Pages

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Start your facing pages on the left with less work (QuarkXPress)

Starting a facing pages document on the left-facing page can be a hassle. Here's a way to avoid the workaround for starting on a left-facing page—and to prevent the negative effects of shuffling. Don't use facing-page documents. Instead of selecting Facing Pages in the New Document dialog box, simply create one master page for right-facing pages and one for left-facing pages. Then, use the Document Layout palette to place pages side by side.

Monday, July 30, 2012

More on how bad cables can affect your network's performance

You may think it’s strange but using the wrong type of cable is a common problem with networks. However, there are many installed networks running on low-grade, or even wrong, cable. Many networks were installed in offices where some sort of cabling already existed and, to cut corners, someone decided to use the existing cable, no matter what was recommended. The network may run on this cable, but not at its optimum level of performance and usually with intermittent errors.

Friday, July 27, 2012

Create reusable counters for consistency

When developing XSL Stylesheets, you may often need to output a formatted number.
With more complex output structures, you may need to maintain links between objects using the same counters. We suggest you create reusable templates to maintain consistency and ensure accurate output.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Text message a cell phone using Outlook (2000/2003/2007)

You don't need text messaging, or a cell phone for that matter, to send text messages to someone who has the service. Virtually every mobile phone and carrier around these days offers Short Message Service protocol, or phone messaging. It's a simple method of sending messages between the mobile phone and another device. Usually, you tediously enter your message into your phone (via the 12 tiny alphanumeric keys on the keypad), and then enter the number to which you wish to send the note. However, most people don't realize that you can send a short message from a computer to the phone, since your email client doesn't accept telephone numbers only, as a telephone does. The secret is the carrier.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Fight SPIM and SPIT, as well as SPAM (All)

SPIM are unwanted instant messages (IMs) that are full of annoying ads and unrequested information. Most users with instant messages enabled receive about five SPIM messages a day, and the number is increasing rapidly. SPIM may now contain or lead users to viruses, worms, and other malware.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

New Horizons Computer Learning Centers Selected as a Finalist for the 2012 Microsoft Learning Competency Marketing Excellence Partner of the Year Award

Conshohocken, PA— Today, New Horizons Computer Learning Centers, the world’s largest independent IT training company, announced it was selected as a finalist for the Microsoft Learning Competency Marketing Excellence Partner of the Year Award.

Save time using the PSD Import to adjust image tints (QuarkXPress)

Tinted images are a great addition to your layouts, but sometimes you don't get the tint right on the first try. It's a drag going back and forth from Photoshop to QuarkXpress to adjust and re-import the image, and you don't have to! Instead, adjust the tint right in QuarkXPress. You can adjust the overall tint setting of a selected channel, such as a spot ink channel in a Photoshop duotone, using the PSD Import XTension.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Use xsl:include to modularize your XSL stylesheets

Stylesheets can quickly become complex, especially if your data model contains a lot of elements and attributes. A good programming practice is to modularize your code into reusable components.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Write to a text file using the FileStream StreamWriter class (ASP.NET)

Even though databases are probably the most popular method for storing data, there are still many applications that rely on basic text files for logging and error tracking. So, if you're writing to text files in .NET, then you need to get to know the StreamWriter class. The StreamWriter class is a member of the FileStream class, which provides all the functionality you need to read and write data to text files.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Instantly deactivate all hyperlinks or fields in a document (Word 2003/2007)

Sometimes, you may want to deactivate hyperlinks so they act like regular document text. In fact, you may have wanted to do the same with field codes, too. Instead of digging around in dialog boxes and shortcut menus to solve the problem, Word offers two shortcut keys you can use to accomplish either task.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Authenticate digital signatures with PGP

Electronic documents and email messages are becoming a commonplace way to conduct business transactions, but it’s important to be able to verify that the author of a document or message is really the person he or she claims to be.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Remove unwanted background detail from images in Adobe Photoshop (CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5)

Layer blending allows you to control the range of light or dark pixel values in the active layer and in underlying visible layers that appear in your final image. Among other things, you can use this feature to remove a dark background from a light image or vice versa.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Read from a text file using the FileStream StreamReader class (ASP.NET)

If you're writing to text files in .NET, chances are there will come a time when you want to read from those text files as well. To accomplish this task, you'll need to use the StreamReader class. The StreamReader class is a member of the FileStream class, which provides all the functionality you need to read and write data to text files.


Friday, July 13, 2012

Decipher audit trail files more easily by creating them in XML format (10.2)

Oracle can write audit information to a dictionary table or to a file. When it writes standard audit information to a file, the output is difficult to read and decipher.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Freeze Excel column and row titles (2003/2007/2010)

When you work with a large Excel worksheet, it's often difficult to remember exactly what kind of data columns or rows contain once you begin scrolling around the sheet and lose sight of the column and row labels. Fortunately, you can freeze rows and columns that contain headings so you always know what data you're looking at.


Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Add color quickly to your table components (QuarkXPress)

Here's a quick-and-easy way to apply color to the various components of a table. First, click on the table with the Content tool. Next, drag a color from the Colors palette and drop it over a cell, gridline, or border line. Then, press the [command] key ([Ctrl] key in Windows) to apply the color to multiple components as you drag over them.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Easily apply slide transitions to multiple slides (PowerPoint 2003/2007/2010)

You can use the Slide Miniatures pane to select any number of slides and apply transition effects to them. If you're grouping certain related slides together, it's helpful if they share the same type of transition. This gives your audience another cue as to information groupings. Sometimes, however, it might not be apparent which slides go together until you've finished creating your show. For this reason, it's best to make adding transitions one of your final steps.


Monday, July 9, 2012

Eliminate white backgrounds in your Photoshop documents the easy way (CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5)

When you create a new Photoshop document, the default background is white. A white canvas is easier on the eyes, but it often becomes a problem after you place the file in a page layout application. The white background tags along for the ride and becomes quite a nuisance. To get rid of the white background in Photoshop, you can take the time to silhouette the subject matter with a clipping path or mask the background with an alpha channel. Doing either of these things takes time, though, and results aren't always favorable. Instead, let's start from the beginning.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Thwart hackers by securing Dynamic DNS (Microsoft Windows Server 2003)

Dynamic DNS (DDNS) in Windows Server 2003 offers you the convenience of clients and servers updating their own DNS records. (If you use DHCP, the DHCP server is capable of updating its clients’ resource records within DDNS for them.) Obviously, DDNS saves you considerable time because you don’t have to manually create and maintain your clients’ DNS records.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Clean up wayward temp files with a quick Clipboard trick (2003/2007)

If you’re a filing fanatic like many Word power users, you may find yourself annoyed by unruly temp files that hang around in your folders long after you’ve closed your last document. Word generates temporary files for many reasons, but if you find one hanging on, you may have some extra text hiding out in your Office Clipboard. To remove temp files based on the Clipboard’s contents, simply open any Word document, hold down the [Ctrl] key, and press the [C] key twice. (To view the Clipboard task pane in 2007, click the arrow in the lower-right corner of the Clipboard group on the Home tab.) Then, click the Clear All button on the Clipboard and close your document. (You don’t need to save it unless you’ve made changes.)

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Lighten a color without changing its hue or saturation (Photoshop CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5)

The Adobe Color Picker allows you to select foreground, background, and text colors in Photoshop. To open it, simply click on the Foreground or Background box in the Tools panel. By default, the H (Hue) option button is selected, so you can select a color using the Color slider and Color field or by entering numeric values. Don’t stop there, though.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Displaying text vertically in a cell (Excel 2000/ 2002/ 2003/ 2007)

You may come across some worksheet layouts that would benefit from having text displayed vertically instead of horizontally. For example, say you have created a complex reference table and one row label caption could apply to many adjacent rows. You can save space and make the table easier to read by merging the label cells into one narrow, tall cell and then displaying the caption text vertically. To display such text, select the appropriate cell and choose Format | Cells from the menu bar. Then, switch to the Alignment tab. Finally, click on the preview text box on the left side of the Orientation panel and click OK.

In Excel 2007, select the cell with text you want to make vertical, go to the Home tab and click on the Orientation button in the Alignment group. From the resulting dropdown list, choose Vertical Text.

Monday, July 2, 2012

Easily adjust text kerning using your keyboard (Illustrator CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5)

Adjusting the space between text characters is known as kerning. Most font designers create a font with kerning automatically built into their fonts, but not every kerning character combination works in every situation. Sometimes you have to kern a pair of characters by hand. One way to do this is to select the characters with the Type tool and adjust the space using the Character panel. Another option is to click between the characters with the Type tool, press and hold down [option] ([Alt] in Windows); and then adjust the kerning by pressing either [Left Arrow] or [Right Arrow].