Category: Tech

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!

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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!

PowerPoint: Customize Bullets

Want to make an Oscar worthy, award-winning presentation? The difference between your presentation and all others is design and style. Don’t limit yourself to cookie-cutter, off the shelf bullets. Any saved image can be a source for better bullets.

Watch this 60 second video to learn all you need to know

  1. Select text to be formatted.
  2. On the Home tab, in the Paragraph group, click the Bullets drop-down and select Bullets and Numbering. The Bullets and Numbering dialog appears.
  3. Click Picture. The Picture Bullet dialog appears.
  4. Click Import. A file browser window opens.
  5. Navigate to saved image file (i.e. JPG, GIF) and select picture.
  6. Click Add. The image is added to the picture gallery.
  7. Click OK.

Cheers!

hɔuᴉnb

Comments and questions are always welcome!

Related:

Excel Sparklines

Be Trendy!

Sparklines

Sparklines are an easy way to add visual trend-lines to your tabular data.
And what better way to distract your audience than by dangling something sparkly in front of them!

Watch this 60 second video to learn the what you need to know.

Inserting Sparklines to your Excel data

  1. On the Insert tab, in the Sparklines group, click Sparkline type (e.g., Line). The Create Sparklines dialog appears.
  2. In the Data Range field enter the values to be charted.
  3. In the Location Range field enter cell range where char is to be displayed.
  4. Click OK.

Tip: With an inserted sparkline selected, the Sparklines Tools: Design tab appears on the Ribbon. Use the tools on this tab to change colors and add markers.

Cheers!

hɔuᴉnb

Additional reading:

Comments and questions are always welcome!

Valentine’s Templates

Has Valentine’s day snuck up on you this year? Are you buried under too much snow to card shop? Borrow from Microsoft’s templates. Word and PowerPoint have hundreds of print-ready and animated templates to choose from.

Screenshot (25)
Word 2013 Templates
PowerPoint 2013 Templates

To Download and Create a Valentine

  1. In either Word or PowerPoint, click File tab and select New.
  2. In the Search bar enter Valentine and press Search icon.
  3. Click on image to preview.
  4. To select, click Create.

Related

Cheers!

hɔuᴉnb

Comments and questions are always welcome!

PowerPoint: Set Transparency

Whitespace (or any other background color) can make your inserted images look like a kindergarten stickers. Solution: remove unwanted colors using Set Transparency.

Watch this 60 second video to learn all you need to know

  1. Select the picture or image to be edited.
  2. On the Ribbon, click on the Picture Tools: Format tab.
  3. In the Adjust group click Color (or Recolor, in version 2007) and select Set Transparent Color.
  4. On the selected image, click on the color to remove (i.e. make transparent). That color is erased from the selected image.

Cheers!

hɔuᴉnb

Comments and questions are always welcome!

Related:

Bubble Charts

Break out the Bubbly!

Its well past the new year so a little bubbly is long overdue. Bubble charts are great in that they allow you to graph in 3 dimensions: Length, Height and Breadth (or area). Although the steps below are written with Excel in mind, they can also be applied to PowerPoint.

Watch this 3½ minute video to learn the basics regarding interpreting and creating bubble charts.

Creating a Bubble Chart

  1. Input your data, placing the X-axis data in the first column, Y-axis data in the second column, and the area (bubble size) in the third column.
  2. Select the data.
  3. On the Insert tab, in the Chart group, Click XY and select from Bubble types. A Bubble chart is added to the worksheet

Note: If necessary click Switch Row/Column (on the Chart Tools:Design tab) to swap the series data.

Adding Data Labels

  1. CLICK on one of the bubbles in the series. The entire series becomes selected.
  2. RIGHT+CLICK  one of the selected bubbles and select Add Data Labels. Data labels will appear.
  3. To format label appearance and content, RIGHT+CLICK on a bubble and select Format Data Labels.

Formatting the Bubble Appearance (Fill)

  1. CLICK on one of the bubbles in the series. The entire series becomes selected..
  2. CLICK (again) on the bubble. The single bubble will be selected.
  3. RIGHT+CLICK on the selected bubble and select Format Data Point. The Format Data Point dialog/pane appears.
  4. Select Fill and set the fill options (e.g., color, pattern, fill, etc).
  5. Close.
  6. Repeat as necessary for remaining bubbles.

Cheers!
hɔuᴉnb

Additional reading:

Comments and questions are always welcome!