Month: March 2014

MS Office on the iPad

Microsoft Office, for the iPad is finally here!

After years of working with 3rd party viewers, you can now open and view Documents, Spreadsheets and Slides using MS Office for iPad. Tap the Share button to open an attachment in its respective Office application. The look and feel are just like using a streamlined (portable) version of your desktop Office.  That is to say, it won’t have all the same features, but for on-the-go computing it works great.

The apps are free, however, to unlock the full potential you’ll need to subscribe to Office 365. This is the Office via Cloud (aka SAS) and will enable you to create, save and edit files.

I have never been a big fan of editing on a tablet and Word for the iPad has yet to convince me otherwise. I do, however, appreciate being able to view and create spreadsheets while away from my desktop, using Excel for the iPad. But the real winner thus far (less than 24 hours into install) is PowerPoint for the iPad. Now I can display a presentation directly from my iPad to a projector/monitor and use familiar presentation controls, complete with laser pen, highlighter and notes (sweet!)

Comments and questions are always welcome!hɔuᴉnb

 

Google Android Wear

Google-Android-Wear

Google; in your home, on your streets and, soon, on your wrist! The Google smartwatches, or Androidwear, are coming to a mall near you. Watch this video from GoogleMobile to see why you want one.

Spoiler alert: you’re cell phone’s days are numbered.

Cheers!

hɔuᴉnb

Accents made easy in Word
JasonUnderwood
loved your pate!

Our world shrinks and our community becomes increasingly global. For those using the 26 letter (aka, US 101) keyboard, proper communications can be challenging.

Master these easy keyboard shortcuts so as not to mistake pate with pâté, fur with für, or Crème fraîche with, well, anything. 

To avoid a lot of memorization, remember: look for the key that looks like the accented character and match it with a CTRL (and sometimes SHIFT) stroke. Many of the special characters can be created by using apostrophe ( ′ ),  colon (:)  caret (^) and tilde (~).

Char

Name

Keystroke

Example

´

 acute accent CTRL + ′, followed by letter más (Sp., more)

`

 grave accent CTRL + `, followed by letter où (Fr., where)

¨

 diaeresis/umlaut CTRL + SHIFT + :, followed by letter Tür (Gr., door)

^

 circumflex CTRL+ SHIFT + ^, followed by letter tête (Fr., head)

~

 tilde CTRL + SHIFT + ~, followed by letter Piña Colada (a dreadful 70s song)
Bonus language-specific shortcuts:

ç

 (Fr.) cedilla CTRL + , (comma), followed by c garçon (boy)

ß

 (Gr.) eszett CTRL + SHIFT + &, followed s groß (large)

Related

Cheers!

hɔuᴉnb

Comments and questions are always welcome!

Excel NCAA templates

March Madness is upon us!

In 1892 Coach James Naismith hammered two peach baskets into the gym balcony, and forever changed how we use Excel!

NCAA_LooneyToons

Using these free templates available in Excel, you can plot out your final four projections!

To access NCAA templates

  1. Click File and select New.
  2. In the Search Office Templates field type ‘NCAA‘ (no quotes) and press the search arrow. The search results will populate the dialog.
  3. Select preferred template and click Download.

ncaa

from Wikipedia:

[Naismith] divided his class of 18 into 2 teams of 9 players each and set about to teach them the basics of his new game of Basketball. The objective of the game was to throw the [ball], into the fruit baskets nailed to the lower railing of the gym balcony. Every time a point was scored, the game was halted so the janitor could bring out a ladder and retrieve the ball. Later, the bottoms of the fruit baskets were removed. The first public basketball game was played in Springfield, MA, on March 11, 1892. That day, he asked his class to play a match in the Armory Street court: 9 versus 9, using a soccer ball and two peach baskets.

Cheers!

hɔuᴉnb

Additional reading:

Comments and questions are always welcome!

Meet the man who gave the world email attachments

Everyone loves a MIME. Happy anniversary to the world’s first email attachment.

iOS 7 Tips

April is upcoming and I am handing out Easter Apples Eggs! iOS7 has been out for some months now, so this post may seem overdue. In defense, I was initially an un-fan of the new OS. Over time it has shown itself to be ‘a good thing’. So now, having made my peace with it, I am highlighting some of the better and under-exposed features.

My favorite of iOS7 features. 

Spotlight Search
SpotlightSearch2
 Swipe down from Home screen. Previously, you had to swipe all the way to the left most Home screen page. Now you can access Spotlight Search from any Home screen page. Use this to locate everything (i.e., apps, messages, contacts).
Control Center
Control Center
 Swipe up from bottom of the screen to access Control Center. From here you have access to key features (camera, airplane mode, music) without having to navigate to the Settings app.This feature can also be disabled if it interferes with a particular app’s swipe gesture. To manage settings, open the Settings app and tap Control Center.Settings
Flick to stop running apps
Flick
 Double press the Home button to display running apps, then Flick app up & away to terminate. This gesture is far more satisfying than the previous ‘click the x‘ method.Bonus: you can flick-close multiple apps at a time!
Camera Burst Mode
SwishBurst
 From the Camera app, Press & Hold Capture button to take rapid fire shots. Release button to stop.
This makes it easier on us iShutterBugs to capture that three-pointer.
Gesture back*
Gesture Swipe

*also a release mechanism to cope with road-rage.
 Give your Home button a rest. Gesture (five-fingered** swipe) left or right to get back to your previous apps.


**(four fingers, for Disney execs)

hɔuᴉnb

Comments and questions are always welcome!

Excel Indents

Excel Indents

Want to make your spreadsheet more legible? Indents, added where appropriate, will make your spreadsheet easier to mentally digest.
Sadly, it won’t make bad financial news easier to swallow.

Watch this 15 second video to learn the what you need to know.

Indent a cell

  1. Select the cell(s) to indent
  2. On the Home tab, in the Alignment Group, click the dialog launcher Dialog Launcher
    (or press CTRL + SHIFT + F to display the Font dialog and click the Alignment tab).
  3. In the Text alignment section, click the Horizontal drop-down and select Left (Indent).
  4. In the Indent field, type or select preferred indent increment (i.e., 1, 2).
  5. Click OK.

Cheers!

hɔuᴉnb

Additional reading:

Comments and questions are always welcome!

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