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Dear Reader,
 Welcome
to the March edition of The Burning Issue. At
last Spring really seems to be just around the
corner. As I write
a host of golden daffodils are blowing in
the breeze outside my window.
This month I'll tell you about a
couple of cool companies
I've been working with, and give you advanced
notice of the release of
OpenOffice 2.00.
I've also got the chance to crow
over my achievement in getting my
TMB accreditation.
Well, I'm allowed to "stir
it and stump it and blow my own trumpet"
occasionally eh ?
Alison has popped in
two simple tips for all Microsoft Office users,
simple, but our experience in training users
tell us that these are the sort of thing you
like to learn, short, simple and applicable to
all applications.
I'll also look at the
Microsoft licensing
push. Increasingly Microsoft is asking us to
verify our licensing terms before downloading
updates or patches. What does this mean for the
average small business ?
Oh, and don't forget the clocks go
forward an hour next week-end. Back to
British Summertime again.
We'll be back next month with more
hints, tips and IT help. If there is a topic
you'd like us to cover in one of these
newsletters just let me know and I'll
incorporate it in the next Burning Issue.
There is an
archive of past
Burning Issues on our web-site with an
index to help you find past articles. If you've only
just subscribed you can catch up on old issues
there. Of course if you like this little
newsletter, tell your friends, send them to the
website or get them to
subscribe here.
If you don't like it, tell me. You can unsubscribe with
[UNSUBSCRIBE], or send me
an
email and I'll make sure you don't receive
another copy.
Stuart Box -
Email me your feedback
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Cool
Companies
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As a freelance IT consultant I
work with many different companies. I'd like to highlight two this month
that are particularly interesting, and do an an outstanding job. I've
worked closely with both these companies, and I've been impressed with
their ability, professionalism, and devotion to client satisfaction. If
you're looking to run a conference or do a survey these guys should be
high on your list.
 The
first is
Crystal Interactive. Crystal are a team of
specialist meeting and conference facilitators.
They
use their experience in combining collaborative technology with more
standard facilitation processes. Put
simply conference delegates can use wireless
laptops to interact with a speaker, give feedback, collaborate on tasks,
build and share information, and participate in
polls, votes and surveys.
If you're planning a conference or large team meeting,
and want something better than the one-way street of PowerPoint
presentations, get in touch with Crystal Interactive and get the most
out of your event.
 The
other company to mention is
The Survey Centre.
They are a research agency that work with their clients to
create and manage surveys and questionnaires that can be used for all
sorts of information gathering. They work with on-line postal or
telephone surveys, as well as focus groups and one-to-one meetings. Ray
and his team have great experience and understanding of how to conduct
surveys to get the information a company needs, not just produce a set
of pretty graphs. So if you want to find out what your Customers or
employees think of you or your products talk to the Survey Centre.
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OpenOffice 2 Beta release.
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A preview of the best
free alternative to Microsoft Office is
now available.
Regular readers will know
how highly I rate
OpenOffice, an OpenSource Office
application providing Word processing,
Spreadsheet and presentation software.
It's a remarkable system that provides
most of the facilities of Microsoft
Office, without the license fees and
upgrade costs.
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A new
version of OpenOffice, version 2 is due out this
summer, and a preview "Beta" release
has just been made available on the web.
The new version has a improved
user interface and a host of small enhancements
that make it easier to use and more compatible
with other office suites. The big news though is
that OpenOffice 2 now contains "base" a database
application that works with forms, reports,
queries, tables, views and relations. These can
be used to build database applications which are
then stored in a single file format allowing you
to handle your database the same way you would
other popular databases.
I'm very excited about this.
The enhancements make a good product better, and
"base" will allow small businesses to build any
sort of database, Customer, Contact, Stock,
Suppliers, whatever, with a license-fee-free
OpenSource application.
The beta release shouldn't be
used for any critical work or applications, as
there may still be some bugs to fix, but the
full version 2 release will be available in
early summer. Expect to hear a lot about this as
time goes on.
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Alison's tip of the month.
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A pair of
simple tips this month. Simple, but the feedback
from our training courses tells us these are the
sort of things you find useful.
Both of
these tips work for all Microsoft applications (and
OpenOffice - Stuart).
If you want
to copy something how do you do it? Well you can
go around the houses, select the item to copy,
then from to Menu click Edit, then Copy
(or CTRL+C), move to where you want
the item copied and from the Menu click Edit,
then Paste (or CTRL+V).
The easy
way is to simply select the item you
want to copy, then hold down the "Control" key,
(Usually bottom right of the keyboard, marked
"Ctrl") and drag the selected item where you
want it, and there it is, a simple one-key
method of copying anything!
Lost a
toolbar? You can control what toolbars you see
in any Microsoft application with the View Menu.
Just click View, Toolbars from the menu at the
top of the screen, and select the toolbars you
want to see, on with a tick next to them, or
toggle them off. Word 2003 has 20 different
toolbars! Just select the ones you want to see.
If you'd like Alison to help unlock the
secrets of any of the Microsoft
applications, or OpenOffice, for you or your company,
feel free to
contact her, or look at the course
details on our
website.
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Microsoft Licensing
 It
seems that Microsoft is having a push to ensure
that all PC's are running licensed copies of its
software. You may have noticed, if you
downloaded the
Microsoft Anti Spyware software
we told you about in January, you had the option
to "verify your operating system" by entering
the licence code again. Well now Microsoft says
that all Patch and Update downloads for Windows
2000 and XP will require entry of a valid
license code from this summer.
Microsoft have created a web-page to inform
users about its license policies, complete
with prickly cactus!
One fact not widely appreciated is
that pre-loaded or "OEM" software which comes
with a new machine is only licensed for that
machine, and cannot be taken off and used
elsewhere. To quote Microsoft "it lives and dies
with the original machine", you lose the licence
when you get rid of the machine. So if you have
a preloaded copy of Microsoft Office, and you
upgrade your PC, you need to buy a new copy of
Office for the new PC.
As can be imagined, some license
purchasers don't think much of this, which has
prompted
this satirical page, which would be funny,
if it wasn't all too real. Hmmm, maybe its time
to start thinking about
alternatives to Microsoft
?
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TMB
Accreditation Update
 Those
of you who've read this far will know that I've been
studying hard for my Technology Means Business (TMB)
accreditation (so that's where February went
- Alison). Well I'm pleased to say I've achieved the
required standard and am now officially a TBM
Qualified Adviser.
I value my TMB status, because
it's not an academic or technical qualification.
Rather it shows that I understand the small
business sector, and can help them make the most if I.T. with straightforward, practical advice.
There's lots of people out there who purport to give
I.T. advice, this can range from the well-meaning
amateurs to so-called "Consultants" who are actually
salesmen for proprietary software. Taking the wrong
advice can be disastrous for a small business.
With the TMB accreditation
businesses can be sure that the qualified I.T.
advisers are experienced knowledgeable people who
understand the particular issues of small
businesses, and who are able to provide I.T. advice
that can really help.
If you'd like to know more about
TMB you can
visit their website or
contact me.
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