [Ctrl][Enter] (this isn’t available on the Mac).

How manual page breaks appear:

In Normal view, manual page breaks appear as dotted lines marked Page Break.
In Print Layout (or Page Layout) view and Print Preview mode, manual page breaks are indicated by the graphical representations of entire pages.

Section breaks
Section breaks divide a document into smaller pieces, or sections, for formatting and page layout purposes. By dividing a document into sections, you can isolate page formatting to a portion of your document instead of the whole document. When you use page breaks, you can vary elements such as margins, page orientation, headers and footers, page number sequence, and document protection.

To insert a section break:

Select Insert Break from the menu bar to open the Break dialog box.
Select the desired break type from the Section Break Types area and click OK.

Section breaks are displayed in Normal view. You can also see them in Print Layout view if you select the Show/Hide button on the Standard toolbar. Section breaks are represented in your document as a double dotted line that contains the name of the section break applied.

Next, let’s take a closer look at how each type of section break works.

Next page section breaks
A next page section break inserts a section break at the insertion point and moves everything that follows to a new section beginning on the following page. A next page section break is different from a manual page break because it classifies the document portions both before and after the break as sections. When you use next page section breaks, you can apply specialized page formatting to each section. When you use manual page breaks, you cannot.

Tip:
If you’re applying changes to your document in the Page Setup dialog box, you can insert a next page section break on the fly by selecting This Point Forward from the Apply To dropdown list. When you click OK, Word inserts a next page section break at the insertion point and applies your changes to the document text following the section break.

Continuous section breaks
You can use continuous section breaks to divide your document into sections without including page breaks. This way, you have the freedom to allow your documents’ pages to break automatically as necessary, but you still have the power to apply isolated formatting to single sections in your document. Continuous section breaks are particularly handy when you want to use different numbers of columns on the same page, as with a flyer or a newsletter.

Even page and odd page section breaks
Even page and odd page section breaks work much the same as next page section breaks. Each inserts a section break at the insertion point and begins a new section. However, instead of beginning the new section on the next page, as the next page section break does, even page and odd page section breaks begin the new section on the next even- or odd-numbered page, respectively.

For example, if you insert an odd page section break on page 3 of your document, Word inserts a section break and begins the new section on page 5. Even page and odd page section breaks are useful when your document contains chapters and you want each new chapter to begin on either an even- or an odd-numbered page.

Adapt for Word 2007
In Word 2007, you can access any of the page breaks we discuss in this article through the Page Layout ribbon. In the Page Setup area, click the Breaks button and choose from the list of possible page and section breaks. You can also quickly insert a page break from the Insert ribbon. In the Pages section, click the Page Break button to immediately insert a page break.

Column breaks
Column breaks are special tools that enable you to control where to end a column in a multi-column document.

To insert a column break:

Select Insert Break from the menu bar.
Select the Column Break option button, and then click OK.

When you insert a column break, Word ends the column and moves all the text that follows to the next column. Column breaks are useful tools for fixing uneven columns. They’re denoted in Normal view and Print Layout (or Page Layout) view with a single dotted line and the words Column Break.

Text Wrapping breaks
Text Wrapping breaks are much like column breaks, except that they break lines of text instead of columns of text. Text wrapping breaks are available in all versions of Word 2000 and later except on the Mac.

To insert a Text Wrapping break:

Select Insert Break from the menu bar.
Select the Text Wrapping Break option in the Break dialog box and click OK.

Word denotes a text wrapping break by an arrow at the end of the line in Normal view and Print Layout (or Page Layout) view, and it begins the text that follows on a new line.

Conditional break techniques
The options available in the Break dialog box aren’t the end of the line when it comes to creative page breaking. You can also insert page breaks using the Line And Page Breaks property sheet.

To use the Line And Page Breaks property sheet:

Select Format Paragraph from the menu bar.
Click on the Line And Page Breaks tab.
Make the selections you’d like and click OK to apply the changes.

Here are the four features on the Line And Page Breaks sheet that you can use to control where Word places automatic page breaks as you type:

Widow/Orphan Control. This feature prevents Word from printing the last line of a paragraph at the top of a page or the first line of a paragraph at the bottom of a page. Instead, Word adjusts the placement of automatic page breaks to allow at least two lines of a paragraph to appear at the top or bottom of a page.
Keep Lines Together. This feature prevents Word from inserting a page break in the middle of a paragraph.
Keep With Next. This feature prevents Word from inserting a page break between the selected paragraph and the paragraph that follows it.
Page Break Before. This feature tells Word to insert a manual page break before the selected paragraph, ensuring that it begins on a new page.

Related Courses

Word 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007 & 2007 New Features
4008 Building Better Microsoft Office Word 2003 Documents in Less Time

The Value of Microsoft Certification

2008-10-18T13:38:00.000-05:00

More about Mentored Learning

2008-10-18T13:21:00.000-05:00

Don't re-create the wheel: Utilize a PowerPoint slide in a Word document (Word 2000/2002/2003/2004)

2008-10-17T08:37:00.000-05:00

When using multiple Microsoft Office programs, you can easily share information between them. For instance, there's no reason to re-create the information on a Microsoft PowerPoint slide if you want to use it in an existing Word document to illustrate your point. Instead, just embed a copy of the entire slide in your Word document.

First, open the presentation in PowerPoint. In the Slides pane (or in Slide Sorter view), select the slide you want to copy, and then click the Copy button. Now, switch to your Word document. Position the insertion point where you want the slide to appear, and then click the Paste button to add the slide. You can edit the slide within the Word document by double-clicking on it and then making your changes. The original presentation is unaffected.

To change the embedded slide's size and layout, select it and then choose Format Object. Make the desired changes, and click OK.

Show percentages with a little color (Excel 2007)

2008-10-17T08:36:00.000-05:00

Percentages interpret your data as smaller parts of a larger piece. This is why pie charts are often a popular way to demonstrate percentages. However, if you want to conserve space and still present an attractive, effective visual of your percentage data, Excel 2007 offers a great alternative.

On the Home ribbon, in the Styles panel, there’s a Conditional Formatting icon that opens a shortcut menu. In this menu, you’ll see a formatting option called Data Bars. When you select a data range and then apply data bars (in any of a wide range of colors), the bars visually demonstrate the percentage or number in comparison to the other numbers in the data range. If you widen or contract the column’s width, the data bars remain proportionate.

The best part about the data bars is that they take seconds to apply — but it looks like they took hours of careful formatting.

Use this trick to open a CS3 file in CS2 (InDesign CS2/CS3)

2008-10-17T08:34:00.000-05:00

Not everyone upgrades software at each new release. Unfortunately, one of the bigger headaches with InDesign files is the incompatibility issues that arise from this discrepancy. While newer versions of InDesign have worked fairly seamlessly at opening up earlier-version documents, older versions can’t open up the newer-version files.

With good reason: The newer software has updated features that the older version doesn’t know how to translate.

You can rest easy with this upgrade, however, because you can open a CS3 file in CS2. To do this, open your InDesign CS3 file and choose File > Export, select InDesign Interchange from the format pop-up menu, and click Save. Now, a user with CS2 can open the resulting .inx file in CS2.

There are two caveats, however:

Any CS3 features that don't exist in CS2 (such as table styles) won't carry over.
Only the latest version of CS2 can open CS3 files. Make sure your version of CS2 is up-to-date.

Note: When you have both CS2 and CS3 on your system, the file icons always display as CS3 -- even if they’re CS2 files. Therefore, it’s best to launch the InDesign version you want to use and then open the file from within the application. If you double-click on the file to launch InDesign, you may unwittingly open a CS2 file in CS3.

Three image resolution myths debunked - Design, Media & Graphics

2008-10-16T16:21:00.000-05:00

Whether creating images for web or print, you’ll no doubt spend some time in the Image Size dialog box. But don’t turn your image resizing into a guessing game — educate yourself on the right way to handle all of your image resizing needs. Read on to discover the truth about image resolution and what really matters when it comes to pixels.

Myth #1: Web graphics should be 72 ppi
In the early days of the World Wide Web, the standard screen resolution was 800 x 600 pixels, which in turn, provided a resolution acceptable for viewing images at 72 or 96 ppi. Hence, 72 ppi images for the web became the norm, as well as part of the lingo. When we hear the term low-res image, a 72-ppi image is what comes to mind.

However, images don’t necessarily need to be 72 ppi to use online. Image resolution is of utmost importance for print graphics, but not so much for web graphics. For one thing, you can’t control what the end user has set for his monitor resolution. Another point is that changing the resolution alone doesn’t change the file size or the dimensions of the image. You need to resample the image to accomplish that.

To test this technique on your own:

Launch Photoshop and open an image.
Choose Image > Image Size to display the Image Size dialog box.
Deselect the Resample Image check box.
Change the resolution.
Note that while the Document Size Width and Height values change, the Pixel Dimensions file size, Height, and Width remain the same.

When preparing images for the web, you need to pay more attention to your image’s actual pixel dimensions and file size. So if you need to create a banner graphic that is 400 pixels wide, you should focus on the Pixel Dimensions section of the Image Size dialog box, not the Document Size section.

Myth #2: Print graphics should all be 300ppi
If you’re preparing graphics for printed materials, you might assume that all images should be 300 ppi. That’s simply not true. You use a number of variables to calculate your image resolution for print jobs, including output device, paper stock and line screen.

Output device
Use Table A as a guideline to determine image resolution requirements for any graphics you may place in your documents. However, your printer’s manual or your service bureau’s specifications — which can supply you with tailored specifications — should trump any general recommendations. Table A

Note: For line art, you should set your resolution at 1200 ppi or the resolution of the final output device — whichever is lower.

Line screen and paper stock
Most output devices are capable of printing more than one screen frequency — for the most part, the paper that the piece is printed on determines the line screen. For instance, too high of a line screen may result in dot gain; too low of a line screen and not enough dot will be placed — it all depends on the paper’s characteristics. The typical LPI settings for various media and the paper stock they’re commonly printed on are shown in Table B. Your image’s resolution should be twice the screen frequency to produce enough halftone dot in print. If you need to resize an image, multiply its current resolution by the percentage of enlargement or reduction to get the final resolution it will need:

2 x LPI x resize % = PPI

Myth #3: Don’t resample your images
In the early desktop publishing and electronic image age, designers used great caution when resampling images. Much of the resampling hesitation stemmed from the fact that film scans were notoriously grainy. With today’s digital cameras, you’re often safe to upsample an image 200 percent! Now that’s progress!

Keep these tips in mind as you upsample (add pixels to) or downsample (remove pixels from) your images:

Don’t resample incrementally. In Photoshop’s early years, pixel pushers had to resample in 10-percent increments to achieve the best possible quality. But that’s no longer the case. Photoshop’s Bicubic Smoother and Bicubic Sharper resampling algorithms work best in a single pass. In fact, incremental resampling in current Photoshop versions can have adverse effects on your images, such as accentuating the artifacts caused from resampling.
Start with a quality image. You’ll get a much better resampled image if you start with a high-quality image. Photoshop isn’t a miracle worker, so don’t expect a lousy image to resample into a better one.
Interpolation doesn’t add detail. When you resample images you’re relying on predetermined algorithms to either add or remove pixels from your image. You’ll never achieve more detail than what you start with.
The more pixels, the merrier. If you have to resample images, you’re better off downsampling from high-resolution images with more pixel data, than upsampling from low-resolution images with less pixel data.
Purchase a plug in. Since upsampling is generally more complicated than downsampling, consider purchasing a third-party plug-in designed specifically for this task.

Related Courses:

InDesign CS3 - Level 1
InDesign CS3 - Level 2
Photoshop CS3 - Level 1
Photoshop CS3 - Level 2

Take the guesswork out of choosing your Vista upgrade path - Information Systems Protection

2008-10-16T16:08:00.000-05:00

When you consider upgrading to a new operating system (OS), you certainly wonder if your current computer hardware and applications are compatible with that OS. Vista upgrade considerations bring the same concerns — and you shouldn’t wait until after you’ve purchased the upgrade to find out how your system will fair. Fortunately, you can run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor for a quick analysis of your hardware as well as recommendations on what Vista edition is for you. Bonus: We’ll clue you in to the best ways to find out if your applications will work on Vista.

Understand what Upgrade Advisor does
To run Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor, you must download and install it on every computer you plan to upgrade.

When Advisor runs on a workstation, it scans the computer’s hardware and then recommends a Vista edition based on the scan. It also gives specifics about any problems it sees, including basic application compatibility problems.

Put Advisor to work
Downloading and running the analyzer is a straightforward process. To download it, simply point your browser to www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/upgradeadvisor/default.mspx and click on the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor link in the middle of the page. Once installed, you’re ready to run it.

Note: You may have to install MSXML 6.0 Parser
prior to installing the Upgrade Advisor.

To scan your system with the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor, make sure you first connect every hardware device you want to use with that computer and Vista, such as printers or USB thumb drives, to the computer. Then run through the Advisor tool by launching it from All Programs and stepping through the prompts to start the scan. When the Scan Complete indicator appears, click the See Details button.

The resulting page reports if your computer can run Vista, and which version you should purchase for it. You can also click any available See Details button to open the Report Details window. Select a tab on that page for details related to the System, Devices, Programs, and Task List.

Ensure application compatibility
In addition to determining your hardware’s ability to run Vista, you need to know if your applications can run with it. Advisor gives you some program compatibility information. We recommend you contact the vendor for your critical applications because many vendors began testing their apps months ago and can tell you the status.

Take advantage of compatibility tools
Microsoft offers several tools to test for application compatibility and to help your legacy apps work with Vista.

If you plan to roll out Vista to more than a few computers, you might consider using the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit, version 5 (ACT). With ACT, you can create and install a package on all of your computers. Use it to inventory all apps on company computers and analyze their compatibility. ACT works best for larger organizations where it’s more cost effective to configure an ACT server and package than to stop by every computer to check which apps are installed.

Once you upgrade a computer to Vista, the Windows Vista Program Compatibility Assistant runs in the background to resolve application compatibility issues that arise. Vista also comes loaded with the Program Compatibility Wizard so you can manually work with Vista to choose compatibility modes for your apps.

Convey hard data without weighing down - Microsoft Office Productivity

2008-10-16T15:00:00.000-05:00

In today’s competitive market, you need to deliver presentations your audience can understand — and then remember — after you leave the meeting room. It’s easy to pack a presentation with numerical data in an effort to get it all in, but if you clutter your slides with words and numbers, your point and your audience are lost. You need a method to get your data-driven message across with high-impact visuals. We’ve designed a technique to create borderless column or bar charts that deliver both data and a visual punch.

Plant the seed
Your background image is the key to creating a washout chart. For this technique, you’ll format your background image once and then make a copy of the background image. You’ll then wash out the copy for use in your chart.

Tip: In nearly every presentation you design, you should start with a subtle background image. When washing out a chart, be vigilant about subtleness, and also select a background image that uses dark colors.

Dig in to slide creation
Once you choose a background image, you’re ready to create your slide and basic chart.

To create your chart slide:

Create a blank slide.
Insert your background image by selecting Insert Picture From File, and then navigating to and selecting the image. Click Insert.
Resize the image using the sizing handles so that it covers the entire slide background.
Insert a text box by selecting Insert Text Box, and then add a title for the slide. Remember to use font colors that contrast with the background and use a font no smaller than 36 pt.
Arrange any text boxes with chart placement in mind.

Because the background tells so much of your slide’s story, avoid using additional images. If you must include a company logo, limit its size.

Insert and format your chart
The next step is to insert and format the chart. Begin with inserting a basic chart.

To create a basic chart:

Select Insert Chart to insert a Column chart and open a basic Presentation Datasheet.
Enter your data in the datasheet’s columns and rows.
Because wider columns look better with this technique, we used only one variable, as shown in Figure B. To remove a variable, right-click on the column or row header and choose Cut from the shortcut menu.
Click on your slide somewhere outside of the chart area to deactivate the chart. Size and position the chart on the slide as desired.

Look over your chart now and compare how the text color contrasts with the areas on the background it covers. Also determine if you wish to add custom titles. You can make those changes and more when you customize your chart.

To customize a chart to prepare it for the washout technique:

Double-click on the chart to edit it.
To change the axis font, right-click on the x- or y-axis and choose Format Axis.
On the Font tab, select a Font color and a Background color from the Color and Background dropdown lists. We chose White and Transparent, respectively. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the other axis.
If your chart is simple, such as ours, and thus you don’t need a legend, remove it to streamline the chart by right-clicking on the legend and choosing Clear.
Right-click in the Chart Area and choose Chart Options if you wish to add titles. Figure C illustrates the Chart Area.
Enter text in the appropriate text boxes on the Titles tab. Click OK, and then right-click on the title and choose Format Axis Title to format the font, if desired.
If you wish to remove the gridlines as we did for our example chart, right-click on a gridline and choose Clear from the shortcut menu.
To format the column type so that you can wash it out, right-click on the Chart Area and choose Chart Type from the shortcut menu. Choose Clustered Columns from the Chart Sub-type section of the Standard Types tab. Click OK.
To change the spacing between each column, right-click on a column and choose Format Data Series from the shortcut menu. On the Options tab, change the gap width, as desired. We chose 50.

Wash out your columns
Now that you’ve finished with the necessary and aesthetic chart customization, you’re ready for washout magic. To save time and repetitive steps, begin by copying the original background image onto a new blank slide. You can delete this slide later.

To create and format the washout image:

Right-click on the background image and choose Copy.
Select Insert New Slide and choose Blank from the Slide Layout pane. (In 2000, select Blank in the New Slide dialog box and click OK.)
Right-click on the new slide and choose Paste.
On the Picture toolbar, click the Color button and select Washout (choose Image Control Watermark in 2000), as shown in Figure E.
Use the corresponding icons on the Picture toolbar to increase or decrease the Brightness and Contrast, as desired.

Now that you’ve finished formatting the washout image, you’ll copy it back to the original slide and crop it to the columns.

To create custom borderless columns with the washout image:

Right-click on the washout image on the temporary slide (be sure to select the image, not just the slide) and choose Copy.
Right-click on the original slide and choose Paste.
Move the image so that it exactly covers your original background image.
Activate the Picture toolbar and click the Crop button.
Use the cropping handles to crop the graphic to just larger than the original bar. For more precise placement, press and hold the [Alt] key while you drag a cropping handle.
Repeat steps 1 through 5 for each column.

You can use this technique regardless of your slide’s topic, but it’s easiest to implement when you use a bar or column chart.

Related Courses

4007 Creating Effective Presentations Using Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003
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Prevent mammoth numerical errors by forcing SQL Server to treat values as decimals

2008-10-16T12:25:00.000-05:00

What's 2 divided by 3? Anyone for 0 as the answer? Unfortunately, that's what you may get if you're not fully aware of how SQL Server treats numbers in queries.

For example, try running the following query:

SELECT 2/3

And the winner is ...

Zero. The reason SQL Server returns 0 should be pretty obvious in this example. Both 2 and 3 are integers; therefore, SQL Server assumes the result should be an integer. Hence, it rounds down to the nearest integer, which is 0.

Unfortunately, figuring out that this issue was the culprit may not be so easy with a more complicated expression inside a complex application. Instead, your end result may be something quite bizarre. Worse still, nobody may even question the critically wrong result.

A quick and dirty way to fix this problem is to force SQL Server to think in decimals by adding trailing zeros, like this:

SELECT 2.0/3.0

In fact, you only have to do this with either one of the two operands, and SQL Server will still return the same value: .666666. (You could call this math problem "the Devil's division.") Add several more zeros after the decimal, and SQL Server will reserve more memory and thus return more sixes after the decimal.

One advantage of adding trailing zeros is that it lets you avoid bogging down your queries with too many queries. When generating SQL, your application code can add the zeros automatically. (Just make sure it never adds zeros when there's no decimal!)

Of course, the alternative is to use the CAST() or CONVERT() functions to convert to data types such as decimal, float, or real, like so:

SELECT cast(2 as decimal) /cast(3 as decimal)

Curiously, when you use the CAST() function for both numbers, SQL Server returns .6666666666666666666, whereas using it for only one of them still gives you just 6 sixes. So just be aware that SQL Server calculates precision a little differently depending on whether you use trailing zeros or functions.

Avoid scrolling when searching for a specific font (Illustrator CS/CS2)

2008-10-16T08:33:00.000-05:00

Scrolling through a long font list in search of a particular font is a definite waste of time. To eliminate this extra scrolling hassle, Illustrator makes it easy to locate the font you want. Here’s how to do it. To quickly change your font without scrolling:

Select the text you want to change the font of.
Click to the left of the font name in the Control palette or Character palette.
Type the first letter or two of the font name you want.
Your font will jump to the first font that matches the letters you typed.

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