►Copy Formatting
in a Single Click
with Format Painter

There are many ways to customize the format of text and graphics in Microsoft Office. You can change font style and color, add borders and shading, and so on. And once you've created a format that you like, you don't have to repeat all those steps each time you want to use that format. Instead, Microsoft Office programs offer a quick way to copy formatting from one item — such as text in Word, a cell in Excel, a control in Access, or a shape in Publisher — to another. It’s called Format Painter, and it might be the most helpful toolbar button you’ve never used.

Watch the demo to see how it works.

“Social Notworking”
– The Art of using Facebook,
Twitter, and MySpace
during work hours
 

►Just for Laughs

The total number of users on the social networking site Facebook has now soared above the 200 million mark. Just to put that into perspective: if Facebook were a country, it would be the fifth largest on Earth, after China, India, the U.S. and Indonesia. According to a recent report by ComScore, the number of European Facebook subscribers has grown by 314% over the past year to nearly 100 million users.

Due to the site’s popularity, many organizations (including HP) have recognized Facebook’s value in promoting their products and services. And everyone from British actor Stephen Fry to President Barack Obama has a Facebook page. Unfortunately, many of the aspects that make Facebook and other social networking sites so popular also make them a prime hunting ground for identity thieves, online scam artists and criminals. However, there are a few measures you can and should take to protect yourself.

1. Beware of divulging personal information on your user profile. Many users don’t think twice about entering a wealth of personal information into their user profiles, everything from their address to their date of birth and home phone number. This is exactly the type of information that scammers love to get their hands on, so be sure you’re not posting anything you wouldn’t want a stranger to see.

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We live in a world that constantly forces us to “do more with less”. Employees are expected to be more efficient. Multi-function devices are becoming the standard on many desktops. We multi-task by answering email, talking on the phone and reviewing a spreadsheet – all at the same time.

We shouldn’t be surprised then that IT departments are asking the same of their fileservers. When server utilization gets measured, we find that many servers have much more capacity than they actually use for the majority of the time. With so much excess capacity – why not run more than one server on a single machine? That’s what virtualization is all about -- one physical machine running more than one server operating system.

Virtualization is a “hot” technology right now and here are some of the reasons why:

Science-fiction fans have long wished for life-sized communication devices that create a real-time image of the person/alien/robot you are talking with. Recently, holographic video technology has begun to surface, although at present the price means it's restricted to only the wealthiest companies. More realistic options when you want a face-to-face with clients across town (or the galaxy) are video conferencing and telepresence setups, like HP's Halo solutions.

Soaring fuel prices, and our growing awareness of our carbon footprint, are encouraging the fast adoption of video conferencing among big and small companies. Some businesses have even taken the line that if a video conference is possible, they won't travel long distances for a meeting.

The advantages of video conferencing are obvious. As the old saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. By being able to see each other, participants benefit from improved understanding and communication. Productivity goes up, travel costs are removed, and the time spent driving or flying to meetings is slashed dramatically.

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