Thanks For All The Fish. And Computers.

I've been thinking about all the things I do and have just updated my website, andrew-hill.net, to feature What I do and I realised just how lucky I am to be alive at this time and to have so many amazing tools just there, ready to use, so many people just there, ready to help. And it's all free. Well, apart from some electricity or phone rental, which isn't much. So I'd like to say thank you to everyone out there who makes all this possible.

My favourite author, Douglas Adams, was born in the same year as me. I share many of his interests and delights (although I never bought a Mac!) and I often think it was such a shame he didn't live to share in all this. I think he would have enjoyed it so much too.

Text design
I have always loved doing my own designs for leaflets, letterheads, posters and the like. That used to mean buying sheets of Letraset and carefully positioning each letter, rubbing over it with the end of a pencil or a stylus if I was being really careful, and hoping that the serifs would stick down properly and that I wouldn't run out of Rs or Ts. There were usually enough Es.

Now there are lots of lovely programmes that make this easy and, of course, there are web design tools too so that I can publish them and see them on screen.

ICT training
My first real experience of word processing was with golfball typewriters and then daisy wheel ones which did allow me to make mistakes and fix them without having to throw away too many sheets of company notepaper. The biggest leap was with a Digital Dual Display computer we bought for the office. It cost about £12000 and the printer was so noisy we bought a special box for it. Even that wasn't brilliant though and it finished up on the floor below where it could bother someone else! I often thought that was a bit unfair so let me say sorry now to Lyndsey, Katrina and Susan in particular, as well as thank you to Jeanne and Judy who had to go up and down stairs a lot to get whatever they'd printed.

We taught ourselves then, just as I have done since with all the programmes I've had to get used to since. From Locoscript to WordStar to Works to Word and 97 to 2010 and no doubt there'll be more to follow. I also started teaching others in the late 90s as people started buying computers either at work or for their children to use at home. I still have the Introduction to Access and Spreadsheet booklets I wrote and provided for the sessions as well as many more. That was a job that I just kind of fell into and have been doing in some form or another ever since.

Teaching
As well as ICT training, teaching other subjects has been made so much easier with places to store materials that students can access when they like. Having extra tasks on hand for those that complete the first ones, having examples I can share so that I don't have to try and explain or draw them on the board. Being able to find answers to questions within minutes as opposed to spending hours researching in books and magazines. All these internet tools have made that job something I could do and feel that I could contribute more to.

Working with pictures
I remember getting photos back from the chemist and being pleased with a few of them but seldom all of them! You could get enlargements but it was expensive and quite complicated. You had to try and indicate exactly which part you wanted enlarged and could seldom do much about the ones that weren't straight or with poor lighting. I so much wanted to do more with my photos and there was one school friend who understood developing and even had an enlarger and all the papers and chemicals at home but it looked difficult and I couldn't ask him to spend much time on my ideas.

Photocopiers were a great advance and I did quite a lot with them but the grainy and solely black and white images weren't really what I wanted. So when computers came along and I could actually scan my own pictures, crop them and do all sorts of editing I was in heaven! Then digital cameras arrived and, whilst the first one I had (free with some software and with something like a maximum of 320 pixels!) wasn't particularly great, the next one was and, in fact, had it not been stolen in 2004 I would probably still be using it now.

To be able to take as many pictures as you want and not worry about the cost is extraordinarily liberating and I can experiment and even when the results aren't quite right there are tools that can help fix them. More than anything, I think, this has been the most pleasurable development, even though it hasn't made me any money!

Writing
I have always written things, from articles to books and poems. I love writing. Whatever I did write, though, stayed virtually unseen in a pile of big books, little books and scarps of paper. I dreamed of publishing them but could never afford it. I did try printing a 450 page novel at one place where I was running some ICT courses. They had a super fast printer that did things like double-sided printing and could put two pages onto one. That enabled me to have an actual printed copy of the book and some spares to give to friends with page numbers that changed automatically if I made changes to the chapters too.

Previously, with an Amstrad PC and printer it took 1 minute to print a page and you had to remove that and insert a fresh sheet each time. I calculated that my 450 page book would take several days to print! (I did do it, though. Once.)

Now I have been able to publish my novels, with my own cover designs and jackets. I have poems on blogs and articles in a range of technical on-line journals. I'm not making any money from this but the feeling of holding your own hardback book after so many years is wonderful. To see my articles and poems on screen is good, too, and to be able to share them and hope others might enjoy them too is most satisfying.

I now write regularly for a range of TV shows and entertainment programme reviews. Again, it's mostly for fun but some of these are proving remarkably popular with lost of people seeming to read them so that makes it worthwhile too.

Whereas previously all I would have done is scribble away to myself and hope someone appreciates it when I'm gone or finds it of historical value of some sort, now I can get the kick of seeing people enjoy what I write shortly afterwards.

Numbers
I have played with numbers and been fascinated by maths since my school days. Now, with spreadsheets, I can produce all sorts of graphs and series and things and just play with formulae for hours if I ever have a few spare.

There are also great resources available on-line for those that wish to learn more. My children have enjoyed the Khan Academy courses and I have even tried to teach myself some python programming with Udacity recently.

Editor
Whilst I seldom spot my own mistakes very quickly, I do seem to be able to spot others' almost instantly and enjoy helping rephrase text as well as correcting spelling and grammar for people, especially where it's in an important document they're proposing to share with others. Word processors make this a simple task although I don't rely on their in-built checks! Even I will have trouble with some words, though, and to be able to look them up on-line and get a quick spelling idea saves me a lot of time. Word count, too, is a real time-saver!

Being able to compare students' texts to both other students' submissions and what might be published elsewhere is also an invaluable tool.

Business
I once had a client who wanted to develop a business and he provided me with new sets of figures almost every week. I spent days and nights setting up a sort of spreadsheet (although it wasn't called that in 1982) which would do all the calculations for monthly balances, cash flow etc. It was wonderful and meant that I could do more of that sort of interesting work more often. Now I can illustrate different scenarios and produce charts for this as well as nice sheets of numbers in a flash with software like Excel.

This led me into the world of helping new businesses assess feasibility of new developments and, of course, those that did proceed would need stationery, leaflets promotional material and logos, corporate identities and, more recently, web sites too. Great. Just my sort of work and I have had a wonderful time helping ideas become real and helping to make them look good too. The computer and all the software tools have made this possible whereas before I would probably never have got so involved.

Music
Then there is music. I love the sound of the Sixties as well as every decade since. As a teenager, I would have to try and record tracks with a microphone held up to the radio or TV speaker and hope no-one made any noise in the background. The tapes were fiddly and not brilliant quality but I was able to build a collection of favourites. Albums and singles were expensive for me. Yes, I bought quite a few but not nearly as many of the tracks that I would like to have done at the time.

Now, I have a really comprehensive collection of good quality music and can listen to what I want, when I want and almost wherever I want. It's crazy. There was even a track I thought I would never, ever find because it was something I heard for just a few weeks one summer. It never got into the charts but I sort of got hooked on it and never forgot it. A little while ago I discovered that all Radio London's Fab Forty Chart programmes were available on-line and, sure enough, there were a couple of weeks when that track was to be played. With a simple bit of recording software and some editing, I now have that track in my collection and can play it any time I want. That's all so cool.

In fact, everything I do is amazingly influenced by having software that is mostly free, on computers that are not expensive. I can compete with others for business. I can express my views on things and expect at least some people to see them. I can do so much that I love doing without spending a penny now that I have the essentials. I will never have time to do everything I'd like to.

The possibilities are now endless. But I shall enjoy every moment.

Really slow typing

As if poor old Vista users haven't enough problems, here's another for those who may be using a keyboard that uses a PS/2 socket (i.e. not a USB connection).

It seems that in the upgrade to Vista some vital bits of code were left out and systems will return to s default setting that, for reasons best known to themselves, shows the characters typed 12 milliseconds after hitting the key. Now 12ms may not sound long but it will result in you valiantly typing away and the letters appearing in a delayed fashion that can be quite odd.

In some cases it may also appear that the lovely new and zippy processor you have isn't coping well at all with a simple task and your computer may even freeze. (Remember those days? Well Vista brings them back!)

All this can be fixed, though, so don't panic. I would be inclined to get a new keyboard - you've probably worn out the E and backspace keys by now or scratched off bits of the N. However, if you want to adjust the settings to put things right there's a bit of Registry editing to do. Write to me for details.

search tricks in Google

Well, I wouldn't recommend that you do that exactly, what this is about are some of the words and terms you can use in the Google search box which have a special meaning. For example, you may know that define:kerning will produce web pages with definitions for what kerning means and that searching for "Andrew Hill" in inverted commas will find results for someone with that name whereas just typing Andrew Hill will yield lots of Andrews and lots of Hills but not necessarily joined together!

New ones I've learned that I like are:
book Just type book [space] title and that will search the text of a book with that title
what is (or what are) [space] something and that provides pages with an explanation of something
something site:www.thissite.com will provide results just from the site specified

You can also do calculations in the search box. Type 75% of 60 and you'll get the answer 45.

For a pretty good list of these and more the Google Cheat Sheet is worth bookmarking.

How do you do?

This may not work but it's worth a try. I've created a StudyZone page where you can post your own questions, preferably about things to do with ICT.

You may not get any answers but, there again, you may. Who knows. You won't know until you try.

Here's the link. I've used a pbwiki page as they're pretty cool and do what I want them to, generally.

http://studyzone.pbwiki.com/HowDoI

Why do you want to use PowerPoint?

Some notes on using PowerPoint are now available, with illustrations from an XP2003 version, probably the most used at the moment and with significant differences from the old 97 style notes. Of course now I'll start getting requests for 2007 which I haven't even seen myself yet. Anyway the complete set and some tasks will be released via the Studyzone wiki as an experiment. I'll also publish them on either a site or a blog too but, at 22 pages, that's not as easy as it sounds! here's the first page, though. The rest at this link.

• Presenting information as you might have done with OHTs in the old days
• Supporting a speech or lecture – bullet points reminding you of what to say
• Displaying images in a big way
• A slide show (literally)
• A simple way to create graphics

Getting started

• Plan what you want to put on the slides (which will be different to, and much less than, what you want to say!)Start, end and middle etc. Find the images you might need and save them somewhere. If you intend to use links to web sites, store them as Favourites or Bookmarks
• Use the defaults. Leave the fonts alone. Type where suggested. Ignore all the designs and groovy backgrounds (at least until the content is finished)
• Use supplied slide layouts. Don’t add your own text areas to a blank slide unless all your doing is a picture show.
• Use a Master slide for anything that needs to appear on every slide (like a corporate logo, name, date etc.

more

PowerPoint notes

With so much new stuff around these days it can be very easy to forget that sitting on most people's desktops is the excellent Microsoft PowerPoint. I've just been asked to run some sessions, some for people who've never used it before and some for those who would like to use some of the more advanced features. Of course, the people I'd really like to see are those who think they're good at presentations but aren't and those who just need to know how to speak in public! Anyway, watch this space as I'll be making the new notes available here soon.

Making simple charts in Word

Say data and charts and the word spreadsheet comes to mind. Microsoft Excel's what you'd normally use but the word Word shouldn't be ignored. Microsoft Word has a chart facility that actually uses most of its brother application's tools and even has its own formula feature for calculations.

The simplest way to use both the formulae and charts is to put your data in a table. With a bit of care about how you set it out, and make sure you don't leave any blank rows or columns, the steps below will guide you through the process for doing some column totals, sorting the data into a different order and displaying it as a bar chart.

1 Insert a table

2 Put some headings in top row

3 Enter your data (tip: use the tab key to move which will also add rows if necessary)

4 Add an extra row for totals

5 If it’s not already showing, get the Tables and Borders toolbar, View>Toolbars>Tables and Borders or click the Tables and Borders icon on the main menu bar.

6 Click in the cell where you want the numbers above totalled and then click on the Σ key on the T&B toolbar

7 Repeat as necessary for other columns (check that it looks about right!)

8 To sort data in A-Z or 1,2,3 order of the first column, highlight what you want to re-arrange, including all the columns but not the headings or totals

9 Press the AZ or ZA button on the T&B toolbar

10 To sort in order for another column, eg by Maths results, you need to use Table>Sort and choose what you want in the window that opens. Again, it’s usually necessary to highlight all the data you want sorted (as in the previous example)

11 To make a chart, highlight the data to be included in the chart. In this case that will include the headings this time but not the totals.

12 If there isn’t an Insert Chart icon on the toolbar, use Insert>Picture>Chart

13 The default chart is a 3D column chart which will often be what you want

14 Use the corner handle to drag it out as necessary. To move it down, click on the chart, press the left arrow key and then enter to make new lines above it.

15 Enter a heading to describe what the chart shows

16 to edit the chart, double click on it. A data table will appear and you can also change almost every part of the chart.

17 If you wish to change the order of things displayed in the chart you have to re-arrange them in the datasheet that opens, not the original table. (If you do change the original table you will need to make a new chart as there is no link between the table and the chart in Word.)

18 It is usually a good idea to have labels on the axes to say what the units or categories are – there aren’t any in this example.

Note: Microsoft must have some deal with printing ink suppliers because all their default charts, and those in Excel, have grey shaded backgrounds. Totally unecessary - indeed, they make what can be a boring subject for some look even more tedious! Get rid of them. It's called the plot area and, once selected, can be changed. No fill is a good bet or, if you must have a background, you can choose from almost anything you want, including pictures. There are some more notes of that here.

London, because it's the least inconvenient . . . ?

Ten people trying to decide where to meet. Everyone has a good reason for not wanting to go somewhere as well as their own preferences. How do you decide? The boss says "London, because it's the least inconvenient" and he may well be right but it would be nice to see it in writing. Rather foolishly, I thought it would be easy to knock up a spreadsheet that would add up people's votes and work out what was actually the most popular, least inconvenient or whatever. Partly because I decided to include all sorts of checking things, validation and partly because I'd never used =AND before, it took ages!

No doubt the meeting's been arranged in London by now and it really needs to work on the web to do what I wanted but maybe all the effort will be of use to someone teaching Excel or trying to figure out some formulae. The sheet's protected but there's no password. Let me know if you use it, have a better idea or spot errors.

It's a small file that you can get here. There's an on-line version that actually seems to work using Google spreadsheets. Amazing! As I might really use this I'll just give the team the address for now but will release the link genrally soon.

Internet Explorer 7 update

Finally got round to adding some images to the notes. Blogger need to add a few tools to make image handling a bit easier, though, and it seems impossible to place them as in-line images that sit where I want them. Big pictures seem OK but not little ones so I may still finish up doing these notes as a Studyzone page and linking to it! Still, hope they're useful to someone.

IE7: where have all my toolbars gone?

Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 is a great design improvement on earlier efforts and, whilst I still prefer Firefox, there are some useful new features like tabbed browsing (which Firefox has had for ages) and a simple zoom feature (which Firefox doesn't have) that narrow the gap between the two. It does look a bit different, though, to its predecessor, and default installations may hide some of the things that you have been familiar with. So here's a quick guide to displaying some toolbars and what some of the new buttons do.

The first thing you may want to do is get the Menu bar back. Click on the Tools button and select Menu bar.

You may find that you cannot move any of the toolbars. Under Tools, click on Toolbars and then on Lock the Toolbars if that is checked. While you're there you can restore a Links toolbar by clicking on that entry.



If the toolbars are locked the Links toolbar will only be displayed at the right edge with a chevron to click to access the links themselves. Unlocking will allow you to drag the Links toolbar across to the left to display as many link names as will fit which is usually more useful.

To add Links here, by the way, you go to the page required, click Favourites Add to Favourites and then select the Links folder to store them in. The contents of that folder are what get displayed. None of the other folders, or just Favourites generally, will feature in a bar like that, just Links which is a bit special. Sometimes that folder is stuffed with Microsoft links which you really don't need. Right click on these and delete them. No big loss. (None of this is different to IE6 or previous but thought I'd remind you).

Links and menu bar restored and now movable, you can play with some of the new toys.

The big new thing is the little square button, or tab, to the right of the one with the open page name. Click on that and you get a new window, probably with a helpful note from Microsoft on the subject. Put an address in the address bar and that will appear - but the other page doesn't disappear as it used to. It stays on its tab. You can have lots of tabs open as each time you open a new one a little square tab appears to its right (although that can be changed if you really want).



If you do have several tabs then try the four square button to the left of the row of tabs. Nice, isn't it? You get an attractive but maybe only marginally useful set of mini pages laid out on the page. Some people really like this and it does have an initial Wow factor, I suppose.

Top right is the built in search which Microsoft, being Microsoft, set to their Microsoft Live search facility. You'll want Google, or one of many others maybe. Click on the little arrow next to the magnifying glass and then on Find more providers.





This takes you to a web page featuring a range of search engines and you simply choose the ones you want to add and then set the one you like best as your default.


Bottom right is a nice zoom tool. It works simply and most effectively and will be a boon to those who find text too small or just want to get a closer look.

Nothing in these notes will be new to the experts out there but they may help those to whom it all looked a bit confusing. I'll write about some of the more advanced tweaks later.

Images to follow for this post.

Wrong size letters

I don't know whether Americans are shorter and fatter than the British but their default paper sizes are. Microsoft Office default installation provides American settings - so often that's what you'll find in Word, Excel etc. unless whoever installed it made some better selections at the start. Letter size documents can cause trouble for the rest of us when trying to print them, some printers refusing to budge until you feed them Letter size paper. The size also will cause problems for you, with footers appearing higher than they should, lines ending in different places to what you'd expected and, in multi-page documents, pages may start or end with an extra line or two.

So please fix your Office programs. In Word, use File | Page Setup and change the paper size to A4. Click on Default and agree to that size for all documents. In Excel there's no Default button so Save that file as book1.xls in your XLSTART directory. Close Excel, reopen, future files should always be A4.

That may not solve your own printing problem though - the printer default settings may also need to be changed. For most printers you can do this from the Control Panel and Printer properties. Set these to A4 and they should remain that way.