Part 2/4 Here: www.youtube.com The only TV documentary to have advance access to the biggest WikiLeaks release ever. This is what really happened during the Iraq war, not what the US PR machine of the time wanted us to believe. The reality behind the civilian death count; al-Qaeda's fictitious presence; torture, torture and more torture. A wall of truth revealing unprecedented levels of unwarranted aggression. Dispatches, Channel 4's flagship current affairs strand, exposes the full and unreported horror of the Iraqi conflict and its aftermath, revealing the true scale of civilian casualties; and allegations that after the scandal of Abu Ghraib, American soldiers continued to abuse prisoners; and that US forces did not systematically intervene in the torture and murder of detainees by the Iraqi security services. The programme also features previously unreported material of insurgents being killed while trying to surrender. Channel 4 is the only UK broadcaster to have been given access to nearly 400000 secret military significant activities reports (SIGACTS) logged by the US military in Iraq between 2004 and 2009. These reports tell the story of the war and occupation which the US military did not want the world to know. Initially, the Americans claimed that they were not recording casualty figures and President Bush stated that America would do its utmost to avoid civilian casualties. In the files, Dispatches found details of over 109000 deaths; 66000 of these were ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUDxADbXhuU&hl=en
Showing posts with label Secret. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Secret. Show all posts
Excel Tutorial - The Secret to Excel
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Yes, there is a "Secret" to using Excel.
But what does that mean? Is this a gimmick? No, it's honest to goodness advice from a computer training consultant. Be patient, read this page, and you will be a much stronger Excel user in the next 3 minutes. If I have only 5 minutes to give anyone an Excel tutorial, I would teach them the "Secret".
I was amazed when I learned what I call the "Secret" to Excel. I was amazed that Microsoft hadn't placed the feature as an icon on one of their toolbars. I was amazed that all of the "real" books I owned regarding Excel failed to mention the "Secret". Finally, in an Excel reference book, I found the "Secret" to Excel somewhere on page 350. The "Secret" had been buried so deeply in the book no one would ever read, see, or use the "Secret".
A Brief History Lesson.
When you inherit someone's "old" spreadsheet you need to analyze the formulas of the spreadsheet to see what they are doing. Even if the spreadsheet is one you created, you may have created the spreadsheet so long ago that you have forgotten what formulas you used.
Over the years Excel has improved its quality control features for analyzing formulas. But even today, 95% or more of all users research their spreadsheet formulas the old fashioned way. They click on a cell to see if it's a formula. Then they study the formula. Then they might click on another cell to see if it's a formula. And do the same thing over and over again.
Checking formulas with the mouse-click method is slow, tedious, and not thorough. It's a bad process. But that's the way over 95% of all Excel users research their spreadsheets. But there's a much better way. It is the "Secret" to using Excel.
Life with Excel spreadsheets when using the "Secret"
After using the "Secret" the spreadsheet makes sense again. I can remember all of my formulas. Since I can't use pictures in this article, read this next passage carefully:
Learning the "Secret" to Excel helps you display all your formulas not as numbers but as logical text. You can see the logic of every single formula on your spreadsheet.
The "Secret"
The "Secret" to using Excel is a keystroke command named CTRL gravé. This is pronounced "control gra-vay". (Gra rhymes with the word pa, and vay rhymes with the word bay).
Because I can't use pictures in this article, I need to write some steps for you. Don't skim over these steps, do them. You'll be glad you did. (It's really quite simple, it's a CTRL gravé.)
First, open up an Excel spreadsheet file that has formulas in it.
Second, using your Windows (non-Apple) keyboard, look to the lower left hand corner of the keyboard.
Third, hold down the CTRL key with any finger.
Fourth, locate the number 1 key towards the upper left hand corner of the keyboard.
Fifth, find the key one key left of the number 1. It has the symbols ` and ~. The first symbol, the ` is called a gravé.
Sixth, still holding down the CTRL key, tap the gravé key.
Seventh, see that all your formulas now have logical text. So instead of saying 150, a cell might display =a1+a2
CTRL gravé is a toggle. Do it once to see your formulas in the spreadsheet. Do it again to display the numbers again.
Do you remember how when you were little you learned how to read at age 4, 5, or 6? Wasn't it fun beginning to understand what all those neat symbols meant on the white paper? It was like discovering some secret code the grownups used.
That's what the "Secret" to Excel is like. Every time someone gives you a spreadsheet, just use the "Secret" on the spreadsheet to understand its logic. You'll enjoy this technique so much you'll start showing it to your friends.
Best wishes from Chicago, IL USA.
PowerPoint's Secret Weapon and How to Use it to Persuade
"The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint" is a 2003 monograph written by Edward R. Tufte, an expert in the visual display of information. It's a scathing indictment.
Tufte's criticisms of this ubiquitous presentation tool have mostly to do with the "low resolution" of PowerPoint, i.e., the small amount of information that can be included on an individual slide. According to Tufte, "PowerPoint allows speakers to pretend that they are giving a real talk, and audiences to pretend that they are listening. 1"
My own criticisms of PowerPoint concern the fact that it's a presentation tool that's virtually guaranteed to lessen your influence as a speaker. Since you as presenter are (in Shakespeare's language) "the be-all and the end-all" concerning the delivery of your critical message, anything that actually reduces your influence is a truly catastrophic state of affairs.
Used as a simple tool of visual information, PowerPoint can be effective. Indeed, in some types of presentations--such as where complex diagrams, procedures, or moving parts need to be displayed--it may be essential, since such effects can be difficult to achieve otherwise.
Huge problems arise, however, when presenters try to make PowerPoint pack more persuasive firepower than it can deliver. PowerPoint is as effective--and limited--in its narrow range of abilities as a pencil. I happen to love working with lead pencils. But a pencil in a speaker's hand has never convinced me of anything.
Yet far too often speakers depend upon PowerPoint to achieve some lasting impression on an audience--as if the razzle-dazzle of a multimedia slide show can take the place of an intelligent and compelling argument. But visual and auditory fireworks can never replace a dynamic speaker who commands our attention and belief.
Yet for those of you who adore Bill Gates's ubiquitous presentation software, there's hope. It concerns what I call the best kept secret of PowerPoint. This secret weapon in the war to make PowerPoint a dynamic presentation tool lies in the humble "B" button on our keyboard. Here's how it works:
When you are in the "View" mode of PowerPoint, i.e., when your slides are being projected onto a screen, pressing the "B" button on the keyboard takes your image to black. Any screen or surface on which your slides appear--pull-down screen, laptop, or both--will suddenly go completely dark.
When this happens, I guarantee that every one of your audience members will look in the same place: at YOU.
With your audience now paying attention to you instead of your PowerPoint slides--and you focused entirely on them--real engagement can take place. An organic connection between you and your listeners will be formed, just as it was when you greeted them at the beginning of your speech. In real terms, there is nothing between you and your audience any more. And now the give-and-take that is essential to influence can occur.
I recommend that you go no more than 20 minutes in any presentation before hitting the "B" button and re-engaging your listeners. Ask a question that requires a response. Introduce a group activity. Invite a volunteer to help you with a demonstration.
Try any of these things, or others that you come up with yourself. But hit that "B" button and re-connect with your audience in person-to-person terms. I think you'll enjoy the people that you'll meet.
1 Edward R. Tufte, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press L.L.C., 2003), 23.
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