Dear, Mr/Mrs/student/teacher ?

Have you ever wanted to write a letter to a group of people, but just didn't have time to write different letters to everyone? Well here's a trick that's cool. Its called Mail Merge. You can find this feature on Word. You simply go to format, Mailing and letters. Then something on the side of your page will appear asking you to choose your recipients. You don't have to spend all your time writing a separate letter to everyone. You can simply put each person's information into a template, and save it there. Once you are ready to write your letter, type one copy. And for each person, you just insert their name, address and information from a mailing list. Companies use this often. For example, when you get a letter saying that you have just won an all expense payed trip to Hawaii, with your name, address and information on it, be sure that the company has sent the same letter to many other people, but have just changed their name, address and information to match them. This is a very useful feature to use, especially when you are writing letters to a number of people, wanting to say the same thing, use mail merge.
So the next time you receive a letter saying that you have won something or to come claim your prize, be sure that the company most likely doesn't have a clue who you are, and has sent that same exact letter to all of their customers!

Bye for now.

Peggy .

Getting to know MS Word!

Today in class we came up with our title for our word book. Its getting to know MS Word. Although, we came up with other ones too, but this title was the most popular one. We haven't confirmed it hundred percent but there is a pretty good chance that we will stick to this title.
We are close to finishing our book, so that we can get them published soon.
Also Sanjida and I are working hard going around the school trying to see what every teacher has difficulty with on Word, so that we can get our FAQ's finished as soon as possible.
That's all for now.
Bye.

Peggy .

How much money will we make?

Hi. As you know, we spent the last few classes finishing up our Word books. And now that everyone is finished with it, today in class, we are thinking of ways to sell our book for good prices, but also in a way that we can get a good profit out of it. In order to figure out how much our book will cost in different ways, we went to http://www.lulu.com/en/?fLocation=/ On this site, we can choose from the many different ways we can publish our book. For example, what colour our book can be, what the paper size is, what type of book its going to be. There are four different types of books that we can choose to publish from.

1. The bind of the book. So like perfect bond, case, sudist cover etc.
2. What the colour is going to be. So either black and white or the whole thing in colour.
3. If we are going to choose hardcover or paperback.
4. The size of the page. So if you want it normal size, smaller or bigger.

Each one combined together will come up with a different price. For example, if we make our book hard cover and in colour, it will cost us approximately 15-30 dollars. And if that is the case, then we are going to have to sell them for more, and we have doubts if people will actually pay that much for a book made by high school kids. So we are looking towards a reasonable price, both for us to pay and the people who will be buying them. We have to work more with how we are going to make it, who we want to sell it and advertise it, and many more. Although we don't have a lot of time left because it takes a while to publish them and then actually get people to order them online. So we are all working on it! =]

Also, Sanjida and I are responsible for the Frequently Asked Questions section. We have to go around asking teachers about the difficulties they face when they are working with Word. Then we come up with questions and answers for our book.
Everyone is working very hard on making this book the best, under a tight schedule, but I'm sure that it will turn out really good.

That's it for today,
Bye.

- Peggy

Congrats!!

On Monday, we picked two editors for our Word book. Congratulations Mohammad and Joanna! :) They are going to be responsible for going through the whole book, when it is complete and look for mistakes, grammatical errors, plagiarism or anything else they think that should be there. We also thought of ways that we could organize the table of contents. We all came up with great ideas like place them in alphabetical order, by text and images, menu items and toolbars, skill level and authors. And at the end, we decided we would go with the idea of organizing our table of contents by Menu item. We are also going to have another chapter for the toolbars. And anything we can come up with.

See you soon.
Bye.

Peggy .

Finished yet. . ?

The last few classes, we all worked hard on trying to finish up our tutorials and get them handed in as soon as possible. I recently finished the four i was responsible for. I chose to do a very basic summary of the drawing toolbar, how to make a template, inserting picture from a file, and word art. You need to do one in order to pass, but the more you do, the more marks you'll get. But keep in mind that we are going to sell these books to others so that they can make use of them, so they need to be quality work, so that you can get full marks and also be of help.
We are working on a date to have everything finished so that we can place the orders to get our books published. Work hard!!

Tizz all,
Bye.

Peggy .

Have you tricked your computer?

Sorry i got a little behind on my blog. My computer was visiting the psychiatrist! ;) [haha, because it had problems.] A few classes ago, we were introduced to something that made our lives, by far, so much easier, and saved a huge amount of time spent in photoshop. Light screen! In my opinion, this is a great program to use if you want to cut all the time spent in photoshop or paint. As you know, every grade 9 BTT class is working on making our Word book the best it can possibly be. Each person is responsible for one feature on word, but you can do more if you want more marks. We are then going to publish these books, and sell them to teachers who need help with Word. A way to make the book as understandable as possible, we need screen shots of the features we are talking about. So here is where lightscreen comes into view. It is a program in which you can use to take screen shots of your part, easily and very quickly. This is what it looks like.


You simply click on the Screenshot area, and four options come up. Most of the times, you will choose Area. And when you click that, your whole screen goes dark and then you just choose the area you want to show. Once you've done that, your image will appear in the Light Screen folder.
You can find this feature on the school computers, in the pick-up folder. Under Case BTT. And you will see a folder that says Light Screen. You cant use this feature off of the pick-up folder. You first have to drag it to your desktop, and then download it into your home drive. But make sure that when your installing it into your home drive, turn off desktop shortcut and start menu shortcut. You can always install this feature onto your computer at home. If you want to send it to yourself by email, the trick is to right click on the program, go to properties and change the ending from exe to jpg [a picture file]. You have to do this because when you want to attach the lightscreen file, it wont allow you, so you trick the computer into thinking it is a big picture file. Attach your file, and when you get home, download it onto your computer, then go to its properties and change it back into an exe file. Then you can use it from there.
Also don't forget about finishing your tutorial because we are going to start publishing them soon. And make sure you use the template Mr.Case made so that everybodys' looks the same.

That's about it.
Bye.

Peggy .

Test your knowledge.

Today in class, everyone finished presenting the features that they chose on Microsoft Word. I learned many interesting things about Microsoft word that I didn't know I could do before. Mr.Case said that everyone is responsible for everything that everyone presents because they are going to be on the test which is coming up very soon. So listen in class and make sure you write down everything that is being said by others, or if you don't write them down and you happen to forget them later, you can simply go back and check on Word yourself. Oh and a heads up, hes going to test you on everything that is on Word 2003 because that's the most common word that everyone has, and the ones that are in the school.
So test your knowledge. See how many interesting features Word has to offer to you. I bet you will find things you never even knew word could do!

Later days.

-Peggy.

Surprise presentations.

Today in class we didn't do very much. Mr.Case wanted to test our presentation skills so he put us up for a test. He asked us to pick one of the 10 things that we had to find on Microsoft Word and present it to the class. Everyone who was in class today is responsible to know everything that was presented today, so that we can study from it for the next test that is probably coming up soon.
So start learning anything you can on Microsoft Word because you never know when he might ask you a question just to trip you up! =]

Good luck, study hard & listen in class .

Bye for now.

-Peggy.

Exploring Microsoft word

Last class we were asked to go and explore Microsoft word. We had to find 10 things on word that we have no idea how it works. We have to write it down in our blogs, but also explain how it works. Now this class, we have time to work on this assignment and find 10 things.

Here are the 10 things that i have no idea how it works.

1. Do not distribute:(File-permission-do not distribute) What this icon does is that it helps prevent sensitive documents and e-mail messages from being forwarded, edited or copied by unauthorized people. If you want to use this icon, you need to install the Windows Rights Management client.
2. Clear contents: (Edit-clear-contents) What this icon does is that if you highlight something, and you go to clear contents, then it will erase what you highlighted.
3. Select all: (Edit-select all) What this icons does is that if you want your whole document to be highlighted, you can go to select all and it will highlight your whole document.
4. Find: (Edit- find) What this icon does is that you can type something in it, a word or phrase or something and it will automatically find it for you and highlight it.
5. Replace: (edit-Replace) What this icon does is that you can chose a writing or number or something on your document and you can chose to replace it by something else. You type in what you want to replace, it will find it for you and then you can replace it with whatever you want.
6. Go To: (Edit-go to) What this icon does is that, if you have a number of pages, it will find the page your looking for and then you can replace that page or the writing on it to whatever you want.
7. Reading layout: (View-reading layout) What this icon does is that it will change your pages to look like a book.
8. Format painter: (2007 document) What this icon does is that it copies formatting from one place to another. So if you double-click on the icon, you can then choose which places on your document you can highlight and make the same.
9. Bookmark: (2007 document) Once you click this icon, it will create a bookmark on a certain page that you want, or a place on a page that you chose, and then you can jump back and forth between each page, because the bookmarked pages are hyperlinked.
10. Breaks(2007 document) If you choose this icon, it will automatically create a space between your text, graphs, page or anything else that you have on the page.

Here are just 10 interesting icons on Microsoft word that I did not know about. I'm sure that there is plenty more to learn about Microsoft word, so I'm looking forwards to it.

That's everything,

-Peggy.

Are you breaking any laws?

Lets say you made a song all by yourself, with no help from anyone else. You sang the lines, made the music, recorded it, and published it, all by yourself. You deserve to get the credit for it right? Of course! But some selfish person on the Internet took it without permission, changed a few parts and sold it and made millions. Imagine how upset and annoyed you would be! Then at that point, you'd wish you could do something to the person so they can learn their lesson and not steal your work or anyone else's. So here's where the law comes into action. You can sue the person for as much money as you want, just as long as you can prove they stole your work, and you get your justice. But here's the tricky part. If you didn't put a copyright on your work then you can face a series of problems. If you do however, then your good to go.

But say you didn't care who takes your work or who uses it and changes it and does whatever they want to it, in that case, you can make your product public domain. That means you can take someone else's work and change it, add things to it, and publish it and you can't be sued or get in trouble for it. Although, if you want to sell it, there might be some restrictions on that. Even though its public domain, it doesn't mean it doesn't have restrictions on it. For example, if you chose a song and you want to use it in your podcast and its public domain, and you decide to sell your podcast, you still need to check with the person who made the song your using because they might have rules against selling their work. You have to contact the person and ask.

If you want to use something on, for example, your podcast, then you need to contact the person/ people who own it. There isn't always one person who owns a piece of work. For example, you want to use a song in your podcast. You contact the singer and they give you permission, but then tell you that you need to contact the record company and ask them for permission too because they are the ones who actually own the song and published it. So you call them and ask, they say you can use it, but. . . . for a certain amount of money. Can you then use it even though the singer of the song gave you permission? No you cant, because it needs to be confirmed with everyone who owns the song, not just one person. On the other hand, if everyone gives you permission to use their work then you can safely use it. But always remember to have some written evidence, just in case.

Here's another thing. If you make something and it is copyright, and you suddenly die, your work will stay copyright for 50 years after you die, but after that, it will be public domain, even if you give your work to someone. You can also use something if it has not be copyright and is unpublished, or the copyright has been expired.

These are great rules you need to keep in mind when you want to use things off the Internet. Always check if the think you want to use is copyright or not, or any other rules that is on it. This applies to everything from pictures, songs, ring tones, videos, slogans, text or anything else. Keep in mind that if you break any laws, there is a possibility that you can get sued or get sent to jail. There are many things that you need to be careful about when you use other peoples work, and it can sometimes be a pain, but think about it. If someone used your work without permission and got all the credit for it, how would you fell ? Upset, sad, angry ? That's exactly how others would feel to.
So if you follow the rules, there is nothing you need to worry about!

Until next time.
Byee.

-Peggy.

What distracts you ?

Hi. Here we are, on a Monday morning back to school after a long and peaceful 2 week holiday, and we have been assigned to read an article about paying attention. What a great way to start the week! This article raises a lot of interesting facts about paying attention to your work and not getting distracted half way. Hard work can lead to many great things, like great futures, jobs, marks and many more. Back in the days, hard work was needed in order to have a successful life. It’s not the same thing any more. Now a days, people have to work hard on trying to pay more attention to their work and try to stay away from distractions like E-mail, facebook, chat, blogs, videos and many more. Most of the exhaustion that comes from the people who spend their days at work is not from the actual work itself but from trying to stay away from distractions. As he mentions in the article: ''Pundits like me are constantly talking about facebook, Twitter, blogs and humour sites, not to mention old standbys like e-mail and IM. One gets the impression that we should be "following" these things all day long, and many do.'' I think that is very true, because most people try to keep up with what everyone else is doing so that they don’t fall behind on the news with friends, family and co-workers. Trying to stay focused on your work rather than trying to keep up with everything and do everything at the same time, is a big task for many people. That’s why everyone, including myself, needs to work hard to be successful but also keep away from distractions while working. In my opinion, I think that it’s easier to do your work first so that you can get it over with, and then catch up on the distractions, in your spare time. That way, you get both your work done and you get to do anything else you want. Personally, it is very hard for me to do work for a long period of time without getting distracted in between, but I guess that is something I need to work on getting better at in order to be successful in the future. So do what you can to stay away from distractions while you’re working, and when your done your work, have fun!!

bye.

Peggy