Archive for May, 2008
Using Word 2007 to write a blog entry
May 28th
We have been working on some AtA videos Destroying End Users teaching you how to do specific tasks. We are still working on the official AtA cinematic masterpieces but while you wait patiently here is the first in a series of videos by Dan Morrill, on special assignment to Ask the Admin.
Finding all the things that are available to you in Microsoft Office 2007 can be challenging. Some of the new ways of doing things are not all that intuitive, but using Word to write a blog entry is strait forward, easy to use, and works quite well across a number of different kinds of blogging platforms. You are not just limited to live spaces or sharepoint, Word 2007 works with just about any blogging platform out there.
This handy video shows you exactly how easy it is to use Word 2007 to write and post a blog entry.
Go Full Screen in Windows XP. 2 Methods.
May 27th
Do you find that you need more screen real estate? Maybe you hate not using every last inch of your screen… Or maybe JUST maybe you are doing a presentation and you don’t want to distract the audience with your ga-jillion plug-ins and crap. Either which way AtA is here to show you how to full screen your Window.
To view a window full screen, hold down the Ctrl key and double-click the window’s title bar—or when the window is active, press the F11 key at the top of your keyboard—to get the biggest window possible.
While this works for me on ALL Micro$oft applications it DID NOT work on FireFox nor does it work well in Vista (The side bar stays all out in the open). This is a great addition to your Admin Toolkit for any budding computer know-it-all or advanced geeks alike. Got a tip to share with us? Hit us up at tips at asktheadmin dot com or leave them in the comments!
_TheRecoveringAdmiN_
Windows Vista Search Magic From The Start Menu.
May 27th
For those of you running Vista there is a little known trick that lets you perform search magic right from your start menu. Once you get into this one you will be HOOKED! It is a very Mac-Esque search … We all wondered how long it would take Redmond to get this integrated!
So by opening your start menu and typing you can start searching through pretty much ANYTHING on your machine and launch it dumb quick. By launching the start menu with either the Windows key on your keyboard OR by pressing the blue orb and typing will achieve the same thing. As you can see from this ill-equipped machine below by typing in the letters WO it showed us everything on the machine starting with WO… Now this works for Websites, Documents, Images, Applications… You name it and it works!
To start seeing your web history start typing http://www and you will start seeing your sites. Get a little more specific like http://www.ask and be greeted with all your pages from that super special domain :)
Do you have a Vista Trick that you are dying to share with us? Hit us up in the comments or email us at tip at askTheAdmin dot com.
Happy Memorial day and AtA’s Week in Review…
May 26th
Today’s the day to salute and give thanks to our troops in the good old U S of A. And what better way than a party at AtA’s office in New York?
So no new content for you today but here are several of our top stories from this past week with different titles to throw you for a loop. Isn’t that nice of us?
We sure think so!
$20 high tech uber cool water faucet leds
Have Outlook do your tasks via email
New Vista Shortcut key that you didn’t know.
PC Laptop security – for free.
Having issues with WiFi?
Save money on your second copy of Office.
Who is listening to your shared iTunes?
Oh and we are well on our way to our WordPress Migration / Upgrade. And for those of you bitching and moaning about re-runs… We are accepting applications for writers you know!
_TheHappyMemorialDayAdmiN_
Own The Keenest Water Faucet…On the cheap!
May 25th
So we don’t usually gush over retail household products but this is really cool and can be bought with the notion of safety in mind. You attach this doo-hickey that is battery operated and it changes the color of your water with LED’s depending on the temperature of the water. Its also only $20 so we might just give it a try! Here this is from the ThinkGeek website that sells it.
Tired of that same old monotonous water? Bored with water that doesn’t look like futuristic alien mouthwash? Need to make your midnight bathroom appointments more exhilarating?
Then you need to get the LED faucet light attachment from ThinkGeek. You can turn any faucet in your home into a streaming fantasia of techie-bliss in just minutes. How does it work? Just attach to the end of your faucet (universal adapters included), and when the water flows through the magic chamber, it simply turns on the LED array and illuminates the stream with soothingly powerful hues.
But wait, there’s more! You get to choose between two different Faucets.
Blue LED – Always streams BLUE LED’s
Blue/Red LED – Normally streams BLUE LED’s until the water temperature hits 89 degrees after which the LEDs turn RED!
Here’s what you get with either version:
Chamber with LEDs
Batteries pre-installed plus a set of spare batteries (uses G13-A style watch batteries)
Instruction Sheet
Two universal adaptors included. (fits most standard faucets in USA. Not recommended for faucets outside of the USA.)
Dimensions: 2.25″ tall, 1.25″ diameter.
Now available in a temperature sensitive display version!
If anyone has already splurged let us know how it worked out. The link to the product page is here. Oh and ThinkGeek Guys if you wanna send us a few we will be more then happy to find some other creative uses for them over @ AtA headquaters :).
Buy some support our effort – we get a little kick back towards our upcoming upgrades!
Make Outlook your biznatch using batch files and customized rules.
May 24th
I have recently fallen in love with having outlook run batch files -depending on what an email from me to me says.
They say necessity is the mother of all inventions and that is certainly true when it comes to scripting. I have been using a WM 6 device with no push email support and popping a pop3 account on the run.
I make sure to offline my outlook before leaving my office. Too Bad The Admin has a horrible short term memory – I would often forget and this would lead to missed messages and angry people in need of support cursing my name.
Now we couldn’t have that, so I started looking for an app that would offline outlook for me as I locked my machine. That didn’t happen… Not even close.
So I looked into a batch file to shutdown outlook also no go. so I said fuck it and used pskill in a script to terminate the process called outlook as seen here:
taskkill /F /im outlook.exe
Next I went into outlook and created a new rule from scratch. When new messages arrive from a specific account, from specific sender and with the specific subject shutdownoutlook.
Now when I send a email to myself and outlook is open it will process the message see who it is from check the subject and run my script.
Bingo. Emails flowing into my handheld again. so I can do this on the fly. since then I created scripts for restarting my PC, IIS and other apps.
What do you script? Do you automate on a day to day basis?
Anyone know how to make a script run on lock workstation?
DONT BE SHY!! Comment Young Admins!
_TheScriptin’AdmiN_
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