HaveYouSeenMyStapler.NET - Viral Tarpara's Blog

Tip of the Day - PowerPoint 2007: How to Inspect Documents Prior to Publishing

Inspect Your Presentation for Comments and Metadata

If you need to publish your presentation outside your organization, you may want to remove comments, notes hidden in the text, or other personally identifiable information. Often this type of information is added to the document in the process of creating it.

1. Click the Office button, and then on the Prepare menu, click Inspect Document. (If you haven’t saved your document yet, you will be prompted to do so.)
   
2. Select the items that you want the Document Inspector to look for. Most of these items will be selected by default.
   
3. Click Inspect to begin the inspection process.
   
4. You’ll receive a list of inspection results. Click Remove All next to any items you want to have removed from the document.
   
5. Click Close to close this wizard. You may want to resave your document now that this information is removed.

This procedure applies to all Office applications.

Tip of the Day - Word 2007: Finding the Last Edit in a Document

Returning to the Last Edit in a Microsoft Office Word Document

If you want to return to where you last made a change in a Word document, press SHIFT+F5, and you will go straight back to the point of the last edit.

Interesting Management Theory for the Information Worker

I came across this "joke" on the interwebs this morning and the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.  I personally love the third paragraph from the bottom.

Why you and the boss are totally different

When you take a long time, you're slow.
When your boss takes a long time, he's thorough.

When you don't do it, you're lazy.
When your boss doesn't do it, he's too busy.

When you make a mistake, you're an idiot.
When your boss makes a mistake, he's only human.

When doing something without being told, you're overstepping your authority.
When your boss does the same thing, that's initiative.

When you take a stand, you're being bull-headed.
When your boss does it, he's being firm.

When you overlooked a rule of etiquette, you're being rude.
When your boss skips a few rules, he's being original.

When you please your boss, you're apple polishing.
When your boss pleases his boss, he's being co-operative.

When you're out of the office, you're wandering around.
When your boss is out of the office, he's on business.

When you're on a day off sick, you're always sick.
When your boss is a day off sick, he must be very ill.

When you apply for leave, you must be going for an interview.
When your boss applies for leave, it's because he's overworked.

Tip of the Day - Excel 2007: Quickly Replicate Cells

Fill a Selected Range with the Same Data

Need to enter the same data in a range of cells? Here’s how:

1. Select a range of cells.
   
2. Type in some data.
   
3. Use the fill function in Microsoft Office Excel—press CTRL+ENTER, and the range selected will be filled with the same data.

Tip of the Day - Excel 2007: How to Print a Portion of a Spreadsheet

Setting the Print Area in Microsoft Office Excel

Have you ever wanted to print only certain rows or columns from a spreadsheet? Here’s how:

1. With a spreadsheet open, select all the rows or columns that you want to print.
   
2. On the Page Layout tab, in the Page Setup section, click Print Area, and then click Set Print Area.
   
3. Click the Print icon on the toolbar, or click the Office button, point to Print, and click Print. Only the required content gets printed.

Tip of the Day - Excel 2007: Create a Linear Series of Values

Create a Linear Series of Values in Excel

Here’s how to use Auto Fill to create a series of values:

1. Create the initial series. In a Microsoft Office Excel workbook, type 1 in the A1 cell and 2 in the A2 cell.
   
2. Select cells A1 and A2.
   
3. Click the Auto Fill handle (the little black box in the lower-right corner of the selection) and drag to A15 to fill the cells with the numbers 1 through 15. You can create different series of numbers, odd and even numbers, or even dates.

See the Video Below

Tip of the Day - PowerPoint 2007: Creating Custom Slideshows

2003 to 2007 Custom Slide Show

Does showing the same Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 presentation to different audiences require you to manually hide and unhide irrelevant or confidential slides? With custom slide shows in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, you can create and save multiple shows from the same presentation.

1. Click the Slide Show tab, and then click Custom Slide Show in the Start Slide Show section.
   
2. Click Custom Shows, and then click New.
   
3. Name the slide show, and then add the slides you want from the left box to the right box.
   
4. Reorder the slides if necessary, and then click OK.
   
5. You can start the slide show by clicking Show in the Custom Shows dialog box or by selecting it from the Custom Slide Show list on the Ribbon.

Tip of the Day - Outlook 2007: Simply Sending an E-mail Message as an Attachment

Simplify Sending an E-Mail Message as an Attachment

Here is a simple way to avoid having to save an incoming e-mail message in My Documents and then retrieve it when you want to include it as an attachment in a new e-mail message:
In the Actions section, click Other Actions, and then click Forward as Attachment.

Understanding Privacy in Cloud Computing: An Interview with Syncplicity

Back in May I did a write up on online storage companies that take information sitting on desktops and laptops and sync that information across all the devices you own.  Although it wasn’t a straight review, it highlighted important points about what experiences are valued by the end-users.  A discussion about intellectual property and copyright ownership was brought up in comments sections specifically with regards to one company, Syncplicity.  Here is an excerpt from their privacy statement.

“While you retain all rights in any Sync Files, by using Site or Services, you hereby grant to Syncplicity a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable, perpetual and irrevocable right and license to use and exploit such Sync Files as necessary to provide you with the Services. In addition, you hereby grant all other Syncplicity Users who you invite to access the Sync Files you indicate a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable, perpetual and irrevocable right and license to use and exploit such Sync Files."

Sounds scary if you share a lot of personal intellectual property.  Agreeing with the original comment, I felt that some of the language and diction used in the privacy statement was quite aggressive.  Especially when dealing with artistic media, photos, and literary works, words like “sub-licensable,” “irrevocable,” and “exploit,” are just some of the words that leave a sour taste in people’s mouths.  This is why I was delighted when Leonard Chung, CEO of Syncplicity, contacted me to set the record straight around what his company is doing ensure a high degree of privacy and protection of intellectual property rights.

Now, our discussion was over the phone and spanned the better part of an hour discussing various other things from enterprise adoption of cloud services, Google Docs integration, and the rigours of start-up life.  Below is a Q&A of our discussions around legal issues with storing information on the cloud.

Viral: Hi Leonard, thanks for taking the time to speak with me today.

Leonard: No thank you!  I’m really glad we can talk because I think there is a lot that I can clarify about our TOS [terms of service] and privacy policy.  Also, thank you for the kind words on your original blog post -- it really means a lot to the team!

Viral: I meant every word of that praise.  Now let’s see if we can dig deeper into this whole legal stuff.

Leonard: Great.  Essentially, our terms of service and privacy policies have been crafted in the same way most companies deal with it. A lot of the language people see in these policies are a direct result of cases such as the Napster case and the more recent MGM vs. Grokster case.  Since these cases, many web companies that interact with intellectual property and copyrighted material put clauses such as ours in the EULAs, TOS, and privacy statements.  In fact, as you’re already familiar with SkyDrive, if you look at Microsoft’s policies on SkyDrive, they are very similar.

"Imagine you gave your e-mail address to a company and also uploaded your tax return. By the terms commonly used by others, there are likely to be disclosure and legal requirements around the company revealing your e-mail address and likely none if they disclosed your tax return. This makes no sense to me."

Viral: I’m actually looking at the SkyDrive legal policy now.  Section 9 is pretty thorough and understandable.  It basically says that Microsoft does not claim ownership of the content, but any content that is publicly shared may be used to promote and operate the service.  It doesn’t use words like “irrevocable” or “exploit."

Leonard:  I’m glad you brought that up. While SkyDrive doesn’t use those specific words, it uses words that legally mean similar things such as “perpetual”. I asked our legal department why we were using some of the words you brought up.  It turns out these words are common, well understood legal shorthand terms. So where Syncplicity’s terms use “sub-licensable”, SkyDrive expands this term to “grant these rights to others.”

Viral:  For instance, why do you use the word “irrevocable”?  Perpetual essentially means the same thing but irrevocable takes it one step further. It has such a negative connotation.  At Microsoft, I’ve only seen the word “irrevocable” used on intellectual property that we give to the community.  For example, all the technologies outlined in our Open Specifications Promise are irrevocably given to the community as outlined in those terms and conditions.  But in your case, it’s like you’re taking other peoples’ stuff and giving away rights.  Isn’t “perpetual” good enough?

Leonard:  I’m not a lawyer so I’m unsure if there’s a reason “irrevocable” was used instead of “perpetual”. I’ll take this back to legal and get back to you.

Viral:  What about “exploit” ?  It’s kinda negative too and nefarious sounding in a way.

Leonard: I already took that bit of feedback back to legal. Basically lawyers don’t speak the same English as you and I. While “exploit” is a well-defined shorthand word used in the art between lawyers, I understand the common connotation is different from legal interpretation. We’ve since changed that section to remove the word “exploit” to better clarify our intent.

"We believe that it is important to protect the privacy of our customers as well as their stored data and it’s wrong to support the distinction others have been making. Your data is your data, in whatever form it takes."

Viral:  Wow, this is easier than I thought.

Leonard:  This is one of the reasons I wanted to speak with you because I think there have been a few people singling us out for this kind of stuff and spreading a lot of FUD.  “Syncplicity Terms of Servitude” was particularly harsh and caught us off guard.  The reality is we have the most lenient TOS and strongest privacy policies in the space.

Viral:  Really?  Those are pretty strong words.

Leonard:  When the company was created we wanted to ensure that our privacy standards went above and beyond what is currently required by law.  Syncplicity makes stronger commitments and voluntarily takes on more legal liability around data protection than any other company in this space.  You can see this if you compare us with some of the others from your blog post.

Viral:  What specifically do you do above and beyond?

Leonard:  As you know, all states have different data protection and data breach notification laws.  These laws cover things like personal information, bank records, and credit data.  What you see from most companies is a carefully crafted and tightly worded privacy policy that limits liability to only your personal information. This means that while they make the required legal commitments to information such as your e-mail address and name, they specifically distinguish this from your file data. This is done to sidestep the regulatory laws around data protection and limit the claims end-users can make to the breach of stored data.  This why personal information protection and data protection are usually in separately worded clauses.

Viral:  So what you’re saying is that whether it is personal information or your backup data, Syncplicity takes on the additional legal exposure to protect both equally.

Leonard:  Correct. Imagine you gave your e-mail address to a company and also uploaded your tax return. By the terms commonly used by others, there are likely to be disclosure and legal requirements around the company revealing your e-mail address and likely none if they disclosed your tax return. This makes no sense to me.

We believe that it is important to protect the privacy of our customers as well as their stored data and it’s wrong to support the distinction others have been making. Your data is your data, in whatever form it takes. It is a disservice to users to claim otherwise. Syncplicity doesn’t make this distinction. We define Personal Information as a large umbrella which includes file data as well. I think we have the best privacy policy in the industry and I hope others follow our lead.

Viral:  Well you’ve changed my mind and taught me something about data protection laws.  Let’s talk about your service, it’s in open beta now right?

Leonard:  Yes, anyone who signs up will get an account immediately. 

Viral:  How is pricing going to work?

Leonard: I don’t have anything to announce today, but I will say we’ve got a lot of big announcements next week. Stay tuned!

Viral:  What about Syncplicity for businesses?  I imagine that once you “clean up” your privacy policy, companies will love your solution, especially the Google Docs integration.

Leonard:  Some businesses are using Syncplicity today and we’ve been pleased thus far with our adoption in that space.  Google Docs syncing was a particularly challenging bit of engineering but it's receiving a very warm reception.

Viral: Thanks Leonard!

Leonard:  My pleasure. Thanks for your time Viral – I’m happy you picked up on this. People are entrusting their data to providers in the Cloud. Doing the right thing and earning the users’ trust is something critically important to the industry. We’ve thought a lot about it and I’m proud that Syncplicity has taken a leadership position in this area.

Coming out of the discussion I definitely felt more positive about the company than going in.  Not that had any reason to expect anything less than an open and frank conversation but what was most amazing was how receptive Leonard was to the feedback and suggestions.  It’s also cool to see the overall agility that start-ups like Syncplicity have in correcting problems before they become, well…problems.

As to the other players in the field, I hope the others likes of Mozy and Carbonite pick up on these issues as their privacy policy does not reflect the stated of goal of ensuring privacy of identity and data.

-VT

**UPDATE**

Syncplicity announced pricing

Microsoft Relaxes Virtualization Licensing Rules - VMWare Stock Still Tumbles

Microsoft is taking virtualization extremely seriously.  Microsoft is now the only company that provides the full suite of virtualization technologies allowing businesses to consolidate servers, isolate legacy OS environments securely, centralize application deployment, and protect data for remote workers.  All this is done with a single set of management tools!  Microsoft also realizes that eventually, IT operations will behave more like a service with virtual machines being moved around, started, and stopped on-demand in a very controlled yet dynamic manner.  It is because of this reality, that we have relaxed the licensing rules governing virtualization.

Following is a summary of the different uses of virtualization:

 

For more information on our virtualization technologies, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization

Tip of the Day - PowerPoint 2007: Reuse Slides from a Slide Library

Reuse Slides from a Slide Library

When you create a presentation, you may want to reuse slides already created and published by someone else in your organization. Microsoft Office PowerPoint can optionally notify you when the original slide is updated by its creator and synchronize the updated slide.

1. On the Home tab, click the New Slide icon. (Note: You must click the lower half of the icon to choose the types of slide that you want to insert.)
   
2. Click Reuse Slides at the bottom of the New Slide gallery.
   
3. In the text box below Insert slide from, type the Web address of the Microsoft SharePoint slide library that contains the slides that you want to reuse. PowerPoint retrieves a list of slides available from this location. Notice that as you pause on each of the slides, you can get a more detailed look at its contents.
   
4. Click a slide that you want to add to your presentation. If you want to be notified if this slide changes, select the Tell me when this slide changes text box.

Bringing the Soul Back to PowerPoint

Office Labs has recently released a PowerPoint 2007 add-in called pptPlex.  For those of you who saw Bill Gates show off the TouchWall at the CEO Summit, you saw how information no longer had be be presented in a linear fashion.  When dealing with many data sources and disparate views, users must be able to quickly navigate to any point in a document without loosing the flow of a presentation.

The whole point of PowerPoint was to do just that, to make a point.  Somewhere in the last decade, the developers and end-users lost their soul and instead created the behemoth Office application that it is today.  Rather than changing the way people do presentations, features have been added to change the way people create content--the less important function of the two.  We, Microsoft, don't exactly lead by example either with too many of our decks being bullet points, linear, and dry.  Pptplex has the potential to change all this by allowing presenters to more easily create a story around the slides.  By essentially grouping slides in a deck around "themes," a users become immersed in a visual storyboarding experience. 

So Where's the But?

I recommend any tech-savvy presenter try out the add-in but there is a caveat.  The software is actually prototype code and hence extremely buggy.  When it crashes, you will likely have to go to the task manager and "end task" on the entire PowerPoint application.  It's not all bad though!  I've discovered that this stability problem only exists if you take large pre-made slides and try to click on "overview."  The key to stable operation is to start using the add-in when creating decks from scratch.  Another way, if you must use existing content, is to drag & drop slides into a new deck individual and testing the "overview" every few slides.  Trust me, it sounds worse than it actually is, just make sure you save often.

Finally, if you really want to get your head around this add-in, I cannot stress that watching the three training video on the pptPlex page is essential.  It is a different way to use PowerPoint and you will be lost if you don't watch the videos.  I hope you all enjoy the add-in!

-VT-

Attend Microsoft 'After Hours' Consumer Technology Showcase in London

Overview:

We believe technology should be fun.  We believe that no individual should have to be frustrated with their computer when doing simple tasks.  Sending photos to family, sharing a holiday video, and creating DVD are things that should just be simple.    With all the power and functionality of the internet, isn't it about time a piece of that went towards enriching your lifestyle as well as your work?  We think so.  Use Windows, Windows Live, Xbox, and Media Center to simplify your digital lifestyle.  Take a break from Outlook and join us for an entertaining evening filled with demos, excitement, and prizes.  Families are welcome!

Here are some links to blog posts and comments of what people thought last year! 

REGISTER

Event Overview

SEPT. 10th 2008

Timings
17.30 – 18.00 registration

18.00 – 19.15 session 1

19.15 – 19.30 break

19.30 – 20.45 session 2

20.45 – close

Language(s):
English.

Product(s):
Microsoft Xbox and Windows.

Audience(s):
IT Professional, Enthusiasts, and Consumers

140 SharePoint Professionals at Microsoft London Eat All My Pizza

A  key theme at today's SharePoint User Group UK meeting at our Victoria office was, " WE NEED MORE PIZZA!"  It really was a site to behold with the lines wrapping around the meeting room doors while people were scrambling for pizza.  I make it sound more chaotic than it really was.  If I could sum up today's meeting in a single word, that word would be "vibrant." 

Since the release of Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 (MOSS 2007), it has been the fastest growing Microsoft server product in history.  It is Microsoft's next multi-billion dollar eco-system.  Every industry from every corner of the world is thinking about SharePoint.  There, however, is an unfortunate reality which is that with such rapid growth, there are simply not enough qualified, competent, and innovative professionals in the marketplace *there are many incompetant ones though*.

Over the years, Microsoft has developed and cultivated influencers and professionals through various programs like the Microsoft Valued Professional program.  The model has served the community well.  We need to do more.  Microsoft needs to do more.  The community needs to do more.  In order to overcome this next generation of business challenges, communities and businesses will have to come together in unique ways, sharing knowledge, and do more outside the normal business hours.  Problems are global, and as such, so must be the solutions.

User groups like this one, run by Steve Smith (Combined Knowledge) [his blog here]and Nick Swan (Lightning Tools), are leading the global movement to cultivate SharePoint expertise and are driving deployment satisfaction.  If you are a SharePoint professional who has never attended a user group, or if you a developer looking to break in to the next big enterprise development movement, do yourself a favor start attending.  Start attending and networking because the results may surprise you!  It has for me, in fact I just found one the guys who did the NHS UK website; yes the NHS is running 100% SharePoint.

And as a promise to you all, if you come, we'll try to make sure we have enough pizza!

Funniest Yahoo Related Prank

What can only be described as a genius web app suitable for the likes of Ebaum's World, I was browsing Twitter and found this awesome tweet:

I don't think I've laughed this hard in over a year.

Ladies and gentleman, I give you, YahooRezinR