Control the amount of help you receive for functions (Excel 2002/2003)

To give you a little assistance in Excel, a ToolTip appears when you begin to enter a function, showing you its syntax. You can even move between your arguments easily by clicking on the corresponding argument in the ToolTip. However, if you prefer to handle your functions on your own, you can disable this feature. Just select Tools | Options from the menu bar. In the Options dialog box, click on the General tab if necessary. Deselect the Function ToolTips check box in the Settings panel and click OK. Now, the ToolTips no longer appear onscreen as you work in Excel.

Automatically modifying the modify date

Do you ever want to automatically add a modification date to a web page? It's easy - just locate the area where you want to place the modification note and insert the following script:

Take advantage of adjustment layers (Photoshop CS/CS2/CS3/CS4)

Have you ever adjusted the Curves of an image or tweaked the Levels and found the results less than appealing? Or maybe you just wanted to experiment with a few different adjustments without actually applying them to your image. Well, you can do this quite easily using adjustment layers.

Don't let sound failures ruin your next webinar

With webinars, or seminars given on the web, presenters can remotely train students or pitch to a large group of potential clients. Webinars typically combine PowerPoint presentations for visuals, and the presenter's voice for the narration. But what if you begin a webinar and some audience members' computer sound fails? Those audience members will surely drop off your webinar, and you'll lose your sale.

Bypass the Inbox when you first launch Outlook

By default, when you launch Outlook, you immediately see your email Inbox. But, if you prefer to look at your calendar and task list prior to checking your email, there's no reason for you to have to change views every time you open the application. Fortunately, it's easy to change which Outlook folder is initially opened. For example, if you want Outlook to open to the Calendar instead of the Inbox, choose Tools | Options from the Outlook menu bar and click on the Other tab in the resulting Options dialog box. Next, click the Advanced Options button to open the Advanced Options dialog box and choose Calendar (or one of the other Outlook folders, such as Journal or Notes) from the Startup In This Folder dropdown list. Now, click OK twice to return to Outlook. Close Outlook and then restart it. The Calendar is now displayed and is selected in the Folder List.

Digital Marketing Series: Leveraging Email Marketing to Grow Your IT Service Business

Email marketing is a powerful tool to marketing your IT managed service business. If it isn’t done in a responsible manner, your marketing programs can backfire if they are viewed as SPAM. During this webinar, learn how to use consistent and targeted email marketing programs to grow your MSP and Cloud Services business.

Quickly access the Save As dialog box in Microsoft Office XP applications

If you haven't yet saved a new document, the Save As dialog box automatically appears when you click the Save button. However, once you've saved your new Excel workbook, PowerPoint presentation, or Word document, clicking the Save button no longer opens the Save As dialog box; instead, it saves your document in its current location using its current filename. If you want to access the Save As dialog box to save your document in a different location or to a different filename, you can choose File | Save As from the menu bar, as you already know. If you want to spare yourself a few mouse clicks, however, simply press the [F12] shortcut key instead.

Change case in Word in a flash

When you press [Shift][F3] to toggle through capitalization options, the options actually change based on the characteristics of your selection. If there's a period (or other end-of-sentence punctuation) in your selected text, Word offers different capitalization styles than it would offer if your selection contained no periods. We'll show you how to use Change Case for both situations.

Save JPEGs as PSDs to preserve quality (Photoshop 7/CS)

If you start with a JPEG image, perhaps from a digital camera, and alter it, don't save it again as a JPEG; you'll lose image quality every time you re-save an image in JPEG format. Instead, save the altered image as a PSD file and make a JPEG copy if you need to post the image to the web, for example. In the meantime, you'll have a good copy of your altered image in PSD format for use in other applications, such as for printing photos or using them in a printed brochure.

Managed Services Masters Series: Best Practices in Creating IT Contracts

Do you want to learn the basics for developing an IT services contract? Do you know what core components are needed in every IT contract? Join us for this webinar to learn directly from a contract attorney about master services agreements, including separate service agreements for each IT service delivered. Hear about the three types of clauses - supporting, transactional and general - necessary to build an IT contract.

Easily add part of an open document to an Outlook item (2003/2007)

Let’s say you have an open Word document and you’d like to include part of it in an email message. Would you copy the text from the Word document, launch a new Message form in Outlook, click in the message area of the form, and then paste the text?

Choose the right database for your website (SQL)

For a high performance website, use a client/server relational database management system (RDBMS) such as Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, or open source alternatives like MySQL (http://www.mysql.com) or PostgreSQL (http://www.postgresql.org). These programs manage interactions with the database so your website can still work properly even if many people are accessing it at once.

Micro-manage your PPD files for accurate printing (QuarkXPress)

Although it’s possible to print using a generic PPD (PostScript Printer Description), you should get into the practice of selecting the correct PPD to ensure accurate printing. If you don't see the PPD file for your output device listed in the Printer Description pop-up menu on the Setup tab in the Print dialog box, you may just need to activate it in the PPD Manager dialog box (Utilities > PPD Manager). If you don't see it listed there, you'll probably need to acquire it.

Managed Services Trustmark Workshop at ChannelCon Pre-Event Webinar

Join CompTIA for a review of the controls and documentation required for successful completion of the Managed Services Trustmark. To get the most out of the Managed Services Trustmark to be held at ChannelCon, you’ll want to have a firm grasp of what’s expected. Take advantage of the resources now and you may be able to walk away from ChannelCon with your new business credential! Presented by Miles Jobgen, Senior Product Manager, Trustmarks, CompTIA.

Save time using the PSD Import to adjust image tints

Do you want to eliminate the time-consuming task of going from QuarkXPress to Photoshop, and back to QuarkXPress to re-import the image? 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.

Simplify tasks in QuarkXPress with these 3 key commands

When using QuarkXPress on a Mac, here are three shortcut keys that will dramatically speed up your design time when used in combination. Hold down [shift], [option], and [command] and then do one of the following:

• Click on a tool to lock it. By locking it, you prevent it from returning to a default tool after using it.
• Repeatedly click on layers of objects and/or text boxes to cycle through what’s below the top box.
• Drag your picture box handles to change its size and stay in proportion with content.

Speed through your next surf session with 8 IE keyboard shortcuts

You can immediately take advantage of these shortcuts to boost your online productivity. All you need is a little patience to learn them, and some dexterity to put them to good use.

Avoid rework by understanding the three ASP.NET coding models

Changing your application’s architecture midstream can be extraordinarily time-consuming. If you’re using Microsoft’s .NET framework for your server-side solution, there are many options to choose from, and you need to get certain decisions right the first time. We’ve found that there are generally three basic ways in ASP.NET to perform any given task. To help describe how to match these three approaches to meet your needs, we’ve come up with three hypothetical characters: Classy Clyde, Terry O’Toole, and Big Bob. Let’s see how to best match these developers with their coding architecture needs.

Free yourself by adding the currently open document to the Favorites folder 2003)

You routinely add websites to your Favorites folder for quick retrieval later, but did you know you can also add currently open Word files to the Favorites folder?