On the heels of Comcast’s recent decision to enforce a 250 GB bandwidth limit on residential customers, network administrators may wonder what this means for telecommuters. While a remote site’s network connectivity would be a business category plan, most telecommuters use the residential class service for price reasons or service availability. What is unclear cialis discounts within Comcast’s announcement is how many customers in terms of a percentage would this affect. While the 250 GB limit may sound like a lot, it may not be enough if the household has a large amount of Internet traffic, including the telecommuter. Should other ISPs follow suit with this fair access policy for the bandwidth management, the concern may arise about the ongoing support of telecommuters.

The home network of the telecommuter is something that the enterprise network administrator wants no part of, and further, many steps, such as desktop firewalls and VPN policies, are taken to protect company computing equipment for use in untrusted networks.

The issue with the bandwidth limit policy is what to do with a telecommuter that becomes a victim of this policy? If a business line of service is not available, it may be a good idea to prepare some alternatives or contingency services to residential broadband for the telecommuter. While not ideal, the most readily available alternative is to use wireless broadband services from carriers such as Sprint or Verizon. These services may have bandwidth limits as well, and Verizon’s wireless broadband service is limited to 5 GB per month. Sprint, however, presents a more attractive wireless broadband offering for the enterprise.

Organizations need to be aware of this situation, because they may be a victim of this bandwidth limit if it remains in effect or if other providers make similar terms of service changes. You may have to answer this question: Can you ship me a modem cable?

Your users don’t have to waste time bouncing between Access and a Web browser. See how to add a control that lets them browse without ever leaving their form.

Do your users often need to stop and search the Web for data? Make it easier for them by adding a Web browser control to their forms. For example, say your users need to input the latest stock prices of the companies where your clients have placed investments. Follow these steps:

Figure A

1. Right-click the text box control and select Properties.
2. Click in the After Update property box and then click the Build button (Figure B).

Figure B

1. Type the following code at the prompt:

1. Press Alt + Q.

Now when a user enters a Web address, the Web page displays in the Web browser control window, as shown in Figure C.

Figure C

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The smallest details often make a big difference in the appearance of your documents. See how the simple trick of adding a couple of special characters can improve your page design.

Just a few quick touches with symbols can spruce up your documents in minutes. For example, say you’ve just formatted the newsletter shown in Figure A.

Figure A

You’d like to add something at the end of Article One that tells the reader the article ends there; you would also like to add something to indicate that Article Two continues on the next page. Follow these steps:

1. Go to Insert cialis daily generic | Symbol. (In Word 2007, click the Insert tab and then click Symbol in the Symbols group and select More Symbols.)

1. Click the Font box drop-down arrow and select Symbol.

1. Click the symbol in the last row, as shown in Figure B, and then click the Insert button.

Figure B

1. Click Close.

1. Select the symbol you just inserted and change the Font color to dark green.

1. Click at the end of the last column in the document.

1. Go to Insert | Symbol. (In Word 2007, click the Insert tab and then click Symbol in the Symbols group and select More Symbols.)

1. Click the Font box drop-down arrow and select WingDings.

1. Click the symbol shown in Figure C and then click the Insert button.

Figure C

1. Click Close.

1. Select the inserted symbol and change the font size to 18 and the Font color to dark green (Figure D).

Figure D

Note: When you need to use the symbols again, you can find them listed under the most recently used symbols in the Insert Symbol dialog box. In Word 2007, just click Symbol on the Insert tab.

Date: August 29th, 2008

Author: Susan Harkins When someone raises a question during your presentation, you can try to wing it — or you can smoothly bring up an ancillary slide that clarifies the issue. Having a few extra slides up your sleeve can make all the difference in the success of your delivery.

To make a presentation informative and efficient, you may sometimes exclude details that aren’t of interest to the general audience. But as soon as you make that decision, you can count on someone asking about what you left out. You can try to answer the question and move on. Or you can include a supporting slide. That way, if the topic comes up, you can skip to the slide, have a short discussion, and then return to the main presentation, exactly where you left off.

Note: This information is also available as a PDF download.

Create the supporting slide

Supporting can mean many things, but for this technique, the term refers to an optional slide that’s available but that you might not display. A supporting slide contains data that further defines or augments information on another slide in the presentation. Simply insert a link on the slide that requires a supporting slide. Similarly, link the supporting slide to the slide it supports. Then, just hide the supporting slide. You can decide when — or if — to display it. In addition, you can print a support slide along with the presentation.

For example, the slide in Figure A highlights consulting skills. If someone asks how to contact a consultant, you can display the supporting slide with that specific information, shown in Figure B.

Figure A: Most slides exclude details.

Figure B: This supporting slide contains contact information, in case someone in the audience requests it.

Once you identify a slide that’s apt to prompt questions (like the one in Figure A), create the supporting slide and add a Return action button that takes you back to the main slide, as follows:

Figure C: Add a Return button to the support slide.

You can change the Return button if you like. Right-click the button and choose Format AutoShape. The default button fits our needs fine.

Now hide it and link to it

To keep PowerPoint from displaying the supporting slide during the presentation, you must hide it. The slide will stay with your presentation and be available, but it’s up to you to decide whether to show it. To hide the supporting slide, choose Hide Slide From Slide Show. PowerPoint identifies a hidden slide by displaying a strikethrough line in the number icon in Normal view.

At this point, the supporting slide is finished, so you just need to link to it. Select cialis daily 5mg the slide that requires a supporting slide. If you’re lucky, the slide will contain a picture or graphic you can use as a hyperlink. If not, you’ll have to add something. (As a last resort, use an Action button.)

For our purposes, the consultant’s name provides the perfect hyperlink hot spot. To add a hyperlink to the supporting slide, do the following:

1. Select the text or graphic you want to use as a hyperlink. In this case, that’s the consultant’s name in the slide’s title.
2. Right-click the selection and choose Action Settings to display the Action Settings dialog box. (You could also choose Hyperlink from the Insert menu.) In PowerPoint 2007, click Hyperlinks in the in the Links group on the Insert tab.
3. Select Hyperlink To.
4. Choose Slide from the Hyperlink To drop-down list, shown in Figure D.

Figure D: Create a hyperlink from text on the original slide.

1. In the Hyperlink To Slide dialog box, highlight the supporting slide, as shown in Figure E.

Figure E: Point to the supporting slide.

1. Click OK twice.
2. Save your presentation.

While running the presentation, PowerPoint never displays the supporting (hidden) slide on its own. You must click the hyperlink on the original slide to display the supporting slide. When you’re finished, click the Return button to go back to the original slide so you can continue the presentation. The downside to this technique is that the hyperlink usurps the text’s format.

I’ve got that information right here… somewhere… hold on…

Being unprepared to answer questions from the audience can be frustrating (and embarrassing) for you and disappointing to your audience. Add details to supporting slides and then display the information as needed. The details are there, but only if you need them. This technique is great for displaying flow charts, detailed figures, and so on — anything that supports the presentation can end up on a supporting slide.

Whether you want to speed access to the Web sites you regularly visit, keep better tabs on your tabs, or protect your system from potentially dangerous active content, there’s a Firefox extension ready to help you out. Jack Wallen shares his list of favorite time-saving, browser-enhancing add-ons.

One of the nicest aspects of Firefox is the ability to add extensions. And there are plenty to choose from. Some do little more than alter the aesthetics. But you’ll find others out there that you can’t browse without. No matter what your purpose in browsing, there is a killer-app extension just waiting for you. Let’s take a look at my top 10 extensions.

Note: This information is also available as a PDF download.

#1: Morning Coffee

This extension allows you to set a group of Web sites that will open (each in its own tab) with the click of a button. This will save you from having to roam through your bookmarks (while drinking that first cup of wake-me-up in the morning) to view your favorite sites. And you don’t have to limit yourself to personal browsing, either. I also use this extension to open up all the Web-based admin tools for sites I administer. You can even set sites up to open only on certain days (or every day). So news junkies or overworked administrators rejoice: This extension will make your browsing life a little easier.

#2: NoScript

This is one of the best tools for making sure your browsing experience is secure. With NoScript, you can disable active content from any site you don’t trust. Unless you configure it to allow JaveaScript, Java, and other executable scripting to run from a site, NoScript will completely block the script, keeping you browser safe from known and unknown exploits. And don’t think because you are using FireFox in Linux that you’re perfectly safe! Use this extension regardless of platform.

#3: ColorfulTabs

If you’re like me, you generally have a LOT of tabs open in Firefox. Sometimes this isn’t a problem. But there are times when the tabs can get a bit overwhelming and need a bit of organization. To help with this, ColorfulTabs gives each open tab a different color, making it easier to distinguish between them. With this simple extension, you can color-code tabs either randomly or according to URL. You can also set tabs to fade. Another fun feature is that you can set a background image for tabs.

#4: BBCode

This helpful extension adds BBCode, HTML, and XHTML symbols and formatting to the context menu. BBCode also allows you to add up to 10 custom tags to your menu. This extension shows itself when you’re in a forum and you right-click a text area where you can select the tag you want to add from the menu. This extension will make your forum work quite a bit easier, as well as faster.

#5: Buggybar

This extension is invaluable to Bugzilla power users. With this extension, you will have a Bugzilla Chrome sidebar available which will readily show all bugs that relate to a bug list you have created. As of version 0.2, Buggybar works with all instances of Bugzilla.

#6: Clear Cache Button

I don’t know about you, but I always set up my browsers to clear their cache at exit. But what about those times you want to clear the cache but not exit the browser? Instead of navigating through the menu structure, you can add this simple extension. It provides a button that gives you complete cache clearing with a single click.

#7: cialis da 5 mg target=”_blank”>TimeTracker

Okay, this is not really a tool that will aid or better your browsing experience. In fact, this little extension will remind you how much time you spend browsing. I have found this little gem useful in a number of circumstances. Whether you are in need of a quick five-minute break from number crunching or you just need to know how much time you spend on a specific Web site, TimeTracker will keep track of how long you browse. What is nice about this is that the tool times across sessions. So when you close the browser, the timer stops, and when you open the browser back up, the timer starts again. You can reset the timer by right-clicking the status bar timer and selecting Reset.

#8: iMacros

This extension automates pretty much anything you do in Firefox. From opening up sites to filling out forms and even administration work — you can automate it with iMacros. The iMacros extension has a sidebar that shows favorite macros. It also has a record feature that allows you to create macros by simply clicking Record, going through the motions of the macro to be created, and clicking Save. These macros can be as complex as you need them to be. When you want to run them, you simply navigate to the macro in the iMacros sidebar and click the Play button. The only downfall I have found with this tool is that you can’t assign key combinations to run macros. Other than that, this extension is a must-have for power browsers.

#9: Fasterfox

This extension does one thing: It makes Firefox load pages faster. Speed of page loading can be increased by allowing simultaneous connections and prefetching. This extension is currently in the experimental stage because of the release of Firefox 3. To install it, you have to log into a Firefox account to download. The extension is worth the hassle. The speed increase is noticeable.

#10: BlogRovR

We all read blogs. From my TechRepublic Linux and Open Source blog to the countless other blogs available, we all read them daily. And this takes time. Instead of wasting time going to the blogs, let this handy extension fetch them for you. You do have to sign up for an account using this extension (they promise they won’t spam you.) and you will be asked to install another sidebar (Stickies), which is not necessary. Once you have this installed, you just enter the blog URL, and BlogRovR will begin fetching the information for you. Warning: If you have NoScript installed, you have to allow the BlogRovR page to run scripts or it won’t be able to fetch pages for you.

So that’s my list of 10 extensions, from various categories, that will make your Firefox experience better. Some of these extensions are for power users and some are for everyone. What extensions have you found that make your daily browsing better?