In this issue:
- Microsoft Word: How to get more screen space
- Access Programming, avoiding null's
- NT Corner: automatic restarts
- Graphics Studio: Free Frame Masks
- Seen on the Internet:
WANT TO SEE MORE OF YOUR DOCUMENT ON SCREEN?
Or how to gain real estate for free!
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I am often struck as I work at different organisations just
how often people get by with so little work space on their
screen - especially in MS-Word. So here are some tips to
regain some ground.
1) Check your resolution. Many, many screens are still set
to the default screen resolution which is quite small.
- Click on Settings, Control Panel, Display.
- Select the Settings Tab in the display dialog
- Try adjusting the Screen Area tab to give you more space
NOTE: When you increase the space, sometimes you lose
the range of colours, watch the left hand "Colors" dialog
while you are adjusting the Screen Area.
TIP: Many systems are shipped at 640x480 pixel screen areas,
any system bought in the last 5 years can handle at least
800x600, thats over a 50% increase.
Next, when you fire up word, how many of those toolbars and
status bars and rulers and everything else do you actually
use?
Just Right-Click on any toolbar and you can turn on and off
your toolbar selection. For those you use only sometimes
for special jobs, leave them turned off normally, turn them
on when you need to.
Then there is full screen mode. Switch it on from the View
Menu and get rid of all that clutter. Need your menus back,
just move the mouse to the top of the screen and the menu
rolls down. Want to go back to normal mode, just press
ESCAPE.
MICROSOFT ACCESS PROGRAMMING: HELP I'M ALWAYS GETTING NULLS
Use nz() to remove NULLS and NULL errors
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Anywhere you reference a control - whether a control on a
form or value from a database record you can use the
function nx() to ensure you don't get NULL's returned. nz
takes two parameters, the control value and a default value
if the control is null i.e. nz([field],0). If [field] is
not null, then nz returns the value of [field]. If [field]
is null, then it returns the default value - in this case 0.
DAILY RESTARTS OF NT
How to reboot automatically overnight
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With all the hype about Win 2000 you would think that NT was
dead already, but no it isn't and one of our most frequent
requests is automatic rebooting of the NT server.
If you have one, you'll understand why, basically, you need
to keep the machine rebooted to make sure it continues to
work! (Sad but true).
Anyway, it is fairly easy to setup and here's how. From
the NT Resource Kit find the utility SHUTDOWN.EXE. This
program only has four flags:
/l Shutdown the local machine
/r Reboot, not just close
/c To close all programs
/y To say YES to any questions.
If you want to include this in a batch command then that's
fine, or indeed you can run it direct from the command
prompt. We usually set it to run automatically using the AT
service:
at 04:00 shutdown /r /l /y /c
At 4 in the morning, reboot the machine, no questions asked.
TIP: Be careful that this will actually clear any backup
runs you have, you don't want the backup truncated because
the machine closed down early.
TIP: Make sure someone knows how to bring the machine back
online again, just in case the reboot didn't!
GRAPHICS TIPS: Free Masks
Use Extensis Masks, without Extensis
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If you've seen the adverts for Extensis Photo Frames, a
rather nifty, but expensive utility for adding frames to any
picture, you might want to know that you can get extra
frames for the product.
Thing is, even if you've never bought Photo Frames you can
still download the masks and use them manually as you would
any other mask!
Available from the URL:
http://www.extensis.com/products/PhotoFrame.html.
If you are still not sure about masks, check out our
tutorial on www.justkiss.com/psp/mask01.htm
IMPORTANT NOTE: The Graphics Tutorials have now been
separated from our more information technology oriented
materials:
For graphics: www.justkiss.com/psp/
SEEN ON THE INTERNET: Our intrepid reporter finds another
fascinating slice of Internet life from the newsgroups:
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Subject: Re: The Millennium
From: i***@r*********.com
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Steve wrote:
[snip Y2K problems]
>Saw something about the ambulance
>service: they had hit upon a revolutionary way of coping with any system
>crash; pencils & paper.
That's no substitute for an ambulance.
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