Special points of interest: • Adobe Photoshop CS •
Volume 9 Issue 5 January 2002
THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF CROSSROADS COMPUTER CLUB, INC.
Adobe Photoshop CS
The Crossroader
By David Cox By the time you see this article, Adobe’s newest version of Photoshop will be on display all over the Internet and in all of the finer software stores. This version is far more than a traditional upgrade. It starts a whole new path in Adobe’s development of this internationally respected photo imagery software, no doubt the best there is. System requirements are not bad. • • • • • • PIII or 4 PC Windows 2000 with SP 3 or later 256 megs RAM 300 megs hard drive space CD-ROM Decent video card and monitor For starters, look for improved file browsing, a gripe some people had about earlier versions. Now you can search, preview, and tag even batches of files. Also, color matching has become as near automatic as can be done via an improved color palette. Shadowing and highlighting correction is better, too. Moreover, you can put text on a path, curved or whatever, even on a shape and later edit it in other Adobe Since most users have an idea about what Photoshop does, then I will skip over that part and concentrate on its new features and improvements. applications like Illustrator. Digital camera raw files and 16-bit support are available as well. I am also excited that Photoshop CS offers greater layer designs for multiple versions so you don’t have to start over so many times to make changes to a piece for different versions of that piece. Throw in Macromedia Flash export and customizable keyboard shortcuts, and you have the highest end photo-editing software available more in tune with what real users want and need. This shows Adobe listens. I could go on all day about Photoshop, but I think you should download it and try it out to see for yourself. It is not inexpensive by any stretch, but it is worth every penny if you want to make a living using it. Inside this issue: Word 2003 From the Editor Tips AOL Email Tip Excel 2003 2 3 3 4 5
Most of us today have these requirements or can get them inexpensively. If your system meets these requirements, then you are set to download and try out Photoshop CS from http:// www.adobe.com/products/ tryadobe/ main.jsp#product=39 It is a fairly large download, een with a cable modem, but it is sure worth the effort.
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Office 2003 Applications: Word
By David Cox Microsoft Word is an application that all Office users and those who just need the best word processing technology has available which reached its ultimate so form in this reviewer’s eyes. If you get it as a standalone application or as part of one of the great Like you read a book, two pages at a time so you don’t have to scroll down through page after page to see what is what. And, again, Word takes as much advantage as possible of the best display your video card and monitor can give as you have it currently set. and comments at the same time. That’s cool. As a teacher, I often insert different characters into my documents like a @ or a ¶ for my students’ instruction. Word now supports a lot more such symbols and characters
Office 2003 packages like the Standard Version or Professional Version, you are getting the ultimate word processing program today. Word 2003 automatically changes the way it shows an article for the screen size and resolution you have on your computer. Its new reading layout view kills me. It can itself two pages at a time, just
Change the resolution and you change the way Words shows those pages on the screen. See the screen shot above to see what I mean. You can also look at an entire document in thumbnail picture while a document map on the side shows the layout like a table of contents while you are still in reading mode; it even lets you highlight
from many different languages, allowing reading and writing of letters to be better. Couple that with the mail merge change of automatically getting Mr. or Mrs. Correct each time in front of a name. I love keeping open a box of copied sentences and stuff I use a lot visible in the clipboard for quick and easy insertion as I want. This is so darned cool I could jump for joy if it weren’t work! ?
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From the Editor
By David Cox All things must change in order to survive. CCC is no different. In order for our club to thrive and grow or just maintain its current standards, all club members must take a far more active part in our activities. Simply having a name on a roster, occasionally attending meetings, or attending and just sitting are not enough. Each one of us must find a more active role to assume in order for us to continue— at least in this member’s mind. Club meetings need to be more profitable to all members. For this to occur, members must contribute in the forms of bringing programs to demonstrate after prior installation on the club computer and removal afterwards, bringing handouts on topics of interest and presenting them to the gathering, bringing new hardware to show and discuss, and finally offering and carrying out meeting sessions on topics that will be of benefit to all of us. A club that doesn’t belong to all its members is one that will surely perish. For it to belong to every member, every member must contribute. This does not mean a long segment, a complicated demonstration, heaving heavy items, dragging valuable equipment out in the rain, or even spending a lot of money on new stuff. It simply means taking the time to do something from which we can all be even just a little better computer users for having seen or heard. The way to do a small task better might cause even an old user to learn to be better. A person should never be afraid to show what she or he can do to his or her friends. None of us wags a finger and laughs at anything tried by a member for our benefit. I challenge anyone to find even one instance of this happening. We all grow by each other’s discoveries. Be a real CCCer and make plans to attend and show us what you can do or what you have learned. No matter how small, we can all learn. And having fun and learning are among our primary goals.
The Crossroader, official publication of Crossroads Computer Club, Inc., P.O.Box 1564 Alexandria, Louisiana 71309-1564. All correspondence for the newsletter should be directed to the editor as follows: David Cox, Editor “The Crossroader” 6015 Benjamin Street Alexandria, LA 71303-3816 E-mail dusty1@cox-internet.com Advertising is accepted at the following rates. Business card Quarter page Half page Full page 5.00 10.00 15.00 25.00
“...Make a friend, be a friend and bring a friend to the meeting…”
Ads must be place one month in advance to insure inclusion at the address above. Layouts are available. Club members and others are encouraged to submit articles for publication. All articles should be submitted by the second Saturday of the month at the address above, snail mail or e-mail. Club members may place free classified ads for items wanted or for sale. Ads should be submitted by the second Saturday of the month to assure their timely inclusion at an address above.
Starting next issue, I hope you will all take the time to email your editor just one tip you have learned in any program you use for me to put in this column. At the next club meeting, bring the issue of
Tips
the newsletter with you. Each person can read aloud or just tell us the tip and how it makes your computing better or easier. This is a start for us all, and anyone can do such a small task...even me!
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AOL Email Tip
Email Tips by Jasper Here is one for all of you AOL users. Now for the Outlook Express users, here is something that is useful. Have you sent Use the AOL Email Quick View for Fast a very important email and never received Email Access an answer? Did they receive it and read it? Using Return Receipt can answer Step by Step Screenshot Walkthrough these questions. To request a read receipt for an individual Position your mouse over the Read mailbox message in Outlook Express: icon. ? Select Tools from the message's In the open Mail Quick View hover over an menu. email to see its full subject, the sender and ? Make sure Request Read Receipt the time when it was sent. is checked. When the recipient of the message opens it, he/she is asked to notify you that he/ she has opened and read the mail.
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Office 2003 Applications: Excel
By David Cox I am not and have never been nor ever will be a spreadsheet aficionado. I don’t think that way and have never used one other than simply adding data to one someone else has designed. But I have tried using one for my particular needs and have cursed the hassle with the best of them. The Office 2003 application (or the standalone product) Excel has sure done some cool things though that spreadsheet jocks should love. The one that I think is coolest is the new feature that allows you to open and see two spreadsheets on your screen at the same time. Now, that is cool, especially if you’re trying to get something right that your eyes refuse to see or believe until the culprit is laid our before you. And, by George, as you scroll one the other scrolls at the same points to allow you to find you booboo! Another cool feature that I know since it bugs me has just got to annoy professional accountants and schizoid executives trying to get their number crunching done exactly as the task at the moment demands is what can be called an auto adding calculator. Highlight a range of numbers and hit the function and VOILA! You have the total of just the set of numbers you have highlighted. Highlight the numbers and hit the function and it will spreadsheet and another voila occurs as Excel fills in the rest of the columns as they have been highlighted in the prior spreadsheet. To an old typist like myself, that one feature alone is worth an upgrade. Finally, I have read about a feature called Conditional formatting that allows the user to make a particular item stand out in red if the numerical event occurs in a range of numbers. I cannot imagine the process to make it happen, but I know it must be great to see, say, a drop in sales at a particular point in a series occur automatically so the situation can be analyzed by real bean counters. See the graphic here to get a load of this cool feature.. If spreadsheets are your love, this new version of Excel is definitely for you. You can get a working model of Excel, Word, or the whole Office 2003 suite at http://office.microsoft.com/ home/default.aspx or just load the suite from the CD given at the December meeting. Whatever you do, you can rest assured that Excel and the other applications live up to Microsoft’s reputation for having the best product available.
even give you an average! Now, that is a very cool feature. Now, as I said, I am no spreadsheet guru or even much of a user. But, as I have read, one problem that Excel has had is that column titles tend to disappear while scrolling. This is now fixed. I imagine that is quite an annoyance. Also, I have read that Excel now makes copying stuff from one spreadsheet to another a lot easier by allowing you to highlight a section of one and start typing a few things in the new
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In this issue: February 2004
Photoshop CS Office 2003 Applications: Word From the Editor Tips AOL Email Tip Office 2003 Applications: Excel 1 2 3 3 4 5