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The Burning Issue |
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Dear Reader,
Ugh! November "Dark
November brings the fog, should not do it to a dog."
Well, stay indoors and give your
PC a little care and
attention. This month we look at essential
jobs to do on your PC, make sure that Virus
checker is up to date!
I've been out and about training in
Project
Management, find out about some great new FREE
software here.
Alison's tip this month lets you configure Word
documents the way you want them, and finally we
look at Cadbury's use of Broadband for their
remote workers.
I've updated the
Archive of past
Burning Issues on our web-site with a better
index. 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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PC
housework
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The dark days of November are
good times for staying inside in the warm, and
doing some "PC Housework" checking and cleaning up
your PC.
I don't think I can over
emphasis the importance of running anti-virus
software on your PC and keeping it up to date. In
the past I've recommended
AVG as a free virus
checker. They have a new version available,
and support for version six ceases at the end of
the year, so it's a good time to upgrade. A virus
checker is an essential utility, make sure yours
is up to date and doing the right job there are lots of new Viruses out there.
As well as a virus checker
it's important to have a Firewall,
protecting your PC from unauthorised access over
the Internet. If you want to check your firewalls
performance go to
Shields up
from Gibson Research, and let it test your
system, you may be surprised.
Watch out for Spyware and Trojan
software. This is a growing problem, software that
buries itself in your PC, redirecting your
internet browser, generating Popup windows,
slowing down your machine, and generally causing
problems. Most Virus checkers don't detect Spyware
or Trojans, so you need to run other checking
programs. One of the easiest is the website
www.trojanscan.com from GFI that installs a
little checker program and runs it for you. If you
suspect you have got these problems
Microsoft have a useful page that can help.
Finally, once you're happy the
virus checker and firewall is up to date, and
you've no Trojan or Spyware programs, back-up your
system (you do do this regularly - right?), then
run a
disk defragmentation.
Make it a habit to do these
things regularly, check your virus update daily,
Trojans weekly, and Defrag monthly and you'll have
few problems with your PC, and it will will run
just as fast at the day you first got it.
If you've got problems, or just
want someone to do this for you then contact us,
we'll be happy to help.
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Project Management Lite
 I've
just finished teaching a Project Management course,
which, for a change, does not use Microsoft
Project, but the excellent
"Planner" from Imendio, and I'm very impressed.
Planner can best be described as
"MS-Project Lite", that is, it has all the
necessary Project Management tools, but without the
bloated "extra features" I've come to associate
with Microsoft. It does the usual GANTT charting,
copes with lead and lag time, fixed duration tasks,
and resources. It has a super export facility which
means that a project can be sent out as an HTML web
file so that others can view the plan without
needing the software.
Planner is "Open
Source" software and as such it is free
to use, with no license fees. The once "catch" is
that Planner only runs under
Linux, so you
Microsoft Windows users won't be able to use it.
But who knows, this may be the incentive you need
to change to Linux.
At Burningsuit we run a number of
Project Management courses, based on either MS
Project or Planner. We can also help you understand
the theory of Project Management, rather than
simply understand the software tools. We have years
of experience in Project Management and
Scheduling, contact us now
to find out how we can help you.
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Alison's tip of the month,
Work Word your way.
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Create a
new document in Microsoft Word and the blank page
that's displayed is actually a template file
called "normal.dot". This template carries the
settings so that each time you start a new
document you get the same page size, margins,
fonts, font sizes and so on.
It's likely
that before you begin typing a new document you
make some changes to these so that the new
document has the look and feel you want.
Rather than make these changes
over and over again you can configure the
normal.dot template to appear exactly as
you want is, saving all those changes each time
you start a new document.
In Microsoft Word click on
File > Open, and open normal.dot
in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Templates.
Make the changes to this file you want, such as
the font and size that is used, and the margins
and page orientation you want. When you've
finished use File > Save As to save the
file as normal2.dot, and close
Microsoft Word.
Use My Computer to locate
the file normal.dot in C:\Program
Files\Microsoft Office\Templates and check
that your new file normal2.dot
exists. Delete normal.dot and rename
normal2.dot to normal.dot.
Your new document template will
then have the font, size and margin settings that
you created, and each time you start a new
document the settings you requested will be ready.
If you'd like Alison to help unlock the
secrets of Word, Excel, or any other of the
products we train on, for you or your company,
feel free to
contact her, or look at the course
details on our
website.
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The sweet taste
of Broadband
According to an article in
Computing
confectionary and drinks giant Cadbury Schweppes is
providing 2,000 remote workers with broadband at
home, to improve productivity and cut costs.
Cadbury Schweppes European
communication services manager Chris Bond says it
was a natural step to extend the service into remote
workers' homes.
'The
main thing is the speed of throughput that the
broadband connection gives you. The difference
between downloading attachments via broadband or
dial-up couldn't be greater. And the option to work
from home has made our employees more effective -
it's as good as being in the office.'
'Before 2002 we
had a remote direct-dial solution, which we found
very expensive. But the biggest difference between
that and the current service is that costs weren't
centralised. This gives us fixed, predictable costs,
while allowing our remote workers to access central
applications,' he said.
So, what's good for Cadbury's,
must be good for you. If you don't have Broadband
yet, or you want to access the office system from
home, or for any aspect of IT enabled working
contact us at the
Burningsuit Consultancy.
Do you need
some I.T. Help?.
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I am now able
to take on more projects and increase my client
portfolio, so if you, or anyone you know, need an
experienced IT man, please don't hesitate to get
in touch. I'll be happy to discuss any
opportunity, large or small, or just chat about IT
in general.
As an example of the sort of
thing I do, here are some of the projects I've
worked on in the past.
·
Migration of 200 PC users from Windows to Mandrake
Linux and OpenOffice.
·
Appointed UK Online For Business Regional Champion
for the South East.
·
Installation, configuration and maintenance of
networks of PCs based around Linux, and Microsoft
Small Business Server 2003.
·
Specifying, selecting and installing a Customer
Relationship Management system for a large
Telecoms supplier
·
Installation of Wireless Networks and Wide Area
Networks using Virtual Private Networking and
Point-To-Point Tunnelling
·
Author of “The E-Business Know-How Guide”
Published by Wired Sussex
·
Project Management of a £100,000 project to
implement a new e-commerce web site for a business
support agency
·
Lecturing in E-Business at Brighton University
·
Running “Presentation skills”, and “Management
Development” courses for a wide range of clients
If you could use any of these
skills, or know someone else who does then please
contact me by email
mailto:stuart.box@burningsuit.co.uk or 'phone
01403 786740.
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