Protect your BIOS with a supervisor password (All)

If you are in charge of computers open to the public or accessed by employees with a high turnover rate, you want to set the supervisor BIOS passwords on all computers to prevent users from modifying the most basic computer settings. By setting the password, you are also preventing hackers, vandals, and departing employees from setting the password and locking you out of the BIOS. Once you set the password, you must remember it or face the difficult challenge of working around a built-in security feature.

When opening a child window, keep track of it with a window id (JavaScript 1.3)

We're all probably quite familiar with pop-up windows. In the Internet world, pop-up windows are usually advertising links to larger sites. Although, pop-up windows can have a greater purpose. Typically, when launched from a Web application form, they're used to gather information and return it to the parent form. Unfortunately, if this is the case and the user accidentally closes the parent window before the child window, the client produces errors such as, "Access is denied."

Avoid the My Documents default (Microsoft Word 2003/2007/2010)

When you choose Save As or Open, Word automatically opens the My Documents folder in the resulting dialog box. If you tend to work from a folder other than My Documents, you'll save valuable time by setting that primary folder as your default.

Get your non-printing slugs to print (InDesign CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5)

A slug is an area on the pasteboard in an InDesign document in which you can type comments to your printer, coworkers, etc. You can specify slug parameters in the Bleed And Slug pane of the New Document dialog box as you create a new document. The only problem is that the slug area is typically non-printing and trimmed. There is, however, a way to get a slug to print.

Easily audit changes to the registry

You can audit changes made to the registry much the same way you audit changes made to other files on your computer. To enable auditing on the registry, open regedt32. Select the key you want to audit and choose Security | Permissions. In the Permissions dialog box, click Advanced, and select the Auditing tab. On the Auditing property sheet, click Add, and select the users and groups whose actions you want to audit.

Remove unwanted whitespace from your result text document with XSLT

When transforming XML data into a text document, often unwanted whitespace nodes (e.g., extra line breaks) appear in the output. You can control this by using the <xsl:strip-space> element. The <xsl:strip-space> element is a top-level element, and must follow immediately after the <xsl:stylesheet> start tag:

Create a distribution list directly from the Address Book (Outlook 2003)

You can easily create a new distribution list straight from the Address Book dialog box. To do so, choose Tools | Address Book from the Outlook menu bar. Next, select the location from which you want to select names. Choose File | New Entry from the Address Book’s menu bar. At this point, click on New Distribution List in the Select The Entry Type list box in the New Entry dialog box. Then, make your selection from the In The dropdown list in the Put This Entry section. Click OK to close the New Entry dialog box and save the distribution list.

Quickly double your magnification using keystrokes (QuarkXPress)

For reading, editing, checking alignments, or adjusting small details in QuarkXPress, zooming into 200% is essential. The quicker you can do it the better.

Verify URLs in potential SPAM emails (All systems)

Spammers now send email that is nearly indistinguishable from legitimate messages. Previous red flags, such as misspellings and poor grammar, no longer exist. You should NEVER follow links sent in emails - always open a new browser window and type in the URL you know to be correct for the company if you want to verify your account status.

Block third-party cookies and protect your privacy (All)

Cookies are text files placed on your hard drive by websites you visit. Only the site that placed the cookie can read information stored in the cookie. The only personal information in the cookie is information you actively supplied that website, but cookies can store technical information like pages you visited on the site. Most commercial sites required cookies to work effectively. Third-party cookies are files placed on your drive by advertisers who have positioned an ad on the pages you visit. Because the same advertiser may have ads on many different sites, cookies created by the advertiser can contain a record of the sites you visit. This allows the advertiser to target ads that match your personal interests. To block third-party cookies, select Start | Settings | Control Panel | Internet Options. Click on the Privacy tab and then click the Advanced button. Select the Override Automatic Cookie Handling check box, and then choose to accept first-party cookies and to block third-party cookies. Select the Always Allow Session Cookies check box, and then click OK and close the Control Panel. You now accept the cookies you need, but block cookies you don't want.

Use ASP.NET's Visible property to do more than just hide the content (ASP.NET)

If you've explored ASP.NET's server controls, you've probably run across the built-in Visible property. At first, you may wonder how it's different from the CSS visibility setting. After all, both settings effectively make the relevant page element visible or invisible. The difference is in the rendering. In CSS, to make an element invisible, you set the element's visibility property to hidden. With this setting in place, the browser won't display the related content. With ASP.NET's Visible property, setting it to False produces the same end results. However, keep in mind that because CSS is only concerned with the client-side display, it doesn't prevent the invisible content from actually being sent to the browser (or other user agent). A server control's Visible property, on the other hand, dictates whether ASP.NET will even send rendered content to the browser. As a result, if you set a control's Visible property to False, the final rendered HTML won't contain any tags related to the server control. This behavior is critical when you need to conditionally send content to the browser—-for instance, based on the user’s authentication level. If any old script-kiddie can view a Web page's source code to get sensitive information, hiding it from display doesn't do you much good.

Zoom in on your data in seconds (Excel 2003/2007/2010)

If your mouse has a wheel, you probably use it to scroll up and down through lengthy worksheets. You may not realize that you can also use it to change the zoom percentage for your view of the worksheet. To do so, hold down the [Ctrl] key and move the scroll wheel. Rolling the wheel down decreases the zoom percentage and rolling it up increases the zoom percentage. Note that if you’re using Excel 2000, the zoom will only go up to 100 percent.

Quickly reset a tool to its original default setting (Photoshop CS2/CS3/CS4/CS5)

When your adventurous nature takes over and you’ve experimented with a tool’s setting to the point where you can’t remember what the original default was, shrug it off. You can easily go back and restore a tool’s default setting.

Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA) certification & exams

Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA) is a recommended entry point into IT certification and job preparation. Pass just one exam and you’ll earn a certification, taking your first step toward a career in technology. If you are just starting your IT career path or are looking to enhance your understanding of IT fundamentals, MTA will validate your core knowledge. MTA is an optional industry-recognized certification for those pursuing a career path in IT infrastructure, database design, or software development using Microsoft technologies.

Let [Ctrl]Z become you best friend in Outlook (2003)

Pressing [Ctrl]Z reverses many actions in Outlook. For example, if you move a message to a different folder, delete a message, or type a sentence you don't want to include in an email, just press [Ctrl]Z to undo the action. You must press [Ctrl]Z, however, before performing any other action. This doesn't work for everything (i.e., you can’t undo sending a message or meeting request), but give it a try next time you accidentally perform a step. You may be pleasantly surprised at the power of this handy little keyboard shortcut.

Instantly create a numbered list without taking your hands off the keyboard (Word 2003/2007/2010)

You can easily create a numbered list in Word by selecting your list text and clicking the Numbering button on the formatting toolbar. But there's an even quicker way. Simply type the number 1, press [Tab], and then type your first numbered line's text. Then, press [Enter] and Word automatically enters the number 2 and moves your insertion point to align with the first entry. As long as you continue with your list, Word continues to insert consecutive numbers. To end the list, just press [Enter] twice.

New Horizons Learning Catalog 2013

New Horizons Prague has relasead a new learning catalog for season 2013. You'll find here plenty of courses offered by New Horizons for your computer trainig needs. It contains offering from Microsoft, CompTIA, Cisco, EC Council, etc. Besides courses and trainings you'll find here certification path that will help you in building you IT career.

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Save time with InDesign's automatic Layout Adjustment

If you have to print the same document on two different sizes of paper, you can really benefit from Layout Adjustment, InDesign's automatic way of re-creating the original layout on a new size of paper or different orientation. For example, if you were designing the same document for Europe and the U.S., you could create the original document on standard 8 1/2 x 11 paper and then use Layout Adjustment to approximate the fit onto an A4 size piece of paper. Once you enablë Layout Adjustment (Layout > Layout Adjustment), it will be triggered into action by changing your margin, column settings, page orientation and page size. Text and graphics are resized as necessary to accommodate the changes. This command works best when you've based your layout on a good framework of margins, guides and columns.

Computer Hacking Forensics Investigator (CHFIv8) version 8 in Prague

EC-Council announces the availability of the newest version of its globally recognized Computer Hacking Forensics Investigator (C|HFI) program. The all-new CHFIv8 certification course will be exclusively released in more than 15 countries to a select group of EC-Council's Authorized Training Centers. New Horizons Praha offers CHFIv8 course since June 3rd, 2013.

Back off using a background

One of the biggest mistakes people make when designing web pages is using a background image that makes the page illegible. With a graphics-heavy website, backgrounds are never a good idea. You don’t see book publishers using textured backgrounds for their print pages, do you? Why add an extra image to an already graphic-packed web page? Just because you have the ability to add a texture or picture to a web page’s background, doesn’t mean you should - especially if your audience already has an overwhelming amount of graphics to view.

Display a cheat sheet for your function right in the formula bar (Excel 2003/2007)

You’ve probably seen the ToolTip that appears when you begin to type a formula. Once you enter the opening parenthesis, the arguments for that function appear below the Formula bar or active cell. But, many power users find these ToolTips more annoying than helpful, especially for functions they know by heart. You can disable the ToolTips and still view Excel’s cheat sheet when you get stuck.

Use Jabberwocky to quickly fill your text boxes (QuarkXPress)

For those of you not up on children’s literature, Jabberwocky is a form of gibberish. In QuarkXPress, it’s an Xtension that makes adding dummy text fast and customizable. When you’re doing a rough layout and you need to fill some text boxes in your project, you can have Jabberwocky do the work for you. You can choose to use English, Esperanto, Klingon, or Latin and you can choose to jabber in prose or verse. You can also create your own jabber.