Category: Technology

Viewing Headers in Outlook 2010

Posted on by Julie

This is a quick post to share how to view email headers in Outlook 2010 without opening the email. I often wish to check the headers of an email to confirm the legitimacy before opening it. I can understand Microsoft removing this option from the right click menu, it isn’t user friendly data, but they could do with providing a little more help in accessing what was a very useful function.

  • Customize Quick Access Tool Bar using the drop down arrow located top left.
  • Select ‘More Commands’
  • Choose Commands from ‘All Commands’
  • Scroll down and select ‘Message Options’ from list
  • Hit ‘Add’ button
  • Hit ‘OK’

These steps will add the Message Options to the Quick access tool bar and will allow header details to be viewed without opening an email.

Thanks to Joe IT for this method.

The Magic iPad Double Finger Scroll

Posted on by Julie

I love my iPad but just sometimes it seems buggy or non-intuitive.

Two sites I use regularly use styling to reduce the visible area of a table and display a scroll bar to the side to access all rows.

On the iPad, however, the scroll bar isn’t visible. This resulted in frustration as I found the benefit of using the iPad while mobile reduced.

A little investigation online showed me a solution – interaction with these scrollable tables is through a two finger scroll.

Simple, effective, quirky and quite probably mentioned in the user guide.

Something learnt today, tick!

Do We Need Maps in 3D?

Posted on by Julie

The basic idea of a map is that it uses a series of symbols combined to represent the land we live in.

Google Mobile Maps 5.0 for Android will have 3D interaction.

(more infor on the Google Mobile Blog)

Granted a street map does not provide height elements in the way contours are provided on an OS Explorer or Landranger map, but contours provide more than height information. They provide us with information on gradient and land shape and formation and these are key to route planning.

In New York, as an example, you can rarely tell how tall a building is when standing next to it, so the height will only be useful when at a distance. So this helps with orientation rather planned direction and with an inbuilt compass a simpler tool is already provided in this application.

Map makers have to weigh up the complexity and volume of data they provide with the ease at which this data can be transformed into usable information in the brain.

My questions are

  1. If you can read a street map, how much additional information with the 3D elements provide and will they hinder your map reading.
  2. If you can’t read a street map how much easier is it to navigate with the building superimposed? Is learning to read a map easier when there are fewer items requiring your attention?

Let me know what you think.

Help Systems and Hyperlinks

Posted on by Julie

Software help systems are either pretty good or utterly useless.

Microsoft help system usually is a pretty good place to look for assistance when you’re using one of the products. If you know what you are looking for and it isn’t too in depth then it’s pretty straight forward.

Today, however, I found myself looking for instructions on how to delete all hyperlinks in a spreadsheet. When you copy/paste with formating Excel also keep the hyperlinks. The help system was pretty unhelpful, but maybe I was asking for the wrong thing.

Anyway, I soon gave up and headed to the Internet. If you need to delete all your hyperlinks on a sheet in Excel visit http://www.techonthenet.com/excel/macros/delete_hl.php. A simple, step by step guide and I was done in less than a minute.

So MS help didn’t help this time. Ah well. At least it’s better than the Adobe system. I rarely bother with that at all.

Internet Explorer 8 Officially Becomes World’s Most-Used Browser

Posted on by Julie

I’m not saying it’s the best browser out there but it’s certainly not the worst.

What the stats are saying though, is that IE8 has become the World’s most used browser.

It is a good sign that there has been widespread take up of the lastest IE browser. I’m hoping this means that users of older browsers such as IE6 are upgrading.

Microsoft supports the recommendation to move off Internet Explorer 6.

“Modern browsers such as Internet Explorer 8 bring benefits for customers and developers alike.”

As both a internet user and developer I say “Here,  here!”

Internet Explorer 8 Officially Becomes World’s Most-Used Browser

Google Drops Support for IE6 – Hurrah!

Posted on by Julie

Happiness is a web developer reading that Google is dropping support for IE6.

That is me this afternoon as I received the news from Google that they will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

Google will start with their Docs suite and move on to Google Main and Google Calendar. By showing Apps users the message that they should upgrade their browser the number of users on outdated software should certainly fall.

In my opinion, this can only be a good thing; for internet users, for website owners, for web designer/developers, for all.

Holding off on IE 8

Posted on by Julie

I’ve been holding off installing Internet Explorer 8

Why? Well firstly I like to give new software a chance to grow before rushing in. There are enough high tech takers out there who will go through a little pain to make sure they have the latest and greatest as quickly as possible. They will be the first users that will identify the problems that I might face and highlight strengths and weaknesses before I go through a process that will inevitably interrupt my work flow.

As a web designer I need to ensure that I can test websites on the previous versions of IE. My current testing environment uses IE 7 on Vista with Virtual Machine offering IE 7 XP and IE 6. I can also test IE 5.5 when I’m flush with time (I stopped testing for IE 5 last year). Before removing IE7 as my main IE browser I must upgrade my testing environment. Only then can I install IE 8. And before you ask why aren’t I testing IE 8 already – I am. @dazzaontheroad has been on IE 8 since RC1 (you can read his thoughts on IE 8 here).

So with the launch of IE 8 I have at least one more item to add to the to-do list

Where, Oh Where, Has My Icon Gone?

Posted on by Julie

How heavily I rely
on that one small icon
minimise/maximise
minimise/maximise

Through the ebb and flow of my day
I pay no heed
give no thought
to that little icon

But today I realise,
today I know
it keeps my day moving
it takes me there
(where? Here, there, everywhere)
where I want to be

To re-create the Show desktop icon, follow these steps:

  1. Click Start, click Run, type notepad in the Open box, and then click OK.
  2. Carefully copy and then paste the following text into the Notepad window:
    [Shell]
    Command=2
    IconFile=explorer.exe,3
    [Taskbar]
    Command=ToggleDesktop
  3. On the File menu, click Save As, and then save the file to your desktop as “Show desktop.scf”. The Show desktop icon is created on your desktop.
  4. Click and then drag the Show desktop icon to your Quick Launch toolbar.

for more info see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/190355