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Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Eliminate bounding box interference by snapping directly to your pointer (Illustrator CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5)

Many designers find precision alignment frustrating in Illustrator because they try to use an object's bounding box to snap to a particular guide or edge. However, this doesn't work because even though an object's bounding box snaps, the bounding box handles don't correspond to the edges of the object.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Easily reset the default domain group policies

Imagine this scenario: You've inherited a network with a multitude of changes to the default domain group policies. You don't know what your predecessor enabled or disabled in these GPOs. All you want to do is get your domain back to the default domain and default domain controllers policies included with Windows Server 2003--and fast. You can then begin the process of creating or modifying group policies to suit your needs.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Let web pages load before accessing JavaScript DOM objects

When you use JavaScript in a web page, you’ll often want it to perform some action or gather property values from web page elements, without the user having to take any action at all. Normally, this means writing code that will execute as the page loads. Typically, to execute JavaScript as the page loads, you simply place the code in the section without encapsulating it in a function, like so:

Friday, October 26, 2012

Create evenly sliced slices in Photoshop (CS/CS2)

If you’re a Photoshop slicer and dicer, there may come a time when you’ll want all of your slices in an image to be equal. For our example, we’ll slice an entire image into 25 equal slices.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Complete a Send/Receive from anywhere in Outlook (Outlook 2003)

By default, the Send/Receive button is located only on the Standard toolbar when a Mail folder is active. Therefore, when you want to check for new mail or send an item immediately, you probably switch to a Mail folder and click the button. Not necessary! Just press [F9] to run a Send/Receive.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Use Free Transform to resize an image with specific dimensions (Photoshop CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5)

You can resize your selections to an exact measurement using the Free Transform command. Just select the area you want resized. Then, press [command]T ([Ctrl]T in Windows) to access the Free Transform tool. Next, go to the tool Options bar and enter the appropriate measurements in the W (width) and H (height) text boxes, making sure to follow up the value with inches, pixels, etc. Then, press [enter] to apply your changes.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Fine-tune VPD to your liking in Oracle Database 10g

Oracle Database 10g offers some useful enhancements to VPD, enabling more fine-grained security and better performance optimization:

Monday, October 22, 2012

Use query strings to give users the convenience of bookmarking

You may have heard some developers say "Don't use query strings." Certainly, posting confidential data to a query string is usually a bad idea. However, when used properly, query strings are quite helpful. To see a perfect example of just how useful they are, just point your browser to a major search engine such as www.google.com. Because Google stores a user's search criteria in the query string, a user can conveniently store the search by bookmarking the page (e.g., adding to Favorites in Microsoft Internet Explorer or Bookmarks in Mozilla Firefox). When the user relaunches the page from the bookmark, she gets the latest search results based on her original search criteria.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Remind an email recipient with a message flag (Outlook 2003)

If you send an important email, you can easily remind the recipient to review it with an email flag. To do so, launch a new Message form. Then, choose Actions | Follow Up | Add Reminder. If you have Microsoft Word set as your email editor, click the Message Flag button on the form's toolbar instead. Make a selection from both the Flag To and Due By dropdown lists in the Flag For Follow Up dialog box. Then, click OK. Complete your message, and click Send. The recipient receives a reminder about reviewing the email you sent at the date and time you've specified.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Why use an effect over a filter? (Illustrator CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5)

There are a few advantages to using an effect over a filter. For one, an effect doesn't change the original vector object at all, allowing you to quickly edit the effect. In contrast, filters permanently change objects. Also, you can target and adjust effects directly from the Appearance panel, making them even easier to edit. Finally, you can save effects as Graphic Styles, which makes it easy to apply consistent styles in your designs.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Troubleshoot file replication through proper monitoring

If you're experiencing trouble with file replication, we've found just the tool for you—File Replication Service (FRS) Status Viewer. This utility enables you to determine exactly what's going on during file replication. More specifically, you can use the FRS Status Viewer to determine information such as the amount of traffic generated by file replication. You can also use it to identify any file replication backlogs, as well as problems due to insufficient disk space. You can download FRS from Microsoft’s download service at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Format the same document in two different ways (2003/2007/2010)

If you’re working on a long document and want parts of the document to have Landscape page orientation, you can do so by following the steps outlined below:

Monday, October 15, 2012

Eradicate unwanted imported hyperlink boxes (CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5)

An annoying occurrence that often confuses new InDesign users is imported text displaying with a box around it. Intuitively, you should be able to select and delete the box -- but you can’t. There is, however, an easy way to remove it. Here’s how:

Friday, October 12, 2012

Change paragraph spacing without leaving the keyboard (Word 2003/2007/2010)

To quickly format a paragraph with single spacing, place the insertion point in the paragraph and press [Ctrl]1. Similarly, you can double-space a paragraph by pressing [Ctrl]2. To achieve the setting in between (1.5 spacing), press [Ctrl]5. To format multiple consecutive paragraphs at one time using these shortcuts, simply select the entire block of text and press the appropriate keys.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Save your QuarkXpress files in different formats to prevent data loss (QuarkXPress)

If you find that your QuarkXPress documents frequently become corrupt and you have trouble opening them, it's a good idea to export your QuarkXPress file to other formats, such as PDF or EPS. If the document can be accessed through more than one application, try them all. One may succeed where others fail.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Protect your web browser from phishing attacks

Spoofing is a term used to describe methods of faking various parts of the browser user interface. This may include the address or location bar, the status bar, the padlock, or other user interface elements. Phishing attacks often utilize some form of spoofing to help convince the user to provide personal information. If a user's browser is vulnerable to spoofing, they are more likely to fall victim to a phishing attack. You can search the US-CERT and CERT/CC web sites for malicious scripting and content vulnerabilities at the following URL: http://search.us-cert.gov (use the search term browser+spoof). The US-CERT document "Technical Trends in Phishing Attacks" (available at http://www.us-cert.gov/reading_room/phishing_trends0511.pdf) has more information about spoofing and phishing techniques.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Eliminate error values in your PivotTable (2003/2007/2010)

If your PivotTable’s source data contains errors, you’ll notice those errors pop up in your PivotTable too. Here’s how you can replace error values with blank cells in your PivotTable:

Monday, October 8, 2012

Align or distribute linked layers to a selection marquee or the image space (Photoshop CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5)

If you want to align or distribute images on separate but linked layers, you can use either the image frame as a reference point or a selection marquee. Make a selection marquee. Then, switch to the Move tool and click one of the Align or Distribute buttons on the tool Options bar. The linked images align or distribute as if the selection were the image frame. You can also select Layer > Align Layers To Selection and choose an option from the resulting sub-menu.

Friday, October 5, 2012

Use Group Policy to rename the administrator account

As you know, it’s a best security practice to rename the built-in administrator and guest accounts. Rather than renaming these accounts in the Computer Management console, the preferred method is to use the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Group Policy, as described in these steps:

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Enhancing your Joomla site by putting in more code

One of the biggest reasons why Joomla has become a widely used content management system is the ease in using it while building a dynamic website. Users with no experience in website programming can easily learn and enjoy Joomla.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Make hyperlinks stand out with custom formatting (Word 2003/2007/2010)

If you're dissatisfied with the default underlined blue text formatting that Word applies to hyperlinks, you can give it a permanent makeover. All you need to do is modify the Hyperlink style. To do so, choose Format | Styles And Formatting from the menu bar to display the Styles And Formatting task pane, and then choose All Styles from the Show dropdown list. Right-click on the Hyperlink item in the Pick Formatting To Apply list box, or click on its corresponding dropdown arrow, and then choose Modify from the resulting shortcut menu to access the Modify Style dialog box. (In Word 2007/2010, click on the Home tab, then click the arrow in the lower-right corner of the styles area of the ribbon. Right-click on Hyperlink and choose Modify.)

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Time-stamp a vacation shot as a reminder

Most digital cameras come with a time and date feature that visually stamps your images. While some users may regularly use the feature, many do not because it visually interferes with the composition of their images. But the time stamp is useful, especially for vacation photos. When you go on vacation, begin shooting each new destination with one record photo you time-stamp. That way, when you return from your trip, you not only have a shot that identifies where you've been, but when as well. So, five years after your travels, when you're trying to remember if your trip was in April or May, for example, you simply look at the first shot in your destination series.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Speed up your PL/SQL just by upgrading (Oracle 10g)

If you’ve inherited a lot of slow PL/SQL code, you may be at a loss to figure out how you’re going to speed it all up. One thing that can help is Oracle Database 10g’s optimizing compiler. In 10g, Oracle’s PL/SQL compiler automatically performs a degree of optimization.