LinkedIn – Now You Can Show Your Heart Work!

You’ve shown your life work on your profile. Now you can share your HEART work. LinkedIn has added a new section called, “Volunteer Experience and Causes.” This is helpful on a few levels. First, it allows you another way to show volunteer work you have participated or are currently participating in. Second, it allows you to receive recommendations from those you have worked with within your volunteer job. Third, it gives you the opportunity to show your prospective employers that you have more depth than just working and going home to chill on the couch with a beer in hand. Employers are really big on community service these days.

Here’s a little suggestion, though: be careful not to post anything that might preclude you from being considered. If you are an activist with an animal rights group, you might not want to show that if you’re applying to a dairy or meat-packing company. Ok, that was a gross example. But you get my point, right? Also, if you have really strong views that come across as confrontational or that are generally deemed controversial, you might consider withholding that cause from your LinkedIn profile. Just a thought.

So, HOW do you add this section? Open LinkedIn in your browser. Hover over the tab called, “Profile.” Click on “Edit Profile.” Scroll down just below your “Top Box,” which is the box at the top of your profile with what LinkedIn considers your most vital information. You will see an option called, “Add sections to reflect achievements and experiences on your profile.” Next to that you’ll see a green plus sign and the words, “Add Section.” Click that. This dialog box will pop up:

To the left, you’ll see a list of sections. Scroll down to “Volunteer Experiences and Causes,” and click on it. It will appear in your profile, ready to add your information. You can move this section to where ever you want it after the “Top Box.” Moving sections is done by first hovering over the title bar for the section you want to move. You should see a cross-hatch with arrows at all four ends. This means LinkedIn is ready to move the section. Next, just click and drag the section to where you want it.

I hope this post was meaningful for you. Please comment and/or subscribe!

Excel: Loan Repayment Worksheet

Hi Friends!

I created a new page here on my blog. I’m planning on creating a new page for each of several projects. Most will be in Excel. The current project (May 2011) is a Loan Repayment Worksheet. Today, we just set up the interest rates table to calculate monthly and daily rates based on a yearly interest rate.

To follow along, go to the menu bar at the top of this page, and click “Loan Repayment – Special Project.”

Hope you enjoy it!

iTunes’ Get Info – Make It Awesome!

Hi Friends!

Have you ever explored the various columns you can add to your iTunes Library list? I saw the “Comments” column and went on a quest to find out how to add a comment and found the “Get Info” box. Wow! You can edit a few key fields there. You can even edit the name of the song, artist, genre, and more on the info tab (pictured below). If you’re a runner or like to walk, work out, or ride to upbeat tempos, you can add the beats per minute (BPM). You can make comments that will help trigger your memory or give you a customized field you can sort by in the library list view. For me, my comments will help me remember what songs I want to learn on guitar. My comment there is “repertoire” or “guitar.” It’s YOUR  field, do with it what you will.

To go to the dialog box below in iTunes:

1.   Click on a song

2.   Click on “File”

3.   Go about half way down the drop-down list to “Get Info” and this box will pop up:

Maybe you already checked out the tabs available, but I, myself, LOVE the idea that I can have the lyrics available on iTunes, so I don’t have to go look them up on the Internet.

Have fun with this! It’s almost 2 AM and I’ve had a blast with it!!

Formulas in Word 2007

Hi Friends!

Today’s tip came out of another friend of mine asking me about something they didn’t know how to do. Actually, she knew how to do it in Word 2003. So did I. But I didn’t know how to do it right there on the spot, so I did some homework. Now YOU will benefit from the question being asked.

The question: “How do I add numbers in Word?” – not the exact words. It’s pretty easy.

1.    Just create a table, enter the values, then click on the destination cell for your formula.

2.   Click on the “Layout” tab that shows up above the Ribbon when your cursor is within the table.

3.   Click on “Formulas” at the far right end of the Ribbon.

4.   “Sum” is the default formula (you CAN select another formula in the drop-down called “Paste function”). Since we’re talking about adding figures, just click “Ok.” And there you have your total!

It’s that simple. Now for a little note to the contrary: This scenario is the simplistic, perfect-world scenario. You have the ability to create your own formula using cell locators (B1:B3 means cells in column B, rows 1 – 3), or functions +, -, *, and  /. You can also do compound formulas like (sum(above))*2) meaning add all the values above and multiply by 2. But now you’re probably getting glassy-eyed and getting distracted. Am I right?

Thanks for stopping by!

Word: Outline mode

Hi Friends!

This tip is really just a preemptive piece of advice. It will save you a lot of trouble! If anyone has a better way to do this PLEASE do share. My poor friend had a heck of a time trying to convert an old soft copy of a 25-page document to outline numbering with his specific tab spacings. He ended up just manually numbering his document. I tried to help, but Word kept messing up the tab spacing. Very frustrating.

The Cardinal Rule of Outline Numbering is set it up before you even get started!! I can’t emphasize this enough. I have had this issue before with another long document that I “inherited.” The best you can do when you have a preexisting document (if it sounds like an illness, it IS – at least in this case!) is to open a new word document and set up your outline style just the way you want it. You will have to format every level you think you might ever end up going to. Usually an outline won’t indent more than 5 or 6 times:

Have a better solution? I’m hoping so! Please comment, if you do.

Thanks for stopping by!

Facebook Secure Browsing

Hi Friends!

In case you hadn’t seen any status updates like the one I got tonight, I’m sharing this with you now. Facebook has made some more changes. It’s regarding the security of your connection to Facebook. You can check it and change it as necessary though.

1. Go to Account, then Account Settings – Account Security
2. Click Change.
3. Check box (secure browsing)
4. Click Save.

If any of you have had your account “hijacked” before, you’ll appreciate this tip, I’m sure. You can get notified if someone logs onto your account from another computer. If you get that notification, it’s time to change your password.

Thanks for stopping by!

Word – Changing Formatting (Special Breaks)

Hi Friends!

This tip will teach you how to go from text across the entire page, then into two columns, then back to across the page:

Before we get started, go to the Home tab, paragraph group, and click on the paragraph symbol to show hidden characters.

1. Type something, anything, at the beginning of your Word document. I spanned the page on purpose.

2. Click the Page Layout tab and hit the drop-down arrow next to “Breaks.”

3. Click on “Continuous Break”

4. On the Page Layout tab still, click “Columns” and then “Two”

5. Type “This is column ONE”

6. Click on “Breaks” then “Column”  and type “This is column TWO”

7. Click on “Breaks” then “Continuous”

8. Click on “Columns” then “one” and type something to the end of the line or more.

Yours should look something like this:

This layout technique is great for recipes, newsletters, and lists without using tabs. Oh, the unhidden markings will disappear if you hit that paragraph xymbol on the Home tab, paragraph group again.

Thanks for stopping by!