Arts IT Savvy

As more and more of the Faculty computers are now having Office 2007 installed the one biggest problem some users are finding is “I used to know where a particular command was in the old Office (Word, Excel etc), but I don’t know where it is found in the new ribbon interface” (or perhaps in language less fitting for this blog). This question followed very quickly by a second – “I was perfectly happy with Office 2003 – why have I had to upgrade?”

The second question can have a very long answer, but it boils down to: because everyone else (Monash, nationally, internationally, education and corporate) is adopting it as well, and very quickly.  It will rapidly get to a point that if you don’t upgrade, you won’t be able to read a majority of the documents out there. Some have gone early, some later, but in the end everyone using Office will find themselves needing to transition to 2007.

The first question (finding how to do things in 2007) can be made quite a bit easier with some programs Microsoft have created. If you are on a computer, supplied by ArtsIT that came with Office 2007, you will find some shortcuts on your desktop labeled “Interactive Word….” “Interactive Excel….” and “Interactive Powerpoint…..”

If you have installed Office 07 on a home machine, or have had your current work computer upgraded to Office 07, these icons won’t be there. Instead, we have placed the 3 programs in a folder here:

N:\artsit\faculty-readable\Office 2007 Help

You can either run the 3 programs from the N drive, or copy them to your computer, or USB Key.

In any respect, these programs provide you with a representation of the old Office 2003 interface, and when you navigate via the menus to the command you want and click on it, it then changes to the Office 2007 interface, and shows you how to find that command in the new interface.

Harder to describe than it is to use. Give it a try, and I think you will find it a very useful tool indeed as you transition to Office 2007

If you still need help, don’t forget the ArtsIT Helpdesk (52250) and also my Micro-sessions (you can book a one-on-one session with me on a wide range of IT topics/programs, Mac or PC)

First app to look at is iiQuota.

iiQuota is used to keep track of your mobile phone usage, remaining credit, data usage.  Even some ISPs are included. The app has some significant benefits over the competition.  Firstly, it is NOT restricted to a single carrier – you don’t have to buy the VirginMobile version, or the Optus version, or the Telstra version etc.  You can use any of the major carriers with the same app.  Another benefit is the app will track multiple accounts, across multiple carriers.

By clicking on an individual name (on the iPhone, not here!), you can bring up more specific, and extended information.  Oh, and the interface (skin) is customisable.

Recently I attended a half day workshop on “Presentation skills for the 21st century”.  The two presenters, Les Posen and Dr Louise Mahler, were wonderfully knowledgeable about their areas of expertise and, as you might expect excellent presenters.

Les Posen’s “Presentation Magic” seminar is full of useful, common sense, tips for presenting with “Slideware”. A devote of Apples Keynote software, Les shows participants how not to kill with “PowerPoint” based on his knowledge, as a psychologist, of how we learn. There were several good take-homes from his presentation but I’ll limit myself to just one or two. The first of these sits well with my own philosophy that (depending on your audience) presentations should be entertaining. Show people what you are on about using appropriate images, video, audio etc.  If the audience wants to read about something they’ll buy a book, not attend a seminar. The other very important point Les made, one that I learned from studying instructional design, is not to split the audiences attention – e.g. If you have a large slab of text on the screen and you are talking about it, this will split the audience’s attention as some will be listening whilst others  reading.

Having worried over presentations in the past, especially whether I’ve included all the pertinent information or not, Les’ observation that no one else, besides you, knows what should/shouldn’t be in your presentation was a minor revelation. In future if I have to skip a slide or two due to time constraints or I don’t think I’ve manged to get all the information in and the half our presentation is looking more like a four day workshop I’m going to relax and start happily slashing and burning.

If I had anything negative to say about Les’ presentation it would be that he transgressed one of my own personal bug-bares, which is that the design of his slides was occasionally  inconsistent (a mixture of templates). For me this hurt his message a little.

Louise Mahler’s “Vocal Intelligence” presentation focuses on the human element of a presentation, i.e. you the presenter. Her knowledge of the physics of presenting; posture, breathing, eye movement/contact, body language etc. gleaned from her studies and alternate career as an opera singer, is invaluable. Next time I present I’ll take with me her various techniques for breathing/posture which can help to overcome the butterflys we all get in front of an audience. Suggestions for eye contact such as “one thought, one person” and the eternal problem of where to put ones hands when “at rest”, in front of yourself with one hand clasping the other wrist (not your crotch), will definitely come in handy .

Like many people I’m uncomfortable with audience participation so I found this aspect of Louise’s workshop confronting but if I’m going to put myself in front of an audience to present I should really just get over this.

All in all the only real downside to the event was that it was only a half day. I’m sure that Les and Louise could easily have done a half day each and still have more useful knowledge to impart. – Originally posted at PSDC.

There are some OS X keyboard shortcuts you don’t want to forget when, for example, your bluetooth mouse runs out of juice and you can’t find your tether-mouse, like, control-F2 (highlight the menu bar). Others you need to know when the computer is off or staring up; e.g. hold down the C key to boot from an optical drive. Having forgotten some of these useful shortcuts once too often I’ve put together a handy-dandy, double-sided, tri-fold crib sheet containing every default (many are configurable) OS X keyboard shortcut I could think of. I thought this might be of use to others so here it is: Default OS X Shortcut Keys (external link). Comments, sugestions, corrections etc. always welcome. – Originally posted at PSDC.

I’ve been finding the following applications quite useful on the iPhone:

App Sniper allows you keep track of both the latest applications released, and also which apps have come on sale in the last 72 hours. You can also set up watch lists which let you know when an app you are interested comes on special.

Oz Weather is what it says. It sources its info from the BOM website and gives current details, inc rainfall radar, as well as 7 day forecast.

Bloomberg provides up to date share pricing for your portfolio, as well as news for those companies, and share price history.

To Do fills a gap in the applications suite initially provided with the iPhone.

TV Guide gives program listings for regional and national stations (inc pay TV)

Free Memory does just that – it frees up device memory, so that the occasional need to reboot the device is minimized.

I almost forgot the Wordpress App, which I am using right now on the iPhone to write this entry!

Those of you who have an iPhone (iDon’t) or a 2G iPodTouch (iDo) may be interested in the iTalk. The phone thing has a microphone built in and the touch thing doesn’t but it seems to work real well indeed if you get an external microphone.

Once you’ve recorded the audio you can then wirelessly transfer it to your desktop/laptop, well worth investigating — both pro and lite versions are available — your mileage may vary.

Over 10 years ago I bought one of these. It’s held me in very good stead over this time (very handy for theatre and av/pc patching work) but it finally packed up last week. From memory (I imported it from the US) it cost me around $A35 — it was real small and the batteries were easily replaceable. I just replaced it with a LED2BU1 which is a bit bigger but was only around $A10 from Coles/New World/Dickens. So far so good. Broader beam but more modern technology. Your lumens may vary.

Recently Apple released their In-Ear Headphones and I was looking forward to getting a pair. Whilst it is true they sound much better than what ship as standard with their iPod offerings, and have a really cool UI featuring FF, RW, Volume and microphone — I reckon they’re rubbish!

There you go, not a patch on my existing Sennheiser MX 560 for bass response. At my age, bass response is important.

FWIW my benchmark was run using the standard Tim audio test suite: Pet Sounds, Graceland, a random podcast and a random movie (in retrospect, poor choice of movie I suspect but I felt like watching it).

Price comparisom (approximate RRP):

Apple Standard = $A50; Apple IEH = $A110; Sennheiser MX560= $A50

Your mileage may vary.

Just followed the simple, and comprehensive instructions on the ITS website for connecting the iPhone to the Monash Wireless network.  Worked beautifully. Straight forward, clear steps and screenshots.

Then tried the instructions for email, and specifically (as ArtsIT are now on Lotus Notes) those instructions. Hmm – not so good.  The syntax for the mail cluster is wrong, and the instructions didn’t result in email anyway.  Strangely, the settings for my pre-lotus notes days were still in my profile on the phone (ie using mail.monash.edu.au) actually worked, even though they probably shouldn’t have, and others have managed to crash the entire (new) mail server by using them, so didn’t want to cause that (and thus trying to get the Lotus Notes settings working).

Am investigating further, and will hopefully have a result soon.  It must be pretty close, given that I was able to access the email through the incorrect channel!

Update – problem seems to be that I had settings from pre-Lotus Notes days.  Deleting that account completely and redoing the settings from scratch got mail working.  However, we are there now, and seem to be all up and running.  Even so, the mail instructions did assume a higher level of familiarity with the device (and where the mail settings are found).  Still, not a problem for the majority of users (so long as the syntax is corrected (has been mentioned to ITS)).