If there are any topics you would like to see discussed in the future or if you have any comments, please contact me at JoeT@HighCaliber.com
Bullet Points
Google Tips
You can increase the accuracy of your Google searches by adding operators that fine-tune your keywords.
When entering the keywords for your searches, you should keep these points in mind:
The order in which the terms are typed will affect the search results.
There is no need to include "and" between terms.
Google ignores common words and characters such as "where" and "how", as
well as certain single digits and single letters. But if the word essential
to your search you can add the plus sign ("+") and then the word. Or you can
include the word in quotes.
Searches are not case sensitive - it does not matter if letters are
capitalized or not.
You can exclude a word from your search by putting a minus sign ("-")
immediately in front of the term you want to avoid
If you want to search for a keyword or its synonyms, place a tilde ("~")
immediately in front of the keyword. (This key is above the tab key. Hold
the shift and the key)
If you want one term or another - cash OR money - enter an Uppercase OR
between terms.
Additionally, Google supports several advanced operators which are query
words that have special meaning to Google. These include domain:, language:,
safesearch; occurrences and more. See
http://www.google.com/help/operators.html for a complete list.
Spam Volume Doubles Over Last 2 Years
According to a new landmark study conducted by IDC, "The True Cost of SPAM
and Value of Anti-SPAM Solutions", the surge in spam poses a growing threat
to productivity. IDC estimates that spam represented 32% of all email sent
on an average day in North America in 2003, essentially doubling from 2001.
"Spam has become more than just a nuisance; it is quickly becoming both a
major productivity drain and potential legal liability in organizations
across the globe," said Mark Levitt, research vice president for
Collaborative Computing at IDC. "Spam clogs networks, servers, and inboxes
with unwanted and often offensive content. The business impact of spam only
grows more serious as the volume of spam continues to rise."
Investing in anti-spam solutions yields a positive ROI and rapid payback
based upon the research conducted by IDC on the cost of spam and the value
of anti-spam solutions. Anti-spam solutions have helped organizations save
millions of dollars in lost email user and IT staff productivity (see
table).
A recent poll of just under 4,000 small & medium businesses showed that 80%
of companies found that the spam floods caused lowered productivity at work,
but only 28% have an anti-spam solution in place at the moment.
Please contact High Caliber if you are interested in spam-filtering service.
Show Number of Document Pages in Windows Explorer
If you want to display the number of pages in Word documents while looking
at a file list in Windows Explorer:
Run WIndows Explorer: Right click on the Start button and select Explore
Navigate to the folder where Word document files are located
On the View menu, ensure that Details is selected.
Right click one of the default column headers (for example: Name, Size or Type).
Scroll down to More... at the bottom of the list.
Under Select details you want to display for the files in this folder,
scroll down and check the Pages checkbox.
Click OK
Note that there are about 30 different detail columns you can display,
including such information as the author or owner of the file, comments,
copyright information, and specialized information for music files (artist,
album title, track number, genre) or photo files (dimensions, data photo was
taken, camera model).
Creating Combo Boxes in MS Excel
There are many times that it would be beneficial to have predefined choices
to fill a cell. This saves the user time, and it also eliminates typing
errors. To create a combo box in Excel:
Insert a new, blank worksheet
From cell A1 downwards, enter a list your options you want to appear in a dropdown box
Highlight the cells of the list
Select Insert from the horizontal menu bar
Select Name from the drop down menu
Select Define and make a named range based on the options
made in the previous step - for this example, we'll call the range
"Combobox"; (without quotes)
Go to your original sheet, and place the cursor where you want the dropdown
Select Data from the horizontal menu
Select Validation from the drop down menu
Change the Allow option to List
In the Source box that appears, type "=Combobox" (without quotes, don't
forget the equal sign)
Click Ok
Copy the cell
Select all the cells where you want to apply the dropdown
Right click and select Paste Special
Choose Validation
Hibernation Mode - hiberfil.sys
Hibernation is a special kind of shutdown. The system stops all activity,
just as if you had shut it off. But before powering down, the hibernation
system writes the contents of RAM and some CPU settings to a special file
on your hard drive (often called "hiberfil.sys" or something similar).
When the PC awakens from hibernation, it doesn't go through a full reboot.
Instead, it reads the contents of the hibernation file back into memory,
and thus restores itself to the exact same condition it was in when
hibernation started. Although this takes longer than waking from a sleep
or standby or suspend mode, it's usually much faster than a full boot.
Because the hibernation file contains the full contents of your system
RAM, its size is roughly equal to the amount of RAM you have in your
system, plus a little more. Because it has to be available at boot,
before the OS is fully awake, this file can't be moved, compressed, or
deleted.
But if you don't hibernate your pc--- if instead you only use
suspend/standby/sleep or just plain "off" modes--- then you don't need
the hibernation file in the first place: Use Control Panel/Power or
Control Panel/Performance/Power to deactivate hibernation, reboot, and
the file should be gone. If it's still there, you can then manually
remove it.
Many people have had it up to here with those pop-up and pop-under
ads that some web sites serve. Some have installed various "popup
blockers" without realizing that a lot of these programs disable
all or some kinds of web-based scripting. The popups stop, but so
do many other script-based browser operations - even desirable or
benign ones. For example, some Windows Update features employ benign
popups. These are not ads, but secondary browser windows that
contain important information about update items. But the popup
blockers stop everything.
Unfortunately, one of the bad side effects of installing popup
blocking software is that users assume that the web site or their
browser is broken when a site doesn't function properly because a
necessary secondary browser window can't open. Often, it's just the
popup blocker, (or script-blocker, or similar "security" add-on)
doing its job.
Similarly, some people still (mistakenly) believe that cookies
somehow actively "track" them around the web, and so use cookie-stopping
settings or add-ins. But cookies are just inert, static text files
that sit on your hard drive. They have no active element whatsoever
and are incapable of any form of active tracking or snooping. In fact,
cookies generally know only what you tell them. Yes, some limited and
generally non-private and impersonal information (operating system,
browser type, etc.) can be pulled from your browser directly. But
normally, the only way a cookie can get truly sensitive or personal
information (credit card numbers, home address, phone number, bank name,
etc.) is if you actively and voluntarily enter that information by
filling out forms on a web site that then stores that info in a cookie.
If you don't enter sensitive information on any given web site, then the
cookies created by that web site simply cannot contain any truly
private information.
But some companies use fear tactics to convince you that web sites or ads
are indeed somehow using cookies to ferret out all your secrets. And so,
millions of people block cookies, which does little good, but which
definitely does break many benign or desirable site features, and which
can cause active harm such as preventing you from gaining access to
password-protected web sites. When the users can't get in, the users
think the site or their browser is broken.
