Even though I am usually an “early adopter” and pride myself on keeping up with all the new devices on the market, I had never liked the idea that while you can do so many things on a smart phone, typically the phones are so small that you can’t really see what you are doing. When the sales person showed me the Samsung Galaxy Note II, I knew that this large mobile phone was perfect for me.

I have been using my Samsung now for approximately 3 months and I absolutely love it. I don’t know how I ever got along without it. No, it’s not a trendy iPhone, but the screen is large enough (5.5″) that I can actually read the email in my Inbox. I can follow the directions on my navigation app, read and edit important documents, and I even have enough screen space that I can surf the web and actually SEE what is there.

The Samsung Galaxy Note II is an Android device and so there are multitudes of apps available for use with it. As I mentioned earlier, I love the Navigation app and I use it all the time. The Samsung “Speak your destination” feature is fantastic, and it allows me to press a button, tell my smartphone where I want to go, and immediately see the route on my screen.

Since I don’t have time to explore the many applications that are available for my new phone, I thought it would be fun to put this topic out there so that you, the followers of our blog, could chime in and tell us about your favorite Android apps. Got one that you really like? Let us know. Add your comments below.

Let’s say that you are an administrative assistant and you need to be able to open your own personal Inbox and your organization’s Inbox, too, and you need to be able to switch back and forth between the two very quickly. In situations such as this, you could add a second Outlook profile to your computer, but then you would still have to open each account separately. A better option may be to add a second Inbox to your Outlook account.

To do this, follow the directions below:

1. Open the first Outlook account.

   

2. Click on the File tab to move to Backstage view.

   

3. Look on the left side of the screen, and verify that the Info button is selected.

   

4. From the middle panel, click on the Account Settings button. A drop-down menu appears.

   

5. From the drop-down menu, click on Account Settings… An Account Settings dialog box opens.

   

6. Click to select the name of the first Outlook account.

   

7. Click on the Change… link that is located just under the tabs. A Change Account dialog box appears.

   

8. Click on the More Settings… button in the bottom right corner. A Microsoft Exchange dialog box opens.

   

9. At the top of the dialog box, select the Advanced tab. Directly underneath the tabs, you see a section that will allow you to open additional mailboxes.

   

10. To continue, click on the Add button. An Add Mailbox dialog box appears.

    

11. Type in the name of the additional mailbox, and click the OK button.

    

12. The new mailbox should now be listed in the Mailboxes field at the top of the Microsoft Exchange dialog box.

    

13. Click the OK button.
14. Click the Next button in the bottom right corner of the Change Account dialog box. You see a congratulations message in the Change Account dialog box.

    

15. To continue, click the Finish button.
16. Click the Close button. The newly added Inbox should now be listed at the bottom of your folders list. You can easily move back and forth between the two by selecting the appropriate folder from the list.

    

Without the Internet, your computer is a typewriter at best and a paperweight at worst.  You need to protect this amazing asset, but how?  You need to be on the network to figure out how to protect yourself from the network.  What do you do?  You need to Get Connected.

Get Connected 2012 in its 14th year of providing excellent security, automated troubleshooting, and adding convenient IT tools to the desktops of Students, Faculty and Staff of Indiana University.

For years, as part of safeguarding the security of your computer, Get Connected has ensured your operating system has been fully patched and updated with the latest service packs, an antivirus client if you didn’t have one installed, and some form of anti-spyware, but did you know that it also does much more than that?

The 2012 version of Get Connected provides support for the latest Operation Systems: Windows 8 and OS X Mountain Lion (10.8), as well as supporting Windows 7, Vista, and XP. But, this year, it packs something new under the hood.

New to the 2012 version is the ability to register network cards with IU’s network via “off-campus” mode.  This gives new students, faculty, and staff the ability to pre-register all of computer’s network cards prior to the machine being brought onto campus.

It installs helpful tools like the UITS Printer finder to allow you to easily print to any UITS lab printer on campus.  Are you low on hard disk space, but you’d love to install the entire Adobe Creative Suite if you had the free space?  Get Connect also provides the necessary browser plugins to IUanyWare, Indiana University’s cloud-based software deployment environment.

Even further advances have been made to the 2012 version of Get Connected to support Faculty and Staff.  The new advanced customization and reporting features allows IT Professionals in Schools and Departments to automate the software install process tailored to the specific needs of their users.

Learn more about Get Connected when Chief designer, Brent Moberly, presents these new features and much more during Indiana University’s Statewide IT Conference in Bloomington on September 24-25, 2012.

Get Connected is just one of the many ways that the staff of University Information Technology Services fulfill our mission and commitment to keeping your technology current, safe, and always productive.

For more information, see our Knowledge Base article:
At IU, what is Get Connected and how do I use it?

As you can see, this dialog box offers many options for finding cells in a data range on a worksheet.  For example, if you want to find the data validation rules that are applied in a worksheet, all you have to do is Click the radio button for Data validation and Click OK.  By choosing “All,” all cells will be highlighted that have validation rules applied. If you Click “Same,” then only those cells that have the same validation rules applied as the currently selected cell will be highlighted.

Other commonly used options you may want to find and highlight in a worksheet are: various types of formulas (including errors), blanks, Current region (or entire list), Current array (active cell must be contained in the array), Conditional Formats, or Visible cells only. Note that the Visible cells only option is useful if you have hidden rows or columns in the worksheet and you want to copy and paste only visible cells.  The option of Last cell will find the last cell in the worksheet that contains data or formatting. To find out more about using Precedents and Dependents, you may want to read the blog article entitled: Excel 2010: Using Formula Auditing Tools.

When I need to do this in Adobe Premiere Pro, I simply select the Track Select Tool and then go to work. C’mon TechSmith… Give me a tool. I shouldn’t have to guess how to do such a common task!

After searching online for an answer, I realized there are lots of other users who agree with me. Consequently, I thought a nice, short blog post that answers this question would probably be appreciated. So here you are folks.

If you want to move multiple clips on a Camtasia Studio 7.0 timeline, press and hold down the Shift key on your keyboard, and then press and drag the left-most clip in the sequence (while the Shift key is still being held down). When you do this, the clip you are manipulating and all clips to the right of this clip will be moved.

Sounds easy, right? It is… Unless you don’t know how to do it.  (  :

Outside keyboard shortcuts to move conversations to folders, there is no good way to ‘star’ messages in Outlook with the keyboard. In this article, I will show you a macro that builds on the macro functionality explained in this article by using follow-up flags to mimic the star functionality in Gmail.

Before I go any further, I’ll add the same warning I included in the last post here:

This article is not for beginning users of Microsoft Outlook or for users who only use one incoming mail folder. It requires a decent understanding about how to organize email, work with the Office 2010 interface, and knowledge about how to create and modify a macro. Information about how to create a macro can be found in the workshop Excel 2010: Basic Automation Using Macros and more in-depth Visual Basic for Applications information can be found in the workshop Excel 2010: Advanced Macros and User Defined Functions.

Now that that’s out of the way, I’m going to show you how to use a macro to add a one day flag to a particular message and then move it to a folder called ’01 – Today’.

In the last article, I showed you how to mark a message as read and move it to another folder. This week’s macro is going to build off that macro by adding some follow-up flags, or ‘stars’ to the message. Here’s the finished code. The snippets in bold are the snippets that add the functionality of flagging.

Sub TodayItems()

'A macro that moves selected mail items to the desired folder.

'Define Variables
    Dim OutlookApplication As New Outlook.Application
    Dim OutlookExplorer As Outlook.Explorer
    Dim Selection As Outlook.Selection
    Dim NameSpace As Outlook.NameSpace
    Dim DestinationFolder As Outlook.Folder
    Dim i As Integer
    Dim Days As Integer
    Dim DayOfWeek As Integer
    Dim TaskDueDate As Date

'Set Variables
    Set OutlookExplorer = OutlookApplication.ActiveExplorer
    Set Selection = OutlookExplorer.Selection
    Set NameSpace = OutlookApplication.GetNamespace("MAPI")
    Set DestinationFolder = NameSpace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox).Folders("01 - Today")

    Days = 1
    DayOfWeek = DatePart("w", Now() + Days)

    Do Until (DayOfWeek > 1 And DayOfWeek < 7)
        Days = Days + 1
        DayOfWeek = DatePart("w", Now() + Days)
    Loop

    TaskDueDate = CStr(CDate(Format(CDbl(Now) + Days)))

'Process Messages (Add Flag, Mark Undread, Move to Archive)
    For i = 1 To Selection.Count
        Selection.Item(i).ToDoTaskOrdinal = TaskDueDate
        Selection.Item(i).TaskDueDate = TaskDueDate
        Selection.Item(i).TaskStartDate = TaskDueDate
        Selection.Item(i).FlagStatus = 2
        Selection.Item(i).FlagRequest = "Follow Up"
        Selection.Item(i).FlagIcon = olYellowFlagIcon
        Selection.Item(i).Save
        Selection.Item(i).UnRead = False
        Selection.Item(i).Move DestinationFolder
    Next i
End Sub

Let’s discuss the added pieces of this macro. We’ll start with the Date loop:

    Days = 1
    DayOfWeek = DatePart("w", Now() + Days)

    Do Until (DayOfWeek > 1 And DayOfWeek < 7)
        Days = Days + 1
        DayOfWeek = DatePart("w", Now() + Days)
    Loop

    TaskDueDate = CStr(CDate(Format(CDbl(Now) + Days)))

This loop does a couple of things for us. First, it uses the Now() function to grab the current day. Once it has the current day, it uses the DatePart() function to distil down the day of the week part of the results from Now(). The Do Loop that follows sets the DayOfTheWeek to a non-weekend day by adding one until the day of the week doesn’t fall on the 1st (Sunday) or 7th (Saturday) day of the week.

At this point, the DayOfTheWeek variable is done. It was simply there to allow us to perform some iterating to get the proper value in Days. Now that we know how many days have to be added to Now() to get the appointment to not fall on a weekend, we can turn Now + Days into a date that Outlook can understand:

TaskDueDate = CStr(CDate(Format(CDbl(Now) + Days)))

That’s precicely what this line of code is doing. First, it converts Now into a Double, then it adds Days to Now. Now the number is converted to a Date, and then a String so Outlook can understand what’s happening. That’s a lot of casting, but it does have to happen in that order. Math cannot be performed on dates, numbers cannot be formatted as dates, and date types cannot be used to determine a due-date in Outlook; it has to be a String type.

Now that all of that is done, we have the raw date that we need to add a flag, so all that’s left is adding the flag itself:

        Selection.Item(i).ToDoTaskOrdinal = TaskDueDate
        Selection.Item(i).TaskDueDate = TaskDueDate
        Selection.Item(i).TaskStartDate = TaskDueDate
        Selection.Item(i).FlagStatus = 2
        Selection.Item(i).FlagRequest = "Follow Up"
        Selection.Item(i).FlagIcon = olYellowFlagIcon
        Selection.Item(i).Save

Since our original macro was set up so it could be added to multiple items, this code must fall inside the For Next loop at the end of the macro. The first three lines set the due-date and start-date for the task, FlagStatus sets the status to ‘flagged’, FlagRequest sets the type of flag that’s to be used, FlagIcon determines the color of the label added to the item, and Save does exactly that — saves the item. From there, the old code from the previous macro takes over and marks the item as read and moves it to the appropriate folder, in this case it’s the ’01 – Today’ folder.

From this point, you can play around with the dates and figure out how to set up the number of days you want to add to a particular flag and move it into the folder of your choice.

The key to this macro is to make the Follow-up Flag feature of Outlook behave the way you use Gmail’s stars. Whether that’s to mark a message you particularly liked or if it’s to remind yourself to follow up with a particular message within a certain amount of time. Either way, this adds the same sort of graphical cue to a message in Outlook.

Follow the directions below:

1. To get started, open the Contacts folder in Outlook.
   
   
2. If necessary, change to Business Card view.
   
3. Next, double-click on your business card from the list.
   
4. A contact form opens. On the Ribbon, in the Options group, click on the Picture button.
   
5. From the drop-down menu that appears, click Add Picture… An Add Contact Picture dialog box appears.
   
6. Navigate to the folder where your photograph is stored.
7. Double-click on the photo you want to use.
8. The picture is placed next to your name in the contact form and on your business card.
   
9. If you want to change the size or position of the picture on your business card, click on the Business Card button on the Ribbon. The Edit Business Card dialog box opens.
   
10. Use the options under “Card Design” on the right side of the dialog box to change the size of the picture (Image Area) or the position (Image Align).
    
11. When finished, click on the OK button at the bottom of the dialog box.
12. On the Ribbon of the contact form, click on the Save & Close button.
13. Now the photograph will show up on the card  in your Contacts folder and on your business card when it is inserted into an email message.
    
14. It will also be displayed in the panel that appears below email messages when the People Pane is turned on (set to Normal).
    

To download a template, follow these steps:

1. Open an internet browser and go to the following web page:  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/results.aspx?qu=outlook&av=zol
2. Select one of the electronic business cards from the list and download it. When the Save As dialog box opens, use the default save in location that is specified.
3. The electronic business card will automatically open in an Outlook contact form.
   
4. Replace the name and contact information that is displayed in the fields with your own (or with someone else’s information if you are creating the card for another person).
5. On the Ribbon, in the Options group, click on the Business Card button. The Edit Business Card dialog box opens. Edit the card as desired.
   
6. When finished, click the OK button at the bottom of dialog box.
7. On the Ribbon of the Contact form, click the Save & Close button.The new business card is now stored with the rest of your contacts in Outlook.
8. To find out how to insert it into a message, read the previous blog post titled  “Quick Tip: Create a Business Card in Outlook 2010.”

No! Definitely not. It’s just time to update our mindset and our format. Microsoft Outlook has provided users with a means for creating electronic business cards for many years now, and yet many Outlook users don’t take advantage of this feature. Perhaps it is because most users don’t understand how an electronic business card simplifies the process of saving contact information.

Let’s say that you receive an email message from a potential client. You might be interested in doing business with this person in the future, and you want to save their contact information. At the bottom of the email, you see the client’s signature and contact information. You have several options. You can open a new contact form in Outlook and type in the contact information that is provided, but that will take time.

Another option is to close the email and then press and drag the message onto the Contacts button in the navigation bar. This is a time-saving trick that many Outlook users are unfamiliar with. A contact form will open with the person’s name and email address in the appropriate fields. You can save this information by clicking on the Save button, but if you want to include company name, address, telephone number, website, etc., this information will have to be typed in, even if it was included in the signature block on the original message.

If, on the other hand, the potential client has inserted his or her electronic business card at the bottom of the message, it is extremely quick and easy to save all of the contact information that is included on the business card. Simply right-click on the business card, click on “Add to Outlook Contacts,” and a contact form opens with all contact information filled in. Click on the Save and Close button on the Ribbon, and you are done. The entire process may take a couple of seconds.

Let’s take this a step further. What if you are ready to start contacting potential clients and you want your intern to assist you with this process. There are several ways that you could share your Outlook contacts with the intern, but you only want him to have access to specific account information. If you have electronic business cards for every client, it will be an easy task to insert the appropriate business cards into an email message that can then be sent to the intern.

Electronic business cards also make it easy for an Outlook user to find contacts quickly. If everyone in your contact list has a unique business card, it is easy to skim through the cards and find the one that you are looking for. Along the same lines, you might also want to create business card templates for certain groups of individuals who are listed in your Outlook contacts. For example, let’s say that you are a soccer coach. It has become necessary to cancel a game at the last minute, but since you have all of your soccer parents’ contact information mixed in with the rest of your Outlook contacts, it is time-consuming to go through and find them. If you had applied a business card template with a watermark of a soccer ball in the background to each of these contacts when you added them to your address book, it would be much easier to go through and find the soccer parents quickly now.

So how do you create a new business card for yourself or for others in Outlook 2010?  A rather boring, white electronic business card is actually created each time you add a new contact to Outlook. You can then customize the template with your own images, logos, background colors, fonts, etc. Follow the steps below to create a business card from scratch:

1. Open the Contacts folder in Outlook.
   
2. Click on the Home tab on the Ribbon, if necessary.
3. In the New group on the Ribbon, click on the New Contact button. An Untitled Contact form opens.
   
4. Fill in the name, company, job title, email address, phone numbers, addresses, etc., that you wish to include on the business card.
   
   
5. In the Options group on the Ribbon, click on the Business Card button. An Edit Business Card dialog box appears.
   
6. Use the options located on the right side of the business card (in the Card Design section) to change the layout  and to add a background to the card. Use the Image button to add an image. The Image can then be resized and repositioned by using the Image Area and Image Align buttons.
   
7. Use the buttons in the Edit section to edit the text on the business card.
   
8. Use the buttons in the Fields section to add or remove fields that are included on the business card. You may have information on the contact form that you want to keep, but that you do not want displayed on the business card. It is easy to click on the field that you want to delete from the card and then click on the Remove button. You can also change the order of the lines of text on the card by selecting a field from the list and then using the blue arrow buttons to move it to a new location.
   
9. When finished, click on the OK button in the bottom right corner of the dialog box. The contact form reappears with the new business card displayed in the top right corner.
   
10. Click on the Save & Close button in the Actions group on the Ribbon.
11. Now the business card can be inserted into your email messages, either in addition to your signature or instead of it. After composing an email message, click on the Insert tab on the Ribbon.
    
12. In the Include group, click on the Business Card button.
    
13. From the drop-down list that appears, click on Other Business Cards… An Insert Business Card dialog box appears. Scroll through the contacts until you find the name on the business card you want to use.
    
14. Click on the name from the list. The business card is displayed in the Business Card Preview area at the bottom of the dialog box.
    
15.  Click on the OK button at the bottom of the dialog box.
16. The card is inserted into the email message. The business card is also included as an attachment to the message in the .vcf format.
    Now recipients of this email message can add you to their contacts list quickly and effortlessly.

To create a new signature, follow these steps:

1. Open a new email message.
   
2. Click on the Insert tab on the Ribbon.
   
3. In the Include group on the Ribbon, click on the Signature button.
4. From the drop-down menu that appears, click on Signatures…
   
5. A Signatures and Stationery dialog box appears. To create a new signature, click on the New button.
   
6. A New Signature dialog box appears. Type in a descriptive name for the signature, such as “Business” or “Personal” or “For Clubs.”
   
7. Click on the Okay button.
8. Type your signature in the Edit Signature field at the bottom of the dialog box. Use the tools located directly above the Edit Signature field to edit the signature text or to add an image or hyperlink.
   
9. To configure Outlook so your signature is automatically added to outgoing messages, in the “Choose default signature” section on the right side of the dialog box, click the drop-down arrow on the New Messages field and select the signature to use. Then click the drop-down arrow on the Replies/forwards field and select the signature to use.
   
10. When done, click on the Okay button at the bottom of the dialog box.
11. Now when you create a new email, the signature block will automatically appear. You need only type in your message and a closing, such as “Sincerely” or “Regards,” and your message will be ready to go. The signature will also be automatically generated when you reply to or forward a message.