Adobe Illustrator CS6 Part B

This is the 2nd installment in my blog post series on Adobe Illustrator CS6 based on some of what I learn doing the video training course by Infinite Skills in this software.When you start a new project you will normally click file/ new and a dialog box will come up. Among the options is the intended media of the work you are doing. This can be print or web or several other options. According to what is selected different options come up. If web is selected the resolution will normally be 72 dpi and the page will be 960 px by 560 px which is the standard for a web page. If you are printing it an option is bleed where if you want the picture to reach the very edge of the paper it will give it a slight overlap so you can cut it to size and often there will be a border you cut off. If you open a file with several drawings they are shown at the top of the workspace as tabs that you can scroll through by default. Double click on the hand tool and the drawing is made to fit the page. There is also a zoom button near the bottom of the page with various preset settings for the amount to zoom as well as fit to page. control+ increases the zoom and control- decreases the zoom. You can toggle the ruler on or off with control r and this is useful for placing components precisely. Grid and snap to grid are under the view menu and are also good for placing components precisely. If you want something to be an exact size or be put in an exact spot you can normally enter figures for that which then automatically get applied. Guides are placed in a layer within Illustrator unlike a lot of other programs. This means you can toggle the layer on and off and hide them if necessary. View/ outline displays the vector lines minus any colouring in which simplifies the picture, if you have to make any changes. View/ new view lets you name personalized views of the document and you will normally pan around and use zoom to do this. Object/ and one of the lock options will lock certain components like a layer. This prevents you accidently erasing something. Art boards are virtual in the sense you won't print them directly. They let you put something like a linked envelope, letter and drawing in the same file. Useful if they have to be co-ordinated, saving you from doing it all from scratch. 

Adobe Illustrator CS6 Part A

I've stopped doing my series on Salesforce.com but will return to that soon. In the meantime I am starting a series on Adobe Illustrator CS6 which is based on the Infinite Skills video training course I am doing at the moment on that program and I will write about what I learn from it. Illustrator was first put on the market in 1987 and was a program under a different name by a company called AX. It was eventually bought by Adobe and added to their arsenal of business software. One thing that has always been a feature of Illustrator and believe it or not it is even older than Photoshop but it is a vector based program. The current version integrates nicely with all the Adobe range and what vector based is drawings are stored as lines and drawing information. Photoshop stores images as pixels which means if you magnify an image it becomes pixellated or blurred. Illustrator doesn't have this program and was the first drawing software that didn't run like a CAD program and had this vector feature. If you click edit/ preferences/ general it takes you into the general settings which make the program work the way you want it to. There are other types of settings too. If you click type/ fonts it enables you to select a font and there is also a recent font button under that menu that simplifies finding a font you have recently used. On the control panel many of the buttons have pullouts where they open out with several buttons and there is a button you can click and drag it to drag all the buttons onto your workspace so they are constantly displayed. There is a panels button and the default one is essentials which mostly displays colors and brushes panels. Clicking on the this button and choosing one of the other names brings up other configurations of panels. You can drag these panels around the screen or workspace and there is a reset button that automatically returns them and returns it to the default. There is a kind of button near the top left that actually tells you what is selected and isn't a button. Generally according to what you click on the left in the control panel the buttons you can click on, on the right change. There is also a window button and under it are listed the taskbars which you can select or deselect as you need them. I will try and do this series daily.

Head Or Heart - Christina Perri

I am reviewing the music album Head Or Heart by Christina Perri which is a very good album. This is Christina's second album and was recently released following the release of her lead single Human. Christina came to prominence with the single Jar Of Hearts which was featured on the show So You Think You Can Dance on television in America. She signed a recording contract following that and the song was a huge hit both in America & around the world. She wrote a single for the Twilight: Breaking Dawn soundtrack, A Thousand Years which is her biggest selling hit to date. She taught herself to play guitar and also plays piano. She was born in Philadelphia in 1986 and initially went to California as an adult but felt she was too far away from her family. She moved to Florida and got married and got a job producing pop videos but that ended in divorce and she realized what she really wanted to do was sing. She is about to embark on a Head Or Heart tour to promote the album and I did look at the Wikipedia article on her which is worth a visit. Her first album was called Lovestruck and is also worth a listen. Her music is I would describe as easy listening and there is a little bit of pop, folk and country and western influences there I think. She reminds me of Sheryl Crow who was a bit more of a rock star but did do quite a lot of songs that could best be described as easy listening.

Destination Anywhere - Jon Bon Jovi

The album I am reviewing is Destination Anywhere by Jon Bonjovi which is an excellent album. This is my favourite album either by him or his group Bon Jovi. Probably their most famous album is Slippery When Wet and I would say their best single is This Ain't No Love Song. The best track on this album is Cold, Cold Heart and probably the most succesful single at least in Britain was Midnight In Chelsea and he was living in Chelsea, London at the time he wrote it. Bon Jovi were formed in 1983 and were huge in the late 80's. Jon had a acting role in the wartime drama U571 among other roles. This album came out in 1997 and there was a short promotional film made to promote the album. He has only done one other solo album which was the soundtrack to Young Guns 2: Blaze Of Glory. Emilio Estevez wanted to use the track Wanted Dead Or Alive for the film and instead ended up with a completely new soundtrack which also featured the single Blaze Of Glory. Jon is a major shareholder in the sports team Philadelphia Soul. He has done a lot of charity work is a well known roman catholic and supporter of the Democrat Party. He did a concert to raise money to help Hilary Clinton with her primary campaign debt. He also did a concert to help promote Democrat Presidential Candidate John Kerry. He is also a distant relative of Frank Sinatra. I did look at the Wikipedia article on Jon which I recommend.

Google Chromecast

The book I read to research this post was Unlock The Power Of Your Chromecast by Aaron Halbert which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. If you just need to do things like watch Netflix on your Chromecast you probably don't need but if you want to get the most out of it like using various apps and programs to add additional features or watch channels like Disney and Spotify which aren't officially supported this book is for you. The Google Chromecast is about $35 and is a tv streaming box a bit like the Roku or Apple TV. Unlike them it uses a wireless router and computer network to do the streaming. It works with a 3D signal uses the router mostly to do the processing which frees up the processors on your television, tablet or computer. Say if you are watching YouTube on it you haven't got to keep the app open to do that because it converts it into a TV signal leaving you to do other stuff on your computer. There are various services for the Chromecast mainly for different tv stations you can watch and some are kind of unofficial and will typically be a lower resolution than full HD. There is localhost which is free and cloud based and gives you up to 2GB to store media to play which isn't much space you have to pay for anything additional. There is a program called handbrake which you can probably search for in Google but that lets you convert from other formats into MP4 the compatible format and that is a free program. If there is no kind of signal going to the Chromecast it will merely display a screensaver. It will stream stuff to a tablet for you to watch. This book which when I downloaded was number 1 on the computing ebook chart on kindle at the time does tell you everything you could possibly want to know about the Chromecast and does a good job of explaining it. A final thing if you do presentations and have a large HDTV you can do your presentations streamed from a laptop via the device on the television and lets face it a Chromecast is lot more mobile than a projector. I did really enjoy reading this book.

Education, Education, Education & War - The Kaiser Chiefs

I am reviewing the alternative music album Education, Education, Education & War by The Kaiser Chiefs which is an excellent album. The Kaiser Chiefs were formed in 2000 in Leeds, England and are an alternative music band. This album was a recent number 1 in Britain. The title comes from a comment ex prime minister of Britain, Tony Blair that there were 3 things that mattered to his government, Education, Education & Education. Of course Tony Blair also led Britain into various wars. There best track on the album is Cannons which I am sure will be a successful single. The Kaiser Chiefs are more of an album band than a singles group although they did have a number 1 single with Ruby, & I Predict A Riot was a huge hit. They are influenced by rock and punk mostly. At one stage they were bigger abroad than in Britain. When they did become successful in Britain they won 3 Brit Awards including Best Group. There drummer left the group and was replaced in 2012 and this was the first album featuring the replacement. I must admit I don't normally follow this groups music but was pleasantly surprised by this album.

Beyond Belief

The book I read to research this post was Beyond Belief which is a very good book which I bought from a car boot sale. This book is about strange phenomenon from yeti's and almas to the legendary island of Mu to alien beings visiting the Earth. Almas are similar to the yeti but are more like prehistoric man although are covered in hair and live in the Caucasasus Mountains in the Russian republics. Mu is a legendary island that was in the Pacific and was similar to Atlantis in that they were an advanced race that died out in a cataclysmic event and gradually disappeared under the ocean. There was also reputed to be a land of Lemuria but the documents to this land that was meant to be in the Indian Ocean were mistranslated and reputedly were about astrology. Nevertheless some influential people like the psychic Madame Blavatsky have argued it existed and have even written books about. There seems less evidence for the existence of Lemuria than either Mu or Atlantis. An interesting phenomenon in the book is USO's which are unidentified submarine objects and some of these can fly as well as go underwater. Quite a lot of government agencies around are interested in this phenomenon and take it quite seriously. People have seen craft travelling at high speed just under the water and producing a wave as it goes. Many of these are people like sailors and are unable to identify these craft and some people have seen strange alien creatures coming out of these craft. There have also been occasions where people have seen UFO's land and been attacked by the beings. One person even died the next day. I did really enjoy this book which is written by a team of writers and an editor. It presents a lot of unusual phenomenon a lot of people haven't heard of. 

Free Software

The book I read to research this post is The 2014 Guide To Free PC Software by Norman William Jordan which is an excellent book which I bought at kindle. This book is written by a computer engineer and software salesperson who has quite an interest in free software. He has turned his passion into a book. The book does more than tell you about free software. It also tells you about some of the tricks supposedly free software does to relieve you of your cash. Tricks like software that supposedly cleans your registry and then charges you to fix it. On computers since Windows XP the registry generally doesn't need cleaning and you definitely shouldn't the software mess about with it. This kind of software invariably finds errors whether they exist or not and it's all about exploiting you. Another trick is piling spyware and cookies on your computer as part of the software package. If it just tracks you on one website and stores your password for that site to save you having to enter it that maybe okay. What's more of a problem is when it tracks you around the internet and tries to put adverts on your computer and sends information about your computer to an unknown source. These kinds of cookies generally don't capture your credit card number but are something to be concerned about. There is over a 150 programs featured in the book divided into categories and I'll mention some of the ones that caught my eye. One is DVDShrink that copies and does back up copies of retail dvds. It will copy either the main feature or the entire disc and literally shrinks the file size to fit a 4.7GB dvdr. It's apparently quite easy to use. Another one is Exact Audio Copy that copies and rips audio cds and has error correction built in if there are problems with the state of the disc. Finally there is OpenOffice.Org  and if you want something a bit different in free office software try Libre office. OpenOffice.Org compares favorably with commercial software like Microsoft Office and has practically all the same capabilities. I really enjoyed this book and will definitely try some of the software mentioned. You can normally enter the name of the software in Google and it should take you to the site to download it. One site they recommend for free software in general is http://filehippo.com. I think this is a great book.

Home - Kian Egan

I am reviewing the album Home by Kian Egan which is a very good album. Kian is from Sligo in Ireland and was a member of pop boyband Westlife but now has gone solo. With this album he has gone more for a kind of folky sound. The title track Home is a cover version and was also his first single release from the album. He has been a judge on The Voice Of Ireland and there was controversy when the contestant he threw his lot in with was in the final but from Northern Ireland but the downloads which counted as votes were only being counted in the Republic Of Ireland which put them at a disadvantage. He was also the host on a revamped Surprise Surprise. He has also starred in a surfing programme due to be screened on Sky TV. He is married to the pop star Jodi Alpert and they have fairly recently had a baby. He is also famous for winning I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here in 2013. He opted not to be a presenter at the World Cup after Thierry Henry put Ireland out of the World Cup for France with a hand ball that resulted in a goal but shouldn't have. I did look at the Wikipedia article on Kian which is worth a visit. In Britain Westlife had more number one's than any artists apart from Elvis Presley & The Beatles.

Records Management

The book I read to research this post was Records Management For Dummies which is a very good book which I read at http://safaribooksonline.com. This is quite an interesting subject and vital to any business and the book does cover it admirably. The responsibly for collating records shouldn't be dumped on one individual but rather each department with in a company should share the responsible. It helps if someone in each department sorts through the documents and sorts them according to category. Some records like the minutes of the board of directors meeting should be stored indefinitely. Legally certain documents have to be stored for minimum periods of time as set out in statute books. In addition emails have to be stored albet electronically in case of any legal queries according to the Sarbanne-Oxley in America. Of course in Britain there are similar laws. One thing worth considering for long term electronic storage is Glacier the cloud storage service from Amazon Web Services where stuff is stored in bulk and for long term use but it has a slow access time. Another option is enterprise content management or document management software which can store stuff locally and an example of the former is Sharepoint which can search through a company intranet for requested information. There is also heavy duty databases like SQL Server or Windows Azure & for data mining SAS & SASS with the latter 2 services also being able to process data mined from Social Media sites. Things like hard drives have to be destroyed responsibility with no chance of the data being recoverable. A good organization for this is NAID or national association for information destruction at http://naid.org. Often at least some information will have to be stored on paper in file cabinets the preferred method is alphabetically but some number the document and store them numerically because it is simpler. You can also store stuff onsite with a RAID system which stores stuff on multiple hard drives including parity information in case a hard drive fails. I did really enjoy this book and it is a useful subject to know about after all especially if you are a manager you never know if your boss is going to give you this responsibility and this book does explain in an easy to understand way.

Salesforce.com Part B

This is the second installment in my blog post series on Salesforce.com which is based on what I learn doing the video training course by Pearson IT Certification on this software. Salesforce.com is a cloud based service and the entry level package, contact manager priced at $5 per month is cheapest edition. The features are very basic and mostly non configurable although it does include chatter. Most customers use the more heavy duty versions which are priced accordingly. Group is priced at $25 and like contact manager is for upto 5 users. The other editions allow unlimited users. Performance the top edition is priced at $300 per month. There are also feature licences which you can purchase separately to editions and are for employees who don't need all the capabilities that an edition brings. For example some might only need the knowledge base for research or chatter to stay in touch. If you need details about what you have purchased simply click set up/ check out and it gives you details. There are 2 types of storage with in Salesforce.com data space which is things like contacts details and file space which is typically things like documents and spreadsheets etc. Typical amounts of storage depend on the edition purchased but are usually around 5-11 GB per user. If you click company profile/ fiscal year you can coordinate the end of the year to set things like tax etc. Reports are often timed according to this. If you click holidays/ new it will set holidays. You can also coordinate if you have reduced opening hours during holidays or have different staff who only work during holidays. If you click manage users/ users/ edit and then uncheck the various check boxes you can deactivate a user. In practice you will often replace a user rather than simply deactivate him. It's impossible to delete a user with in Salesforce.com because you would lose all that persons work if that happened. To add a new user simply click manage users/ users/ new user and fill out the various fields. Note the ones with a red mark are required fields and must be filled in. 

Salesforce.com Part A

This is the first installment in a blog post series on Salesforce.com which is based on what I learn on the video training course by Pearson IT Certification. Salesforce.com is a customer relationship management software in cloud computing which is used by many business professionals not just salespeople. It is used primarily to keep in touch but also has things like a calendar which can be used for things like appointments or tracking projects. In your personal website on Salesforce.com on the left is the 10 most recently opened items. There is a recycle bin which functions similar to the one in Sharepoint in that you can undelete stuff or empty the recycle bin. You can configure the dashboard however you want. To configure it choose the template you want to base it on and select with a tick the components. You then click save and click home to display it. You can look at other workers calendars. In my tasks you can search for tasks using criteria in the drop down box on the right of the screen. The customize my tabs button lets you add components. You may find your browser won't display all of them and may have to scroll through them with them with the + button. There is an app drop down menu on the right of the screen. You can get more apps with the app exchange button. You can have different components visible to different people. You can use filters to find and delete records etc. When you select criteria in the accounts drop down box you must click to make and many people are caught out by this and can't understand why it won't work.

Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Part B

This is the concluding installment to my short blog post series on Microsoft Lync Server 2013 which is based on what I learn on the video training course by CompuWorks on this software. You can have multiple devices ie webcam, microphone etc configured with in Lync Server and choose with in the settings what you use. You can also adjust things like the volume of the ringer and the volume of the caller's voice etc with in this. You can switch from one means of communication to another quite easily merely select the other medium during the call and this is useful if you have to send a file etc. In Lync you can go to a website and click on a phone number like where they have contact information even one that has letters in the number and it will automatically ask if you wish to call that number. In a video call it uses picture with in a picture technology, mostly a picture of you with in the picture of the person you are speaking to. You can include more than 2 people in a video call and it goes from one person's picture to another as each person speaks. Lync classifies missed calls the same as missed IM messages and they are displayed together. It displays the number of messages next to the icon and the number disappears once you listen to it. Voicemail is amazingly configurable and you can apply specific personalized recorded greetings to things like someone phoning from a certain number. There is also an automated greeting you can use. The simplest way to start a meeting is simply click the menu button, then meet now to start the online meeting then select the people who are joining it. There are also settings for more important meetings, things like who is the presenter, and who has permission to review the powerpoint slides prior to the meeting. These have to be configured quite often prior to meetings. Also next to each phone record or email message it tells you that person's status, useful if you need to get in touch with that person. I may try and review a book on Lync as this series is only an introduction and I would like to learn more about it.

Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Part A

This is the first installment in a brief series of blog posts on Microsoft Lync Server 2013 which is based on what I learn on the introductory video training course by CompuWorks on this software. This software which integrates with many of the Microsoft products in particular Exchange Server & Office is all about communication. It works with IM or instant messenging, telephony, email, video chat among others that comprise unified communication in general. You have a status for you to give updates. There is the option of preset status's you can select ie in a meeting or busy. To a certain extent these status updates can be automated ie if away from the computer it will automatically send out busy or will automatically check the calendar to see what you are doing and update accordingly. There is a virtual phone dialler in this program and if you type part of a person's name or number, auto complete will do the rest. Contacts are kept in groups to make it easier to find them. There is typically several of these groups and if you right click groups, click create new group and name it you can create a new one. You can have call forwarding with telephone calls and even have it ring 2 numbers simultaneously to make sure you are able to answer it. If you hover over the contacts icon or photo a menu comes including various options to contact them, ie email or IM etc. You can right click the icon and choose always on top which keeps the communication window visible regardless what work you are doing. When finished you can deselect it to turn this feature off. You are able to share files and format text. It also has emoticons to enhance your message. It can integrate with Powerpoint to show a presentation and you can teleconference so several of you have a similar screen. With teleconferencing more than 2 can be in contact at the same time. You also have a virtual whiteboard within the program for drawing and sharing illustrations. I did stop doing the video training course on Administering Sharepoint as it was too difficult but am enjoying this course and sadly there is only 2 installments to this course.

The Power Of Love - Sam Bailey

I am reviewing the album The Power Of Love by Sam Bailey which is a very good album. Sam won the X Factor last year and was the first winner to have the Christmas number one in Britain in several years. The single was a cover of Skyscraper originally done by Demi Lovato. This album was the fastest selling album of the year in Britain & beat Pharrell's new album to number one. She is due to release another single from the album soon. My favourite track on the album is the title track which is beautifully done and was originally a big hit for Jennifer Rush & later Celine Dion. Prior to going on the X Factor Sam was a prison officer at HMP Gartree and the newspapers nicknamed her Screwbo. In the prisons they call prison officers screws and also a previous contestant from a talent show Susan Boyle had been nicknamed Subo so it was an amalgamation of this. Also both contestants had similar voices being similar to operatic voices. Sam did work on a cruise liner as a singer for several years. She is 36 and married with 3 children. She did support Beyonce at Birmingham as part of Beyonce's tour. Apparently in the final vote on the X Factor she scored over 70% of the telephone vote. I think with the success of One Direction & Little Mix in America she has to be going to be successful outside Britain. I did look at the Wikipedia article which I recommend.

Flickr

The book I read to research this post was Flickr In 10 Minutes which is a very good book which I read at http://safaribooksonline.com. This book was written a few years ago so some of it might be dated. Flickr is a photo sharing site where people can upload photographs and videos. There are free and paid options. A free account lets you upload 100 MB of photos per month and 2 videos of less than 150 MB per video. A paid which in this book was $24.95 per year lets you upload unlimited photos, videos of less than 500 MB each and also some HD video. People can comment on each others photos and videos and in that sense it is like a social media site. Also Getty Images sometimes contact you and offer to sell your photos on a commision basis if they are really good. Yahoo purchased Flickr and it was rather controversial for some time that everyone on the site was made get a Yahoo ID. There is a software uploadr that you can download for your computer or digital device which will upload your photos to the site. Alternatively you can email them to your account or upload them directly on the website. You can upload them either individually or in bulk. You can also put tags on your photos and videos and can configure them to be seen by either just you, friends, contacts, flickr members or the public. It maybe an idea to limit who can comment. Like a social media you can have friends or followers and there are groups which normally follow a theme like a subject or location. With a free account you can display photos or videos in up to 10 groups and with a paid membership up to 60 groups. The photos and videos are grouped according to safe, moderate and restricted. Moderate is stuff that might offend certain and restricted is stuff that is quite explicit. In some geographical locations you can only search for certain like in Germany restricted content isn't available. Also if you are underage moderate and restricted content isn't available. If you don't label your content appropriately you risk being banned from the site. I did really enjoy reading this book and am very much tempted to join Flickr probably though using a free account. 

Sharepoint 2013 Administration Part B

This is the 2nd installment in my blog post series on administering Microsoft Sharepoint 2013 which is based on some of what I learn from the video training course by Infinite Skills on the subject. A lot of the things in administering Sharepoint can be done in the GUI program itself but often can be done quicker and with more configuration options in powershell. You normally have to make sure you are doing it within the administrators account. A tip is if you are listing for example 10 items in powershell use the 1..10 command to avoid having to list them item by item. Managed paths if used with the implicit option let you specify 1 site that has that URL and is often used with things like Mysites. The other option is wildcards which let you specify 1 main site and several subsites all using that URL. HTTP throttling which is enabled by default and is set to kick in when there are 5,000 users although you can configure both items, lets the program favor certain types of item over others in the event of the server being busy. An example is favoring a form someone has spent a lot of time filling in over someone generally browsing. Whether you need the number of users increased or decreased depends largely on how many the internet or intranet connection can handle. There is an auditors and administrators setting which by default is set at 20,000 and you might want to reduce this but this is normally set higher than the other option because they are deemed to be doing more important work. Another option which has a big impact is how many items or rows of a database are shown in one go. The default for items is 30 items and this can be configured by clicking the list tab /new view / add items and you configure what is displayed. You can have up to 5 public zones of URL's within Sharepoint and of course each can have subsites. To set a new URL select web application /extend and then a dialogue box is shown that you fill in. I'll try and do at least 1 extra post in this series today.

The Xbox Family

The book I read to research this post was My Xbox, Xbox 360, Kinect & Xbox Live which is a very good book which I read at http://safaribooksonline.com. This book doesn't give much coverage to the original Xbox & discourages you from buying one of the earlier versions of the Xbox 360 as it isn't compatible with the Kinect which more or less revolutionized the 360. The Kinect is a bit like the Wii in that there is a sensor that detects bodily movement that is incorporated into the game. If you have one of the earlier versions of the 360 the operating system has been updated in later models and if you want to take advantage of this you need to download the operating system from Xbox Live, burn it on a DVDR and then install it on your 360. Later models also had a wireless controller and to connect these to the console turn it on and press the Xbox button on the controller. With most 360 games there are lots of things like additional levels and characters you can download. Often you need a pass which you can buy for that specific game or group of games and that is valid for a set period. The Xbox Live Gold membership gives you cloud storage among other things which is useful because the hard drives on the 360's are of limited capacity. Another feature in Xbox Live is beacons where you can tell your friends in one go what game you are currently playing. You can also download music and video from Zune Marketplace. I did find this book really interesting and it contains lots of step by step guides to doing things. 

Sharepoint 2013 Administration Part A

This is the first installment in a blog post series about administering Microsoft Sharepoint 2013 based on what I learn from the video training course by Infinite Skills on this subject. The collection of servers that runs Sharepoint in conjunction with other software can vary enormously. For example you can run upto 5 instances of IIS or internet information server and don't forget many of these will be virtual servers run on different partitions but on the same hard drive and/or the same computer server. Sharepoint specifically runs sharepoint sites but these may only be part of a company website and in turn may contain sub sites and we call the whole of this a site collection. If you look in services on server it tells you what services are running and you can uncheck or check them to turn them on or off although you must choose the custom option first. A proxy server is a service that acts as a middleman between 2 services or programs that don't communicate directly with each other. Sharepoint as with generally the software it works with is 64 bit only and it works with Windows Server 2008 R2 & 2012, it also works with SQL Server 2008 R2 & 2012. Updated software will work with 2012 R2 of both these softwares. It doesn't support single label domain names and will normally have some kind of extension to the name. When you first connect to SQL Server or structured query language server the first thing you do is check your user name and password are correct and click connect. It will also have at least 4 system databases configured automatically by default but unlike earlier versions must be configured to work the idea being you have to harden it against things like viruses and make it secure. To do a simple install of Sharepoint you select install software prerequisites. This contains the additional software needed to work with Sharepoint. You have to install a program called splash separately. Then you install Sharepoint and if you do a complete installation it installs the full product but if you do a standalone installation it is the lesser express version. You need a password and a passphrase which has been a security feature since the 2010 version. The rest of the set up is pretty much automated although the computer will reboot several times. If you use the configuration wizard it will make the process easier but is apt to give the databases automatic but strange names with lots of numbers and this can cause confusion. Many users opt for the manual install where they can specify the names.

Sharepoint 2013 Part F

This is the last installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Sharepoint Server 2013 which is based on what I learn from the video training course by Infinite Skills on this software. Skydrive Pro synchronizes with Office and Sharepoint. It is separate to Skydrive which is a free online storage service that stores your personal files. Skydrive Pro basically takes your work offline so it hasn't got to be stored on your company server. In Sharepoint something you come across is permissions that limit what you can view and what you can change. There are 3 types of permissions, no access, read only and full access. You are normally given a profile or a group like admins or sales managers at work that limits what you can do. This profile defines this. You are the admin on your mysite and have full control of that. Sharepoint has 33 levels of groups or permissions. Permissions are applied in such a way that every file isn't individually checked. When something is added your permissions don't have to be reapplied. The person responsible for applying permissions is called a site collection administrator. By default if you can't access a file you need you can email the administrator for permission. People born between 1980 and 2000 and have grown up with social media are called millenials. There are many social media features in sharepoint sites including the ability to rate articles, like articles, average the ratings, show number of ratings given and can tag articles so others can search for them. You can recommend articles to colleagues. Tags are normally divided with in sharepoint with a semi colon and you use the comma key it is automatically changed to a semi colon. I will start a blog post series on Sharepoint Administration and will try and do the first post tonight.

Sharepoint 2013 Part E

This is the 5th installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Sharepoint Server 2013 which is based on what I learn on the video training course on this software by Infinite skills. In the document library you can either click upload file on the ribbon, select the file and click add or open the 2 programs side by side and drag and drop with the mouse to add files to sharepoint. There is next to each file a .... button called the ellipsis or open menu button that has various options including previewing the document without opening it. In image libraries there are thumbnails and slide options. Thumbnails are photos generally and appear smaller than the images in slides and allow you to preview images. They also tell you the filesize with any images which is often quite useful. Libraries can store and standardize slides so they can be updated and re used. You have to go into Powerpoint and export to Sharepoint and refresh Sharepoint when you are back in it. You can click share / publish slides / publish slides / share. This copies slides into a destination like Sharepoint. You can tick what slides you're using, click copy slides to presentation and that copies them to one place where you can do a presentation. There are lite versions of Office with in Sharepoint which is a new feature in this version but most people use the full versions. You can export work from Office into a Sharepoint folder they both share. Simply click the library tab/ connect to office with in Sharepoint on the ribbon. It takes a while to create the folder but it is then quite easy to transfer work. In a very similar location is connect to outlook which synchronizes the calendar app between the 2 programs. The next installment in this blog series will be the last but I'll try and do that later tonight.

Sharepoint 2013 Part D

This is the 4th installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Sharepoint 2013 which is based on what I learn doing the video training course by Infinite Skills on this software. There is a recycle bin with in Sharepoint that I did mention previously. It prevents content being deleted completely deleted accidently and works in a similar fashion to the one in Windows. The recycle bin can be found in site contents at the top of the page on the right where it says recycle bin. You click the item then restore selection. It restores it exactly to the exact point it was in originally. Wikis use double square brackets to denote links which helps avoid you having to edit HTML. You can create a new page with in a wiki simply create a link don't link it to anything and when you double click it a new page should open. By default you have a blog on your mysite with in the sharepoint site. Blogs are more one way than wikis. If using a blog be careful about expressing your opinion on something and make sure it is appropriate as many people have been sued or fired for saying the wrong thing. Many employees find they are quite happy using the wiki and don't need to do a job. Another feature with in Sharepoint is surveys but use them sparingly. You must have members permissions to participate in a survey. To participate you select your name from the list or type it exactly and click the select participant button which underlines it to show it has detected it. If you start doing a blog there is a default blog post and the menu for doing things like creating blog posts and managing posts is on the top right. Of course you either go into blog or whatever you have titled your blog to find this. Many people do articles in Microsoft Office and then copy and paste them into the Sharepoint site because they have the benefit of a spelling and grammar checker. You may also find from time to time you have to click refresh to update the page. 

Xero

The book I read to research this post was Xero For Dummies which is an excellent book which I read at http://safaribooksonline.com. Xero is a cloud based online accounting software. You have to pay a subscription and it connects to yours and your client's bank accounts. In this way it helps give you peace of mind about payment and sending out invoices. It makes the whole billing process more simple and you can tell quite simply how much you are owed and by whom. This program works in conjunction with skype so you can communicate and process client's requests. It is available in quite a few different countries and corresponding currencies. The currency you pay in must be the currency in that country.  This online software is simpler to use than more established accounting software like Sage & MYOB. You can migrate from software such as these and many of these companies have there own cloud version of their software. Accountants tend to specialize in a particular field such as tax accounting or management accounting and this kind of thing is supported by Xero. If you have an account in Britain you are expected to provide a sort code and account number and the specific financial information varies from country to country. The website for Xero is http://xero.com. In addition there are varies add ons for Xero to help you in your work. I think this is an interesting with lots of tutorials in the book about how to use the software. It does seem fairly easy to use and one particularly good feature is it will generate any of a wide range of reports which seem to cover most eventualities. I did really enjoy reading this book and think it deserves a wider readership. I think for most companies it is a godsend.

Hacking

The book I read to research this post was Hacking For Dummies 4th edition which is a very good book which I read at http://safaribooksonline.com. This book is primarily about ethical hacking which is checking computers and computer networks for vulnerabilities. Any computer won't be totally invulnerable to hacking but the trick is to make it so difficult and time consuming it's not worth it. With most computer networks hackers don't bother hacking the password with a password cracker program instead they resort to dumpster diving or social engineering. Dumpster is diving in the potential victim's trash to see what you can find. It's amazing what people don't shred. Social engineering normally takes the form of someone phoning the company helpdesk and pretending they are an employee who has lost his password or pretend they are the computer repair men, there to repair one of the servers. In many companies the helpdesk is situated a distance from the entrance enabling anyone to walk in at busy times unnoticed. A hacker will often use a packet sniffer like wireshark to look at the traffic going to and from your server prior to the attack. Wireshark is free but not as easy to use as some commercial programs. For the actual cracking the password a program like Cain And Able or John The Ripper are the 2 best known. An important point is employees should have the screensaver enabled to come on when the system is not being used and should require the password for the user to log back in. Interestingly 80% of security breaches come from employees and former employees. One nightmare for many companies is the number of digital cameras and smartphones brought onto company premises each capable of photographing anything on a computer screen. Most companies don't take this problem as seriously as they should. In the back of this book it lists loads of resources in connection with hacking even a phishing toolkit which I assume has dark motives. I really enjoyed this book and I think it's obvious it is an interesting subject. One final point is you might moan about the cost of securing your computer or network but if it gets breached the cost is likely to be much higher. That's especially true if you are a company or organization.

Sharepoint 2013 Part C

This is the third installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Sharepoint 2013 which is based on what I learn on the video training course by Infinite Skills on this software. A new feature in Sharepoint 2013 is that several people can work on a list at the same time with the others getting locked out and it becoming read only when someone had it open. You can recover accidently deleted items from the recycle bin with in Sharepoint and the default for something to be stored in the recycle bin is 30 days after which it's deleted automatically. This default can be changed. The data is stored in rows and columns and the latter function similar to columns in spreadsheets. Columns are also called fields or metadata. Once piece of data is called a record. You can configure alerts but not RSS feeds with the latter being you either subscribe or don't. RSS is primarily used with websites and blogs. Another new feature in 2013 is lists and libraries are referred to as apps. To create a new task make sure you are in tasks, click new tasks and fill in the task dialog box. You must use autocomplete to find a person doing a task, with the purpose being the program recognizes that person. You also must select a start date and due date on a calendar each once again allowing the program to recognize those dates. You can click the task link to read about a task within tasks and there is an edit item button to edit it. The list tab near the top of the screen contains RSS & alerts and alerts is also on the items tab allowing you to set these up. The feed from the RSS is normally displayed in Outlook. The back end of Sharepoint is literally a database and the front end is literally a website. If you go back into tasks you can sort in ascending or alphabetical order or in descending order which is the opposite. The option for this is a drop down box at the top of the column. Filtering which only displays items based on a criteria is done by ticking or unticking a box next to each record of a list. Sharepoint has a mobile view to display it on most tablets and mobile phones. Finally there is a gantt option to show tasks in relation to one another.

Microsoft Sharepoint 2013

The book I read to research this post was Microsoft Sharepoint 2013 Unleashed which is a very good book which I read at http://safaribooksonline.com. Although I'm currently doing a video training course I thought this book would supplement what I learn and was right because it goes into a lot of detail. A lot of the information even if you build sharepoint sites as part of your job you would probably never have to implement but it's handy as a reference. You can upgrade from Sharepoint 2010 but if you have an earlier version will have to upgrade to 2010 first. This of course means that most of the features on your sharepoint site should still work after the upgrade. There are 3 versions of sharepoint, foundation which is free and just has the core features. Standard which is ideal for the small business and Enterprise which is loaded with features and is for bigger concerns. Sharepoint integrates with the other Microsoft products like Office 2013, SQL Server 2012 & R2 2008, Windows 2008 R2 & 2012 Lync 2013 & Exchange Server 2013. It has limited support for programs like Office 2010 but most features will still run. There is a free download called Sharepoint Designer 2013 which is the successor to the old Front Page program but is very different. The first version of Sharepoint came out in 2003 and each subsequent version has been a substantial upgrade. A sharepoint site is about people collaborating online in projects and one feature is wikis that let you store different versions of your work so if it doesn't work out you can always roll back to an earlier version. I did really enjoy this book which is quite interesting and would recommend it.

Sharepoint 2013 Part B

This is the 2nd installment in my blog post series on Microsoft Sharepoint 2013 which is based on what I learn doing the video training course by Infinite Skills on this software. A sharepoint site will normally have sharepoint in its URL and may be a public site which is searchable in search engines or a private or intranet site only accessible on the business network. On your sharepoint homepage there is a back and forward buttons like in a browser. There is a name box containing your name and people don't generally use other people's accounts to get to a sharepoint site. There is a follow button with a star icon that you click to follow someone. Following is a similar thing to in Twitter where you are primarily following that persons updates. There is an edit button which of course edits that page. It has a ribbon in keeping in with the trend Microsoft have set with their Office products although the actual buttons are quite different. There are home and edit links buttons which I think are self explanatory. There is a menu that lists the main pages on the site and a site content button that lists every page. The ribbon varies according to what is set as the page or site you are in. An example is a calendar page might have a calendar tab and its buttons associated with it. There is a search box but especially if working for a large organization you need to be specific when searching and use things like the people filter. When you type a persons name auto complete helps you by listing possibilities. The language set for the site generally uses the default language set for the computer but you can set a second language. In profile you can change you photo by clicking change your photo. You can also adjust privacy settings for anything in your profile so either it is public or only you can see it. You can follow sites and documents in addition to people. In newsfeed there are status updates which let everyone who follows you know what you currently doing and saves a lot of repetition. Tasks which can be aggregated from a variety of sources including multiple sharepoint sites and is compatible with microsoft project are stored under my tasks. There are also settings where you can adjust things like how long you want a new task displayed as such & the default is 1 day.