WEEK 8

MICROSOFT POWER POINT

Introduction

PowerPoint (© Microsoft Corp.) is a widely used presentation programme that originated in the world of business but has now become commonplace in the world of educational technology. However, its use is far from controversial in this educational context and opinions as to its use range from highly supportive to significantly negative (Szabo & Hastings, 2000; Lowry, 2003). One of the major problems is that its current use is frequently limited to an information transmission mode, often with excessive content, a usage that obscures the wider potential for diverse professional and pedagogically-sound presentations. I have been using PowerPoint to deliver all appropriate classes since 1996, as well as delivering staff development sessions on both the programme and the pedagogy of its use. It is my contention that it is a valuable aid to presentation providing that its use has been carefully considered in terms of pedagogy. This paper examines some of the key issues that must be considered at both an individual and an organisational level.

Some good reasons to use PowerPoint:

So why should you consider using PowerPoint for your teaching and learning activities? There are many reasons but the key ones include:
• Appropriate use of PowerPoint can enhance the teaching and learning experience for both staff and students
• It provides encouragement and support to staff by facilitating the structuring of a presentation in a professional manner. The templates provided have been designed to default to good presentation criteria such as the number of lines of information per slide and appropriate font sizes and types, etc: using the styles of the default templates can significantly improve the clarity and structuring of a presentation. This helps to avoid the common use of excessive text often found on overhead transparencies.
• By careful mixing of media, a presentation can appeal to a number of different learning styles and be made more stimulating. You are encouraged to incorporate more sophisticated visual and auditory media into presentations although care is required because of the inevitable increase in file sizes and the danger of excessive use. Incorporation can be done, either directly from within the programme or, sometimes more successfully, by appropriate pausing of the PowerPoint presentation and using alternative technology (e.g. tape player or VCR). Note that this does not require switching off either the computer system or the projector system, one of the most common perceptions that restrict use – instead, use the ‘B’ character toggle switch during a slide presentation to ‘blank’ the screen temporarily while using other media.

Conclusion:

PowerPoint is an excellent aid to presentations providing each presentation is considered first from a pedagogical viewpoint, bearing in mind the different ways in which students learn and largely trying to avoid the pitfalls of passive knowledge transmission. These problems, of course, are not specifically associated with PowerPoint use but it does have a tendency to make some practitioners feel that the improvements offered by PowerPoint are sufficient to make their presentations more effective. When used appropriately, it does encourage staff, for the sake of a relatively shallow learning-curve, to improve the professionalism and quality of their didactic sessions and facilitates the BEE-j Volume 2: November 2003 http://bio.ltsn.ac.uk/journal/vol2/beej-2-3.pdf
development and evolution of more interactive and flexible practices. It soon becomes obvious that didactic use represents only a very basic level of practice – PowerPoint is much more powerful and flexible than that and alternative activities can be facilitated by its use, limited only by the creativity of the user. Consider combining media where necessary although you should use multimedia from within PowerPoint cautiously. Use PowerPoint to provide a transparently structured presentation and associated handouts – but don’t include too much detail. Encourage annotation of any derived handouts by students. Consider providing access to files in advance of sessions and encourage preparative viewing, reading, and then annotation of handouts by the students during presentations; this should be in the context of learning to prepare before coming to particular classes rather than only reading material afterwards. Emphasize the dictum “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail”.

MY LIFE IN AIU

 THESE DAYS I HAVE GOT A LOT OF THINGS TO DO SO I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO REST WELL. EVERYTHING IS GOING WELL BUT I HAVE SOME FINANCIAL PROBLEMS WHICH I HAVE TO TACKLE. HOWEVER, I WILL FIND A WAY AND SOLVE THIS PROBLEM SOON. THERE ARE A LOT OF ASSINGMENTS TO DO THAT'S WHY I'M VERY BUSY NOW.

 

 

WEEK 7

MS OFFICE EXCEL

Microsoft Excel is a commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications. It has been a very widely applied spreadsheet for these platforms, especially since version 5 in 1993, and it has almost completely replaced Lotus 1-2-3as the industry standard for spreadsheets. Excel forms part of Microsoft Office. The current versions are 2010 for Microsoft Windows^[1]and 2011 for Mac OS X.^[2]

Basic operation

Main article: Spreadsheet

Microsoft Excel has the basic features of all spreadsheets,^[3] using a grid of cells arranged in numbered rows and letter-named columns to organize data manipulations like arithmetic operations. It has a battery of supplied functions to answer statistical, engineering and financial needs. In addition, it can display data as line graphs, histograms and charts, and with a very limited three-dimensional graphical display. It allows sectioning of data to view its dependencies on various factors for different perspectives (using pivot tables and the scenario manager).^[4] It has a programming aspect, Visual Basic for Applications, allowing the user to employ a wide variety of numerical methods, for example, for solving differential equations of mathematical physics,^[5][6]and then reporting the results back to the spreadsheet. It also has a variety of interactive features allowing user interfaces that can completely hide the spreadsheet from the user, so the spreadsheet presents itself as a so-called application, or decision support system (DSS), via a custom-designed user interface, for example, a stock analyzer,^[7] or in general, as a design tool that asks the user questions and provides answers and reports.^[8][9][10] In a more elaborate realization, an Excel application can automatically poll external databases and measuring instruments using an update schedule,^[11] analyze the results, make a Word report or Power Point slide show, and e-mail these presentations on a regular basis to a list of participants.

Use of a user-defined function sq(x) in Microsoft Excel. The named variables x & y are identified in the Name Manager. The function sq is introduced using the Visual Basic editor supplied with Excel.

Subroutine in Excel calculates the square of named column variable x read from the spreadsheet, and writes it into the named column variable y.

Graph made using Microsoft Excel

Microsoft allows for a number of optional command-line switches to control the manner in which Excel starts.^[12]

Using external data

This section requires expansion.(February 2010)

Excel users can access external data sources via Microsoft Office features such as (for example) .odc connections built with the Office Data Connection file format. Excel files themselves may be updated using a Microsoft supplied ODBC driver.

Excel can accept data in real time through several programming interfaces, which allow it to communicate with many data sources such as Bloomberg and Reuters (through addins such asPower Plus Pro).

• DDE : "Dynamic Data Exchange" uses the message passing mechanism in Windows to allow data to flow between Excel and other applications. Although it is easy for users to create such links, programming such links reliably is so difficult that Microsoft, the creators of the system, officially refer to it as "the protocol from hell".^[17] In spite of its many issues DDE remains the most common way for data to reach traders in financial markets.

• Network DDE Extended the protocol to allow spreadsheets on different computers to exchange data. Given the view above, it is not surprising that in Vista, Microsoft no longer supports the facility.^[22]

• Real Time Data : RTD although in many ways technically superior to DDE, has been slow to gain acceptance, since it requires non-trivial programming skills, and when first released was neither adequately documented nor supported by the major data vendors.^[23][24]

Alternatively, Microsoft Query provides ODBC-based browsing within Microsoft Excel.^[25][26][27]

Excel 2007

This release was a major upgrade from the previous version. Similar to other updated Office products, Excel in 2007 used the new Ribbon menu system. This is different from what users are used to, but the number of mouse-clicks needed to reach a given functionality is generally less (e.g., removing gridlines only required two mouse-clicks instead of five). However, most business users agree that the replacement of the straightforward menu system with the more convoluted ribbon dramatically reduces productivity. ^[50]

Also like other office products, the Office Open XML file formats were introduced, including .xlsm for a workbook with macros and .xlsx for a workbook without macros.^[51]

Specifically, many of the size limitations of previous versions were greatly increased. To illustrate, the number of rows was now 1,048,576 (2²⁰) and columns was 16,384 (2¹⁴; the far-right column is XFD). This changes what is a valid A1 reference versus a named range. Other features included an improved management of named variables through the Name Manager, and much improved flexibility in formatting graphs, which now allow (x, y) coordinate labeling and lines of arbitrary weight. Several improvements to pivot tables were introduced. This version made more extensive use of multiple cores for the calculation of spreadsheets; however, VBA macros are not handled in parallel and XLL add‑ins were only executed in parallel if they were thread-safe and this was indicated at registration.

MY LIFE IN AIU

THIS WEEK I TOOK PART IN A LOT OF ACTIVITIES AND THIS WAS AWESOME! I HAVE MET AND TALKED WITH OUR RESPECTED VC FOR THE THIRD TIME AND IT WAS AN HONOR. 

SOON NEW STUDENTS WILL COME TO AIU FROM DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE WORLD AND I HOPE I CAN MAKE NEW FRIENDS. 

 WEEK 6

MS OFFICE WORD

Microsoft Word is a proprietary word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenixsystems.^[1][2][3] Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS (1983), the Apple Macintosh(1984), the AT&T Unix PC (1985), Atari ST (1986), SCO UNIX, OS/2, and Microsoft Windows (1989). It is a component of the Microsoft Officesoftware system; it is also sold as a standalone product and included in Microsoft Works Suite. The current versions are Microsoft Office Word 2010 for Windows and Microsoft Office Word 2011 for Mac. (These versions differ.)

Origins and growth: 1981 to 1995

In 1981, Microsoft hired Charles Simonyi, the primary developer of Bravo, the first GUI word processor, which was developed at Xerox PARC.^[4]Simonyi started work on a word processor called Multi-Tool Word and soon hired Richard Brodie, a former Xerox intern, who became the primary software engineer.^[4][5][6]

Microsoft Word 5.0 for DOS. Versions 1.0 to 4.0 had a similar user interface.

Microsoft announced Multi-Tool Word for Xenix^[4] and MS-DOS in 1983.^[7] Its name was soon simplified to Microsoft Word.^[1] Free demonstration copies of the application were bundled with the November 1983 issue of PC World, making it the first program to be distributed on-disk with amagazine.^[1][8] Unlike most MS-DOS programs at the time, Microsoft Word was designed to be used with a mouse,^[7] and it was able to display some formatting, such as bold, italic, and underlined text, although it could not render fonts.^[1] It was not initially popular, since its user interface was different from the leading word processor at the time, WordStar.^[9] However, Microsoft steadily improved the product, releasing versions 2.0 through 5.0 over the next six years.

Microsoft Word 5.1 for Mac OS.

In 1985, Microsoft ported Word to the Macintosh. This was made easier by the fact that Word for DOS had been designed for use with high-resolution displays and laser printers, even though none were yet available to the general public.^[10] Following the precedents of LisaWrite and MacWrite, Word for Mac added true WYSIWYG features. After its release, Word for Mac's sales were higher than its MS-DOS counterpart for at least four years.^[4]

The second release of Word for Macintosh, shipped in 1987, was named Word 3.0 to synchronize its version number with Word for DOS; this was Microsoft's first attempt to synchronize version numbers across platforms. Word 3.0 included numerous internal enhancements and new features, including the first implementation of the Rich Text Format (RTF) specification, but was plagued with bugs. Within a few months Word 3.0 was superseded by a more stable Word 3.01, which was mailed free to all registered users of 3.0.^[10] After MacWrite, Word for Mac never had any serious rivals on the Mac. Word 5.1 for the Macintosh, released in 1992, was a very popular word processor owing to its elegance, relative ease of use and feature set. Many users say its the best version of Word for Mac ever created.^[10][11]

In 1986, an agreement between Atari and Microsoft brought Word to the Atari ST^[12] under the name Microsoft Write. The Atari ST version was a port of Word 1.05 for the Apple Macintosh^[13][14] and was never updated.

The first version of Word for Windows was released in 1989. With the release of Windows 3.0 the following year, sales began to pick up and Microsoft soon became the market leader for word processors for IBM PC-compatible computers.^[4] In 1991, Microsoft capitalized on Word for Windows' increasing popularity by releasing a version of Word for DOS, version 5.5, that replaced its unique user interface with an interface similar to a Windows application.^[15][16] When Microsoft became aware of the Year 2000 problem, it made Microsoft Word 5.5 for DOS available for download free. As of February 2012, it is still available for download from Microsoft's web site.^[17] In 1991, Microsoft embarked on a project code-named Pyramid to completely rewrite Microsoft Word from the ground up. Both the Windows and Mac versions would start from the same code base. It was abandoned when it was determined that it would take the development team too long to rewrite and then catch up with all the new capabilities that could have been added in the same time without a rewrite. Instead, the next versions of Word for Windows and Mac, dubbed version 6.0, both started from the code base of Word for Windows 2.0.^[11]

With the release of Word 6.0 in 1993, Microsoft again attempted to synchronize the version numbers and coordinate product naming across platforms, this time across DOS, Macintosh, and Windows (this was the last version of Word for DOS). It introduced AutoCorrect, which automatically fixed certain typing errors, and AutoFormat, which could reformat many parts of a document at once. While the Windows version received favorable reviews (e.g.,^[18]), the Macintosh version was widely derided. Many accused it of being slow, clumsy and memory intensive, and its user interface differed significantly from Word 5.1.^[11] In response to user requests, Microsoft was forced to offer Word 5 again, after it had been discontinued.^[19]Subsequent versions of Word for Macintosh are no longer ported versions of Word for Windows.

File extension

Microsoft Word's native file formats are denoted either by a .doc or .docx file extension.

Although the ".doc" extension has been used in many different versions of Word, it actually encompasses four distinct file formats:

1. Word for DOS
2. Word for Windows 1 and 2; Word 4 and 5 for Mac
3. Word 6 and Word 95 for Windows; Word 6 for Mac
4. Word 97, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007 and 2010 for Windows; Word 98, 2001, X, and 2004 for Mac

The newer ".docx" extension signifies the Office Open XML international standard for Office documents and is used by Word 2007 and 2010 for Windows, Word 2008 and 2011 for the Macintosh, as well as by a growing number of applications from other vendors, including OpenOffice.org Writer, an open source word processing program.^[35]

Microsoft does not guarantee the correct display of the document on different workstations, even if the two workstations use the same version of Microsoft Word, primarily due to page layout depending on the current printer.^[36] This means it is possible the document the recipient sees might not be exactly the same as the document the sender sees.

Layout issues

Before Word 2010 (Word 14) for Windows, the program was unable to correctly handle ligatures defined in TrueType fonts^[62] those ligature glyphs with Unicode codepoints may be inserted manually, but are not recognized by Word for what they are, breaking spell checking, while custom ligatures present in the font are not accessible at all. Since Word 2010, the program now has advanced typesetting features which can be enabled:^[63] OpenType ligatures,^[64] kerning, and hyphenation. Other layout deficiencies of Word include the inability to set crop marks or thin spaces. Various third-party workaround utilities have been developed.^[65] Similarly, combining diacritics are handled poorly: Word 2003 has "improved support", but many diacritics are still misplaced, even if a precomposed glyph is present in the font.

Additionally, as of Word 2002, Word does automatic font substitution when it finds a character in a document that does not exist in the font specified. It is impossible to deactivate this, making it very difficult to spot when a glyph used is missing from the font in use. If "Mirror margins" or "Different odd and even" are enabled, Word will not allow the user to freshly begin page numbering an even page after a section break (and vice versa). Instead it inserts a mandatory blank page which cannot be removed.^[66]

In Word 2004 for Macintosh, support of complex scripts was inferior even to Word 97^{[citation needed]}, and Word 2004 does not support Apple Advanced Typography features like ligatures or glyph variants.^[67]

[edit]Bullets and numbering

Word has extensive lists of bullets and numbering features used for tables, lists, pages, chapters, headers, footnotes, and tables of content. Bullets and numbering can be applied directly or using a button or by applying a style or through use of a template. Some problems with numbering have been found in Word 97-2003. An example is Word's system for restarting numbering.^[68]The Bullets and Numbering system has been significantly overhauled for Office 2007, which is intended to reduce the severity of these problems.

Users can also create tables in Word. Depending on the version, Word can perform simple calculations. Formulae are supported as well. creating is an act of making a document as an input and it can be printed out out as a hardcopy.

[edit]AutoSummarize

AutoSummarize highlights passages or phrases that it considers valuable. The amount of text to be retained can be specified by the user as a percentage of the current amount of text.

According to Ron Fein of the Word 97 team, AutoSummarize cuts wordy copy to the bone by counting words and ranking sentences. First, AutoSummarize identifies the most common words in the document (barring "a" and "the" and the like) and assigns a "score" to each word—the more frequently a word is used, the higher the score. Then, it "averages" each sentence by adding the scores of its words and dividing the sum by the number of words in the sentence—the higher the average, the higher the rank of the sentence. "It's like the ratio of wheat to chaff," explains Fein.^[69]

AutoSummarize was removed from Microsoft Word for Mac 2011, although it was present in Word for Mac 2008. AutoSummarize was removed from the Office 2010 release version (14) as well.^[70]

MY LIFE IN AIU

SO FAR EVERYTHING IS GOING WELL AND THANKS GOD I HAVE FINISHED MID-SESSION EXAMS AND ON HOLIDAY NOW. STUDYING HERE IS VERY INTERESTING AND CHALLENGING SO I LIKE IT. AS IT'S HOLIDAY NOW MANY OF MY FRIENDS HAVE GONE TO KUALA LUMPUR OR THEIR HOMES BUT I DIDN'T GO ANYWHERE. DURING NEXT HOLIDAY I'M PLANNING TO GO TO SINGAPORE AND SPEND MY HOLIDAY THERE WALKING AROUND THE CITY AND MAKING NEW FRIENDS. 
DURING MY FREE TIME I'M READING BOOKS AND VISITING ATTRACTIVE PLACES OF ALOR STAR TOGETHER WITH MY FRIENDS. 

WEEK 5

 MICROSOFT WINDOWS

      WINDOWS WAS CREATED BY MICROSOFT IN THE MID-1980S, THE  VERSIONS OF WINDOWS ARE DESIGNED FOR THE HOME USER AND  FOR THE PROFESSIONALS.

      THE VERSIONS VARY IN THE DEPTH OF NETWORKING, SECURITY, AND MULTIMEDIA SUPPORT. WINDOWS IS A PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE SO MICROSOFT HAS THE RIGHT TO RESTRICT HOW PEOPLE CAN USE OR COPY THE SOFTWARE.

THE ADVANTAGES OF WINDOWS 7

-Decrease Start Up and Shutdown times by 20 seconds

-Go to Sleep and Resume faster

-Use up less Memory

-Pop up Search results faster

-Reconnect to your Wireless Network more quickly

-Recognize USB devices faster

 MAIN ELEMENTS OF WINDOWS 7

 

-Aero view

-Taskbar

-Search

-Libraries

-Gadgets

WINDOWS 7 REQUIREMENTS

 

    In order to run Windows 7, your PC must have the following:

–1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

–1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)

–16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)

–DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

MY LIFE IN AIU

 

     I'VE GOT VERY GOOD NEWS FOR EVERYBODY: I'VE  BOUGHT A LAPTOP- 3RD GENERATION AND IT REALLY ROCKS!!! SO NOW I CAN DO ALL ASSIGNMENTS WITHOUT ANY DIFFICULTY. AND I HOPE THAT I'LL MAKE MY BLOG MORE INTERESTING USING MY OWN LAPTOP. COMING WEEK WILL BE FULL OF EXAMS SO I'M STUDYING HARD TO PASS THEM.