Training Opportunities

October

*To attend this lunch training, please RSVP Londa  for space and lunch at

         londa.posvistak@smes.org        

Reminder: Technology Requests for the 2005-2006 Year

The Technology Department is currently planning for next year and needs your help. This is the time to make your technology wants/needs known. If you have a particular technology request for next year, please use the link below and fill out the online form. The Technology Department will carefully consider each request and attempt to fulfill as many requests as possible within budgetary constraints. Don't procrastinate, September may be too late!

http://www.smes.org/technology/request2005.asp                 

Tech Tips: Preview Panels

If you don't already use the preview panel in Outlook, you may be missing out on a real timesaver. Preview panels allow you the ability to see the contents of an email without having to click and open it.

To activate the feature you need the View menu, Preview Pane choice. The bottom portion of your program window becomes a separate pane where you can scroll through the email without actually doing the extra work of opening the message. And, here's another little piece of important info: you can alter the amount of window space the Preview Pane uses. Simply run your mouse pointer slowly over the border between the Inbox and the Preview Pane.  When you see the double sided arrow click, hold and drag the top of the Preview Pane to the location you desire, then release the mouse button.

See as much or as little of the message as you desire all without opening the message!

Part Two -  Single Key Reading In MS Outlook

Now that you know about the preview panel, here's another time-saving tip you may enjoy.

If you tire of using the mouse to jump between the Inbox and the Preview Pane to select an email, move down and scroll through the preview, then return to the Inbox again and back to scrolling, and if you wish you had an easier way to preview the entire message without all the mouse games, read on.

You can trade in your mouse for one key. The space bar is all you need to scroll through your email previews.

Once you're in the Inbox with an email highlighted simply hit the space bar and voila! You should see the Preview Pane scrolling before you eyes.

Reach the end of the email? Don't reach for that mouse!

Hit the space bar again and you should find that the email selection jumped down one message and you're ready to use the space bar to scroll through that one too.

Did you give this tip a try and have no luck? Then maybe you need to make adjustments to your Outlook settings to enable this feature.

Try going to the Tools menu, Options choice. In the Options window click to the Other tab.

Go to the Preview Pane section and click the Preview Pane button.

Another window will open where you can alter the Preview Pane options.

Make sure that the "Single key reading using space bar" choice is checked. Click OK and again, in the Options window, click OK.

Now, you should find that you can use the space bar for email scrolling in the Preview Pane.

www.worldstart.com

Did You Know?: Tile Those Program Windows  

Down in the toolbar you'll see an icon for the program. If you have more than one window open you'll see a number next to the icon inside the button. Right-click the button and you'll get some options: Cascade, Tile Horizontally, Tile Vertically, Minimize Group, and Close Group.

By choosing the "Tile Horizontally" option your pages will be stacked on top of each other. Select "Tile Vertically" and they'll be side by side.

Keep in mind that the more windows you have open the narrower they get.

www.worldstart.com

Google Maps

Maps are great for getting around, but online maps could be a lot better. So Google decided to make dynamic, interactive maps that are draggable — no clicking and waiting for graphics to reload each time you want to view the adjacent parts of a map. Want to be able to type in the name of a region or neighborhood and see any part of it as easily as with a regular street map? Now you can with Google Maps.

Want to see what your target location looks like in real life? Check out the satellite view, which gives you access to satellite and aerial images of your locations that you can zoom in, zoom out, or pan in any direction. To access this view, click "Satellite" at the top right corner of the Google Maps page. Your locations will appear as aerial images until you click “Maps” to toggle the view back.

Use Google Maps to search within an area or neighborhood. It works like this: Say you want to find free wifi hotspots. Type in "free wifi" and the zip code, and the free hotspots appear at various locations on your map, with phone numbers for each location appearing on the right side of the page. Click on the link for a location and it gives you the name, address and phone number that goes with it, with links offering you directions to and from it.

If you are looking at an area on the map and want to locate a business, say a pizza place, in that area - just enter "pizza" in the search box and Google will search around the center of the map - you don't need to enter a location.

Type in a starting and a destination address - Google Maps plots the route for you similar to Map Quest, displaying it visually on the map itself, together with step-by-step directions for getting there (or back from there).

Keyboard shortcuts are great, and Google Maps has a bunch of them. For instance, you can...

• use the arrow keys to pan left, right, up and down
• the page up, page down, home and end keys let you pan out even wider
• the plus (+) key lets you zoom in and the minus key (-) is for zooming out.

http://maps.google.com/

Gas Buddy

Now that you've got your driving directions, courtesy of Google, it's time to think about mileage and how much you'll be spending on gas! If you had the ability to check out real-time prices along your travel route so you could find the lowest prices in that area, wouldn't that be great? This is the web site for you. Gas Buddy was created to help keep gas prices low by increasing awareness and competition.  It's actually a portal to a collection of over 115 web sites across Canada and the United States.

All gas prices are submitted by member spotters who can log on and update prices in real time. The sites list the top-ten lowest prices, Regular Unleaded Fuel only, as well as the worst 10, in a given city. Furthermore, within each city, you can narrow down your search to view a specific area. This is particularly useful since many people may elect to buy their gas either near their home or office.

 Anyone is welcome to become a spotter as long as they are a member. Membership is free and you do get additional benefits. As a member, you get the opportunity to add your two cents worth. You get to update the prices, post messages and vote in an opinion poll. And because the service relies on the generosity of spotters, as an incentive to keep them "spotting" the prices, points are awarded for each gas price update where they are entered for a chance to win an electric scooter.

www.gasbuddy.com

Technology Assistance
If you need help with technology, call the helpline at ext. 697 or email help@smes.org .
               Provide as detailed description of the problem as you can, and include the best times for someone to come by.