Office Technology
I recently heard a train-the-trainer presenter refer to all animations and transitions as unnecessary fluff and distractions. While I agree that animation beyond basic slide transitions can be distracting, I do think there is a place for well-placed advanced features in your PowerPoint. Here are my basic guidelines:
The web wants you to stick with your goals, if the number of goal-tracking tools online is any indication. Five of the best free methods for tracking and sticking to your goals:
You’ve plugged in the values for a PMT (payment) function to determine how much the payment will be only to find that the payment is a bit too much for your budget. You could keep plugging in numbers until you get the right answer, or find out the exact answer in a couple of clicks with one of the “What If” analysis tools in Excel.
Office workers who take an email hiatus focus on a single task for longer stretches of time and have lower stress levels, according to a new study by the University of California and U.S. Army researchers.
Nowadays, executives more often are meeting virtually, through instant messaging, video chat and other tools. Here’s how to organize a virtual meeting, and prepare participants to get the most out of the session.
Some people ask why I keep teaching these applications. “Don’t I get bored?” Not with great questions like these! I solved one of the following questions awhile back for my own use. The other two started out as “I don’t know, let’s see…”
I want to right align part of a line. For example, in a résumé the company name might be flush with the left margin, but the dates of employment should be flush with the right. How do I do that?
If you design diagrams with layered objects, especially with animation, it can be a bit frustrating to keep things stacked the way you like as you make changes and add movement. Here are a couple of tips to keep your sanity with layered objects.
The iPhone is perhaps the most-used digital camera in America, according to The Wall Street Journal. Though the iPhone comes with a camera, some people snap with these apps:
If you spend any time at all on Twitter, you’ll eventually run into this problem: It’s overwhelming. A person can easily be consumed by constantly scanning the scroll of a Twitter feed. You can’t possibly read it all, of course. The solution: Twitter lists.
Hold a mobile device at eye level to avoid “text neck.” Dr. Dean Fishman adopted the phrase after seeing a huge influx of younger patients visiting his chiropractor facility … Avoid writing redundant combinations that give readers a sense of “deja vu all over again” …
Social networks are all about sharing: news, images, accomplishments, questions, recommendations and of-the-moment nuggets of information. Here’s a humorous (and accurate) take on the difference between social media tools:
Next time you need to send a fax, use your smartphone. Fax apps allow you to take a photo of a document, crop it, spruce it up and then send it out.
