Category — how to

Internet Explorer 7 – why do we use it?

There are other ways to look at all the Internet has to offer: (Firefox, Opera etc.) without having to swear at IE7. However, IE is the browser that most people are used to, so despite the frustration of not being able to find anything and the fact that IE7 seems to assume all its users are morons, we keep using it.

Well, if you’re going to use it anyway, you may as well learn to control it. Part of having control is being able to delete your internet history; the cookies, the browser history – the stuff you don’t want your significant other, your mom or the geeks at Best Buy to find on your computer.

There are two ways to delete cookies (or your browser history):

1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Click Tools > Delete Browsing History…
3. Choose one of the options and click the corresponding delete button.

This will delete ALL of whatever option you pick. You will not have the option to pick and choose. So, if you chose to delete cookies, all cookies would be deleted. Even the ones you wanted to keep.

Or, you can delete cookies this way:

1. Click Tools > Internet Options
2. On the General tab, under Browsing history, click Settings.
3. In the Temporary Internet Files and History Settings, click View Files.

You can now choose the specific files, images and cookies you wish to delete.

If you want to delete things from your browser history, you can choose to delete everything through the Delete Browsing History… option (see the first set of instructions), or you can pick and choose:

1. Open Internet Explorer 7.
2. Click the inverted triangle  to the left of the address bar.
3. Click History.

You can now pick specific folders or pages to delete without being forced to delete everything.

Happy deleting!

This post is dedicated to Curlywurlygurly – I have a magic button for you!

When Microsoft introduced the new Office Suite 2007, I went right out and paid full price for a copy. I opened Word with my head full of feel-good marketing stuff about a new look and ribbons. It sounded pretty and superior to the old version

I was totally flustered when I saw it for the first time.

Where the hell were the file menus? What was all that mess across the top of the screen? Why are there tabs all over the place and why don’t they make any sense? Why did Microsoft have to so brutally kick me out of my comfort zone and take away all the stuff I was familiar with?

But I’m no complainer, so I gave it a try. I typed up a blog post in there intending to copy and paste it into WordPress. I generally use a lot of keyboard shortcuts when I type, so at first everything was OK – but everytime I wanted to use something from on of the old toolbars, it wasn’t there. I wanted to change the properties on the document and I couldn’t figure out where to go. I wanted to save the document so I could possibly retrieve it later – assuming Best Buy could sort of broken bits of laptop because I was ready to drop the thing off the roof of the house.

I wanted my damn file menus back!

But then, the fog of frustration rolled back to reveal this:

This is the Office Button – it’s in the upper left corner of the Word screen. Click it to reveal this:

And there they are – all those items you miss from the old File menu.

Look under Prepare for nifty things like changing document properties and encrypting documents.

I am ashamed to say it took me several weeks to realize that Office Button was a button that did anything. I figured it was like the Internet Explorer icon that I see in the upper left of my screen as I type this. Just a little picture to let me know which program I’m using – in case I forget. A mere decoration, but not something useful.

The Office Button is the only complaint I have about Word 2007 now. I like the ribbons – no more searching through menus and drop-down lists for basic stuff; it’s all in the open. I can do what I want to do much, much faster now.

I have let go of my Word 2003 blankie and I am taking my first steps. If I were several years younger, someone would be offering me a cookie and some praise right now – I’m still open to that offer at the ripe old age of 32 – especially if you’ve got chocolate chip!

I recently put together a Power Point presentation for a client. I used the MS Office 2007 version which took some time to get used to (mostly because I had a hard time finding anything on those ribbons).

So, I thought I might save someone out there a little aggravation and post a few basic tips on creating presentations using Power Point 2007. Please keep in mind these tips assume you have some understanding of Power Point already – if you’re a beginner, go here or here.

Choosing a preset design

1. From the menu, click Design.
2. Click .  This will show you all the themes available within Power Point
3. Click More themes available on Microsoft Office Online… for even more themes.

All of these themes can be modified to suit your needs, or you can simply create your own and make the Power Point slides look anyway you want them to. Here are some helpful places on the Design menu you might want to play around with if you want to get creative:

1. Design > Colors – Allows you to use built in colour themes or create your own.
2. Design > Fonts – Use a built in theme font, or create a new one.
3. Design > Effects – If you use Quick Styles to format the shapes in your presentation, choosing from the Effects menu will reformat those shapes for you using the new effect.
4. Design > Background Styles – Change the background colour using built in colour schemes, or get creative and create your own.

Creating effects is where I ran into trouble – getting things like graphics and text to enter and exit the way I wanted and when I wanted.

Effects: entering and exiting

1. Click Animations > Custom Animation.
2. A Custom Animation panel should appear on the right of the screen.
3. Click on the text or graphic you want to apply an effect to.
4. Click the Add Effect button.
5. Choose an effect from the drop down list.

Let’s assume for a moment you’ve chosen Entrance > Fade for your graphic or text. This means that your graphic will fade into view. To have the same graphic or text fade out, follow the steps 2 -5 above and choose Exit > Fade.

The Custom Animation panel on the right now looks something like this:

Figure 1. Custom Animation Panel

Click the green star in the Custom Animation panel to change the entrance or click the orange star to change the exit using the drop-down menus above to change how the effect starts and the speed at which the effect moves.

This is the point at which timing becomes important. The preset speeds you chose may be too fast – even on Very Slow – and pausing the graphic or text before it exits might be necessary.

Pausing an effect

In this case, I want to pause the graphic before it fades out so the viewer can look at it without feeling rushed.

1. Click the orange star.
2. From the drop-down menu, choose Timing…
3. Use the up arrow in the Delay field to add a 4 second pause to the graphic.
   
   Figure 2. Adding delayed timing.
4. Click OK.

Linking slides

If you want the presentation to play without needing to click something after every slide, you’ll need to link them together so they each slide will advance automatically. For the first slide:

1. On the Animations menu, uncheck the On Mouse Click option.
2. Check the Automatically After option and use the up arrow to put a 2 second (or so) pause between slides.

For subsequent slides:

1. Ensure that On Mouse Click option is unchecked.
2. Ensure that Automatically After option is checked.
3. Ensure the first effect in the next slide (and subsequent slides!) is checked to start After Previous. This will force the effect in the new slide to start after the previous slide is done playing.

These are a few of the basic tips I found useful in Power Point once I figured them out. Happy creating!