14 Great Cheat Sheets & Posters to Make You a Software Wizard

Great tips via makuseof.com

 

It is a known fact that if you want to commit something to memory, continuous revision is the key. You read something every time you are at your desk and within days it becomes second nature. To be able to revise quickly and often, it helps if the information is terse and to the point highlighting only the important aspects. Something like an application cheat sheet or a poster that you can print and pin to a board or keep on your desk. Here are some application cheat sheets for commonly used software that will hopefully make you more productive. Microsoft Office Need to get that report typed and formatted quickly? Can't find your way around the ribbon interface? Check these out: Explains the ribbon interface, smart shapes, which format to choose and how to do things like adding a digital signature, protecting the document and other little tips. (Download)   Excel 2007 (Download) Word 2007 (Download) PowerPoint 2007 (Download) Outlook 2007 (Download) If you are interested in other Office applications or different version of Microsoft Office, Customguide is a great resource. Browsers Browsers are among most commonly used software these days. You may be using Firefox or Chrome or Opera or even Internet Explorer, the bottomline is you need to get online and browsers help you in doing so. It is always nice to know your browser inside out and have some tricks up your sleeves, here are some cheat sheets that should get you started: Google Chrome Contains keyboard shortcuts, command line switches and the about:urls (Go there) (PDF) Firefox Contains keyboard shortcuts, highlights important directories related to Firefox, and presents a trick or two. It has not been updated for a long time but the information still stands good for Firefox 3.5 (Go there) ( PDF ) Linux This is a huge 18 x 18 in poster that presents you – "The Anatomy of a Linux System". It has a plethora of information about Linux, top Linux magazines, top Linux sites. In addition, it lists the popular software on Linux systems along with the sites and useful books (it's from O'Reilly after all) on each of them. (More) (Download)   Lists commonly used commands, switches and what they do. Good for beginners. (Download)   Looking for something a little more advanced? Linux Administrator's Quick Reference card has you covered with the important files and commands you need to know for system administration. (Download) Credit: Jialong He Vi/Vim One of my personal favorites, I actually learned Vim way back using this. It is a complete tutorial and apart from the all inclusive version, there are ones for individual chapters. You can download the SVG versions and scale them to make a wallpaper if you like! (Download) Photoshop Concisely lists all the common Photoshop shortcuts you should know to make your work easier and faster. (Download for CS4) (Other Photoshop Versions) Twitter Twitter finds its way into everything these days, how could we not have a reference sheet for Twitter? Packed with all kinds of information about Twitter including important pages, desktop clients, widgets and apps, a definition of various Twitter buzzwords and ethics! (Download) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) It has tons of information on what to include in tags, redirects, sitemap syntax, robots.txt syntax and much more. Presents lots of useful information in a tiny little booklet. A must for anyone working with SEO. (Download) Looking for more? I bet you are. Didn't find the one you were looking for? Well there were too many of them to fit in one post. If you are looking for a specific application cheat sheet fire up the request in the comments section, someone might drop you a link. There are two great resources for posters and cheat sheets here and here. If you ever created one for yourself we would love to see them too!

What Is Blackberry Technology? A simple explanation

Blackberry technology and the concept of "push" email e.g Nokia Email explained

Via makeuseof

Many years ago, before there were "internet enabled" mobile devices, I remember shopping the various cellular providers in search of any gadgets that might have the ability to transmit Internet pages over the cellular lines. I was desperate for a way to research eBay prices while sitting at antique auctions. Only a few years later, this technology was realized in the form of the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) with Windows Mobile software connecting to the Internet through the "new" 2G data network…the predecessor to today's 3G network and beyond. Not long after PDA's became Internet ready, a company named Research in Motion (RIM) developed a new device, and more importantly a new, groundbreaking technology, that would change the world of mobile Internet access forever. Today I'm going to answer the question, what is Blackberry technology, and I'm also going to describe why it still remains the most effective methods of doing business (or having fun) over the Internet while you're mobile. What Is Blackberry Technology? In all honesty, there's nothing overwhelmingly terrific about the Blackberry device itself. PDA devices had cellphone and Internet capabilities integrated into them long before the Blackberry became a household name. The first versions of the Blackberry weren't leaps and bounds ahead of the leading hand-held mobile devices of the day. With that said, the Blackberry technology itself was a major advancement in mobile technologies, and it's the Blackberry service that ultimately led to the popularity of this device. It's the ability of this service to keep you instantly connected to your home or office network that made it into the leading mobile devices today – with its own cult following of avid enthusiasts and users. So what exactly is Blackberry Technology, and what makes it so special? It's called Push Technology. Push Technology Compared to the PDA "Pull" Method There are different configurations of the Blackberry service, but the most common enterprise setup is with the Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES). The entire purpose of this server is to keep all Blackberry users instantly updated the moment any "data event" occurs (my own terminology). To understand blackberry technology, it's important to first understand how the PDAs operated before the Blackberry came along. While most of the discussion centers around email, I like to refer to "data events" as anything that requires an update on your mobile. In the days before PDA became Internet enabled, you would basically do your work while mobile and then when you get back home or to the office, you connect a cable between the device and your PC and do a "sync." During a sync, changes on your device get uploaded to your email or calendar accounts and any new emails or calendar changes at the accounts get loaded onto your PDA. Updates would take place once a day – or whenever you have time to sync the device. However, once PDA devices came integrated with Internet access via cellular data networks, you could sync certain "data events" with your various accounts without having to physically connect to the server. This is illustrated in the figure above. When you want to retrieve new emails on your POP3 or IMAP email account, you tell the PDA to go out and retrieve new emails. The path of data transfer starts with the PDA (the red arrow), and through the Internet-enabled mobile email software which connects with and talks to the email server over the Internet. After retrieving all new emails, the connection to the server is disconnected and new emails are displayed. If you want to reply to one of the emails, you type your reply on the PDA and click send. The cycle starts all over again, with the PDA always initiating communication and requesting updates. Because of this, if you haven't configured your mobile device to automatically retrieve emails, you could go hours without receiving an important email. Push Technology Keeps You Instantly Updated All The Time Now, let's take a look at how synchronization takes place with Blackberry Technology. When you're using a Blackberry device, you can picture your handheld unit as a network device, like a PC on a LAN, that's always connected to your data account through the redirector software. Instead of residing on your mobile device, the software (whether it's BES or desktop redirector software) is installed on the Blackberry Enterprise Server. Communication between the software and the server, as well as the software and your Blackberry, is always a two-way street. Whenever there's a change in your email account, calendar or any other monitored account on either the Blackberry (if you create and send an email) or on the office network (your secretary updates your calendar with a new appointment), the BES immediately updates either the mobile device or the email or calendar account. In other words, Blackberry push technology keeps the device constantly and instantly in "synch" without any effort on your part. What Is So Special About Blackberry Technology? In all honesty, a PDA running Windows Mobile could be configured in much the same way as the BES service. There are new "sync" options being offered every day that can help you to keep your Internet-enabled Windows mobile device instantly up to date. For example, Aibek mentioned a few great sync tools such as ShifD, Mobical or OggSync that will do just that. Another cool method is Karl's use of Mail2Web to sync up his device with email. Or, it could be as simple as using GoogleSync to stay synched up. The fact is, Blackberry Technology was novel when it first came out, however the subsequent lawsuit with NTP, that claimed RIM used its technology already in use for PDAs, was only the first indication that while the technology is certainly effective and valuable – it isn't rocket science. The device is now little more than a status symbol – a way for someone to feel like they're on the cutting-edge of cellular technology. But in a few years, everyone will be instantly connected to their email, calendar and social networks – and it will be on to the next great thing. What's your opinion of Blackberry Technology? Do you think it stands up to all of the hype? Share your own point of view in the comments section below. Image Credit : Edan

 

Cool tip on how To Save Time In Excel By Using The Fill Handle

 

Very cool tip via makeuseof

 

I want to help you get a handle on the handle. Excel has, for quite a few versions now, had a number of shortcuts for using the mouse rather than the keyboard. I want to clarify how some of them work, so you can make the most of the tools at your disposal. Cell handles First off, let me tell you about the various cell handles that Excel makes use of. You use a cell handle by hovering the mouse on various parts of the screen. Fire up Excel and try this for yourself. Nothing beats a little practice. I'm going to show you this in Excel 2007, but only the most advanced options are version-specific. You'll be fine. One thing though. If you don't use the default Windows mouse cursors you might see different sorts of shapes. Change it back to the defaults until you get the hang of this. Select You already use this one, if you use a mouse at all. Hold the mouse anywhere within the confines of a cell in a spreadsheet, and the mouse cursor becomes a small white cross. Hold the left button down and drag the mouse to select all the cells you slide over, in a rectangular shape. That's it. Move If you hold the mouse over the edge of a cell, then it behaves differently. It's quite common for people to do this by mistake, but it's easy to avoid if you take a look at the cursor. It should be a thin black cross with arrow-heads on it. The move handle does exactly what you would think. It moves the current cell, or the current block of cells if you have more than one selected. It's smart though. If the cell you are moving is referenced by formulae in other cells, each formula is automatically adjusted so everything still works. One safety tip. Make sure the cursor isn't over the small black square in the bottom right corner of the cell. You'll be doing something completely different. I'll explain that soon. Copy To copy cells instead of moving them, put the mouse in the same place, and hold down the Control (Ctrl) key. The cursor changes back to a white arrow, with a small black cross beside it. The behaviour is a little different now. If you drag the mouse to another location, the cell or cells you have selected will be copied and pasted there. If the cell contains a formula, it will change its references just the same as it would if you have used copy and paste. The contents of the cell you are copying from will not be changed. Fill Now this is the interesting one – the Excel fill handle. If you hold the mouse over the bottom right corner of the cell or cells selected, the cursor will change to a simple black cross. That's the Excel fill handle, and it does some cool stuff. First off, if you have a formula in the cell, and you want to copy it to some adjacent cells, you can do that. Hold the left button… …and drag the mouse down (or to the right). Release the mouse. What happens in this case is the same thing as you would have achieved with the copy example further up. However, if the cells don't contain formulae then the behaviour is different. If the cells involved have a discernable pattern, then Excel will attempt to extend that pattern as best it can. So imagine the above example again, but pretend, just for fun, that it contains 500 rows, instead of the four shown. You're suddenly required to apply numeric codes to the items… Create the first two, or however many are needed to establish a pattern. Hover over the fill handle… … and drag the cursor down over the next two (or 500) cells. Note the indicator to the right of what the final number will be. Release the mouse. That's it. The series of numbers is extended down over the other cells. Note that all the cells contain the actual values, not a formula. You can use this for much more complex operations, none of which I have room for in this post, including complex lists, custom lists, and copying a formatting pattern along with the value pattern. So tell me, do you use the handles? Did you already know what they do? Have you ever used the Excel fill handle by mistake? I certainly have. What else could I cover in Excel that might be useful? Share your thoughts in the comments.