The process of learning occurs as long as we live, learning from books, from each others or from nature, and above all from our experiences. Education is what makes us competent, reliable and capable of facing the challenges that life daily presents by forming the mind and the body.

We accumulate knowledge, skills and various competencies on various fields through education which is a process that keeps you up to date, and makes you capable of facing new developments, challenges or technologies.

The programs of continuing education aim at the adult category which needs to permanently improve the skills, acquire new information and competencies that are extremely useful in personal or professional lives. Certificates and licenses are issued after following such forms of continuing education helping professionals find a good job or be suitable for the new conditions that occur in their organization. Most of the employers are choosing continuing education programs for their employees in order to increase the productivity and the performance and raise the standards.

Continuing education can be achieved through various ways: workshops, trainings, seminars and conferences, mentoring, job-shadowing, online courses. There are also traditional programs or interactive ones which implies the participant in problem solving. These programs are organized during different periods according to the specific needs: for days, weeks or months.

One can choose between the various forms of continuing education according to the field they are interested in: finance, economy, information technology, health, human resources, marketing, sales, management, communication, personal development. All these and more other courses are available for all those who are interested to improve the quality of their lives and their work and a certificate of license to attest they are able to apply what they have learnt.

The IT field , for example, is covered by a large number of courses based on computer literacy, IT products and service, IT service managements, all these being attested by an ITIL certificate. These courses are very important for the development of the organization by improving the IT services, the productivity, increasing the satisfaction of the clients. All these by helping the employees to acquire new skills and competencies in this field through continuing program education such as ITIL. By continuing education both individuals and organizations have a lot of advantages, especially in what the performance is concerned.

It is very important both for your career and your professional life to get an itil certification.

If we are honest with ourselves, we do not spend as much time worrying about the “what if’s” in life as we should. We have enough to worry about going about our daily business and making sure that clients are taken care of and the myriad other supporting elements are as well. What if we pause for a moment to consider what would happen if all our valuable information were to be lost? We would certainly consider the best data backup solutions available to us then.

The best data backup system that you could put in place would incorporate three stages. Firstly, you would need to ensure that you archiving your business data on a regular basis, secondly you would then need to be sure that you are using reliable media and thirdly you would want to consider the location of the backup, it’s security and independence.

If you have ever had the chance to really look at the amount of information that is contained within a typical computer drive, you would probably stand back in amazement. We don’t need to worry too much about those hundreds of different software programs though, as these invariably have the source discs to refer to or can be re-downloaded online. If you just look at all those different files, spreadsheets, transactions, correspondence and documents, you realize that you really must take steps to protect them.

While it may seem to be a daunting proposition, the best data backup plan you can have will begin with an analysis of all the critical data that needs to be archived. Allocate a period of time to do this and make it a priority. Once you have identified the critical data you can choose an archiving method and then think about a schedule.

E-mail has become the communication method of choice in the modern business world. Every busy entrepreneur or manager receives dozens of important e-mails every week. From time to time you will need to refer to some of these and this may even be for legal purposes, so you need to be sure of their integrity.

If you walked into an office and saw that the desk was piled high with a jumble of papers, files and documents, you would not be too impressed. However, if your digital systems are configured this way you really need to put this house in order.

As you are undoubtedly expert in what you do, doesn’t it make sense to turn to an organization that is expert in data integrity and who will almost invariably have the best data backup solution for your situation. We are all so reliant on our computers, laptops, smartphones and digital communication in general.

It’s unfortunate that a failure is the thing that prompts us to consider our system integrity and hopefully you realize that your best data backup solution may not be internal, but external. You might want to store your tapes or files at an off-site location if you are worried about theft, fire or flooding, but there are also online services that can receive all your data very efficiently.

Expert Kiev C Brownlee has a great deal of material about your best data backup options. Surf to KBCSI for all your IT management questions.

The full potential of Excel is not understood, and therefore not appreciated by the majority of Excel users. This deprives most users of all the time saving, recording, and professional presentation benefits that Excel offers: far more benefits than just crunching numbers. Microsoft Excel VBA training offers the layman the opportunity to learn how to get these highly competitive benefits out of this dynamic program.

With the application of Visual Basic, charts may be created that can show any amount of data, and extremely complex calculations carried out automatically. You don’t need to know anything about Excel macros to learn more and you will find training based on Excel essentials, beginners and advanced material.

The macro code language of most Microsoft Office programs is Visual Basic. The use of macros allows you to manipulate and automate programs with VB tools. This is ideal for saving regularly used functions or calculations. Visual Basic tools are standard tools for Office programs and are an interface situated in the programming environment. Writing and running our own code for enhanced functions means that every possible task need is met.

The result of implementing the programmes within your business will dramatically increase the value of your communications and recordings; and even decrease your various security risks. Don’t allow the thought of writing code to turn you off, because once you have learned this skill, there will be no going back, you will want to write more and more.

The functions of VBA and the value that it adds to almost all Office programs, is therefore attainable by those who do not at all necessarily specialize in programming. In other words you don’t have to be a guru.

The training is simplistic, makes use of screen shots and icons and takes place while you are in the program, so you get hands-on experience.

The writer of this article is a training consultant with OnSiteTrainingCourses.Com, an independent computer training company offering Microsoft Excel Classes in London and throughout the UK.

Taking advantage of Microsoft Excel VBA training is a good idea for those who want to do more than just make use of the basic functions within MS Excel. There is a wealth of quality training courses out there when it comes to Visual Basic for Applications courses, though a good many people have wrongly assumed that Excel is some sort of calculator, to start, but that is very far from the reality.

Others out there think of Excel as a kind of word processing software package that lets a user manipulate tables and also set up text and images, and the truth is that it can do those things — which are actually fairly basic to its programming. All of those functions put together really only begin to barely touch upon what Excel is capable of, though.

Once one begins to explore the features and a more in-depth fashion — which can be gained through Excel VBA training — one begins to see the truly complex calculations and charts that can be created to illustrate just about any type of data under the sun. There are a multitude of features within the program that most people never find, sadly.

Those who are most familiar with MS Excel recommend that people who’d like to really learn to power up Visual Basic for Applications within the Excel software program should take a training course or seminar first of all. You won’t need to be a super programming guru or genius when it comes to MS Excel, though. You’ll just need to understand the basics of the software program.

Go online and conduct a search for a training course that takes you by the hand and shows you how to use VBA in such a way that you can command all the features of Excel, MS Word or PowerPoint from it. Mainly, most people will attend a two-day workshop — which is widely available — and which will show a person fairly rapidly how to begin to manipulate software suite.

Taking full advantage of the Visual Basic for Applications capability within Microsoft Excel can be learned fairly quickly by attending a Microsoft Excel VBA training seminar or course. Such a course can teach a person that there is far more within Excel than just the basics which, sad to say, most users only normally take advantage of.

The writer of this article is a developer and trainer with OnSiteTrainingCourses.Com, an independent computer training company offering Microsoft Excel Classes in London and throughout the UK.

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project started by Nicholas Negroponte several years ago has had some amazing results and consequences, as well as amazing failures and shortcomings. This has clearly been a source of frustration for those connected with the project, as well as those who’ve hoped for a better outcome for all of this. OLPC was born nearly four years ago, when Negroponte approached “XO” a computer manufacturer to build an affordable computer. The idea of a laptop for every child in underdeveloped countries was hard for many to believe.

OPLC’s mission statement says that its goals are – To create educational opportunities for the worlds poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. When children have access to this type of tool they get engaged in their own education. They learn, share, create, and collaborate. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future.

Craig Barrett, then head of Intel, called the XO laptop a gadget. Michael Dell told him it would be an impossible task. Fortunately for the many children who would later benefit from the program, Negroponte surged ahead anyway. A childhood of privilege and travel showed Negroponte the need for tools that help people in poorer countries get a start, and he was not to be dissuaded by the titans of tech.

The new laptop hit the market and all anyone could talk about was the low price, but that misses the obvious goal and work of the XO. Predicting the netbook explosion was hard to do and the XO certainly had something to do with the fact was out that computer could be very affordable. What it did more than anything, however, was to reach more than 900,000 children with the XO laptop in more than 31 countries. Some estimates say that over 200,000 are en route, and yet another 600,000 were ordered but not yet fulfilled. Peru is the country with the largest commitment so far to OPLC, with some 2.2 million orders and some 350,000 of the XO laptops in country already, mostly in remote rural areas.

Peru is the country with the largest commitment so far to OPLC, with some 2.2 million orders and some 350,000 of the XO laptops in country already, mostly in remote rural areas. When the XO laptop hit the market all anyone could talk about was the low price, but that misses the obvious mission and work of the XO. No one foresaw the netbook explosion that was about to occur, and the XO certainly had something to do with that, if in no other way than price.

Among some of the unexpected benefits (and most heartwarming stories) to come out of this is the fact that more than 50% of Peruvian children who have XO laptops use them to also teach their parents to read and write. Another unintended benefit is that “When a child opened the laptop at home, it could be the brightest light source,” according to Negroponte. The OLPC program has foundered of late as economic conditions and the availability of low-price netbook computers have made inroads, but it’s very hard to deny that the OLPC has made a far more significant impact than many had thought possible.

Adobe Photoshop’s native file format is “.psd”. This is the only format which supports all of Photoshop’s features: layers, layer masks, layer comps, etc. If you have used these features in creating your final artwork, it is always a good idea to retain the “.psd” version and use File – Save As to export your work in any other format.

When exporting images from Photoshop, you will normally either be targeting print or web graphics. Print graphics are saved in the CMYK colour space while web graphics remain in Photoshop’s native colour space: RGB. With print graphics the focus is on quality, while the main talent of web graphics formats is file compression.

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) and the CMYK colour space are the standard when exporting work for print. Although the TIFF format is capable of preserving layers, best practice is to make sure that you flatten the image by choosing Layers – Flatten Image before exporting. EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) is another option for exporting files for print. However, this option is now normally reserved for files that contain one or more spot colours.

GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) and JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) are the two main formats used for exporting web graphics. The GIF format compresses files by reducing the number of colours in an image. This makes the format ideal for exporting images that contain flat colour such as logos, charts and symbols. If photographs or images containing smooth transitions of colour are saved in GIF format, posterization and banding will normally occur. This is where, instead of seeing all the colours that were in the image, we see simplified clumps or bands of colour.

The JPEG format reduces file size by dividing the image into blocks of 8 x 8 pixels and locating redundant information within these blocks and rewriting the information in a simplified manner which requires less data storage. The fact that the human eye does not detect slight changes in colour means that pixels which have very similar colour values can be treated as being identical. When saving an image in the JPEG format, Photoshop allows you to specify the degree of compression. Naturally, there is always some loss of quality, so it is never a good idea to open a JPEG, make changes to it and then resave it. It is always better to fall back on the original PSD file if changes need to be made.

Using the Copy and Paste commands in Microsoft Excel, does not just copy the cell data; the formatting, style and number formats are also copied. The Paste Special command allows you to be selective about what you are pasting. The Paste Special command can be used to import elements from other programs into Excel using Windows Object Linking and Embedding. When doing so, the option “Paste Link” can be used to create a link to the original data rather than pasting in a copy of it.

If you are copying and pasting data purely within an Excel spreadsheet, the Paste Special command offers a set of options which are unique to the Excel environment. Interestingly enough, the Paste Special command is only available if the Excel data is copied rather than cut. Note also that it is often useful to paste over the original data, using the options in the Paste Special dialog to transform the original data in some way. Let’s now look at the key options which are available when using the Paste Special command.

If you select the option “All”, Excel will paste all the data on the clipboard in much the same way as it would do if the ordinary Paste command had been used.

Choosing “Formulas” causes Excel to ignore any cell formatting and paste only the data contained in the cells being copied. (The term “formulas” is used in a broad sense here and does not imply that Excel will only copy cells that contain formulas.)

You may well find the “Values” option particularly useful: basically, it can be used to “freeze” dynamic data. Like the “Formulas” option, “Values” causes Excel to paste only data and ignore formatting. The key distinction is that if the copied cell contains a formula, Excel will paste the calculated result of the formula rather than the formula itself.

The “Formats” option is pretty much the same as using the Format Painter tool. It pastes the formatting from the copied cells but does not paste any data.

The “Comments” options copies only comments that were in the source range, ignoring all other data.

In a similar vein, the “Validation” option will copy only cells that have had validation rules applied to them.

I hope this gives you an idea of how the Paste Special command works. Let’s just mention one final option: “Transpose”. This option reverses the orientation of the original data, so that rows become columns and vice versa.

An InDesign master page resembles a slide master in Microsoft PowerPoint, acting as a blueprint for the creation of document pages. Any content placed on a master page will also appear on all document pages based on that master. Master pages will typically feature headers, footers, page numbers and corporate graphics. Additionally, any guides placed on a master will be inherited by associated document pages. The two key benefits of using master pages are, firstly, that this saves you the trouble of recreating the same elements on several pages and, secondly, that they offer a mechanism for modifying and updating several document pages. Each time you make changes to a master, all document pages based on that master will also be updated.

You can create multiple master pages within the same document and you can also nest master pages by basing a new master page on an existing master. Even if you do not make use of master pages, every InDesign already contains a default master named “A-Master”. For documents with only a few pages or a single page, you will probably simply ignore the default master. However, for documents with more than a few pages, it is probably worth considering the use of master pages.

If the layout of your document is the same througout, then any master items you may need can probably be placed on the default master. To edit the default master, double-click its icon in the Pages panel (Window – Pages). Create the items you wish to appear on all pages, for example, a title at the top of the page and a page number at the bottom.

Editing the master page is no different from editing a normal page; so, to enter text, you must create a text frame. To insert a page number, position the cursor where you want the page number to be displayed and choose Type – Insert Special Character – Markers – Current Page Number. While editing the master, the letter of the master (“A” in the case of the default master) will be displayed in place of a page number. However, when you return to the document pages, the correct page number will appear on each page.

Each time you create an InDesign document, you have the option of activating “Facing Pages”. If you choose to leave this option inactive, you will find that the default master consists of a single page. This means that you cannot format left pages differently to right pages and, typically, you use this option when you plan to print only on one side of the paper. If you activate the “Facing Pages” option, your default master page will consist of two pages: one for formatting left-hand pages and one for formatting right-hand pages.

Author is a developer and trainer with a UK IT training company offering Adobe InDesign Classes as well as Illustrator training in London and throughout the UK.

ASP.NET master pages are a powerful feature which allows developers to create template-like pages which contain information that is common to all pages in a site or all pages in one section of a site such as corporate logo, company information, headers, footers and navigation links. Content pages can then be created which are based on the master page(s). Master pages use the file extension “.master” which is automatically protected by the server and cannot therefore be downloaded by clients.

The content pages consist of a reference to the appropriate master page together with the main page content and they use the regular ASP.NET file extension: “.aspx”. When the client requests a content page, the master and content pages are combined on the server and the resulting page sent back to the client.

Master pages use a combination of locked areas, which can only be edited from the master and content areas, which can be filled with unique content each time a content page is created. You can create as many content areas as you need, though the default of one in the head area and one in the body is usually enough.

To create a master page in Visual Studio or Visual Web Developer, choose Add New Item from the Website menu and click on the Master Page icon. As with regular ASP.NET pages, you can choose the coding language and specify whether code will be placed in an external file or embedded in the page itself. To create a content page, choose Add New Item from the Website menu, click on the Web Form icon and activate the option “Select Master Page”. When you click the Add button, a second dialog will appear allowing you to choose a master page.

Master and content pages provide web developers with a great way of controlling the structure and layout of all the pages in a site. In addition, when working on content pages in Visual Studio or Visual Web Developer, the master page elements are displayed in preview mode, so the developer can always see what the final, composite page will look like to the end user. Naturally, however, the master page items cannot be edited from the content page.

Some of you may be tempted to make a comparison between Dreamweaver templates and ASP.NET master pages. However, ASP.NET master pages are much more powerful. In Dreamweaver, all of the template markup has to be copied into each page based on a template. If the template is altered, each page based on the template has to be updated and then uploaded to the server. With ASP.NET master pages, the master page elements are automatically combined with the content page element at runtime by the ASP.NET engine. So when a master page is altered, there is no need to manually update the content pages.

Author runs ASP.NET training courses and ASP training in London and throughout the UK.

Clearly there’s no denying it – No matter how fresh or how well maintained our computers are, we all meet computer problems sooner or later on. The decent news is that we don’t have to tackle them alone.

There are a ton of resources obtainable to walk us through computer issues but it may take a little comprehension in knowing how to access them. This IT training guidance article will show you how.

1. Remember help files. It’s funny, but people seem to forget that every computer and every program installed on a CPU comes with its own help file. Even the operating system of a computer has a help file and it actually should be the first place to look for answers.

These files are created by the publisher of the hardware (or software) for the user as a guide in case they encounter any problems. Take a look for the troubleshooting section for advice specific to certain common problems found in the program or hardware you are using.

2. Manufactured goods websites. If you’re having a obstruction with a part of software or with a hardware part, try the website of that software’s or hardware’s company.

Most (if not all) manufacturer’s reserve a segment of cyberspace and commit it to support the goods that they assemble. Microsoft’s help desk is good case.

3. Fan sites. Fan sites perhaps isn’t a respectable name for this resource, but you can locate websites that are dedicated toward supporting the users of a particular software program or piece of hardware.

These sites have no relationship with the producers that they support! Call them what you will, but their free help is inestimable and without it, we wouldn’t have some of the astonishing workarounds and irreplaceable problem solving techniques that we have today.

4. Usenet newsgroups. An alternative underused supply on the Internet, Usenet newsgroups have hundreds of debate groups dedicated to some of the most general computer systems, operating systems, hardware manufacturers, and original software programs.

There are actually a few occasions when the staff of some companies participate in discussion forums, this can be good also to have the companies viewpoint on the topic of the day.

5. PC support groups or user groups are an added decision for help. These are groups that meet in libraries, computer stores, or other community areas and they discuss all sorts of issues connected with a exacting product.

Yet if you aren’t experiencing a computer or software problem, user groups are fun to contribute in and they can help you network into other wellbeing such as job or training opportunities.

As you can see, help is effortless to find – You’ve just got to know where to look for it. Most of the associates within these resources are tremendously welcoming and keen to take the time to walk you through a trouble at little to no cost. From online debate groups to the files on your own laptop, help is often just a click away.

If you still think you need some IT training in Edinburgh, pay IT Training Scotland a visit. They are specialists in Excel training in Edinburgh and offer the latest courses and training on different Microsoft products.