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Friday 20 July 2007

Newsletter Issue 134, July 2007



Sam Young Newsletter

Issue 134, July 2007
Hi guys,
Going to Australia? Then get ready for Face Scanning in Oz below.
Those of you using Office 2007 might like some tips on Addintools Menu Customising
Don't forget, if you want to be taken off my mailing list, click here to send me a reply e-mail and I will remove your name.

Face Scanning in Oz

Apparently in the very near future, New Zealanders entering Australia will be subject to facial-recognition scanning. Currently there is a trial of the facial-recognition scanning programme being undertaken in Brisbane by Australian Customs, and when that has concluded, the project will be rolled out at key Australian destinations - Sydney and Melbourne airports - in August.
Customs Project Leader Gillian Savage says about the technology launch “Initially, the SmartGates will only be able to process Australian e-passport holders. However, we will open the service up to New Zealand e-passport holders as soon as possible. Other e-passport holders beyond that will require foreign-language support, but the SmartGate programme will, ultimately, be open to all eligible e-passports from around the world”.
The Australian trials are six months behind schedule because of a range of technical issues. “We’ve had the booths and gates in place since the end of February, but through the testing we discovered a whole range of issues around hardware and software,” Savage says.
The Australian software is sourced from German company Cognitec Systems. Australian vendor Biometrix was paid more than $A600,000 (NZ$673,000) to develop middleware to interface to other elements of the SmartGate system. The Biometrix contract led to media questions because the then chief executive of Biometrix, Ted Dunstone, was the chairman of the purportedly independent Biometrics Institute during the evaluation period.
At New Zealand Customs, facial recognition options in New Zealand are still being evaluated. Hopefully any future implementation won't prove as expensive as the Australian project.

Addintools Menu Customising

In the last newsletter, we looked at downloading a new Addintools menu ribbon for Office 2007. In order to install & customise it, read the following four tips from Woody's Office Watch:
  • Right-click on the 'Toolbars' label at the bottom of the Menu ribbon and choose 'Add to Quick Access Toolbar' (QAT). Then the entire 'Office 2003' ribbon and toolbars will show up under the green dot on the QAT.
  • To show just the 'Office 2003' menus on the QAT, is where the 'All' menu comes in handy. Right-click on the 'All' menu item and choose 'Add to Quick Access Toolbar'. A green dot will appear on the QAT, click on that to see a pull-down list of all the 'Office 2003' menus. Either way it's a nice compact reference to the 'old menus'.
  • You can do the same for any of the menus or toolbar buttons on the 'Menu' ribbon. For detailed control of the Quick Access Toolbar you can go to Word Options | Customize. The 'Office 2003' options appear under 'Menu Tab'.
  • You might not like the prominent placing of the 'Menu' tab and this highlights the major problem with the Office 2007 interface. Microsoft has not provided a direct way to re-order the tabs on the ribbon. Thankfully the makers of Classic Menu for Office 2007 have allowed for this and let you move the Menu tab to the right-side of the tab list. Go to the Windows program list and start the Classic Menu for Office 2007, there is an option "Show the 'Menu' tab before the 'Home' tab" - uncheck that box, click OK and restart the Office 2007 application.
Have fun!

"Get your free AntiVirus here"

There are alternatives to the subscription choices that Symantec, McAfee, et al; in fact, many people recommend a free anti-virus product, called AVG Anti-Virus.
This product is free for personal, private, non-commercial, single home PC use from the Grisoft Web site, has excellent automatic updates, and can provide your home computer with trouble-free protection at no cost.
Get your free download of AVG Anti-Virus Free, AVG Anti-Spyware Free, and AVG Anti-Rootkit for  no charge at http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5#avg-anti-virus-free.


TLAs for SMEs

Here are this newsletter's TLAs for you:
  • IP, Intellectual Property. An umbrella term for various legal entitlements which attach to certain names, written and recorded media, and inventions OR
  • IP, Internet Protocol. Computer networking protocol used on the Internet
  • IPO, Initial Public Offering. First sale of an organisation's common shares to investors on a public stock exchange.

Please feel free to email me with any TLAs that you want to get the bottom (meaning!) of.

Tips, Short+Hot Keys
In this few newsletter, we look at all you can do in PowerPoint with the function keys:
  • PowerPoint "Start context-sensitive Help" Shift & F1
  • PowerPoint "Carry out Save As command" Alt & F2
  • PowerPoint "Carry out Save command (File menu)" Alt & Shift & F2
  • PowerPoint "Change the case of letters" Shift & F3
  • PowerPoint "Quit PowerPoint" Alt & F4
  • PowerPoint "Close the window" Ctrl & F4
  • PowerPoint "Quit PowerPoint" Alt & Shift & F4
  • PowerPoint "Repeat the last Find (Find Next)" Shift & F4
  • PowerPoint "Restore the program window size" Alt & F5
  • PowerPoint "Restore the active presentation window or the presentation window size" Ctrl & F5
  • PowerPoint "Move to the next presentation window" Ctrl & F6 
  • PowerPoint "Move to the previous presentation window" Ctrl & Shift & F6
  • PowerPoint "Move to the previous pane" Shift & F6
  • PowerPoint "Carry out Move command (presentation Control menu or Presentation icon menu, menu bar)" Ctrl & F7
  • PowerPoint "Find next misspelling (Automatic Spell Checking enabled)" Alt & F7
  • PowerPoint "Carry out Size command (presentation Control menu or Presentation icon menu, menu bar)" Ctrl & F8
  • PowerPoint "Minimize the presentation window" Ctrl & F9
  • PowerPoint "Maximize the program window" Alt & F10
  • PowerPoint "Maximize the presentation window" Ctrl & F10
  • PowerPoint "Activate the menu bar" Ctrl & Shift & F10
  • PowerPoint "Show the shortcut menu" Shift & F10 (Or Right-Click) 
  • PowerPoint "Display Visual Basic code" Alt & F11
  • PowerPoint "Save" Shift & F12
  • PowerPoint "Carry out Print command (File menu)" Ctrl & Shift & F12
  • PowerPoint "Carry out Open command (File menu)" Ctrl & F12

Hot Linx
If you know any Engineers, go to this website to reassure yourself that you are not alone in thinking they are not quite normal at http://www.inflection-point.com/jokes.php
A great must-see resource site for employment legal advice is the approachable lawyer at  http://www.approachablelawyer.com/
If you want to send someone a free ecard and want something a bit edgier than Hallmark has to offer, check out http://www.someecards.com/
Travelling and want a classic book to listen to on your mp3 player? For free downloads of books in the public domain, check out http://www.librivox.org/

                                Catch you again soon!! E-mail your suggestions to me here

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