BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN DESIGNERS AND CLIENTS

Designers and clients are often at   loggerheads when it comes to the final presentation of a project; be it the usual logo, banner or web design, the following scenarios could lead to the crop up of varying issues;

1)      Little or no involvement from the clients at the initial stage

2)      Inadequate research on the designer’s part

3)      No information from the clients

4)      Poor passing of Information from the designer to the client.

5)      Clients not being sure of what they want

6)      Designers being typically money-oriented

7)      No concept behind the design

8)      No two clients are the same.

9)      No official agreement

10)   Middle Man involvement

 

Now I will take time to explain all. We start from the very first

 

Little or no involvement from the clients in the initial stage

When it comes to web or logo design, clients don’t want to be involved in the design either at the initial stage or latter. stages; they want to be shown samples to select from. This causes a big headache since the designer can’t know what exactly the client wants hereby leading to a high percentage of rejection of initial designs; this can be very time-consuming.

Most times the designer has to “pull a rabbit out the hat“ to get what the client wants.

 

Inadequate research on the designer’s part

Most times, designers rely on their creativity only for the execution of the project. Sometimes it is not enough, and instead of doing more research on what he needs to do to get the client satisfied, he complains that the client is merely wasting his time. We live in a world where things are being developed and discovered every day, trends come and go and if we don’t carry out research, we get left behind.

 

                No information from the clients

Apart from the name of the company, no other information is given to the designer. The color combination, the desired fonts – whether it will be type-phase or with an emblem – for logo creation, or the website transition or animation. When it comes to web design, no picture is made available, or picture description given, and the designer is told to “come up with something”

 

 

 

Poor passing of Information from the designer to the client.

In the attempt to get a client, some designers promise the world and in the end they mess up; some designers are not familiar with the printing environment and that is why most of the designs that are made can’t be executed properly. So not telling them earlier will always result to conflicts.

 

Clients not being sure of what they want .

Most clients – due to no fault of theirs – have no idea of what they want and it is until he or she is shown something. They just want something “fine”. A reason for this is that clients aren’t mostly novices in the field and they expect the designer (as the expert) to ‘wow’ them. This isn’t meant to be case as it is the designer’s responsibility to ensure that they meet at a neutral ground and ensure the work flows smoothly.

Designers being typically money-oriented

Designers these days have really destroyed the market.  Most learn how to design only to get money. They don’t care about the quality of their works. Their mentality is that “The amount you pay will determine your design”. Money should never determine the quality of your work. If you are doing it for free or at a cheap price, your designs should speak for you.

 

No concept behind the design                                                     

Nowadays, you will see some designs and wonder if there is any story behind it. Does it really have anything to do with what the company is about? We have gone past the stage of “just anything” or”something fine”. But some people are still living in the past.

 

                No two clients are the same

Some designers feel that because he did something similar for the first client that he may be able to get away with tweaking the design a bit for the other client. Most times, things don’t work like we expect.

 

No official agreement

This is the main problem. There is no duration stated for the project to be concluded, so most jobs go on and on and on. Some go on for weeks, months. The mode of payment and the terms and conditions should be stated properly and both parties agree

 

Middle Man involvement

Dealing with a middle man can be problematic because there are some things the original client might say that the middle man could leave out. Most times, it is advisable to have direct contact with the client as the middle man is probably interested in making money.

 

This brings us to the end of this post. And before I forget, Quadclover will be designing logos – FOR FREE – from now till the end of April for the first set of people that send in their details. For more information, send a mail to info@quadclover.com.

Thanks for reading.

NETWORKING

Technology has made the world look like a “global village”. Village in the sense, it has made it look smaller than it is really and this has been made possible by communication. Either picking up your phone to call someone that is a thousand miles away from you or making calls from your system (Skype), communication can be established. Communication is “relatively” cheap. It is cheaper than actually going to see the person in person. It is safe to say that the computers are “talking” to one another.

But let us not get ahead of ourselves; communication and technology were never this straightforward in the past. We had eras when only products from the same Vendor could only communicate. For example IBM systems could only communicate with each other.

So today we shall be looking at how communication was

Batch – oriented configuration

This is the oldest form of communications between systems and other resources. Each resource is assigned to a system and the resource isn’t released till the task is completed, hence the name “batch”. For example, if we have 3 systems, 1 printer, 1 scanner. One system is assigned the printer and another one the scanner has while the last one is free. If the last system wants to print it has to wait for the system using the printer, so if it has a thousand and one jobs to print, it has to finish before it is released. Pretty inefficient and wasting a lot of time being idle.

Time – sharing Multi-user

Ideas were worked on to help eliminate the problem of time wasting; the idea of time sharing was accepted at that time. Time sharing in the sense that each system was given equal time with the resources. So once the time elapses, the resource is released so another can take it. I am sure some of you are wondering what if the next available system doesn’t need it at that time, wouldn’t it be needless holding onto it. This was also worked on, so after a while if the system isn’t using it, it is forced to release it.

Single – User

It got to be a point when it was necessary for a house to have a complete system and other resources without it been shared by other systems. This is found in most homes where 1 system is connected to a printer.

 LAN

After the phase of single user communications, it was thought of that it will be cost effective if computer systems could share resources. Share in the sense that they can access them whenever they needed it without waiting for a period of time or a batch to finish. Switches and bridges were introduced so as to solve the problem. It appears that all the systems were in the same area within few meters away from each other. Hence the name, Local Area Network, or LAN as it is commonly known as.

Private WANs (Metropolitan)

After the development of LAN, technology began to grow and the need for a larger network .Mentioned earlier, LAN could only be effective until a certain distance. MAN and WAN came into place. MAN is the acronym for Metropolitan Area Network and it was sufficient for connecting networks within a geographical area while WAN is the acronym for Wide Area Network.

The Internet is a public WAN, but there are many ways to create a business model or private version. A private network is essentially two or more LANs connected to each other. For example, a company with offices in Lagos, Portharcourt and Abuja might have a LAN setup at each office. Through leased telephone lines, all three LANs can communicate with each other, forming a WAN.

Publicly Switched Data Networks (WAN)

PSDN stands for public switched data network; this is another alternate to WAN. A PSDN is a way to lease time to access other information by other computers. It is maintained and developed by a vendor. They might lease this “line” for personal use or to an organization, which is more likely.

PSDNs save cost because a company does not have to lease the entire network for that given time; all they have to do is pay for the access to the network.

The location where the PSDN networked is accessed is called POP (point of preference). An example of this is the phone number you dial to call someone else. Once a site has connected to the proper PSDN POP it also has obtains access to other sites connected to the PSDN. Basically the company or organization is paying for the traffic it is sending via the lines to PSDN. There are three protocols associated with PSDN, Frame Relay, ATM and Ethernet. ATM supports the fastest speed and also can support voice and data communications. They operate at different speeds and the client can choose which one fits them the best.

Internet

The Internet is a worldwide, publicity accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a “network of networks” that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which together carry various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer, and the interlinked web pages and other resources of the World Wide Web (www).

 Intranet

An intranet is a computer network that shares information, operational systems, or computing services within an organization. The term simply means a network within an organization. Sometimes, the term refers only to the organization’s internal website, but may consist of multiple local area networks. The objective is to organize each individual’s desktop with minimal cost, time and effort to be more productive, cost efficient, timely, and competitive.

file system

Technology has a funny way of sneaking on you, if you fail to update yourself regularly, thinking that you are a guru in the IT world and just like that *snaps fingers*, you are not familiar with what is going on anymore. Everything looks like a mystery to you; trust me; it wouldn’t take long or much for that to happen.
Let us move ahead, we are living in a generation where information is vital to our survival. We keep information about ourselves, music we like and so on and technology has provided us with ways of storing these vital information, different storage devices, different sizes, volumes, removable or not.
Sadly, it is not only having the storage devices that can guarantee efficient storage, but also having the right file system assigned to them. The file system simply manages the access to the data and manages the available space of the device(s) which contain it. It is very vital to map the right file system to the right storage devices, by doing so to increases the efficiency.
Ensuring reliability is a major responsibility of a file system. A file system organizes data in an efficient manner, and may be tuned to the characteristics of the backing device.
We have different file systems but the well known ones include
FAT (File Allocation Table).
The original file system that was meant for removable devices such as floppy disk, flash drives but there was always a problem with it. Let us takeFAT32 (which is part of the FAT family) for example, it limited you to a 4GB file allocation. I am pretty sure it wouldn’t be effective when we are having flash drives of 8GB and 16GB and hard drives going up to 2 TB and it was because of this flaw, that the file system was worked on and improved upon and exFAT came into the light.
exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table) Which was brought in to replace the old FAT system was designed especially for flash drives developed by Microsoft. It doesn’t restrict you to a 4GB like FAT. It can run efficiently on any Operating System.
NTFS ( New Technology File System)
Was developed by Microsoft. Yes, u saw it right. It was used as the file system for Hard drives because NTFS files were not easily damaged. It could however not be used for other removable devices efficiently because it uses a lot of flash memory.
exFAT should be considered a true competitor to NTFS on systems with limited processing power and memory. NTFS on flash memory has been known to be inefficient for quite some time. However, since it wasn’t made for hard drives originally, it cannot completely replace NTFS.
At this point, it might not still be clear to some what we are talking about; here is an illustration to help with that.
Mike is a brilliant guy, graduated top of his class. He could do almost everything, video games, swimming, you name it; but when it came to knowing about computer and computer stuffs, he just could not be bothered. All along, when it comes to using his system, either he had a friend to help him or he guesses what to click pops up requiring his attention and so far so good, it had been working for him. When he was about to resume work at a reputable firm, his fiancée got him a Flash drive (16 GB) and a hard drive because she felt he would be needing them a lot.
So he put the flash in his system, and he was asked to format it. He had 3 options, either FAT32, NTFS or exFAT, he thought to himself, NTFS sounds a lot like NTSC (gamers will understand this better), so it couldn’t be it and exFAT sounds a lot of stress so it couldn’t be either that it had to be FAT32 and since that was the original option then it had to be it. So he selected it, formatted the flash and started to use it.
One day at work, he wanted to copy a file to his flash drive but it kept on saying the drive was full but he could see that there was over 8GB free space left. So he called one of his colleagues to help him out. Immediately, the colleague asked him what file system he used, he quickly said FAT32. His colleague went on to explain the problem and told him that his best option would have been exFAT.
I guess that would have cleared some questions you wanted to ask. If there aren’t any question, lets do a little exercise to know if you understood everything.
QUESTIONS
1)Which of the file System could and should be used on a flash drive of 1gb
2)Which of the file System could and should be used on a flash drive of 4gb
3)Which of the file System could and should be used on a flash drive of 8gb
4)Which of the file System could and should be used on an external Hard drive
ANSWERS
1)exFAT and FAT32
2)exFAT
3)exFAT
4) NTFS
That sums up it all and with that we have gotten to the end of another post.

HOW TO CHECK VIEWS/TRAFFIC ON A BLOG/WEBSITE

A new trend in the world which doesn’t look like it is not going to go away anytime soon is blogging. Everybody owns a blog .Be it a blog for Music, News And Lifestyle like sowlradio  as personal Journals like kemiand ibukun and an information blog, like this one you are reading at the moment.

For those that didn’t know we have different blogging platforms, word press, blog spots, blogger, the list is endless. They can be controlled through what we call dashboard where you can check the number of times people have visited your blog, daily, weekly, month, you can create a new post and customize the layout  of your blog  by simply logging in to their account.

Just like a blog where you can control by the dashboard, a website is controlled by a control panel. After you pay for your domain name and hosting, you will be given a username and a password where you can manage your website.

The question I am sure most of you are asking right now is “How do I access the control panel of my website”. Read the steps and you will be able to answer that question by yourself.

• Type your control panel’s address into your web browser’s address bar, such as “www.indomie.com/cpanel,” then press “Enter.” You are directed to the login page. Type in the username and password for your account.

• Go to the “Logs” section of your control panel and click “Choose Log Programs” to set up the statistics program you want to use.

• Check the program you want to use — “Analog,” “Awstats” and/or “Webalizer” — and click “Save.”

• Click “Awstats,” “Analog Stats,” “Webalizer” or the log program you selected in the previous step to track your traffic (under “Logs”).

• Click the “View” button to load the report. The number of visitors to your website is displayed. Scroll to the data you want to review.

There you have it, it is quite straightforward. That bring us to the end of another post.

PROGRAMMERS: THE UNSUNG HEROES

Let us take a moment to appreciate the unsung heroes of our generation, the Programmers, the real problem solvers. I mean let’s take Bill Gates for example, he must have thought about ways to make typing a lot easier, calculation a lot faster and slide presentations much more straightforward and came up with the Microsoft Office Application. We must not forget the Windows Operating System which was not user friendly in the 90’s and today it is a different story.

Maybe a lot of us would not appreciate it because we rarely buy the original copy. An original copy of windows 7 OS is about S100 d at least (N16, 000) and it is normally restricted to a specific number of users. Surprised yeah? When you can go to computer village at Ikeja to get a “copy” for a token. Do we really think that Bill Gates will be that rich because of your “token”?

Another example is Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook, although his is a different form of programming, web programming, he started it as a social site for some colleges and today he is reaching different continents and presently a billionaire.

Another form that is taking the whole world by storm and that is Mobile programming and the fact that it has different platforms depending on the mobile phone you are using. A mobile application will be different on an iphone, a blackberry and an android because they are on different platforms. We are even having mobile sites.

I have always admired programmers, in their own world they are like Superheroes, the level of concentration exhibited by most of them is quite exceptional, you can be by their sides and try to keep a conversation with them and they would not hear.

I guess that is what inspired me to be a programmer, actually, let me be honest; I always had the idea of creating a virus that my anti-virus will be the only 1 that can fix it and sell. K Because for you to have an anti-virus, you must first create a virus to test your “anti-virus”.

Nowadays, a programmer must equip himself with the knowledge of database otherwise he is referred to as an “incomplete programmer”.  Before we talk about what it has become, let us talk more about Software as a whole. We were taught that software is that part of the computer that we cannot touch or feel. This definition is no longer acceptable, that is because software is a collection of instructions that tell the computer what to do.

We have two categories of computer software:

i)                    Systems software: software designed to allow the computer manage its own resources and perform basic operations are called system software. They are also known as Operating Systems. Examples: Windows, Macintosh and UNIX

ii)                   Application software: is one that can perform tasks. It can either be customized to do a specific task or a general purpose one like Microsoft office

 

 

We have a lot of programming languages, the common ones being Java and C# and for the database administration, SQL and oracle. There are so many professional courses that require a certain level of programming. For example Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) that is to become a practicing Hacker and not only getting the certificate.

We can go on and on about the benefits of programming and no I am not lying, but decided to stop here for this post. Before I go, I will like to remove the thoughts most of you are having that to be a programmer, all you need to do is sitting in front of a computer and start coding. You might be right, you might as well make a program, but you will spend countless of hours working and re editing it if you do not have a proper plan of the application you wish to build(work flow, algorithm and flowchart).  All these will be talked about later.

Cheers.

TRUTH ABOUT GRAPHIC DESIGN

Graphics designing is the most underrated and crucial area in ICT in the world Today. Designing sets the bar for everything from web designing to application development, even in the production of Computer Systems; the designs are first made and approved before production starts. If the design does not tickle your fancy, in 9 out 10 cases, it will immediately put you off.

Like they always say a picture is more than a thousand words. Imagine if you go to a website and all you see is text, many of us will not visit the site again. Knowing how important it is, it is surprising that a lot of people are still insisting on paying far less than its worth. I mean telling someone you will only pay two thousand naira to someone that spent many hours in designing is ridiculous.

Graphic designing also allows an opportunity for a wide range of people. We have a lot of people using Computer aided application. There are also applications for architects and engineers that allow you to design in their own way. For example, AutoCAD.

Time has moved from drawing on a piece of paper to working with a system whether it is with Corel draw, Photoshop or illustrator and others. There are quite a number of tools used for photo editing apart from Photoshop, an example will be Lightroom.

Photoshop is the most used because of its numerous functionalities and also being easy to use but it has a major disadvantage, Printers are reluctant to print Photoshop works.

Before Adobe bought the full rights some years back, Photoshop, firework and the likes were owned by Macromedia.

 

  

 

 

WHO CAN LEARN PHOTOSHOP

 

Wow, that looks cool.

You computer science students nowadays are going places, Jane said. I finished from creative arts not computer science, Tunde responded. Then why did you learn it, she inquired. I need it for my work, he replied. Your work, isn’t that dancing and drawing? She asked. That is what In I thought until my 3^rd year in UNILAG when I was told we were going to do Corel Draw and Photoshop and since then I fell in love with it. Photo shoot, she asked, isn’t that for models. He chuckled, not photo shoot, Photoshop. They are different. With the introduction of these computer-aided applications such as Photoshop and Corel, it has added a new dimension to professional ism for Photographers and Fashion designers alike. Fashion designers, Jane finally said. How will it improve professionalism fashion designers, you know I am one. Oh that’s true, fashion designers nowadays have a collection of magazines where a client can select the style he likes, there really isn’t any form of originality. Imagine, making yourself unique, in addition to having the magazines, designing it for the client after he must have chosen. Let us be honest, he only chose it because it looked good on the person and it might not necessarily go well with him. I iy don’t understand, Jane replied. A client tells you what he wants; you design it and send it to him. It might look as extra work but it makes you stand out and to me, people will definitely pay more to someone that takes his time to create than someone that will just copy people’s old work and give it back.

If you are a fashion designer, photographer or you are interested in learning Photoshop and Corel. Quadclover will be running batches in January. Book now and save up to 20%.  Send a mail to info@quadclover.com.

That brings us to the end of this post but before we go, we will like to say thank you to all the graphic designers that contributed to the forum #graphicsforum, @sammie_toch, @yinkabank @frankonero5 @demspanish @grafixnerd @Tjthe1st  and @ekpizzle.

 

 

INTERNET SUBSCRIPTION CODES (I.S.C)

“Why is it raining this night, I NEED to send an important email!” Paul wondered to himself. “Every time it rains, voila! – network glitches” He continued, “Take a look at this Blackberry, the BB network indicator seems to be undergoing some sort of weird metamorphosis – GSM to GPRS to edge to EDGE to SOS, ahh! there’s my 3G logo; SHOOT! there it goes again, back to SOS”. “Perhaps MTN and bad weather are mortal enemies”, at this stage Paul was visibly frustrated.

Attempting to use AIRTEL BIS in Maryland is synonymous to trying to stop Lionel Messi from scoring goals, sorry to burst your bubble, but that just won’t work. I can never forget the last time, I paid for a month’s service and ended up using it for just a couple of days…Still expecting my refund from AIRTEL…

I wonder what this leaves us with….

“Darling, why don’t you use my universal modem” Cynthia asked. “Universal Wetin?!, how can it help me now?” Paul exclaimed. A universal modem can accept any sim card and does not restrict you to a particular network. “Ehen, I am telling you my job is at stake and you are busy ‘feeding me iron bread'”, Paul said.

“Keep calm and watch” said Cynthia as she powered on her system. After which, she inserted an ETISALAT sim in the modem and plugged it in – within a matter of minutes she was connected. She removed the ETISALAT sim and inserted a GLO sim and repeated the same process and she was connected as well; Paul was startled.

“Darling! Darling!! it is working” shouted Paul. Let me send the Mail right now. 10 minutes later, he was done and relaxed now, he asked where she got the modem and if she knew all the codes for the subscription.

She said he could get the modem anywhere in Ikeja. As for the codes, she was not sure she could remember all.

Like Paul, some of us have secretly wished there was a place that we can go to and see all the data plans and amount side by side. Fret not, you will find below the data plan and amount for MTN, AIRTEL, ETISALAT AND GLOBACOM.

MTN DATA PLAN (PC)

S/N	AMOUNT	TIME	PERIOD	SIZE(MB)	CODE
1	500	All	1 day	150	103
2	2500	9pm-6am	1 month	3000	102
3	8000	All	1 month	5000	101
4	3000	Weekend(fri-mon)	1 month	3000	108
5	6000	Day time(9am – 9pm)	1 month	3000	107

Send all codes to 131. To check your balance send 2 to 131

MTN DATA PLAN (MOBILE)

S/N	AMOUNT	TIME	PERIOD	SIZE(MB)	CODE
1	100	All	1 day	10	104
2	400	All	1 week	25	105
3	1000	All	1 month	100	106

Send all codes to 131. To check your balance send 2 to 131

 

MTN BLACBERRY BUNDLE

S/N	AMOUNT	DETAILS	PERIOD	CODE
1	3,000	Unlimited BIS Monthly	1 MONTH	text BIS to 21600
2	1,500	BIS Complete	1 MONTH	text BBC to 21600
3	1,000	BIS Weekly	1 WEEK	text BBWEEK to 21600
4	500	BIS Complete Weekly	1 WEEK	text BBCWEEK to 21600

 

AIRTEL DATA PLAN (MOBILE)

S/N	AMOUNT	TIME	PERIOD	SIZE(MB)	CODE
1	400	All	1 week	25	*141*712*9#
2	3000	All	1 month	1000	*141*712*10#
3	100	All	1 day	10	*141*712*11#
4	1000	All	1 month	100	*141*712*4#

 

AIRTEL DATA PLAN (PC)

S/N	AMOUNT	TIME	PERIOD	SIZE(MB)	CODE
1	500	All	1 day	150	*141*712*3#
2	5000	All	1 month	3000	*141*712*1#
3	8000	All	1 month	5000	*141*712*2#
4	15000	All	1 month	10000	*141*712*5#
5	2500	Night	1 month	2500	*141*712*7#
6	3000	weekends	1 month	3000	*141*712*8#

N/B dial *141*712*0# to check your balance.

AIRTEL BLACBERRY BUNDLE

S/N	AMOUNT	DETAILS	PERIOD	CODE
1	3,000	Unlimited BIS Monthly	1 MONTH	Send BISMONTH to 444
2	1,400	BIS Complete	1 MONTH	Send BCM to 444
3	1,000	BIS Weekly	1 WEEK	Send BISWEEK to 444
4	400	BIS Complete week	1 WEEK	Send BCW to 444

 

 

ETISALAT DATA PLAN PC

S/N	AMOUNT	TIME	PERIOD	SIZE(MB)	CODE
1	3000	All	1 month	500	*229*2*2#
2	5000	All	1 month	1500	*229*2*4#
3	6500	All	1 month	3000	*229*2*3#
4	8000	All	1 month	6000	*229*2*5#
5	5000	Night & weekends 9pm-7am	1 month	3000	*229*3*3#

ETISALAT DATA PLAN (MOBILE)

S/N	AMOUNT	TIME	PERIOD	SIZE(MB)	CODE
1	1000	All	1 month	100	*229*2*1#
2	500	All	1 week	50	*229*3*4#
3	100	All	1 day	10	*229*3*1#

Dial *228# to check your balance

ETISALAT BLACKBERRY BUNDLE

S/N	AMOUNT	DETAILS	PERIOD	CODE
1	3,000	Unlimited BIS Monthly	1 MONTH	dial *399*1#
2	1,500	BIS Complete	1 MONTH	*499*3#
3	1,000	BIS Weekly	1 WEEK	dial *399*6#
4	500	BIS Complete Weekly	1 WEEK	*499*3*1#

 

GLO DATA

Plan Name	Service Rental	Data Cap	Validity Period	Code	SMS to 127	Target Device
Instant Surf	N100	10MB	24 hours	*127*51#	‘51’	Handset
One Week	N400	50MB	7 days	*127*52#	‘52’	Handset
Always Micro	N1,000	200MB	30 days	*127*53#	‘53’	Handset
Always Macro	N3,000	1,024MB (1GB)	30 days	*127*54#	‘54’	Handset/Tablet
Plan Name	Service Rental	Data Cap	Validity period	Code	SMS to 127	Time of use
Always MAX	N7,500	6GB	30 days	*127*1#	’12′	All day
Always MIN	N5,000	3GB	30 days	*127*2#	’11′	All day
Always Day	N500	150MB	24 hours	*127*3#	’10′	All day
G 300	N15,000	9GB	300 hours/3months	*127*4#	’21′	All day
G 100	N6,000	3GB	100 hours/1month	*127*5#	’20′	All Day
G work	N6,000	3GB	30 days	*127*6#	’31′	8am – 9 pm
G leisure	N5000	3GB	30 days	*127*7#	’30′	8pm to 9am everyday + all day during weekends

 

GLOBACOM BLACKBERRY BUNDLE

S/N	AMOUNT	DETAILS	PERIOD	CODE
1	2,800	Unlimited BIS Monthly	1 MONTH	Send BISMONTH to 777
2	1,400	BIS Complete	1 MONTH	Send COMONTH to 777
3	900	BIS Weekly	1 WEEK	Send BISWEEK to 777
4	400	BIS Complete Weekly	1 WEEK	Send CoWEEK to 777

Have a lovely weekend ahead. 🙂

SHORTCUTS AND TRICKS

Navigating round the system can be cool, exciting but equally stressful and time consuming if not for the shortcuts made available to us. Shortcuts are a set of instructions or commands given by computer users to the computer to perform specific functions. For instance, imagine you want to select over a thousand items, instead of holding the control key and clicking on the items or dragging the mouse over the items, you simply hold the control key and hit the “a” key and it selects everything. Quite easy, eh?!, But I bet most of you already knew that. That is just one of the numerous ways in which shortcuts are helpful.

Shortcuts can also be created for files and folders by right- clicking on the desktop, selecting new and under it shortcuts. You can also create commands to make your system shutdown (that will be for later).

Knowing all the shortcuts doesn’t make you computer competent. It just makes our works that much easier and faster.

Let us discuss the shortcuts we all know. Apart from the one we mentioned earlier we have quite a number, the famous “copy and paste”, otherwise known as “control c” and “control v”. The “control z” which is simply to undo the last action. I can go on and on, Yes!, ‘dem plenty!’. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we can get all the shortcuts collated in one place”, some of you may have wondered. We have collated as much as we could.

If you are interested in becoming computer competent, email us at info@quadclover.com now

 

SHORT CUT KEYS (WINDOWS)
1	Alt+Enter	Display properties for selected item	18	F2	Rename Selected file
2	Alt + F4	Close Active windows or program	19	F3	Search for file or folder
3	Alt + Double + Click	Display Properties dialog box	20	F4	Displays Address Bar list
4	Alt + Tab	Switch Between open windows or programs	21	F5	Refresh active windows
5	Backspace	Open a folder one level up	22	F6	Cycle through screen element in a window
6	Ctrl + A	Select All	23	F10	Activate the Menu Bar
7	Ctrl + C	Copy highlighted text selection	24	Shift + Ctrl + Esc	Task Manager
8	Ctrl + X	Cut	25	Shift + F10	Display shortcut Menu for selected item
9	Ctrl + V	Paste (copied item)	26	Shift	Stop an auto-run CD from playing automatically
10	Ctrl + Z	Undo	27	Win key + D	Display the desktop
11	Delete	Delete	28	Win key + E	Opens My Computer
12	Shift + Delete	Delete without sending to Recycle Bin(do this with caution)	29	Win key + F	Search for Files and Folder
13	Ctrl + Drag	Copy	30	Win key + M	Minimize all Open windows
14	Ctrl +shift +Drag	Create short cut	31	Win key +shift + M	Restore all Minimized open windows
15	Ctrl + F4	Close active documents in multiple document program	32	Win key + L	Lock the Computer
16	Ctrl + Win key + F	Search for Computers	33	Win key + R	Open the run dialog Box
17	Ctrl + Esc	Display the Start menu

 

 

Is that all? Some of you may have wondered. Some of you would have gone further to ask if there are shortcuts for applications (for example Microsoft Word, excel and the likes).

Yes we do have shortcuts and some of the shortcuts listed above can also be used in these applications

 

 

 

 

SHORT CUT KEYS (MICROSOFT WORD)
1	Ctrl + A	Select all contents of the page	16	Ctrl + W	Close current document
2	Ctrl + B	Bold highlighted selection	17	Ctrl + X	Cut selected Text
3	Ctrl + C	Copy selected Text	18	Ctrl + Y	Redo the Last action
4	Ctrl + D	Open the font dialog Box	19	Ctrl + Z	Undo last action
5	Ctrl + E	Align the line or selected text to the center of the screen	20	Ctrl + Shift + >	Increase selected font +1. pt up To 12pts. and then increase font +2pts.
6	Ctrl + F	Open find and replace Box	21	Ctrl + Shift + <	Decrease selected font -1pts if 12pt. or lower, if above 12 decrease font by +2pts.
7	Ctrl + G + or Ctrl + F5	Open find and replace Box	22	Ctrl + ]	Increase selected font +1pts.
8	Ctrl + H	Open find and replace Box	23	Ctrl + [	Decrease selected font –pts.
9	Click, Hold and drag	More highlighted text from one point to the other	24	Ctrl + Del	Deletes word to right of cursor
10	Ctrl + I	Italicize highlighted selection	25	Ctrl +Backspace	Deletes a word towards the left of cursor
11	Ctrl + J	Justify (spread) the text across the page	26	Ctrl + Home	Moves the cursor to the beginning of the document
12	Ctrl + K	Insert link	27	Ctrl + End	Moves the cursor to the End of the document
13	Ctrl + L	Align the Line or selected text to the left of the screen	28	Ctrl +1	Single-Space lines
14	Ctrl + M	Indent the paragraph	29	Ctrl + 2	Double-Space lines
15	Ctrl + Mouse wheel	Zoom the Document	30	Ctrl + 5	1.5-line spacing
31	Ctrl + N	Open a new Document	41	Ctrl + Spacebar	Reset highlighted text to the default font
32	Ctrl + O	Open an existing Document	42	Ctrl + F1	Open the task pane
33	Ctrl + P	Open print window	43	Ctrl + F2	Print preview
34	Ctrl + R	Aligns the line or selected text to the right of the screen	44	Double-click on a word	Select the word
35	Ctrl + S	Save the current  document	45	Triple-click on a line	Select the paragraph
36	Ctrl + T	Reduce hanging indent	`46	Shift + F3	Cycle selection through sentence case, capital, and small letters
37	Ctrl + Shift + T	Increasing Hanging indent	47	F4	Repeat the last action performed
38	Ctrl + M	Increase paragraph indent from left to right	48	F5	Open the field, replace, and go to window in Microsoft Word
39	Ctrl + U	Underline Selection	49	F7	Spell and grammar check selected text and /or document
40	Ctrl + V	Paste Contents of Clipboard	50	F12	Save as

 

 

SHORT CUT KEYS (MICROSOFT EXCEL)
1	Alt + =	Auto sum all values above the Selection cell	18	Ctrl + 0	Hides the selected column
2	Alt + F1	Create chat of selected range	19	Ctrl + F6	Switch between open workbooks/windows
3	Alt + F2	Save As	20	Ctrl + F9	Minimize current window
4	Alt + Shift + F1	Insert new worksheet	21	Ctrl + F10	Maximize current minimized window
5	Ctrl + A	Select all content of the worksheet	22	Ctrl + Page Up	Move to the left among open worksheet
6	Ctrl + B	Bold highlighted selection	23	Ctrl + page Down	Move to the right among open worksheet
7	Ctrl + C	Copies selected cell	24	Ctrl + Tab	Cycle through open excel files
8	Ctrl + D	Uses the fill Down command to copy the contents and format of the topmost cell of a selected range into the cell below	25	Ctrl + ‘	Insert the Value of the above cell in to the current cell
9	Ctrl + F	Find	26	Ctrl + Shift + +	Insert dialog box
10	Ctrl + G	Go to	27	Ctrl + Shift + ~	Remove the outline border from the selected cells
11	Ctrl + H	Replace	28	Ctrl + Shift + !	Format number in comma format
12	Ctrl + I	Italicized	29	Ctrl + Shift + $	Format number in currency format
13	Ctrl + K	Insert link	30	Ctrl + Shift + #	Format number in date format
14	Ctrl + K	Insert link, to remove link, select link, hold Ctrl and Click. Then click on Remove link button	31	Ctrl + Shift + %	Format number in percentage format in no decimal spaces
15	Ctrl + U	Underline highlighted selection	32	Ctrl + Shift + ^	Format number in scientific format
16	Ctrl + P	Show print dialog Box	33	Ctrl + Shift + @	Format  number in time format
17	Ctrl + Z	Undo last section	34	Ctrl + Spacebar	Select entire column
35	Ctrl + 1	Display format cells dialog box	43	Shift + Spacebar	Select entire Row
36	Ctrl + 2	Bold selected cell	44	F2	Select cell for editing
37	Ctrl + 3	Italicize	45	F5	Go to
38	Ctrl + 4	Underline	46	Shift + Arrow key	Extend selection by one cell
39	Ctrl + 5	Strikethrough	47	Ctrl + Shift + (	Unhide any hidden columns within the selection.
40	Ctrl + 6	Alternates between hiding objects, displaying objects	48	Ctrl + Shift + )	Unhide any hidden rows within the selection
41	Ctrl + 8	Displays or hides the outline symbols	49	Shift F3	Open Excel formula window
42	Ctrl + 9	Hides the selected row	50	Shift F5	Find

 

 

 

 

SHORT CUT KEYS (MICROSOFT POWERPOINT)
1	Backspace or Up Arrow key	Previous slide during presentation	21	Ctrl + Z	Undo
2	Ctrl + F	Find	22	Ctrl + =	Change to subscript
3	Ctrl + G	Change grid and guide settings	23	Ctrl + Shift + +	Superscript
4	Ctrl + H	Replace	24	Ctrl + F1	Show/ hide task pane
5	Ctrl + I	Italicize Text	25	Ctrl + Shift + >	Increase font size
6	Ctrl + J	Justify text	26	Ctrl + Shift + <	Decrease font size
7	Ctrl + K	Insert hyperlink	27	Ctrl + Shift + C	Copy format
8	Ctrl + L	Left align	28	Ctrl + Shift + F	Change font
9	Ctrl + M	New slide	29	Ctrl + Shift + P	Change font size
10	Ctrl + O	Open	30	Ctrl + Shift + V	Paste Formats
11	Ctrl + P	Print	31	Ctrl + Shift + Tab	Switch between outline and slides pane in normal view
12	Ctrl + Q	Close PowerPoint	32	Ctrl +  Up Arrow	Go up one paragraph
13	Ctrl + R	Right align Text	33	Enter or Down Arrow key	Next Slide
14	Ctrl + S	Save	34	Esc, Ctrl, + Break or hyphen	End Slide show
15	Ctrl + T	Font dialog Box	35	Shift + F3	Change Text Case
16	Ctrl + U	Underline highlighted text	36	Shift + F7	Thesaurus
17	Ctrl + V	Paste	37	Shift + F9	Shoe or hide grid lines
18	Ctrl + W	Close preparation	38	F1	Help
19	Ctrl + X	Cut	39	F5	Slide Show
20	Ctrl + Y	Redo last Action	40	F10	Set focus to first menu, File menu

That brings us to the end of this post. Thanks for Reading.

SAFETY IN THE CLOUD

Look up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, NO!  It’s Sky drive -the future- that backs up data in a cloud. You have heard the popular saying “one day, we will build houses in the sky”. Well the ICT world is ahead, putting in place means for ‘storing data in clouds’. Rain clouds you say?  Of course not! A cloud in IT will only have meaning when concatenated with “computing”.

Cloud computing comes into focus when you think about what IT always needs – a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the go without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software.

 

Before focusing totally on skydrives and cloud computing, I would like to remind you about other types of storage devices still being utilized. We shall also tell you which one is best and why, the best time to back up and how to remind you to back up.

1)      Floppy disks: this is slowly being phased out – if it hasn’t been completely – we have two types.    3½ and 5 1/4. They are used to store data of less than 10MB in size. It is not suitable for places that require large storage of data.

 

ADVANTAGES

i.)                  It is affordable

ii.)                 It is portable

DISADVANTGES

I)        It does not allow for large storage

II)      It is slowly being phased out.

2)      CDs/DVDs:  they are capable of holding up to 8GB worth of data. Contrary to popular belief, they can transfer viruses -not all of them though- the ones which can transfer viruses are the writeable and rewritable discs while the readable ones cannot.

 

ADVANTAGES

i)                    It is affordable and easy to use.

ii)                   It is portable

iii)                 It allows more space for storage than the floppy disk

DISADVANTAGES

i)                    It can easily be damaged

ii)                   If the lens of the disc drive becomes weak, data cannot be read

3)      Flash Drives and Hard Disk Drives: Data can be backed up to another storage device which uses USB ports. These devices are portable and can be used to transfer and back-up large data. Though special care must be taken to avoid it going bad.

 

ADVANTAGES

i)                    It allows the most storage for data

DISADVANTAGES

I)                    If the hard drive becomes unreadable, data can be lost completely.

4)      SkyDrive: Skydrive is based on the principles of cloud computing.

Cloud computing is at an early stage, with a crew of providers large and small delivering a slew of cloud-based services, from full-blown applications to storage services to spam filtering. Yes, utility-style infrastructure providers are part of the mix, but so are SaaS (software as a service) providers such as Salesforce.com. Today, for the most part, IT must plug into cloud-based services individually, but cloud computing aggregators and integrators are already emerging.

We have two types.

The first allows a single application to be used by a thousand customers. No investment in servers is required. It is called SaaS.

Secondly, the utility computing offers storage and virtual servers that IT can access on demand.

ADVANTAGES

i)                    It provides the most secure form of backing up.

DISADVANTAGES

I)                    Because of the nature of our internet service, it is not advisable.

Sky Drive utilizes the cloud computing principle but it really means backing up your files online. Microsoft and Google offer this.

IMPORTANCE OF BACKING UP

John has been working with a reputable company for over 3 years. He sees how his superiors in the IT room handle networking issues on a daily basis and has always been impressed. One day, he decided to go for the well known professional course Cisco Certified Networking Associate (CCNA). It took him 4 months to read and pass. He came back all smiles and resumed work.

A couple of weeks later, he was put on night duty and was told to monitor the network. He was grinning from ear to ear; because this was the first time he was going to be alone. One of his superiors, Dipo, was at the hospital expecting his first child while the other, Charles, left the office early as he wasn’t feeling too well.

John who passed the professional exam without actually using a live router decided to use this time to experiment and forgot to save the configuration of the router. After a couple of minutes, he crashed the network. Devastated, he knew with this, he was certainly getting the boot in the morning. He called Dipo telling him what he had done. Dipo in a calm voice told him that he will be with him shortly.

Dipo arrived an hour later, and within 20 minutes, he had restored the network. Curious, John inquired of Dipo asking what he did. Unknowingly to John, Dipo had told Charles to copy out the configuration before leaving the office every night.

WINDOWS BACKUP

Windows gives you the opportunity to back up your files with the automatic backup and restore feature. It can be found in the control panel and it is very easy to use.

select backup and restore

select set backup

Select where you will like to back up to

That is all there is to It.

That brings us to the end of this week. Have a lovely weekend.

DOING MORE WITH MICROSOFT OFFICE

Happy Independence Day in arrears people. Shall we rise for the national anthem? (Nah just kidding). That is definitely not why we are here. But let’s not forget something Nigeria celebrated her 52^nd year of independence. Most of us are asking what we have to show for it. Yes, we are not living the way we would have liked. Good roads, constant power supply and better living conditions and Boko Haram stop with the killing. But we have a lot to be grateful about.

First of all, it could have been worse than what it is. We don’t have any natural disaster happening in any part of Nigeria. Secondly, unlimited Opportunities. Majority are waiting for government to provide them with jobs while they sit back and fold their arms. I hate to break it to you, but that ship has long sailed.

Apart from the crude oil and other natural resources, Nigeria has not fully explored one area which is ICT. Hate it or love it, it is not going away anytime soon. Most companies require applicants to be computer competent. Even more so, we are having computerized job tests. Before I continue, I will like to say there is a difference between being computer literate and competent. Even so, the difference between a computer literate and an “illiterate” is that one knows about computer while the other does not. While being competent is using the computer to achieve a specific task given.

We have different areas in computing. Networking, software development, web development and the likes. We would not be talking about those ones for now. We will start with the most popular requirement for increasing chances of getting a job and that is getting familiar with Microsoft office.

Do you know you can get a lot more from the Microsoft office package? Did you know that you can use Microsoft excel to design and even make web pages. Yes you saw right and no I am not crazy.

Let’s start with the one everyone knows or think they know

a)      Microsoft word: is a Word processing application. Word processing in the sense that it handles creating, editing, saving of text documents. You can also design invoices, receipts and the likes. Some people go as far as using it to design letter headed papers. It is possible. I am sure a lot of people didn’t know this.

b)      Microsoft Excel: handles most of the calculations, analyzing data and expressing them in forms of bar chart, pie chart, and the likes. We pretty much know these already. But did you know that you can design as well.  These were done in excel and I kid you not.

c)       Microsoft PowerPoint: creating and editing presentation or slide shows, meetings and web pages have never been this easy. You can also alter the orientation of the slide shows, increase or slow down and many more.

d)      Microsoft Outlook: Is a tool for sending and receiving mail. It is much more than that. It can also serve as your organizer. Keeping records of tasks done and setting reminders for appointments.

e)      Microsoft Access: Is a tool for creating and managing of database and the likes.

f)       Microsoft publisher: This particular application is relatively new and very useful. You can create almost everything from business cards, banners, brochures, calendar, envelope, flyers, greeting cards, invitation cards, newsletter, letterheads, programs, cvs, websites and complimentary cards. The only catch is that you can only make use of the templates provided. So if you are looking for something unique. Sorry, this would not help.

There are other applications in the whole package. We only decided to mention a few. The only thing left for me to say is stop underutilizing your office application.

If you wish to know more about ICT or getting more from your Microsoft office or the prospect of getting involved in ICT and also a show case of the courses we offer training on Visit www.quadclover.com for more info or send a mail to us info@quadclover.com or call 08097913802

Thank you and God Bless.