Every try to arrange multiple windows on your screen in Windows 7 or 10?
Try this shortcut:
Windows Key + left (or right) arrow. This will size the active window and send to the side of the screen indicated by the arrow.
Fast!
Category Archives: Quick Tip
PowerPoint – Organizing your colours
I find it useful when creating a presentation that has a custom colour palette to create a custom layout like the one below:
You’ll note that the RGB values for the colours are listed, and this is because prior to PowerPoint 2013, the eyedropper tool was not available. I also find it tremendously helpful to note what I use each colour for, so that when I open this file in a couple of years from now there will be a little less detective work.
Social Media tips – free photo resources (2018)
Its’ time for an update on free photo resources for your social media work. I like to have them all together in one place since this is a list I use myself đ
These sites are often offering more than photos, including clip art or vector images. Many fund themselves via premium or paid options, so search carefully to ensure that the picture you love is free.
- Library and Archives Canada –Image Search
- New York Public Library – Search Page
- The Rijkmuseum in Amerstdam has digitized its collection. All of its works are free to use. Its’ policy “If you use our images for publication, then we request that you acknowledge the source (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). We would also like to receive a copy of the publication for our library.”
- Try the Creative Commons search tool.
- One of my favourites, Pexels.
- University of Alberta Peel Image search.
- Good Free Photos offers Public Domain Photos, Clipart, images, and Vectors
- I’ve mentioned Unsplash before.
- Not a photo resource site, but very useful is The Noun Project a great site when looking for a graphic to illustrate a concept or idea. You can pay OR give credit to the artist.
- Rawpixel has a search specifically for public domain images.
- Gratisography is the work of photographer Ryan McGuire. You’ll note his singular style at work.
- IM Free offers photos, icons and more.
- Any internet search will probably turn up photos from Pixabay, so its probably quicker to go there directly.
- Shopify runs a free graphics site called Burst.
- Picjumbo offers free and a paid subscription model.
- All photos found in the Morguefile archive are free for you to download and re-use in your work, be it commercial or not.
- Stock Vault offers free stock photos and the opportunity to purchase via their Premium option.
- Negative space
- Kaboom pics claim to fame, is that the colour palette of each photo is extracted for you, useful if you are planning coordinating backgrounds or print materials.
- Fancy Crave All photos published on Fancycrave are licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CCO) license which grants you an irrevocable, nonexclusive copyright license to download, copy, modify, distribute, perform, and use photos from Fancycrave for free, including for commercial purposes, without permission from or attributing the photographer or Fancycrave.
- Stock Snap
- Startup Stock Photos
- Splitshire
- Life of Pix
- The New Old Stock focused on older pictures curated from institutions participating in the Flickr Commons.
2018-05-17 Update:
The design tool Canva also has photos available, both paid and free – the link for searching for free photos on Canva is https://www.canva.com/photos/tag/free+photos/
Don’t get fooled by Fake News! A useful tip
I really didn’t want to put Fake News in the headline of this post, but really that is what this post is all about. How to use a reverse image search when you are on a mobile device, so that you can spot a Fake News story.
Recently a friend shared a Facebook story that just didn’t add up. The photo was of a man in hazmat style suit purportedly cleaning up an oil spill in North Dakota. You can see a version of the photo at the top of the article. The story implied some type of conspiracy that was preventing news of the oil spill from being covered.
A Reverse Image Search told a different story
This didn’t make sense to me, especially as I had been following news of an oil spill that was not on the scale shown by the photo. However a few minutes with a reverse image search showed the picture had been taken in China, and had nothing to do with North Dakota. This made the rest of the story even more unlikely.
Performing your search
A reverse image search is easy to do on a mobile device although iOS users need to download the Chrome browser app first. Sorry, but Safari doesn’t support Googles image search file upload.
With that in mind here are the steps to performing your reverse image search:
- Save a copy of the photo locally, this might mean taking a screenshot depending on the posts’ privacy settings. Here you can see the photo I used. Note that the poster changed the photo to Black and White in order to make it harder to search. Didn’t work though!
Black and White photo of oil cleanup effort – altered from original - Open Chrome and go to www.google.ca
Either google.ca or google.com will work - Click the Images link on the page to go to Image search. Currently that link is in the top right corner of the screen.
You are in Image Search, when the camera icon is in the search bar. - Click the Camera icon to see your options for searching using an image file.
Google Image search options. Search by pasting the URL of the image or by uploading the file. Choose the Upload an Image tab.
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Uploading an Image Click the Choose File button.
- You will be offered a choice of taking a new photo or going to your Photo Library. Select your photo library, and locate the image you saved previously.
- The file is uploaded automatically and the search is performed.
 Reverse Image Search Results initial screen Make sure you scroll down the page looking for the Pages that include matching images.
Reverse Image Search – Pages that include matching images. Reverse Image searches are amazing
Frankly, I was astounded that the image was located even after it had been changed. Reverse image searches are a powerful tool! Whether from malicious intent or the desire to give a story emotional impact, there are all too many posts on the net where images are misused. Don’t be fooled.
PowerPoint 2016 – a change in Guides
I noticed this improvement to guides in PowerPoint 2016 the other day.
If you apply your guides while in Master View, you can’t inadvertently move them while in Normal View. This is great! And consistent with the way objects behave between normal and master views.
By the way – guides applied in Normal View, can still be moved around in normal view. Like I said – consistent!
Where Am I?
A fairly regular occurrence when you do a lot of driving; you find something during your drive that should be reported (roadkill, accidents, debris, etc.). If you are on a rural road, the GPS coordinates would be ideal. But, since you are a sensible person you don’t want to take your hands off the steering wheel to fiddle with your phone.
I have a solution for iOSÂ phones (mostly – it still will require one touch of the screen).
The solution is to use Siri and ask the question “Where am I?”
Now unfortunately, Siri doesn’t store this information, and once your screen turns off it will disappear. However, if you touch the map, the information will be transferred to the maps app. The maps app will hold the information until you are ready to deal with it.
Now when you can pull over you can use either the option to Share My Location or Mark My Location.
Selecting Share My Location brings up your share sheet.
You can also pull the panel a little higher up over the map, for more information. Like the GPS coordinates or contact options.
You can use the Mark My Location to do exactly that on the map. A red pin will display on the map, and the option to Edit the location appears.
If you choose to edit the location, a satellite view of the location opens, and you can drag and drop the pin.
Marked locations remain in the map app for later reference.
Outlook – Retrieve Dismissed Reminders
Some days, your biggest enemy is yourself. Have you ever hit that âDismiss Allâ button, or accidentally dismissed a reminder you wanted to keep?
Hereâs how to find that reminder, so that you can reset it.
Use the search, but instead of searching by topic, type in modified:<date>
Use the date when you accidentally dismissed those reminders (causing the modification). Your view will automatically switch into the Search Tools view. If you have multiple calendars you want to search (as I do) make sure the All Calendar Items button is pressed.
It will show you all the reminders youâve modified.
In fact, you donât need to be too precise about dates. Hereâs an example, where only the name of the month was typed in.
Still works!
You can then reopen the item and reset the reminder.
Fixing an annoyance in Outlook 2010
The scenario:
You like to flag your mail for Follow Up on a specific day. But Outlook always defaults to setting the reminder at the end of the day. Can this be changed to the beginning of the day?
It makes sense that if you want a reminder set for Today, that the default time for that flag is set to one hour before the end of your work day (as defined in your Calendar settings).
It makes sense that flagging a reminder for one of the pre-defined future dates (Tomorrow, This Week or Next Week) uses the start of your work day as the default time.
It makes NO SENSE that flagging a Custom date reminder reverts the default time to one hour before the end of the work day.
To change this default to the start of your work day.
Click on the drop-down arrow on the Follow Up button on the Home Ribbon.
Select Quick Click
The Set Quick Click dialog appears. Choose Tomorrow as the default. Click the OK button.
Done. Future custom reminder times will now default to the start of the work day â not the end.
Set Word Up Right!: Postcard
I made a postcard with the basics for a custom installation of MS Word. I strongly recommend these settings as a starting point. Also using the Pin feature in MS Office, and couple of tips about getting tech organized. Plus the back has more nifty keyboard shortcuts!
Google Timer and Stopwatch
Do you wish that you had a timer on your desktop just like the one on your smartphone?
Just type “timer 5 minutes” (or 3 minutes or 10 or whatever) into your Google search bar. A timer will appear. You can maximize it to fill the screen and there will be an audible beep (which you can mute) at the end of the timer.
You’ll notice a Stopwatch panel on the screen too. To get to the stopwatch directly, type “stopwatch” (unsurprisingly) in the Google search bar.