In this issue:
- How to make spreadsheets look exciting
- Outlook has it wrong for August Bank Holiday
- Uniplex address blocks for email
- Web statistics for web designers
- Disabling those irritating printer messages in NT
- Something funny from the Internet
HOW TO MAKE SPREADSHEET LOOK EXCITING!
|
Yes, well, maybe you just have to have the frame of mind to
begin with... On the other hand, if you really are
presenting a spreadsheet, rather than working with it then
here is how to put up a background picture in your
spreadsheet.
Open up the worksheet and choose Format->Sheet->Background
and then choose an image to be tiled in the background.
Generally the image will have to have a soft 'watermark'
look otherwise the text won't appear very clearly. Most
image editors can take a standard image and turn it into a
watermark version. (See http://www.c2000.com/psp for tips
on graphics processing).
For a 'clean' look you may want to remove gridlines from
the screen display - Tools->Options->Gridlines.
OUTLOOK AMEND FOR AUGUST BANK HOLIDAY
|
Hope you haven't planned your holidays already, because
Microsoft Outlook has the UK August Bank Holiday on the
wrong date. The "Late Summer Holiday" as Outlook calls it
should fall on the last Monday of August, instead Microsoft
reckon its on the fourth Monday - not always the same thing.
Anyway to correct this:
Edit the file Outlook.txt, to correct the calendar dates,
then re-import the UK holidays.
If you have note already imported the UK holiday dates:
1) Find Outlook.txt
2) Edit the file with Notepad
3) Find the lines for "Late Summer"
4) Modify the dates as follows:
Correct Dates Incorrect Dates
1998/08/31 1998/08/24
1999/08/30 1999/08/23
6) Save the file
7) In Outlook, on the Tools menu, click Options
8) Click Calendar Options
9) Click Add Holidays
10) Select the United Kingdom check box
11) Click OK
If you have already added the UK holiday dates, then you
will need to change the dates already entered in your
Outlook Calendar.
1) Click the Calendar folder for which you wish to adjust the Late Summer Holiday dates.
2) On the Go menu, click Go To Date and then in Date click to select August 24, 1998 and
click OK.
3) Double-click the holiday and in Start Time click to select August 31, 1998.
4) Repeat the above steps changing August 23, 1999 to August 30, 1999.
HOW TO INSERT AN ADDRESS BLOCK IN UNIPLEX MAIL
|
The common approach now as defined by "Netiquette" is to
have an address block at the end of your mail messages.
While waiting for an upgrade from Uniplex you might want to
add this simple little insert into the Mail softkeys:
While logged in as root, start up Uniplex and do a shell
escape to a Uniplex shell (not a regular shell).
1) Edit the file "/usr/UAP/general/notepad.fn" - you can use
Uniplex or vi
2) In the "#EDIT" section add this line
6=F65:'/usr/UAP/address.block':F61
3) Save the file
4) cd /usr/UAP/umail
5) Run skcomp umail.fn
6) Reload mail and you should now have F6 available on your
mail editing screen.
Now you need to set up the address file:
1) cd /usr/UAP
2) Uniplex, Create a file, "address.block"
3) Enter the contents as required
4) Save the file.
Note, it is normal to start your address block
with double dash on the first line at the left hand side.
Many mail readers understand and separate out the signature.
Incidentally, this method uses the same address block for
all mail. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to
set one up which gives personal signature files.
WEB STATISTICS FOR WEB DESIGNERS
|
As a web designer there are a few key numbers you need to
know.
1) What browsers and what operating systems are in use -
this dictates the features you can implement on your site.
2) How did they find you, which search engine did they come
from? This helps you know where to put your efforts to
bolster search hits
3) How long will readers wait for a page to download - its
surprising.
WHAT PLATFORM ARE YOUR VISITORS ON?
Win 95 55.0%
Win 98 23.9%
Windows NT 9.7%
Macintosh 5.2%
Unknown 2.8%
Other Windows 2.0%
Sun Solaris 0.7%
Linux 0.3%
No surprises there really, over 90% on some version of
Windows.
WHICH SEARCH ENGINES ARE PEOPLE USING TO FIND SITES?
Yahoo 38.8%
Alta Vista 18.2%
Excite 13.9%
Infoseek 13.8%
Webcrawler 6.0%
Hotbot 5.7%
Lycos 3.4%
Other Search Engines 0.2%
Of course, you need to find out about your own site, as
these are just generalised figures.
HOW LONG WILL YOUR VISITORS WAIT?
According to eMarketer.com this is how long visitors are
willing to wait for a page to download before they leave:
10 seconds 16%
15 seconds 33%
20 seconds 25%
30 seconds 21%
None of the Above 5%
So, if your pages takes more than 15 seconds to load you
have lost half your potential audience. If it takes 20
seconds to load, three quarters have moved on!
Gets those graphics and ad banners off your pages folks.
DISABLING PRINTER POPUP MESSAGES IN NT
|
Yes, darn irritating they are too if you are the console
user. Disabling them is simple, you just need to know how.
1) Start the Printer control applet (Start - Settings - Printers)
2) From the File menu select "Server Properties"
3) Select the Advanced tab
4) Uncheck the "Notify when remote documents are printer"
5) Click OK
6) This is NT remember, so you are advised to "Reboot the
computer". If however you are a serious computer user, you
may want to just stop and restart the spooler service.
Subject: Re: Tarot readers, psychics, & healers needed
From: DAN
Newsgroups: uk.local.yorkshire
FamulusUK writes
>We need several tarot readers, psychics & healers at psychic fairs
>being held here in the UK.
Why are you advertising surely they already know?
| 
