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So I don’t usually reblog other’s content however this is simply amazing & I had to share…

For all aspiring artists out there that cannot afford fancy computer programs – use Excel!

Tatsuo Horiuchi – the 73-year old Excel spreadsheet artist

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Here is a list of common sense rules to help keep you safe while surfing on the internet.

Have a tip that’s not covered that you want to share? Post it in a comment below!

• Check URL’s before clicking on them
• Use preview (if available)
• Don’t click/visit suspicious looking websites!
• Disable ads in your browser using an ad blocker (e.g. AdBlock Plus for Firefox)
• Use a browser security and internet privacy add-ons such as Web of Trust, FlashBlock, etc.

(click on picture to enlarge)

Credibility

• Understand search engine ranking — it’s not the same as credibility or authoritativeness
• Choose appropriate terms for your query — different terms have different implications
• Verify credibility by looking for fact-checking sites – sites that you know to be credible
• Do one more search to confirm
• Use date range searches to validate when a quote first appeared
• Identify & validate sources cited
• Don’t make an answer part of your query (e.g. “height of tallest man was 7.5 feet”)
• Use quotes when quoting

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In addition to the search engine tips I posted about yesterday, here are some browser specific tips for speeding up your searches on an individual page:

Finding Words on a Page
Suppose I want to find out if Jabian is in the S&P 100. I navigate to Wikipedia & look up the S&P 100 list of companies. Instead of scanning through the entire list (and possibly missing an entry) I can use the built in search (find) function in my browser. In Firefox & Internet Explorer, press the “Ctrl” button in conjunction with the “F” Button (Ctrl+F).

This will bring up a search box in the browser where you can search (see area highlighted in pink in the picture above). As you can see, Jabian is not (yet) in the S&P 100.

Searching from the Address Bar

Did you know that instead of navigating to Google (or Bing, or whatever your favorite search engine is) – you can type your search criteria directly into the address bar of your browser? Firefox & Chrome default to Google while Internet Explorer defaults to Bing. You can usually change the default search engine in your browser’s options menu.

Type your query into the address bar & hit enter to load.

Your results will be automatically sent & loaded in your default search engine.

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This is the final installment in a series on Internet Search tips.
The first post is available here
The second post is available here
The third post is available here

These posts are based off a “Power Search with Google” course that was offered by Google in 2012. I have taken the highlights & condensed the tips down into a concise guide as well as adding in other tips that I have come across over time. Enjoy!

In this installment we will cover the following Google Search Operators:

1. Search Features, Conversions & Calculator
2. Using Different Media Types

Search Features, Conversions & Calculator

Search Features (aka shortcuts) include things such as:

• Time
• Weather
• Movies
• Capital of…
• Medical terms

For a full list of features: Google Feature List

Examples include:

Calculator & Conversions

Using Different Media Types

Use different Google portals to search for different media types to find alternative search results. Examples include:

Images

Shopping

Movies/Youtube

Scholar

Books

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This is a continuation of a series on Internet Search tips.
The first post is available here
The second post is available here

These posts are based off a “Power Search with Google” course that was offered by Google in 2012. I have taken the highlights & condensed the tips down into a concise guide as well as adding in other tips that I have come across over time. Enjoy!

In this installment we will cover the following Google Search Operators:

1. Define
2. Site
3. Filetype
4. Minus
5. Or
6. Quoted Text
7. Intext
8. Around(n)
9. Allintitle
10. X..X (range operator)
11. Advanced Search Options

Define

Define – returns dictionary definition of a word

• [define:horse]

Site

Site – searches for words only within a specified website

• [site:jabian.com]

Filetype

Filetype – searches only for specified filetype(s)

• filetype:docx

Minus (-)

- (minus) – removes results that include subtracted term

• Jabian -home

Or

OR – returns results for either query term and does not give priority to having both results on the same page

• Jabian OR Accenture

Quoted Text

“quoted text” – returns results that contain exact text – useful for finding original texts.

Intext

Intext – returns results that include specified terms in the actual text of the webpage

• intext:agile

Around

AROUND(n) – returns results where terms are within a certain number of word spaces of each other.

• Jabian AROUND(2) chris

Allintitle

allintitle – returns results where all search terms are in the title of the webpage

X..X (range operator)

X..X – Range Operator – returns results which include any numbers between the given range.

• E.g. 5..10 returns any results that include the number 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, & 10

Note that in the first example, the number 25 is NOT bolded (found) by Google, however in the second result set, it is.

Advanced Search Options

Advanced Search Options

• Contains most of the same functionality that operators provide

For a continuation of these topics, see the next article here

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This is a continuation of the first post in this series available here

These posts are based off a “Power Search with Google” course that was offered by Google in 2012. I have taken the highlights & condensed the tips down into a concise guide as well as adding in other tips that I have come across over time. Enjoy!

In this installment we will cover the following topics:

1. Filtering Image Results
2. Search as You Type
3. Related Searches
4. Google Specific Search Tools

Filtering Image Results

Use the color filter when searching for images to return different types of results. The search for “tesla” below will bring back pictures of a car when filtered for red, pictures of lightening when filtered for purple and pictures of the inventor when black & white is selected.

Search as You Type

Google will prompt you as you type – use suggested searches to help you narrow down what you’re looking for.

Related Searches

Use Google’s list of related searches (usually available at the top or bottom of the page) to help find better search criteria.

Google Specific Search Tools

Google has multiple specialized tools to help you narrow down results – looking for professional documentation? Search for a higher reading level…

For a continuation of these topics, see the next article here

If you found this useful, please share!

These posts are based off a “Power Search with Google” course that was offered by Google in 2012. I have taken the highlights & condensed the tips down into a concise guide as well as adding in other tips that I have come across over time. Enjoy!

In this first installment, we will cover the following topics:

1. The Art of Choosing Keywords
2. Word Order Matters
3. Punctuation, Special Characters & Spelling

The Art of Choosing Keywords

• Choose words that you’d like to see in your results
• Drop connecting words (and, of, for, the, by, etc.)

Question: “I heard that Atlanta used to have other names. What was one of it’s previous names?”

Search Query: [original name atlanta ga]

Word Order Matters

Word order can make a difference – try different orders to find different results

Punctuation, Special Characters & Spelling

Punctuation does not (usually) matter
Special characters do not (usually) matter

Exception Examples:

• C++
• C#
• #hashtag
• Google+
• $100

Spelling matters! (But search engines will try to correct/suggest spelling for you…)

For a continuation of these topics, see the next article here

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For those of you who may not have noticed, I have added a “Resources” tab (next to the “About” tab above) which lists some of my favorite blogs that I follow on a regular basis. I will add more resources as time (& memory) permits.

Media

The following is a list of some of my favorite programs that I use on a regular basis. The point of this list is to consolidate these programs in a list for easy reference.

Most of these programs are free – a couple are not…

Paint.NET

Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.

The Gimp

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.
It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.

GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.

GIMP is written and developed under X11 on UNIX platforms. But basically the same code also runs on MS Windows and Mac OS X.

VLC

VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVD, Audio CD, VCD, and various streaming protocols. If it can’t play your file – there’s a good chance nothing will…

MediaMonkey

Is your music library a mess? Movies missing artwork and and other information? Scattered across various locations? Full of duplicates? Get MediaMonkey and get organized.

System Utilities

Search Everywhere

Locate files and folders by name instantly.

DisplayFusion

DisplayFusion will make your multi-monitor life much easier. With powerful features like Multi-Monitor Taskbars, TitleBar Buttons and fully customizable HotKeys, DisplayFusion will make managing your multiple monitors easy.

Create Synchronicity

Create Synchronicity is a powerful and lightweight open source backup and synchronization program, available in many languages.

Synergy

Synergy lets you easily share your mouse and keyboard between multiple computers on your desk, and it’s Free and Open Source. Just move your mouse off the edge of one computer’s screen on to another. You can even share all of your clipboards. All you need is a network connection. Synergy is cross-platform (works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux).

Security Tools

GPG

GnuPG allows to encrypt and sign your data and communication, features a versatile key management system as well as access modules for all kinds of public key directories.

TrueCrypt

Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux

Eraser

Eraser is an advanced security tool for Windows which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. Eraser is currently supported under Windows XP (with Service Pack 3), Windows Server 2003 (with Service Pack 2), Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
Eraser is Free software and its source code is released under GNU General Public License.

Avast Anti-Virus

PasswordSafe

Office Programs

Foxit Reader

The Foxit Reader is a small, fast, and feature rich PDF viewer which allows you to open, view, and print any PDF file.

Microsoft Office

PDF

Allows you to print any file on your computer to PDF.

Notepad++

Notepad++ is a free source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages.

GraphCalc

GraphCalc is an all-in-one solution to everything from everyday arithmetic to statistical analysis, from betas to Booleans, from cubes to calculus, from decimals to derivatives. GraphCalc combines all the features of a professional mathematics package with the simplicity of an easy to learn windows interface. It provides user-friendly help and tutorials to guide you through the easy and fun process of mastering GraphCalc. Best of all – it’s free!

Virtualization

VMWare Player

VirtualPC

Internet Tools / Browsers

Firefox

WinSCP

WinSCP is an open source free SFTP client, SCP client, FTPS client and FTP client for Windows. Its main function is file transfer between a local and a remote computer. Beyond this, WinSCP offers scripting and basic file manager functionality.

7Zip

7-Zip is a file archiver with a high compression ratio.

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Ed. Note: Click on any picture to view full size

There are relatively few things as aggravating as spending hours trying to track down why the calculations in your PivotTable do not match your data than to finally realize that you forgot to refresh your PivotTable…

Here are a few tips & tricks for automatically refreshing your PivotTables.

Automatically Refresh PivotTables Upon Opening Excel Workbook

This first trick shows you how to set your PivotTable to refresh all calculations automatically as soon as you open your workbook. The obvious drawback is, if you change any of your data after you open the workbook, you will still have to refresh the PivotTables to reflect the new data.

To enable this feature, right-click anywhere on your PivotTable & select “PivotTable Options”

Next, select the “Data” tab and then select the “Refresh data when opening the file” option. Click “OK” to save your selection.

Write a Macro

This second option is very easy to implement and will refresh your PivotTable every time you select the worksheet tab that contains the PivotTable. Unfortunately, I have not figured out how to make your PivotTable refresh every time you change data in your data source (if anyone has a better macro, please share in the comments below!).

The drawback to this trick is, you have to leave the PivotTable tab and then return to it to force a refresh. Still – if you have your data on a different tab & you’re going back and forth anyways to check your calculations than this should help prevent our original aggravating scenario…

Right click on the sheet name where you placed the PivotTable and select “View code”

Copy the following code into the resultant code window (Note: if you copy & paste, you may have an error because the double-quote symbol does not always paste correctly into Excel – if you have a problem, try replacing all the double-quotes with new ones in the code editor.)


Private Sub Worksheet_Activate()
    Sheets(“PivotTable”).PivotTables(“PivotTable1″).RefreshTable
End Sub


You will need to change this code to match your specific information as follows:

• “PivotTable” is the name of the worksheet tab where your PivotTable resides
• “PivotTable1″ is the name of your PivotTable

Click the “Save” button. (Highlighted red in the picture below)

To find the name of your PivotTable, simply click anywhere on your PivotTable and then look at the name listed in the PivotTable section on the “Options” Tab on the special “PivotTable Tools” area of the ribbon. (In my example picture below, the PivotTable name is PivotTable4).

Questions or related tips/tricks? Let me know below!