Home »
Home > Microsoft Office
A few months ago we asked will cloud computing change IT forever? Well businesses are heading for the clouds, Office 365 and Google Docs are two of the most popular cloud hosting solutions and as businesses look to take the strain off their in house IT systems, the cloud provides a popular alternative. Before switching to the cloud, make sure you are fully equipped with Microsoft Office Training.
The Most Important Cloud Hosting Strategies That You Must Know
If you intend to invest money in the “cloud,” it is fundamental to understand the essential strategies that can propel your business. However, learning different strategies is not going to help you get the best out of your actions. Therefore, if you are a prospective adopter you must examine different factors, which include licensing, scalability, standard support, service agreements, programming interfacing and so on. Even if you are considering all these aspects, this article concentrates on revealing a few long-term strategies that any cautious investor should think about.
Choosing the Right Strategy for You
Prior to completing a detailed analysis, which presents some fundamental rigors of different cloud strategies, you should be aware of the fact that the plans of various cloud providers can affect the cloud environment and any current strategies that you might choose. In order to comprehend everything better, this article details the strategies of four vendors which compete for dominance of the cloud. These vendors are Red Hat, Eucalyptus, VMware and Microsoft. The following gives a summary of the strategies offered by each vendor. Read the rest of "Cloud Hosting Strategies"
Read more
Posted by Guest Author in Microsoft Office on November 11th, 2011 | 1 Comment »
MS Project Training
Ok, so you’ve defined your project, setup all the tasks and resources but now you need to monitor the progress and check that everything is going to plan (or not as the case may be!!).
Microsoft Project offers you several ways of viewing the project, depending on the information you need to see, this is done via the ‘View’ menu. Here we look at how to access the different views.
To learn more about Views, and loads more in MS Project, why not attend our MS Project Training course here in Brighton, Sussex?
Different Ways of Viewing a Project
The VIEW tab on the Ribbon provides different ways of viewing a Project Plan.
A VIEW BAR also appears on the left hand side of the Gantt Chart, enabling you to change to different views.
Yet another way on the TASK TAB on the Ribbon, select the view from the Gantt Chart button.
Views are split into different types, either Task or Resource Views.
Useful Views
- Gantt – Main View used for reporting data on a timescale
- Calendar – Shows every task in the project on a day to day basis in a diary format
- Network Diagram – Shows the tasks as a Flow Chart
- Task Usage – Shows tasks with the list of resources working on them. Can be used to view working times and costs of tasks
- Resource Usage – Shows resources and the tasks they are working on. Can be used to view resource working times and availability.
- Resource Graph – Used to identify days when a resource is busy or over allocated
- Resource Sheet – Used to enter information about resources
- Tracking Gantt – Displays the original plan against the actual. Used for comparison and updating when running the project.
Available Tables
Many views are made up of tables. The Resource Sheet is a table, the Gantt Chart has a table. The table that is initially viewed in any view is the ENTRY table.
- To change a table, select the VIEW TAB on the Ribbon
- Select TABLES
- Choose from one of the nine tables
Useful Tables
- Cost – Shows a breakdown of cost – relative to task or resource
- Work – Shows a breakdown of work hours – relative to task or resource
- Entry – The initial data entered for a task or resource
- Summary – Shows work and cost together – relative to task or resource
- Variance – Shows variances between the original plan and the running plan
Note: The Default Table for the Gantt Chart is ENTRY. A quick way of switching tables is to right click in the square at the top left hand side of the current table.
Keystrokes for moving around Views & Tables
- CTRL+HOME – Goes to the top of a table
- CTRL + END – Goes to the bottom of a table
- ALT+HOME – Shows the Start Date on the Gantt Chart, or in any graphical view
- ALT+END – Shows the End Date on the Gantt Chart, or in any graphical view
Combination Views
More than one view may be shown in the screen at a time. For example you could have the Gantt Chart showing in the top part of the screen and the Resource Sheet in the bottom. Thus it is possible to see information about a Resource working on a task without having to switch between views. A split is created in the screen and the appropriate view displayed in the relative pane.
- Select the VIEW TAB from the RIBBON
- Select The DETAILS box from the SPLIT VIEW options
Initially a Task Form is display in the lower part of the screen. This can be changed in the drop down box to the right of Details
- To remove the Split, un-tick the Details Box
Read more
Posted by Alistair Wylie in Microsoft Office, Microsoft Project Training, PRINCE2 Training, Project management on June 17th, 2011 | No Comments »
by Esparta Palma from Flickr
Here I have put together a list of some of the most useful shortcuts you can use in Microsoft Office. Some you may already know and some you may never use, but they are essential if you want to save time and speed up your document writing when working in Microsoft Office.
.
If you would like further Microsoft Word Training, Microsoft Excel Training, Access Training or any other Microsoft Office Training then look no further than Silicon Beach Training in Brighton, Sussex.
.
.
.
He are some Basic Microsoft Office Document Shortcuts –
For a New Document – CTRL+N
To Open a Previously Saved Document – CTRL+O
To Print your Document/ Open the Print Settings – CTRL+P
To Save your Document – CTRL+S
To Close your Document – CTRL+W
.
For simple Text Adjustments to your Documents –
Cut the Highlighted text – CTRL+X
Copy the Highlighted text – CTRL+C
Paste the Highlighted text – CTRL+V
Select All the Text in the Document – CTRL+A
To Change the Highlighted Text to your set Normal Font Style – CTRL+SHIFT+N
To Change the Font – CTRL+D
To Insert a Hyperlink – CTRL+K
To make the Text Bold – CTRL+B
To make the Text Italic – CTRL+I
To Underline the Text – CTRL+U
To Justify the Paragraph – CTRL+J
To Left Align the Text – CTRL+L
To Right Align the Text – CTRL+R
To Centre the Text – CTRL+E
For those little Mistakes in your Document –
To check your Spelling and Grammar – F7
To use the Thesaurus – Shift+F7
To Find something in your Document – CTRL+F
To Undo – CTRL+Z
.
And if anything else goes wrong you can always use –
Help – F1
.
Quick Zoom
If you are using a computer with a mouse and it has a wheel, then you can quickly and easily zoom in and out of a document.
To Zoom In – CTRL + Scroll up
To Zoom Out – CTRL + Scroll Down
Read more
Posted by Andy Trainer in Excel Training, Microsoft Office on October 8th, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet application for Windows and Mac. Its features include powerful calculation tools and graphing capabilities. It has been the most widely used spreadsheet application since 1993.
Over the years Excel has become an integral part of the accounting functions of many businesses, but can used be anyone who needs to organise data or figures effectively. It provides an easy and effective way to format and manage data, giving the user the ability to create a chart or graph with ease. Understanding and being able to use Excel is now a basic necessity for many companies.
Excel can seem complicated and intimidating at first. The aim of the tutorial that follows is to guide you through the basics. You can follow each stage step by step, or dip in to particular sections to learn a specific tool.
For a really comprehensive coverage of Excel we’d recommend attending one of our instructor-led training courses which are delivered by experienced industry professionals.
The courses available include:
Read more
Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 1st, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Start off by opening up Excel 2007 by double clicking on the icon, either on your desktop or via the Programs list from the Start menu in the bottom left of your screen. All of this is covered in our Beginners Excel Course in Brighton, Sussex.
At the top of the Excel window is the title bar which will display the name of the workbook you are working on (Excel files are called Workbooks!). The default name for for a new Workbook is ” Book1″.
To the left of the Title Bar is the Quick Access Toolbar. This tool bar provides shortcuts to the most frequently selected tools. It looks like this:
If this is your first time using Excel then the bar will be set to its defaults: Save, Undo and Redo.
Undo will delete the action you have just taken and go back to what the situation was previously (useful if you make a mistake!)
Redo reverses the effects of pressing “undo” (if you decide it wasn’t a mistake after all!)
Save will initially prompt you to give your Workbook a name (something more exciting than Book 1!) and a location to save it in. After you’ve saved your Workbook for the first time, pressing “Save” again will save any updates you have made to the same file.
Located in the top left hand corner of the Excel Window is the Microsoft Office button. Click here to select from a variety of tasks from a drop-down menu including “Open”, “Save”, “Save As” etc… If you’ve worked with other Office product’s you’ll be familiar with these options.
In order to work well with Excel you have to give it the right instruction, and most of these are available on the ribbon. The ribbon is located below the Quick access toolbar across the top of the window. The ribbon is made up of lots of different tabs which display their corresponding command instructions when clicked. These tabs allow you to issue commands, access menus or access dialog boxes. There is also a “dialog box launcher” that, when clicked will offer additional commands that you may wish to use. Here is a picture of the Ribbon:
Excel Ribbon
Click image to view full size
Read more
Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 1st, 2009 | No Comments »
Microsoft Excel Workbooks are made up of Spreadsheets. A Spreadsheet is organised into rows and columns of cells. The columns lettered and the rows are numbered. These numbers and letters combine to give each cell an address (e.g A1). All of this is covered in our Beginners Excel Training Course in Brighton, Sussex.
The contents of each cell can be entered via the formula bar. This is divided into two parts: the left side of the formula bar shows the cell address, and the right side shows the information that the cell is holding. If you can’t see the formula bar, select the “view” tab in the top menu and click the formula button in the show/hide section.
You can also see the total, mean, maximum or minimum of any numbers or cells by highlighting them and looking at your status bar. This is located at the very bottom of your excel window. If you wish you can also change the information the status bar gives by right clicking on the status bar and choosing its options in the Customise Status Bar Menu.
Excel Status Bar
Read more
Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 1st, 2009 | No Comments »
The first thing that you will need to learn is how to move around a Spreadsheet. One way of doing this is to use the arrow keys on your keyboard to highlight a particular cell. The highlighted cell has a thicker black border than the others. Using the arrow keys you can move the selected cell up, down, left or right one cell at a time. You can also use the page up or page down keys to move a whole page at a time. All of this is covered in our Beginners Excel Course in Brighton, Sussex.
It’s easy to lose track of where you are in a spreadsheet – at any time you can hold the “Ctrl” key the “Home” keys together to return the selected cell to the top left of the sheet (cell A1). If you are new at this then it is worthwhile practicing this for a few minutes before continuing so as to get a better feel for moving around.
For a quick and easy way to locate a cell press the F5 key. This will open the “go to” box, where in you can enter the address of the cell that you want to go to, and be taken there immediately. Alternatively, you may find it easier to use the left part of the Formula bar at the top of your spreadsheet. Just type the address of the cell (e.g A1 or C4 etc…) and press enter
Read more
Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 1st, 2009 | No Comments »
In the last section we explored how to select one cell at a time, however there are times when you might want to select a group (or “range”) of cells together. All of this is covered in our Beginners Excel Training Course in Brighton, Sussex.
There are two ways to do this. The first is to simply press and hold the left mouse button and then drag the curser over the area which you which to highlight.
The second way is to highlight one cell (for example A1), and then press the F8 button on your keyboard. When you have done this the “Extend Selection” notification will appear on you status bar. Now select the last cell you which to highlight by clicking on it with your left mouse button and the computer will then highlight all the cells in between those two points. For instance if you click on A1 then E13 then all the cells between those two rows and columns will now be selected. Try it now!
In order to highlight more than one separate area at a time you can hold down “Ctrl” whilst using the dragging technique described earlier. Also if at anytime you want to completely clear your spreadsheet of all highlighted areas then press Esc.
Read more
Posted by Alistair Wylie in Excel Training on May 1st, 2009 | No Comments »
