May 24, 2008

Automatically generate and assign strong passwords in Windows XP

Date: May 21st, 2008

Author: Greg Shultz

Computer users consistently use very simplistic logic when creating passwords. For example, many of us choose meaningful words, personal dates, or a word commonly found in the dictionary because it makes the password easy to remember. These common practices cause us to sacrifice the security that passwords are intended to provide.

If you’re really at a loss when it comes to thinking of a strong password, you can let Windows XP create and assign a random password to your account. To let Windows XP generate your password, follow these steps. (Warning: Before you follow these steps, please be sure that you are paying careful attention and are ready to actually use a password that might not be as memorable as you’re accustomed to! Also, you cannot use this tip on a Windows Server domain.)

  1. Open a Command Prompt window and type:

    net user username /random (username is your login account name)

  2. Press [Enter]. Windows XP will randomly generate a secure password, as well as assign that strong password to your account. Windows XP will also display the strong password so you can remember it.

At your discretion, you may want to create a Password Reset Disk at this point. what does viagra do to men This disk will allow you to gain access to your computer in the event you forget your password. Here’s how to create the disk:

  1. Open the Control Panel and double-click the User Accounts tool.
  2. Click your account icon.
  3. Select Prevent A Forgotten Password under Related Tasks.
  4. Follow the instructions provided by the wizard.

Note: This tip applies to both Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional systems in either a standalone or peer-to-peer workgroup configuration.

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How to add descriptive text to a PowerPoint slide

Date: May 19th, 2008

Author: Susan Harkins

Slides highlight or emphasize information that the presenter elaborates on during the actual presentation. After all, you can’t put everything on slides. When you want to provide additional information, but you don’t want to include it in the actual slide show, use notes. In Normal view, you can enter notes in the small section just below the slide where it says Click to add notes.
may2008blog1fig1r.jpg

To view all notes, choose Notes Page from the View menu (or choose Notes Page in the Presentation Views group on the View menu in PowerPoint 2007). Use the scroll bar to view individual slides and notes. You can enter and copy text in this view as well.

Although you can use these notes as handouts for the audience, many presenters use them to script their presentation. During the presentation, the presenter can see the notes, but the audience can’t. During the development stage, you can use Notes as reminders of things to add, change, or research further.

To print notes, choose Print from the File menu, select Notes Pages from the Print What control, and click OK. Doing so prints slides and notes — one page for each slide. In PowerPoint 2007, click the Office button to find the Print command.

I’ve yet to find a good way to print just notes without using another application, such as Word. PowerPoint will print just the notes, but the feature is troublesome:

  1. Choose Notes Page from the View menu.
  2. Select a slide and choose Notes Layout from the Format menu.
  3. In the resulting Notes Layout dialog box, deselect everything but Body and click OK.

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PowerPoint will print a page for each slide and that page will contain viagra women only the note text. It’s awkward at best because PowerPoint also prints a page for slides with no notes — in other words, you get a blank sheet of paper with a page number in the bottom right corner. In addition, you must apply the format to every slide. Removing the slide placeholder from the Notes Page Master doesn’t do the trick. However, you can delete the page number by displaying the Page Master and deleting the default footer placeholder. At least that way, you can reuse the paper.

If you don’t want a single page per slide, you can send notes to Word, but you’ll have to tweak the content once it’s there. From the File menu, choose Send To, select Microsoft Office Word, then choose one of the many options, and click OK. In PowerPoint 2007, click the Office button, choose Publish, and select Create Handouts In Microsoft Office Word.

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In Word, you’ll have to delete the slide content (text and graphics) or links and then format the notes to suit your needs. Publishing the notes below the slides seems to reduce the amount of tweaking in Word.

Printing just the notes in a reasonable format seems like such a useful feature that, for the life of me, I don’t understand why PowerPoint can’t do it.

It’s worth mentioning that notes aren’t the same as comments. A comment appears in a yellow box inside a slide. Most often, other people reviewing your presentation communicate their ideas, additions, mistakes, and so on, via comments, and you eventually delete them. In contrast, notes remain with the presentation as reference.

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Quickly add text to your Excel 2002/2003 charts

Date: May 20th, 2008

Author: Mary Ann Richardson

To add text outside your chart titles, you usually have to create a text box. But with Excel 2002/2003, you can just type it in. Follow these steps:

  1. Select the chart you want to add text to.
  2. Start typing the text. As you type, the text will appear in the formula bar.

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  1. Press Enter.
  2. Move and format the resultant text box.

The text will be displayed in a text box that can be moved and formatted as required.

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Print each group of your Access report on a separate page

Date: May 20th, 2008

Author: Mary Ann Richardson

You have a number of offices in various cities across the state. You need to send the latest employee information to each office. You have already grouped your Employees report by city. Now you want to be sure that when this report is printed, each city’s employees list is printed on a separate page. Follow these steps:

  1. Open the report in Design view.
  2. Click on the group header button for City.

  1. In the GroupHeader’s Property sheet, click the All tab.
  2. Click the Force New Page property box drop-down arrow and select Before Section.

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Now each city’s employees list will begin printing on a new page.

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Add hyperlinks that open in a new window

Date: May 20th, 2008

Author: Mary Ann Richardson

Hyperlinks make it easy for users to quickly go to a Web page without leaving their Word document, but you can make it even easier if the page viagra where to buy opens in a new window outside of Word. Follow these steps:

  1. Click where you want to insert the hyperlink in your document.
  2. Type the following code:

HYPERLINK "http://www.microsoft.com"no "This Web Page will open in a new window."

  1. Select the field code.
  2. Press CTRL + F9.
  3. Click in the code.
  4. Press F9.

Pressing F9 converts the code to an actual hyperlink to the Web address. When the user hovers the mouse over it, the hyperlink is displayed in the document with a screen tip, as shown below:

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