Happy Holidays!

Happy Birthday, Windows!

Interface Manager is the code name and is considered as the final name, but Windows prevails because it best describes the boxes or computing “windows” that are fundamental to the new system. Windows is announced in 1983, but it takes a while to develop. Skeptics called it “vaporware.”

The fully-packaged Windows 1.0

On November 20, 1985, two years after the initial announcement, Microsoft ships Windows 1.0. Now, rather than typing MS‑DOS commands, you just move a mouse to point and click your way through screens, or “windows.” Bill Gates says, “It is unique software designed for the serious PC user…” 

Happy Birthday, Access!

Microsoft released Access version 1.0 on 13 November 1992. Access 1.1 was released in May 1993 to improve compatibility with other Microsoft products and to include the Access Basic programming language.
I started using Access with version 2.0. It is a tough program to use as it borders between end-user and programmer. Both users can use it at different levels, which makes it great.
I giggle every time I have a question that I know Access can do, but I don't know how to make it work. I ask a programmer friend of mine, and the first thing they have me do is switch to SQL view to work. I say, "that's great, but how can I use the GUI instead?" Their response is, "I don't know." Two users, two very different experiences with the same product.

PivotTables in Excel 2013

I love PivotTables. They are an easy way to take the data you have and manipulate in such a variety of ways to get the results you want. Today I am being efficient and sharing a wonderful post from the Excel Blog all about PivotTables. Seriously, I can't do any better than this... Practical PivotCharts in Excel.

Sort Folders in Outlook 2013

In previous versions of Outlook, your folders were sorted alphabetically. What annoyed me is that they were sorted among the Drafts folder, Sent items, etc. To work around this, I either put all folders under my Inbox or in a special folder I labeled "My Folders."

With Outlook 2013, you can move your folders anywhere you want by clicking and dragging. You'll notice when you move a folder, a gray highlight bar appears to let you know where it is going. Watch the dark gray horizontal line to determine it will drop into another folder, be a main or a subfolder.

If you really do prefer the alphabetical sorting, right-click your e-mail at the top of the list and click Sort Subfolders A to Z.

Happy Spreadsheet Day!

October 17th was voted the best day for Spreadsheet Day, because VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet for personal computers, was released on October 17th, 1979.
If you're a spreadsheet geek and like to read, you can learn all about the history of spreadsheets at A Brief History of Spreadsheets, by D.J. Power.

Happy Birthday, Word!

In 1981, Microsoft hired Charles Simonyi and Richard Brodie, former Xerox programmers, and the primary developers of Bravo, the first GUI word processor, They started work on a word processor called Multi-Tool Word for MS-DOS in 1983. Its name was soon simplified to Microsoft Word. Free demonstration copies of the application were bundled with the November 1983 issue of PC World, making it the first program to be distributed on-disk with a magazine. Unlike most MS-DOS programs at the time, Microsoft Word was designed to be used with a mouse, and it was able to display some formatting, such as bold, italic, and underlined text, although it could not render fonts.
This takes me back to high school when I learned to type on WordPerfect 4.0 for DOS. Can anyone tell me what F7 did? It's been years, but I still remember it is to print. 

Happy Birthday, Excel!

Microsoft released the first version of Excel for the Macintosh on 30 September 1985. Excel was one of the first spreadsheets to use a graphical interface with pull down menus and a point and click capability using a mouse pointing device. The Excel spreadsheet with a graphical user interface was easier for most people to use than the command line interface of DOS spreadsheet products, like Lotus 1-2-3. Many people bought Apple Macintoshes so that they could use the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program. When Microsoft launched the Windows operating system in 1987, Excel 2.0 was one of the first application products released for it.

Get "Click Happy"

"Click Happy" is a term I use with people to describe my unconscious clicking of everything. I see something, and I must click on it. Sometimes once, other times twice or more. I get this from my use of clicking to select things in Microsoft Word. There are a bunch of shortcuts to select in Word, and most options work in many other application programs as well. Here they are, and happy clicking!

To select this	Click this
A character	Drag across the letter
A word	Double-click
A line	Move the pointer to the left of the line until you see the left-pointing arrow, and then click
A sentence	CTRL–click anywhere in the sentence
A paragraph	Triple-click the paragraph OR Move the pointer to the left of the paragraph until you see the left-pointing arrow and double-click
Multiple paragraphs	Move the pointer to the left of the paragraphs until you see the left-pointing arrow, and then click and drag up or down
A large block of text	Click at the start of the selection, scroll to the end of the selection, and  SHIFT-click
Entire document	Move the pointer to the left of any of the document text until you see the left-pointing arrow, and then triple-click
A vertical block of text	Hold  ALT , and then drag over the text

Let's merge our shapes and form a union

Sometimes you need a specific shape for your presentation. There's nothing quite perfect in the Shapes menu, but if I could combine two or more, it would be perfect. You can do this with Merge Shapes tool.

1. Draw two or more shapes that overlap to form the basic shape you desire.
2. Select all shapes to merge and on the DRAWING TOOLS|FORMAT menu, in the Insert Shapes group, click Merge Shapes and then choose from one of the options.

• Union - merge shapes into one shape and all surface area becomes one
• Combine - merge shape into one shape but keeps distinct areas of overlap
• Fragment - breaks apart so each shape is separate and moveable
• Intersect - keeps the intersecting area only
• Subtract - removes the other shape and its area of overlap

One Day Two Day Red Day Blue Day

Everyone who knows me has heard me say, "if it's not on my calendar, it doesn't happen in my life." I'm a slave to my calendar. Because I have a lot going on, I can't memorize things days in advance. Sometimes, I'm happy to just know what's happening tomorrow, forget about three or four days from now. But, there are times I need to look further ahead than just one day.

You may already be familiar with some of the built-in views for your Outlook calendar:  Day, Work Week, Week, Month and Schedule view.

While all are nice, I want to view only two days. The easiest solution is to switch to Day view. Now press Alt+2. Want three days? Press Alt+3. In case you're wondering, yes, Alt+4 will show four days. You can use this method all the way up to Alt+0 for ten days.

If you leave your calendar view as such, you'll notice that the next day, your current day is always the first day listed in the view and you consistently look forward how ever many days you choose.