September 15, 2006
Comrades-in-Arms
We receive requests to trade links with other web sites practically every
day. We decline most of them, because they don't conform to our stated
guidelines. To be listed on our links page, a site must (1) be dedicated to
Microsoft Office or any of the programs that make up Office, and (2) offer
Office-related resources for free.
We're pleased to welcome
PoweredTemplates to our links page. They offer professionally-developed,
attractive PowerPoint templates that you can download at no charge. And we've
updated the link to Access guru
Allen Browne's tip
pages to reflect his new address.
December 31, 2004
And so another year goes into the books. What will the new one bring?
December 17, 2004
Christmas Memories
We love December evenings with their cool, crisp air. Caught as we are between the cold north and the temperate south,
we begin to feel the winter cold just about now. The darkness comes on early, but we don't mind�we love the glow of neon lights in a December
twilight.
We have to admit that we love the Christmas Season. In our graduate school days,
we looked forward to the Christmas break more than to any other time. We loved how the days
grew shorter, and the evenings longer, as the Fall Semester
wound down. We finished our classes one by one; handed in our papers; took final exams. Then came the
best part: the flight
home. In those days we would escape cold, snowy Wisconsin for sunny Southern California to spend
Christmas and New Year with family. That was a treat. The airports
looked so festive with their lights and decorations. The crowds, though large,
were fun to be around, because everyone was looking forward to their Holiday trip.
We've seen a lot of Christmas traditions come and go,
and every time the Christmas Season comes, we wonder just how many of the things
we remember fondly live on, and how many are no more. Take the Santa Claus Lane Parade. It was a Los Angeles
tradition way back when. Always held on the evening before Thanksgiving, it
marked the beginning of the Holiday Season, and was a major television event. We
suppose it was pretty quaint by today's standards�no
bands or floats, just Hollywood celebrities parading by in convertibles. The TV host
wished each a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and it always seemed strange to
hear someone say "Happy New Year" the day before Thanksgiving. Do they still
have the
Santa Claus Lane Parade?
We remember the public performances of Handel's Messiah every December in Madison, Wisconsin.
What was special was that the audience was part of the show. They'd give you a
sheet of music, and at the appointed time, you sang along in the Halleluiah Chorus.
Jolly fun!
We wonder if they still set up the giant Christmas train layout in the lobby
of Washington's magnificent Union Station? (Why don't you go look? It's just
downtown.) And do they still have the Kansas City Steak Platter at Western Skies
Steakhouse in San Angelo, Texas? You'd tell the waiter, "We'll have the KC Steak
Platter for four," and they'd bring a huge platter piled high with steaks. We
were never able to eat them all, no matter how hungry we were. (Hey, what does
that have to do with Christmas?) Come to think of it, nothing, really. But we
were thinking about San Angelo, and we remembered the Western Skies Steakhouse,
and we wonder if they're still there.
The Well-Tempered Keyboard
As promised back in November, we've updated our Office shortcut key pages to reflect keyboard shortcuts in
Office 2003.
December 3, 2004
We're delighted to see that Office guru Woody
Leonhard is once again publishing his newsletters on a regular (and
frequent) schedule. Welcome back, Woody!
I'm DDM, and I approved these updates.November 12, 2004
Stay tuned as we update our pages of Office Shortcut Keys.
October
Watch this space for our Fall reading list...
September
Lots of good stuff is on the way...
August
Stay tuned...
July 2, 2004
Of course we have more new Outlook tips!
Check 'em out!
Independence Day
The 4th of July, 1776, will be a memorable epoch in the history of
America. I am apt to believe it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as
the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of
deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to Almighty God. It ought to be
solemnized with pomp, shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and
illuminations, from one end of the continent to the other, from this time
forward, forever. John Adams, July 5, 1776
May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, ... the signal of
arousing men to burst the chains under which ... ignorance and superstition had
persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of
self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to
the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. Thomas Jefferson, 1826
The Fourth of July already! Where has the summer gone?This year, as we have for the past five or six, we'll go up to the roof of the
building housing our DDM Computing offices to watch the fireworks. From our
vantage point, we can look right down onto the National Mall. It's always a
grand show. We do love fireworks.
We looked up (and present here for your consideration) two of our favorite Fourth of July quotes,
just to remind ourselves what the fireworks are all about. The first is from
our favorite Founding Father, John Adams. The second is from the author of the
Declaration of Independence himself. Both seek to explain the significance of
the day. We admire Adams for his unbounded energy and enthusiasm. It shows in his
writing, and rarely more so than in this letter he wrote from Philadelphia
on the day after independence was proclaimed.
That, for Adams, was "the day of deliverance" from foreign rule. No one
had worked harder than he to bring it about. When it arrived, he had a right to take satisfaction in it,
and that shows in his letter. But more
important, as we see it, is what his words seem to say concerning the meaning of
independence for the American people. It has
unleashed a powerful force, Adams seems to say, the spirit of a restless, energetic,
now free people.
It is that spirit that will find expression in the many forms in which the
people will celebrate independence day from now on. One other point strikes us.
At that moment, upstate New York, western
Pennsylvania, Virginia's Blue Ridge, and the entire state of Georgia were
literally the frontier. The thirteen colonies that had just declared their
independence � and would have to fight for the next six years to
ensure it
� clung to the eastern seaboard of a vast, still largely unexplored
continent. Yet he seems already to see the day when the idea of liberty would
encompass that continent.
That, of course, is what did happen.
Adams's vision was broad, but Jefferson's was even broader. Our quote comes from
a letter he wrote just days before his death (which, as everyone knows, took
place on July 4). Jefferson reminds us that independence brought self-government,
which in turn brought the opportunity, realized in 1787-88, to create an
enlightened government founded on the idea of individual liberty. Here he
expresses the
earnest wish that others would follow the example his countrymen had set, and that
the idea of self-government as a right and of government as the guarantor of the
rights of the individual would take hold throughout the world. And that, too, seems
to be happening today, albeit by fits and starts.
So for those who celebrate it, happy Independence Day! To quote Jefferson one more time: "Let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of
these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them."
June 25, 2004
Presidential Memoirs
We picked up our copy of the presidential memoirs the other day. The number
of pages was daunting, but we began reading and were drawn in at once. Such a
dramatic story. So many momentous events. So many decisions. The
president was a remarkable man. His character emerges clearly on every page. He
was nothing if not decisive. He never shrank from making a difficult decision,
and never had second thoughts. We're speaking, of course, of President Harry
Truman, whose memoirs we've always wanted to read. We got a nice copy for a good
price from a used book dealer on the Internet.
Here's an interesting fact concerning President Truman: For the first few days he was president,
he continued to live in the apartment that he and his family had shared when
he was vice-president. It's located at 4701 Connecticut Avenue NW, just a few
doors up the street from our DDM Computing offices at 4545.
We understand that another president has published his memoirs recently. As a
matter of fact, he'll be autographing copies at a little bookstore just up
the street, where we sometimes shop for books, come July. From time to time, while he was in the
White House, he would stop by the store unannounced. Our paths never crossed,
however.
Has anyone ever asked you for your autograph? No matter; you can give it out
anyway, with every e-mail you send. Here's how.
June 18, 2004
Remember how we promised you lots of tips about Microsoft Outlook 2003? In
case you haven't noticed, we've brought you great new Outlook tips for the last
three weeks in a row.
Here's another
one. And here's one about
using keystrokes
with Office 2003's great Office Clipboard.
June 11, 2004
Bloom's Day
June 16, so far as we know, isn't a holiday in any country. Why should
it be? Nothing really memorable ever happened on June 16, at least not in the
real world. June 16 would be a day like any other except that exactly one
hundred years ago, young James Joyce spent it walking the streets of his beloved
Dublin with the woman who would one day be his wife. Years later, he chose that
day as the backdrop for his novel Ulysses, making June 16, 1904 the most
famous single day in Western literature. Heigho!
Well, here's how to
add holidays to
your Outlook calendar. Quite likely "Bloom's Day" will never be a holiday,
but if it's as special to you as it is to us, you can add it to your calendar as
an all-day event.
Here's how.
June 4, 2004
We have lots of great new tips this week. Check out our new
Excel and
Outlook tips pages.
May 28, 2004
All This and World War, Too
For one week the Channa and the Cicada have taken a back seat. The
news that four Northern Snakehead fish have been caught
in the Potomac River in the past month, evidence that this unwanted visitor has
taken up residence in at least one of the area's main waterways, has hardly raised an eyebrow.
The Cicada, our
once-in-seventeen-years visitor, is largely ignored.
The big news all week has been the dedication, on Saturday, May 29, of the
World War II Memorial on the National Mall here in Washington, DC. The memorial
has actually been open to the public since construction was completed a few
weeks ago, because the hard fact is that the World War II generation
� my
parents' generation � is rapidly fading away, and the National Park Service
wanted to give as many of them as possible a chance to see it.
I must admit that I was surprised to learn, when I moved to this area several years ago,
that there was no monument to the veterans of World War II. I had always thought
that the statue of the Marines raising the flag (the one modeled after
the famous photograph) that stands just north of Arlington National Cemetery was
the World War II memorial, but of course it isn't (it's the Marine memorial). When the present
one was first
proposed, I, like many, had reservations about placing so imposing a monument amid
the open spaces of the National Mall. I'm not ashamed to admit that I was wrong
about that, too.
All week long, there has been a national reunion of World War II veterans,
and the Library of Congress has sponsored a series of programs to
celebrate
those remarkable men (and women). I wish that everyone could attend, for it has been wonderful. Just today I was
present at panels featuring Navajo "code-talkers," Hispanic-American veterans,
and former Tuskeegee Airmen. On Thursday, retired Senators George McGovern (D-SD) and
Robert Dole (R-Kan) held an audience, young and old alike, spellbound as they
talked about their service during the war. With three of every four World
War II veterans gone, it's certain there will never be a reunion like this one
again.
I'm glad that the World War II
generation has at last received the gratitude it has so richly deserved. As I
say, this is my parents' generation. Both did their part. My father, gone since
1972, served with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific. On December 7, 1941, he was aboard the battleship West Virginia
when it was sunk at Pearl Harbor. He saved himself by jumping overboard. Later, aboard the cruiser Minneapolis,
he took part in the pivotal victories at Coral Sea and Midway. And my mother,
whom I never knew as anything other than a homemaker, was a "Rosie the Riveter."
�DDM
May 7, 2004
Of Snakeheads and Cicadas
The newspapers here in Washington, DC, have been full of
stories about two visitors, neither welcome, from the wild: the Northern
Snakehead fish and the cicada. The Channa, or Snakehead, is native to Asia and
parts of Africa. The Northern Snakehead, from China, is one of the less
attractive members of the family. It can grow up to 40 inches long, has a large
mouth, big teeth, is very aggressive, and eats practically anything. It�s been
called �an air-breathing, land-crawling, voracious predator.�
Uh, did someone
say �land-crawling?� Yes, that�s the scary part: This hungry fish can literally
travel over land, surviving for days as it flip-flops from one body of water to
another.
Two years ago, a Northern Snakehead was discovered in a pond in Prince
Georges County, MD, just east of the District. The state of Maryland,
recognizing the danger this alien predator posed to the ecosystem, took
immediate steps (and spent tons of money) to eradicate it. And now, two years
later, another one has been caught, in another pond, miles away from where the
first one was discovered. Once again the state of Maryland will take decisive
action to eradicate this unwelcome guest. For his part, Grizzly Bear can�t wait
to get his paws on a Snakehead, a fish many consider to be a delicacy. And DDM�s
taking no chances � even though no Snakeheads have been seen anywhere near
Northwest DC, he makes sure to take along his trusty baseball bat when he takes
his evening walks.
Our second unwelcome visitor seems positively tame by
comparison. It�s the cicada, a large winged insect that makes an appearance once
every 17 years. Their visitation is expected to last about six weeks, starting
soon. The cicada lives in trees and tall grass, and the male is known for the
shrill sound he makes. Multiply that shrill sound by about a couple million, and
you have some idea of what a noisy summer we�re in for.
So what does all this have to do with Microsoft Office?
Well� For one thing, we'll probably spend most of the summer indoors, writing
tips. More to the point, we used the new
Research task pane in Microsoft Word to look up information
for this write-up.
April 30, 2004
The other day, as we worked hard to create pages for our new
DDM Computing Bookstore, we fell into a
discussion of our favorite books. Our Web Team is a diverse group representing
three countries on as many continents. We're all avid readers, so our literary
discussions are frequent and can be quite lively.
Certain books, we agreed, just naturally go with certain times of the year.
Take an obvious example: Dickens's A Christmas Carol and (what else?) Christmas
Season. Who would think of reading about Scrooge and Tiny Tim in the middle of
July?
Our discussion this time concerned the best books to read in the spring. Now
springtime, we all agreed, is a time for light reading, a time for adventure stories, outdoor
stories, and travel stories. When DDM asked the members of the team one by one
to name their favorite springtime reads, this is what they answered:
Grizzly Bear: James Joyce's Ulysses.
Mary Lamb: Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Rupert Brooke's poem
"Grantchester."
Mudraya Sova: Mikhail Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time, Leo Tolstoy's "The Cossacks"
and Ivan Turgenev's Sportsman's Sketches and Fathers and Sons.
The Monkey: Eighteenth�century English writer Tobias Smollett's The Adventures of Humphrey Clinker and
any of the detective novels of James Lee Burke.
Apart from the Monkey's last recommendation, there's not much light reading
there! But there's plenty of good reading. We hope you can find the time this
spring for one of your favorite books, if not one of ours. And DDM? His favorite
spring reading is Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Anton Chekhov's stories, especially "The Lady with
the Lapdog."
Now what does all this have to do with Microsoft Office? Well... If that
literary masterpiece you've got inside of you is just dying to get out, sit down
at the computer today and fire up Microsoft Word. It will handle any literary
challenge, from a short poem to a book�length
manuscript.
April 23, 2004
DDM Sells His Soul?
One of the advantages to having our own domain is that we have absolute
control over it. Much as we liked our old home on tripod.com, we never liked the
way they served up advertisements at the top of our pages. Nor did we like the
pop-up windows that, well, popped up all the time. Visitors often left us
feedback complaining about the pop-ups, and all we could do was apologize and
explain that we had no control over them. It was all part of the bargain: Tripod
hosted our site for free, and in return they got to serve up adds and pop-ups.
Now everything has changed. Now that we have our own domain, we don't have to
put up with pop-ups. They're gone forever. Nor have we served up any ads
� until now.
Look down in the lower left corner of this (or any) page
and you'll see the familiar logo of our new partners. The terms of our
affiliation forbid us to announce who they are or even that we are, in fact,
partners. But we'll be placing ads from them (and perhaps others) throughout our
pages from now on. Have we sold out? We hope you don't think so, because we
don't think so. Soon, we'll cut the ribbon on our Books section,
where you'll be able to purchase books and software from our partner. And we'll
be able to give you recommendations on what you should buy. That's why we sought
this affiliation, because we believe it will bring benefits to us both.
April 16, 2004
Close Encounters
One evening not long ago, we were working late to meet a
deadline when DDM decided to take a walk. He had not gone more than a block or two
when he came practically nose to nose with some deer who were out taking a walk
of their own, and had stopped in someone's front yard. "It was standing
perfectly still, looking right at me," DDM told us later, describing how he
almost bumped into one of them. "I thought it was a lawn ornament." Our offices are located
in the far northwest corner of the District of Columbia. While it's not uncommon
for the occasional opossum, raccoon or even fox to make an appearance in the
neighborhood, we must admit it's more than a little disconcerting to think of
deer running loose. On the other hand, we are located just a few hundred yards
west of Rock Creek Park, the beautiful hilly, wooded area that is to Washington
what Central Park is to New York. So we shouldn't be surprised to see the
occasional wild animal.
What does all of this have to do with Microsoft Office? Well...
New Faces
DDM is pleased to announce the addition of three new members to our Web Team.
He's counting on each of them to make a distinctive contribution in their area
of expertise. When you have a minute, stop by our About
Us page and say "Hello."
Spring Cleaning
We've been spending the better part of a week now dusting and rearranging
furniture. We've tidied up the code on all our tips pages. And we've completely
rearranged our tips about working with graphics. Take a look at our tips about
working with graphics in Excel,
PowerPoint, and
Word, as well as
Office in general (and note
that we've even published a few new ones).
Next time: DDM sells his soul to the Devil.
April 9, 2004
Home Improvement: A Promise Reaffirmed
It was four years ago today that we launched DDM's Microsoft Office Tips and Tricks. As we
noted a few weeks later, it was a tiny little site, with only
a few pages (now we have over 200), no tips (over 500 now), and � we can admit it now � uncertain expectations
(stay tuned).
In the early days we often likened our site to a house with many rooms. Most of
the rooms were empty, of course. A few were barely sketched out. And now and
then, we found ourselves building rooms where we had never planned or expected
them to be (have you visited our Links area lately?). But over the
months we built them, one by one. And we moved in and furnished them.
Not long after our launch, DDM wrote:
Unlike a house, this site [will] never really be finished, because
[we'll] add to it and improve it all the time. That's our promise to you,
and we intend to keep it.
Four years and counting into the history of our site, we affirm once more:
This home improvement project will never be finished. We'll never stop growing
and improving DDM's Microsoft Office Tips and Tricks. We'll keep you
posted on what we're doing. And you can
let us know how
it all looks to you.
And finally: The cyber-ink was barely dry on the cyber-page announcing our move
last week when (ta da!) the move was made. Welcome to our new home. We hope you
like it.
April 2, 2004
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
Here in Washington, DC, the unmistakable signs of spring have appeared,
seemingly overnight. The weather, recently cold and blustery, has turned
(relatively) mild. Blossoms have appeared on trees that were bare just
yesterday. Restaurants up and down the street have started to put their tables and chairs out on the
sidewalk, and down along the Tidal Basin the annual Cherry Blossom Festival is
underway. Renewal is everywhere.
High above it all, in the offices of DDM Computing, we're about to embark on the
biggest renewal in our history. More about that in a moment. First we want to
tell you that we've cut the ribbon on our new, expanded Links area. We hope you
like it. Second, we have a new Access
tip this week. And watch for those Outlook 2003 tips we promised last week.
They're on the way.
Now for the big news. In a matter of days, DDM's Microsoft Office Tips and Tricks will
end its relationship with tripod.com and move to
a new permanent home at www.ddmcomputing.com. We're looking forward to it, and we can't wait to
welcome you to our new, ad-free (for now), popup-free home. So check back soon.
We'll be right here when you come.
Go Back to the Top of the Page
March 26, 2004
Late-Breaking News
On Thursday, March 25, DDM received notice that he has been awarded his
Microsoft Office Specialist Master Instructor certification. The Web Team
congratulates him and reminds him that tomorrow, lunch is on him.
Microsoft Office 2003: Like at First Sight
We didn't say "love." We upgraded to Microsoft Office 2003 recently, and so
far we like what we see. We like the cool, wintry colors and the way the
toolbars are shaded. We like the new toolbar button icons; we like the way the
buttons light up when we point at them. Same for the menus. We like how they
light up, and how they unfurl from the Menu bar when we click them. Of course,
much of this is carried over from Office XP, but we like it anyway. As before,
we're grateful that Microsoft didn't change any file formats.
So far as the applications are concerned, we like what we see, even though we
don't see any new features to die for. Interestingly, Outlook seemed to get the
lion's share of the changes and enhancements this time around. The program has a
significantly new "look and feel" to it. Watch these pages for new Outlook
tips in the next few weeks.
Our Links page has expanded into a Links area, with separate
pages for links to Office-related Websites,
Office Communities,
Newsletters, and
Books.
And finally: Our Webmaster thanks everyone who has left feedback recently.
Please keep it coming. We appreciate hearing from you very much.
March 19, 2004
All Good Things...
An old professor friend of ours (we called him the "Old Prof") passed away
recently. DDM swears that late at night he can hear the ghost of the Old Prof
walking the halls of DDM Computing, and who knows but that that may be so.
We mention the professor because he was fond of spouting such trite clich�s
as "All good things must come to an end." That phrase occurred to us more than a
few times this week as we continued to update our two-and-a-half-year old Links
page. So many fine Websites have folded; so many free daily tips services have
been discontinued...
Then we took a second look and found that for practically every site that
had folded, another just as good had appeared to take its place. Just take a
look at our Links page and see how many great
 resources we've
found.
So R.I.P., Old Prof. We'll miss you. But rest assured that for every end, there's a new
beginning.
Next time: DDM takes a first look at Microsoft Office 2003.
March 12, 2004
We're Back!
After a two-and-a-half-year hiatus, we're back with new material. We want to
thank all those faithful visitors who kept coming back, who searched our pages,
and who left us feedback. We appreciate it all.
This month, we're going to concentrate on updating our
Links page. Pardon our dust while the work is in progress. And we hope you
like our new layout.
Go Back to the Top of the Page
August 2001
In August, we published tips on Access, Excel, and Word.
Take another look at our tips on Access Forms and
Access reports.
And check out our tips on working with Word Tables and
Printing in Excel.
July 2001
In July, we published tips on working with
Access Tables, and
Outlook Tasks.
June 2001
Two Cheers for Office XP
What were our first impressions of Microsoft Office XP? Overall, they were
favorable. We'll tell you about them in a moment, but first -- a look back.
We remember the first time we saw Office 97.
We remember how impressed we were with it. It seemed to us that Microsoft had
looked at its product and made changes top to bottom. We loved the new features
in each of the applications.
So what about the new Office? Well, we like the
soft, subdued look that all the buttons and list boxes on the toolbars have. We
like the way they seem to pop out of the toolbar when you point at them with the
mouse. We like the way the menu items light up when you point at them, and the
way the menus unfurl.
And what about the applications? Excel has a couple new features that we really like. So does PowerPoint.
And we thank Microsoft for not changing the file format in Access yet again. But
none of the applications has any new "must-have" features. Office XP, like Office 2000, is an incremental advance over its predecessor,
not the quantum leap that Office 97 was.
The bottom line is that we liked Office XP, but we didn't fall in love with
it the way we did with Office 97.
Go Back to the Top of the Page
May 2001
Waiting for Office XP
Microsoft has set May 31 as the release date for XP, the new version
of Office. DDM has spent most of May preparing for the big event. DDM will start
publishing hints, tips, and tricks for Office XP soon.
Of course, DDM's Microsoft Office Tips and Tricks will continue to
feature tips for Microsoft Office 2000 and 97 for a long time to come.
Go Back to the Top of the Page
April 2001
On April 9, 2001, DDM's Microsoft Office Tips and Tricks celebrated
its first birthday. Happy Birthday to Us!
Go Back to the Top of the Page
March 2001
In March, DDM finished reorganizing our tips pages. We hope this will make it
easier to locate specific tips.
DDM also introduced the most significant new feature in many months, the
"Print this Tip" button. Now, not only does a tip come up in its own
separate window, but you can print the tip as well (if Internet Explorer is your
browser). As DDM said, feel free to print that useful tip and keep it handy while you work. Just
promise us you'll remember where you got it and will keep coming back for more.
Speaking of more, DDM added more tips to our Office,
Access, and Word
areas, and some new material to our Links page.
Go Back to the Top of the Page
February 2001
This month, our Access area grew as we added tips
on working with Queries.
Look for more Access-related tips in the months to come.
Go Back to the Top of the Page
January 2001
New tips
on Access, Excel,
Office, PowerPoint,
and Word appeared all month.
Go Back to the Top of the Page
December 2000
Our server access crisis of last October-November is now a distant, though
still unpleasant, memory. Once again, we're free to concentrate on the future.
When we first planned DDM's Microsoft Office Tips and Tricks, we
imagined a house with many rooms. Each application in the Microsoft Office suite
would have its own room. So we laid out our floor plan, built the rooms and, as
the months passed, we moved the applications in, one by one. This month, we
moved into our last empty room: We published our first MS Access-related tips.
They appeared on our New
Access Tips page on the 17th.
All month, we brought you new tips on Access,
Excel, PowerPoint, Word and Office itself.
Go Back to the Top of the Page
November 2000
Our forced hiatus came to an end when, on November 18, our server access
problem magically disappeared, and we were able to resume posting new material.
To make up for lost time, we immediately published new tips on Excel,
PowerPoint, and Word. We're back on a regular publishing schedule.
But the big news for November was the introduction of our new tip format. The number of tips on some of our
pages was growing so large that the pages were taking too long to load, so DDM
decided to do something about it. We revamped our tips pages so they now list only tip titles. The title is a link to the tip itself, which
appears in a separate window.
We hope you agree that looking over a list of links is easier than
browsing a long page of tips.
More changes are down the road. Stay tuned.
Go Back to the Top of the Page
October 2000
In October, DDM was faced with a crisis. After publishing new tips on
September 23, he found himself locked out of his account. Frantic e-mails to
Tripod went unanswered. Deadline after deadline passed, and DDM was unable to
publish new material. So DDM decided, reluctantly, to take a bold step and find
a new home. Stay tuned for more information as this situation develops.
Go Back to the Top of the Page
September 2000
In September, DDM introduced several features to our site. First, there were
the new pages:
-
Our Site Map, which
you can reach by following the link at the top of any page. With our Site
Map, no page on our site is more than two mouse clicks away.
-
Our Search Page, which
allows you to search our site.
Second, DDM introduced our news feed, located on this page
and updated
every fifteen minutes, which brings you the latest Microsoft-related headlines.
Third, scroll down to the bottom of any page, and you'll
find these neat new features:
We brought you all this plus new tips for Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.
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August 2000
After thinking about it for a long time, DDM decided he would have to find a
new host for DDM's Microsoft Office Tips and Tricks. He settled on
Tripod, and set September 1 as the date that the site would launch at its new
home. So we spent most of the month preparing for the move, and we were able to publish only a few new tips in our
Excel and Word areas. These were posted at the beginning of the month.
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July 2000
Our site continued to grow. As promised, we published our first
PowerPoint-related tips. They appeared on our New
PowerPoint Tips page on July 28.
All month, we published Excel and Word-related tips. On July 7, DDM announced
that from now on, we'd keep new tips on our "new tips" pages at least
two weeks.
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June 2000
Our site continued to grow as we completed our initial "floor
plan." Our site now has areas devoted to each of the core Office
applications (Excel, Outlook,
PowerPoint, and Word),
as well as Access and Office
itself.
Our first Word-related tips appeared on
June 2, followed by our first Excel-related
tips on June 9. We added new tips all month and, as we did so, we moved
previously-published material to new pages. We published our first Office-related
tips on June 30.
We published our first PowerPoint-related material on June 9, with our table of PowerPoint
97/2000 Function Keys and PowerPoint
97/2000 Shortcut Keys.
Our focus for the immediate future will be to add content to all these pages.
We'll publish new tips every week, and, before long, we hope to begin
publishing longer "how-to" articles.
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May 2000
Our site grew rapidly in May. Our "floor plan" took definite
shape, as our "tips and tricks" area saw the debut of pages devoted to
Access and Outlook, joining those already devoted to Excel, Word, and Office
itself.
Our first tables of shortcut keys appeared this month. As DDM said at the
time, "You'll work more quickly and efficiently if you use
keystrokes rather than the mouse to perform most actions (that's why they call
them 'shortcut keys')." We added our tables of Office
Shortcut Keys, Excel Shortcut Keys, and Word
Shortcut Keys on May 6. Our table of Outlook
97/98/2000 Shortcut Keys appeared on May 19, and our table of Access 97/2000 Shortcut Keys
appeared one week later.
In addition, we continued to publish tables of function keys, with our table of Outlook
97/98/2000 Function Keys on May 19, and our table of Access 97/2000 Function Keys
on the 26th.
Our first tips appeared on May 12, when we published a big batch in our Outlook Tips
area. We published Outlook-related tips all month, and on May 19, we started
date-stamping our tips and flagging new material with theicon.
DDM added a comprehensive list of Microsoft-sponsored
Internet
Newsgroups to our Links page on May 19.
And the big news for May came on the 12th, when DDM announced that our site
had been accepted into Uncle
Jim's Office Tips Webring, a family of over 70 Microsoft Office-related "tips
and tricks" sites. Our Webring Center, the
gateway to our sister sites, first appeared on our home page on that day.
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April 2000
DDM's Microsoft Office Tips and Tricks first saw the light of day on
April 9, 2000. It was a tiny little site, with only a few pages and no
tips. At that time, DDM said that if our site were a house, the foundation
would be laid and the framework nailed together. It turns out that that
was something of an overstatement.
In reality, the foundation was laid and the floor plan was sketched
out, but only roughly. That floor plan would be revised over and over in
the ensuing weeks, and only much later could we say with confidence that
we knew how many rooms there would be, and where they would be located
(and we may still be wrong).
DDM also said that unlike a house, this site would never really be
finished, because we would add to it and improve it all the time. That's
our promise to you, and we intend to keep it.
In April, our Links page debuted with some great
Microsoft
Office-related websites, online discussion forums, and
free newsletters.
We also launched our "tips and tricks" area with tables of Excel 97/2000 Function
Keys and Word 97/2000 Function Keys. Our
very first tips appeared on our page of Office 2000
Easter Eggs.
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