Windows 8 preview

• Windows 8: The highlight of this new version of Windows is the Metro user interface. Taking a cue from the clarity and readability of transportation signs, Metro is an aesthetic that is modern, clean, fast, and efficient, and it’s the way of the future for all Microsoft products.

• Windows on ARM: Microsoft is taking a plunge into the tablet market with this new operating system. Windows on ARM (or WOA for short) is a sleeker, faster, and more efficient version of Windows that is suitable for tablet hardware and touch interactivity. There is also speculation as to whether Office will come pre-loaded on ARM machines. Whatever they decide, you can bet that the final release will include a Windows app store that provides Office, and all other approved apps, for this device. (Note: ARM refers to the processor that would run this tablet-friendly version of Windows.)

• Office 15: Early screenshots show a very open and clean appearance for the new version of Office, but they  don’t give much indication as to how commands will be given. Some speculate that the Ribbon is gone. Whatever the final user interface is, it will probably be one that works well on desktops and touch screens.

When can you plan on seeing these products on shelves? These are still the early stages of development, and Microsoft has ambitious plans for rollout with updates across all Microsoft products including all Office programs, Windows, servers, Office 365, SharePoint, and more.  But look for more information as betas are released over the summer, with a possible release date before the end of the year, probably around October.

Here’s a quick tip that can make an immediate impact: use the Rule of Thirds to layout slides.  According to the rule of thirds, an image is most pleasing when it is organized along imaginary lines that divide the image into thirds. This rule is used by photographers to compose photos. Notice how points of interest appear at the intersections, and the horizon follows the top line.

You can set up guides in PowerPoint so you can follow this design tip in your own slides. Here’s how:

Click the View tab on the Ribbon and click the Guides check box in the Show group. By default the guides are arranged to the center of the slide. To rearrange them and divide the slide in thirds, just click and drag the guides. To add a guide, press and hold <Ctrl> as you click and drag.

Guides arranged at thirds on a slide in PowerPoint

A grid overlay appears on the slide, so that you can organize the slide into thirds. (The guides appear for all slides in the presentation.) For example, we’ve taken this slide, which doesn’t follow the rule of thirds, and then rearranged the items at focal points along the intersections of the lines, instead of just in the middle.

As you can see, simply rearranging the slide has made it much more interesting. And now you have the design tip you’ve been wanting for making your slides (and photos) better.

SOPA and PIPA (Protect IP Act) are both pieces of legislation that aim to stop the pirating of America’s intellectual property and copyrighted material, especially piracy originating from foreign “rogue” sites.  This is, of course, a noble cause; no one believes that stealing movies or music and selling them for profit is a good thing. But the language in the bills leaves a lot of room for interpretation that copyright trolls could use against American tech companies.

Here are three compelling arguments against SOPA and PIPA:

1. The law could threaten any Web-based company that includes user-supplied content.
   It’s nearly impossible for a site to monitor all the content users upload. If even a fraction of it infringes on copyright laws, the entire site could be shut down, amounting to censorship or blacklisting. Reddit, YouTube, Facebook, Google, Wikipedia; all of these are sites whose business could be threatened by these bills.
2. Small start-up tech companies wouldn’t survive in a SOPA-hostile environment.
   Established content-providers have the resources to stave off the constant claims of copyright infringement that could arise. Small upstarts, who need to spend resources on improving their technology instead of in courts, don’t.
3. The bills’ measure to cut off access to offending sites messes with online security protocols, exposing anyone who engages in e-commerce to additional security risk.
   Taking over the ability to block sites by their domains will literally break the Internet, putting the entire industry in jeopardy. It’s estimated that Hollywood loses about $446 million in profit due to piracy each year. The entire online industry is worth 3.8% of U.S. GDP (approximately $574 billion). We’re all for reigning in piracy, but it’s not worth breaking an Internet industry that is thriving in our recessed economy.

CustomGuide joins these companies in protesting SOPA. Upholding copyright law is important, but it’s not worth breaking the Internet. Let’s go back to the drawing board and make sure the language in these bills is right before they pass.

May the holiday season bring you peace and joy.

Best wishes in 2012!

You might ask, “Why are you providing training on devices that are so easy to use?” These devices are so simple and elegant, people assume they know everything after learning a few basic tasks and commands. But there is always more to know, and that is why we have training.

For example, sure, you’ve figured out how to download and use apps. But do you know how to organize, delete, and close them? And what about the device’s settings? Do you know what lies under those little gears? Would you know how to troubleshoot if your device froze up, or if you needed to restore it? And what if you don’t really know the basics? Having training to guide you through these skills is a great way to explore and really begin to own your device.

To learn more about our courseware, check out our pages for the iPhone and the iPod Touch.

Happy Thanksgiving!

1. The Ribbon
   Yes, it was widely panned. Yes, it seems bulky and cartoonish sometimes. But admit it; it’s not that bad. In fact, you even kind of like it because the layout makes it easier to find commands, and the screen tips are really useful. Time to ‘fess up: thanks for the change, Microsoft.
2. Conversations in Outlook
   Isn’t it great to see all the messages together in one place? And to be able to see messages you’ve sent in context of the others in your Inbox: priceless.
3. Cool graphics tools
   It’s true that working with graphics and images can still be dicey at times. That whole business with the drawing canvas is particularly irritating. But oh, the wonderful things you can do with images in your documents and slides. You can add some really nice borders, artistic filters, and fun effects like shadows that really do take things to the next level. Having the tools to make eye candy is a glorious thing.
4. Office for Mac
   Have your pumpkin pie and eat it too.
5. Excel
   Who doesn’t love Excel? Can you imagine a business world without it? Definitely something to be thankful for.

What would you add to the list? Let us know!

Enjoy your friends and family this weekend!

The CustomGuide development team living it up in Las Vegas!

Everyone had the opportunity to attend the concurrent sessions were full of great speakers that had excellent ideas on creating courses for mobile learning and HTML 5, designing courses that are engaging (and even entertaining), including social networks as a learning resource, as well as sessions for management, networking, and development. A few takeaways our team had from the concurrent sessions at the conference:

• Learning has always been a social activity, but social networks are a new way to learn: “Learning has always been considered a social thing, but social media is the tool that now helps broaden that learning.”
• Expectations for content are changing: “I think that as our industry gets more data on how people learn, or prefer to learn, it is changing to more free content with pay for accreditation model than a pay for content model, but I don’t buy that everything will be free in the future.”
• Content for mobile devices is becoming more prevalent: “I really enjoyed the sessions I attended about designing for mobile interfaces, and feel like I learned quite a bit about that.”
• Curating data is key: “The main thing that I took away was the amount of data that is uploaded to the Internet and the constant struggle to curate that data.”

There were also great keynote speakers. Here are a few keynote highlights for those who weren’t able to make it:

• Michio Kaku, renowned theoretical physicist and Science Channel host, spoke about a future full of new and exciting ways to access information and learning; imagine computers in your wallpaper, glasses, and even your clothes. Having computers everywhere will change the way we learn, work, and live.
• Tom Koulopoulos spoke about how the cloud is changing the way we access information and form communities. Think of the Internet as just the beginning; the primordial soup. The cloud is the complex organism that will come from it.
• Steven Rosenbaum spoke about the importance of curating information in the Information Age. Case in point: it took the human race to the year 2003 to produce an exabyte of information; now an exabyte of information is generated every day. Another statistic: If you watched every video that was uploaded onto YouTube in a single day, it would take you 8 years to watch all of them. With the abundance of data being generated, finding the most important and relevant pieces of data is essential.

The Expo was also very busy, thanks to the many clients and friends of CustomGuide that stopped by. We look forward to seeing you again next year!

We will be posting blogs next week throughout the conference, so check back next week for insights and information live from DevLearn.

Access AutoCorrect settings in Outlook 2010 by selecting File > Options > Mail, and click the Spelling and AutoCorrect button.

As you probably already know, Microsoft Office contains a useful tool called AutoCorrect that will automatically replace commonly misspelled words, such as “teh” or “recieve” with the correct spelling. Office allows you to add your own AutoCorrect entries, so if you always misspell “bureau” as “buerue”, you can add an AutoCorrect entry so the misspelling is automatically corrected whenever it is typed.

I noticed that for my e-mails, I tend to write the same words or phrases again and again and again, so it’s really a no-brainer to have “autocorrect shortcuts” to quickly write out as many as possible. For example, instead of typing out interactive assessment or interactive eLearning, I’ve entered custom autocorrect entries of “ia” and “ie “ which will then change the abbreviations with the entire words.

I have created and regularly use about over 200 autocorrect entries to increase my productivity. Here’s a partial list:

• cg: CustomGuide
• pp: PowerPoint
• tu: Thank you
• wi7: Windows 7
• dl: Download
• pod: Print on demand courseware
• o10: Office 2010
• pa: This customer needs assistance. Please assist right away.
• ra: Right away

Thus to come up with the following response:

“Thank you for your interest in CustomGuide’s computer training products. Our PowerPoint 2010 course is available as an interactive online course (best for self-paced) or as customizable print on demand courseware (best for instructor led training). Please let me know if you have any other questions.”

I use these autocorrect abbreviations:

“Ti in cg’s ct products. Our P10 course is av as an io course (best for sp) or as cz pod (best for ilt). Plq.”

You and your company, of course will have your own words and phrases that you’ll want to use in your AutoCorrect list. I’d recommend starting with a few long ones that you are sure to use again often (perhaps starting with one for your company name). One pitfall to avoid—be sure not to redefine abbreviations for actual abbreviations. For example, adding an AutoCorrect abbreviation for Windows Vista as “wv” might seem like a good idea, but you’ll have some annoyances as soon as you try writing a letter to someone in West Virginia.

No one goes into buying decisions thinking that they prefer crap over quality. They start out wanting to get the best product out there. Then they collect information and they see that this vendor is priced at this point, that vendor has that many titles, and so on. Unfortunately, quality isn’t a quantifiable number you can attach to a product. It requires time and effort to assess. But because no one has much time, decisions are often based solely on hard numbers, and the goal of getting the best training out there is forgotten. And thus, they end up with crap.

At CustomGuide, quality has always been our first concern. Instead of producing many titles at a lower quality, we produce fewer titles at a higher quality. We really want people to get something from their training. We want people to improve their skills and be better at their jobs. It has come at a price, having lost many sales to competitors for not having the quantity of titles that others do. But those who do choose CustomGuide us are those who have remembered to get the best training they can. They’re also the ones who, in the end, get the best return on their investment.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a way to quantify our quality as it compares to competitors. But we do have the word of our fans:

“I am a big fan of your brilliant Personal Trainer by CustomGuide books for the various Office 2003 programs. Unfortunately, I will not be able to use Office 2003 forever and now would like to learn the awful Office 2010 properly. To my very great regret, there are no Personal Trainer books for Office 2010 available and the Microsoft Step by Step guides are as bad as ever.
It is really a pity that people prefer crap over quality. I own Excel, PowerPoint, Word and Project and they are all in very poor condition because they are heavily used. My other not-so-few computer books are also in a very poor condition. That is because they were thrown against the wall, trampled upon and torn in parts by a frustrated reader (me). And that is exactly what most of them deserved.
CustomGuide has an excellent teaching methodology that enables the user to quickly get a very solid foundation of all practically important functionalities of the Office programs. What is not in there is of little relevance and can be looked up elsewhere when needed.
Like most people I have learned Office by doing with all the flaws that this approach has: inefficiency and not using 60% of the software’s potential. After having studied these guides, that changed completely because not only I was more productive but the software, now fully used, was much more productive too.”

We’re so glad to hear it, Jiri. Thanks for your feedback!