Tag Archives: software

Office 2010 tips and tricks, right from your…screensaver

Posted by on September 11, 2011 1 comment

Remember the good old “Clippy”? “It looks like you are writing a letter, do you need help?”

A lot of people cursed the cute little paperclip for popping up at any time, but the idea of giving people small tips for common tasks is not that bad. Well, the tips are back, this time in your… screensaver. Microsoft recently released the Office 2010 “Getting Started” screensaver. 

Of course, we are no longer in the nineties, so the tips are animated, flashy… but the content is still very valuable.

Get Microsoft Silverlight

DCSIMG

Some caveats:

  • you need the .Net framework 4.0 (installed automatically if you don't have it yet)
  • the content is pulled from an RSS feed on Office.com, so you do need access to that site
Read all about it on the Office blog
Download the screensaver

Tax-on-web and Firefox 4

Posted by on May 15, 2011 4 comments

If you are trying to use the Belgian Tax-on-web application with Firefox 4, you might get an error message ssl_error_renegotiation_not_allowed when you try to log in with your Belgian eID.

This seems to be caused by a change in Firefox 4 regarding SSL authentication (more info on: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security:Renegotiation).

It can be fixed by changing a preference in Firefox. Follow these steps:

  • Open Firefox
  • In the address bar, type about:config and press Enter
  • Confirm the security warning
  • Scroll down until you see security.ssl.allow_unrestricted_renego_everywhere__temporarily_available_pref
  • Double-click this line to set the preference to TRUE

Watch a brief demonstration of this procedure.

This should solve your issue. Changing this preference is a security risk, so it is a good idea to repeat the procedure and set the preference to FALSE once you are done with Taxonweb. Or you can add the URL of the sites to the preference security.ssl.renego_unrestricted_hosts to set this option for a specific site.

Don’t forget to check the Taxonweb configuration guide for Firefox if you encounter other issues.

Keyboard shortcuts for Tabs in IE

Posted by on February 14, 2011 No comments

This morning, I was looking for the keyboard shortcut that allows you to switch between different tabs in Internet Explorer. Like ALT+TAB allows you to switch between open windows, CTRL+TAB allows you to switch between open tabs. But there are even more interesting shortcuts I did not know about, like ALT+ENTER. Little things that can save you quite some time. See the list below, taken from the IE Help:

To Press
Open links in a new tab in the background Ctrl while clicking the link
Open links in a new tab in the foreground Ctrl+Shift while clicking the link
Open a new tab in the foreground Ctrl+T or double-click an empty space on the tab row
Open a copy of the current tab in a new tab Ctrl+K
Switch between tabs Ctrl+Tab to move forward or Ctrl+Shift+Tab to move backward
Close the current tab (or the current window when there are no open tabs) Ctrl+W or Alt+F4
Open a new tab in the foreground from the Address bar Alt+Enter
Switch to a specific tab number Ctrl+n (where n is a number between 1 and 8 )
Switch to the last tab Ctrl+9
Close all tabs except for the one you’re viewing Ctrl+Alt+F4
Open Quick Tabs (thumbnail view) Ctrl+Q

Teaching in the future with Microsoft Interactive Classroom

Posted by on November 1, 2010 2 comments

Sometimes you discover a great learning tool, hidden somewhere on the web. The Microsoft Interactive Classroom is such a tool, and it gives us a taste of what classroom training might be in the (near) future. If you have ever wondered if they was way you could avoid printing tons of paper manuals, if you are tired of distributing PowerPoint handouts that nobody ever uses, this is for you.

Basically, it is an add-on to PowerPoint and OneNote (2007 or 2010). As a teacher, you use PowerPoint to prepare your slides as usual, and you can use the Microsoft Interactive Classroom add-on to add question slides in your presentation. You get an extra tab in the ribbon for that:

Once you start giving your session, you click the Start Session button. This starts a broadcast of your presentation on the network. Your screen will look like this:

With the ribbon, you can annotate your slides (works great if you have a tablet!) but also start polls, display the results of the poll to your students…

But the best feature is yet to come. Your students connect to your broadcasted session with… OneNote! They automatically get a copy of the slides as a separate note page, they can take their own notes on the slides, they see the annotations of the instructor in their OneNote… and after the session they go home with their own annotated lesson material. Of course, they need to be connected to the same network (wired or wireless).

We tried it during an interactive session of one hour with 20 workstations and it was quite impressive. And what is even better: it’s free!

 

More information:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2010/aug10/08-16education.mspx

 

Download:
http://www.educationlabs.com/projects/IC/Pages/default.aspx

Why did Yanina not fill in her whereabouts?

Posted by on November 9, 2009 2 comments

tennisbalI was watching the interview of tennis player Yanina Wickmayer where she explains why she did not fill in her whereabouts in the ADAMS computer system. As a result, she got suspended for one year.

I do not want to take any position about this decision (there are enough Facebook groups that do that), but this story reveals some typical problems that need to be addressed when introducing a new software tool:

  • Communicate clearly: the “business rules” need to be communicated clearly, so that the user knows the policy and guidelines. For that, you use the proper way of communication with your users (oral, e-mail, …) Sending letters to the home address of a globetrotter does not fall under “proper way of communication”.
  • Motivate: if your users know the philosophy of your application, why it makes things easier and what the benefits are, chances are much higher that the tool will be accepted.
  • Make it look nice: while applications are judged by IT people on their functionalities, the end users have a lot of interest for the “look & feel” of the application. If it looks good, your application will “sell better”.
    The ADAMS application does not look very sexy at all, have a look at the brief demo.
  • Leverage technology: a web application is a good choice for a global, world wide application, but “a pc connection to the internet” does not seem to be always available to the sporters. But I’m sure they all have a Blackberry. Why not make a mobile app?
  • Train and document: the ADAMS application is a great example where the use of e-learning would be very appropriate: lot’s of users, spread over the entire world. Short demos, faqs, procedures…
    The only thing I could find on the net is a Captivate demo. Now, there is nothing wrong with Captivate as a tool, but providing a 30-minute animation for people who just want to hit the ball hard, is like torturing them. Why not provide brief, task based animations? After 15 minutes, the animation starts to explain how to fill in your whereabouts, and continues for at least 10 minutes…

WADA, Vlaamse Overheid, if you need any help, let me know. I see it as my contribution to Belgian top tennis.