tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38819563606203125102011-12-02T22:12:13.501+01:00Some random thoughts of a Training ProfessionalKris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.comBlogger411100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-12358570577609600562008-07-23T18:09:00.003+01:002008-08-04T16:29:13.895+01:00

More than a year ago, I started blogging. I have been using Google’s Blogger service, but ran into it’s limits a few times:It is very difficult, if not impossible, to print pages with Firefox. It’s unclear why, but for longer topics, not everything is printed. When writing a post, uploading pictures is easy, but they always get inserted at the top of the edit box, which means you have to drag

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-16012732066371647422008-07-10T08:37:00.006+01:002009-08-12T19:46:20.121+01:00

This post has been moved to http://blog.krisgielen.be/archives/55.

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-66815114208010752862008-06-26T21:57:00.004+01:002009-08-12T19:44:47.866+01:00

This post has been moved to http://blog.krisgielen.be/archives/54.

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-57503930712062856122008-03-30T10:17:00.011+01:002009-08-12T19:47:57.609+01:00

This post has been moved to http://blog.krisgielen.be/archives/53.

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-12131408402344825992008-03-26T09:34:00.006+01:002009-08-12T19:49:01.780+01:00

This post has been moved to http://blog.krisgielen.be/archives/52.

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-53237468382895036162008-03-02T12:26:00.004+01:002009-08-12T19:50:01.744+01:00

This post has been moved to http://blog.krisgielen.be/archives/51.

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-2198228712426817052008-02-05T15:06:00.000+01:002008-02-05T15:28:52.907+01:00

Building on my previous FireFox Quickie, keywords in the FireFox browser can be even more useful: by adding "%s" at in the bookmarked URL, you can make them "smart". The "%s"will be replaced with whatever you type after the keyword.FireFox comes with some built-in smart keywords:google -> http://www.google.com/search?q=%sdict -> http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=%sstock -> http://

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-21602142835288977072008-01-31T12:11:00.000+01:002008-01-31T12:29:19.253+01:00

If you use the FireFox browser, there's an easy way to quickly browse to a website that you use often. After bookmarking the site, right-click the bookmark in your Bookmarks menu and select Properties. In the Keyword field, add a word that you want to use as shortcut for the website.After doing that, getting to the website is as easy as typing that keyword in the address bar and pressing

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-61323449828754741362008-01-30T15:11:00.000+01:002008-01-30T15:23:34.839+01:00

There are a few tools that I use so often, that I can imagine some of you might be interested in them as well. The first one is PureText.It's a small nifty application that will simply remove any text formatting from the contents in the Clipboard. You can assign a hot-key to paste the text (without the formatting). I use the default setting of the Windows Key+V. When I want to paste everything

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-10101976343973384342008-01-15T10:43:00.000+01:002008-01-15T11:08:42.667+01:00

In a previous post, I complained about the fact that SharePoint 2007 is not intuitive enough. With this Quickie, I want to share the best way to add a List to a Meeting Workspace:The way not to do it: I thought you needed to select Site Actions > Edit Page and then Add a Web Part to add a Custom List to a Meeting Workspace.However, if you do that, you get a list of Web Parts that you can add, but

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-81579413289121535552008-01-15T09:33:00.000+01:002008-01-15T11:09:01.261+01:00

Unfortunately, my experiences with SharePoint 2007 are revealing more bug.I already mentioned the issue that after saving a Meeting Workspace as a template, the resulting Meeting Workspaces don't not keep the view settings that you defined in the template.Specifically, I created custom lists in a Basic Meeting Workspace, saved it as a template and then used it as Meeting Workspace (created from

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-28340051170831142942008-01-04T11:20:00.001+01:002008-01-04T11:22:59.153+01:00

After experimenting a bit further, I am happy to see that there is 2-way synchronization for Calendars and Contact Lists between SharePoint 2007 and Outlook 2007.Unfortunately, this does not work with Outlook 2003, as confirmed in another blog:"Outlook 2003 can link to SharePoint Calendars and Contact Lists on your new MOSS 2007 server and download read-only copies of that content. Outlook

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-2227032152167073422008-01-04T10:33:00.001+01:002008-01-04T11:23:15.679+01:00

I've been using SharePoint 2007 for a few weeks now and it's time for another update on my impressions about the product. I still think that SharePoint 2007 is a vast improvement over Sharepoint 2003, specifically in the area of usability. It's just a lot more intuitive.Nice things about SharePoint 2007I was happy to see that the Recycle Bin not only allows for entire Lists or sites to be

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-23586630330607579832008-01-02T12:41:00.000+01:002008-01-02T12:59:11.989+01:00

Yesterday I encountered another of those pesky issues that can drive you crazy. I was working in Excel, and needed to change the margins. I wanted to use precise numbers in millimeters, so I clicked the margins button on the Page Layout tab and was confronted with a dialog screen that only showed numbers, no units:Apparently the system was using inches by default. It took me more than an hour of

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-1006360816357690382007-12-29T19:52:00.000+01:002007-12-29T20:33:40.420+01:00

I was working on a project for a non-profit organization this weekend, and I ran into an issue that caused some head-scratching. The group needed a large mass mailing, and the process of getting the data into an XL-sheet and running a Mail merge using Word seemed easy enough. It was, except for the fact that Word creates one big document as a result (even though you get that by selecting the

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-26471351836267664932007-12-17T08:34:00.000+01:002007-12-17T08:40:03.684+01:00

A few days ago I learned through John C Dvorak's splendid Tech 5 report that Microsoft published SP1 for Office 2007.I downloaded SP1 from the Microsoft Download site and installed it. It took about 5 minutes.I'll have a look at the details of the Office 2007 SP1 package and let you know about my experiences with it in the next couple of days.By the way, check out CrankyGeeks with John as well. I

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-84070092535148017492007-12-04T09:55:00.000+01:002007-12-04T10:28:03.958+01:00

I've talked before about the Interactive Guides on where to find a command in Office 2007, if you know where it was in 2003. The links still work, but meanwhile Microsoft has put them all on one page.You not only get links to the Interactive Guides for Access, Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Outlook, you can also download them.Also, on that same page, you'll find links to Mapping Workbooks, which are

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-5772103405460772742007-11-30T14:01:00.000+01:002008-01-04T13:52:15.542+01:00

Some further reading and testing with SharePoint 2007 has only increased my enthusiasm. Without having it all tested extensively, the new things I like are:The Recycle Bin: finally a way to 'undelete'Bread crumbs: It's a lot easier to understand where you are in a siteWorkflows: both to collect feedback and as a approval mechanismRSS support: see an example in my post of yesterdayProject Tasks

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-59110466866205688802007-11-29T10:10:00.001+01:002007-11-29T10:44:22.758+01:00

I just started using SharePoint 2007 and my first impressions are good! I have dealt with SharePoint 2003 for a few years now, and while it has some nice collaboration features, it is not very intuitive nor attractive. SharePoint 2007 seems to be improved in both areas. It looks a lot nicer, and more importantly, the user interface has been significantly upgraded, so that most actions are a lot

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-7593891474266897462007-11-28T11:02:00.000+01:002007-11-28T12:48:58.377+01:00

If you repeatedly need to add some text in Word, the new Quick Parts button on the Insert tab will save you time.Initially, the Quick Parts menu allows you to insert the main Document Properties, or a Field:You can easily add items to the Quick Parts menu, by selecting some text and clicking Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery.This will give you a dialog box, where you can add some details of

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-32498074118412951872007-11-27T13:48:00.000+01:002007-11-27T14:08:43.015+01:00

PowerPoint XP gave us 'Multiple Masters'. Until then, we were limited to 2 master layouts: a Title master and a Content master. With multiple masters, we finally could create presentations with different, yet consistent background for different sections of our presentations.The problem with multiple masters was that PowerPoint XP used a rather strange user interface for switching between the

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-72368558081591325432007-11-26T12:15:00.000+01:002007-11-27T13:24:05.476+01:00

I am one of those guys who likes to use Keyboard Shortcuts a lot. While I'm not particularly fond of the way Office 2007 provides keyboard access to all entries on the Ribbon (*), I do use quite a few of the "old-fashioned" Keyboard Shortcuts that worked in previous versions of Office. Luckily, all of the keyboard shortcuts in Office 2007 continue to work exactly as they did before.These are a

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-32363193938562397932007-11-26T10:31:00.000+01:002007-11-26T10:36:18.637+01:00

I know I should not do this, because until now, I couldn't really keep my promise to update this blog frequently, but I anyway intend to make this week "Blogweek". The idea is to post an entry to this blog every day of the the week until Friday. Let's see whether this will work :-)

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-30116065661877320472007-10-26T16:17:00.000+01:002007-10-26T16:40:34.341+01:00

Microsoft is offering 3 free downloads that add a "Get Started" tab to Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2007. This tab is something they probably should have included in the product itself when Office 2007 came to the market about a year ago, but at least you can download and install it now yourself.The tab contains some useful links to ease the transition to the new version of the Office packages.The

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-46031582871800756952007-10-24T17:19:00.000+01:002007-11-26T12:10:51.299+01:00

A weird bug has been discovered in Excel 2007, involving calculation of numbers around 65,535. In some specific cases, Excel 2007 displays 100,000, when it should say 65,535. Microsoft claims it's a display error, i.e. that calculated value that Excel uses is supposedly correct, but that seems a bit odd.Look for all details on the Microsoft Excel team blog.UPDATE 26 October 2007: meanwhile,

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-49589909416983351792007-09-12T12:58:00.000+01:002007-11-26T10:49:24.151+01:00

It's been ages since I posted something here. Still, I intend to continue this blog, but I haven't spent a lot of time in Microsoft Office 2007 lately, so there wasn't much new to talk about. Things should improve in the autumn time frame, so you can expect more Quickies, and the completion of my Top 10 reasons why I like Microsoft Office 2007.Meanwhile, I can point you to some interesting pages

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-61899898130684840752007-05-30T11:41:00.000+01:002007-05-30T11:55:04.756+01:00

When I started this blog a few months ago, I promised myself I would not let it die after a few weeks, unlike many other blogs. But I have to admit, keeping it alive has been more of a struggle than I thought. It just takes a lot of time and energy to regularly publish something that is worthwhile reading. I'm not running out of ideas, I'm just having difficulties finding the time to put them

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-2989071199284426582007-04-10T09:58:00.000+01:002007-04-10T12:48:22.784+01:00

2 weeks without updates, I should be ashamed :-)My new toy (the Behringer BCD-2000) is partly to blame, because a new version of the B-DJ software was released.So I played with it again for a while, and I ran into the issue of inconsistent volume levels of my MP3-collection: some mp3's sound a lot louder than others.After some 'googling', I found a fantastic open-source program to adjust mp3

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-15573720388123675012007-03-23T14:43:00.000+01:002007-03-23T15:14:44.871+01:00

The new file format that Office 2007 uses is an XML-based file format, which is stored on the hard disk in a compressed format. A standard ZIP-compression is used, which means that you can open Office 2007 files in a zip-compatible application.This opens a lot of possibilities, but what I really like about it is that you can easily extract images or other embedded documents out of Word, Excel or

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-17883817520381906822007-03-21T13:47:00.001+01:002008-06-06T19:49:56.701+01:00

Ever wanted to look at another slide in the same presentation while creating it? Or looking up another paragraph in the same document while working on another? Sure, you could split the window in Word 2003, but that was somewhat cumbersome and you only had a vertical split.Enter the world of Office 2007. In Word, Excel and PowerPoint, you'll find a neat new option in the View Ribbon: New Window.

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-51100914717916172532007-03-20T09:39:00.000+01:002007-11-26T10:39:07.085+01:00

It's been 13 days since my last post... way too long, I know. The only excuse I have is that I spent some time on an online application that can create TeleText pages. Although this is an old technology (the first specs date back to 1974), it is still being used in a lot of European countries, including my home country, Belgium.A non-profit organization I do some volunteer IT work for is

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-76535512211713243982007-03-07T09:53:00.000+01:002007-03-07T10:19:05.379+01:00

When creating Office Documents, is'a good idea to fill in Document Properties. This metadata (like Title, Subject, Category, Keywords, ...) not only describes the document better, but it also will make it easier to find the document afterwards, as most desktop search programs will use the metadata to index the document.In Office 2003, you could get to the Document Properties by selecting the

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-49219921459198667892007-02-28T09:19:00.000+01:002007-02-28T10:22:39.236+01:00

I teach about Office 2003 regularly, and whenever I demonstrate the Conditional Formatting options in Excel 2003, one of the first questions I get is "Great, but can you have more than 3 conditions?". I have to disappoint people then, because the limit is 3. Until Excel 2007 arrived that is. In the new Excel 2007, you may have as many conditional formats as you like.Better yet, a powerful series

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-26332747681468518902007-02-27T17:27:00.000+01:002007-02-27T17:36:51.309+01:00

The TWIT Netcast network is offering a very interesting podcast this week: 2 people of the Office 2007 UI team, Jensen Harris and Jacob Jaffe, are talking about the new interface in episode 15 of "Windows Weekly with Paul Thurrott".And while we're at it: other podcasts I like to listen to are the original TWIT (This Week in Tech, hosted by Leo Laporte) and the incredible Cranky Geeks. Yes, I

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-85101565028107605072007-02-20T15:04:00.000+01:002007-02-20T15:13:31.803+01:00

The Ribbon does not take (a lot) more screen real estate than the toolbars in previous versions of Microsoft Office, but sometimes you might want to have as much space as possible.There are 2 quick ways to minimize the Ribbon:double-click the active tab on the Ribbon, orpress CTRL+F1Repeating the same will restore the Ribbon.

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-5091385142255288912007-02-20T14:15:00.000+01:002007-02-20T15:17:25.481+01:00

If you don't use PowerPoint a lot, you might not fully appreciate why I love the new Selection Pane in PowerPoint 2007. I often need to play around with various objects on my slide, e.g. using animation effects to build a complex figure or highlighting certain aspects of the slide text.In previous versions of PowerPoint, with complex slides it was not easy to understand the animation sequence, as

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-2028683849293820872007-02-05T18:14:00.000+01:002007-02-06T09:53:33.086+01:00

The Ribbon is a bold move from Microsoft, but I believe it's the right one. As I mentioned in a previous post, your first encounter with the new User Interface might be a rough one, as it IS different from the menu system.At very first sight, you might think there still is a menu in Word, Excel and PowerPoint, as you still see "menu-like" words at the top, e.g. "View" or "Insert" or "Page Layout"

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-46510510383276367322007-01-26T10:32:00.000+01:002007-11-26T10:49:40.824+01:00

Don't worry, the top 10 will be on this blog... in the near future :-)It's just a bit busy these days, and I am sidetracked by a new toy, the Behringer BCD2000.But I don't want to leave you empty handed this week, so here's a Quickie for Word 2007: I was looking for a quick way to edit the header or footer of a document. Using the Ribbon, you have to go to the Insert tab, click the Header or

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-71376407996395509432007-01-19T10:19:00.000+01:002007-01-19T10:21:51.497+01:00

Over the next weeks, I plan to publish the 10 (or so) reasons why I like the new Microsoft Office 2007 suite. It will be a collection of new features and different ways how to do things, which I hope will convince you that this is a significant upgrade.

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-86659103815406370492007-01-17T09:08:00.000+01:002007-11-26T10:50:04.990+01:00

I'll be talking about the Ribbon in Office 2007 in one of my next posts, as it is probably the most obvious and annoying changes... at first. In fact, I really like the bold move of the Microsoft Office team to get rid of the menu structure, but there is a steep learning curve.When you first start using Office 2007 products, it really feels nice: the Ribbon feels intuitive, and you can quickly

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3881956360620312510.post-86200259292893794112007-01-11T17:20:00.000+01:002007-01-11T17:36:37.723+01:00

In a world where blogs seem to be everywhere, you might wonder why I also felt the urge to have my little Box to talk from. There aren't that many good reasons, except maybe for the fact that I might know a few tricks with Microsoft Office software that could be useful for others.I am not linked in any way, shape or form to the Microsoft company, but as a Training Professional, I have used Word,

Kris Gielenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02668757563535028062noreply@blogger.com0