it2go Episode 59 – 2013 Summer Schedule
In this week’s episode, we’re discussing the 2013 Summer Schedule at IT Training.
Archive for the 'Microsoft' Category
Microsoft Office 2013: Giving the Interface a Different Look
As you begin working in Microsoft Office 2013 applications, you will notice that everything looks so white with very little contrast! If you would like some additional contrast, you can change the Office theme and/or Office background for all of your Office programs by changing the Account or Options settings. In addition, if you do not like the ALL CAPS look on the tab labels of the Ribbon, these can be renamed as well.
PHP Workshops: Install and Use PHP Locally
To develop database-driven PHP applications, we need three things, the Apache web server, the PHP processor, and MySQL. This tutorial will walk you through all of the installation and setup that you need to do on your own machine to have a local instance of a Apache/MySQL/PHP (AMP) environment.
The instructions below will walk you through the setup you need for each of our PHP workshops, starting with PHP: The Basics.
At the time of writing, PHP: The Basics is the only PHP workshop offered by IT Training.
PHP: The Basics
The following links contain step-by-step instructions on configuring XAMP for the PHP: The Basics workshop.
Episode 52 – Upcoming Events at IT Training
On this week’s episode we’re talking about some upcoming events at IT Training, including some upcoming Microsoft Project workshops.
Recording with Lync
Ever need to record a phone call conversation? Or even just record a meeting in a conference room? With Microsoft Lync it is made easy. See instructions below: (special thanks to Jason Groce at the IUPUI School of Education for providing the documentation for this feature!)
Voicemail with Lync
If you have your phone number converted to Lync you also will see a change in your voicemail. Voicemail will come into your inbox with an attached mp3 recording of the message left by a caller, along with a speech-to-text translation of what the caller said. While many times this translation is not entirely accurate, you can usually get a good idea of what caller was trying to communicate.
One of the most over-looked features of converting to Lync is the functionality you get with your new voicemail service. You can create call answering rules, set different greetings and reset your PIN for accessing voicemail from a phone. Using call answering rules, you can even create your own phone tree. This can be done for department or individual accounts.
To access this functionality, go to IU Outlook Web Access. After logging in, go the upper right and click “Options”, then “All Options”. Next, select “Phone” on the left-hand side and then “Voice Mail’.
To learn more about these options and how to set them up, see these tips from Microsoft.
Forcing a Global Address List Download in Lync
The Lync 2010 client downloads a cached copy of the global address to the user’s computer. This allows users to rapidly find contacts and phone numbers. By default, it can take up to 24 hours for changes in the global address list to appear in the local copy seen by the Lync user (e.g. a phone number change). There may be times when it is advantageous to force an immediate download of the global address list.
To trigger an immediate download, two steps must be taken on the client workstation. The first step only needs to be performed once per workstation, while the second would be done each time a forced update is desired. Many times on a new install, only the first step is needed.
1) Execute the following command from the Windows Command Prompt run as an administrator (or manually add the GalDownloadInitialDelay registry key). Setting this value to 0 will force Lync to immediately download the address book instead of randomly selecting a time to check the server.
reg add HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator /v GalDownloadInitialDelay /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
2) Exit the Lync client and manually delete the GalContacts.db and GalContacts.db.idx files from the user’s profile directory. If the .db file still exists during startup of the client then Lync may still wait for that random interval between 0 and 60 minutes before checking for changes on the server’s address book files. By deleting the file the Lync client must download an entire new copy, forcing it to pick up any changes.
On Windows XP workstations:
%userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Communicator\sip_<username@domain>\
On Windows Vista or Windows 7 workstations:
%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Communicator\sip_<username@domain>\
Restart the Lync client and search for any of the recently changed information, for example the Telephone Number added to this Active Directory user account now appears for the Lync contact. You may have to wait a couple of minutes while the address gets built.
Impress your professor with a multimedia presentation
You’re in class on the first day and the professor is going over the syllabus. There are readings, papers, quizzes; all of the usual stuff. She says that if you participate in class and turn in your assignments you’ll get a B. Then she mentions the big end-of-semester project that counts for 70 percent of your grade. If you do well on this, you’ll get an A. You hear this and say to youself, “I’d better get started on this right away!” Of course you do. You’re a go-getter.
You decide to make a list of things that would make your presentation stand out.
Excel 2010: Exporting or Importing Data to Text Files
You may need to save Excel data in text files in order to be able to use the data in other programs or applications. There are several text file formats that are supported by Excel. The two commonly used file formats are: delimited text files (.txt) in which tabs separate each field of text, or comma delimited files (.csv) in which commas separate each field. You can easily save Excel data into one of these formats or import these text formats into Excel. Remember, however, that formatting, graphics, and other objects will be lost when saving data in a text file.
Saving as a Comma Delimited File
We will illustrate how to save Excel columns as a comma delimited file. The original data might look something like this:
0000011111 Bill
0000022222 Susie
0000033333 John
0000044444 Mary
NOTE: To display preceding zeros in a column, you can go to the Format Cells dialog box and choose Custom. On the right-hand side, scroll up (if necessary) and click the single 0. In the Type field, enter as many zeros as required digits (in this example, the number of zeros would equal 10).
Windows 7: The Least You Should Know About Keyboard Shortcuts
Are you stuck in a world dominated by a mouse and clicking around a screen? Have you ever wanted to be more of a “Keyboard Junkie?”
Today, I’m going to introduce you to several keyboard shortcuts that will make your life easier while working in Windows. These keyboard shortcuts are tricks that I have been trying to pass along to participants in my workshops over the years, but now they’re written down in one place for easy reference.
I’m not going to be discussing specific applications, but rather universal shortcuts. I’ve also included some web browser short cuts toward the end that will make your life easier.
Let’s start by taking a tour of the common keys that will be used throughout this post:
Above, you’ll see several keys pointed out and numbered. The numbers correspond with the list below.
- Escape (Esc)
- Function Keys (F#)
- Tab
- Control (Ctrl)
- Windows Key (Win)
- Alt
- Home Group
- Arrow Keys
- Option Menu
- Shift
The only keys that are discussed in this post that are not labeled on the above image are the letter keys.
