Charts are a great way to visualize data. They allow you to quickly and easily show what your data means, and effectively compare different aspects of the information you are trying to get across.

The problem with charts in older versions of Excel was that it was fairly annoying to set one up. Even if you had your data in a workable format (which was often a chore to it get into, right?), you still had to do set parameters and change numerous settings in order for Excel to show the chart in the way you wanted it.

This is no longer true! In Excel 2007, not only is it quick, easy and (at the risk of betraying just how nerdy I am) fun to create a chart, but it can be even more interesting to simply format and edit the chart once it has been created.

There are numerous types of charts out there, and each has its own advantages. Here’s the basic chart types that you can create in Excel 2007:

• A column chart – lists 2 or more categories using vertical bars
  
  
• A bar chart – similar in form to a column chart, except the bars are displayed horizontally.
  
  
• A line chart – basically what we all call a “graph.” Data is represented by dots on a line. This is essentially what you learned about in high school algebra.
  
  
• A scatter chart – very similar to a graph. However, you can present the data without lines here so the dots on your chart won’t necessarily follow a progression.
  
  
• A pie chart – shows items as slices of a circular “pie.” This is great for showing percentages.
  
  
• An area chart – most useful when you have multiple sets of data and you’re trying to show the differences across time or different categories.
  
  

But you know what charts are right? You’re more interested in how to create them in Excel 2007. Well you have found the right article, because I am going to do just that.

The easiest and best way to create a chart is to use the Insert tab in the Ribbon Interface. Simply select your data set (including the title row and column), and click on the type of chart that you want to create in the Insert tab.

A menu will come up with a few different styles of the specific chart you want to create. There will usually be 2D and 3D versions of the chart, along with different layout options, and even shapes:

Select the style that you like and it pops right up on the worksheet where your data is located. Presto! You now have a workable chart that you can customize to fit your needs. You can move it around on your worksheet, or even put it on its own sheet if you like.

Since you selected the title row and column with your data for this chart, Excel will automatically use them to create axis labels or categories to divide the data into. No more having to set parameters! How easy is that!Lastly, since the Ribbon Interface is dynamic, when you select your chart it will give you 3 different tabs that are specifically to help you modify and manipulate your chart. I will show quick screens of them below. They’re very intuitive titles are:

Design

Layout

Format

I could try to explain all the different options and features of these 3 menus, but that could be an entire article of its own. Instead, I would suggest that you play around with the options yourself and see what you can create.

Have some fun with your data, and look at it in a whole different way with the awesome charts you can make in Excel. Try to see if you can make something really unique and useful, and have fun with it.

When you’re done, stop by and tell us about your favorite chart type or feature in the comments!

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There are people who believe that Microsoft Office Excel is just for balancing your personal budget or your checkbook. While it’s true that you can use Excel for those tasks, there are so many other things that Excel can do! The implications for storing meaningful data in an office setting are obvious. Any time you need to create a graph of sales numbers for last quarter, Excel is the first place you turn to, right?

However if you do some searching for novel Excel uses, you will turn up some very interesting results. How about using Excel to track your new diet? Maybe Excel is what you need to help you keep up your New Year’s resolution this year?

At any rate, Excel 2007 can be a great tool for getting things done and it is the most popular spreadsheet application around. If you’re dealing with numbers, dates, or any large amounts of data, Excel is the place to go.

As with one of my previous articles: 11 Best Keyboard Shortcuts for Outlook 2007, I am going to mention 13 of the most useful (and perhaps most under-utilized) keyboard shortcuts Excel 2007 has to offer.

Use them to keep both hands on the keyboard and navigate faster, creating charts, workbooks, and data groups with all the ease of some kind of super-calculating super-computer. Well, maybe not, but you can still make funny “beep boop” noises while you do it, right?

Mastering Excel 2007 Keyboard Shortcuts?

Without further ado, let’s get on with the shortcuts, shall we?

1. ALT+F1 – This creates a chart out of the data in the current range (selected cells). This is the most well known feature of Excel, and now you know a new way to use it!
2. ALT+SHIFT+F1 – This inserts a new worksheet into the workbook.
3. F6 – This switches between the worksheet, Ribbon, task pane, and Zoom controls. This is probably the most useful shortcut of all. This cool shortcut is also the most beloved to the all anti-mouse users out there.
4. SHIFT+F6 – This does the reverse of the F6 shortcut.
5. CTRL+F6 – This switches to the next workbook window when multiple workbook windows are open.
6. CTRL+SHIFT+$ – This applies the currency format to the selected cells. Great for those times when dealing with monetary data.
7. CTRL+SHIFT+# – This applies the date format with a default order of day, month, and year.
8. CTRL+; – This enters the current date in the selected cells.
9. CTRL+SHIFT+@ – This applies the time format with the default value of hour, minute and AM/PM.
10. CTRL+SHIFT+: – This enters the current time in the selected cells.
11. CTRL+` – This alternates between showing the value of a cell and the formula in the worksheet. Great for complex worksheets.
12. CTRL+D – This uses the fill down command on the selected cells. Fill down copies the content and format of the topmost cell into the cells below.
13. CTRL+R – This uses the fill right command on the selected cells. Fill right copies the content and format of the leftmost cell to the cells to the right.

There you have it. Not quite a top-ten list, but since there are more than ten shortcuts listed here, consider the three extras as a bonus just for you! These shortcuts will have you well on your way to charting, calculating, and organizing your data like the pro that you are.

Hop to it, but don’t forget to hop back here to TST for more Excel articles, coming real soon. And while you’re here, why don’t you tell me your favorite shortcut or feature in Excel 2007? Have you ever used it for novel purposes? Discuss in the comments.

… What’s that you say? Didn’t see a shortcut for the action you need to perform? Well you can click here to see Microsoft’s official list of all the keyboard shortcuts in Excel 2007, and see if you can find it.

Emailing updated versions of the document just doesn’t seem feasible in these situations. Luckily, you are running a SharePoint server, and know how to use document libraries.

What? You aren’t using document libraries? Don’t know what they are?

Well don’t worry, in this article I’m going to explain: what a document library is, how to set one up, and how to set permissions for who in your organization can access and edit the files contained inside. Let’s get started!

Document libraries allow you to use your SharePoint Server like an online filing cabinet. You can create multiple documents, store them in an online format (rather than in your local file directories), and even work on them collaboratively.

The best part of it is that SharePoint integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft Office applications, so you can edit your documents in the same version of Word or Excel that you always have. Here’s a quick tutorial on how to set one up and set the options.

How to Set Up a Document Library in SharePoint

Document libraries can be created from the client-side SharePoint application, by navigating to your organization’s Sharepoint page (in our example, the page is for a fictitious publishing company). Once you’re there, click Site Actions and then click Create, as shown below:

In the resulting page, under the Libraries category, click Document Library.

Now you are presented with a page where you can create a name and description for this document library, and set a few options including quick-launch navigation and versioning.

Enabling the versioning option will allow you to create a version of the document each time it is updated in case, for some reason, you need to roll back to a previous version. This kind of backup is usually recommended for important information.

The last option you can set allows you to set the template for the documents you will create in this library. This is what allows for the integration with the Office products I mentioned earlier. Whichever template you select will determine what file-type the document is stored as and which program will open to edit it on your machine.

When you are finished setting these options click the Create button, and you are done. Now all you have left to do is set up your permissions and get to creating documents.

How to Set Up Permissions for Your Document Library

To set up the permissions for your new document library, you have to go through a similarly simple process. On the page for the document library, click Settings and the select Document Library Settings.

In the resulting page, click the link for Permissions for this document library.

Now you will be taken to a page that has a list of all of the users in your organization who can see this document library. You can select a user (or multiple users) and click Actions, then select Edit User Permissions to bring up the permission options for that user.

The resulting page presents you with the different types of access the user(s) you selected can have. All you have to do is select the checkboxes for the permissions you want the user(s) to have, and then click OK.

You will be returned to the previous page, and you will see that the access settings you have just changed will be reflected in the list of users.

Now you are ready to start creating, editing and collaborating! Go for it!

If you’re looking for more tips on managing documents in SharePoint check out my previous article on How to Manage Your Documents the Easy Way with Workflows.

Good luck, and don’t forget to come back for more tips and How-To’s from TST! Or grab out RSS Feed to get our updates automatically — learn how!

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Being able to check my calendar items, tasks, email, and RSS feeds all in one place has added immensely to my productivity.

Sometimes though, I find that I need access to one of those items more than others in order to get things done even more efficiently. Maybe my favorite RSS subscription is distracting me from getting an article done, emails from coworkers need more attention (and screen real-estate) than usual, or I just want to customize my view for a change of pace.

Well Outlook has a host of options to do just that, and lucky you, I’m about to demonstrate some of them right now!

Below is a screencap of a pretty standard view in Outlook 2007. All of the panes and windows are visible in their default layout. This is actually a fairly useful view layout, especially for reading email:

However sometimes (especially for those who don’t have a widescreen monitor) this view, with the reading pane on the right, can make it quite hard to read messages. In those situations you have a couple of options. First, you can minimize the navigation pane, the to-do bar, or both.

Do this by clicking the View menu, selecting either the Navigation Pane or the To-Do Bar and then selecting minimize. You can achieve the same thing by clicking the double-chevron button (>>) on either of these panes. Below is a screencap with both panes minimized.

Now obviously, it can be quite difficult to navigate between folders and still keep this view, so Outlook provides an extremely handy pop-up navigation window when you click on the minimized Navigation Pane, as shown below. The same thing can be done with the To-Do Bar.

Another option for customizing reading is to move the Reading Pane to the bottom instead of having it on the right. This is accomplished by clicking the View menu at top, selecting the Reading Pane option and then selecting Bottom. The result is a radically different view of email messages, and is shown below. This of course can be combined with the previously mentioned items.

The Navigation Pane itself has numerous customization options that you may not be aware of. If you have many custom folders, RSS feeds you check regularly, or just want a different way to view and access your messages and tasks, you can use the Current View Pane option to give yourself more ways to organize your messages with fewer clicks.

To activate this useful option, simply click the View menu, select the Navigation Pane option, and then select Current View Pane. This will make finding and organizing messages far easier.

The last option I will mention here is one that seems very simple, but can have a dramatic effect on how you navigate Outlook 2007.

While the Navigation Pane is normally context sensitive and will change depending on whether you are using mail, tasks, contacts, etc, there are times in which you would like to move more easily between all of these items from one centralized folder hierarchy (like Windows Explorer).

Well luckily there is such an option. The folder list option makes any of Outlook 2007′s separate modules the central focus with just one click. The normal view of the mail folders is shown here:

Followed by the same view with the Folder List button enabled:

You can see how this option can be very useful in certain situations. Of course, this is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to customization in Outlook 2007. With all of the different view options, individual folder options, and opportunities to mix & match them, the possibilities really are close to endless.

Unfortunately, this article is not. Therefore, I must tell you to keep trying out the different Outlook view options on your own. Find something that matches your personal style, and helps you get things done more efficiently and simply.

Why not post some of your favorite options in the comments?

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• Installing and setting up your profile
• Personalizing the Outlook 2007 Interface
• Effectively organizing your information
• Using third party add-ons to increase productivity
• Managing calendars, meetings, tasks, contacts, distribution lists and more!

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Of course, with that said, everyone knows that having a professional-looking webpage can be the difference between having a successful, useful site and having a site that just ends up being a waste of time and resources. No one wants to look unprofessional, right?

One way to have a huge affect on your SharePoint site’s presentation with only a small amount of work, is to add a customized company logo to your site. Branding your SharePoint Site in this way not only makes you look more professional, but can also help provide a basic level of copyrighting to the information presented there.

Ok, enough singing its praises. Let’s get started already!

The first thing you want to do is make sure you have the correct permissions to edit pages on your server. If you don’t have administrator privileges, point your system administrator at this How-To page and ask them to help you out (while you’re at it, why don’t you go ahead and plug this TST page to everyone you know? Thanks).

To change the logo that appears in the top left corner of your site, first go to your actual SharePoint server — either physically or by using a remote desktop client. Now navigate to the SharePoint site in question using your browser.

In the top left corner, right-click on the image next to the title of the page (in our example, the page is called Operations) and click Properties. The Properties dialog box should appear. In the box, look for the address of the image and copy only the filename portion, as shown below.

Now simply open the search dialog on the server and paste the filename into the box. When the file in question appears in the search box, simply right-click on it and select Open Containing Folder. Once the folder opens, simply copy the file you want to use as your new logo and paste it into the folder where the old logo is located.

Next, you have to change the settings on your site so that the new file you just copied is referenced as the page’s logo. To do this, navigate to your SharePoint site, click Settings, and then select Site Settings in the dropdown box.

On the next page select Title Description & Icon under Look and Feel

On the resulting page, you will need to enter the URL for the new logo that you want to use. The URL is going to be the same as the previous URL, except that the filename will be changed to the file that you want to use. You can either type this in manually, or you can copy, paste and then edit the URL from the current logo by using the method mentioned earlier.

Now all you have to do is add in a description for the logo in the alt text field, and click Ok. When the page reloads your new logo should appear in the top left corner of the page. Quick, simple, and elegant. That’s the name of the game with SharePoint.

That’s not the only way to customize your SharePoint site, but it’s a great start. Good luck, and check back soon for more from TST or grab our RSS Feed and get all of our latest updates sent directly to you!

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Our SharePoint training covers both: SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS 3.0) and SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007).

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One of the things that can take up a lot of our time is waiting for approval. Everyone has had a situation in which they were assigned a project, and had to create some kind of a document relating to it. After creating a really thorough article or abstract, you send it off to your manager in an email for approval, and then you wait.

You may have one of those managers who is notoriously slow at responding to emails, or perhaps your manager has to send it further up the food chain via another email (after making suggestions and changes, of course). Either way, you are effectively stalled while you wait for the document to come back to you — approved or rejected.

Well if your company utilizes SharePoint, there is a better way to deal with these types of problems. That way comes in the form of workflows.

Time To Simplify …

Workflows provide a way for people in any organization to easily pass along documents for review, editing, and approval. The best part is — everything is integrated and works smoothly since it’s within SharePoint. You can see the progress of the document and better plan out your next steps.

No more waiting for the return email, or worse sending the “did you get my last email?” message — no one likes those. Better still, if your item is meant to be published out for the rest of your organization to see, using workflows in SharePoint can ensure that this happens automatically.

Getting Started with Workflows

To set this up, you simply navigate to the SharePoint Site for which you want to have a workflow assigned, click the Settings menu and then go to the site’s settings. In the example below, we have created a document library for this purpose:

In the resulting page, select link for Workflow Settings. Pretty straightforward, right? Here is a screenshot of it anyway, just in case:

The next page presents you with a few options to change. You can select the type of workflow you want, essentially what you want done with the document — for example: request approval, request feedback, request signatures, etc.

Next you specify the workflow’s name. Workflows will usually take the form of task lists that must be completed by those they are assigned to. Here you can decide to use an existing task list to add this to, or use a brand new task list (I recommend the latter).

Similarly, you can specify a history list for this workflow, or create a new one. Lastly, you can select options to know when this workflow will be started. This option gives you a very good amount of control over how and when you want the workflow itself to move along over time.

After you have made your decision for those options, click Next at the bottom of the page, and you will be taken to the Customize Workflow page.

In this page you can specify whether users who are assigned tasks in the workflow can delegate the tasks, or pass them off to other users to complete. You can also specify whether all users or only one user at a time can be assigned a task, and even decide who exactly can approve a document or mark a task as complete and under what circumstances (i.e. if the document is rejected).

The level of control here is really great, especially the fact that it is still so easy to customize all of these options right from the page you are trying to edit. Once you are done editing these options, simply click OK at the bottom of this page to finish up and view the workflow summary page.

Using Workflows To Their Full Potential

Once you have completed the setup for your workflow, the abilities of SharePoint to combine with Microsoft office products really begin to shine. You can create a document within your library, and it will open up in Word automatically. You simply edit the document and save it as you would any other.

The office application will actually check in with the SharePoint server on a regular basis to update the document’s status in the workflow that you created. When the person assigned to approve your document attempts to view or edit the document, the workflow status dialog will be displayed in Word automatically. The approval manager will be asked to approve or reject the document, and will be allowed to leave comments on it as shown below.

And that’s really all there is to it! The process is no more complicated than sending the documents via email, and since all the functionality is handled by the server, everything works very interactively but still automates many of the steps.

It’s a great system, and one that I recommend you try out as soon you get the chance. Have fun, and check back here at Train Signal Training for more articles and tips.

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Our SharePoint training covers both: SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS 3.0) and SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007).


This instructor led video training also prepares you for the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Configuration Exam (70-630 MCTS) and the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Configuration Exam (70-631 MCTS).

With over 15 hours of video, our SharePoint training is your comprehensive guide to simplifying your organization’s collaboration and communication efforts.

Learn more and view the free demo here!

But before you can call yourself a serious Outlook user, there are some items that you need to know how to take advantage of. Here are 5 things that you need to do to get the most out of your Outlook experience:

1. Creating a Distribution List

If your work requires you to send a lot of emails to coworkers, clients, or any other group of people you know that it can be very time consuming to send out mass email announcements. You have to type in every name every time, and there is always the possibility that you typed in a name wrong, or accidentally put someone on the list because their name is similar to the one you meant to send the message to.

Needless to say, it can be a pain, and if you ever have to send a mass email more than once, it will really serve you well to set up a distribution list (or a few different ones!) to make your life much easier.

To create one, simply click the down arrow on the New button and select New Distribution List:

A window will pop up, where you can enter the email addresses of the people you want on your list. You can select names from your contact lists, or enter them in manually. Hit Save & Close, and you’re done!

The best part is, not only can you send emails to everyone on the list by just typing in the name of the list (which you specify), but you can also click the handy plus (+) button, and show all the names of the people on the list. This is great if you need to send an email to many different people from the list, but want to remove one or two people. This is definitely something you should check out.

2. Creating a Signature

When you send emails from your “business presence” it is much more professional to use a signature. It doesn’t have to be anything too complicated, just the essentials of name, important phone numbers, and email adresses (seems redundant, but it’s still important).

If you are interested in doing so, you can even add a picture to your signature as well. However, this is not highly recommended, since Outlook will attach the picture file to every email with your signature. And this can be a problem if you want to limit the size of your email messages.

You can create a signature by going to the Tools Menu, choosing Options, and then clicking the Mail Format tab, and finally clicking the Signatures button.

Edit your signature, give it a name, and then choose if you want it to appear in all emails automatically, or if you have to add it manually. Here is an example of my signature here at Train Signal:

3. Creating a Personal Folder

With the massive amounts of email that we get over time, it becomes incredibly difficult to keep track of it all. Even with the brand new search capabilities, it will make your life so much easier if you organize your items into personal folders.

All you have to do to create a personal folder is click the down arrow on the New button and choose Folder.

On the menu that pops up, select the location of the folder and give it a name. That’s it! Now feel free to use the different methods to move your items into the folders (either automatically or manually), and get organized!

4. Creating Delegates

A delegate is a person designated access to your email, calendars and other folders. This person can send messages on your behalf, and can manage your tasks and meetings. This can be extremely useful for those who are extremely busy, or need someone to answer their emails (but not with an automated response) while they are away from the job. The one caveat about this feature is that you have to be using an exchange server to access it.

With that out of the way, it’s really easy to set up a delegate. Just click on the Tools menu and select Options. From there, click the delegates tab. Add the name of the person or people you want from your exchange contacts, and click Ok.

Click Ok once more on the options dialog window to close that, and you are done. This is an extremely useful feature, but I think it goes without saying that you should be extremely careful who you give access to your mailbox. Remember, they have access to everything.

5. Creating Voting Buttons

Something that is massively overlooked in email is voting messages. When coupled with the distribution list feature mentioned earlier, this can be an incredibly useful way to get information from coworkers or others.

When you set up an email message with voting buttons, you can set up either a “yes or no” vote or a multiple-choice style survey right inside Outlook. The best part is that using this method, you won’t have to do any counting of votes. Every person who clicks one of the choices will automatically be counted in the totals that are sent back to you in real-time.

To set this up, just create a new email massage, then click the options tab in the ribbon interface. Now click the “Use Voting Buttons” button.

You will get a dropdown menu with options on what kind of vote you want. You can choose yes/no or approve/disapprove votes, or you can choose to create a custom vote. Needless to say, this can save you lots of time if you need to get approval of something, or you just want to take a quick survey of where to get lunch.

That’s all for now. You’ve got a lot to try out though, so have fun!

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Our instructor led videos will help you manage your time more effectively and get you more organized. Some of the topics covered in the Outlook 2007 training include:

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With so many things going on in Outlook at any given time, those in the “Getting Things Done” (GTD) ultra-high-productivity camp probably think that keeping everything straight and minimizing mouse navigation is a nightmare in Outlook. Well, it doesn’t have to be!

With these handy keyboard shortcuts for Outlook 2007, you can get things done more efficiently, and get the feel of an email ninja as you whip from page to page, message to calendar item, to task, and much more!

Best Outlook 2007 Keyboad Shortcut: Single Key Reading

First up, the arguably best of the best Outlook shortcut: Single Key Reading. This option lets you scroll through an email message, switch to the next message, and repeat by only hitting the spacebar. It’s the quickest simplest keyboard shortcut that I can think of for Outlook, but it’s tremendously useful for those who just want to quickly skim a few messages in their inbox. Also, you can do the same thing going backwards by holding shift and then pressing the spacebar.

Here’s how you can enable/disable this feature. On the Tools menu, click Options.

Click the Other tab and then Reading Pane…

Now check to enable or uncheck to disable Single Key Reading:

That’s all there is to it! Now go give it a try, all you GTD’ers.

Increase Your Productivity with These 10 Easy Keyboard Shortcuts for Outlook 2007

Here are ten more useful keyboard shortcuts that should satiate your productivity appetite when working with Outlook 2007:

1. CTRL + R – Reply to a message
2. CTRL + F – Forward a message
3. CTRL + PERIOD – Switch to the next message (works only if you have a message open)
4. CTRL + COMMA – Switch to previous message (works only if you have a message open)
5. CTRL + SHIFT + K – Create a task
6. CTRL + SHIFT + A – Create an appointment
7. CTRL + SHIFT + Q – Create a meeting request
8. F11 – Enter a name in the Search Address Books box
9. F3 or CTRL + E – Go to the Search box
10. F6 or CTRL + SHIFT + TAB – Move between the Navigation Pane, the main Outlook window, the Reading Pane, and the To-Do Bar

That’s quite a few to remember, and this should get you to a good start. To find the complete list of Outlook keyboard shortcuts go to the official Outlook 2007 product page. Here you can find a keyboard shortcut for anything you want to do faster. The shortcut topics range from Basic Navigation, Search, and Email, to Color Categories, Macros, and different types of Views. So have fun and enjoy!

And if you’re really looking to master Outlook 2007, then make sure to check out our comprehensive Outlook 2007 Training which offers over 11 hours of hands on instruction.

But even with the help of a great SharePoint site, it can still be difficult for a busy professional to keep up with all of the updates and changes that come up with any given project. Enter: Email Alerts and RSS Feeds.

We’re living in a web 2.0 world — and it’s time to take advantage of all the benefits it has to offer. Now you don’t have to frequently check and re-check a SharePoint discussion or wiki for updated content. Instead, if you have administrator access, you can configure the site to enable outgoing email and have updates sent directly to you.

I’ll show you how to get started with email alerts and RSS feeds in three painless, quick and easy steps!

Easy Step # 1: Enabling Outgoing Email in SharePoint

To enable your SharePoint site to send email alerts to users, all you need to have is the address of your SMTP server, and an email address that can receive the replies from users responding to the alert emails. This email address should probably be some kind of administrator or support address.

With this information handy, navigate to your SharePoint site’s Central Administration page (in the example below, the site is titled “Operations”) and click Outgoing Email Settings.

On the Outgoing Email Settings page enter your SMTP server’s address and the Reply-to email address mentioned earlier into their respective input boxes. The From address is the email address that the users will see in the From field when they receive email alerts from the SharePoint server.

This address can be arbitrarily made-up, since the users will be replying to the actual email address you put in the Reply-to field. Of course, I still recommend you use something to the effect of SharePointAlerts@ so your users know who they are getting an email from.

Once you’ve done this hit OK, and you are done with the setup! Pretty simple right? Let’s move on to the next step.

Easy Step # 2: Enabling Email Alerts in SharePoint

Now that the site has been configured to allow sending of email alerts, all your users need to do to start getting alerts sent to them is to turn the feature on. To do this as a user, simply navigate to the SharePoint site you want to be alerted about, click the Actions menu, and then click the Alert Me button (the site in the example below is a discussion page called “Process Improvement Discussion”).

On the New Alert page, you will see that the Alert Title and Send Alerts To fields are already populated. These correlate to the subject line and the to field respectively, in your email client. If you want to change or add other email addresses to be alerted here, or if you would like to change the alert title to meet a set filter or rule in your email client, you may do so here.

After you have decided on all these items, scroll down the page to set some other options. You can change what types of items you want to be alerted on (such as new items or changes to older items), filter these items based on what changes occur, and even decide whether you want to receive an email every time something happens, or just receive daily or weekly summaries. These options are extremely useful for those of us who want to stay current on projects, but don’t want to be inundated with emails from the SharePoint Server.

Once you’ve done that, just press OK and you have email alerts! Now, let’s move on to the final step.

Easy Step # 3: Enabling RSS Feeds in SharePoint

If you thought that was painless, you are in for a real treat! RSS feeds are great because they are arguably even more useful than email alerts (we can’t always be there to check our email, right?) and they are enabled by default on almost any SharePoint page that you have on your server.

Just navigate to the page you want your feed on, and hit Actions just as before. Now click on View RSS Feed. Whatever you have as your default feed handler will kick in, and then you just follow the normal steps to subscribe to the feed.

RSS feeds can be turned off on your page if you like, just go to the settings menu for your page, click RSS settings, and then turn the option off. But really, who wants less information?

That’s it, we’re done! Quick, painless and easy. That’s what we’re all about here at TST. Have fun with your shiny new alerts and feeds, and keep your browser locked to TST for more useful tips and “how-to’s.”

Learn More with Train Signal’s SharePoint Server 2007 Training Videos!

Our SharePoint training covers both: SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS 3.0) and SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007).

This instructor led video training also prepares you for the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Configuration Exam (70-630 MCTS) and the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Configuration Exam (70-631 MCTS).

With over 10 hours of video, our SharePoint training is your comprehensive guide to simplifying your organization’s collaboration and communication efforts. Learn more and view the free demo here!

Anyway, I just wanted to drop in for a quick update. This past week, I scheduled myself for an appointment to take the Network+ exam. And guess what…

I passed! (thank you, thank you for the applause, ha ha).

So now I am officially Network+ certified, and I am pretty excited. If you are wondering what I did to study besides watching the course, I will tell you. I am going to tell you anyway, even if you weren’t wondering.

After I finished our course, I decided that since I was so busy, I would put off any hardcore studying until later. I do not recommend you do that. It made the last week leading up to the exam extremely stressful. But I have to give you guys the full disclosure, right? Since I put off studying for so long, I ended up just going through some of my written notes very briefly, and then just taking any free practice exams I could find online.

Just a quick note on the practice exams. They are obviously going to be of varying quality if you only take the free ones. My advice if you are on a budget is to take as many different practice tests as possible. This will give you a good range of the quality of all the tests.

The good news is, since I had watched many of the videos in the Network+ course multiple times, a lot of the items in the practice tests were familiar to me. I went into the exam feeling pretty confident for only having used one type of study aid (most professionals still recommend two, and so do I).

The exam itself was slightly different than what I expected, and there were 1 or 2 items which I wasn’t expecting at all. Most of the questions that I had trouble with had to do with real-world troubleshooting of much older types of network equipment and hardware. And I just haven’t had much experience with them in school or on the job. However, on the whole, the test was pretty straightforward. It never seemed like it was unfair or that the writers were trying to trick me with the multiple choice options or anything like that (remember those kinds of tests from high school? ugh).

I got my results right away, and overall I am so glad that I got certified. I can now say for sure that our products here at Train Signal work like a charm. Good luck with your certs out there, and don’t forget to shower me with praise (or to tell your own first cert stories if you want to be like that) in the comments.

See if our training is right for you! Check out our free Network+ training videos!

Previous Posts:

• Network+ Videos 14 & 15: Course Completion
• Network+ Videos 12 & 13: Cables, Cables, Cables …
• Network+ Videos 10 & 11: Gloom and Doom
• Network+ Videos 8 & 9: Who Knew?
• IP Intermission …

In video 14 of the Network+ course, Mr. Bryant provides us with a look into some of the most cutting edge tech in networking. I am of course talking about wireless. There are some interesting distinctions between the different versions of the wireless standards. Another thing that I realized is that we barely even consider a time before wireless networking. The idea that you would actually have to find an Ethernet port and (*gasp*) bring your own Ethernet cable to a place like a coffee shop or a school library seems almost disturbing these days. I think that makes me sound old when I bring that up (“In my day, we had to plug in our laptops to get internet! We walked 3 miles through the snow to find Ehternet ports in the wall…”). Anyway, I digress.

You can tell that Mr. Bryant is trying to wrap up all the material for you, and he does so even more in the final video. He spends this last video in the Network+ course describing what you’ll need to do to prepare yourself for the actual (dreaded) exam. He makes some really good points here about confidence and good study tactics. But the way I see it, the real confidence builder comes from the fact that you just went through the entire course with him, right? This final video is just a good bonus, and it’s Mr. Bryant’s vast experience with certification exams that make the video all the more useful. And that is the Train Signal difference that you will hear (or read, if you will) me and my colleagues harping on all the time. We truly love our products and we want to make them the best they can be for you. That’s the point, right?

I just thought about that weird hair transplant commercial. It’s as if I’m not just an employee, I’m also a user. Except I’m not going bald, I’m learning IT courses. Ok, I think I should stop while I’m ahead. I couldn’t resist that one. Stay tuned for more from TST.

As usual, Chris Bryant is our instructor for the Network+ Course. He says of video 12 (and I tend to believe him, since he is a pro) that this is one of the few videos in the course that simply requires a bunch of memorization. At Train Signal, we strive to be different than other computer training courses. We don’t want to simply provide you with a rehashing of things you’ll find in popular textbooks (I know, that’s an oxymoron), or to pop a big table of cable types up on the screen and tell you to “pause and memorize.”

With that said, I think Mr. Bryant does an excellent job with this relatively dry material. The thorough and entertaining style that he creates in the other videos in the course is definitely maintained in this video, even though he tells us that this video is slightly different than the others on the disc. It all works out for the best though.

In video 13 of the Network+ Course, we shift gears completely and talk about different network operating systems. There are really just the “Big Four” when it comes to NOS’s, and Mr. Bryant gives us an overview of all of them:

• Microsoft Windows NOS
• Novell Netware NOS
• Unix (mostly Linux)
• Mac OS X (Mr. Bryant says this is easiest to maintain. Surprised?)

He also discusses interoperability (or the lack thereof… I’m looking at you, Appletalk) of the different NOS’s, and even gives some general tips for troubleshooting each NOS. All in all, the video covers a good amount of topics, considering we could very easily make an entire video (and for some we have!) on each individual NOS listed here. This video is easy to watch, and gives a couple of very useful tips. I highly recommend it.

On a completely separate note, I just want to stop for a second and ask how my audience thinks I’m doing. Before today, I have written 7 blog posts, and I want to see if my (adoring?) fans think I have “found my voice” in this blog. Do I still sound subdued like when I said in my first post?

Let me know. I’ll be watching out for your comments!

Our instructor for the Network+ course, Chris Bryant takes a general overview of what computer viruses are, and talks a little bit about how to protect your network from them. The main point to that, is almost too obviously, every machine on the network absolutely needs to have virus-scanning software installed. Not only that though, the IT professional has to make sure that the virus-scanner is kept up to date with automatic updates. Mr. Bryant is absolutely adamant about that rule. He mentions it and mentions it again several times in the course of this video. Even he realizes he sounds like an overprotective mom, (and he mentions as much) but you know, sometimes you just can’t have enough warning on a subject. He also talks about the different ways that are possible to protect your network from the common weak points in a network, including the most common way viruses get in: email attachments.

It all seems so grim, doesn’t it?

Fortunately for us, the second video in the Network+ course that I watched today offered up some hope. The video was about security protocols. These protocols offer up protection for many of the things we do on a network, not only as IT professionals, but as end users as well. There are a number of protocols we probably don’t even realize we are using most of the time. But trust me, even though Mr. Bryant is such a thorough instructor, you’re going to want to watch this video more than once to remember everything. There are a LOT of acronyms in this section. They’re all important to the Network+ cert though, so it’s a good thing that they get covered here, right?

We are nearing the home-stretch on the Network+ course. I can almost feel the certification at my fingertips (um… that came out more nerdy than I meant it. Never mind). I think this course is really preparing me well for taking the certification exam, which is great. I think it would take a lot more work for me if I had to go through all this material with just books, or in a classroom where I couldn’t repeat the information as much as I needed. Just the perks of the business, I guess. I hope you have the same success with this course too.

As always, keep it here at TST for more IT news, tips and FREE training videos from Train Signal.

Now I consider myself a pretty technically savvy guy. I mean, most of my friends and family look to me when they need help fixing stuff on their home PC’s and other electronics (I really should start charging them too, geez). But after watching videos 8 & 9 of the Network+ course, I realized I didn’t even know that PING was an acronym (Packet Inter Network Groper — if you’re like me). Of course, that’s not all I learned about it. Our instructor Chris Bryant lets us know a bunch of different situations where PING is useful. I’ll list a few of them here as common complaints from users:

• “The network is slow!” — use PING to show the real round trip times for packets
• “I can’t connect to the internet!” — use PING to see if it’s simply a DNS problem
• “I can’t print to our network printer!” — use PING to check the print server by name then by IP address instead

See what I mean? There are definitely a huge number of every day (well let’s hope not every day, right?) network troubleshooting issues that PING can help you diagnose without any special effort. That’s the kind of extra, “real world” network experience that Chris Bryant brings to every video in the Network+ Course. I think that’s what makes Train Signal different (and better!) than any other certification computer training.

Enough from me. If you like, you can see for yourself what makes us different check out our free training vids and our popular training courses.

The TCP/IP videos on TST are taught by Scott Skinger, while the IP addressing and NAT video in the Network+ course is taught by Chris Bryant, as I said before. These two instructors have different styles of teaching, as you might expect, and they use them to play right into the different audiences that their respective videos will reach. Mr. Skinger is very example-oriented and “to the point” in his videos. This is really nice because it makes the videos so easy to watch. That’s a perfect style if you are a beginner in the topic of networking and IP addressing.

Conversely in the Network+ videos, Mr. Bryant is extremely thorough in his descriptions. It’s also not rare for Mr. Bryant to give you an extra bit of very useful information that is related to the “real world” aspects of the particular topic he is covering. This style is great for his videos, since they cover what you will need to pass the Network+ certification exam, but also will help you once you actually use that cert in your real career (duh… that’s the point of all this, right?).

I’m going to be taking the Network+ exam myself very soon. I think that the fact that I have used both the videos on TST (did I mention those are FREE?) and the Network+ videos helps me direct my preparation a lot. If you are looking for a way to get your certifications completed, I highly recommend you do a similar thing. The fact that you can get started by sampling our teaching style with the free videos on TST and then move on to our full line of premium products at www.TrainSignal.com is just another reason why we can say that Train Signal provides the best computer-based IT and certification training on the planet!

That’s all for now. Please check back here for more IT news, posts, and videos from Train Signal Training.

If you’re here, you probably already know this, but Train Signal Training is kind of like our community presence here on “ye olde inter-webs.” Some of the special features that you’ll only find here include:

I just watched the TCP/IP training series, which you can find right here. Our guide in these videos is Scott Skinger, who just so happens to be the owner of a little company we like to call Train Signal. Mr. Skinger is a great instructor for these types of videos, because his style is very conversational, and he always shows exactly what he is talking about on the screen. He even writes notes on the “board” while he is talking. (How does he write like that with a mouse? My mouse writing always looks like crap.) When I started, I had only meant to watch one or two, out of the five in the series, but they are engaging enough that I ended up just watching all five in one sitting. If you are setting up a home or even a small office network, I really recommend these videos. They could save you a couple of the headaches that Windows has a habit of causing.

I think I’m going to try and do the impossible … re-build my home network without making my family go crazy (they can’t be without the net for more than half an hour) based on what I saw today. Wish me luck.

Oh by the way, we are constantly thinking of ways to improve TST (thats Train Signal Training, but you knew that). So if you have any feedback regarding something you’d like to see here, please let me know in the comments section. Next time, I’ll be back to my reviews of the Network+ videos, so stay tuned here at Train Signal Training so you don’t miss a thing.

So today I went through videos 3 and 4 on the CompTIA Network+ course. As always, if you want to know more about the course, feel free to click that link to our page. In video 3, our instructor Chris Bryant guides us through Collisions & Virtual LANs. On video 4 he describes some of the protocols used in layer 4 of the OSI model.

I really enjoyed these Network+ Course videos for a couple of reasons. The first is that the material on the Virtual LAN is something that actually really interests me as a tech-guy (that is pronounced “proud-geek”). Secondly, the videos are fun — and maybe it’s just a combination of my geekiness and the caffeine talking — because there are a few choice moments where Mr. Bryant actually made me chuckle during the video. I don’t think he meant for that to happen, but it did. Seriously, the part in video 3 where he is describing wikipedia.org just makes me laugh in that “in case you’ve been living under a rock that’s inside of a cave on the dark side of the moon” kind of way.

Later on in the Network+ videos, I think Mr. Bryant even makes himself chuckle. That’s because he is describing Virtual LAN and “router on a stick.” I did not make that up, it’s a real term in networking. I think it may in fact be Mr. Bryant’s favorite phrase, because he mentions how funny it is about 3 or 4 times. Really, if the Network+ course wasn’t already extremely useful for certification training, it would be worth watching just to hear him mention that phrase.

All jokes aside though, the protocol discussion on Network+ Course: video 4 (which is continued later in video 5) is invaluable. There are so many OSI layer 4 protocols, and they are all named with ridiculously similar acronyms (watch out for his discussion of NTP vs. NNTP). So Mr. Bryant’s deliberate, thorough instruction style is perfect to help the viewer keep it all clear in his or her mind. You really should check it out. You won’t be disappointed!

Anyway, that’s all for now. Does anyone know if I can cure my caffeine buzz with more caffeine? No? Oh well, I think I’ll give it a try anyway. Be sure to keep your browser locked to Train Signal Training so you don’t miss my next (thrilling? no. geeky? no. thrillingly-geeky! YES!) blog post.

The Instructor for the Network+ course is Chris Bryant. He is very experienced, and really does an excellent job with it. He takes a very detailed approach to explaining the content, which is important for a user who is not very familiar with the material. However, if this material is used as a review, it may be a good idea to watch the video at a faster speed, as Mr. Bryant deliberately takes his time to be very thorough.

The first video of the Network+ course deals with the idea of physical networking. This covers anything that is on the first layer of the OSI model, which is also described in detail. Mr. Bryant talks about network topologies, or how a network is physically set up and how the machines in the network connect to each other. He goes into specifics about the most common topology schemes, as well as some that are not very common anymore. The best part of this particular video is that he explains why some topology schemes are more useful than others.

In the second Network+ video, Mr. Bryant describes MAC addresses — a topic that is part of the second layer of the OSI model. He covers the logic behind MAC address numbering, how addresses are resolved by network hardware, and even adds a little tidbit about how to convert hexadecimal into decimal. I know I always have trouble with that, so it was nice to get that extra bit of advice. I think the best part of this video is the descriptions he gives of the Address Resolution protocol and Reverse Address Resolution protocol. That can be a very confusing topic, and he breaks the topic down like a pro (I guess he is one… duh) and explains it all in a very easy to understand way. I agree with Mr. Bryant when he says that his videos are worth watching multiple times to get the most out of them.

That’s all for now. Be sure to check back here for my next post.

So the first thing I want to talk about is myself. That makes me sound kind of shallow, doesn’t it? Well, I’m sure I’ll come to prove that’s not necessarily the case. Anyway, as I mentioned, I am a new hire here at Train Signal, and today is my first day. I am 22 years old and a recent graduate of the University of Notre Dame (which I hear is the company owner’s favorite school, score one for me!) with a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science. This is nice for me, because it gives me just the right amount of technical background to work in the IT industry. I think Train Signal and I are going to be a perfect fit because this position will allow me to get my career off the ground the way I want … while getting some great learning experience along the way.

My interests include technology (video games and computers … duh?), and I enjoy city life (I live in Chicago currently), and above all, music. I also enjoy long walks on the beach and candle-lit dinners (not really, but this post was starting to sound like a personal ad, right?).

So my first responsibilities on the job include getting acquainted with our main website Train Signal and also our training website, Train Signal Training which I will be focusing a lot of my time and energy on. For starters, I will begin reviewing our Network+ course; you can find more info about it here.

It feels weird starting work at a new place. I’ve been kind of subdued and quiet so far, and that’s not really me. I think I’ll probably be more comfortable once I get settled in. But for now, maybe I should get to work, I don’t want to get myself fired on the first day.

That was a joke. Hopefully. See you around.