Entries by Miguel M. de la O (693)
Turning Off Change Bars in Word
From WordTips:
Summary: If Track Changes is turned on, any edits to a document are accompanied by vertical bars that appear to the left or right side of the changed text. If these change bars distract you, make a quick change to the configuration of Word and you can turn them off completely. (This tip works with Microsoft Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, and Word 2003.)
Word includes a feature that allows you to track changes made to a document. This is controlled by using the Track Changes option from the Tools menu. (In Word 6 and Word 95, you would use the Revisions option from the Tools menu.) One of the ways in which Word marks your changes on a document is to include a change bar at the side of a line in which a change was made. This is fairly common in editing, but it may not be to your liking. You can turn off the change bars by following these steps:
- Choose Options from the Tools menu. Word displays the Options dialog box.
- Make sure the Track Changes tab is selected.
- If you are using Word 97 or Word 2000, in the Changed Lines section (bottom of the dialog box), change the Mark drop-down list to (none). If you are using a later version of Word, change the Changed Lines drop-down list to (none).
- Click on OK.
Note that making this setting change hides the appearance of the change bars. Rest assured they are still there and can be redisplayed by choosing to display them again.
Miguel M. de la O
in Word Processing
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Embedding TrueType Fonts
From WordTips:
Summary: If you need to make sure that the fonts in your document can be used by another person or on a different system, you’ll need to embed those fonts. Here’s how to make the necessary configuration change. (This tip works with Microsoft Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, Word 2003, and Word 2007.)
If you create a document that you want to share with others, it is helpful for the other people to have the fonts you use within your document. If they don't have the fonts, then Word substitutes a similar font for the original fonts you used. The result may not be to your liking. One solution is to include the fonts with your document. You can auto
matically embed some types of fonts by following these steps if you are using a version of Word prior to Word 2007:
- Choose Options from the Tools menu. Word displays the Options dialog box.
- Make sure the Save tab is selected.
- Ensure the Embed TrueType Fonts check box is selected.
- If you will be using a small number of characters in a particular font, choose the Embed Characters In Use Only check box.
- To save space in the document, choose the Do Not Embed Common System Fonts check box.
- Click on OK.
- Work with your documents as normal.
If you are using Word 2007 then you should follow these steps:
- Click the Office button and then click Word Options. Word displays the Word Options dialog box.
- At the left side of the dialog box click Save.
- Make sure the Embed Fonts in the File check box is selected.
- If you will be using a small number of characters in a particular font, choose the Embed Only the Characters Used in the Document check box.
- To save space in the document, choose the Do Not Embed Common System Fonts check box.
- Click on OK.
- Work with your documents as normal.
You should realize that embedding fonts can increase the size of your document files. In fact, if you use a lot of fonts, it can increase the size drastically. In addition, not all fonts are "embeddable." Some fonts are protected by their creators against distribution by embedding. If you are curious about whether a particular font can be embedded, you can either contact the vendor or download a free Font Properties Extension Tool from Microsoft. You can download it at the following address:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/TrueTypeProperty21.mspx
The tool updates Windows so it displays more information when you right-click on a font file and choose Properties. One of the pieces of information displayed is whether the font is protected or not. If it is protected, it cannot be embedded in a Word document.
Miguel M. de la O
in Word Processing
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Change the default save format from .docx to .doc in Word 2007
From Technix:
.docx is the new file format recognized only by office 2007, and office 2003 or later versions of office cannot open .docx word document files.
What is .docx?
It is the default file extension for saving documents in word 2007. These docx documents are essentially a bunch of zipped XML documents
Let’s see how can you change the default file save format to .doc which is widely supported in the backward version of office 2007.
1. Open Microsoft Word, click office icon at the top left.
2. Now, Click the Word Options
3. Select Save in the left pane, then select Word 97-2003 Documents from the drop down.
4. Click OK
We hope you like this small tweak, but if still you have a .docx files which you want to open in office 2003 or later version of office, try using some free web services like Zamzar.com or docxtodoc.com that can convert .docx files to .doc
The High Cost of a ‘Free Credit Report’
The High Cost of a ‘Free Credit Report’
EARLIER this year, Kris Steele, a Web developer in Madison, Wis., who was planning to buy a car, decided to check his credit score.
Mr. Steele, 27, remembered a number of commercials for FreeCreditReport.com featuring a young slacker singing about various life problems — living in the in-laws’ basement, dressing as a pirate to wait on tables in a seafood restaurant — all because he had neglected to check his credit score. The ads were lighthearted and catchy, with lyrics like: “F-R-E-E, that spells free creditreport.com, baby. Saw their ads on my TV, thought about going but was too lazy.”
So Mr. Steele headed to the site and filled out the information form, including his credit-card number, which he thought the site needed to verify his identity.
But a couple of months later, Mr. Steele noticed the site had been charging his credit card. While he believed he had signed up for a free report, he had actually enrolled in a credit-monitoring service that cost $14.95 a month. He says he never expected that it would cost anything.
“It’s called FreeCreditReport.com,” he said. “It’s kind of easy to make that assumption. I didn’t see anything in the process of signing up that said, ‘Hey, if you don’t cancel in 30 days or whatever, you’re going to get charged.’ ”
Consumer groups have long objected to sites like FreeCreditReport.com. Consumers may obtain a free credit report each year from the three major agencies, as mandated by an act that Congress passed in 2003. The only authorized site for that is AnnualCreditReport.com.
The three major credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, are required to offer reports through the authorized AnnualCreditReport.com, but the bureaus also make money from their own credit reports.
Experian, which owns FreeCreditReport.com, increased both its site visitors and new member sign-ups by 20 percent in 2007. The company attributes those increases to its catchy ads.
“We’ve always been a very aggressive marketer,” said Mike Dean, the chief marketing officer for the Experian consumer direct division, which runs FreeCreditReport.com. He said the company had increased its advertising budget by 200 percent over the last five years. The site spent $70.7 million dollars on major media advertising in 2007, according to TNS Media Intelligence.
A previous round of commercials, which began in October, have been a pop-culture hit. There are more than 70 YouTube homages, including one with a 5-year-old singing the ditty, and another with a high-school boy singing “C-A-L-cu-lus A.P., hardest class in history.”
The ads on YouTube have been viewed more than three million times, the company says, and the radio and television ads have run about 90,000 times in the last year.
“We’re just trying to do something that’s talked about and seen and gets passed around in pop culture,” said Steve Sage, an associate creative director at the Martin Agency, which worked on the spots. The agency, based in Richmond, Va., is part of the Interpublic Group of Companies.
The set of commercials starting Monday features the same three musicians as the previous set. The director, Danny Leiner, has a background in slacker films, like “Dude, Where’s My Car?” and “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.”
The idea behind the existing and the new commercials is to appeal to a young crowd, Mr. Dean said.
“We knew our creative was good, and we were targeting a younger audience,” Mr. Dean said. “That’s exactly what we’ve received with that: we have a lot younger demographic coming into our site.”
On this round of FreeCreditReport.com ads, the lead singer of the band of merry losers finds he can no longer afford to have a car, and downgrades to a bike; attends a Hollywood party, but as a waiter; and plays a character at a Renaissance fair. The ads focus on identity theft rather than on checking one’s credit score, as the previous set did.
“There’s a lot of elements, I think, that help the campaign work as a whole,” said David Muhlenfeld, the copywriter at the Martin Agency who wrote both sets of commercials. “It’s not just a catchy song. The performances of the actors are great, and really, the characters of the singer — and the band — I think a lot of people identify with him. He’s a bit of a lovable loser.”
The contention is not over the ads’ aesthetics, but over their substance. Consumer advocates said the site’s pitch was misleading.
“It’s what I call a protection racket; the companies are charging you a fee and they’re making a promise that it’s going to improve your credit, and protect against identity theft, but in fact it does neither,” said Edmund Mierzwinski, consumer program director for the United States Public Interest Research Group. “The sites are designed to trick people into taking on overpriced, useless credit monitoring, and they do so by attempting to make it appear as if you’re going to get something for free.”
The Federal Trade Commission, too, has criticized FreeCreditReport.com. In 2005, the agency settled a case against ConsumerInfo.com, an Experian division that ran FreeCreditReport.com, saying that the advertisements said there was no catch to the report and that the Web site did not have adequate disclosure that the service was not free. Experian paid the F.T.C. $950,000 and had to offer refunds to certain consumers.
On its Web site, the F.T.C. warns about sites other than AnnualCreditReport.com, noting that “in some cases, the ‘free’ product comes with strings attached.” The Florida attorney general is conducting an investigation into FreeCreditReport.com.
Mr. Dean said he could not comment about either case.
FreeCreditReport.com now has a disclosure on its home page saying that it is not affiliated with the annual free credit report program. But that language is in small print on the side of the home page on a subdued background, versus the large font and rich colors promoting enrollment.
Mr. Dean said that he did not think the site was misleading.
“It absolutely is the free credit report,” he said. “It’s not the one by the government, which is why we put the link on our front page of the landing site, and it is a free report. It’s really a test drive for people to understand what’s in that report because a report can be very complex.”
Consumer groups disagree. “It’s of great concern,” said Linda Sherry, director for national priorities of Consumer Action, a San Francisco-based consumer advocacy group. “I think it’s just a shabby way to market anything.”
The ads themselves, she said, were also a problem. “I don’t think they’ve cracked down hard enough on the television and other kinds of radio ads that are deceptive to consumers because there’s no room to put adequate disclosure,” she said.
As the new slate of ads rolls out, one person who will be turning away from the television is Trevor Snyder. Mr. Snyder returned to Georgia in 2006 after a year as a National Guard public-affairs officer in Iraq. He had filed for bankruptcy a few years earlier and was anxious about what had happened to his credit score while he was deployed. At FreeCreditReport.com, he signed up for the report. When he saw the charges on his credit card a few months later, he said, he called the company but had trouble canceling the service.
“I took advantage, I thought, of a good offer,” said Mr. Snyder, 37, an information-technology manager for a construction company. “Unfortunately, I think the offer is purposefully designed to make it easy for you to get your credit report, and then forget that you’ve just signed up for an in-perpetuity fee.”
“My wife comments continuously on their TV commercials because she likes the ditty,” Mr. Snyder said. “I get irritable and tell her that it might be a catchy song, but I don’t like the company.”
An Enduring Measure of Fitness: The Simple Push-Up
By TARA PARKER-POPE
As a symbol of health and wellness, nothing surpasses the simple push-up.
Practically everyone remembers the actor Jack Palance performing age-defying push-ups during his Oscar acceptance speech. More recently, Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon professor whose last lecture became an Internet sensation, did push-ups to prove his fitness despite having pancreatic cancer.
“It takes strength to do them, and it takes endurance to do a lot of them,” said Jack LaLanne, 93, the fitness pioneer who astounded television viewers in the 1950s with his fingertip push-ups. “It’s a good indication of what kind of physical condition you’re in.”
The push-up is the ultimate barometer of fitness. It tests the whole body, engaging muscle groups in the arms, chest, abdomen, hips and legs. It requires the body to be taut like a plank with toes and palms on the floor. The act of lifting and lowering one’s entire weight is taxing even for the very fit.
“You are just using your own body and your body’s weight,” said Steven G. Estes, a physical education professor and dean of the college of professional studies at Missouri Western State University. “If you’re going to demonstrate any kind of physical strength and power, that’s the easiest, simplest, fastest way to do it.”
But many people simply can’t do push-ups. Health and fitness experts, including the American College of Sports Medicine, have urged more focus on upper-body fitness. The aerobics movement has emphasized cardiovascular fitness but has also shifted attention from strength training exercises.
Moreover, as the nation gains weight, arms are buckling under the extra load of our own bodies. And as budgets shrink, public schools often do not offer physical education classes — and the calisthenics that were once a childhood staple.
In a 2001 study, researchers at East Carolina University administered push-up tests to about 70 students ages 10 to 13. Almost half the boys and three-quarters of the girls didn’t pass.
Push-ups are important for older people, too. The ability to do them more than once and with proper form is an important indicator of the capacity to withstand the rigors of aging.
Researchers who study the biomechanics of aging, for instance, note that push-ups can provide the strength and muscle memory to reach out and break a fall. When people fall forward, they typically reach out to catch themselves, ending in a move that mimics the push-up. The hands hit the ground, the wrists and arms absorb much of the impact, and the elbows bend slightly to reduce the force.
In studies of falling, researchers have shown that the wrist alone is subjected to an impact force equal to about one body weight, says James Ashton-Miller, director of the biomechanics research laboratory at the University of Michigan.
“What so many people really need to do is develop enough strength so they can break a fall safely without hitting their head on the ground,” Dr. Ashton-Miller said. “If you can’t do a single push-up, it’s going to be difficult to resist that kind of loading on your wrists in a fall.”
And people who can’t do a push-up may not be able to help themselves up if they do fall.
“To get up, you’ve got to have upper-body strength,” said Peter M. McGinnis, professor of kinesiology at State University of New York College at Cortland who consults on pole-vaulting biomechanics for U.S.A. Track and Field, the national governing body for track.
Natural aging causes nerves to die off and muscles to weaken. People lose as much as 30 percent of their strength between 20 and 70. But regular exercise enlarges muscle fibers and can stave off the decline by increasing the strength of the muscle you have left.
Women are at a particular disadvantage because they start off with about 20 percent less muscle than men. Many women bend their knees to lower the amount of weight they must support. And while anybody can do a push-up, the exercise has typically been part of the male fitness culture. “It’s sort of a gender-specific symbol of vitality,” said R. Scott Kretchmar, a professor of exercise and sports science at Penn State. “I don’t see women saying: ‘I’m in good health. Watch me drop down and do some push-ups.’ ”
Based on national averages, a 40-year-old woman should be able to do 16 push-ups and a man the same age should be able to do 27. By the age of 60, those numbers drop to 17 for men and 6 for women. Those numbers are just slightly less than what is required of Army soldiers who are subjected to regular push-up tests.
If the floor-based push-up is too difficult, start by leaning against a countertop at a 45-degree angle and pressing up and down. Eventually move to stairs and then the floor.
Mr. LaLanne, who once set a world record by doing 1,000 push-ups in 23 minutes, still does push-ups as part of his daily workout. Now he balances his feet and each hand on three chairs.
“That way I can go way down, even lower than if I was on the floor,” he said. “That’s really tough.”
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Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
An Enduring Measure of Fitness: The Simple Push-Up - New York Times