CHICAGO: WEB TOOLS ADD EXCITING FEATURES TO YOUR WEB SITE

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In this issue

PRODUCT NEWS
- CHICAGO: WEB TOOLS ADD EXCITING FEATURES TO YOUR WEB SITE  (Part 2)


NEW DOWNLOAD ON SITE
- SCHIZO SIGS!

MICROSOFT TIPS
- WINDOWS NT: AUTOMATICALLY LOG-OFF
- MS-ACCESS: BLANK PAGES IN REPORTS
- MS-OUTLOOK: QUICK FIND FOR CONTACTS

UNIX/UNIPLEX TIPS
- REDUCING MODEM TRAFFIC FOR UNIPLEX


WEB TIPS
- MACROMEDIA FLASH: PRECISION OBJECT PLACEMENT
- HTML ADVICE: ON THE MARGINS

GRAPHICS AND FONT TIPS
- GRAPHICS TIPS: CLONE ACROSS IMAGES
- FONTS TIP: QUICK VIEW FONTS



QUICK TIPS
- Don't touch that mouse - keyboard shortcuts
- Seen on the Internet - another slice of fun.




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======== CENTRELINE 2000 PRODUCT TIPS AND INDUSTRY NEWS ================
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________________________________________________________________________
CHICAGO: WEB TOOLS ADD EXCITING FEATURES TO YOUR WEB SITE  (Part 2)

Last issue we looked at using our CHICAGO CGI TOOLKIT for adding
customer retaining features to your web site.  In this second
part we look at further features that can help you sell.


Call back customers with newsletters and mailing forums

Newsletters let you keep customers up to date with products,
features and new releases.  They also serve to remind customers
of whats available at the web site too.

Mail forums let your customers discuss amongst themselves the
ways of getting the best from your products.

CHICAGO offers both facilities, providing automated mailing to
subscription lists (including automated subscribe/unsubscribe
features).  You write the newsletter and post it once, CHICAGO
handles the distribution and onward mailing.  

And, if you use our web hosting service, we can also provide you
unlimited numbers of discussion forums all handled by email.  


Web Forums and Message Boards:

The difference between a web forum and message board is the
longevity of the messages.  Email forums have very short life
spans and do not capture useful information well.  Discussion or
message boards on web sites are better for capturing long term
information.

CHICAGO provides facilities for multiple discussion boards on
your web site.  


If you want to see samples of our web developments or look at any
of the CHICAGO tools in action:

http://www.c2000.com/webmanag/




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THIS WEEKS DOWNLOAD: SCHIZO SIGS!

Something you don't really need, but every bloke wants (this is
not a girly thing). Schizosigs generates a new signature block
for your email using selected quotes from a shipped database or
your own selection.

Completely pointless but well worth some quality futzing time!


http://www.c2000.com/software/



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======== MICROSOFT TIPS AND TRICKS =====================================
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________________________________________________________________________
WINDOWS NT: AUTOMATICALLY LOG-OFF

On the NT Resource Kit is a utility winexit.scr.  Designed to be
run as a screen saver.  

1) Copy winexit.scr and winexit.hlp to c:\winnt\system32. 
2) Select Control Panel, Display, Screen Saver
3) Select the "Logoff Screen Saver"
4) Set the inactivity period to whatever you think appropriate.
5) DON'T PREVIEW IT!

When the inactivity period is up, the user is given a warning
dialog.  If nothing happens, then the user is logged out
automatically.

Note: this does not take into account any background programs
that may be running, only whether the user is active at the
keyboard.


More Microsoft Tips at 
http://www.c2000.com/mswindow/



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MS-ACCESS: BLANK PAGES IN REPORTS

Fortunately in Office 2000 you now get a warning, but in earlier
versions of Access it is very simple to create reports where
every other page is blank.

This problem happens when the report width is wider than the
chosed page size (less margins).  So in other words the report
needs two pages to fit the width of the report.

Now there may be nothing (usually isn't) on the second page,
often Access created it automatically as you were moving controls
around the page.

All you need do is go back to the report in design mode and
reduce the width of the report.  Obviously if any controls do run
over the width of the page, then you need to re-layout the report
too.


More Microsoft Tips at 
http://www.c2000.com/mswindow/

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MS-OUTLOOK: QUICK FIND FOR CONTACTS

Can't remember a persons last name, or only recall the email
domain, or some other fragment of the contact details.  The Find
A Contact box on the standard Outlook toolbar can quickly locate
contacts - faster than using the contacts folder.

On the toolbar, type the name of the contact you want to find in
the Find a Contact box. You can enter a partial name, such as
Simon W, a first or last name, or an e-mail alias. To quickly open
a contact you previously searched for, click the Find a Contact
arrow and select a name.

More Microsoft Tips at 
http://www.c2000.com/mswindow/




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======== UNIX AND UNIPLEX TIPS AND TRICKS ==============================
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UNIPLEX TIP: REDUCING MODEM TRAFFIC FOR UNIPLEX

If you are using a slower modem for contact to a Uniplex system
or using a telnet connection that you need to time-out then you
might want to remove the clock from the Uniplex menu bar.

Edit the uniplex.sys file and remove the letter C from the MODE= line.

Don't forget to recompile with syscomp.



More Unix and Uniplex tips at
http://www.c2000.com/uniplex






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======== WEB AND HTML TIPS AND TRICKS ==================================
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MACROMEDIA FLASH: PRECISION OBJECT PLACEMENT

When creating animated objects along a timeline, placement and
size are very important. If you are creating an animation in
which an object appears to travel in a circle, the object in the
beginning and ending frames needs to be offset by the same amount
as in the middle frames. If you scale an object in one frame, you
have to make sure it's scaled identically in every other frame. 

There are a few commands in Flash that will help you place and
size objects precisely. When you move an object in one frame, one
way to match positions in other frames is to copy it with the
Edit/Copy command, click the location in the other frames where
you want it to appear, and choose Edit/Paste In Place. This is an
essential command to use when tweaking an animation. 

You can scale and rotate objects easily in Flash 3.0 by using
either Modify/Transform/Scale or Modify/Transform/Rotate. But
don't use these commands if you need to apply the same amount of
scaling and rotation to the same object in different frames.
Instead, use Modify/Transform/Scale And Rotate, which brings up a
dialog box in which you can enter precise values, and repeat the
same values for all your objects.



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HTML ADVICE: ON THE MARGINS

To remove all margins in a web page regardless of the browser you
need to use:

marginheight=0
marginwidth=0

topmargin=0
leftmargin=0
rightmargin=0

in the  tag.

More Web Tips at 
http://www.c2000.com/



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======== FONT AND GRAPHICS TIPS AND TRICKS =============================
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GRAPHICS TIPS: CLONE ACROSS IMAGES


Often forgotten is that when you use the Clone tool in PaintShop
- or Rubber Stamp in Photoshop - you can click on one image and
paint into another. Very useful for introducing new features into
an original image.

More Graphic and Digital Image information at
http://www.justkiss.com/psp/


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FONTS TIP: QUICK VIEW FONTS

You can see examples of all your fonts by opening the
WINDOWS\FONTS folder and double clicking on any of the fonts. You
can even print out examples of each font.

More Graphic and Digital Image information at
http://www.justkiss.com/psp/




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======== QUICK HITS ====================================================
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DON'T TOUCH THAT MOUSE!
An occasional series of keyboard shortcuts

There's a quick way to bring up the 'Insert Cell' dialog box in
Excel. Select one or more cells that you want to insert cells
over. Press the shortcut then you'll see the familiar dialog that
gives you the choices of shifting the selected cells left / right
/ up / down or inserting an entire row / column.

CTRL+SHIFT+PLUS SIGN	Insert blank cells



More MS-Word Shortcut Sheets at 
http://www.c2000.com/mswindow/wordcut1.htm



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SEEN ON THE INTERNET: Real quotes from Internet newsgroups


Subject: Re: Linux Answers & PC Plus 
From: Simon Best 
Newsgroups: uk.comp.os.linux

phil hunt wrote:
> 
> 
> Why are Unix utilities often so hard to use. Here's a section from
> my .procmailrc file:
> 
>    :0:
>    * ^TOsgml-tools
>    ./Mail/_sgml-tools
> 

Wizards just wouldn't be wizards if they didn't have to use arcane
spells in wierd languages.




More Internet fun at
http://www.c2000.com/fun/




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