There are specific environment variables that the bash shell uses by default to define the system environment. You can always count on these variables being set on your Linux system. Since the bash shell is a derivative of the original Unix Bourne shell, it also includes environment variables originally defined in that shell.

By far the most important environment variable in this list is the PATH environment variable. When you enter a command in the shell command line interface (CLI), the shell must search
the system to find the program. The PATH environment variable defines the directories it searches looking for commands. On my Linux system, the PATH environment variable looks like this:

$ echo $PATH
/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/lib/ccache:/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:
/home/rich/bin
$

This shows that there are six directories where the shell looks for commands. Each directory in
the PATH is separated by a colon. There’s nothing at the end of the PATH variable indicating the end of the directory listing. You can add additional directories to the PATH simply by adding another colon, and adding the new directory. The PATH also shows the order in which it looks for commands.

Besides the default Bourne environment variables, the bash shell also provides a few variables of
its own.

The bash Shell Bourne Variables

CDPATH A colon-separated list of directories used as a search path for the cd command.
HOME The current user’s home directory.
IFS A list of characters that separate fields used by the shell to split text strings.
MAIL The filename for the current user’s mailbox. The bash shell checks this file
for new mail.
MAILPATH A colon-separated list of multiple filenames for the current user’s mailbox. The
bash shell checks each file in this list for new mail.
OPTARG The value of the last option argument processed by the getopts command.
OPTIND The index value of the last option argument processed by the getopts
command.
PATH A colon-separated list of directories where the shell looks for commands.
PS1 The primary shell command line interface prompt string.
PS2 The secondary shell command line interface prompt string.

The bash Shell Environment Variables

BASH The full pathname to execute the current instance of the bash shell.
BASH_ENV When set, each bash script attempts to execute a startup file defined by
this variable before running.
BASH_VERSION The version number of the current instance of the bash shell.
BASH_VERSINFO A variable array that contains the individual major and minor version
numbers of the current instance of the bash shell.
COLUMNS Contains the terminal width of the terminal used for the current
instance of the bash shell.
COMP_CWORD An index into the variable COMP WORDS, which contains the current
cursor position.
COMP_LINE The current command line.
COMP_POINT The index of the current cursor position relative to the beginning of the current command.
COMP_WORDS A variable array that contains the individual words on the current command line.
COMPREPLY A variable array that contains the possible completion codes generated by a shell function.

DIRSTACK A variable array that contains the current contents of the directory stack.
EUID The numeric effective user ID of the current user.
FCEDIT The default editor used by the fc command.
FIGNORE A colon-separated list of suffixes to ignore when performing filename completion.
FUNCNAME The name of the currently executing shell function.
GLOBIGNORE A colon-separated list of patterns defining the set of filenames to be ignored by filename expansion.
GROUPS A variable array containing the list of groups of which the current user is a member.
histchars Up to three characters which control history expansion.
HISTCMD The history number of the current command.
HISTCONTROL Controls what commands are entered in the shell history list.
HISTFILE The name of the file to save the shell history list (.bash history by default).
HISTFILESIZE The maximum number of lines to save in the history file.
HISTIGNORE A colon-separated list of patterns used to decide which commands are ignored for the history file.
HISTSIZE The maximum number of commands stored in the history file.
HOSTFILE Contains the name of the file that should be read when the shell needs to complete a hostname.
HOSTNAME The name of the current host.
HOSTTYPE A string describing the machine the bash shell is running on.
IGNOREEOF The number of consecutive EOF characters the shell must receive before exiting. If this value doesn’t exist, the default is one.
INPUTRC The name of the Readline initialization file (the default is .inputrc).

LANG The locale category for the shell.
LC_ALL Overrides the LANG variable, defining a locale category.
LC_COLLATE Sets the collation order used when sorting string values.
LC_CTYPE Determines the interpretation of characters used in filename expansion and pattern matching.
LC_MESSAGES Determines the locale setting used when interpreting double-quoted strings preceded by a dollar sign.
LC_NUMERIC Determines the locale setting used when formatting numbers.
LINENO The line number in a script currently executing.
LINES Defines the number of lines available on the terminal.
MACHTYPE A string defining the system type in cpu-company-system format
MAILCHECK How often (in seconds) the shell should check for new mail (default is 60).
OLDPWD The previous working directory used in the shell.
OPTERR If set to 1, the bash shell displays errors generated by the getopts command.
OSTYPE A string defining the operating system the shell is running on.
PIPESTATUS A variable array containing a list of exit status values from the processes in the foreground process.
POSIXLY CORRECT If set, bash starts in POSIX mode.
PPID The process ID (PID) of the bash shell’s parent process.
PROMPT_COMMAND If set, the command to execute before displaying the primary prompt.
PS3 The prompt to use for the select command.
PS4 The prompt displayed before the command line is echoed if the bash -x parameter is used.
PWD The current working directory.

RANDOM Returns a random number between 0 and 32767. Assigning a value to this variable seeds the random number generator.
REPLY The default variable for the read command.
SECONDS The number of seconds since the shell was started. Assigning a value resets the timer to the value.
SHELLOPTS A colon-separated list of enabled bash shell options.
SHLVL Indicates the shell level, incremented by one each time a new bash shell is started.
TIMEFORMAT A format specifying how the shell displays time values.
TMOUT The value of how long (in seconds) the select and read commands should wait for input. The default of zero indicates to wait indefinitely.
UID The numeric real user id of the current user.

You may notice that not all of the default environment variables are shown when I used the set command. The reason for this is that although these are the default environment variables, not all of them are required to contain a value.

Creating a new data list in a worksheet is much like creating a worksheet table except that it has only column headings and no row headings.

To set up a new data list, follow these steps:

1. Click the blank cell where you want to start the new data list and then enter the column headings (technically known as field names in database parlance) that identify the different kinds of items you need to keep track of (such as First Name, Last Name, Street, City, State, and so
on) in the columns to the right.
After creating the fields of the data list by entering their headings, you’re ready to enter the first row of data.

2. Make the first entries in the appropriate columns of the row immediately following the one containing the field names. These entries in the first row beneath the one with the field names constitute the first record of the data list.

3. Click the Format as Table button in the Styles group of Ribbon’s Home tab and then click a thumbnail of one of the table styles in the dropdown gallery.

Excel puts a marquee around all the cells in the new data list including the top row of field names. As soon as you click a table style in the dropdown gallery, the Format As Table dialog box appears listing the address of the cell range enclosed in the marquee in the Where Is the Data for Your Table text box.

4. Click the My Table Has Headers check box to select it.

5. Click the OK button to close Format As Table dialog box.

Excel formats your new data list in the selected table format and adds filter (drop-down buttons) to each of the field names in the top row.

The Selection and Visibility task pane enables you not only to change the layering of various graphic objects in the worksheet but also to control whetherthey are hidden or displayed.

The way you open the Selection and Visibility task pane depends upon the type of graphic object you’ve selected in the worksheet:

• Charts: click the Selection Pane button on the Format tab of the Chart Tools contextual tab or press Alt+JOAP
• Text Boxes and Shapes: click the Selection Pane button on the Format tab under the Drawing Tools contextual tab or press Alt+JDAP
• Clip Art and Pictures: click the Selection Pane button on the Format tab under the Picture Tools contextual tab or press Alt+JDAP
• SmartArt: click Selection Pane on the Arrange button’s drop-down palette on the Format tab of the SmartArt Tools contextual tab or press Alt+JOZAAP

After you open the Selection and Visibility task pane, you can temporarily hide any of the graphic objects listed by clicking its eye check box (to remove the eye icon). To remove the display of all the charts and graphics in the worksheet, click the Hide All button at the bottom of the Selection and Visibility task pane instead.

To redisplay a hidden graphic object, simply click its empty eye check box to put the eye icon back into it. To redisplay all graphic objects after hiding them all, click the Show All button at the bottom of the task pane.

If you hide all the charts and graphics in a worksheet by clicking the Hide All button and then close the Selection and Visibility task pane by clicking its close button, you’ll have no way of redisplaying this task pane so that you can bring back their display by clicking the Show All button. That’s because you have no graphic objects left to select in the worksheet and therefore no way to get the contextual tabs with their Selection Pane buttons to appear on
the Ribbon.

In this dire case, the only way I know to get back the Selection and Visibility task pane so that you can click the Show All button is to create a dummy (pardon my French) graphic object in the worksheet (such as an arrow or oval in the Shapes group on the Insert tab) and then click the Selection Pane button on the Format tab of its Drawing Tools contextual tab. With the
Selection and Visibility task pane open, click the Show All button to bring back the display of all the charts and graphics you want to keep and get rid of the still-selected dummy graphic object by pressing the Delete key (whew, that was a close one!).

If you don’t fancy carrying the delicate Ubuntu installation CD around with you, you can copy its contents to a USB key stick and use that to install Ubuntu onto computers (provided those computers can boot from USB, and most modern computers will be able to).

This is also a handy way of creating a portable USB installation of Ubuntu on a small USB key (ie 1/2GB) for use on other computers. The only problem is that the system software can’t be updated, and you’ll always be running as root user, because that’s how the live distro mode
of the install CD operates.

This tip is only relevant for users of Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) or below. Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) has built-in tools to install to create an installer USB key stick.

To make the process easier, a member of the Ubuntu community created the fantastic Liveusb software that will entirely automate the creation of a USB install stick. To install it, first add his software repository - click System → Administration → Software Sources, select the Third-
Party Software in the window that appears, and then click the Add button. Then type the following into the APT line text field:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/probono/ubuntu hardy main

Click OK, then the Close button in the parent dialog box, and then click to reload the list of packages when prompted. Then use Synaptic to search for and install liveusb. You’ll be told the package isn’t authenticated but this is fine.

Insert the USB stick, insert your Ubuntu install CD, and then start the program by clicking System → Administration → Install Live USB. In the Options section, you can select to install Flash Player on the USB stick, and also whether you want to make the USB stick “persistent”,
which is to say, any files you save after booting from it will stick around, rather than being wiped each boot.

Note that a bug in the Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron installation CD means that it is impossible to activate persistent mode on the USB key stick. This has been fixed in the Ubuntu 8.04.1 install CD.

If selecting gazillions of preset shapes available from the Shapes gallery doesn’t provide enough variety for jazzing up your worksheet, you may want to try adding some fancy text using the WordArt gallery opened by clicking the WordArt command button in the Text group of the Insert tab.

You can add this type of “graphic” text to your worksheet by following these steps:

1. Click the WordArt command button on the Ribbons Insert tab or press Alt+NW.
Excel displays the WordArt drop-down gallery dialog box.

2. Click the A thumbnail in the WordArt style you want to use in the WordArt drop-down gallery.

Excel inserts a selected text box containing Your Text Here in the center of the worksheet with this text in the WordArt style you selected in the gallery.

3. Type the text you want to display in the worksheet in the Text text box. As soon as you start typing, Excel replaces the Your Text Here text in the selected text box with the characters you enter.

4. (Optional) To format the background of the text box, use Live Preview in the Shape Styles drop-down gallery on the Format tab to find the style to use and then set it by clicking its thumbnail.

The Format tab under the Drawing Tools contextual tab is automatically added and activated whenever WordArt text is selected in the worksheet.

5. After making any final adjustments to the size, shape, or orientation of the WordArt text with the selection and rotation handles, click a cell somewhere outside of the text to deselect the graphic.

Note that Excel automatically compresses the text to fill the shape and size of its text box. To put more space between the words and the characters in each word, make the text box wider by dragging the sizing handle on either side of the text box.

When you click outside of the WordArt text, Excel deselects the graphic, and the Drawing Tools contextual tab disappears from the Ribbon. (If you ever want this tab to reappear, all you have to do is click somewhere on the WordArt text to select the graphic.)

Remember:
You can change the size of WordArt text and the font it uses after creating it by dragging through the WordArt text to select and then using the Font and Font Size command buttons on the Home tab to make your desired changes. Keep in mind, however, that Excel does not automatically resize the WordArt text box to suit the new font and font size.

This means that you can easily make the WordArt text too small or too large for its text box. If this happens, use the sizing handles around the text box to resize and reshape it as needed
to suit the new text size.

Clip Art is the name given to the over 150,000 ready made illustrations offered by Microsoft for use in its various Microsoft Office programs, including Excel 2007. Clip Art drawings are now so numerous that the images are classified into a bunch of different categories ranging from Abstract to Web Elements.

To bring in a piece of Clip Art included with Office 2007, you click the Clip Art button on the Ribbon’s Insert tab or press Alt+NF. When you do this, Excel 2007 displays the Clip Art task pane
from which you search for the type of art you want to use. To locate the clip(s) you want to insert into the current worksheet in the Clip Art task pane, you follow these steps:

1. Click the Search For text box at the top, and then enter the keywords for the type of Clip Art you want to find.

When you enter keywords for finding particular types of Clip Art, try general, descriptive terms such as trees, flowers, people, flying, and the like.

2. (Optional) Click the Search In drop-down button and remove (deselect) check marks from any Clip Art collections that you don’t want to search.

By default, Excel searches all the collections of Clip Art (including the Media Gallery Online collection on the Web). To limit your search, you need to make sure that only the Clip Art collections you want to include in the search have check marks before their names.

3. (Optional) To limit the search to Clip Art only, click the Results Should Be drop-down button and remove check marks from the All Media Types, Photographs, Movies, and Sounds categories.

You can further limit the types of Clip Art files included in the search by clicking the plus sign in front of Clip Art and then removing check marks from any and all types of clips (such as CorelDraw or Macintosh PICT) that you don’t want or need to use.

4. Click the Go button to the immediate right of the Search For text box to initiate the search.

The first time you search for Clip Art, when you click the Go button, Excel displays an alert dialog box asking you if you want to include thousands of additional Clip Art images and photos from Microsoft Office Online in your search. If you click Yes, Excel includes these images in your search. Otherwise, Excel simply searches all of the places you specify in the Search In list before displaying the thumbnails of the search results in the Clip Art task pane.

To insert one of the thumbnails displayed in the Clip Art task pane into the current worksheet, click the thumbnail. You can also insert an image by positioning the mouse over it to display its drop-down button, clicking the drop-down button, and then choosing Insert at the top of its
drop-down menu.

When you insert a Clip Art image into the worksheet, it is automatically selected (indicated by the selection handles around its perimeter and its rotation handle at the top). To de-select the Clip Art image and set it in the worksheet, click anywhere in the worksheet outside of the image.

When creating a text box, you may want to add an arrow to point directly to the object or part of the chart you’re referencing. To add an arrow, followthese steps:

1. Click the text box to which you want to attach the arrow in the chart or worksheet to select.

Selection handles appear around the text box and the Format tab under the Drawing Tools Contextual tab is selected on the Ribbon.

2. Click the Arrow command button in the Insert Shapes drop-down gallery at the very beginning of the Format tab.

The Arrow command button is the second from the left in the first row of shapes (with the picture of an arrow). When you click this button, it becomes selected in the palette (indicated by the new color) and the mouse pointer assumes the crosshair shape.

3. Drag the crosshair mouse pointer from the place on the text box where the end of the arrow (the one without the arrowhead) is to appear to the place where the arrow starts (and the arrowhead will appear) and release the mouse button.

As soon as you release the mouse button, Excel draws two points, one at the base of the arrow (attached to the text box) and another at the arrowhead. At the same time, the contents of the Shape Styles dropdown gallery changes to line styles.

4. Click the More button in the lower-right corner of the Shapes Styles drop-down gallery to display the thumbnails of all its line styles and then mouse over the thumbnails to see how the arrow would look in each.

As you mouse through the different line styles in this gallery, Excel draws the arrow between the two selected points in the text box using the highlighted style.

5. Click the thumbnail of the line style you want the new arrow to use in the Shape Styles gallery.

Excel then draws a new arrow using the selected shape style, which remains selected (with selection handles at the beginning and end of the arrow). You can then edit the arrow as follows:

• Move the arrow by dragging its outline into position.
• Change the length of the arrow by dragging the selection handle at the arrowhead.
• Change the direction of the arrow by pivoting the mouse pointer around a stationary selection handle.
• Change the shape of the arrowhead or the thickness of the arrow’s shaft by clicking a thumbnail on the Shape Styles drop-down gallery or clicking a new option on the Shape Fill, Shape Outline, and Shape Effects button on the Format tab of the Drawing Tools contextual tab or by opening the Format Shape dialog box (Ctrl+1) and then selecting the appropriate options on its Fill, Line, Line Style, Shadow, 3-D Format, 3-D Rotation, Picture, and Text Box tabs.
• Delete the arrow by pressing the Delete key.

Although Excel automatically embeds all new charts on the same worksheet as the data they graph (unless you create using the F11 trick), you may find it easier to customize and work with it if you move the chart to its own chart sheet in the workbook. To move an embedded chart to its own chart sheet in the workbook, follow these steps:

1. Click the Move Chart button on the Design tab under the Chart Tools Contextual tab to open the Move Chart dialog box.

If the Chart Tools Contextual tab doesn’t appear at the end of your Ribbon, click anywhere on the new chart to select the chart and make this tab appear.

2. Click the New Sheet option button in the Move Chart dialog box.

3. (Optional) Rename the generic Chart1 sheet name in the accompanying text box by entering a more descriptive name.

4. Click OK to close the Move Chart dialog box and open the new chart sheet with your pivot chart.

If, after customizing the chart on its own sheet, you decide you want the finished chart to appear on the same worksheet as the data it represents, click the Move Chart button on the Design tab again and this time click the Object In option button and then select the name of the worksheet in its associated drop-down list box before you click OK.

If you opt to share folders across a network under Ubuntu you’ll find they’re protected with your username and password, which you might not want to share with others. The Shared Folders dialog box allows you to setup guest access but, at the time of writing, this had a serious
bug that rendered it unusable.

The bug with guest access on shared folders (on an Ubuntu 8.04.1 installation) is that files added to the folder by other users are owned by user “nobody”, and the Ubuntu user whose shared folder it is only has read access. To change the ownership and permissions you will need to use admin powers at the command-prompt each time a file is placed there.

Below is described a method of securely, painlessly and easily sharing files with colleagues or other computers in your house across the network, regardless of whether they run Ubuntu, Windows or Mac OS X.

It involves creating a dummy guest account solely for the purpose of hosting the shared files and folders. Note that these instructions were written using Ubuntu 8.04.1 Hardy Heron:

1) Use Synaptic to install the samba and libpam-smbpass packages. These are the background programs that are needed for filesharing and user authentication.

2) Create a guest account. You’ll use this for hosting the shared folder(s), and the other computers will use its login details to access the shared folder. To create the account, click System → Administration → Users and Groups. Click Unlock and then the Add User button. Give the new user the username guest and give it a simple password in the User Password field that you’ll be able to share with others. Leave the other text fields as they are. Click the User Privileges tab and check Share Files with the Local Network.

3) Log out of your account and into your new guest account. Create the folder(s) you want to be used for sharing (it doesn’t matter where - you might as well create it on the desktop; nor does it matter what name you give it).

Then right-click it and select Sharing Options. Click Share This Folder and type a share name in the relevant text box (you might see error messages while doing this but don’t worry, it appears the dialog box is a little buggy). Check Allow Other People to Write in This Folder but don’t check Guest access!

Then click Create Share. You’ll be prompted to add permissions automatically, so click to do so. Right-click any other folders you wish to share and repeat this step, and then log out and log back into your main user account. Note that there is no need to leave the account logged in - its shared folders are available to everybody even if the account is logged out.

4) Now you must create a permanent launcher in your regular account for the new shared folder so you can access it in future. Right-click the desktop and select Create Launcher. In the Name field of the dialog that appears, enter some memorable label, like Shared Folder.

In the command field, type nautilus smb://localhost. Leave the Comment field empty, and then click OK. Double-click the new launcher and you should see the shared folder(s). Double-click the shared folder and, in the dialog that appears, enter guest in the Username field, and the password you created in the relevant text field. Then check Remember Forever. You should now have access to your shared folder. A useful tip is to hit Ctrl + d to create a Nautilus
bookmark. In future you can simply select this bookmark, on the Bookmarks menu, to access the shared folder.

5) Other computers should now see your shared folder appear in My Network Places, just like any other Windows computer with shared files. They should use the username guest and the password you created earlier. Don’t click the “guest access” option - specify guest as the username.

There should never be any need to directly login to the dummy guest account in future, unless you specifically want to create new shared folders.

Several of my computers sometimes mysteriously lose minutes when switched off, so that the time they display slowly becomes more and more behind. Luckily I have Ubuntu installed. This can periodically synchronize with the main Ubuntu time server, and thus never let the computers get out of step with the rest of the world.

To set this up, use Synaptic to install the ntp package. Once the package is installed, restart your computer. Configuration is automatic.

If, after rebooting, you find that the time display is still wrong, it’s likely that you have Ubuntu setup for the wrong time zone. To fix this, rightclick the time/date display at the top right of the Ubuntu desktop and select Adjust date and time. Then click the Unlock button in the window
that appears. Then click the Time Zone button, and click the nearest city to you on the map that appears. Once done, click Close. The changes will take effect immediately.

Both the color scheme and font of GNOME Terminal can be tweaked. This can be a good way of improving legibility and also the amount of space GNOME Terminal hogs on-screen, because a smaller font size makes the window smaller too.

To change the font click Edit → Current Profile and remove the check from Use the system fixed width font. Then click the Font dropdown list, and select either a different font, or perhaps just a smaller point size (I find 8pt is best).

Not all fonts are suitable for use in GNOME Terminal - generally speaking, it works best with Courier or Mono-style non-proportional fonts, although a handful of proportional fonts suffice too. For the ultimate in small but still legible fonts, try selecting Bitstream Vera Sans Mono 8pt. Also consider installing the ttf-inconsolata package - this provides a high-quality monospace font for use at small point sizes. Once it’s installed, close any open GNOME Terminal windows and then follow the instructions above to change font and select the Inconsolata entry in the list.

To change the color scheme, click Edit → Current Profile and select the Colors tab. Then remove the check from Use colors from system theme and select a replacement from the Built-in schemes dropdown list. For a retro feel, try the Green on Black scheme. The Palette dropdown refers to how items in things like file listings are colored. Generally speaking there’s no need to change this.

If you want to really save screen space, click Edit → Current Profile and remove the check from Show menubar by default in new terminals. This will then hide the menus in any new terminal windows you open. To get it back temporarily, right-click on the terminal window and select Show Menubar from the menu.

Although Excel automatically creates all new pivot charts on the same worksheet as the pivot table, you may find it easier to customize and work with it if you move the chart to its own chart sheet in the workbook.

To move a new pivot chart to its own chart sheet in the workbook, you follow these steps:

1) Click the Design tab under the Pivot Chart Tools Contextual tab to bring its tools to the Ribbon.
If the PivotChart Tools contextual tab doesn’t appear at the end of your Ribbon, click anywhere on the new pivot chart to make this tab reappear.

2) Click the Move Chart button, the sole selection in the Location group at the far right of the Design tab. Excel opens a Move Chart dialog box.

3) Click the New Sheet option button in the Move Chart dialog box.

4) (Optional) Rename the generic Chart1 sheet name in the accompanying text box by entering a more descriptive name there.

5) Click OK to close the Move Chart dialog box and open the new chart sheet with your pivot chart.

After creating a pivot table, you can create a pivot chart to display its summary values graphically in literally two really simple steps:

1) Click the Pivot Chart command button in the Tools group on the Options under the Pivot Table Tools Contextual tab to open the Create Chart dialog box.
Remember that the Pivot Table Tools contextual tab with its two tabs - Options and Design - automatically appears whenever you click any cell in an existing pivot table.

2) Click the thumbnail of the type of chart you want to create in the Create Chart dialog box and then click OK.

As soon you click OK after selecting the chart type, Excel displays three things in the same worksheet as the pivot table:

Pivot chart using the type of chart you selected that you can move and resize as needed (officially known as an embedded chart.

Pivot Chart Filter Pane containing three drop-down lists - Axis Fields (Categories), Legend Fields (Series), and Report Filter - along with a Values field at the very bottom listing the name of the field whose values are summarized in the chart

Pivot Chart Tools contextual tab divided into four tabs - Design, Layout, Format, and Analyze - each with its own set of buttons for customizing and refining the pivot chart

To modify the fields used in your pivot table, first you display the Field list by following these steps:

1) Click any of the pivot table’s cells.
Excel adds the PivotTable Tools contextual tab with the Options and Design tabs to the Ribbon.

2) Click the Options tab under the PivotTable Tools Contextual tab to display its buttons on the Ribbon.

3) Click the Field List button in Show/Hide group.
Excel displays the Pivot Table Field List task pane, showing the fields that are currently used in the pivot table as well as to which areas they’re currently assigned.

After displaying the Field List task pane, you can make any of the following modifications to the table’s fields:

To remove a field, drag its field name out of any of its drop zones (Report Filter, Column Labels, Row Labels, and Values) and, when the mouse pointer changes to an x, release the mouse button or click its check box in the Choose Fields to Add list to remove its check mark.

To move an existing field to a new place in the table, drag its field name from its current drop zone to a new zone (Report Filter, Column Labels, Row Labels, or Values) at the bottom of the task pane.

To add a field to the table, drag its field name from the Choose Fields to Add list and drop the field in the desired drop zone (Report Filter, Column Labels, Row Labels, or Values) - note that all you want to do is add a field to the pivot table as an additional Row Labels field, you can also do this by simply clicking the field’s check box in Choose Fields to Add list to add a check mark.

Creating a pivot table has never been as easy as it is in Excel 2007: simply open the worksheet that contains the data list you want summarized by the pivot table, position the cell cursor somewhere in the cells of this list, and then click the Pivot Table command button on the Ribbon’s Insert tab or press Alt+NVT.

Excel then opens the Create Pivot Table dialog box, while at the same time selecting all the data in the list containing the cell cursor indicated by a marquee around the cell range. You can then adjust the cell range in the Table/Range text box under the Select a Table or Range option button, if the marquee does not include all the data to be summarized in the pivot table.

By default, Excel builds the new pivot table on a new worksheet it adds to the workbook. If, however, you want the pivot table to appear on the same worksheet, click the Existing Worksheet option button and then indicate the location of the first cell of the new table in the Location text box. (Just be sure that this new pivot table isn’t going to overlap any existing tables of data).

If the data source for your pivot table is an external database table created with a separate database management program such as Access, you need to click the Use an External Data Source option button, then click the Choose Connection button and then click the name of the connection in the Existing Connections dialog box.

After you indicate the source and location for the new pivot table in the Create Pivot Table dialog box and click its OK button, the program adds a blank grid for the new table and displays a Pivot Table Field List task pane on the right side of the Worksheet area. This Field List task pane
is divided into two areas: the Choose Fields to Add to Report list box with the names of all the fields in the data list you selected as the source of the table preceded by an empty check box at the top and an area divided into four drop zones (Report Filter, Column Labels, Row Labels, and Values) at the bottom.

To complete the new pivot table, all you have to do is assign the fields in the Pivot Table Field List task pane to the various parts of the table. You do this by dragging a field name from the Choose Fields to Add to Report list box and dropping it in one of the four areas below called drop zones:

Report Filter
This area contains the fields that enable you to page through the data summaries shown in the actual pivot table by filtering out sets of data - they act as the filters for the report. So, for example, if you designate the Year Field from a data list as a Report Filter, you can display data summaries in the pivot table for individual years or for all years represented in the data list.

Column Labels
This area contains the fields that determine the arrangement of data shown in the columns of the pivot table.

RowLabels
This area contains the fields that determine the arrangement of data shown in the rows of the pivot table.

Values
This area contains the fields that determine which data are presented in the cells of the pivot table - they are the values that are summarized in its last column (totaled by default).

As soon as you create a new pivot table (or select the cell of an existing table in a worksheet), Excel selects Options tab of the Pivot Table Tools contextual tab that it automatically adds to the Ribbon. Among the many groups on this tab, you find the Show/Hide group that contains the
following useful command buttons:

Field List to hide and redisplay the Pivot Table Field List task pane on the right side of the Worksheet area

+/- Buttons to hide and redisplay the expand (+) and collapse (-) buttons in front of particular Column Fields or Row Fields that enable you to temporarily remove and then redisplay their particular summarized values in the pivot table

Field Headers to hide and redisplay the fields assigned to the Column Labels and Row Labels in the pivot table.

In some situations, you need to move a particular worksheet or copy it from one workbook to another. To move or copy worksheets between workbooks, follow these steps:

1) Open both the workbook with the worksheet(s) that you want to move or copy and the workbook that is to contain the moved or copied worksheet(s).
Click Office Button → Open or press Ctrl+O to open both the workbooks.

2) Select the workbook that contains the worksheet(s) that you want to move or copy.
To select the workbook with the sheet(s) to be moved or copied, click its button on the Windows Vista or XP taskbar.

3) Select the worksheet(s) that you want to move or copy.
To select a single worksheet, click its sheet tab. To select a group of neighboring sheets, click the first tab and then hold down Shift while you click the last tab. To select various nonadjacent sheets, click the first tab and then hold down Ctrl while you click each of the other sheet tabs.

4) Right-click its sheet tab and then click Move or Copy on its shortcut menu.
Excel opens up the Move or Copy dialog box in which you indicate whether you want to move or copy the selected sheet(s) and where to move or copy them.

5) In the To Book drop-down list box, select the name of the workbook to which you want to copy or move the worksheets.
If you want to move or copy the selected worksheet(s) to a new workbook rather than to an existing one that you have open, select the (new book) option that appears at the very top of the To Book pop-up list

6) In the Before Sheet list box, select the name of the sheet that the worksheet(s) you’re about to move or copy should precede. If you want the sheet(s) that you’re moving or copying to appear at the end of the workbook, choose the (move to end) option.

7) Select the Create a Copy check box to copy the selected worksheet(s) to the designated workbook (rather than move them)

8) Click OK or press Enter to complete the move or copy operation.

Drag and Drop method

If you prefer a more direct approach, you can move or copy sheets between open workbooks by dragging their sheet tabs from one workbook window to another. Note that this method works with a bunch of sheets as well as with a single sheet; just be sure that you select all their sheet tabs before you begin the drag-and-drop procedure.

To drag a worksheet from one workbook to another, you must open both workbooks. Click the Arrange All command button on the View tab or press Alt+WA and then select an arrangement (such as Horizontal or Vertical to put the workbook windows either on top of each other or side by side). Before you close the Arrange Windows dialog box, be sure that the Windows of Active Workbook check box is not selected, that is, does not contain a check mark.

After arranging the workbook windows, drag the worksheet tab from one workbook to another. If you want to copy rather than move the worksheet, hold down the Ctrl key while you drag the sheet icon(s).

To locate the worksheet in the new workbook, position the downward-pointing triangle that moves with the sheet icon in front of the worksheet tab where you want to insert it; then release the mouse button.

This drag-and-drop operation is one of those that you can’t reverse by using Excel’s Undo feature. This means that if you drop the sheet in the wrong workbook, you’ll have to go get the wayward sheet yourself and drag it back and drop it into the place where it once belonged!

If you’ve got a notebook computer, you might be used to edge scroll on the touchpad when running Windows. This is where the right-hand edge of the notebook’s touchpad is used as a virtual scrollbar - by running a finger up and down, the currently active window scrolls up and down correspondingly.

You might already have realized that you can activate the edge scroll functionality in Ubuntu using the Touchpad tab of System → Preferences → Mouse.

The problem I had was that the scrolling was just too fast. A light touch on the pad caused the webpage or file listing to fly up or down the screen.

The solution was to add a line to the xorg.conf configuration file, as follows:

1) Open the Xorg configuration file into Gedit:

$ gksu gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

2) Look for the two lines that read:

Section “InputDevice”
Driver “synaptics”

Then, beneath all the lines that begin Option, add a new line as follows:

Option “VertScrollDelta” “50”

You can align the words with the other entries in the list if you want, although this doesn’t matter.

3) Save the file, close any open programs, and hit Ctrl + Alt + Backspace to restart the X server. Login again as usual and the changes should be instantly visible.

If the scrolling is now too slow, try changing the value of “VertScrollData” to 25, or perhaps even less - the lower the value, the more sensitive the edge scroll becomes.

To make Firefox scroll fewer lines as you drag and scroll, start Firefox and type about:config into the URL bar. Agree to carry on despite the warning about voiding a possibly warranty.

Then, in the search bar, type

mousewheel.withnokey.sysnumlines.

In the list of results, double-click the entry so that it reads false, and turns bold. This try the new scroll speed by opening a new tab and browsing to a website.

Most fonts contain within them “hints” laid down by their designer about how they should look on-screen. However, Ubuntu ignores them and uses a system called autohinting, which improvises the hints based on the shape of the letters.

It works well, and Ubuntu’s fonts look far from ugly, but you might also want to try bytecode hinting. This uses the hinting built into the fonts and is said to work particularly well with Microsoft fonts.

To activate bytecode hinting, open a terminal window and type the following:

$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config

Using the cursor keys, select Native from the menu and then hit Enter. On the next screen you’ll be asked if you want to activate subpixel rendering. This is good for TFT screens, so make the choice (or just select Automatic).

Next you’ll be asked if you want to activate bitmap fonts, which are non-true type fonts good for use at low point levels. There’s no harm in using them, so select yes.

The program will quit when it’s finished. Once that’s happened, type the following to write the changes to the system and update files:

$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig
$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure defoma

Click System → Quit → Logout, and then log back in again. The difference should be noticeable immediately. Letters will appear more rounded and the antialiasing will appear better.

Bytecode hinting isn’t to everybody’’ taste. If you don’t like it, just repeat the steps and enable autohinting again.

Sometimes if you’re trying to help somebody fix a problem you’ll have to tell them how to install software. Yet for some Ubuntu newbies even this can be confusing. The solution is to create a “software install” hyperlink within a web page (such as a forum posting), new email window or Pidgin message window.

To do this, simply click the “create link” button on the webpage or within the email (the precise name of this will vary depending on the software/website used) and then type apt:packagename in the URL field, replacing packagename with the precise name of the package as listed in Synaptic.

For example, let’s say you want to tell somebody how to install the thunar package, as. If you’ve creating an email with the instructions, ensure the new mail uses HTML (ensure HTML is checked on the Format menu) and then click Insert > Link.

In the URL field, delete what’s there and type apt:thunar. Don’t worry about the Description field - leave it with the default contents that will probably mirror what’s in the URL field. Then click the Close.

Note that there’s a slight bug in Evolution that means, for some reason, the hyperlink won’t actually appear as a link until you type some more into the new mail window, or click the Send button.

Perhaps it goes without saying that should you ever receive such a link in an email, or see one on a website, you should be very wary (especially if there are also additional instructions telling you to add a new software repository).

It would be very easy to disguise a malicious link as something seemingly benign, although you will always be prompted to confirm the choice of software before installation.

The sheet names that Excel comes up with for the tabs in a workbook (Sheet1 through Sheet3) are, to put it mildly, not very original - and are certainly not descriptive of their function in life!

Luckily, you can easily rename a worksheet tab to whatever helps you remember what you put on the worksheet (provided that this descriptive name is no longer than 31 characters).

To rename a worksheet tab, just follow these steps:

1) Double-click the sheet tab or right-click the sheet tab and then click Rename on its shortcut menu. The current name on the sheet tab appears selected.

2) Replace the current name on the sheet tab by typing in the new sheet name.

3) Press Enter. Excel displays the new sheet name on its tab at the bottom of the workbook
window.

Locking workbooks in Excel is a great way to prevent yourself of breaking the whole thing when you are not suppose to touch it. Protect yourself from such actions by locking the whole thing.

1) Click the Protect Workbook command button in the Changes group on the Ribbon’’ Review tab and then click Protect Structure and Windows option on its drop-down menu or press Alt+RPWW.

Excel opens the Protect Structure and Windows dialog box, where the Structure check box is selected and the Windows check box is not selected. With the Structure check box selected, Excel won’t let you mess around with the sheets in the workbook (by deleting them or rearranging them). If you want to protect any windows that you set up, you need to select the Windows check box as well.

2) To assign a password that must be supplied before you can remove the protection from the worksheet, type the password in the Password (optional) text box.

3) Click OK or press Enter.

If you type a password in the Password (optional) text box, Excel opens the Confirm Password dialog box. Re-enter the password in the Reenter Password to Proceed text box exactly as you type it into the Password (optional) text box in the Protect Sheet dialog box, and then click OK or press Enter.

Selecting the Protect Sheet command makes it impossible to make further changes to the contents of any of the locked cells in that worksheet except for those options that you specifically exempt in the Allow All Users of This Worksheet To list box. Selecting the Protect Workbook command makes it impossible to make further changes to the layout of the worksheets in that workbook.

Excel displays an alert dialog box with the following message when you try to edit or replace an entry in a locked cell:

The cell or chart you are trying to change is protected and therefore read-only.
To modify a protected cell or chart, first remove protection using the Unprotect Sheet command (Review tab, Changes group). You may be prompted for a password.

Usually, your intention in protecting a worksheet or an entire workbook is not to prevent all changes but to prevent changes in certain areas of the worksheet. For example, in a budget worksheet, you may want to protect all the cells that contain headings and formulas but allow changes in all the cells where you enter the budgeted amounts. That way, you can’t inadvertently wipe out a title or formula in the worksheet simply by entering a value in the
wrong column or row (not an uncommon occurrence).

To leave certain cells unlocked so that you can still change them after protecting the worksheet or workbook, select all the cells as the cell selection, open the Format Cells dialog box (Ctrl+1), and then click the Locked check box on the Protection tab to remove its check mark. Then, after unlocking the cells you still want to be able to change, protect the worksheet as described earlier.

To remove protection from the current worksheet or workbook document so that you can again make changes to its cells (whether locked or unlocked), click the Unprotect Sheet or the Unprotect Workbook command button in the Changes group on the Ribbon’s Review tab (or press Alt+RPS and Alt+RPWW, respectively). If you assign a password when protecting the worksheet or workbook, you must then reproduce the password exactly as you assign it (including any case differences) in the Password text box of the Unprotect Sheet or Unprotect Workbook dialog box.

After you more or less finalize a worksheet by checking out its formulas and proofing its text, you often want to guard against any unplanned changes by protecting the document.

Each cell in the worksheet can be locked or unlocked. By default, Excel locks all the cells in a worksheet so that, when you follow these steps, Excel locks the whole thing up tighter than a drum.

1) Click the Protect Sheet command button in the Changes group on the Ribbon’s Review tab or press Alt+RPS.

Excel opens the Protect Sheet dialog box in which you select the check box options you want to be available when the protection is turned on in the worksheet. By default, Excel selects the Protect Worksheet and Contents of Locked Cells check box at the top of the Protect Sheet dialog box. In addition, the program selects both the Select Locked Cells and Select Unlocked Cells check boxes in the Allow All Users of This Worksheet To list box below.

2) (Optional) Click any of the check box options in the Allow All Users of This Worksheet To list box (such as Format Cells or Insert Columns) that you still want to be functional when the worksheet protection is operational.

3) If you want to assign a password that must be supplied before you can remove the protection from the worksheet, type the password in the Password to Unprotect Sheet text box.

4) Click OK or press Enter.
If you type a password in the Password to Unprotect Sheet text box, Excel opens the Confirm Password dialog box. Re-enter the password in the Reenter Password to Proceed text box exactly as you type it in the Password to Unprotect Sheet text box in the Protect Sheet dialog box and then click OK or press Enter.

To leave certain cells unlocked so that you can still change them after protecting the worksheet or workbook, select all the cells as the cell selection, open the Format Cells dialog box (Ctrl+1), and then click the Locked check box on the Protection tab to remove its check mark. Then, after unlocking the cells you still want to be able to change, protect the worksheet as described earlier.

To remove protection from the current worksheet or workbook document so that you can again make changes to its cells (whether locked or unlocked), click the Unprotect Sheet or the Unprotect Workbook command button in the Changes group on the Ribbon’s Review tab (or press Alt+RPS and Alt+RPWW, respectively). If you assign a password when protecting the worksheet or workbook, you must then reproduce the password exactly as you assign it (including any case differences) in the Password text box of the UnprotectSheet or Unprotect Workbook dialog box.

Certain formulas use constant values, such as a 7.5% tax rate or a 10% discount rate. If you don’t want to have to enter these constants into a cell of the worksheet in order to use the formulas, you create range names that hold their values and then use their range names in the formulas you create.

For example, to create a constant called tax_rate of 7.5%, you follow these steps:

1) Click the Define Name button on the Ribbon’s Formulas tab or press Alt+MMD to open the New Name dialog box.

2) In the New Name dialog box, type the range name (tax_rate in this example) into the Name text box.
Be sure to adhere to the cell range naming conventions when entering this new name.

3) (Optional) To have the range name defined for just the active worksheet instead of the entire workbook, click the name of the sheet on the Scope drop-down list.
Normally, you’re safer sticking with the default selection of Workbook in the Scope option so that you can use your constant in a formula on any of its sheets. Only change the scope to a particular worksheet when you’re sure that you’ll use it only in formulas on that worksheet.

4) Click in the Refers To text box after the equal to sign (=) and replace (enter) the current cell address with the constant value (7.5% in this example) or a formula that calculates the constant.

5) Click OK to close the New Name dialog box.

After you assign a constant to a range name by using this method, you can apply it to the formulas that you create in the worksheet in one of two ways:

1. Type the range name to which you assign the constant at the place in the formula where its value is required.
2. Click the Use in Formula command button on the Formulas tab (or press Alt+MS) and then click the constant’s range name on the drop-down menu that appears.

When you copy a formula that uses a range name containing a constant, its values remain unchanged in all copies of the formula that you create with the Fill handle. (In other words, range names in formulas act like absolute cell addresses in copied formulas)

Also, note that when you update the constant by changing its value in the Edit Name dialog box - opened by clicking the range name in the Name Manager dialog box (Alt+MN) and then clicking its Edit button - all of the formulas that use that constant (by referring to the range name) are automatically updated (recalculated) to reflect this change.

When you create very long documents in Word like theses, annual reports, or even books .You may need to provide a table of contents. Your readers will be glad you did. What’s more, if you did a good job of creating headers and subheads, then most of the hard work is done.

Word generates the table of contents automatically from your headers, looks up the page numbers for each heading, and formats the whole table for you. All you have to do is tell Word where you want to place the table of contents, and then choose a predesigned format that compliments your documentall of which you do in the Table of Contents group on the References tab, or in the Table of Contents dialog box.

Here’s how to insert a table of contents into your document:

1) Place the insertion point where you want to put the table of contents.

The traditional spot for a table of contents is right after the title and before the main part of the text. It’s best to put the insertion point on an empty line, so the table doesn’t interfere with any other text. If you agree, click after the title, and then press Enter.

2) Choose References Table of Contents, and then choose one of the Automatic table styles from the drop-down menu.

The Table of Contents menu gives you a few choices. You can choose from two: Automatic tables Contents and Table of Contents. Or you can choose to create your table of contents manually. If you used custom headings in your document (instead of Word’s standard Heading 1, Heading 2), you must create it manually.

When you click the style of your choice, Word automatically creates a table of contents and inserts the results in your document. To create the table, Word takes paragraphs you’ve formatted with heading styles, such as Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3.

3) Review the table of contents.

Don’t forget to inspect the table of contents that Word created. You never know when something unexpected may happen. Maybe you forgot to format a heading with a Heading style, and it doesn’t show up in the table. Or worse, some paragraph is mistakenly tagged with a heading styleoops, it’s in your table of contents.

Tip: If you’d like to reword the entries in your table of contents. Shorten overly long headings, or add some descriptive text, for example you can edit the contents directly, like any Word text. The headings in your document aren’t affected. Remember, though, that if you update the table of contents, be sure to update only the page numbers, not the entire table. Otherwise, you’ll lose any hand-entered changes.

It’s a myth to say that Ubuntu (or any Linux) needs a swap partition. This is certainly the preferred way of working, and is most efficient, but Linux can also use a single swap file located in the root partition, just like Windows or Mac OS X.

There are times when this is advantageous, such as if you’re only able to create one partition for Ubuntu (for example, Apple’s BootCamp software only allows the creation of a single non-Mac partition when dual-booting).

To create a swap file, you need to first create a dummy file of sufficient size, then format it as a swap file, and finally ensure that Ubuntu uses it at boot-up. The following steps do just that (be extremely careful entering these commands):

1) Open a terminal window and create an empty file in the root of the file system using the dd command, as follows (this creates a 1GB file—you should ideally adjust the count= figure to at least match the size of your memory, bearing in mind that there is 1,024MB in a 1GB):

$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1M count=1024

2) Now we need to format it as a swap file:

$ sudo mkswap /swapfile

3) The final step is to make Ubuntu mount it at boot, which is done by editing /etc/fstab:

$ gksu gedit /etc/fstab

Then make a new line at the bottom of the file and add the following:

/swapfile none swap sw 0 0

You can align the entries on the line under the column headings in fstab, like the other entries in the file, but it doesn’t matter so long as there is at least one space between each entry on the line. Once done, save the file and reboot your computer.

Once the computer has rebooted, you can test to see if the swapfile is being utilized by typing cat /proc/meminfo|grep Swap.

The steps above can also be used to add more swap space to a system that has an existing swap partition. You might want to do this if you’re editing extremely high-resolution photographs, for example, or working with large video files.

While Zip is the main compression file format used on most desktop computers, some people prefer to use the RAR format.

To install support for extracting files from a RAR archive, use Synaptic to search for and install unrar.

Following this, File Roller - Ubuntu’s default archive manager - will be able to extract files from RAR archives. You can also use the command from the prompt by simply typing

unrar e filename.rar

Replacing filename.rar with that which you downloaded. Note that unrar doesn’t require a dash before the e command option.

Most of the time, the stock headers and footers available on the Header buttons and Footer buttons drop-down menus are sufficient for your report printing needs. Every once in a while, however, you may want to insert information not available in these list boxes or in an arrangement Excel doesn’t offer in the readymade headers and footers.

For those times, you need to use the command buttons that appear in the Header & Footer Elements group of Design tab under the Header & Footer Tools contextual tab. These command buttons enable you to blend your own information with that generated by Excel into different sections of the custom header or footer you’re creating.

The command buttons in the Header & Footer Elements group include

• Page Number: Click this button to insert the &[Page] code that puts in the current page number.
• Number of Pages: Click this button to insert the &[Pages] code that puts in the total number of pages.
• Current Date: Click this button to insert the &[Date] code that puts in the current date.
• Current Time: Click this button to insert the &[Time] code that puts in the current time.
• File Path: Click this button to insert the &[Path]&[Filename] codes that put in the directory path along with the name of the workbook file.
• File Name: Click this button to insert the &[Filen] code that puts in the name of the workbook file.
• Sheet Name: Click this button to insert the &[Tab] code that puts in the name of the worksheet as shown on the sheet tab.
• Picture: Click this button to insert the &[Picture] code that inserts the image that you select from the Insert Picture dialog box (that shows the contents of the My Pictures folder on your computer by default).
• Format Picture: Click this button to apply the formatting that you choose from the Format Picture dialog box to the &[Picture] code that you enter with the Insert Picture button without adding any code of its own.

To use these command buttons in the Header & Footer Elements group to create a custom header or footer, follow these steps:

1) Put your worksheet into Page Layout view by clicking the Page Layout View button on the Status bar or by clicking View → Page Layout View on the Ribbon or pressing Alt+WP.

In Page Layout view, the text, Click to Add Header, appears centered in the top margin of the first page and the text, Click to Add Footer, appears centered in the bottom margin.

2) Position the mouse pointer in the top margin to create a custom header or the bottom margin to create a custom footer and then click the pointer in the left, center, or right section of the header or footer to set the insertion and left-align, center, or right-align the text.

When Excel sets the insertion point, the text, Click to Add Header and Click to Add Footer, disappears and the Design tab on the Header & Footer Tools contextual tab becomes active on the Ribbon.

3) To add program generated information to your custom header or footer (such as the filename, worksheet name, current date, and so forth) click its command button in the Header & Footer Elements group.

Excel inserts the appropriate header/footer code preceded by an ampersand (&) into the header or footer. These codes are replaced by the actual information (filename, worksheet name, graphic image, and the like) as soon as you click another section of the header or footer or finish the header or footer by clicking the mouse pointer outside of it.

4) (Optional) To add your own text to the custom header or footer, type it at the insertion point.

When joining program-generated information indicated by a header/footer code with your own text, be sure to insert the appropriate spaces and punctuation. For example, to have Excel display the Page 1 of 4 in a custom header or footer, you do the following:

1. Type the word Page and press the spacebar.
2. Click the Page Number command button and press the spacebar again.
3. Type the word of and press the spacebar a third time.
4. Click the Number of Pages command button.

This inserts Page &[Page] of &[Pages] in the custom header (or footer).

5) (Optional) To modify the font, font size, or some other font attribute of your custom header or footer, drag through its codes and text and then click the Home tab and then click appropriate command button in the Font group.

In addition to selecting a new font and font size for the custom header or footer, you can add bold, italics, underlining, and a new font color to its text with the Bold, Italic, Underline, and Font Color command buttons on the Home tab.

6) After you finish defining and formatting the codes and text for your custom header or footer, click a cell in the Worksheet area to deselect the header or footer area.

Excel replaces the header/footer codes in the custom header or footer with the actual information, while at the same time removing the Header & Footer Tools contextual tab from the Ribbon.

This custom footer blends my own text, Preliminary, with program generated sheet name and date, and time information and uses all three sections: left-aligned page information, centered Preliminary warning, and right aligned current date and time. Note the different font and bold formatting for Preliminary warning in the center section.

Excel makes it easy to copy custom cell styles that you’ve saved as part one workbook into the workbook you’re currently working on. To copy custom styles from workbook to another, follow these steps:

1) Open the workbook that needs the custom styles added to it from another existing workbook.
This can be a brand new workbook or one that you’ve opened for editing.

2) Open the workbook which has the custom styles you want to copy saved as part of it.

3) Switch back to the workbook into which you want to copy the saved custom styles.
You can do this by clicking the workbook’s button on the Windows Vista or XP taskbar or using the Flip feature by pressing Alt+Tab until you select the workbook’s thumbnail in the center of the desktop.

4) Click the Cell Styles button on the Home tab followed by Merge Styles in the Cell Styles gallery or press Alt+HY2M to open the Merge Styles dialog box.

5) Click the name of the open workbook file that contains the custom styles to copy in the Merge Styles From list box and then click OK.

After you close the Merge Styles dialog box, Excel adds all the custom styles from the designated workbook into the current workbook adding it to the Custom section of its Cell Styles gallery.

To retain the custom styles you just imported, save the current workbook (Save button on the Quick Access toolbar or Ctrl+S). Then, you can switch back to the workbook containing the original custom styles you just copied and close its file (Alt+FC).

Although you can hide worksheet columns and rows by just adjusting them out of existence, Excel does offer an easier method of hiding them, via the Hide & Unhide option on the Format button’s drop-down menu (located in the Cells group of the Home tab).

Suppose that you need to hide column B in the worksheet because it contains some irrelevant or sensitive information that you don’t want printed. To hide this column, you could follow these steps:

1) Click anywhere in column B to select the column.

2) Click the drop-down button attached to the Format button in the Cells group on the Home tab. Excel opens the Format button’s drop-down menu.

3) Click Hide & Unhide → Hide Columns on the drop-down menu.

That’s all there is to it - column B goes poof! All the information in the column disappears from the worksheet. When you hide column B, notice that the row of column letters in the frame now reads A, C, D, E, F, and so forth.

You could just as well have hidden column B by clicking its column letter on the frame with the secondary mouse button and then clicking the Hide command on the column’s shortcut menu.

Unhide columns

So now, suppose that you’ve printed the worksheet and need to make a change to one of the entries in column B. To unhide the column, follow these steps:

1) Position the mouse pointer on column letter A in the frame and drag the pointer right to select both columns A and C. You must drag from A to C to include hidden column B as part of the
column selection - don’t click while holding down the Ctrl key or you won’t get B.

2) Click the drop-down button attached to the Format button in the Cells group on the Home tab.

3) Click Hide & Unhide → Unhide Columns on the drop-down menu.

Excel brings back the hidden B column, and all three columns (A, B, and C) are selected. You can then click the mouse pointer on any cell in the worksheet to deselect the columns.

You could also unhide column B by selecting columns A and C, clicking either one of them with the secondary mouse button, and then clicking the Unhide command on the column shortcut menu.

Hiding worksheet rows

The procedure for hiding and unhiding rows of the worksheet is essentially the same as for hiding and unhiding columns. The only difference is that after selecting the rows to hide, you click Hide & Unhide → Hide Rows on the Format button’s drop-down menu and Hide & Unhide → Unhide Rows to bring them back.

Don’t forget that you can use the Hide and Unhide options on the rows shortcut menu to make selected rows disappear and then reappear in the worksheet.

In addition to varying the increment in a series created with AutoFill, you can also create your own custom series. For example, say your company has offices in the following locations and you get tired of typing out the sequence in each new spreadsheet that requires them:
- New York
- Chicago
- Atlanta
- Seattle
- San Francisco
- San Diego

After creating a custom list with these locations, you can enter the entire sequence of cities simply by entering New York in the first cell and then dragging the Fill handle to the blank cells where the rest of the companies should appear.

To create this kind of custom series, follow these steps:

1) Click Office Button → Excel Options → Popular or press Alt+FI and then click the Edit Custom Lists button in the Top Options for Working with Excel section to open the Custom Lists dialog box.
If you’ve already gone to the time and trouble of typing the custom list in a range of cells, go to Step 2. If you haven’t yet typed the series in an open worksheet, go to Step 5 instead.

2) Click inside the Import List from Cells text box and click the Minimize Dialog Box button (the one with the picture of the tiny grid to the right of the Import List from Cells text box) so that you can see your list and drag through the range of cells to select them.

3) After selecting the cells in the worksheet, click the Maximize Dialog box button.
This button automatically replaces the Minimize Dialog box button to the right of the Import List from Cells text box.

4) Then click the Import button to copy this list into the List Entries list box.
Skip to Step 7.

5) Click inside the List Entries list box and then type each entry (in the desired order), being sure to press Enter after typing each one.
When all the entries in the custom list appear in the List Entries list box in the order you want them, proceed to Step 7.

6) Click the Add button to add the list of entries to the Custom lists box.
Finish creating all the custom lists you need, using the preceding steps. When you are done, move on to Step 7.

7) Click OK twice, the first time to close the Custom Lists dialog box and the second to close the Excel Options dialog box and return to the current worksheet in the active workbook.

After adding a custom list to Excel, from then on you need only enter the first entry in a cell and then use the fill handle to extend it to the cells below or to the right.

Excel offers a wide variety of keystrokes for moving the cell cursor to a new cell. When you use one of these keystrokes, the program automatically scrolls a new part of the worksheet into view, if this is required to move the cell pointer.

Note: In the case of those keystrokes that use arrow keys, you must either use the arrows on the cursor keypad or else have the Num Lock disengaged on the numeric keypad of your keyboard.

The keystrokes that combine the Ctrl or End key with an arrow key are among the most helpful for moving quickly from one edge to the other in large tables of cell entries or in moving from table to table in a section of the worksheet that contains many blocks of cells.

When you use Ctrl and an arrow key to move from edge to edge in a table or between tables in a worksheet, you hold down Ctrl while you press one of the four arrow keys (indicated by the + symbol in keystrokes, such as Ctrl+→).

When you use End and an arrow-key alternative, you must press and then release the End key before you press the arrow key (indicated by the comma in keystrokes, such as End, →). Pressing and releasing the End key causes the End Mode indicator to appear on the status bar. This is your sign that Excel is ready for you to press one of the four arrow keys.

Because you can keep the Ctrl key depressed as you press the different arrow keys that you need to use, the Ctrl-plus-arrow-key method provides a more fluid method for navigating blocks of cells than the End-then-arrow-key method.

You can use the Scroll Lock key to “freeze” the position of the cell pointer in the worksheet so that you can scroll new areas of the worksheet in view with keystrokes such as PgUp (Page Up) and PgDn (Page Down) without changing the cell pointer’s original position (in essence, making these keystrokes work in the same manner as the scroll bars).

After engaging Scroll Lock, when you scroll the worksheet with the keyboard, Excel does not select a new cell while it brings a new section of the worksheet into view. To “unfreeze” the cell pointer when scrolling the worksheet via the keyboard, you just press the Scroll Lock key again.

GIMP can do just about anything to an image but it can be time-consuming to fire it up just to resize an image. For ultra-quick manipulation, consider Imagemagick, a command-line image manipulation program.

It doesn’t come installed by default and you’ll need to install it via you package manager (search for and install imagemagick). Once installed, the convert command should be used with the addition of the -resize command option. For example, the following will shrink filename.bmp to half its original size:

$ convert -resize 50% filename.bmp filename_small.bmp

The following will enlarge filename.bmp to twice its original size (although there will be an obvious degradation in quality):

$ convert -resize 200% filename.bmp filename_larger.bmp

Gedit shouldn’t really be used for printing stuff out. That kind of thing is better handled by OpenOffice.org. But if you occasionally run off a quick block of text, or look at hard copy of some code, you’ll have noticed that Gedit always prints in Monospace font, even if you’ve set the screen font to something else in Edit → Preferences.

To change the printing font, fire up gconf-editor and navigate to /apps/gedit-2/preferences/print/fonts. Change the print_font_body_pango entry to read whatever you want - use Gedit’s own font selector dialog to get the font name you should enter (Edit → Preferences, click Fonts and Colors, and click the Editor Font dropdown list).

For example, to print using a sans-serif font1 at 9 point, you could type Bitsream Vera Sans 9. For a serif font, you could type Times 9. To get a preview of how the new font will look, click File → Print Preview within Gedit.

You need to use more than one field in sorting when the first field you use contains duplicate values and you want a say in how the records with duplicates are arranged. (If you don’t specify another field to sort on, Excel just puts the records in the order in which you entered them.)

The best and most common example of when you need more than one field is when sorting a large database alphabetically in last-name order.

Suppose that you have a database that contains several people with the last name Smith,
Jones, or Zastrow (as is the case when you work at Zastrow and Sons). If you specify the Last Name field as the only field to sort on (using the default ascending order), all the duplicate Smiths, Joneses, and Zastrows are placed in the order in which their records were originally entered. To better sort these duplicates, you can specify the First Name field as the second field to sort on (again using the default ascending order), making the second field the tie-breaker, so that Ian Smith’s record precedes that of Sandra Smith, and Vladimir Zastrow’s record comes after that of Mikhail Zastrow.

To sort records in a data list on multiple fields, follow these steps:

1) Position the cell cursor in one of the cells in the data list table.

2) If the Home tab on the Ribbon is selected, click Custom Sort on the Sort & Filter button’s drop-down list (Alt+HSU). If the Data tab is selected, click the Sort command button (Alt+AS).
Excel selects all the records of the database (without including the first row of field names) and opens the Sort dialog box.

3) Click the name of the field you first want the records sorted by in the Sort By drop-down list.
If you want the records arranged in descending order, remember also to click the descending sort option (Z to A, Smallest to Largest, or Oldest to Newest) Order drop-down list to the right.

4) (Optional) If the first field contains duplicates and you want to specify how the records in this field are sorted, click the Add Level button to insert another sort level. Select a second field to sort on in the Then By drop-down list and select either the ascending or descending option in its Order drop-down list to its right.

5) (Optional) If necessary, repeat Step 4, adding as many additional sort levels as required.

6) Click OK or press Enter.

Excel closes the Sort dialog box and sorts the records in the data list using the sorting fields in the order of their levels in this dialog box. If you see that you sorted the database on the wrong fields or in the wrong order, click the Undo button on Quick Access toolbar or press Ctrl+Z to immediately restore the database records to their previous order.

Ubuntu includes a software called readahead that, according to the official blurb, “allows the user to specify a set of files to be read into the page cache to accelerate first time loading of programs”.

In other words, it allows Ubuntu to cache frequently accessed files to avoid searching around for them at startup. A default readahead profile is included with Ubuntu but you can create your own, tailored to your system.

Reboot Ubuntu and, at the boot menu, ensure the usual Ubuntu entry is highlighted. Then hit “e”. This will let you temporarily edit the boot menu entry.

Use the cursor keys to move the highlight down to the second line that beings kernel and hit “e” again. Use the right arrow key to move to the end of the line and, after the words quiet and splash, add the word profile.

Then hit Enter and then “b” to boot your computer. Note that the first boot will be slow because the readahead cache will have to be rebuilt. In subsequent boots, however, you should see speed improvements.

I experienced a couple of seconds improvement by building a new readahead profile. This isn’t a dramatic increase but it was certainly worth doing.

Whenever Ubuntu boots it runs several scripts that start necessary background services. By default these are set to run one-by-one.

But if you have a processor with more than one core, such as Intel CoreDuo series or AMD Athlon X2, you can configure Ubuntu to run the scripts in parallel. This way all the cores are utilized and quite a bit of time can be saved at each boot.

To make the change, type the following to open the necessary configuration
file in Gedit:

$ gksu gedit /etc/init.d/rc

Look for the line that reads CONCURRENCY=none and change it so it reads CONCURRENCY=shell. Then save the file and reboot your computer.

Using this method I managed to shave a massive 20 seconds off my desktop PC’s usual start-up time of just under a minute.

If you dual-boot Ubuntu and Windows on your computer the boot menu appears for 10 seconds, during which you can select either Windows or Ubuntu. If you only have Ubuntu installed, a prompt appears for threeseconds telling you that you can hit a key to see the boot menu.

This delay can feasibly be reduced to one second, providing you have quick enough reactions - hitting a key during that second will cause the countdown timer to stop so you can make your choice at leisure.

Alternatively, you can configure the system so the boot menu never appears. This will deny access to the other boot menu options but if Ubuntu is the only operating system on your computer then this could be a good arrangement.

Start by opening the boot menu configuration file in Gedit:

$ gksu gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Then search for the line that reads timeout 10 and change the 10 to read either 1, for a one second countdown, or 0, to disable the boot menu completely.

Save the file and then reboot to test the settings.

I’ve nothing against a blinking cursor myself but some find it distracting. To stop Ubuntu’s block blinking, open gconf-editor and navigate to /desktop/gnome/interface and remove the check from cursor_blink. The log out and back in again. Note that Evolution appears to ignore this setting, but most other applications will now have a still cursor.

Alternatively by changing the value in cursor_blink_time, you can simply make it blink more slowly. A value of 5000 equates to fives seconds–each unit is 1ms. Be aware that a setting such as 5000 means that the cursor will be visible for five seconds at a time and then invisible for the
same length of time…

If you have an external monitor or projector that you occasionally attach to a notebook computer, you might be used to switching resolutions on a regular basis. Unlike with Windows, this isn’t just a right-click procedure - you must navigate the System → Preferences menu.

A good solution is to use Synaptic to search for and install resapplet. For some reason, although it’s officially a GNOME applet, resapplet doesn’t appear on the standard applet list. Instead, it must be configured to start at login.

To do this, click System → Preferences → Sessions, ensure the Startup Programs tab is selected, and click the Add button. In the Name and Command fields of the dialog that appears, type resapplet. Leave the Comment field blank. Then close the dialog box and log out and back in again.

The new icon will then appear besides NetworkMonitor in the notification area. Clicking it will reveal a list of possible resolutions that you can choose-from.

Incidentally, it should be possible to instantly step up and down resolutions by typing Ctrl + Alt and tapping the + / - keys on the numeric keypad. Unfortunately this doesn’t work on Ubuntu systems because of the way they graphical subsystem is configured. It may work on other Linux systems, however.