Monthly Archives: December 2008

Confused by Office 2007? Start Here.

Posted on December 23, 2008 by John Kisha

For people learning Microsoft Office 2007 for the first time, the new ribbon interface will be intuitive and easier to learn than in previous versions. However for those of us upgrading from earlier versions, the new interface can be a bit confusing; and locating familiar functions can be frustrating. Fortunately, there is a great guide on the Microsoft Office Web Site that makes it extremely easy to learn where things are in the new user interface by simply clicking on the tasks you are trying to do in the old interface you are already familiar with. You can find these interactive guides for Word, Access, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, which can be used either on-line or downloaded to your computer, at this link: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/HA102295841033.aspx. I only wish I had known about these guides when I first upgraded almost a year ago and it took me almost 45 minutes to figure out how to print my document!

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Microsoft Office Top Tips for 2008

Posted on December 18, 2008 by John Kisha

If you use Microsoft Office at work or at home, you may find to Microsoft's most popular, most downloaded and highest rated templates, training, columns and more, helpful–and it's all FREE! In the downloads category there is a link to the Office compatibility update that will allow you to read and save documents in the new Office 2007 format if you have not yet upgraded from an earlier edition of Office. If you don't use Office, you can also download viewers that will allow you to view Office Word and PowerPoint files.

There are also links to the most popular training demos such as improving productivity by using Wiki in SharePoint and Meeting Work Spaces in Outlook 2003. There's something there for everybody and I recommend you check it out!

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What Happened to FrontPage?

Posted on December 15, 2008 by John Kisha

After nine years of being an award-winning Web authoring tool, FrontPage was discontinued in late 2006 and official support for FrontPage and FrontPage Server Extensions was discontinued in 2007. FrontPage is no longer offered with Microsoft operating systems stating with Windows 2008 Server products.

A third party Microsoft partner has developed a new set of FP Extensions that will work on both 32 and 64 bit systems running Windows 2008 Server to provide legacy support for people still using MS FrontPage. Inland Pacific Consulting has installed the extensions on our Windows 2008 servers and will continue to support FP Extensions and FrontPage, at least for the time being. However we are recommending that our clients migrate to one of the two new Microsoft design tools that have replaced FrontPage: Office SharePoint Designer 2007 for the enterprise information workers and Expression Web for the professional Web designer.

Microsoft Next Generation Web Authoring Tools Over-view

What are these new tools?

Microsoft Expression Web 2 Upgrade: Take advantage of the best of dynamic Web site design, enabling you to design, develop, and maintain exceptional standards-based Web sites.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007:  Automate your business processes and build efficient applications on top of the SharePoint platform, and tailor your SharePoint site to your needs in an IT-managed environment.

Which tool is for you?

Use Office SharePoint Designer 2007 if you are a solution creator and content author working using SharePoint technologies. Office SharePoint Designer 2007 will enable information workers to develop applications and solutions on top of the SharePoint platform to enable organizational agility, business process automation, and get the full value of Microsoft Office applications on the SharePoint platform.  Read more... (340 words, 3 images, estimated 1:22 mins reading time)

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Email Aliases

Posted on December 13, 2008 by John Kisha

What are they and how can you use them to help fight SPAM?

Most good hosting companies usually provide email service which includes a specified number of email 'accounts' and a specified number of email 'aliases'. Most people know what an email account is–it is simply your email address like yourname@yourdomain.com. In order to access your email whether via your web browser or other email program like Outlook, your email account has a 'user name' which in most cases is your email address, and a password; which you use to logon to the mail server and retrieve your mail.

The longer you have and use your email address, the more likely it is that it will be co-opted by or sold to companies that you do not want to get email from. If you have your email address posted anywhere on the Internet, like on your web site, chances are good that it will be harvested by unscrupulous spammers to fill your inbox with unwanted junk.

An easy trick that is not used enough is to set-up more than one email account. Your main account for all your business correspondence, another for personal correspondence, another for use in registering for on-line offers, etc. Then, if one of those addresses turns into a SPAM magnet, you can simply change or delete it. But the main disadvantage of that approach is having multiple user accounts and passwords to remember; and for many of us, we already have too many passwords to remember as it is.  Read more... (472 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

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