My Life in IT: March 2009

31 Mar 2009

Outlook Calendar Tips

Below are 2 Outlook Calendar tips you may not be aware of.

How to add other countries holidays to Outlook Calendar
The adding of other countries public holiday’s. If you are like me and work with many different countries but have problems keeping track of all the public holidays in each country then this is for you..

Open options in Outlook by clicking Tools and then Options and then select the Calendar Options under the main Preferences tab.

Next click on Add Holidays under Calendar options.

This will bring up a selection box enabling you to choose the countries which you wish to have their holiday’s displays in your calendar.

How to add a second time zone to the Outlook Calendar

If you have to arrange lots of meeting with a country in a different time zone it can sometimes be hard trying to work out what time it is in the other location. You can add a second time zone to your calendar so you can see 2 time zones beside each other.

To do this go to Calendar Options as above and select Time Zone under Advanced Options

Click the box show additional time zone then choose a Label this can be anything and then select the second time zone you wish to be displayed. Click OK and when you view your calendar you will see a second time zone.

30 Mar 2009

PST Files and OST files

A lot of people seem to be confused by Outlook files so let me try and explain the differences.

PST Files -

These are Outlook data files which hold all your Outlook data from Contacts / Tasks /Calendar / Notes / Attachments to all your email including ALL sub folders.

By Default they are stored in the following location

Windows XP and before
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\
Windows Vista
C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\

Where Username is your profile name

There are 2 types of PST files
Outlook 2002 and Before and Outlook 2003 / 2007.

Outlook 2002 and Before: These have a limit of 2GB in size. However they will start to become corrupt after 1.7GB If the PST file becomes corrupt then it will need to be repaired.

Outlook 2003 / 2007 : These have a limit of 20GB. However whilst i have never seen a corrupt one i would not want to try and recover a 20GB PST as it would take many hours to recover so i would never suggest having a PST over 3-4GB.

If you use POPMail then you all your email is downloaded and stored into a PST file so you should backup the PST file as its your only copy of the email in Outlook.

If you use Exchange mail (Corporate email on Outlook) then only email you store in an Archive is stored in a PST file.

PST files should not be deleted unless you have checked the content is not needed as if cannot be recovered.

OST Files -

These hold an offline COPY of your Exchange Mailbox. With Exchange email your Mailbox which contains Contacts / Tasks / Notes / Calendar / Email / Attachments resides on a Server but to enable yourself to view your mailbox offline you can setup and Offline Store (OST file). This is a copy of your mailbox which synchronises changes in your mailbox to your OST File when you connect. You can delete your OST and recreate it as its only a copy of your Mailbox.

OST Files are kept in the same location as PST files.

Windows XP and before
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\
Windows Vista
C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\

Where Username is your profile name

You can change the location where PST and OST files are stored.

How to set an Out of Office on a Blackberry

Go into Email and then press the Blackberry button and select Options from the menu.

Enter into the Email Settings

Change the “Use Out of Office Reply” from No to Yes.

This will give you a text box in which to write your Out of Office reply. When you have written your Out of Office click on the back button and then select Save.

Your Out of Office is now set.

NOTE: This will only work on company Blackberries and not personal ones.

29 Mar 2009

Using the DOS Window

I wanted to share a couple of tips you can use to make working in DOS slightly easier.

Changing the Size of the box window

If you click on the C:\ at the top left this will display a pull menu. From this menu select properties.

Then under the layout tab change both the Window Size Width and the Screen Buffer Size Width to the desired size.

Below are an example of before and after

Before

After

Use previously used commands

The last 25 commands are stored in memory to use this just click F7 and it will display the last 20 commands allowing you to navigate through them selecting the one you want rather than typing it all again.

Changing the color of the DOS Window.

The color of the text and background can be easily changed using the color command. It takes 2 parameters the first one being the color of the background the second one being the foreground (text)
Below lists the available colors.

Examples:
If you wanted a white background and read text you would enter color F4 and it would show the below

Finding your Serial Number from Windows

Ever needed to find your serial number when the sticker has fallen off?

Well its really simple to find using a DOS command.

Open up a DOS Window and then type either of the below.

If you just need the serial number then type

wmic bios get serialnumber

If you need the model number and serial number type

wmic csproduct get

This will display Manufactor, Model, Serial Number.

28 Mar 2009

Excel - Using Lists

Lists are something most probably do not used including me until now!!

A list in simple terms is an auto expanding selection.

Say we had the following

In this example the formula is sum of I2 to I15

Now lets make this a list to do this click on any cell with content say a15 and click ALT + D to bring up the Data menu and then select List and then create list. You will then be asked to choose the range

Click OK to accept these values.

You will notice 2 things now. Autofilter is automatically enabled and now there is a line at the bottom with a * in it.

Now when we add data into the line with a * in it is automatically included in the formula as well as the autofilter. If we were not in a list you would need to change the range of the sum or create a range bigger than the content.

Excel - Search Criteria

This might seem very basic but i always find it best to document things all in one place.

Excel has a ways to search for data using operators

= Equal to

<> Not equal to

>= Greater than or Equal than

> Greater than

<= Less than or Equal than

< Less than

Wildcards in Excel use 2 different characters

* this is a wild card for any number of characters

An example of this could be

Phi*

this could match phil, philip, philippe [Assuming these were in my worksheet]

? this is a wilcard for a single character.

an example of this would be

phi? would display phil

phi??? would display philip but not phil

Free IT training on Excel / Word / Powerpoint / My SQL + More

I recently discovered this FREE simple training portal http://inpics.net/index.html

The training is simple to follow and all in pictures.

The training is split into the below sections

Microsoft Office

Access 2003

Access 2007

Excel 2003

Excel 2007

Powerpoint 2003

Powerpoint 2007

Publisher 2003

Publisher 2007

Word 2003

Word 2007

Open Office

Base

Calc

Impress

Writer

Other

HTML & CSS

MySQL

PHP Basics

Perl Basics

A sample course content is displayed below

27 Mar 2009

Password tips

With everything needing passwords now, I would like to suggest some ways to create secure passwords that are easy to remember.

Most passwords requirements now except spaces so you should consider using phases. Below are some examples of secure pass phases.

I love going to the cinema!
I must stop smoking or else.
My new iphone is the best.
I must stop drinking beer!
My next car will be a Honda.

All of the above are secure and are easy to remember. If you put a capital at the beginning and a punuation at the end it is easier to remember as its a sentence.

Try never to use the same passwords for multiple things.

NOTE: The above are just examples and should not be used.

Subnet Masks

The below chart lists the different subnets and the notations against the masks.

Hope it helps.

26 Mar 2009

Google Search - Things you might not know!!

Google is one of the untilized tools around from the main Google search box you can do so much. In this post i will try and explain how to use some of the best tools Google has to offer. In future posts i will explain how to get the most out of searching in Google.

How to find the time in a location:

Type time then the city

Example:
Time New York

This will work for any city in the world.

How to find the weather:

Type Weather then the city

Example:
Time New York

How to use Google as a calculator:

You can use google as a calculator to do basic maths.

Example:
2 / 5

Below lists parameters that the Google calculator will accept.

Search by Numbers:

This allows you to search for various things using numbers. Using this you can get tracking from AWB's for UPS / FedEx / USPS, US Telephone codes, Patent Numbers, Vehicle VIN Numbers.

Example:
Fedex 123456789012 [Where 123456789012 is the AWB]

For USPS you just need to enter the tracking number

For UPS enter ups followed by the tracking number

How to track a flight:

Just type the flight number into the search box

Example:
United 42

How to convert measurements:

Google will translate currency, weight, measurements, time, area, mass plus many more

A few examples are below

10kg in stone

70mph in km

500 meters in miles

The chart below lists all the measurements google will understand

How to find Street Maps:

Example:
Street name city

How to get Stock prices:

Google will give you stock prices for the following markets NYSC, NASDAQ and AMEX. To use enter enter the stock code or you can use market: code

Example:
EG

If you wanted to know BT price for just the NYSE you could type the following

NYSE: BT

How to search for a local Business in UK, US and Canada:

You can now search for local businesses by typing what you need and the location

Example:

florist reading,uk

This will display a list of all the florists in Reading.

Special Google Sites you might not know about:

http://www.google.com/mac for all things MAC

http://www.google.com/linux for all things LINUX

http://www.google.com/bsd for all things BSD

http://www.google.com/microsoft for all things Microsoft

http://www.google.com/unclesam for all things on the US Goverment

24 Mar 2009

Laptop Drivers websites.

Below is a list of Laptop Drivers websites

Acer - http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/downloads.html

Asus - http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

Dell - http://support.dell.com

Emachines - http://www.emachines.com/support/product_support.html

Fujitsu - http://www.fujitsupc.com/www/support_drivers_cgi.shtml?series=S&os=XPPRO

HP / Compaq - http://h20180.www2.hp.com/apps/Nav?h_pagetype=s-002&h_lang=en&h_cc=us&h_product=82710&h_client=S-A-R163-1&h_page=hpcom〈=en&cc=us

IBM / Lenovo - http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/product.do?doctypeind=9&template=/productselection/landingpages/downloadsDriversLandingPage.vm&sitestyle=lenovo

LG - http://in.lgservice.com/

Packard Bell - http://support.packardbell.com/uk/

Panasonic - https://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/TCCHomePage?langId=-1&storeId=15001&catalogId=13401

Samsung - http://www.samsungpc.com/08/downloadcentre.html

Sony - http://support.vaio.sony.co.uk/submenu/downloads.asp?site=voe_en_GB_cons

Toshiba - http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/support/j sp/home.jsp

Hopefully this will save people looking around.

How to Change Photo Album Privacy settings in Facebook

Its always good to try and restrict what is on public display in facebook and avaliable to all to see. So below are a few tips.

Photo's

When you create an album it allows you to choose who you want that album visible to.

Click on the pull down arrow next to Everyone.

Then select customise

Here you can choose one of the following options

1. Everyone - This is as it describes all photo's under this setting will be available to all to see.

2. Friends of Friends - This allows not just all your friends but all your friends friends. This could mean 1000's of people accessing all the pictures in your album.

3. Only Friends - This allows all your friends to have access to all photo's in an album

4. Some Friends - This allows you to pick and choose the friends you want to be able to view all the photo's in an album.

5. Only Me - This allows you make an album completely private so only you have access to the contents.

If you tag a picture with someones name from what i can tell that photo becomes available for everyone to see.

As you see from the above it is very easy to change permissions.

20 Mar 2009

Excel Workspaces

Everyone has probably seen this, but do you know how to use it??

Excel Workspaces allows you to open multiple workbooks setting them up on the screen in the way you need and then saving that layout.

To use Workspaces open the Workbooks you need and then use the Arrange option to layout the window as you desire.

Then click File and save Workspace, give it a name and click save.

When you reopen the workspace it will automatically open those workbooks and display them in the exact way they were previously.

Workspaces are saved as XLW extension.

Printing the whole workbook - Excel

Ever wanted to print the whole workbook (i.e all sheets) well its simple....

CTRL+P to bring up the print options window and then just put a tick in "Entire workbook"

Simple.........

How to open 2 worksheets at the same time in Excel 2003

So as i am doing an Excel course i thought i would share things as i learn them so expect lots of Excel tips soon...

So ever wanted to open 2 sheets of the same Workbook in the same Excel window. Well to do this follow the below

Open the workbook normally and then click on Windows (Alt+w) and select New Window (Alt+n)

Your workbook name will show as name:1 or name:2

Now if you goto the Window menu again and select Arrange and select Horizontal this will display both sheets. If on the bottom sheet you select sheet 2 you will then see Sheet1 at the top and Sheet2 at the bottom.