Saturday, April 28, 2012

Word Processing Basics - Highlighting & Fonts

As requested, for the next few posts we are going to review some WORD PROCESSING BASICS:

SELECT TO EFFECT (highlight)

When you want to edit/change text (add Bold, Italic, Underline, Delete, change color, cut, copy, past, change font size or style and lots of other "formatting options") remember to "select the text first/highlight it" and then click the button of your choice..  

TIP: To highlight everything in a document, whether 1 page or 100 pages: use SELECT ALL or CTRL + A (keyboard shortcut)

BASIC SCREEN: Insertion Point “I” vs. Work Bar, Title Bar, Menu Bar, Toolbars, Ruler, Scroll Bars (right & bottom), Status Bar & Task Bar


BOLD, ITALIC, UNDERLINE: B – I – U Highlight text, use icon on formatting toolbar OR Menu Bar, Format, Font

DON'T PANIC WHEN YOU MAKE A MISTAKE - Use your "Undo" & "Redo" buttons


FONT STYLE:  The design of your characters – letters – numbers

FONT SIZE: the size of your characters – letters – numbers

STANDARD  BUSINESS FONT & SIZES

Commonly used in business:

Times New Roman, 12pt.

Arial, 14 pt.

STANDARD INTERNET/WEB PAGE FONT STYLE & SIZES:
Verdana or Tahoma8 pt, 9 pt or 10 pt.  (smaller than normal business prints)

What do DIFFERENT font sizes mean?
A 72 pt. Is always equal to 1" inch high Upper Case Letters
so a 36 pt = to 1/2" inch high; 9 pt = 1/8" inch high 

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Should I wait until Windows 8 Is out to buy a new computer?

So many of you have asked – should I wait to buy a computer until Windows 8 Operating System is released and installed on the new computer?

My personal opinion is absolutely not!! Fox news reported today that Microsoft will release a new test version of the "Windows 8 Operating System" sometime in June this year – but remember this is just a test version.. Although Microsoft seems to be quite happy with the “overall” operating system, there are still countless challenges with respect to drivers, so until this is worked out – which may take some time – I wouldn’t hold off buying that new computer…

To me it’s like waiting to buy a car until the next version is released with all the new bells & whistles; we know that cars – just like appliances - change each year, so we buy them when we need them. That is especially true when it comes to the world of technology – if you are going to wait until something comes out that has all the “new stuff” – you’ll never buy anything…

Here is the link to the article Fox News published today re Windows 8: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/04/24/windows-8-release-preview-coming-out-in-june-microsoft-says/

Monday, April 16, 2012

What are the different Music File Formats??

MUSIC FILE FORMATS (modified from nch.com.au)

• wav - standard audio file format used mainly in Windows PCs. Commonly used for storing uncompressed (PCM), CD-quality sound files, which means that they can be large in size - around 10MB per minute of music. It is less well known that wave files can also be encoded with a variety of codecs to reduce the file size.

• mp3 - the MPEG Layer-3 format is the most popular format for downloading and storing music. By eliminating portions of the audio file that are essentially inaudible, mp3 files are compressed to roughly one-tenth the size of an equivalent PCM file while maintaining good audio quality. mp3 always works with most third party software programs such as Picasa, Power Point and Windows Movie Maker.

• wma - the popular Windows Media Audio format owned by Microsoft. Designed with Digital Rights Management (DRM) abilities for copy protection.

• aac - the Advanced Audio Coding format is based on the MPEG4 audio standard owned by Dolby. A copy-protected version of this format has been developed by Apple for use in music downloaded from their iTunes Music Store.

• ra - a Real Audio format designed for streaming audio over the Internet. The .ra format allows files to be stored in a self-contained fashion on a computer, with all of the audio data contained inside the file itself.

• ram - a text file that contains a link to the Internet address where the Real Audio file is stored. The .ram file contains no audio data itself.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Digital Camera Setting Suggestions – Part 2 of 2

Saturation Settings, which are found in the Main Menu, usually under “color mode” – be careful with this one because if you move it too much your pictures will have a hazy quality to them…

Sunset Mode Setting – More and more digital camera’s today have a sunset mode setting, which adds more warmth (or orange tones) to photos we take. It can brighten up a sunset, so try this setting

White Balance or WB Setting -  give us the ability to adjust the color of the picture. Most digital cameras are preset to “automatic white balance” or “AWB”. But you might want to experiment a little and set the white balance to manual, so that you can adjust the balance for certain lighting – you can usually do this by pressing and holding the White Balance/WB button and rotating the dial to choose: tungsten light, fluorescent light; sun light, cloudy light, light bulb, flash light etc so that the camera will adjust the color to get the color of the picture exactly the way that you wanted

Remember, with websites like  www.youtube.com and www.ehow.com and those for your specific cameras, you can find print and video tutorials that will help you master each and every aspect of your digital camera…  In the meantime, here are some highlights of some of the standard settings for most digital cameras – remember experiment and play with your camera – it’s the best way to learn…

Monday, April 9, 2012

Digital Camera Setting Suggestions – Part 1 of 2

Great weather usually means more time spent outdoors, which often means taking more pictures… If you haven’t begun to play with all the different aspects of your digital camera – now’s a perfect time to begin.
With websites like www.youtube.com  and www.ehow.com  and those for your specific cameras, you can find both print and video tutorials that will help you master each and every aspect of your digital camera…

In the meantime, here are some highlights of some of the standard settings for most digital cameras – remember experiment and play with your camera – it’s the best way to learn…

Action Mode SettingIcon usually looks like a man running and can help with shots of action, children playing, sports, etc and you want to change to this setting prior to taking your pictures; if you don’t have this setting most cameras allow you to change them to Manual Setting, icon is usually a capital '"M." and then Set your camera to a fast shutter speed setting such as 1/250th, 1/500th or 1/1000th of a second – most cameras today do this automatically when set on "Shutter Priority, icon is usually a capital "S." Remember to turn off your flash and change the ISO setting to 400-800.. to get great action shots


Burst Mode or Continuous Shooting Mode SettingIcon looks like several pieces of paper stacked up and this setting helps reduce shutter lag and lets you take several pictures by pressing the shutter button just once. This will help you make sure that you get at least one good shot of an action sequence. If it isn’t on the top dial, then go to the cameras menu setting to make this change on the LCD screen looking for the same icon. When you shoot in continuous mode, be sure to focus your camera on the subject you want to capture and hold down the shutter button without releasing it. The camera takes pictures until you stop pressing the shutter button or the buffer memory or memory card fills up.
Notes about continuous shoots:
  • Be sure you have a fully charged battery when you plan to do “continuous shooting”
  • Continuous shot images are typically first stored in the internal memory buffer on your camera, because writing data to the buffer is faster than writing data to the memory card. By initially storing the image in the buffer, the camera is able to take another picture much more quickly than if the image is written directly to the card. Writing the data to the memory buffer also allows in-camera image processing to occur before the final image is saved to the card usually stored on the Cameras Internal Memory Buffer before putting them on the Memory Card. i.e. the buffer may fill up after 10-14 pictures in Fine/Large/JPEG mode, or after three pictures in RAW mode. The LCD display shows "Busy" when the buffer is full, and shows "Full CF" when the memory card is full . Once the information has been converted to a digital form, it is stored in the camera's internal-memory buffer. Image data is initially stored in the memory buffer because writing data to the buffer is faster than writing data to the memory card. By initially storing the image in the buffer, the camera is able to take another picture much more quickly than if the image is written directly to the card. Writing the data to the memory buffer also allows in-camera image processing to occur before the final image is saved to the card
ISO Settings – these can be changed to control how much light goes into your camera and it’s easy and can make a vast difference in the “brightness” of your photos… Change to the lowest possible setting as noted… By default, the standard Automatic ISO setting in most digital cameras is 200..
Other settings you might want to try would be..
50-100: for photos taken in very bright light
200: for photos when it is overcast
400: for photos taken indoors or with action
800: for photos with continuous shot action


Post continued in Part 2 of 2 on Thursday, April 12th, 2012

Friday, April 6, 2012

Wishes for a wonderful Passover and Easter Holiday

On behalf of our entire staff we want to wish each of you a wonderful holiday – whether you are celebrating the Festival of Passover or the culmination of the Lenten season with the celebration of Good Friday and Easter - we wish you and your families a safe, happy and blessed holiday…

Passover will begin tonight at Sunset, Friday, April 6th and continue for 8 days until next Friday at sunset, April 13th. The eight-day festival of Passover is celebrated in the early spring, of the Hebrew month of Nissan, to commemorate the emancipation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt.

Easter… For Christians throughout the world, the Easter Holiday is a culmination of the 40 day Lenten period which begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Easter Sunday.. Today, April 6th, Friday before Easter, is the commemoration of the Crucifixion of Our Lord, and Easter Sunday celebrates the Lords resurrection. This year Lent Began on Wednesday February 22nd and Holy week will culminate this last week of Lent on Sunday April 8th with the celebration of Easter.

In the Greek Orthodox Church, Easter will be celebrated next Sunday, April 15th

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

How can I freeze both my top row & first column in Excel at the same time?

Q: I want to freeze the top row & first column in my Excel Spread Sheet at the same time?

A: Love this tip – this this will freeze all rows above the selected cell and all columns to the left of the selected cell –
Example: if you highlight cell B2 – then your top row and first column would be the only 2 things frozen!!!

In 97-2003 Excel
• Left click on a single cell of your worksheet
• Then go to Window; then choose Freeze Pane

In 2007-2010 Excel
• Left Click on the View Tab, go to the “Window Section”
• Open drop down list for "Freeze panes"
• Choose Freeze panes

Note-If you have Office Starter (Word Starter, Excel Starter, Power Point Starter) which is a Microsoft Application program that has replaced the former Microsoft Works - you cannot FREEZE or UNFREEZE cells. Although the starter programs allow you to perform many tasks, it is not a full featured program such as the Microsoft Office for Student & Home Versions and above...