5 ways to make your keyboard easier to use

I found this helpful set of keyboard tips and thought it would be useful to re-post it.  You can see the original post from Microsoft by clicking here.

How to use a keyboard might seem academic, but there’s more to typing than just tapping the keys. For most people, the keyboard is the primary computer input and control device—that’s why it’s important to leverage the features and shortcuts that keyboards offer. Read on for tips to maximize ease of use, comfort, and efficiency.

1. Get to know your keyboard

Whether your keyboard is just out of the box or it has seen years of use, it may have features you don’t know about. Take a moment to review the literature that came with your keyboard, visit the manufacturer’s product website, and familiarize yourself with the layout of the keys. Knowing your keyboard’s capabilities and limitations—and where to find time-saving keys—can make it easier to use and can even increase your productivity.

2. Customize keyboard settings

After you’re familiar with your keyboard, customizing just a few basic settings can further improve your efficiency and accuracy. For instance, you can adjust:

• The pause before a character starts repeating.

• The speed at which characters repeat, which can help you avoid typing errors.

• The rate at which the cursor blinks, which can enhance its visibility.

You can make these changes right now:

• Windows 7

• Windows Vista

• Windows XP

3. Take shortcuts

Even if you’re a genius with the mouse, keyboard shortcuts can still save you time. They’re called shortcuts for a reason—they reduce multiple clicks to a single combination of keys, like hitting a chord on a piano. They also economize hand and arm motion.

Using keyboard shortcuts for the things you do all the time, like saving or closing files, can make computing much easier and faster. So whether you want to work more easily and efficiently in Internet Explorer, streamline your Microsoft Office Home and Student 2010 experience, or key international characters into your emails, you’ll find scores of shortcuts to speed you on your way. The table below offers only a few common standard-keyboard shortcuts, many of which work across Office applications—from Outlook to Access, from Visio to PowerPoint, from Word to Excel. You can find a more complete list of built-in keyboard shortcuts for a particular application by searching in Help for keyboard shortcuts. You can even peruse this keyboard-shortcut lists:

• Windows 7

• Windows Vista

• Windows XP

4. Make it easier to press multiple keys

If pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del seems an acrobatic feat, you can set up Sticky Keys. The Sticky Keys feature lets you hit shortcut keys one at a time rather than all at once. You can even set Sticky Keys to make a noise so you know it’s working.

You can set up Sticky Keys:

• Windows 7

• Windows Vista

• Windows XP

(Tip: In Windows 7 and Windows Vista, Sticky Keys has a keyboard shortcut—press Shift five times in a row.)

5. Find a comfortable keyboard

Keyboards come in many shapes and sizes, and the Natural Ergonomic Keyboard your coworker swears by might feel downright awkward compared to the Comfort Curve 2000 you covet. Keyboards come in a variety of colors and key styles, too, not to mention with and without wires. And some keyboards are definitely louder than others. All Microsoft keyboards are carefully designed to balance form and function with comfort. Test drive a keyboard or two to find the right one for you.

Although using the right keyboard can really make a difference, ergonomics also play a key role when it comes to typing comfortably.

Tips for using your keyboard ergonomically

It is essential to use good ergonomic practices to help prevent or reduce soreness or injury to your wrists, hands, and arms. It is particularly important if you’re in front of your computer for long periods.

Here are some ergonomic tips for a safer, more comfortable computer session:

• Position your keyboard at elbow level, with your upper arms relaxed at your sides.

• Center your keyboard in front of you. If it has a numeric keypad, use the Spacebar as the centering point.

• While typing, use a light touch and keep your wrists straight.

• When you’re not typing, relax your arms and hands.

• Take a short break every 15 to 20 minutes.

• Type with your hands and wrists floating above the keyboard, so that you can use your whole arm to reach for distant keys instead of stretching your fingers.

• Avoid resting your palms or wrists on any surface while typing. If your keyboard has a palm rest, use it only during breaks from typing.

How you use the keyboard is up to you. But by taking the time to adjust a few settings and to follow the guidelines above, typing on it can become easier, faster, and even safer.

What can you do with dual monitors

I remember when I got my first dual monitor set up.  I’ve always been a mobile worker and so I was surprised when I found the 2nd monitor sitting in my cube.  Up to this point, the only people I’d seen with multiple monitors were the response center guys.  They’ve always had at least three monitors so that they can run a remote session on one screen and research and document issues on the others. 

I didn’t know what I’d use my 2nd monitor for.  But I got the hang of it.   Now a days,  I would be really limited without it.  I thought I’d detail how I use the extra real estate.

Microsoft Outlook is always available:

The email task and calendar views are key applications for me.  As I’m talking on the phone I’m constantly referring back to my calendar to schedule meetings and then checking my inbox to reference email.  With two screens I can eliminate the toggle between email and calendar.  I do this by right clicking the calendar tab and selecting open in a new window.  Outlook becomes much easier for me when I can spread it’s different views across two screens.

Research / Reference is a breeze:

I often use multiple resources to research a company or topic.  Again, the extra space gives me the ability to read  Webpage content on one screen, open a link to a reference page in a new window on the second screen, read that content and quickly switch my attention back to the previous page and continue reading.  It’s a huge de-hassle and time saver. 

I never need to find my soft / phone

I’ve blogged about my VIOP phone system before.  As I wrote in that posting, One of it’s most useful features is its softphone.   A softphone allows me to take calls on a wireless headset that’s connected to my computer.  I can be anywhere and take calls just like I was in the office.  Dual monitors allow me to have always-on access to the smart phone console. 

Editing documents is easier:

John Grover, Endsight’s VP of Client Strategy,  found a neat  trick that helps him to create Microsoft Word documents.  He inverted his 2nd monitor and configured the view so that he can see more vertical space on the document.  This saves him the time of scrolling down a page.

How to set up dual monitors:

I’ve included a link to an article I came across on how to set up dual monitors.  You can check it out by clicking here.

Dual monitors are just one example of the many ways hardware / software configurations can de-hassle the work day.  At Endsight, we’re constantly looking for things like this.  When we find a useful tip, we try to make sure we share it with our Outsourced IT clients.

Microsoft gives first look at touch-friendly Windows 8

I just got done watching the embedded video about the new Windows 8.  You can always make a demo look good, but I’m eager to get my hands on this and play around with it.

Technolog - Microsoft gives first look at touch-friendly Windows 8

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Microsoft Office vs Google Apps: Training is the Key

For years, small businesses only had one real choice for business productivity software: Microsoft Office. But that may change as web-based applications, delivered via the cloud, flood the market.

For many, Google Apps represents a viable alternative. However, before a firm chooses to shelve its investment in Microsoft Office there is a lot to consider.

To begin with, software packages evolve over time to accommodate the customer’s requirements. As a relatively young software solution, Google Apps is less complete than the more established Microsoft solution. It is extremely difficult for any company, even Google, to anticipate the real-world requirements for a full-featured solution right out of the gate.

The “completeness” of Google Apps may be less important because of the way its software is delivered. Google Apps is “cloud based”, allowing popular feature requests to be rapidly developed, tested and deployed without the end user having to upgrade his or her software. Once deployed, the new features just appear the next time the user logs in.

Microsoft Office has its benefits too. For example, it has been around for a very long time. A benefit best illustrated by a story I recently read in Network World about Microsoft Windows turning 25 years old. I am including a link to the full article here.

Network World also included a cool slideshow with screenshots of the different versions of Windows through years. To view the slideshow click here.

Just like Windows 7, Microsoft Office 2010 inherits all the lessons learned from the previous decades of end-user feedback, research and development. However, a large number of users do not use or need many of the more advanced features offered in Microsoft Office.

Regardless of whether your organization chooses to use Microsoft Office or Google Apps, end user training is a real key to success.

Google Apps is not a “Webified” version of Microsoft Office. It sorts and presents e-mail differently, key function buttons are positioned in different places and working within a web interface takes some getting used to.

Microsoft Office 2010 has made several user interface changes that will take some getting used to and many of the advanced features that can help business users become more productive need to be pointed out and configured. Once that is completed, end users need to be trained on how to utilize the new features.

As the technology changes and as we get more sophisticated as technology users the way we use our core productivity software will evolve. Firms that embrace this change and seek to apply it in creative ways will gain real-time savings. Time that can be refocused on finding new customers, making current customers happier and finding new ways to more efficiently operate the business.

We spend a lot of time analyzing our client’s productivity needs as part of our outsourced IT service. If you feel like it might be helpful to discuss your needs, click here and we can schedule some time to talk in person!

I am including a brief survey about productivity software. If you have the time, I hope you will complete it. We plan to publish the survey’s results in a future blog posting.

Make sense of your data with pivot tables

I’ve used Microsoft Excel for years as a way to analyze a sales pipeline or as a way to clean up customer lists. I’ve even used many of the rudimentary functions and calculation tools to help me total the cost of a marketing budget or to calculate percentages. But that has really been the extent of my use of this tool.

I don’t think I’m alone in this. In fact, I’d bet that most of us only use a small percentage of the features and capabilities available in this tool. But as Endsight’s outsourced IT businesses has grown, it has become more and more important for us to analyze our business data and use that analysis to help us make good business decisions based on what we know instead of what we feel.

For example, as a sales and marketing professional it’s important for me to know where our best new business leads are coming from. On the surface that seems like a pretty simple question, but the answer requires a detailed analysis of Endsight’s historical sales and marketing data. My traditional methods for sorting and filtering data were inadequate and so I set out to learn some of the more advanced features available in Microsoft Excel. The feature that really helped me with my specific issue was pivot tables.

Pivot tables allow me to organize long lists of incomprehensible data into a concise dashboard view. It took me a few hours to learn how to create a pivot table, but once I got it down I’m certain it literally saved me days of work.

I found a web video on YouTube that was really helpful in teaching me to create pivot tables. I’ve included the video in his posting. You can also link to it by clicking here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVa7PIDfi5A

If you have a difficult question that you need to answer and you suspect some key insight to the question might reside in your historical business data, A pivot table could be useful in helping you smoke the answer out. If you feel like you might benefit from a more intensive training on Microsoft Excel it might make sense to consider signing up for a training class.

Endsight does some simple end-user training but it does not do intensive, classroom-based training for advanced users. We do however work with some great partners that can provide that service. If you’d like an introduction, e-mail me at jclause@endsight.net and I’ll be happy to connect you.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Excel data analysis with pivot tables, charts and slicers (techblissonline.com)
• PowerPivot for Excel 2010 - The ultimate data analysis add-in (techblissonline.com)

Why I Love My VoIP System:

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a technology that allows an organization to converge its voice network with its data network. It is technology that’s been around for some time and, in fact, most of the small business owner’s that I speak with already have a VoIP network.

Image via Wikipedia

From an architectural standpoint, a VoIP phone system makes good sense: why build two networks if you only need one? But instead of spending a lot of time writing about all of the organizational benefits of VoIP technology, I am going to spend a little time describing three of the features that I personally find most valuable:

One Touch dialing:

I spend a tremendous amount of time talking with people on the telephone.  Before my company implemented a VoIP phone system I would sometimes have to dial the same person several times because I miss dialed the telephone number.  With our VoIP system, I can dial anyone in my CRM system by clicking a telephone icon next to the contact’s phone number.   One touch dialing saves me a lot of time and assures that I get the phone number right every time, assuming the telephone number is entered correctly into my CRM system.  (Data quality will probably be another topic for another blog posting at another time.)

Soft phone:

VoIP technology turns the phone system into a software application.  The handset that sits on my desk is far less like a telephone and far more like a computer.  The handset routes calls and accesses my voicemail just like an analog handset can.  But the VoIP handset can work from anywhere I have an Internet connection.  If I wanted to, I could simply unplug the VoIP handset and move to any desk in the office.

I frequently work away from the office and need a way of connecting to my VoIP system when I am not sitting at my desk. Carrying around a bulky office phone is inconvenient and not much of a solution. Instead of using a handset, I have a piece of software loaded on my laptop called a soft phone.  This software turns my laptop into a mobile office phone.  The soft phone application allows me to maintain an in-office presence from anywhere that I have an internet connection. I can then pair my laptop with any Bluetooth headset and I am able to make and receive calls from my work extension.

Voicemail routing:

You’d think that with anywhere any time access to the phone system a guy like me would never miss a phone call.  I only wish that were true!  I do spend a lot of my time on the telephone; however, I also spend a lot of my time meeting in person with people.  During these times, when I am not available to take telephone calls, the VoIP system will automatically route my caller to my voicemail. This is familiar to anyone who has used voicemail in the past. However, the VoIP voicemail system shines because after the voicemail has been left, the system converts the message to an audio file and forwards it to my e-mail in box.  I receive the email on my BlackBerry and am able to listen to the voicemail at my earliest convenience.

These benefits are just a few of many that I see on a daily basis.  VOIP phone systems are highly specialized software applications that require a great deal of expertise to deploy and utilize properly. Endsight partners with trustworthy phone system providers to meet this requirement for our clients.  If you are interested in looking into your options for phone systems, send me a quick note and I would be happy to help you find a good phone system and partner for you work with. You can email me at jclause@endsight.net

Awash in Data

My father worked in corporate America before everyone had a personal computer. Instead, my Dad had a tray on the left side of his desk that acted as his in box and a tray on the right that acted as his out box.

He traveled to Asia on multi week business trips and upon his return, he’d be greeted by a giant stack of memo’s, directives and other inter-office correspondence. His solution was to take the stack of paper from his in box and move it directly to the trash can. “If it’s important, they can call me,” he would say.

Dad’s approach to managing his data (paper) wasn’t glitzy or fancy, but it worked and I think it has some application in the digital world.

I’m pretty sure that if I deleted everything in my email store that was more than 6 months old, I’d probably never miss 99% of it. But I know to my core that 1% of that email data set is vital, and so the whole thing lingers on the mail server. That data is then replicated to Endsight’s off-site back up cloud and so now, this blob of mostly useless data exists in two places.

In his article entitled, “The big data addiction” Matt Prigg shares some of his insight into how this very issue is impacting organizations of all sizes today. In it Prigg says, “In a cruel twist of fate, our dependence on ever-expanding digital data has created a feedback loop that fuels its own growth. Within the past 10 years or so, we’ve grown more productive by using business technology. As a result, we’ve created even more massive mountains of data, and we rely upon those mountains to such a degree that we need to duplicate them – multiplying the problem again.”

In addition to email, Prigg is writing about business system data, file shares and a litany of other administrative and back up data sets. In a large organization, this data grows and duplicates at a much faster rate than in a small organization, but a small business isn’t immune to the problem.

I think that for most small businesses that data can be broken up into two parts, email and shared files. I recently contributed an article to the East Bay Chapter of the Association of Legal Administrators that highlights a few technologies that I think can be used to help manage email data without pressing the “delete” key. http://www.ebala.org/Topic.aspx?wiki_id=87#VendorArticle

For file shares, I think one of the prime culprits for expanding data is the fact that no one is really responsible for the files stored on the file share. For example, Endsight had a file on its sales and marketing drive called “2003 archive.” It hadn’t been opened since 2004. Every time I saw the file I thought to myself, “I should just right click & select delete.” But I didn’t create any of the files and so I couldn’t say for sure that someone wouldn’t go looking for a file housed in the archive.

I think the best solution for this problem is to create and publish a document retention policy. For an example of one click here: http://www.abanet.org/lpm/lpt/articles/sampledocretentionpolicy.pdf . This can help to eliminate any guess work and replace it with simple policy enforcement. You can even use technology to set rules and automate the document retention / purge process.

More and more of Endsight’s outsourced IT clients are encountering data store limit issues. We expect these issues to increase as firms move their on-premise computing systems to cloud computing.

To help our clients address this challenge, Endsight provides Planning Services: CIO/Sr. IT Management level consulting & strategy as part of our fixed fee, outsources IT approach.  If you’d like to talk in-person about your data situation click here to schedule an appointment.

Cloud Computing

There is a lot of noise about cloud computing. It’s fairly new and new is exciting. So what exactly is cloud computing? More importantly, why should a small business owner care?

The cloud is a metaphor used to describe the Internet. Cloud computing is building on that metaphor to describe using the Internet to deliver computing resources as a service. Broadly, cloud computing is the convergence of three technologies: server virtualization, utility computing and software as a service.

1. Virtualization allows software to be separated from physical hardware.This in-turn, allows a single physical server to become 10, 50 or even 100 virtual servers.
2. Utility / grid computing allows server capacity to be accessed across a grid of systems.This in-turn allows computing capacity to increase or decrease depending on user or resource demands.
3. Software as a service allows on-demand software applications via the Internet to be purchased on a predictable monthly subscription basis.

This convergence allows a provider to aggregate many computing resources and profitably deliver those resources as a service for a fixed monthly fee.

The resulting delivery model is highly efficient, but it’s not the key reason for a small business to consider cloud computing. The key reason is best illustrated by looking back a century ago to the emergence of the national electricity grid.

Originally, if a business needed electricity it would have to build and fund the generating capacity on its own. Boilers, turbines and transformers were expensive and so only the largest firms could afford the new technology. The emergence of the grid allowed everyone access to electricity on a subscription basis. All one had to do was plug in. No more expensive capital projects.

In the modern era, mostly because of its size, a small business is inherently forced to either pay for more computer resources than it needs or to suffer with systems that won’t quite do the job. It’s an unwinnable contest that does not balance out.

Cloud computing gives a small business the ability to finally balance that equation by allowing them to pay for only the specific IT resources, service and support they need. Small businesses no longer have to lay out huge amounts of capital for servers, software and staff to build and maintain IT resources such as corporate email, shared files and accounting applications. Instead, they can plug into a computing cloud and access only the resources they need on a fixed fee subscription basis.

As with any new technology, there are a lot of options and providers to consider working with. If cloud computing is an option for your business, moving an on-premise computer network to the cloud needs to be thoroughly planned. For more information about cloud computing click here.

In addition to operating a private computing cloud, Endsight manages more than 100 on-premise computer networks. If you’d like to discuss your current situation and determine the cloud’s applicability to you’re business click here to schedule an in-person meeting.

Top 3 PC problems you can fix yourself

Generally, we do not recommend that our clients spend their valuable time attempting to solve minor computer issues.  Endsight maintains a fully staffed response center whose sole purpose is to solve these problems for our clients.

That said, I can appreciate those of us that like to tinker with things.  Sometimes I just want to understand what the problem is and figure out how to fix it on my own.  It’s a total time waster, but sometimes I just can’t help myself. 

I found this article on the HP Small Business Website and decided to reprint it here.  For more related articles, click here. 

Small & Medium Business

Outlook is not bright

One reader is locked out of a brand-new copy of Microsoft Office. Will the folks in Redmond help him?

Microsoft wants its customers to believe that installing software is as simple as loading a disc into the CD drive and clicking okay.  Sometimes it’s that easy, and sometimes it’s not.  When it’s not that easy, what are customers supposed to do?

About Jason: