What do you want to see in Microsoft Office 2010? Arpan Shan, who has access to the beta versions at Microsoft, shares his favorite 10 Office 2010 features.

Some of these you may already know, but he highlights some nice ideas that seem to be coming through. In Word 2010, for example, you will have an in-built screen capture tool that takes screenshots of whatever apps you have open. Interesting to see how Techsmith, the makers of Snagit, will respond to this.

Also, Scott Stiles, the head of the Program Management team for Word, describes the aims and objectives that Microsoft has for this new release.

1. Office Web Applications

He says that “the other advantage of Office Web Applications over a service like Google Docs/Spreadsheets is that not only will consumers be able to use this on Windows Live, but Enterprises can deploy Office Web Applications on their own SharePoint servers”.

Nice for corp users but doesn’t really help the little people.

2. Screen clippings

Here you can insert screenshots of applications that you open right from within Office. This saves you having to use Snagit or other screenshot applications. Not sure if you can crop or edit the screenshot. But if you just want a basic screenshot app, this will be useful.

3. Image Background Removal

He adds that previously he had to use other applications to make the background transparent but can now do this within applications like PowerPoint 2010.

4. Outlook User Experience

There are many UX enhancements in Outlook 2010. For example, when you receive meeting requests, you can see your other scheduled appointments inline.

You also have tips throughout Outlook 2010 that tell you if you’re above your quota, you’re going to send an email outside your organization, etc.

5. Video editing

In PowerPoint 2010, you can now insert and edit video. Not only can videos be inserted, but they can be modified. You can trim the video, set the image cover for the video, add borders, add other effects like reflection as well as other special effects.

PPTX files will increase in size (dramatically, I assume) when you add images and videos.

After trimming the video correctly in PowerPoint 2010, you can compress the media size to improve performance and reduce the size of the file.

6. PowerPoint Broadcasting

PowerPoint 2010 has a new broadcasting feature that lets you share PPT presentation.

You can either use a public “PowerPoint Broadcast Service” (you need a Live ID and it’s free) or an internal SharePoint server.

This lets you email a URL to a group of people and they can watch you deliver your PPTX from their browser.

7. PowerPoint Transitions

Some stylish new transitions are on the way. Let’s wait and see.

8. Copy/Paste

In current versions of Microsoft Office, you often end up using paste, look, undo, paste special, etc.

In Office 2010, there’s copy and paste live preview.

This lets you preview how different paste options will look without having to undo, paste, undo paste.

9. SharePoint Workspace

SharePoint Workspace (formerly Groove) lets you work with SharePoint content.

You can take SharePoint lists & libraries offline, provide a rich client UX and background syncing with SharePoint which helps with performance especially in low latency situations.

10. Sparklines

Excel 2010 introduces Sparklines.

This lets you show data trends in a one data cell.

It’s very useful when you’re analyzing numbers over time across a number of time periods. There are many forms sparklines can take from lines to columns to more yes/no type options for win/loss data.

Screenshots and more examples on MSDN

Of all the features here, the two that interests me the most are the screenshots and the copy/paste options.

Why?

Well, because these are two activities that I do all day. Some of the others, like video editing in PowerPoint don’t interest me – I‘ll use Camtasia instead anyway.

But, improved screenshot capabilities would make a huge difference, especially if I can work on the screenshots, maybe add arrows and explanatory text.

How about you? What do you REALLY want to see in Microsoft Office 2010!

Jing Pro lets you make a high-definition video recording of what you see on your PC, which you can then email, Twitter, send to Facebook, Flickr, or YouTube. It’s brilliant. But, there’s a catch. There a free versions (which does most everything) and a premium version.

So, if the free version is so good, should you upgrade?

There are some limitation and restrictions on Jing Pro.

Jing  Pro Limitations

Here’s a few to start with.

Tip: Complete list of features is here.

1 It doesn’t let you edit proxy settings within the JING application. So, if you are behind a firewall or need to reconfigure on the road, it may get tricky.

2. You can’t use it as a standalone app without connecting to Screencast.com.

3. You need to be online as it’s web-based. Fine at work but not much good when you don’t have web access or if the web goes down.

4. When it does go down, you need to re-enter your username and password again. This became such a pain for me that I stopped using it and went back to SnagIt.

5. There is still a 5 minute limitation. So, if you’ve video is more than this, you’re out of luck.

Jing  Pro Advantages

The Pro version is fine if you don’t want to upgrade to Camtasia Studio but want an easy-to-use video-capturing software, for sharing videos on YouTube/Facebook.

Jing is very good at what it does and for $15 per year is not so expensive.

For light-weight users, the Free version should be fine. You can take nice screenshots, small videos and upload to Screencast.com which also offers 2 GB of storage space.

On the downside, the Free version support only SWF format while Jing Pro supports SWF ands MPEG-4 video, which is required for YouTube HD.

Should you buy the Pro version?

No.

Of all the limitations the 5 minute restriction is the biggest barrier. Actually, this is the main reason I have not signed up. If this was raised to 15 minutes, then yes, I’d signup. But 5 minutes is too short!

Simon makes this point on the blog: “In the above “94 Comments” 5 min is mentioned over 50 times … I think that you should listen to the user group and as I stated before: “drop the time limit on the Pro version and you will make conversions of people from free version to Pro version, and at the end of the day some $$$”

Matt adds “great job with the Jing project. The idea for allowing users to cut down videos to 5 minutes is a good alternative. The problem you may face is losing the beauty of simplicity that Jing offers and still leaves the 5 minute constraint.”

But the bottom line is that the 5 minute time limitation is a show-stopper.

Leonardos Bardelotto says that “5 min is bad, but they want to sell the Camtasia for bigger time and much more money.”

I agree.

This is the real limitation on this product. I‘ve flagged it on their site. Most others seem to agree and have encouraged them to make it free to get more market share.

There are so many free apps out there that charging for this – and the overheads that go with it – don’t seem to justify this decision.

But, it’s they’re product.

What do you think? Have you tried it yet?

PS: here is a quick list of the key features

• Screenshots directly to Snagit where you can edit the image.
• Publish it Screencast.com where you can store, file, organize and track the videos.
• Edit Jing created screencasts in Camtasia Studio. You can also combine multiple videos into a single video, or string several together with a table of contents.
• Create different Jing folders on Screencast.com, by topic/project/client.
• Adjust the video’s size to fit your blog or website.
• Centralize conversations and comments with the new commenting feature.
• Annotate captured images with arrows, callouts, text and highlights to add emphasis
• Narrate Jing-recorded screencast videos for even greater clarity before sharing
• Generate HTML code to so you can embed it on your blog or website
• Customize the sharing buttons so those they use most are only a click away.
• Screencasts are delivered in HD-quality video for the Web
• Jing logos and links are removed from the start and end of newly-recorded videos.
• Publish directly to YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler and MSN Video, Flickr
• Jing Pro produces MPEG-4 AVC video files for Flash delivery with H.264+AAC compression.

Do you need spend hours trying to make all your photos be the same size, format, with your company watermarks added in the corner? How can you convert 100 images to same file format, add a 1 pixel black border, and make them all the same size in less that 5 minutes? Here’s how.

How to Batch Process Groups of Images

I used to use Adobe Photoshop to batch process photos but have now moved to Snagit.

One of the hidden features in Snagit is its Batch Conversion Wizard. This lets you convert your images in a batch. Even better is that you can modify all the images on the fly, for example, give all the images a black border or converting them to the same file format.

This saves an immense amount of time ensures that all your images are the same size, format and whatever settings you want.

Snagit Batch Process Wizard

You can apply SnagIt’s image editing filters to multiple captures in batch processing mode. You can also convert one or more graphic image files from one format to another.

For example, you might want to convert low-res BMP files into PNG and store them in another directory for your website.

The SnagIt Catalog Browser processes the file conversions and saves them to the Output directory you want. Any filters you applied appear in the Conversion Filters box.

The files are individually converted to the selected format and stored in the folder you select.

NOTE: The original files are not changed. Snagit creates new files for each batch process.

How to Batch Process Images

You can batch process the images are follows:

Step 1. Select Files

1. In Windows Explorer, select the files you want to process.

2. Right-click on the files.

Tip: hold down CTRL and click on individual files if you don’t want all the images in the folder.

3. Select Snagit and Batch Convert Images.

Note: you can also use the Catalog Browser in Snagit. Open it and then use Edit, Select All to select all files or hold CTRL and select individual files.

Step 2. Conversion Filters

Use the conversion filters to:

• Modify the Color Depth
• Substitute Colors
• Change the Image Resolution
• Rescale the Image
• Add a Caption, for example, a notice or warning message
• Add a Border and select the size, color and other special effects
• Add a Watermark, for example, DRAFT, or the name of your website or business
• Trim the image, so that it’s more uniform

For example, in the screenshot, you can see that we added a white background, drop shadow and positioned it towards the lower right.

In this example, you can see that we added the www.Klariti.com logo to the lower left corner of the box shot.

And this is what the finished box shot looks like. You can add your own company logo to screenshots in the same way.

Once you have finished with the conversion filters, click Next.

Step 3. Output Options

Here you setup the output options:

1. In the Output directory, select a folder where you want to save the files.

2. In the File Format dropdown list, select a file format, for example PNG or JPG.

All files will be converted to the same format.

3. In File name:

Use the default Windows file name or create your own naming conventions.

Note: I have found the Automatic file name to be a bit problematic. You might need to experiment here until you get it right.

4. Click Next.

Step 4. Ready for the Conversion Process

Check that you’re happy with the settings. Go back and change if needs be.

Click Finish.

The conversion process starts.

When the conversion is complete, the converted images will be displayed in the output folder you selected and the Catalog Browser.

The images will be converted to format you selected, filters will be applied, and the new images will be saved to the folder you selected.

Summary

If you know better ways to convert images and run batch processes, please let me know. I used to use Photoshop but found it didn’t have the range of effects that Snagit has.

Is there another screenshot product that does a better job?

Here is the simplest way to take a screenshot of a region, desktop, an entire webpage and also how to include the hyperlinks if you want to save the webpage as a SWF or PDF. We’re going to use SnagIt as our preferred tool for taking screenshots. After this I’ll walk you through more advanced features.

Follow these steps to take your screenshot:

1. Open the webpage page or document you want to capture. I’m looking at http://klariti.com/shop/

2. Open SnagIt.

3. Select a Capture Profile.

Region – use this to capture a specific part of the window

I tool a screenshot of a section of the klariti sales page.

Window — use this to capture the active window but not the entire desktop

I tool a screenshot of the klariti sales webpage, but only what was displayed on my desktop. I reduced it by 66% and cropped the edges.

Full screen – use this to capture the entire desktop

Same screenshot of klariti, but I took the entire desktop, including web browser. I reduced it by 33%.

Scrolling Window — use this to capture a window that does not fit in your monitor, for example , a webpage.

Same screenshot, but Snagit scrolled all the way to the end of the web browser. I reduced it by 33%.

You can see the entire screenshots over here on Flickr.

Web Page – use this if you want to capture a webpage and also keep it links.

Finally, I made a screen capture of the webpage. I saved this as a PDF, which retains all the hyperlinks. You can also save it as a SWF or a Snagit SNAG file, which you can edit later on.

Tip: when you choose this option, wait for a second for Snagit to start. After 2 or 3 seconds it will start scrolling down the screen, capturing the page as it goes.  Likewise, wait a second for it to open in the Image editor.

When you get there, select either PDF, HTML, SNAG, or SWF as the file format for retaining the hyperlinks.

Note that the hyperlinks in the PDF of the screenshot are now active. Impressive!

4. Switch back to the web page or document you want to capture.

5. Click Capture.

6. The screenshot is displayed in the Capture Preview window.

Depending on your setup, Snagit will:

a) Display a box with an explanation of how to complete the capture or

b) Open the image in Snagit Capture Preview automatically.

This is where you can modify the image, for example, add a border, create a nice edge special effort or save it in a preferred file format.

Profile Settings Tip: you can also click an output on the Output Options toolbar or you can automate the process by creating a ‘profile’.

A profile is a group of setting that you save so that it performs that same action every time, for example, save all screenshots in .PNG, add a 1 pixel border, and reduce the image size by 50%. Profiles are one of the best features in Snagit and saves endless hours formatting screenshots. You can setup multiple profiles and use each setting depending on the project you’re working on.

7. Click Done.

If you don’t choose an output before clicking Done, Snagit will prompted you to save the screenshot as a file so you don’t lose the image by accident.

Next

Next week, I’ll look at how to get this nice skewered effect. Stay tuned!

Most screenshot software doesn’t let you take a screen capture of the Windows menu bar. Here’s a workaround.
To Take a Screen Shot Of The Windows Start Menu Bar:

1. Hold down Shift
2. Press the Start Menu Bar
3. Press Print Screen on your keyboard.

BUT how do you do this?

Take a screenshot of the Window startup screen?

I don’t know. Do you?

If you do know, describe how to do this below.

This is the first part in a series of lessons on how to create professional-looking screenshots. We’ll start with the basics and walk you through more advanced techniques, such as blending, merging and adding special effects to your screenshots.

What are screenshots?

Screenshot play an important part in how we read and understand technical documents.

A screenshot, also called a screen capture, or screen dump, is an image taken by screen capture software to record the visible items displayed on the monitor or another device.

Screenshots can be used to demonstrate how a program works, a particular problem a user might be having, or for training purposes.

All three terms are often used interchangeably; however, some people distinguish between them as follows:

• Screenshot – Outputting the entire screen in an image format such as BMP, PNG, or JPEG.
• Screen dump – The display system dumps what it is using internally upon request, such as XWD X Window Dump image data in the case of X11 or PNG in the case of Mac OS X.
• Screen capture – Capturing the screen over an extended period of time to form a video file. Also called screen recording.

Game screenshots

Screenshots are used when marketing video games, for example, on the packaging. Throughout the history of screenshots, there have been some deceptive practices, such as using a screenshot from a computer platform with better graphics to show how a game would display.

In the 1990s, when pre-rendered videos became a part of intermissions in games, some game boxes included screenshots from the in-game videos, which deceived potential buyers about overall game play.

Internet uses

Many web users add screenshots of their favorite movies and television shows when creating icons for LiveJournal, MSN Messenger, and Internet forums.

Employee Surveillance

Performance monitoring software now records, i.e. with screenshots, the activities of employees. The software can monitor employees through keyloggers and automatic screenshot software. Screenshots are taken at intervals to monitor employees.

Android OS

Screenshots of the Android OS can be taken by connecting the device to a computer, turning on USB debugging on the device, and running the Dalvik Debug Monitor Service (DDMS) program on the computer. Within that program, screenshots can be taken through the “Device” menu.

iPhone OS

Press and hold the Home button, then press the Sleep/Wake button. The screen will flash and the picture will be stored in the “Camera Roll” on the iPhone or in “Saved Photos” on the iPod touch. From there you can sync it to your computer.

Mac OS X

• Press Command-Shift-3 to take a screenshot of the entire screen.
• Press Command-Shift-4 to take a screenshot of a chosen area of the screen or if you press Space afterwards you can choose a window on the screen to individually screenshot.

You can also use the Grab application to take screenshots.

Microsoft Windows

Press the Print Screen key to take a screenshot of the entire desktop area. This places it in the clipboard. Press the Alt key and Print Screen to capture the active window only, i.e. the window that you’re working on. This removes the background and saves you having to crop the image.

Windows Vista

This includes a utility called Snipping Tool, which lets you take screenshots (called snips) of windows, rectangular areas, or a free-form area.

Snips can be annotated, saved as image, HTML page, or emailed

Most of the major operating systems have no built-in mechanisms to record videos of the screen (recording how the user moves the mouse around, clicks icons, types text etc. as a movie).

Screenshot software

These software packages include features such as excluding the mouse, automat cropping, timed shots and autoscroll.

• Brosix (Windows)
• Capture Assistant (Windows)
• Captus (Windows)
• IrfanView (Windows)
• SnagIt (Windows)
• Snapz Pro X (Mac OS X)
• Window Clippings (Windows)

Technical issues

On Windows, screenshots of games sometimes fail, giving you a blank rectangle.

The reason for this is that the graphics are bypassing the normal screen and going to a high-speed graphics processor on the graphics card by using a method called ‘hardware overlay’.

One way these images can be captured is to turn off the hardware overlay.

In Windows XP, you can disable this as follows:

1. Open the Display Properties menu
2. Click the “Settings” tab
3. Click “Advanced”, “Troubleshoot”, and
4. Move the Hardware Acceleration Slider to “None.”

Copyright issues

The use of screenshots may be an infringement of copyright on software programs, as it is a derivative work created by the software.

Regardless of copyright, screenshots may still be legally used under the principle of fair use in the U.S. or fair dealing and similar laws in other countries.

That’s a quick introduction into screenshots.

What I’ll do next is get started on creating your first screenshots and then start adding more and more screen capture tricks as we go along.

P.S. – if you’re having trouble taking screenshots, drop me a line and tell me what you want to do. Maybe we can help. If possible, post the screenshots on the web somewhere rather than emailing me as the email filters may not let it through.

I’m thinking of updating the site and creating printer friendly pages. This seems like a good idea as we have lots of tutorials and such that people (like you!) might want to print out. So, how do you create printer friendly pages?

[ad#adc-2]

‘Providing separate stylesheets for printing a web page was good idea in theory, but in practice it all falls down.’

The idea here is to involve server-side script (PHP and ASP based systems) which will reload the target page and replace regular CSS file with stylesheet especially suitable for printing an article, entry, post or whatever.

To make stylesheet for printing, decide what parts of your layout are not likely to be printed (like various banners, navigation etc.). The simplest way to hide them is to define them as display: none;. If you are not familiar with stylesheets for print read more about it. Anyway, keep it simple—black text on the white background, with a font-size: 12pt; is a good start. When you’re done with it, continue reading.

Maratz.com seems to have the best solution. Here’s how it works:

Setting up the Query

Now that we have all client-side ingredients in place, we can put it all together. First, we have to add a link somewhere around the article, for example:

<h1>Title of the article</h1>

<p>Lorem ipsum…</p>

<a href=”?q=printme”>printer friendly version</a>

It literally means we are requesting this same page, but with a query q=printme. To make our page recognizes what we are asking it, we have to add somewhere in the <head> section some logic, something like:

“If i’m asked to ‘printme’—i’ll load my printing stylesheet, and if i’m not asked anything—i’ll load my default CSS file.”

Depending of your preferences there are two scripts—PHP and ASP. Backup your HTML file and replace the part where you called your CSS file with one of the following examples.

PHP print script

<?php if ($_GET['q'] == “printme”) { ?>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”print.css” />

<?php } else { ?>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”default.css” />

<?php } ?>

ASP print script

<% If Request.QueryString(“q”) = “printme” Then %>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”print.css” />

<% Else %>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”default.css” />

<% End if %>

You can read the full article over here:

http://www.maratz.com/blog/archives/2004/09/21/10-minutes-to-printer-friendly-page/

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter: @ivanwalsh

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh

Templates: http://www.klariti.com

Tips:  http://www.ivanwalsh.com

I’m thinking of updating the site and creating printer friendly pages. This seems like a good idea as we have lots of tutorials and such that people (like you!) might want to print out. So, how do you create printer friendly pages?

[ad#adc-2]

‘Providing separate stylesheets for printing a web page was good idea in theory, but in practice it all falls down.’

The idea here is to involve server-side script (PHP and ASP based systems) which will reload the target page and replace regular CSS file with stylesheet especially suitable for printing an article, entry, post or whatever.

To make stylesheet for printing, decide what parts of your layout are not likely to be printed (like various banners, navigation etc.). The simplest way to hide them is to define them as display: none;. If you are not familiar with stylesheets for print read more about it. Anyway, keep it simple—black text on the white background, with a font-size: 12pt; is a good start. When you’re done with it, continue reading.

Maratz.com seems to have the best solution. Here’s how it works:

Setting up the Query

Now that we have all client-side ingredients in place, we can put it all together. First, we have to add a link somewhere around the article, for example:

<h1>Title of the article</h1>

<p>Lorem ipsum…</p>

<a href=”?q=printme”>printer friendly version</a>

It literally means we are requesting this same page, but with a query q=printme. To make our page recognizes what we are asking it, we have to add somewhere in the <head> section some logic, something like:

“If i’m asked to ‘printme’—i’ll load my printing stylesheet, and if i’m not asked anything—i’ll load my default CSS file.”

Depending of your preferences there are two scripts—PHP and ASP. Backup your HTML file and replace the part where you called your CSS file with one of the following examples.

PHP print script

<?php if ($_GET['q'] == “printme”) { ?>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”print.css” />

<?php } else { ?>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”default.css” />

<?php } ?>

ASP print script

<% If Request.QueryString(“q”) = “printme” Then %>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”print.css” />

<% Else %>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”default.css” />

<% End if %>

You can read the full article over here:

http://www.maratz.com/blog/archives/2004/09/21/10-minutes-to-printer-friendly-page/

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter: @ivanwalsh

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh

Templates: http://www.klariti.com

Tips:  http://www.ivanwalsh.com

In this week’s process modeling tutorial, I’m going to look at what do I need to capture in my business process. Some of you have written in asking for more background on what you need to capture in your process maps. Needless to say, it depends on the complexity of the project, but, at a minimum, you’re looking to capture the following.

Business Process Design Template

So, let’s start at the top.

• You need to capture some of the following when developing your processes:
• Time to perform each task
• Time an individual or a resource is available to perform a task
• Cost of the individual/resource
• Probability of occurrence of certain events
• Frequency at which new incidents in the business process are initiated

This is just a starter of what you need to cover. If you need to know more please drop me a line of look under the Process Design section of the site.

FYI: Business Process Design Templates

You can download the completed version of these business process templates over here: http://www.klariti.com/business-process-design-template/.

As I mentioned above, we’ve partnered with Klariti Ltd (www.klariti.com) and released some very detailed Microsoft Word and Visio templates. These are on sale for only $9.99 until month end – it’s the promotional price – and after that they go back up to $29.99. They include process narratives (Word) process maps (Visio) and Excel spreadsheets for controlling your projects.

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter / Facebook / Flickr / Templates / Tips

In this week’s process modeling tutorial, I’m going to look at what do I need to capture in my business process. Some of you have written in asking for more background on what you need to capture in your process maps. Needless to say, it depends on the complexity of the project, but, at a minimum, you’re looking to capture the following.

Business Process Design Template

So, let’s start at the top.

• You need to capture some of the following when developing your processes:
• Time to perform each task
• Time an individual or a resource is available to perform a task
• Cost of the individual/resource
• Probability of occurrence of certain events
• Frequency at which new incidents in the business process are initiated

This is just a starter of what you need to cover. If you need to know more please drop me a line of look under the Process Design section of the site.

FYI: Business Process Design Templates

You can download the completed version of these business process templates over here: http://www.klariti.com/business-process-design-template/.

As I mentioned above, we’ve partnered with Klariti Ltd (www.klariti.com) and released some very detailed Microsoft Word and Visio templates. These are on sale for only $9.99 until month end – it’s the promotional price – and after that they go back up to $29.99. They include process narratives (Word) process maps (Visio) and Excel spreadsheets for controlling your projects.

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter / Facebook / Flickr / Templates / Tips

Charlene Li and her colleagues at Forrester Research report that companies often approach Social Computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed — ie a random assortment of blogs, communities etc— to achieve a marketing goal. Ms Li argues that “a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for.”

You can use the tool here to get started. www.forrester.com/Groundswell

Features of this profile:

• For an explanation of these groups (Creators, Critics, etc.), see a presentation (8 slides)

• Bars indicate the percentage of the selected demographic that are in each Social Technographics group.

• The white marks indicate the same percentages for the whole population of the country selected.

• The index indicates how the demographic compares to the population — a score of 100 means the demographic is the same as the population average.

• The message “No data available” appears when you request a profile for which our survey samples are not large enough to provide a reliable answer. This occurs for age groups in Japan, Metro China, and South Korea. To see profiles in these countries, set the Age to “Not specified”.

Some really terrific material over here including free case studies, PDF downloads and extracts from the book.

If you’ve read it, please let me know what you think.

Regards,

Ivan

and you can Twitter me @ivanwalsh

Note: Any use of data and charts generated from this site must include the following citation: Data from Forrester Research Technographics® surveys, 2008. For further details on the Social Technographics profile, see groundswell.forrester.com.

Charlene Li and her colleagues at Forrester Research report that companies often approach Social Computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed — ie a random assortment of blogs, communities etc— to achieve a marketing goal. Ms Li argues that “a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for.”

You can use the tool here to get started. www.forrester.com/Groundswell

Features of this profile:

• For an explanation of these groups (Creators, Critics, etc.), see a presentation (8 slides)

• Bars indicate the percentage of the selected demographic that are in each Social Technographics group.

• The white marks indicate the same percentages for the whole population of the country selected.

• The index indicates how the demographic compares to the population — a score of 100 means the demographic is the same as the population average.

• The message “No data available” appears when you request a profile for which our survey samples are not large enough to provide a reliable answer. This occurs for age groups in Japan, Metro China, and South Korea. To see profiles in these countries, set the Age to “Not specified”.

Some really terrific material over here including free case studies, PDF downloads and extracts from the book.

If you’ve read it, please let me know what you think.

Regards,

Ivan

and you can Twitter me @ivanwalsh

Note: Any use of data and charts generated from this site must include the following citation: Data from Forrester Research Technographics® surveys, 2008. For further details on the Social Technographics profile, see groundswell.forrester.com.

There are many ways to do this but this is how I create that nice mirror effect you see at the end of product images and screenshots.

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1. In Snagit, open the image you want to use

2. Copy the image.

3. Hold the handles at the bottom of the canvas and drag down. Increase the size of the canvas (not the image) to 200%. So, you’ve doubled the space available.

4. Paste the image.

5. Drag it down the canvas so it’s just under the top image.

6. Flip it.

7. Align the flipped (i.e. the upside down image) with the one on top.

8. Use Zoom to align.

9. Crop the lower image. Leave only a small edge i.e. what you’re going to make into the nice mirror effect.

9. Select the lower image.

10. Select Effect, Image Processing, Average Blur

11. Select 3.

This should give you a nice mirror effect as you can see in this example.

Let me know how you’d have done it!

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter @ivanwalsh
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh/
Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh/
Ivan: http://www.ivanwalsh.com

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We reviewed PerfectIt last month and were impressed with its ability to edit and test our documents.

Daniel Heuman, the founder of Intelligent Editing Ltd has prepared this tutorial that goes into more detail and show some of the ways you can get more out of this editing product. Here’s Daniel.

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PerfectIt does not require any kind of configuration. Once you install it, you can use it straight away to find mistakes in any MS Word document.

This article is for users who want to get even more out of PerfectIt by fine-tuning it to search for particular errors or to enforce a style guide.

Fine-tuning PerfectIt

You can set your rules for how PerfectIt checks:

• Hyphenation
• Common typos
• Numbers in sentences
• Spelling variations
• Keywords left in the body of text
• Use of capital letters
• Punctuation of bullets and lists
• Capitals in bullets and lists

There are two ways to build your rules into PerfectIt, you can add them organically when PerfectIt runs or you can use the configuration screen.

Common Errors in English Usage

Organic fine-tuning

The easiest way to add rules for checking is to teach PerfectIt your preferences as you use it. When PerfectIt finds an error, just click the “Customise Test” menu to either exclude that from future searches or build a rule for checking it.

For example, if PerfectIt states that an abbreviation appears in two forms: “NASA” and “N.A.S.A.”, you can use the menus to specify that “NASA” is always preferred. After that, PerfectIt will prompt for any instance of “N.A.S.A.” with any document you test.

You can specify an even wider set of rules by using the configuration screen. To load the configuration screen, select “Advanced…” from the “Customise Test” menu. This will provide options for setting your own checking rules. For example, to specify that semi-colons are the preferred punctuation for short bullet points, choose “Settings for Lists, Numbers and Compounds”, then choose “Punctuate Short Items”, then select “A Semi-Colon” from the drop down menu. Save your changes and PerfectIt will notify you if it finds any bullet points with other types of punctuation.

The advantage of customised versions of PerfectIt

It is possible to share configurations between computers – just copy the files ‘CustomExclusionLists’ and ‘CustomFindLists’ from one computer to another. However, for organisations, the best way to ensure that rules are standardised across computers is to have Intelligent Editing prepare a customised version for you. Intelligent Editing will scan your library for inconsistencies and review those with you. Then we’ll build a version of PerfectIt that is custom-designed for your organisation. We’ll include all of your preferences and supply you with a version that is built for the specifics of your style guide.

Conclusion

Style guides are important documents that all too often go ignored. With PerfectIt, you can quickly and easily check that reports, articles, contracts and proposals are all aligned with your style guide. You can build in the checking that is most important to you and ensure that documents are reviewed completely for the mistakes that matter most. To try PerfectIt for free, download it now.

About the Author

Daniel Heuman, Founder, Intelligent Editing Ltd.

Intelligent Editing Ltd specializes in software solutions that deliver faster, more accurate editing for professionals. http://intelligentediting.com

I’ve been reading this book most of the weekend. It’s a terrific exploration of social media and how social media technologies are effecting corporations and companies from a business perspective. I thought you might want look at these links as these are the footnotes to the book and provide some very interesting material. Worth a look if you’re trying to get a handle on how twitter, facebook and the rest will impact your profit margin.

Another part of the process design package is the flowchart diagrams. One area where I’m getting a little stuck is deciding how many swim lanes to add to the Visio diagrams. To get things rolling I have created three Visio diagrams with 2, 3 and 4 swim lanes. Take a look here.

The question is: which one will be business analysts use the most?

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter @ivanwalsh

This morning I’ve been putting the finishing touches on some Process Design Template. The final step is the packaging, including the product shots and other marketing materials. Something I thought I’d share with you is how I take screenshots and especially tricks I use to add some nice effects.
The first image is the standard screenshot.

In the next I used Techsmith’s Snagit to modify the image so that it has this nice effect.

And then I flip it around in the other direction.

Let me know how you take screenshots and what tricks you’ve found to be most effective.

Regards,
Ivan
Twitter @ivanwalsh

I’ve been working on SEO (search engine optimization) code this weekend, mostly for my Word Tips site and also with a client.

I do some freelance WordPress work here in China where corporate blogging is now taking off.

During lunch we got talking about different SEO tricks, amongst which was the ‘no-follow’ attribute.

This was new to my colleagues, so I gathered some material from Wikipedia and sent it to them. FWIW here’s how it works.

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nofollow is an HTML attribute value used to instruct some
search engines that a hyperlink should not influence the link
target’s ranking in the search engine’s index. It is intended to
reduce the effectiveness of certain types of search engine spam,
thereby improving the quality of search engine results and
preventing spam-indexing from occurring.

Concept and specification

The concept for the specification of the attribute value
nofollow was designed by Matt Cutts (Google) and
Jason Shellen from Blogger.com in 2005. The specification for
nofollow is copyrighted 2005-2007 by the authors
and subject to a royalty free patent policy, e.g. per the W3C
Patent Policy 20040205

What nofollow is not for

The nofollow attribute value is not meant for
blocking access to content, or for preventing content to be
indexed by search engines. The proper methods for blocking
search engine spiders to access content on a website or for
preventing them to include the content of a page in their index
are the robots.txt for blocking access and on-page Meta Elements
that are designed to specify on an individual page level what a
search engine spider should or should not do with the content of
the crawled page.

Google Take Action

In 2005 Google announced that hyperlinks with rel="nofollow"
attribute would not influence the link target’s PageRank. In
addition, the Yahoo and Windows Live search engines also respect
this attribute.

How the attribute is being interpreted differs between the
search engines. While some take it literally and do not follow
the link to the page being linked to, others still “follow” the
link to find new web pages for indexing.

In the latter case rel="nofollow" actually tells
a search engine “Don’t score this link” rather than “Don’t
follow this link.” This differs from the meaning of
nofollow as used within a robots meta tag, which
does tell a search engine: “Do not follow any of the
hyperlinks in the body of this document.”.

Interpretation by the individual
search engines

While all engines that support the attribute exclude links
that use the attribute from their ranking calculation, the
details about the exact interpretation of the attribute vary
from search engine to search engine.

• Google states that their engine takes “nofollow” literally and does not “follow” the link at all. However, experiments conducted by SEOs show conflicting results. These studies reveal that Google does follow the link, but does not index the linked-to page, unless it was in Google’s
  index already for other reasons.
• Yahoo “follows it”, but excludes it from their ranking calculation.
• MSN respects “nofollow” as regards not counting the link in their ranking, but it is not proven whether or not MSN follows the link.
• Ask.com ignores the attribute altogether.

Other websites like

Slashdot, with high user participation, use improvised nofollow implementations like adding rel="nofollow" only for potentially misbehaving users.

Potential spammers posing as users can be determined through various heuristics like age of registered account and other factors. Slashdot also uses the poster’s karma as a determinant in attaching a nofollow tag to user submitted links.

Websites that don’t use the rel="nofollow" tag include Digg, Furl, and My Web 2.0.

Paid links

Search engines have attempted to repurpose the nofollow attribute for something different.

Google began suggesting the use of nofollow also as a machine-readable
disclosure for paid links, so that these links do not get credit in search engines’ results.

The growth of the link buying economy, where companies’ entire business models are based on paid links that affect search engine rankings, caused the debate about the use of nofollow in combination with paid links to move into the center of attention of the search engines, who started to take active steps against link buyers and sellers.

Control internal PageRank flow

Search engine optimization professionals started using the nofollow attribute to control the flow of PageRank within a website. This practice is known as PageRank sculpting. This is an entirely different use than it was
intended originally.

Nofollow was designed to control the flow of PageRank from one website to another.

However, some SEOs have suggested that a nofollow used for an internal link should work just like nofollow used for external links.

Several SEOs have suggested that pages such as “About Us”, ”Terms of Service”, “Contact Us”, and “Privacy Policy” pages are not important enough to earn PageRank, and so should have  nofollow on internal links pointing to them.

If you have any thoughts on this, please let me know.

So far, we have gathered 50 tips and tricks to get the most from Bing, the new decision-making engine from Microsoft. Here are the first 10. 1. Add your site on Bing To add your site on Bing, click on http://www.bing.com/docs/submit.aspx This link will direct you to the submit URL page of Bing where you can provide the URL of your blog or website. [ad#adc-2] 2. Area Codes Area Codes displays the area code or ZIP code. Type area code followed by code. For example, area code 515. 3. Advanced search keywords Using advanced keywords to find the search results you only what you see. Don’t include a space after the colon in these keywords. 4. Celebrities Tracking Bing xRank tracks celebrities and ranks them. xRank shows News results, Image results, Video results , biography details, and digg links. 5. Cheap flight tickets To get the cheap flight deals, enter: Deals on specific routes: flights from London to New York Deals from a specific city: flights from San Francisco Deals to a specific city: flights to Rome [ad#adc-2] 6. Contains parameter refines searches In Bing, the parameter ‘contains’ tells the search engine to only look for websites that contain that search term. For example iPhone contains:download Beatles contains:mp3 Annual Report contains:doc 7. Combine or Excluding words Use the OR and NOT keywords to combine or exclude words. For example, if you use iphone NOT Green, you will get results for iphone but not for green iphones. 8. Currency Converter Type ‘convert 100 dollars to euros’ for currency conversion from dollars to euros. 9. Check if your website is listed in Bing.com To verify that your website is in the index, type url:yoursite.com. For example, url:ivanwalsh.com returns a single result. Tip: Check that your robot.txt file allows Bing.com to index your website. 10. Check the number of webpages indexed in Bing.com Type site:yoursite.com  to see how many pages have been actually indexed in bing.com. For example, site:ivanwalsh.com.

Snagit has an eye dropper tool that makes it easy to match colors in your capture. Here’s how to use it:

Get more Snagit tips on Twitter @SnagitTips.