Tip of the Week #124: Display The Full Path Of Your Office Files

27 May
Volume 3, Issue #123 Past Issue Archive
May 15, 2009
Display The Full Path Of Your Office Files Would you ever like to see the full path of the Office document you are working on? Whenever I’m working on documents with multiple versions or trying to merge several documents or just have multiple files open at the same time I find it very help to be able to tell which one I’m working in at a quick glance.

There have been a number of times when working with multiple files that I’ve done things in one document when I thought I was in a different one. Ugh! I hate that. Here’s an easy way for you to benefit from my mistakes and add the file name (including the full path of where it is saved) right to your toolbar.

Let’s do some customizing

The nice thing is this works in Excel, Word and PowerPoint. The not quite as nice thing is that you’ll need to set this up for each application separately.

1. Right-click anywhere on any toolbar to display a context menu for the toolbars.

2. Choose Customize…
( You can also use the menu option: Tools » Customize… )

3. Click on the Commands tab.

4. In the Categories list (on the left hand side), select Web.

5. Drag the Address command (the first one in the command list) to wherever you’d like your file’s address to be (on your toolbars)

6. Click on Close.

Now you should have something like this that displays the full path of where your document is stored.

NOTE: This is also a good way to get the UNC path to use when linking to shared network folders.

Watch this to see how it works

What do you think of this one? Drop me a note and let me know.

Have a great weekend!
Mike

Tip of the Week #125: Scroll-Wheel Tricks

27 May
Volume 3, Issue #125 Past Issue Archive
May 22, 2009
Scroll-Wheel Tricks If your mouse has a scroll wheel, you’re probably familiar with scrolling up and down while scanning web pages and other document. If you’re one of those people who’ve never used your scroll wheel, you can try it by opening up long web page or document and simply spin that little wheel in the middle of your mouse.

I think a lot of people probably know that trick but did you know
that it can do other things too?

Super Fast Zooming

In Microsoft Office documents, you can quickly change the zoom level by holding the CTRL key while you scroll the mouse wheel. This is faster than using the menus, and let’s you size it visually rather than having to blindly guess what zoom % will look they way you want it.

Warp Speed Scrolling

In many places, including Office documents and web pages, clicking the scroll wheel once will change your cursor to a double-sided arrow like the one shown below. Once you see this, you can simply move your mouse up and down for speed scrolling.

In large spreadsheets, you can also use this trick to move left and right, in addition to up and down.

Forward/Backward Web Browsing

On the web you can use SHIFT + Scroll as an alternative to your browsers Forward and Backward buttons.

How do you use your scroll wheel? Drop me a note and let me know.

Have a great holiday weekend!
Mike

Tip of the Week #121: Display The Full Path Of Your Office Files

18 May
Volume 3, Issue #123 Past Issue Archive
May 8, 2009
Display The Full Path Of Your Office Files Would you ever like to see the full path of the Office document you are working on? Whenever I’m working on documents with multiple versions or trying to merge several documents or just have multiple files open at the same time I find it very help to be able to tell which one I’m working in at a quick glance.

There have been a number of times when working with multiple files that I’ve done things in one document when I thought I was in a different one. Ugh! I hate that. Here’s an easy way for you to benefit from my mistakes and add the file name (including the full path of where it is saved) right to your toolbar.

Let’s do some customizing

The nice thing is this works in Excel, Word and PowerPoint. The not quite as nice thing is that you’ll need to set this up for each application separately.

1. Right-click anywhere on any toolbar to display a context menu for the toolbars.

2. Choose Customize…
( You can also use the menu option: Tools » Customize… )

3. Click on the Commands tab.

4. In the Categories list (on the left hand side), select Web.

5. Drag the Address command (the first one in the command list) to wherever you’d like your file’s address to be (on your toolbars)

6. Click on Close.

Now you should have something like this that displays the full path of where your document is stored.

NOTE: This is also a good way to get the UNC path to use when linking to shared network folders.

Watch this to see how it works

What do you think of this one? Drop me a note and let me know.

Have a great weekend!
Mike

Tip of the Week #002: Web Searches – Part 2 of 3

14 May

Seek and Ye Shall Find (Part 2)
Some tips for better online searches

  1. Use the ~ symbol to search for synonyms:
    Put a tilde (~) in front of a word to search for that word plus the word’s synonyms the any alternative endings for the term as well.

    For example, ~inexpensive will return "inexpensive," "cheap," "affordable," and "low cost" while ~run matches "run," "runner’s," "running," as well as "marathon"

    The tilde operator works best when applied to general terms and terms with many synonyms.

  2. Search for Images Only
    Looking for the perfect picture for your next presentation? Did you know that you can search for images? Just click the Images link or go directly to

    http://images.google.com/google

    * Don’t forget to make sure you aren’t infringing upon any copyrights.

    In an upcoming issue we’ll give you lots of other great resources for finding photos & clip art.

  3. Search for particular types of documents
    By using the filetype: operator you can limit your search results to one of the following document types:

    * Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)
    * Microsoft Word (.doc)
    * Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt)
    * Microsoft Excel (.xls)
    * Rich Text Format (.rtf)

    For example, "confined space entry" filetype:ppt
    will result in PowerPoint files containing the exact phrase "confined space entry"

Next week we’ll wrap up this series of searching tips with a few resources you can use to learn even more great search tips.

Tip of the Week #001: Web Searches – Part 1 of 3

14 May

Welcome:

Happy New Year! I’ve been wanting to start something like this for awhile now and after kicking around a bunch of ideas I’ve landed on sharing one small item per week that I think might be helpful.

My hope is that from time to time you’ll be able to learn something new from these that will help save you some time or maybe allow you to do some things a little bit better.

If you’d like to be removed from this list just let me know. Feel free to forward this along to anyone you think might like to get a copy and let me know if anyone else would like to be added to the list and get a copy of their own.

Seek and Ye Shall Find (Part 1)
Some tips for better online searches

  1. Exact Phrase in Quotes:
    Sometimes you’ll only want results that include an exact phrase. In this case, simply put quotation marks around your search terms.

    For example, "Rigging Safety Training"

    Try this search both with and without the quotes. With the quotes Google returns 1,063 results while without the quotes you get over 1 MILLION results!

  2. Exclude Terms:
    Putting a minus (-) sign in front of a word in your search means that your search results MUST EXCLUDE that word.

    For example: rigging -sailboat

  3. Include Terms:
    Placing a plus (+) sign in front of a word means that word your search results MUST INCLUDE that word.

    For example: rigging +scaffold

  4. Site Search:
    Have you ever wanted to search only one specific web site? You can use Google to search a single specific site. This is handy if the site doesn’t provide a search function of their own.

    For example: "Getting Started" site:www.questiomark.com

    This will return all results from the Questionmark website that match the exact phrase of "Getting Started"

Try these out and you’ll be able to get the information you’re looking for quicker and easier.

Stay tuned for even more great search tips next week.

links for 2008-09-25

25 Sep

links for 2008-09-24

24 Sep

links for 2008-09-23

23 Sep

links for 2008-09-21

21 Sep
  • SourceForge.net: Screenshots
    Web-based social bookmarking system. Allows multiple users to store, share and tag their favourite links online.
    (tags: 2.0)

links for 2008-09-20

20 Sep
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