Online License Renewals/Appointments

http://www.hsmv.state.fl.us/

Need that license? Try your computer

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/states/florida/counties/broward_county/11868842.htm?source=rss&channel=miamiherald_broward_county

Want to avoid waiting in line all day at your local motor vehicles office? A phone call or a trip on the Web can get you a license or ID in less than an hour.

BY ROBERTO SANTIAGO

rsantiago@herald.com


Going to a state motor vehicles office to get a driver's license, photo identification card or road test can drive people crazy.

Maria Mejia of Pembroke Pines got mad a few years ago when she went to her local office to get her license without an appointment.

Mejia was given a choice: leave and call to make an appointment, which would probably be in three weeks, or wait in line in the hot sun in case she got lucky and could be waited on.

Her turn came hours later, at 4 p.m. She had been waiting since 7 a.m. with no breakfast or lunch.

''I needed my license, so I took a chance and got lucky,'' she said of an appointment that was canceled two hours before the office was scheduled to close.

When Mejia returned recently with her 17-year-old daughter, Luz, she assumed that appointments were required for licenses, not for state identification cards.

She was wrong.

Luz was turned away.

But since it was a slow day -- with many last-minute cancellations -- Luz got lucky, too. She waited less than five minutes to get her state ID.

That is not a typical story.

Officials at the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles say people should make appointments; some local offices, including those in Pembroke Pines and Pompano Beach, require them.

''We want to make the experience of going to a motor vehicles office as pleasant as possible,'' said Frank Penela, spokesman for the department in Tallahassee. ``If you make an appointment, you should be in and out of the office in less than an hour.''

But day after day, the same people who wouldn't dream of driving to the movies without checking showtimes show up at their local driver's license offices without an appointment.

Workers at the Pembroke Pines office say people argue daily over the appointment rule, wait for hours, or leave and go to offices in Fort Lauderdale, Margate, Lauderdale Lakes, Lauderdale Oakbrook or Deerfield Beach to wait.

Penela said there is a simple solution: People who had their license photo taken after Nov. 30, 1995 -- when the system went digital -- can renew their license online or through the mail.

''No need to come in if your photo is in the system already,'' he said.

''This isn't like Los Angeles, where you have lines around the block, tumbleweeds and skeletons waiting on line only to be told that they are standing in the wrong line,'' Penela said. ``We try to be a little advanced down here.''

10 Tips for Digital Photography

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/08/technology/circuits/08pogue.html?ei=5088&en=43490cea36bf55ec&ex=1275883200&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&position=

Less Cursing, Better Pictures: 10 Suggestions

By DAVID POGUE

RECENTLY, I was lying next to a hotel pool, keeping an eye on the children, when the guy on the next chaise swore like a sailor.

He was peering at his little digital camera, looking furious. I couldn't help myself. "Do you need help with that?" I asked.

"This is the stupidest camera," he said. "I've tried three times to take a picture of my son going off the diving board, but the delay is so bad, I miss it every time."

I knew he was talking about shutter lag, the maddening time it takes for most digital cameras to focus and calculate the exposure after you have squeezed the shutter button but before the shot is captured.

I nodded sympathetically. "And even the half-pressing trick doesn't work, eh?"

He looked at me as though I had just spoken Aramaic. "The what?"

Suddenly it dawned on me that this guy didn't know the half-pressing trick. He didn't realize that you can usually eliminate the shutter lag by half-pressing the shutter button before the action begins. The camera prefocuses, precalculates and locks in those settings as long as you continue to half-press. Then, when the child finally leaves the diving board, you press the rest of the way down to capture the shot. No lag - no lie.

The guy was so happy, he bought me a ginger ale.

I realized that day that the world could use a handy, clip-and-save digital camera primer - not so much an FAQ (frequently asked questions) list, but more of an FGA (frequently given answers) list. Here are 10 tips everyone should know:

1. End shutter lag. If your camera has a shutter-lag problem, the prefocusing trick may be your best bet. Another option: many cameras offer a continuous-focus option that eats up your battery faster but also reduces shutter lag by focusing constantly as you aim the camera (or as the subject moves).

Newer and more expensive cameras tend to have the least shutter lag, and digital single-lens reflex, or S.L.R., models (the big, heavy, $900-ish cameras that take interchangeable lenses) have none at all.

2. Don't believe the megapixel myth. More megapixels do not make a better camera.

Megapixels measure the maximum size of each photo. For example, a four-megapixel camera captures pictures made up of four million tiny dots. Trouble is, camera companies hawk megapixel ratings as though they are a measure of photo quality, and lots of consumers are falling for it.

In truth, the number of megapixels is a measure of size, not quality. There are terrible seven-megapixel photos, just as there are spectacular three-megapixel shots. (Lens and sensor quality are better determinants of your photographic results; too bad there are no easy-to-compare statistics for these attributes.)

Meanwhile, more megapixels means you have to buy a bigger, more expensive memory card to hold them. And you have to do a lot more waiting: between shots, during the transfer to your computer, and opening and editing.

Megapixels are something to think about only in two situations: when you want to make giant prints (20-by-30-inch posters, for example), and when you want the freedom to crop out a large portion of a photo to isolate the really good stuff, while still leaving enough pixels to make reasonably sized prints.

But if you don't edit your shots and don't need them larger than life, don't get caught up in the megapixel race. Four or five megapixels is a nice sweet spot.

(Bonus tip: Photos intended for display on the screen - the Web, e-mail, slideshows - don't need many pixels at all. Even a two-megapixel photo is probably too big to fit your computer screen without zooming out. High megapixel counts are primarily related to printing, which requires much higher dot density.)

3. Ignore digital zoom. In a further effort to market their way into your heart, camera companies also tout two different zoom factors: the optical zoom (usually 3X) and digital zoom (10X! 20X! 30X!).

Digital zoom just means blowing up the photo. It doesn't bring you closer to the action or capture more detail; in fact, at higher settings, it degrades your photo into a botchy mess. For best results, leave this feature turned off. The optical zoom number is the one that matters; it means a lens that brings you closer to the subject.

4. Ditch the starter card. Unfortunately, it's a universal practice to include a very low-capacity memory card with the camera-a teaser that lets you take a shot or two while you're still under the Christmas tree. But it fills up after only four or five shots.

When shopping for a camera, therefore, factor a decent-size memory card - 512 megabytes, for example - into the price.

5. Beware the format factor. Memory cards come in an infuriating variety of sizes and shapes. The least expensive formats are Compact Flash (big and rugged, about $55 online for a one-gigabyte card; available in capacities up to eight gigabytes) and SD (about $70 online for a one-gigabyte card; maximum two gigabytes).

Most Olympus and Fuji cameras require XD cards (about $85 online for a one-gigabyte card, the maximum), and most Sony cameras require either the Memory Stick Pro (about $90 online for a one-gigabyte card; maximum four gigabytes) or the smaller Memory Stick Duo (about $115 online for a one-gigabyte card; maximum two gigabytes).

Note, too, that you can also find memory-card slots built into laptops, palmtops, cellphones, game consoles, printers, photo-printing kiosks and other machinery. They are most likely to accommodate Compact Flash or SD cards. Memory Stick-compatible slots are less common, and XD slots are downright rare.

6. Do your research. Fortunately for you, the prospective camera buyer, the Web is filled with sites, including dpreview.com and dcresource.com, that do elaborate testing and reviews of every camera that comes along. Look them up before you buy; if you're pressed for time, at least read the intro and conclusion pages, and look at the sample photos.

7. Know your class. Please don't ask a technology columnist, "What digital camera should I buy?"

That's like asking, "What car should I buy?" or "Whom should I marry?" There just isn't a single good answer.

Cameras now come in several different classes with different pros and cons. There are card cameras, no larger than a Visa card and less than an inch thick (gorgeous and very convenient but with few manual controls and short battery life); coat-pocketable cameras (bigger, but still self-contained with built-in lens covers, longer battery life and more features); semipro zoom models (too big for a pocket but with built-in super-zoom lens ); and S.L.R. models (endless battery life, no shutter lag and astonishing photos).

8. Turn off the flash. A typical digital camera's flash has a range of about eight feet. In other words, using it at the school play does nothing but fluster the performers.

9. Turn on the flash. On the other hand, here's a great trick for when someone's face is in shadow: turn the flash on manually. Forced flash or fill flash brings your subject's face out of the shadows, and rescues many a portrait that would otherwise turn into a silhouette. (On most cameras, you turn the flash on or off by pressing a lightning-bolt button.)

10. Turn off the screen. The back-panel screen is, of course, one of the joys of digital photography. But it's also the No. 1 consumer of your battery power. If you're comfortable holding the camera up to your eye and peering through its optical viewfinder, turning off the screen while shooting can double the life of each battery charge.

There you have it - the 10 habits of highly effective digital camera owners. And may all your diving-board photos be lagless.

Tracking Changes in Word

Excerpted from Office Watch: http://office-watch.com

TRACK CHANGES

The Track Changes or Reviewing feature has been in Microsoft Word for many years though it has changed name and undergone many changes and improvements in each version.

The idea is to keep a record of what additions, deletions and changes are made to a document as it is being created.  You can view the document as it now stands or see the editing history.  You can see what has been removed or added and when it was changed.

In recent years this has been expanded to let a document be shared and edited by other people, with each person's changes and comments being tracked.  Not only see changes and when those changes were made, but who made them.

The tracking isn't usually automatic.  You switch it on by choosing (in Word 2003) Tools | Track Changes.  There are similar options in earlier versions of Word.

You can tell if changes are being tracked from the status bar at the bottom of the Word window - look for the TRK letters in black.

VIEWING CHANGES

When you turn tracking on, anything you now type will show up in a different color and underlined  - this can be very distracting.  Thankfully there is a way to show only the current state of the document while still monitoring changes unseen in the background.

You can do this from the Reviewing toolbar that should appear when you turn on tracking.  If not, right-click on the Word toolbar and choose Reviewing from the list provided.

On the Reviewing toolbar there's a pull-down list of the major document view options.

FINAL SHOWING MARKUP

is the default.  This shows the original document in normal (usually black) text and all the changes and comments.

FINAL

shows the current state of the document with all the changes included but none of the reviewing indicators displayed  ie the 'final' document with no editing showing.  Note that any changes you make in this view are still being tracked and will show up if you switch to one of the 'showing markup' views.

ORIGINAL SHOWING MARKUP

This view takes the original document and shows all the changes overlaid on it.

ORIGINAL

This view shows the document before track changes started.

MORE THAN JUST CHANGES

Over the years Microsoft has recognized that there's more to collaborative document making that just editing the document.  Some people just want to make comments on the text rather than spend the time doing the re-write themselves.  Other changes are just decorative formatting changes rather than substantive changes to the text itself.

To accommodate that there have been a growing range of additional reviewing options.

COMMENTS

To comment on a block of text, place the insertion point in the relevant part of the document or highlight the text you want to remark on.  Then choose Insert | Comment[PD2].

Your comment will be linked to the text you've indicated.

Comments are great for making notes without a full re-write such as:

"This doesn't make sense"

"You need to expand on this idea"

"Would be clearer in point form"

INK ANNOTATIONS

If one of the reviewers has a Tablet PC they can scribble all over your document.  These scrawls show up separately in Word.

FORMATTING

Recent versions of Word can distinguish between changes to the text and just formatting changes.

In Word 2003 you can filter out some or all of these options in the Show pull-down menu.  Check or un-check the options to see the types of changes you wish.

WHO DID WHAT?

The Track Changes feature also records the name of the person who made the changes or comments.

Note:  strictly speaking it records the name of the person given under Tools | Options | User Information which can easily be changed.

Normally you'll see all the changes from all reviewers of the document but it is possible to filter the view to see only the reviewers you want.  Go to the Show pull-down list on the Reviewing toolbar again, choose the Reviewers fly-out menu and select /de-select the reviewers.

THE BALLOON IS UP?

In earlier version of Word, comments especially appeared in a separate pane at the bottom of the document window.  These days they can appear as 'balloons' on the side of the document.

This seems to suit most people but you do have a choice.  Go back to the Show pull-down menu on the Reviewing toolbar.  There is a Balloons menu with options to use them Always, Never or only for Comments and Formatting.

HOW DO I SNOOP ON WORD CHANGES?

It can be interesting and revealing to see the changes and comments made on a document you get, here's how.

There's no magic to viewing any changes or reviewing in documents you receive.  For some reason people (including those on company help desks) have got the idea that some special software is needed to 'snoop' on changes made to a document you receive.

The 'special' software need is, er, Microsoft Word.  Just open the document as normal, start the Reviewing toolbar (right-click on the Word toolbar and choose 'Reviewing').  Choose the Final showing Markup option if necessary and any changes or comments should appear on the screen.

There's lot's more about Track Changes but that's the basics.  While the system is complicated, that is mostly because it has developed around the idea of a 'team' with many people editing and commenting on a document at once.   There are options to jump between changes or accept and reject changes from toolbar buttons.

JUST BETWEEN YOU AND ME

That's all fine but in the first place most people will have a 'team' of two people - you and another person (the 'reviewer').  In this situation it's fairly simple to use reviewing features:

1. Turn Track Changes on (to make sure the reviewers changes are tracked)

2. Send the Word document to the reviewer.  Usually that's by email these days but it can be a floppy, network share or other means.

3. The reviewer opens the document in Word, makes changes and comments.

4. Reviewer sends document back to you.

5. You open the document with Final showing Markup to see all the suggested changes.

AutoCorrecting for Your Common Errors

Excerpted from: http://wordtips.vitalnews.com/PrintPages/T1146P.html

Chances are good that you already know what AutoCorrect is and that it can be a boon for those words you habitually mistype. However, setting up AutoCorrect to compensate for your mistyping can be a bother. Here's a quick way to make short work of adding your mistypings to AutoCorrect:

Assuming that Word flags the mistyped word as misspelled, right-click on it. A Context menu appears.

If spelling corrections are offered in the Context menu, there should also be a menu choice called AutoCorrect. Choose it and you will see the same spelling corrections in the resultant submenu.

Choose the correct spelling in this submenu.

What you have just done is tell Word that you want to create an AutoCorrect entry that will automatically correct the mistyped word using the selected spelling.

Find the Right Word in Word

From: Dummies.com

If you can't seem to find the right word to use in your Word document, give the Thesaurus a shot. Start by right-clicking the word that's not quite right, and choose Synonyms on the shortcut menu that appears. With luck, the synonym you're looking for appears on the submenu, and all you have to do is click it to enter the synonym in your document.

To do a deeper synonym search Synonyms, Thesaurus. The Research task pane opens. Now you're getting somewhere:

Choosing a synonym: Move the pointer over the word, open its menu, and choose Insert.

Finding a synonym for a synonym: If a synonym intrigues you, click it. The task pane displays a new list of synonyms.

Searching for antonyms: If you can't think of the right word, trying typing its antonym and then looking for an antonym in the Research task pane. The task pane sometimes lists antonyms for words.

Revisit a word list: Click the Back button as many times as necessary. If you go back too far, you can always click its companion Forward button.