Personal Technology Tips in Plain English
Archive for February, 2008
You’ve Got Mail! (Even Though You Don’t Want To Read It)
Feb 19th
If you’re like me, you’re innundated with tons and tons of communication.
Snail mail, junk mail, voicemail (home, cell phone, business line, VoIP), live voice calls!, rss feeds, email, spam, and listserv email lists…and on and on and on.
Sometimes you just want to TURN IT OFF! Or at least just a channel or two — like when one of those community email lists goes bizzerk over an off-topic post that ignites the passion of every single subscriber-hermit that has never ever responded or contibuted to the list in decades….”long time listener, first time REPLY-ALLer…”
One simple feature of most email programs is to set-up a quick filter or rule that will handle that email thread the way you want…even making it so that you never ever see another message regarding that topic again. Here’s how to do it in Microsoft Outlook. . .
Valetine’s Day Secret: A Powerpoint Trick You’ll Love
Feb 14th
As media director for my church, I am constantly working with Microsoft Powerpoint. While most people cringe at the sound of the presentation software being mentioned, I’ve found that it’s a really useful application if you know around it.
There are some neat features in Powerpoint that are not normally utilized, but are quite useful — outside of just presentations and reports. One of them is to use Powerpoint as a graphics design program. No, it won’t come close to Illustrator, Photoshop, or any of the other nifty (and expensive!) applications out there.
But if you need to create some decent graphics for your website, flyers or any other desktop publishing scenarios, Powerpoint can be your friend.
One of the best features for graphics is Powerpoint’s ability to create and save file in formats other than the .PPT format. Did you know you can create web graphics files with Powerpoint? Microsoft has included a feature to convert any slide (or all of them) to JPG, GIF, TIFF and PNG formats.
Here’s how to do it…
1st Official Response from Yahoo! to Microsoft Takeover Offer
Feb 1st
It’s been a busy morning on the west coast!
Jerry and Steve are definitely not slacking off right now. Imagine waking up, going to work and finding out that Bill Gates wants to buy you out… I guess they won’t be hanging around tailgating for the Superbowl this weekend…huh?
Here’s the text from the official press release from Yahoo! regarding the Microsoft Takeover Bid. It amounts to nothing more than a Delivery Confirmation of the original letter.
Yes, there was pressure to say *something* after the media flurry hit the press this morning. But you’d think that Yahoo! could come up with something better than…”thanks, we’ll read it and get back to you.” Perhaps that’s exactly the point? That’s why Yahoo! is in the position it is in right now?
CONFIRMATION: Microsoft Addicted To Powerpoint
Feb 1st
Steve Ballmer sure got up early today.
At 8:30am Eastern – that’s 5:30am Left Coast time, Microsoft held a conference all to explain the pandamonium that was unleashed this morning.
They gave some initial reasons for the proposed merger with Yahoo!
Of course, you can’t do a presentation without a Powerpoint show, that’s the drug of choice for the business world that Microsoft has been pushing for years. But here’s confirmation that Redmond is addicted to the same conference-room-drug that it’s pushing itself. So the webcast included a 7-slide presentation. . .of which only 5 slides has actual content — of which one had a pretty graph didn’t really say much (online advertising is a great business); and then it had some generic messages that basically said, we’ll be better at doing business by working together (which they haven’t done to date!) as well as we’ll save money (read: layoffs!).
Actual Letter Microsoft Sent To Yahoo! with $44B Takeover Bid [PDF, VIDEO, LINKS]
Feb 1st
While everyone was sitting around just waiting with anticipation to see if the groundhog will come out of it’s hole in the ground and see it’s shadow or not tomorrow, Steve Ballmer was busy underground doing something completely different.
Bringing his own exclamation to the front page of news outlets was a Microfsoft $44.6 BILLION takeover attempt for Yahoo! today. MSFT + YHOO = MICROHOO!
They’ve tried it before and Jerry tried one last time to avoid falling prey to the deathstar’s supermagnetic pull. But with a bid that’s 60%+ over current share value, it may not work again this time.
The 2-page actual letter that Steve Ballmer of Microsoft sent to Yahoo! letting them know of their intention to try and takeover the search engine competitor: Read the rest of this entry »
I love tech, gadgets and the web. Hope you pick-up a useful tip or two here today that helps you use technology to your advantage! Better yet, why not share your own expertise in a comment on a post today to help the other readers that land here for answers!