Archive for October, 2009

What to Expect When You Come To Class

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

If you’ve never attended a computer training class at Executive Training Solutions before, you may wonder what to expect when you visit our training center.  A few days before your scheduled class, you will receive an email reminder.  This email will include the class name, as well as the times the class will be held.

Plan to arrive 10 – 15 minutes before the scheduled class time to give yourself time to get settled.  Our friendly front desk will help you sign in and show you around our facility.  You will find coffee, iced tea, soda and filtered water throughout the day.  In the morning, you will also find an assortment of breakfast breads — in case you left home before you had a chance to eat!

During your tour, the classroom will be pointed out to you.  If you ever forget which room your class is in, a sign outside each door will remind you.

Our classrooms provide a computer station for each student, which are internet-enabled.  You can also access our high speed, secure, internet connection via wi-fi for your laptop or handheld devices.  Just ask the instructor for our password.

Our instructors will use a projector to show you exactly what you should see on your screen, and help you work through various exercises to increase your skills and knowledge.  Our manuals are comprehensive, and are yours to keep so feel free to write notes in them. Each chapter includes numerous opportunities to practice what you’re learning.  When time allows, your instructor will encourage taking some time for independent practice using the labs in the back of each manual.

For our full day classes, expect to take a break during the morning, an hour break for lunch, and another break in the afternoon.  During your afternoon break, you will sometimes receive the special treat of freshly baked cookies!

Our classes wrap up after a full day of learning.  The instructors and staff are happy to help you determine what classes you might want to take next, and the instructors are always happy to respond to email questions regarding the class after you leave for the day.

If you haven’t taken a class yet, we hope you will soon!  Our friendly and informative staff are waiting to make your training experience an excellent experience.

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Excel Tip: TRIM Function

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

The TRIM function in Microsoft Excel allows you to remove all extra spaces from a cell, leaving only single spaces between words. This function is very useful when you have text that has been imported from another file and is full of extra spaces.  It doesn’t matter if there are extra spaces at the beginning, the end, or between words in the cell, the TRIM function will remove them all.

If you have data in cell A1 with extra spaces, create this formula in cell B1 =TRIM (A1).  It will return the text without any extra spaces. You can then copy the result in cell B1 into cell C1, but use the PASTE SPECIAL option to only bring the value in the cell and not the formula.  You can then delete the data in cells A1 and B1 and use the text for whatever you need.

For more tips and tricks in Excel, attend one of our Microsoft Excel classes.  We know you’ll learn some new tricks that will make you more efficient and  make your co-workers jealous of your knowledge.

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Word 2007 Tip: Full Screen View

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

As you edit long documents in Microsoft Word 2007, you may want to focus only on the words. and not the ribbon and toolbars on your screen.  By clicking ALT + W and then F, you will access the Full Screen mode.  The Ribbon will disappear and leave you with text filling your screen.  (You can also access this view by choosing VIEW on the Ribbon and FULL SCREEN READING in the Document Views group.)

A few buttons do remain, which will make reading, and possibly editing, easier during your review. On the left side of your screen, you have a SAVE button, a PRINT button, and a TOOLS drop down.  The TOOLS drop down allows you to use the Research tools, turn on the Highlighter, and a new comment and find text. Next to that button you’ll find the Highlighter button, with a dropdown to change colors.  Finally, you have a COMMENT button.

At the far right of the screen, you have a VIEW OPTIONS drop down.  This drop down offers you the ability to increase or decrease text size on the screen, show either one or two pages at a time, show a print preview, allow typing (the default options do not allow you to type in this view. By choosing this option, you can make edits while viewing.), track changes, show comments and show original document.  At the farthest right corner, a CLOSE button allows you to return to standard view.

Editors like using this view because it removes the clutter from the screen and allows them to focus on the words that make up the document.  It is a handy view to use anytime you have a long document to proof and edit.

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Using Office at Home

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

Initially, most people use Office 2007 at work, and apply the things they learn to their jobs and look for ways to make things run more efficiently at the office.  Office 2007 can help make your entire life simpler!  You don’t even need to start from scratch.

If you’ve ever used a template that someone else made (or that you created) for work purposes, there are also many templates available for home purposes. If you’re a parent, there is a Microsoft Office Parent Toolbox that provides ideas and templates to make things easier on the homefront.  While I could have created a potty training chart for my 2yo from scratch, it was much simpler to download an existing one and apply it right away! (she’s doing great – - thanks for asking!)

At the Parent Toolbox, you’ll find templates and documents made in Word, Excel, and even PowerPoint! No matter what you need to run your home more efficiently, you’re bound to find a tool to help.  Microsoft Office 2007 is a tool you can use throughout your life!

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Office 2007: Quick Access Toolbar

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

When upgrading from Office 2003, the loss of familiar tool bars is sometimes upsetting to users. If you like your buttons laid out on a toolbar, you can easily customize the Quick Access toolbar.  The Quick Access toolbar (or QAT) is located at the top of your screen, next to the Office button, and above the Ribbon.

Click on the down arrow at the end of the QAT and you can add a small number of additional commands to the existing three commands. Those choices are not your only ones!  Choose MORE COMMANDS and you will be taken to the Options dialog box and a large variety of commands that you can add. From this window, you can also choose to move the QAT below the Ribbon.

The QAT is customized for each individual software program, and each program has specific commands available. Some of the commands are not found on the Ribbon at all, but can be found by adding buttons to the Quick Access toolbar.

If you’ve inherited an installation and you want to create your own QAT, choose RESET at the bottom of the Options window.  The three original buttons will appear and you can customize to your liking.

For more tips & tricks about using Office 2007 efficiently, attend one of our many classes.  We look forward to sharing our knowledge with you!

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Class: Social Media Strategy

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

Are you trying to create a social media strategy for your business?  Do you have a strategy, but wonder if it could be better? Do you know which social media tools can help you save time and reach more potential and existing customers?

We have a half-day class to help you create and focus your social media strategy. The class will discuss various different social networks and third-party applications, while guiding you in the decisions necessary to create a comprehensive plan to focus your efforts.  You will have the opportunity to visit different sites, and spend time creating a rough draft of your strategy while in class.

Our next Social Media Strategy class is coming up on Friday, October 23, 2009 from 9 until noon.  We hope to see you there!

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Social Media: Twitter

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

Everyone is talking about Twitter, and while it is the fastest growing social network right now, it will take a while before the number of users compares to other sites such as Facebook.

In a nutshell, Twitter is a cross between a social network and a micro-blog.  Users are able to send out messages in real time of 140 characters or less, read messages sent by others, and search for specific topics.

Some basic terminology to know if you want to use Twitter:

  • Followers — You can follow others on Twitter.  In fact, you want to follow others and have them follow you. These are the people who are interested in reading your messages.  You can search for people you know, people you’d like to know, people with similar interests, or companies.
  • Tweet — A tweet is any message sent out on Twitter. Tweets cannot be more than 140 characters long, which forces people to be concise and simple in their statements. It also brings about some unique abbreviations!
  • Re-Tweet — A re-tweet is when a user sends out someone else’s message again.  This is advantageous when you have an important or interesting message to share.  You send it out to your followers and ask them to re-tweet it.  They send it out to their followers, with a simple RT in front of your message, along with your username, and your message has now reached all of your followers AND all of their followers.
  • Hashtag — While reading tweets, you will notice certain words with a hashtag before them.  This helps others searching for specific topics. When you want to make it easier for a group to follow a topic, you can utilize a hashtag.  It would look like this: #computertraining

You can follow us on Twitter @ExecTraining.

To learn more about social media, attend our upcoming half-day Social Media class on November 23, 2009!  You’ll learn about Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and more!

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Excel Tip: NETWORKDAYS function

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

When working on a project, you sometimes want to know how many working days fall between two dates. In order to exclude the weekends and holidays during a specific time frame, use the NETWORKDAYS function.

The function will look like this:  =NETWORKDAYS(start date, end date, holiday dates)

In order to easily change the dates in the function, you will use cell references instead of actual dates in the function. Your worksheet could look like this:
nwd

The start date is in cell B1, the end date is in cell B2, and the range of holidays between the two dates is B3:B5. Excel is able to extract the weekends, but you have to include any holidays that are not workdays.

The complete function for this example looks like: =NETWORKDAYS(B1, B2, B3:B5)  It gives you a result of 51 days — which is correct if you double check against a calendar!

To learn more about all the neat ways you can use Excel to make your job easier, take one of our many Microsoft Excel classes!  We look forward to seeing you soon.

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