Archive for the ‘Business’ Category

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Up and Running with Prezi: Embedding video in your presentation

Published by | Wednesday, April 10th, 2013

Prezi, if you haven’t heard yet, is the hot new presentation tool that’s sweeping the screens at events like TED and SXSW. It’s an alternative to boring PowerPoint presentations, it’s free to use, and you can present live or host your presentations on Prezi.com for the world to see.

While Prezi’s zooming and panning features bring your presentations to life, using video can add even more richness, engagement and meaning—and it’s simple to do.

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Two ways to add video to a Prezi

 

You can add video to your prezi in two ways: link to a video on YouTube, or upload a video file directly from your hard drive and embed it into your prezi. In both cases, the video player is placed right on your canvas, and you can resize and place it wherever you like in your presentation.

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Monday Productivity Pointers: Managing your finances with Mint.com

Published by | Monday, April 8th, 2013

This week in Monday Productivity Pointers, I explain how to track your finances with Mint.com.

Mint.com is a secure, read-only site that inputs all your line-item transactions from your financial institutions (like auto loans, school loans, checking and savings accounts, investments, and mortgages) and outputs them in an easy-to-read format so you can see how your money is really doing.

In the first video I’ll show you some strategies I used when I migrated my accounts to Mint.com. It involves setting up online accounts for the financial institutions you want to view on Mint.com, and setting up rules for your recurring transactions so you don’t need to re-categorize them each time they occur.

 

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Monday Productivity Pointers: Keynote presentations on the iPad

Published by | Monday, April 1st, 2013

Is it Monday already? Welcome to the latest edition of Monday Productivity Pointers. Last week I talked about Google Hangouts. This week I’m creating presentations on the iPad using Keynote, Apple’s presentation software. This week’s first video will cover the actual creation of a presentation on the iPad.

Not only can you create gorgeous presentations quickly on your Apple computer, you can also create them on the road with your iPad. I’ll show you how to create a presentation based on an existing template, and how to add content to it.

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Monday Productivity Pointers: Using Google+ Hangouts

Published by | Monday, March 25th, 2013

Welcome to our new series Monday Productivity Pointers. Each week I’ll take a look at a different productivity tool and release two videos on the topic. These pointers can be a great way to test-drive tools and see if they’re right for you. But even if you’ve used them before, you’re likely to discover at least one feature that you probably didn’t know about!

I’ll share tools that I personally use all the time. They’ve helped me become more organized, professional, and mobile, and my hope is that they’ll do the same for you. From managing your finances with Mint.com to monitoring your online influence with Klout to creating presentations directly on the iPad with Keynote, check weekly to see what topic I’m covering and how it can help make you a more productive version of yourself. Do you have a tool you’d like me to cover? What’s your favorite online productivity tool? Let me know in the comments section below.

This week’s Monday Productivity Pointers is all about Google+ Hangouts.

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Posted in Business, Monday Productivity Pointers | 2 Comments »

Staying motivated when business is slow

Published by | Friday, March 22nd, 2013

Most freelancers live a feast-or-famine existence. We’re either pushing hard to finish a client’s urgent project—and aren’t they all urgent?—or we’re wiling away the time, wondering what to do with ourselves.

When there’s a feast of work, clients define your activities and goals. But during famines, you’re on your own. You want to use the time well, but don’t have an external authority guiding you. Uncertainty can freeze even the most intrepid freelancer into inactivity.

Don’t let that happen to you! Here are five things to do to keep your business moving forward when you have downtime.
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Posted in Business, Web | 1 Comment »

How to hook your reader from the very first page

Published by | Monday, March 4th, 2013

Think stories are just for entertainment? They’re not. Stories are simulations that allow us to vicariously experience problems we might someday face. Think of them as the world’s first virtual reality—minus the geeky visor. Story was more crucial to our evolution than opposable thumbs. All opposable thumbs did was let us hang on. Story told us what to hang on to.

The great feeling of enjoyment we get when a story grabs us is nature’s way of making sure we pay attention to the story. It’s a survival mechanism. Do you know what that feeling is? A rush of the neurotransmitter dopamine. It’s your brain’s way of rewarding you for following your curiosity and finding out how the story’s problem is solved.

That’s why, when it comes to writing, the most important thing to master is the craft of story. Because it turns out that the brain is far less picky about beautiful writing than writers have been taught to believe.

Yes, writing well is a good thing—only a fool would deny that. But what matters most is that the story hooks the reader from the first sentence. How? By igniting the brain’s hardwired desire to find out what happens next. That’s what gives all those beautiful words all their power in the first place.

Lisa Cron explains how story captivates the brain.

So, how do you ignite the reader’s curiosity on that crucial first page? There are three things readers innately hunt for as a story begins.

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What is the difference between Office 365 and Office 2013?

Published by | Friday, March 1st, 2013

Microsoft recently launched the new Office 365 as well as Office 2013. You are not alone if the various products have created confusion for you.

To clarify, Office 365 refers to the subscription models for Office, not a specific version, and it delivers the Office programs as part of your subscription. With online storage, sharing and syncing with the Microsoft cloud, Office 365 has features to make it easier for teams to collaborate and communicate with familiar applications like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

If you subscribe to Office 365 and are running Office on a Windows 7 or Windows 8 machine, you will see Office 2013 as your user interface. This means if you are a subscriber to Office 365, the lynda.com courses titled with version 2013 will be relevant and helpful for you. Microsoft is expected to push out updates to Office 365 on a quarterly basis, so over time we expect greater differences between these offerings. Rest assured, we are working to address the anticipated divergence between Office 365 and Office 2013 in our future training courses.

Suggested courses to watch next:

• Office 2013 New Features
• Up and Running with Office Web Apps
• Excel 2013 Essential Training

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Posted in Business, Home computing | 2 Comments »

Getting to know Office 2013 and Office 365

Published by | Monday, February 18th, 2013

Now that Microsoft has officially launched Office 365, we’d like to introduce you to our lineup of new Office training content.

You can use our new playlist feature to create your own personalized Office learning path. First determine which version of Office you’ll be using: Will you be starting with the cloud-based subscription Office 365? Or will you be taking the more traditional route with Office 2013? Note: if you are running Office 365 on a Windows 7 or 8, your version of Office will have the new features of Office 2013.

If you’re unfamiliar with the new Microsoft subscription model, I would suggest adding both David Rivers’s Up and Running with Office 365 and Curt Frye’s Up and Running with Office Web Apps to your playlist. David’s course introduces the Office 365 subscription model and how it works. Curt’s course takes you into the individual applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

The best course to start with to get an overall view of the latest Office features is David Rivers’s Office 2013 New Features. David walks you through the major applications in the suite: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, OneNote, and Outlook. Get a peek at integrating Office with the cloud. David covers the changes to the user interface, key new features, and product enhancements.

Figure 1 David Rivers shows you the suite.

David Rivers shows you the suite.

Figure 2 David Rivers takes you through the changes in Office 2013.

David Rivers takes you through the changes in Office 2013.

Figure 3 David Rivers shows you how to use SkyDrive with Office 2013.

David Rivers shows you how to use SkyDrive with Office 2013.

Once you’ve watched Office 2013 New Features, you’ll probably be ready to dive into your favorite Office application. We have more coming over the next few weeks, but to start you off we have Essential Training courses ready for SharePoint, Excel, Word, Access, Outlook, and PowerPoint.

If you use SharePoint, start off with Gini Courter’s SharePoint Foundation 2013 Essential Training. The Essential Training covers all the basics and features. You’ll also get a deeper look at how SharePoint integrates with all the Office applications.

Excel 2010 Essential Training has been one of our most highly viewed courses. Dennis Taylor takes you through all the basics from organizing your data to working with formulas, worksheets, pivot tables, and charts in Excel 2013 Essential Training.

Next up is David Rivers’s Word 2013 Essential Training. Learn the basics of creating and editing documents, using templates and building blocks, sharing and collaborating in documents, and working with tables.

If Access is more your thing, then take a look at Adam Wilbert’s course on Access 2013 Essential Training. Adam demonstrates how to create and work with tables, forms, reports, and macros and how to use that data in other Office applications such as Excel and Word.

Our newest staff author and productivity guru, Jess Stratton, has two Essential Training courses for you: PowerPoint 2013 Essential Training and Outlook 2013 Essential Training. In PowerPoint 2013 Essential Training, Jess shows you the basics of creating, editing, working with, and sharing presentations. In Outlook 2013 Essential Training, Jess gives you a tour of the interface and teaches you how to create, send, organize, and read mail; use contacts; leverage productivity with tasks and notes; and manage your day with Outlook.

Keep an eye on our new release list for more.

Interested in more?

• All lynda.com Office courses
• All lynda.com Business courses

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