Wheaton Tech

Do people use their computers anymore or do they only use their phones?

I use my computer — a desktop PC or a Macbook Air – I like the full size keyboard and the versatility of my desktop or notebook computer.

What key attributes software should have?

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After moving hosting companies and finding time to restart this long neglected blog, I will be updating the older articles with new relevant information and start some new topics in the coming weeks.

I’m open to suggestions for topics. Add a comment below.

I am starting a new Theme for WordPress – that may be a long process – started with the underscore shell and bunch of reading to determine how to best create the theme I want for this and other blogs.

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Do people use their computers anymore or do we only use our phones?

I do – I like the full size keyboard and the versatility of my desktop or notebook computer.

What are the key attributes that software should have?

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Do you copy text from one document or web-page and then paste it into Microsoft Word?

Do you want the formatting to be the same as the rest of your Word document, or the same format as the document you copied?

Most of the time, I prefer the pasted text to be in the format of the current document.  If I need to alter the text, indent, bullet, etc…I can do that later.

It is rather easy to Paste Special/Unformatted Text in Word.

1. From either the Edit menu or the Home Ribbon, choose Paste Special
2. Choose Unformatted Text from the dialog box
3. Click OK.

For those of us who prefer to use Ctrl-V when we paste, that choice is not available.

I read a tip many years ago about changing the function of the Ctrl-V shortcut keys to execute Paste Unformatted Text.

In simple terms, you create a macro and assign it to Ctrl-V.  Downside, if you want to paste including formatting, or another type of Paste Special, you will have to use the menu.

For Word 2007

1. Open a blank document
2. Navigate to the Developer Tab in the ribbon (did I tell you I cannot get used to the ribbon?) – If you do not have the Developer Tab on your ribbon, go to the bottom of this post for a tip.
3. Click the Record Macro button
4. Name your Macro, “PasteUnformatted” is a good one
5. Click the Keyboard button
6. Press Ctrl-V on your keyboard
7. Click the Assign button
8. Click the Close button
9. The Macro Recorder is running, but since Word 2007 does not seem to record this macro correctly, click on the Stop Recording button
10. Click on the Macros button
11. Choose “PasteUnformatted” from the list and click on the Edit button
12. You will see the code for any macros in this document.  Find the PasteUnformatted code.  It should look like this:
    Sub PasteUnformatted()
    ‘
    ‘ PasteUnformatted Macro
    ‘
    End Sub
13. Add the line:
    Selection.PasteSpecial DataType:=wdPasteText
    so that it looks like this:
    Sub PasteUnformatted()
    ‘
    ‘ PasteUnformatted Macro
    ‘
    ‘
    Selection.PasteSpecial DataType:=wdPasteText
    End Sub
14. Close the editor, it will save automatically
15. Test out your new keystrokes.
16. Copy some text from a web-page
17. Navigate to Word 2007
18. Paste using the Ctrl-V keys then try using the button in the ribbon.
19. They should be different, unless the web-page was formatted exactly like your Word document.

For Word 2003 – the process is very similar

1. Open a blank document
2. Choose Tools/Macro/Record New Macro from the menu.
   Name your Macro, “PasteUnformatted” is a good one
3. Click the Keyboard button
4. Press Ctrl-V on your keyboard
5. Click the Assign button
6. Click the Close button
7. The Macro Recorder is running, but since Word 2003 does not seem to record this macro correctly, click on the Stop Recording button or choose Tools/Macro/Stop Recording from the menu
8. Choose Tools/Macro/Macros from the menu
9. Choose “PasteUnformatted” from the list and click on the Edit button
10. You will see the code for any macros in this document.  Find the PasteUnformatted code.  It should look like this:
    Sub PasteUnformatted()
    ‘
    ‘ PasteUnformatted Macro
    ‘
    ‘
    End Sub
11. Add the line:
    Selection.PasteSpecial DataType:=wdPasteText
    so that it looks like this:
    Sub PasteUnformatted()
    ‘
    ‘ PasteUnformatted Macro
    ‘
    ‘
    Selection.PasteSpecial DataType:=wdPasteText
    End Sub
12. Close the editor, it will save automatically
13. Test out your new keystrokes.
14. Copy some text from a web-page
15. Navigate to Word 2003
16. Paste using the Ctrl-V keys then try using the button in the ribbon.
17. They should be different, unless the web-page was formatted exactly like your Word document.

That is all there is to it.  It is quite a few steps, but in about 5 minutes you can save yourself lots of time later.  Let me know how it works for you!

———-

How-To-Show-The-Developer-Tab-In-Word-2007

1. Click on the Office Button
2. Click on the Word Options button
3. Choose Popular
4. There should be a check box next to “Show Developer Tab in the Ribbon” — Check that box.
5. Click OK
6. The Developer tab should be in your Ribbon now.

Have you ever wished you could see your client’s PC from your own office? Or wanted to help a family member figure out how to make some edits to an Excel spreadsheet?

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I have used social bookmarking primarily to keep track of places on the web that I want to visit later or keep track of.

The option to share those links with other people is good, as long as you remain fairly organized.  Just bookmarking for bookmarking sake is will not be helpful for other people.

The ability to search the bookmarks for keywords and find things you want to share with others is cool too.

While Delicious is a favorite of many, I have been using Furl.net for several years.

Bookmarks and favorites are a great way to store and access frequently used locations on the Internet. Furl is designed to archive (as well as share) anything you read online. You may have tens of bookmarks but thousands of Furl entries. If you read your local newspaper online every morning, bookmark it. If you read several fascinating news articles every week, Furl them. You can Furl items from work and home. You can search for them later from any browser, and share them with friends.

My Furl page is at http://www.furl.net/member/weglarz

Furl allows me to bookmark pages and share what I would like to share and keep private bookmarks I would like to keep private.

Try it out.  Add some topics, comments, clip a section, and add keywords.

Let me know how it works for you.

Yahoo! Messenger is a very popular choice for IM.

It easy to use and chat with your co-workers and friends in real time rather than email.

I realized that sometimes I may post something here that needs further explanation.  One way to allow me to interact with my readers is to post my online status right here on the blog.

So, how do you put a Yahoo! Messenger online status button in your blog?  You can see mine in the right hand column as an example.

It is fairly simple, you need the following code:

<a href=”ymsgr:sendIM?YAHOO_MSGR_ID”>
<img border=”0? src=”http://opi.yahoo.com/online?u=YAHOO_MSGR_ID&m=g&t=2?/> </a>

Carefully replace the YAHOO_MSGR_ID with our Yahoo! Messenger ID.

For example, my Yahoo! ID is WheatonTech.  The code I am using in this blog is:

<a href=”ymsgr:sendIM?wheatontech”>
<img border=”0? src=”http://opi.yahoo.com/online?u=wheatontech&m=g&t=2?/> </a>

There is a choice of 3 different styles.  This is set by the “t=” portion of the code.

Style “1” is
Style “2” is
Style “3” is

Each style is chosen with a number, set the “t=” to the number matching the style you want to use, I used “2”.

Just copy this code and insert it into your website or blog HTML and you are on your way.

When you are logged into Y! Messenger, your website should show the online picture.  Try it out!

If you have a question or comment, post it here.  If you would like to chat about this post, see if I am online!

On Thursday I attended the Technology Leaders Association monthly networking meeting.  Jim McGee spoke about Technology for “us”.

One of his points was that many new technologies require you to use them before you can understand them.  I tend to agree with him, much like you cannot really understand baseball until you play it.

A tool that I have found very useful for me, yet I find few friends or co-workers who use it is RSS.

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