Information Technology Blog

Our staff reveal insights into the mysteries of computing technology and practices. Our goals for this blog are to (a) empower you make better use of your personal computer; (b) teach you how new I.T. technologies can provide new opportunities to small and midsize businesses; and (c) inform you about the latest security threats so you can make wise decisions for guarding your networks and your company's data.

Microsoft Office 2007 Tips and Tricks #1

9 September 2009, by Matt

MS Office 2007 has added a new feature allowing quicker access to tools you use the most  Micorsoft calls this toolbar the “Quick Access Toolbar”.  The Quick Access Toolbar is a customizable toolbar that contains a set of tools that will stay mounted even when changing between the different tabs. Follow these steps to customize YOUR Office 2007.

This tutorial and screen shots are based on Word 2007 (although Excel and PowerPoint also utilize the same toolbar)

1. Open up an Office 2007 product

2. Find the Quick Access Toolbar along the top

3. Click on the down arrow at the end of the toolbar.

4.  Now click on the “More Commands” option.

5. Choose a command from the list and then click on Add

Now you have added this command to your toolbar!

A few suggestions of commands to add to your toolbar are:

1. Spelling & Grammar
2. Print Preview
3. Print
4. New
5. Open

Hope this helps with your migration to MS Office 2007 !

Cloud Computing...What is it?

4 September 2009, by Matt

Cloud Computing is a buzz word that has permeated strategic business meetings for awhile and many people still have no idea what cloud computing is. For starters, cloud computing is a method of computing in the clouds…what, you still don't get it? Among techie people, the Internet as a whole is often referred to as “The Cloud”. Cloud computing says, why do we keep buying faster computers when the servers of big companies will always be faster? If cloud computing were to take over all computing, we would all of our data stored on some mega-servers located around the world and could access our data from anywhere with an Internet connection. This leaves all of the heavy computing and storage to the big servers and the endpoint user (that's you!) wouldn't need a new computer so often and it would cut a lot of expenses.  

There are several unanswered questions with cloud computing that are keeping businesses from using the cost saving technology. According to a survey by CIO magazine, 51% of the respondents are concerned about the security of cloud computing as a whole. In addition, 37% are concerned about control of their data. Most companies are not comfortable with storing their confidential data on a server in a location they will probably never visit.

I have a feeling cloud computing will remain fairly stagnant until some security issues are worked out. In the mean time, Google offers web based email, calendar, documents, spreadsheets and many other cloud computing services that are pretty amazing.

Microsoft 2003 or 2007?

28 August 2009, by Matt

As many of you have seen, there is a new version of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Outlook etc), Microsoft Office 2007. Although the new version has been around a couple of years, many offices are still using the previous editions. One of the major changes is the way the program looks.  I can promise you you'll be in love with some of the new features as soon as you round the bend of the learning curve.

A more common change with the new version is the file format. In previous versions of MS Office, Word documents had a .doc at the end of the file, .xls for Excel files and .ppt for PowerPoints. The new version comes with the default of .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx respectively. There is the fear that previous versions of MS Office will not be able to open files saved in the new format. This is true unless the “compatibility plugin” from Microsoft is downloaded and installed. If you are unsure if your version has the compatibility plugin, contact Solution Innovators and we can test, and if necessary install it for you.

We have recently upgraded a client's entire office at once and have a rolling distribution with other clients. If you are looking to upgrade, we can assist you with either upgrade method.