Excel’s power lies in the vast array of formulas that allow you to calculate the sum of a given list all the way to determining the interest rate on a loan. But in order to use these powerful formulas you must become familiar with the several ways that formulas can be entered and used. While…Continue Reading
Wouldn’t you like to be able to access all of your Word Documents, Presentations, Spreadsheets, and even your Notes on the Go? Well, if you use Office 2010 and your Windows Live SkyDrive you’ll have your files securely stored online so that you can access them from anywhere. Gone are the days of additional plug-ins…Continue Reading
If you really want to differentiate yourself from others who use the default color scheme in Office 2010 applications, then read on. Office 2010 (beta) ships with three color schemes to help customize the look of all Office 2010 applications. To change the color schemes on your Office 2010 installation, follow the instructions below. Note:…Continue Reading
If you’re like me and you’re not that great with the number pad on a standard keyboard, Excel’s ability to speak what you type as you enter it can make the difference between a couple of minutes in front of a spreadsheet or hours. The Speak Cells command will enable Excel to dictate the information…Continue Reading
One of Excel’s most powerful formatting tools is the Find and Replace command. Find and replace allows users to specify elements to locate in a spreadsheet. You can use this powerful command to locate a formula you wish to update, a set of values that have changed, and the formatting applied to cells. In this…Continue Reading
One of my favorite and frequently used toolbars is the Quick Access Toolbar located above the Office Ribbon. By default the toolbar has shortcuts for the Save, Undo, and Redo commands, fortunately Microsoft likes to make our lives easier and allowed users to customize this easy to access toolbar. The how-to below will walk you…Continue Reading
Data entry rules in Excel give users more control over the type of data that can be entered into cells in spreadsheets. We discussed how to use lists in a previous how-to, in this example we’ll show you how to specify the data type that can be entered and the different options available to you….Continue Reading
Outlining and grouping rows or columns in Excel makes it easy to organize and declutter spreadsheets that have a ton of data on display. Say you have several rows with the sales figures by month and the last row is a summation of the data, rather than display all months you can group the data…Continue Reading
Commenting in Excel allows you to keep annotations and references on specific cells. Comments are generated by the user as described in the tutorial below or when the Excel spreadsheet is set to Track Changes (future article). Comments appear only when you create and edit them or when you toggle their display using the Show…Continue Reading
The use of Special Characters is probably one of the least frequently accessed features in Excel, nevertheless it requires special attention because everyone should know how to insert special characters while using Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and other applications. We live in a world where everything is copyrighted, trademarked, and patented…so it is important that we…Continue Reading
As a frequent user of Excel I find that one of the most useful features is AutoFill. When preparing spreadsheets for presentations or when your organizing data to keep a sense of sanity, AutoFill will simplify that task. AutoFill will ensure data integrity and will maintain order when data series require it. In the example…Continue Reading
If you create spreadsheets in Excel and would like a way to ensure that data entered by others is consistent, you can use data validation lists to specify the items that can be entered into a specific cell. Data Validation lists work by allowing users to specify a list of data that is allowed in…Continue Reading
I often work with multiple Excel windows at any given time and I have found that I work best with Excel when all open windows are displayed on the Windows Taskbar (see screenshot below for illustration). The default setting for this feature groups all Excel windows (or workbooks) into one Taskbar button. This can be…Continue Reading
If you’re building up an extensive collection of movies in the new Blu-ray format, chances are that you’ve spent a couple of bucks putting it together. To help protect that small fortune that you call a movie collection, there are a couple of apps out there that will help you backup these discs so that…Continue Reading
If you are looking for a quick, easy and FREE method to convert your favorite movies and TV shows to a format you can take with you anywhere, you need to check out BDlot Video Converter. BDlot Video Converter is part of a greater suite of applications that allows you to convert videos to any…Continue Reading
With the imminent launch of iOS 5 for the iPhone and the iPad, Apple is moving forward with its new music offering for iTunes, Match. iTunes Match stores your entire music library in iCloud (another new service from Apple debuting this fall). When you store your music in iCloud you can access it from anywhere…Continue Reading
One of the settings I always enjoyed in Outlook is the ability to customize work hours so that my available time (work time) would appear on the calendar as a reminder not to schedule anything past a certain time. Google has taken this concept event further and now allows users to hide those morning and…Continue Reading
Just the other day I needed to print a monthly calendar in Mac OS X and realized that I had never done it before. When I opened the print dialog box I was amazed at the number of options available to print a calendar in iCal. So I decided to write this guide to help…Continue Reading
Have you ever found yourself looking for a particular set of files that are either named similarly or are of the same file type? Rather than perform a search in Mac OS to locate these files each time you want to access them, you have the option of creating a Smart Folder to simplify this…Continue Reading
