Newsletter Issue 175, November 2009

Sam Young Newsletter

Issue 175, November 2009

Hi guys,

In a post-recession world, how can we take better care of our customers? Check out Eco-Economy below.

I have some stats from Trendwatching that indicate we will be Online 24/7 by 2014. 

Detecting Wireless Freeloaders   TLAs for SMEs        Tips, Short & Hot Keys        Hot Linx

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.

Eco-Economy

Some coming trends to think about as the world climbs out of the current recession may make the difference between businesses that take off and those that crawl.

A few interesting pieces of news came across my desk this week, which got me thinking about about the new links between ecology and economics:

• Apple has apparently refused to repair PCs which belong to customers who smoke, advising that nicotine is on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) list of hazardous substances and Apple would not require an employee to repair anything deemed hazardous to their health. A US Consumerist website claims to have received reports from two Mac users stating that US Apple repair centres have declined to fix 'Applecare'-warrantied PCs, claiming that the warranties have been voided due to second-hand smoke contamination under OSHA regulations (while it is entirely logical that nicotine and other toxic cigarette residues would seep into computers over time, providing a health risk for Mac techies when fixing them is a bit of a stretch). See http://apcmag.com/apple-wont-work-on-macs-owned-by-smokers.htm
• Bundanoon in NSW, taking inspiration from the Tasmanian town of Coles Bay which went 'Plastic Bag Free' in 2003, is Australia's first bottled-water free town. To put to rest repeated consent applications from the Norlex conglomerate, which wanted to drill for bottled water, the townsfolk responded by banning bottled water completely (http://www.bundanoon.nsw.au/bundy-on-tap.html), and installing filtered drinking fountains.
• And speaking of plastic bags, New Zealanders use 1 billion plastic shopping bags per year (a mind boggling over-consumption for a mere 4 million people), but China - with a population of two billion - knocks us into a cocked hat for green practices. They have reduced their use of plastic bags 66% in the first year of legislating against single-use plastic bags by an amazing 40 billion bags, from kick-off in June 2008 through to June 2009 (http://www.chinaretail.org/shownews.asp?id=766). Collingwood is Nelson's only plastic bag free town; although Wanaka and Kaikoura have now followed suit. However, the worst on the planet are the Americans, who throw away almost 100 billion plastic bags every year, only recycling between 1 and 3 percent. Hong Kong, Kenya, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Germany and the Netherlands are all plastic bag free. Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland and Ireland have a plastics tax.
• Soda stream is being advertised on TV again - probably for the first time since the 70s, by my recollection - with the pull strategy of the young Australian boy on the ad saying that they were not contributing to landfills by using soda stream, and that soda stream is an "Active Green" company as it consumes CO₂. Quite a different marketing ploy to the 1970s and early 80s (http://www.sodastream.com.au/earthfriendly).

So what do all these things have in common? That in our post-recession, hyped-up global-warming world, the human race is starting to think about becoming a whole lot less wasteful, and I suspect in the medium term we will be a lot more careful of what knock-on effects we create. Mr FastFoodChain and Ms Supermarket need to take into account that a few greener practices will get customers onside; being clever about not creating the waste in the first place, so we don't have to deal with it later, will stand businesses in good stead.

Time and time again it has been proved that the only way to change our profligate habits has been legislation. However, while New Zealand's Waste Minimisation Bill was a total fizzer, there is nothing to stop each and every one of us from doing our bit, personally and in our own businesses.

Individually we can all make changes in how we do things; which will in turn keep our costs down. We can pass on savings directly to our customers, or pass those savings on to causes that we - and our customers - are passionate about, such as those reported this week by Trendwatch in Holland - http://trendwatching.com/briefing/#embedded.

Something for us all to think about.

 

Online 24/7

I was just reading on Trendwatching's website some projections of our mobile data use (at http://trendwatching.com/briefing/). We are apparently going to be quite "well connected" by 2013 or 2014:

• Globally, mobile data traffic will double every year through 2013, increasing 66-fold between 2008 and 2013. Mobile data traffic will grow at a CAGR of 131% between 2008 and 2013, reaching over 2 exabytes per month by 2013 (Cisco, 2009)
• The number of Orange 3G mobile broadband customers had increased to 21.7 million at 30 June 2009, compared with 13.4 million in June 2008, an increase of 62% in one year
• The overall number of individual mobile users in Western Europe is set to grow to 344 million at year-end 2014. By 2014, a third of Western European consumers will own internet-enabled phones compared with 18% in 2009. Mobile Internet adoption is set to grow to 39% in Western Europe in 2014 from 13% in 2008 (Forrester Research, August 2009)
• 6.5 billion tweets sent from Twitter thus far

Makes you wonder where you can cash in, and what trends you need to be up with, doesn't it...

Detecting Wireless Freeloaders

If you have a wireless network that suddenly starts slowing down, you may have someone else freeloading downloads on your account. And when you suddenly want to find out who else may be tapping into your network, most of us are a bit stuck.

However, there is an easy way to see which IP addresses are connecting to your router - and that is to query your router.

What you want is your router's status page. Anyone with network access to the router can see the status page simply by typing the router's LAN address into their browser's address bar (eg D-link at http://192.168.0.1/). Some routers may require a bit more navigation to get to the page that displays who's connected, but it is usually fairly easy.

Hey presto! There's the information you're looking for.

On home wireless networks, just compare the number of PCs the router says are connected to the number you should have. If you should have two and there are three connections, you know there's a problem and you need greater security. You might find there is a car parked on the street with someone in it. You could try turning your router off & see if they drive away. Then get some advice on how to better secure your internet connection (or do it yourself by reading the following article at http://windowssecrets.com/2009/10/08/07-Take-steps-to-secure-your-home-networks-router).

For larger setups, turn on all the machines you want connected to the LAN, note their IP addresses, and scan the router's list for "alien" IPs.

Bookmark your router's home page (IE - Add to favourites). Then you can check for anyone who shouldn't be on your router with a single click.

:-)

TLAs for SMEs

Here are this newsletter's TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) for you:

• RTLS, Real-Time Location System. This is one of a number of technologies detecting the current geo-location of a target, which may be anything from a vehicle to an item in a manufacturing plant to a person (...and cellphones, GPS etc).

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

Tips, Short+Hot Keys

Over the next few newsletters, we are looking at all the things you can do with Alt, Shift, Ctrl in Windows Media Player. This is our sixth section in this series:

• Windows Media Player "Switch between the inner and outer areas of the Player" Ctrl & Tab
• Windows Media Player "Specify either a URL or path of a file" Ctrl & U
• Windows Media Player "Close or stop playing a file on the File menu" Ctrl & W
• Windows Media Player "Delete a selected item in the Copy to CD or Device feature" Delete
• Windows Media Player "Select the next item in the list" Down Arrow
• Windows Media Player "Play an item" or "Carry out the command for the selected item or button" or "Go to the selected link" Enter
• Windows Media Player "Hide the menu" ESC

Hot Linx

For instructions on how to back up and restore Outlook, there is a useful little How To page at "How To Outlook". Check it out at http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/backupandrestore.htm

And if you would like a bit of a laugh, check out the Heineken ad on YouTube (shades of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, rinsed through Lerner & Loewe's My Fair Lady) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz9_YfIQaz4

A couple of newsletters ago I talked about MetLife International, and their study of International Employee Benefits trends. Some clients have asked about their survey tool; go to http://www.whymetlife.com/benchmarkingtool/criteria.asp (NB: use "North-West" US as your demographic area).

If you are interested in knowing more about Corporate Social Responsibility, check out Mallen Baker's site at http://www.mallenbaker.net/csr/definition.php

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

read more "Newsletter Issue 175, November 2009"

Newsletter Issue 152, August 2008

Sam Young Newsletter

Issue 152, August 2008

Hi guys,

Do you know how to make the most of your The Seven Second Advantage?

We are a lazy lot; and we can do more to lessen our impact on the environment. Check out The Ubiquitous Plastic Bag. 

Our Wonderful Kiwi Broadband   TLAs for SMEs        Tips, Short & Hot Keys        Hot Linx

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.

The Seven Second Advantage

I am sure we have all heard that first impressions count, and that the very first few seconds are most important when you are meeting someone new. Carol Kinsey Goman, a US Psychologist and Executive Coach has allowed me to share her expertise with you all.

You're at a business conference and you turn to the stranger standing next to you. He turns to face you and in that instant your brain makes a thousand computations. Is he someone to approach or to avoid? Should you flee or be friendly? Will he harm you or help you?

In about seven seconds you've already decided whether you like him. Sure, your opinion may change once you get to know the person better, but that first impression will always linger. And, by the way, while you're consciously and unconsciously evaluating him, he's also making the same kind of instantaneous judgments about you. In business interactions, first impressions are crucial.

Once someone mentally labels you as "likeable" or "unlikable," everything else you do will be viewed through that filter. If someone likes you, they will look for the best in you. If they don't like you, or if they mistrust you, they'll suspect devious motives in all your actions.

While you can't stop people from making snap decisions - the human brain is hardwired in this way as a prehistoric survival mechanism - you can understand how to make those decisions work in your favour.

First impressions are more heavily influenced by nonverbal cues than verbal cues. In fact, studies have found that nonverbal cues have over four times the impact on the impression you make than anything you say. Luckily, the same nonverbal factors that draw you to certain people are what others are instinctively looking for in you.

We all want to do business with people who are trustworthy and energizing, who put us at ease and make us feel good about ourselves. Luckily, these are the very qualities that you can project nonverbally in those first crucial seven seconds. Here are seven powerful ways to make a positive first impression.

1. Adjust your attitude. People pick up your attitude instantly. Before you turn to greet someone, or enter an office for a business interview, or step onstage to make a presentation, think about the situation and make a conscious choice about the attitude you want to embody. Attitudes that attract people include friendly, happy, receptive, patient, approachable, welcoming, helpful and curious. Attitudes that are off-putting include angry, impatient, bored, arrogant, afraid, disheartened, and suspicious.
2. Stand tall. Pull your shoulders back and hold your head high. This is a posture of confidence and self-esteem.
3. Smile. A smile is an invitation, a sign of welcome. It says, "I'm friendly and approachable."
4. Make eye contact. Looking at someone's eyes transmits energy and indicates interest and openness. (To improve your eye contact, make a practice of noticing the eye color of everyone you meet.)
5. Raise your eyebrows. Open your eyes slightly more than normal to simulate the "eyebrow flash" that is the universal signal of recognition and acknowledgement.
6. Shake hands. This is the quickest way to establish rapport. It's also the most effective. Research shows it takes an average of three hours of continuous interaction to develop the same level of rapport that you can get with a single handshake. (Just make sure you have palm-to-palm contact and that the web of you hand touches the web of the other person's.)
7. Lean in slightly. Leaning forward shows you're engaged and interested. But be respectful of the other person's space. That means, in most business situations, staying about two feet away.

Once you've passed the "seven-second test" and are engaged in conversation with another person, you can create a lasting and positive impact by adding a single nonverbal component to a simple verbal statement.

Here's how to do it: When you meet someone and they tell you their name, find a way to repeat that name later in the conversation. And as you do, anchor the positive emotion (which your use of their name evokes) by touching the person lightly on the forearm. The impact of this brief touch comes from the fact that you have aroused positive feelings in an individual by remembering and using his name, and as you touch his arm, those positive emotions get linked (or anchored) to your touch. Then at subsequent meetings you can reactivate that initial favorable impression by once again lightly touching your acquaintance's arm.

Every encounter, from conferences to meetings to training sessions to business lunches, presents an opportunity to meet people, network, and expand your professional contacts by making a positive first impression.

You've got just seven seconds - but if you handle it well, seven seconds are all you need!

Author Bio: Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D., is an executive coach, author and keynote speaker who addresses association, government, and business audiences around the world. Her latest book and program topic is THE NONVERBAL ADVANTAGE - Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work. For more information, contact Carol by phone: +1 510 526 1727, email: CGoman@CKG.com, or through her websites: www.CKG.com and www.NonverbalAdvantage.com.

The Ubiquitous Plastic Bag

For those of you who haven't stopped to think about the impact you are having on the environment each time you go shopping, take a minute to think about the incredible pollution (and waste) caused by the production and disposal of plastic grocery bags:

• 500 billion plastic bags are sold every year
• It takes 1,000 years for plastic bags to degrade

With a bit of planning, it is very easy to take your own bags to the grocery shop. At the shop I go to, each time I shop and use my recyclable bags, I get a stamp and after ten shops I get another free bag. I leave the bags in my car so I am never stuck without them. I have also noticed just how much it saves me in filling rubbish bags.

Unfortunately most people don't get that organised and probably never will. Unless you hit us in the pocket, most of us won't be motivated to change our behaviour.

And if driving that behavioural change is left to corporations, competition will knock it down again, as it did when Pak'n'Save tried to charge customers for bags; it became a selling point for the other supermarkets. In addition, many customers will pay a few cents without changing their behaviour; only when the price is around 20 cents a bag, as Ireland introduced, will consumers start to take notice.

The only solution is for governments to legislate bags away. Then everyone has no choice but to change their behaviour. However, there is some hope. Over the hill in Collingwood, in August 2006 a group of Collingwood residents declared the town shopping bag free. If only the rest of us could emulate that, or take some inspiration from what is happening internationally;

• San Francisco, where an estimated 180 million plastic bags are distributed to shoppers each year. As of 20 November 2007, any large grocery store with more than five locations in the city of San Francisco is no longer allowed to bag groceries in petroleum-based plastic. The ‘free’ bags at the checkout stands will be made either of recycled and recyclable paper or of certified compostable plastic materials such as corn or potato starch. In May 2008, the plastic bag ban will also extend to major pharmacies.
• Similar measures are being considered in Boston, Oakland, Portland, Santa Monica, and Steamboat Springs (Colorado). Plastic shopping bags are banned in at least 30 villages and towns in Alaska.
• Worldwide, plastic shopping bags are banned in Bangladesh and Taiwan, while in France, a nationwide ban is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2010.
• In Australia, the soon-to-be-built AUD $300 million Totem shopping centre at Balgowlah, Manly, may be the first council-enforced plastic-free zone in the country. All 60 retailers, including the Coles supermarket, will be banned from providing plastic bags, and from handing out food and drink containers made out of plastic or non-biodegradable foam.
• More on plastic bag bans on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_shopping_bag#Plastic_shopping_bags_by_country .

Maybe those of you who don't have some recyclable bags might get inspired to buy some - and use them!

Our Wonderful Kiwi Broadband

Between January and March this year, network caching company Akamai has observed attack traffic originating from 125 unique countries around the world. Akamai has servers in the network all around the world and says it is well positioned to measure actual network performance.

China and the United States were the two largest attack traffic sources, accounting for some 30% of this traffic in total. South Korea had the highest measured levels of “high broadband” (>5 Mbps) connectivity, with Rwanda tied with the Solomon Islands for the slowest connectivity, at ≥95%of connections below 256 Kbps.

South Korea has 64% of connections falling into the high broadband elite category. Japan followed with 48%, then Hong Kong, with 35%, and Sweden, with 29%. The global average was 16% for high broadband connections, but in New Zealand only 2.2% of users receive such high-speed service.

Akamai ranks New Zealand a low 44th in the world for the percentage of high broadband connections, the percentage of connections of 5Mbit/s or greater speed. When simple broadband of 2Mbit/s is included in the total, New Zealand climbs to 38th. Out of 125, remember. With countries like South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Sweden, Romania, Belgium, the Netherlands, Nepal, Norway, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Tunisia, Slovakia, Iceland, Denmark, Monaco, Luxembourg, Germany, the UK, the Bahamas and the US ahead of us.

Akamai plans on continuing to observe, and publishing a quarterly "State of the Internet" report, summarising their findings. Download the Jan-Mar 2008 report in pdf at http://www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet/.

 

TLAs for SMEs

Here are this newsletter's TLAs for you:

• RIA, Rich Internet Application. RIA is a Web application designed to deliver the same features and functions normally associated with deskop applications. RIAs normally run inside a Web browser and usually do not require software installation on the client side to work (NB, some may only work with specific browsers). For security purposes, most RIAs run their client portions within a special isolated area of the client desktop called a 'sandbox'.

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

Tips, Short+Hot Keys

Over the next few newsletters, we are going to look at all you can do with Alt and letters. This time it's N & O:

• Word "Switch to Normal view while working" Alt & Ctrl & N
• Word "Mail Merge to Doc, or perform a mail merge between two documents or display all headings up to Heading n while working in a document outline" Alt & Shift & N
• Access "Create a new table, query, form, report, data access page, macro, or module when working with a database or spreadsheet" Alt & N
• Windows "Minimize the active window" Alt & Spacebar & N
• Publisher "Print a Help topic" Alt & O, Then P
• Publisher "Hide or show the Navigation pane in Help" Alt & O, Then T
• Word "Switch to Outline view while working" Alt & Ctrl & O
• Access "Open the selected table or query in Datasheet view, or form in Form view or display Options dialog box (in Help menu)" Alt & O
• Outlook "Display the Format menu" Alt & O
• PowerPoint, Word "Display Options dialog box (in Help menu)" Alt & O

Hot Linx

Those of you who need behavioural interview questions when hiring new staff can pick up some real purlers at this site http://www.quintcareers.com/interview_question_database/interview_questions.html

And some green US tips on more environmentally friendly living can be found at www.idealbite.com. Check out their top tips library (though I am sure most of us have already actioned these) at http://www.idealbite.com/tiplibrary/

For a feast of the visual variety, check out http://deputy-dog.com/. This guy finds the most amazing collections of things and posts them to the web; such as the 7 coolest Fire Stations. I dunno how he does it, thinks of it, or finds time for it.

And lastly, another on-line collaboration & web meeting tool at http://www.dimdim.com/. Share your desktop, show slides, collaborate, chat, talk and broadcast via webcam with absolutely no download required for attendees.

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

read more "Newsletter Issue 152, August 2008"

Newsletter Issue 137, September 2007

Sam Young Newsletter

Issue 137, September 2007

Hi guys,

If any of you are interested in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, read on.

Being green is the flavour de jour, but how do we go about Measuring Corporate Social Responsibility?

Missing '.exe' File Extension Fix   TLAs for SMEs        Tips, Short & Hot Keys        Hot Linx

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.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming

Neuro-linguistic programming, or 'NLP', is an approach to psychotherapy co-founded in the 1970s by Richard Bandler and John Grinder as a method of personal development. By developing a set of practices and techniques based on modelling successful psychotherapists of the time, they created a "model of interpersonal communications" based on the subjective study of language, communication and change. Borrowed from a range of disciplines, NLP's theoretical foundations includes psychology, linguistics, cognitive science and occupational therapy.

However, NLP's application has not been limited to psychotherapy. Bandler & Grinder have suggested that these patterns of interpersonal communications can be applied generally. Taught through seminars, workshops, books and audio programmes, NLP is a loosely spread field and is resistant to a single, comprehensive definition.

NLP assumes that our perception of our world is already filtered by biology and beliefs, which form our 'map' of reality. Further, our emotions, thoughts and behaviours are influenced by sensory-specific 'modalities'. These modalities are visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory or gustatory. NLP assumes that our individually preferred modality affects our consciousness, which influences how we learn and how we relate to others.

We show others our modalities by unconscious choice of words, sensory-specific predicates (eg use of verbs and adjectives from a particular modality) and non-verbal cues (such as intonation, gestures, posture, facial expressions and eye movements).

In addition, our primary learning style is from one of four groups; kinaesthetic (doing), auditory (listening), visual (seeing) and auditory digital (thinking/computing). By identifying which way we absorb and retain information best, we can make the most of any training we undertake.

NLP aims to be a tool which increases an individual's behavioural choice. In theory, through answering specifying questions, we can determine which modality we operate in so we can:

• Clarify the intended message in communication by recovering what has been left out and by reframing faulty thinking when the communication is distorted or over-generalised
• Alter sensory-specific sub-modalities (eg brightness, size or location of visual or sensory memories) to affect the intensity of mental states and affect changes in behaviour
• Help people anchor new and more resourceful mind-body states (eg creativity, confidence, etc), rehearsing them to make them available so a person can act differently in future

By matching predicates and mirroring non-verbal cues with people we are communicating with, we can build a better rapport, develop more influence and communicate more clearly.

There is no evidence-based research that supports the assumptions or concepts of NLP. Research literature reviews have also found little empirical support for NLP, in particular claims that matching sensory predicates improves rapport and influence.

Having attended a weekend NLP course recently, I have come away somewhat ambivalent about the usefulness of NLP. While understanding our own preferred learning style does indeed assist us to learn more efficiently, I am not comfortable with consciously matching predicates, language and non-verbal cues. It feels a bit slimy, contrived and manipulative; rather car salesey.

The natural matching of language and non-verbal cues we tend to do quite naturally when we meet people, if we want to get on with them. If we want to break down established rapport, I am sure that we are all well aware of how quickly we can change posture, intonation and response times to convey boredom or how cool we are from when we were once teenagers! This is completely common knowledge and common sense, so glorifying this as new-found NLP wisdom feels like the cheat that it is.

I also found the NLP terms, concepts and models quite difficult to come to grips with as the developers have used analogies to illustrate their models and NLP trainers tend to rely on teaching through intuition, anecdotes and personal experience. There is also a lot of semantic arsing about such as "The Map is not the Territory" which I still couldn't get to the bottom of even after an entire weekend.

I am a member of the "If I can't define it, then it is not real" school. If the trainer can't define what a concept is, how can they effectively teach it to me? Whether I can use NLP as a tool in my professional practice is less than questionable. At present I cannot see how I could apply NLP effectively as a tool.

All I can say is, try NLP and see if it suits you; but don't expect it to deliver anything.

Measuring Corporate Social Responsibility

Way beyond hardware recycling comes a way of green, called ‘social responsibility’. Used in triple bottom line reporting (a reporting format that socially responsible companies such as Hubbards Foods have adopted), social responsibility embraces more than lower power consumption and thoughtful design to ensure recyclability. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) includes responsibility to the organisation’s employees — providing them with decent salaries and benefits, as well as a good work environment and appropriate career guidance. There is also a responsibility to the wider community around the organisation, too, and to the other companies it works with.

CSR also links strongly with the sustainability theme of not plundering tomorrow’s resources to meet today’s needs. It is summed up well in ecological economist Herman Daly's statement “It is morally and economically wrong to treat the world as a business in liquidation”. 

Increasingly, people look for a CSR rating in the companies they deal with, partner with or invest in. They want details on just how that organisation demonstrates CSR. And it is at this point that we find that there is a problem.

The problem is that there are no clear reporting standards or measurements for corporate social responsibility. There are respected consultancies, but they have inconsistent methodologies. This makes it very, very difficult to benchmark one organisation against another.

One consultancy, for example, gave British American Tobacco (BAT) top marks on almost all the measures pertaining to its operations, but its methodology did not take into account the effect of the company’s product on the general population. Another agency, that does take account of the product’s effect, declined even to measure BAT’s social responsibility.

In the finance world, if Moodys credit rating agency gave a company an A+ rating, you can be sure that a Standard & Poors rating would not result in a D.

Charting and setting globally recognised standards for CSR will be a fascinating - and wide - field. It will be interesting to see who decides to take on the challenge.

 

Missing '.exe' File Extension Fix

Woody Leonhard of Woody's Office Watch (http://office-watch.com/) has just reported an unusual problem with Windows XP systems.

Despite being set up to show file name extensions, they adamantly refuse to show '.exe' file names; ie, of showing "setup.exe", these PCs just show "setup".

It is really important that executable file extensions should show, otherwise you could run a programme that you shouldn't run.

After a lengthy forensic IT investigation, Woody discovered that the missing .exe problem is a lingering symptom of a once-present Rungbu virus infection. PCs which had been infected with Rungbu at one point, then disinfected, still had the missing '.exe's.

To fix:

• start Regedit (click Start, Run, type regedit and press Enter)
• In the left pane, navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile.
• If you find an entry called NeverShowExt, right-click on it and delete it.
• Reboot your machine.

Now all your .exes will come home to roost :-)

TLAs for SMEs

Here are this newsletter's TLAs for you:

• CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility. Sustainability approach to business, not plundering tomorrow’s resources to meet today’s needs.

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

Tips, Short+Hot Keys

In this newsletter, we look at some more handy font changes:

• Excel, Frontpage, PowerPoint, Publisher, Word "Select the toolbar font type field" Ctrl & Shift & F
• Word "Change the selection to Symbol font" Ctrl & Shift & Q
• PowerPoint "Change the formatting of characters (Font command, Format menu)" Ctrl & T

Hot Linx

Check out this world clock for a surprising insight into just what is going on around the world at any second of any day at http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf

For a bit of topical political comment to go, check out http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/. The links down the right-hand side of the main page also provide some entertainment!

If you are about to travel and want to know the locale like the locals, get individuals' comments - the gen from those who live there - on all places global at http://www.platial.com/splash

If you want to know where the phrase and cartoon "Kilroy was here" comes from, go to Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilroy_was_here

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

read more "Newsletter Issue 137, September 2007"