10 Tips For Microsoft Word To Get Things Done Faster And More Efficient

Here are 10 tips and tricks for Microsoft Word that will help you get things done faster and more efficiently than ever before. I have created the animated GIFs with Word 2013 but the tricks will work just fine with older versions of Microsoft Office as well. Let's get started.
  1. Select Text Quickly
    You can triple-click anywhere within a paragraph to select the entire paragraph in Word. Or press the CTRL key and click anywhere within the sentence to select the entire sentence. You can also select rectangular blocks of text in a Word document, similar to the marquee tool in Photoshop, and apply formatting to the selected area. Hold down the ALT key and drag your mouse to select any rectangular area.
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  3. The Extended Clipboard
    Word has a useful "Spike" feature that you can use cut (move) text and images from multiple locations in a document and paste them all at once to a different location. To use Spike, select some text, images or other objects in your document and press CTRL+F3 to move that selection to the Spike. You can highlight and append more entries to the same Spike using the CTRL+F3 shortcut. Now press Ctrl+Shift+F3 to paste the content of the Spike anywhere in the document.
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  5. Move Around Faster
    If you are working on a lengthy Word document, you can press the Shift+F5 keyboard shortcut to cycle through the spots that you have edited most recently. Also, when you open an existing document inside Word, the same Shift+F5 shortcut will take you to the location that you were working on when the document was last closed.
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  7. Change the Sentence CASE
    Select some text in Word and press Shift+F3 to quickly change the case of the selection. It toggles between UPPERCASE, lowercase and Camel Case (first letter in capital) and should come handy if you've accidentally left the CAPS LOCK key on while typing.
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  9. Write Anywhere on a Page
    Did you know that you can use your Word document as a whiteboard and write your text anywhere on the page. Just double-click wherever you want to type your text and start writing.
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  11. Convert to Plain Text
    When you copy snippet from a web page into Word, all the styles and formatting are retained. There's however an easy way to remove the styling from any block of text in Word – just select the block and press Ctrl+Space Bar and the rich text will be transformed into plain text.
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  13. Move Text without Copy-Paste
    Most people use the Cut-Paste (Ctrl-x Ctrl-v) route to move text from one location to another within a Word document but there's an alternate way as well. Highlight any block of text, press F2 and then place the cursor at the spot where you wish to move that text. Press Enter and the selection will be moved.
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  15. Insert Unicode Characters
    If you know the Unicode code of a character, you can quickly add it to your document by typing the code followed by Alt+x. For instance, the code for Indian Rupee symbol is 20B9 – type 20B9, press Alt+x and the code will be replaced by the actual Rupee symbol.
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  17. Add Placeholder Text
    There's a Lorem Ipsum generator built inside Word to help you insert filler text anywhere inside the document. Type =rand(p,l) and press Enter to insert ‘p' number of paragraphs each having ‘l' lines. For instance, =rand(3,6) will generate 3 dummy paragraphs with 6 lines each.

    The other option is =lorem(p,l) that fills your Word document with pseudo-Latin text commonly used in web design projects.
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  19. Word's Hidden Calculator
    Your copy of Microsoft Word has a hidden calculator that can handle all the common arithmetic operations. You can write the Maths expression in your document, highlight it and press the Calculator button – the results of the calculation will be displayed in the status bar.
    Go to Word Options -> Quick Access Toolbar, switch to All Commands and add the Calculate Command to your Quick Access Toolbar.

Source: http://www.labnol.org/

Moving from Dropbox to Google Drive or SkyDrive

You have been using Dropbox all this while to store your files but are now planning to make the switch to another service like Google Drive or Dropbox. How do you take all your files along?

You can use mover to easily copy all your files from one cloud storage service to another, over the cloud.

Copy Files Between Dropbox, Google Drive & SkyDrive

Mover.io is an online service that helps you easily transfer files and folders from one cloud storage service to another. The service works on a freemium model – you can transfer up to 10 GB of data for free and then pay $1 per extra GB of transfer.

Mover has connectors for all popular cloud storage providers. You may copy files from your Google Drive to Dropbox, from SkyDrive to Box or even from your old Google account to the new one. They also support FTP allowing you to directly transfer files from Google Drive or Dropbox to your FTP server, over the cloud.

There are no restrictions on individual file size limits (except for SkyDrive) and you may transfer unlimited number of files. Mover creates a mirror copy of your folders on the destination service but if a folder on the source drive has too many files, you have an option to zip them all in a single file before the transfer.

The activity log (see next screenshot) in your Mover dashboard offers a near real-time view of ongoing transfers and the service also sends a detailed email notification when a transfer job has been processed.

Mover.io can also be configured as a backup service for your online accounts. Thus, if Google Drive is offline for maintenance, you’ll still be able to retrieve your important files through Dropbox or Amazon S3.

Otixo is another alternative to Mover though it is more of a unified manager for your various cloud storage accounts.

4 telecom Trends That Every Business Should Be Following

In this day in age, it is technology that stimulates our senses and gives us a feeling of innovation and creativity. In the world of telecom, innovation increases year-by-year.

Over the past 25 years, technology, especially in the world of telecom, has changed the way we work and play almost beyond recognition. We want, and expect, more powerful devices and applications to help us do things faster, better and with more ease.

But keeping up with technology trends can be overwhelming, and you may find yourself asking, "which technology trends are for me?"

The obvious answers are to determine your needs, read and research (we've helped you with that one, read below!), try it out (many companies offer free trials), and if you don't understand it, don't be afraid to ask questions.

Here's a list of some of today's trending topics in telecom and technology.

Telecom Trends

  1. IP services - More and more companies are moving away from TDM and switching to IP services, such as SIP. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) provides many benefits for businesses including lower calling costs and a large capacity to serve an entire organization regardless of its size.
  2. Mobile Device Management (MDM) - As the use of personal devices in the workforce increases, the need for businesses to incorporate mobile device management becomes a necessity in order to protect corporate information and reduce security risks. If you’re looking for a MDM vendor, here is a list of the 10 leading vendors in the market today, drawn from the leaders and visionaries in Gartner's 2013. Magic Quadrant for Mobile Device Management Software.
  3. Apps, apps and more apps - Chances are that you have a smartphone, a tablet or maybe even both. These devices have transformed the way we communicate, especially in businesses. Mobile apps prove to be especially useful in businesses because they can help manage day-to-day activities (schedule meetings, manage contacts, set reminders, money/account-managing, etc.). If you haven’t done so already check out these great apps: Brewster (personal address book), Contactually (contact management), Asana (plan, organize and stay in sync with your team), and Basecamp (project management). There is an app for almost anything nowadays!
  4. The Cloud - With today’s dynamic office environments, cloud services are proving to be a surefire way to reduce costs and streamline operations. So what does it mean exactly ‘to move to the cloud’?
For some, the cloud means a storage locker in the sky; a place to save documents, pictures and videos online so that they can be stored, accessed and even shared whenever and from where ever there is Internet connection.

Not only has this made our personal lives easier (we no longer need to e-mail documents to ourselves or burn a CD of vacation pictures for family and friends), but businesses are looking into cloud-based data storage in support of protection efforts such as replication, backup, archiving, and disaster recovery.

For others, the cloud serves as a way to provide cost effective and scalable voice and data services. Commonly known as hosted communications or business VoIP, voice is provided over an IP backbone (the cloud) – the PBX and service is fully managed offsite by the provider. Cloud-based phone service provides more robust functionality beginning with crisp, clear voice quality and an abundance of features not available with traditional phone service. Since the service is completely outsourced and the PBX does not reside at the customer’s premises, upgrades are automatically provided by the provider in the background so there aren't any costs to upgrade.

Source: blog.touchtone.net

Windows 8.1 RTM Downloads Leaked is Now Available

The original Windows 8.1 RTM ISO images created by Microsoft has been leaked by WZOR. Microsoft has earlier completed the development of Windows 8.1 RTM, and compiled the new version of OS at build number 8.1—9600.16384.130821-1623 on August 21st, 2013. Microsoft has also set the official general availability (GA) release date for Windows 8.1 to October 18, 2013.

Unlikely prior Windows releases, this round not even the ‘privileged’ MSDN and TechNet subscribers will get the software earlier than the mass, despite Microsoft has immediately delivered Windows 8.1 to OEMs, in an obvious attempt to prevent a leak. But here comes the leak for Windows 8.1 RTM. But note that Microsoft has released more QFE (Quick Fix Engineering) updates for Windows 8.1 before GA to fix issues that are discovered after RTM, and that’s explained the gap between between RTM and GA.

Windows 8.1 packs a few new features, such as a single integrated search for documents, apps, and the web; redesigned Windows Store; more default apps such as Reading List; updates apps such as Photos app with editing capability and Mail app; Skydrive as built-in cloud storage; Internet Explorer 11; boot to desktop instead of Start and etc.

For the Windows enthusiasts who can’t wait for the general availability date of Windows 8.1, various editions and languages of Windows 8.1 RTM in ISO images have been leaked, available for free download via BitTorrent network.

Here’s the hash checksum information for the US English version of Windows 8.1 RTM. Magnet links for the download is available at the forum, downloadable with your favorite BT client.

Windows 8.1 x86 English

File Name: Windows_8.1_EN-US_x86.ISO
Build: 6.3.9600.16384.WINBLUE_RTM.130821-1623
Size: 2,915,131,392 bytes
SHA-1: 802CFCD3A411D99C097EA7E747F0B6697F9BDAC4
MD5: 7DD36FEA0D004ACFEDBDB3A5521EF5FF

Windows 8.1 x64 English

File Name: Windows_8.1_EN-US_x64.ISO
Build: 6.3.9600.16384.WINBLUE_RTM.130821-1623
Size: 3,899,295,744 byte
SHA-1: BC2F7FF5C91C9F0F8676E39E703085C65072139B
MD5: F104B78019E86E74B149AE5E510F7BE9

Windows 8 Enterprise x86 English (Volume)

File Name: Windows_8.1_Ent_EN-US_Vl_x86.ISO
Build: 6.3.9600.16384.WINBLUE_RTM.130821-1623
Size: 2,828,421,120 byte
SHA-1: 87DBCDB8491DBEF1BBC14BE8AB599086789E143C
MD5: 405091EFE4D58947DB45A106B37DD064

Windows 8 Enterprise x64 English (Volume)

File Name: Windows_8.1_Ent_EN-US_Vl_x64.ISO
Build: 6.3.9600.16384.WINBLUE_RTM.130821-1623
Size: 3,798,214,656 byte
SHA-1: 8311958EDDEDD29E326ED91FDF025D39B88E0FC8
MD5: 2A9589AEEFDC4B94CD527476FA979EE5

Note that although you may previously purchase a legit Windows 8 product key, the product key is unlikely able to be used to install or upgrade to Windows 8.1. Hence you will need the following product key to initiate the install or upgrade,

Windows 8 Core: 334NH-RXG76-64THK-C7CKG-D3VPT
Windows 8 Professional: XHQ8N-C3MCJ-RQXB6-WCHYG-C9WKB

But these serials can’t be activated though. To activate the Windows 8.1, reenter the legitimate Windows 8 retail or OEM product key (Microsoft promises free upgrade for Windows 8 users, don’t they?) to activate the Windows 8.1. If you don’t want to go through the hassle of reactivating Windows 8.1, then it’s wise to wait for GA, that’s when new Windows 8.1 will be made available as a free update via the Windows store for the existing Windows 8 users. It’s especially true for people who hacktivate Windows 8 with Windows 8 ProWMC (Windows Media Center) upgrade key, where you need to spend more time to get the system activated. Those using MAK product key, or KMS is unable to activate for now as Windows 8.1 has updated its KMS mechanism.

source: http://www.mydigitallife.info

Twitter Modern App for Windows 8 Review

Twitter, the most popular microblogging service, has officially released a native Twitter app for Windows 8 Modern UI through the Windows Store.

Lack of apps, especially from the popular services and developers, is the Achilles heel for the popularity of Windows 8, especially for Windows RT which does not support running of desktop applications.

Thus, the arrival of Twitter client for Windows 8 and Windows RT proved to be a welcoming news for Microsoft, who even blogged about it.

According to Twitter, Twitter client for Windows 8 and Windows RT has the following specific Windows 8 features:

Snap view: Use another app alongside Twitter. Snap Twitter into the left or right side of the screen and then start using another app. You’ll be able to keep up with the conversations that are happening on Twitter while you watch a streaming video or read a news story. With snap view, you can adjust the size of the app to one-third, two-thirds or full screen.

Photos: Large and center. With an all-new landscape view, not only can you view a larger version of individual photos, but you can also swipe horizontally to view multiple photos in the Discover tab or a user’s profile. Tap a photo to view it in full screen, which showcases large photos in the center of the screen, or view the photo gallery from your favorite users.

Share charm: Tweet from any app, at any time. Simply swipe from the right edge of Windows 8 and then choose the Share charm to share content from any app, such as a photo or news article, to Twitter.

Search charm: Search when you’re inspired. Similar to the Share charm, the Search charm makes it easy to find an account or see Tweets using a certain hashtag. Just swipe from the right edge of Windows 8 from any app and select the Search charm.

Live Tiles and notifications: Don’t miss a beat. Keep up with what’s happening on Twitter using the Twitter Live Tiles and notifications, which show no matter which app you’re running.

Twitter has also prepared a video to introduce the Windows 8 Modern Twitter app, and how the app can be used.

Twitter for Windows 8 and Windows RT can be downloaded for free from Windows Store.
Source: My Digital Life