Stop printing Acrobat forms! Fill and sign them digitally instead.

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Want to see how to use this feature the cool way?
Watch this video using your Windows Media PlayerCheckout the video for a step-by-step demonstration!
(And let me know if you experienced any difficulties)

Most Web sites publish their forms as Adobe Acrobat documents and that’s really cool. All you have to do is download the form, send it to your printer, fill it out, sign, and then fax it in. What could be simpler? Well, how about the Peter Kay Paperless Method (PKPM) of just filling the form on screen, giving it your digital signature, and then emailing it in? Yeah baby!

In order to do PKPM, you need to do 1 or 2 things: First, assuming that you have Adobe Acrobat (not just the Reader; you need the full version with the ability to create Acrobat documents), use the online help in Acrobat to setup your digital signature. Once you’ve got this setup you’ll be able to digitally sign any Acrobat document. Say buh-bye to printing and signing paper.

Second, for the given form you want to fill out, try clicking on the fields and see if a cursor shows up. Some forward-thinking organizations have made their forms fillable, like that advanced, cash-collecting organization called the IRS. If the Acrobat form is NOT fillable, then you can decide to turn it into one. While I don’t suggest this process if you’re only going to fill out the form only once, it becomes very efficient if the form will be used many times.

Once you’ve gotten the hang of digital signatures and Adobe forms, I guarantee you’ll love it because you’ll never have to print, fill, sign, and fax another document again.

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Bring those big spreadsheets down to size with outlining

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Want to see how to use this feature the cool way?
Watch this video using your Windows Media PlayerCheckout the video for a step-by-step demonstration!
(And let me know if you experienced any difficulties)

Did you ever create a spreadsheet that got just a little too big and you had to scroll all over the place to see the numbers you needed? I suggest you learn about Excel’s “Outlining” feature. With it, you can select a collection of columns or rows that you’d like to be able to collapse (perhaps because they have a lot of detail that you might not want to see all the time) and then “outline” them. Once outlined, you can collapse or expand the rows or columns you’ve selected.

Outlining gives you the ability to setup your spreadsheet so that you can collapse it all down to show the big picture while giving you the ability to expand any specific parts you may want to zoom in to. It makes even the largest spreadsheets very, very manageable.

Now what’s really, really cool is that if you setup your spreadsheet properly in the first place, using functions like SUM and SUBTOTAL, you can automagically apply outlines by just clicking on the DATA menu, then Group and Outline, then choose Auto Outline. Download my demonstration spreadsheet and try it.

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Organizing meetings and notes with outlining in Microsoft Word

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Want to see how to use this feature the cool way?
Watch this video using your Windows Media PlayerCheckout the video for a step-by-step demonstration!
(And let me know if you experienced any difficulties)

Did you know that Microsoft Word has an awesome tool to help you create and organize new ideas? Most people use Word for typical word processing, but do you use its powerful outlining features? Hit the F1 key, look up “outlining”, and you’ll find a powerful tool that I use for a whole bunch of different reasons. Outlines help me create great documents by helping me transform raw ideas into well-structured thoughts. Anytime I need to take notes in a conversation I fire up a copy of Word in outline mode. I find that I can easily capture lots of ideas yet have the flexibility later to organize them into action plans.

Want a way to run a killer meeting? Use a projector to put a Word document in front of the audience and use outlining mode to take notes and action items. There is an AWESOME dynamic that occurs when you are taking notes right there in front of everyone’s eyes. People participate better and they make sure you enter accurate minutes. Best of all, at the end of the meeting all you do is email the document to all the participants and you’re done! I know that if you check out (and master) outlining in Word, you’ll find a great tool waiting to help you work better and faster.

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Speed up your selections in Word

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Want to see how to use this feature the cool way?
Watch this video using your Windows Media PlayerCheckout the video for a step-by-step demonstration!
(And let me know if you experienced any difficulties)

If you use copy and paste in Word, I’ve got a great little trick for you. Well I’ve got a much faster and easier trick for you. Usually you need to copy and paste either a word or a sentence and of course the normal way is to carefully drag your mouse across what you want to select, right? If you want to quickly select a word, just double click on it. If you want to select a sentence, hold down the control key and click anywhere in the sentence. When you combine this with using control C for copy and control V for paste and you too can be come a copying and pasting machine! It takes a little practice to get used to this but its well worth the effort. Of course, all these tricks are in the online help so just press F1 and search for “selecting” if you need a refresher.

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Use CTRL-Enter when surfing the Web

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If you use Internet Explorer to surf the Web, I’ve got a great tip for you. The next time you have to type in a Web site address, just enter the domain name, then do a control-enter by holding down the control key and hit enter. For example, instead of typing http://www.yourcomputerminute.com, just type in “yourcomputerminute” all by itself, nothing else, then do a control enter. Internet Explorer will automagically add the http://www in the beginning and the dotcom at the end. Try it!

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Using Autotext

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Want to see how to use this feature the cool way?
Watch this video using your Windows Media Player Checkout the video for a step-by-step demonstration!
(And let me know if you experienced any difficulties)

If you think about all the documents you create, you’ll probably realize that there are a few things that you end up typing the same way, over and over again. Things like maybe your company address, common phrases, standard clauses, or product information. Most people just end up actually typing that information in time and time again. There’s a much better way and it’s called “AutoText”. Autotext lets you store commonly used blocks of text, and then later if you need to use that text block it’s just a few clicks away. Autotext is even smart enough to watch your typing and if it sees that you’re re-entering a block of text you’ve already stored, it automagically tries to type it in for you. It’s a very cool feature that few people use and it’s really easy to learn. Just hit F1 for online help and type in autotext. You’ll love it!

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Why Girls should date Geeks

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Ok, all you Geek guys out there. Here’s a great article – “Why Geeks and Nerds Are Worth It… “ that should help boost your confidence in why women will find you appealing.

Ladies, if you’ve never dated a Geek, you don’t know what you’re missing!

(BTW: May I kindly remind you all that I’m happily married and if you ask my wife on a good day what she thinks about me I’m sure she’ll agree w/ this article too)