February 15, 2008

Setting up Word 2007 for Blogging using the MetaWebLog API

In the past I’ve used Blogjet and Windows Live Writer (WLW) as blogging software clients. I prefer using blogging software clients rather than writing an article from scratch as I’m no HTML expert and once they’re setup they are fairly easy to use. They also seem to give you more control and flexibity when it comes to performing advanced functions such as picture manipulation and formatting. If you want to look at potential blogging clients you could make use of then take a look at this review and comparison of 10 different blogging clients.

Microsoft Word 2007 now allows you to use it as a blogging client and I’m looking at using it more frequently as it allows you to do fancy stuff such as tables, clipart, shapes, smartart and charts. For a good comparison of Word 2007’s blogging features with those of Windows Live Writer read this blog entry. Other useful Word 2007 blogging resources and links from Microsoft are:-

I’m also an avid user of Microsoft OneNote 2007 and you can now blog from OneNote using its integration with Word 2007. To blog a OneNote entry all you have to do is right hand click and choose the Blog This option which will then drop the entry directly into Word ready for publishing to your blog.

Word 2007 allows you to blog on the following platforms and services: -

If you don’t use any of the above blogging services then you make use of the Metaweblog or Atom API which is what I’ve had to do since I run both my blogs using ExpressionEngine. When I first started using Blogjet I penned a blog entry on Setting up Blogjet for ExpressionEngine as there are a few tricks involved especially with setting up the ftp connection to upload images. Setting up Microsoft Word 2007 for blogging is also a process of trial and error and I’ve written this entry to outline how I finally managed to setup Word 2007 for use with ExpressionEngine via the MetaWebLog API. The main steps involved are outlined below, including the setup of picture options which allow the upload of images to your ftp server.

Step 1 - Register a blog account

Open Microsoft Word 2007, click on the Office Button, then choose Publish > Blog

If you haven’t already setup a blog you will be given the option to register a blog account and will need to click on the Register Now button. In the instance where you’ve already registered a blog account Word will go directly to Step 2.

Step 2 - Manage Your Blog Accounts

Once you have reached the Manage Your Blog Accounts screen select New to setup a new blog.

Choose other for your blog provider

Choose the MetaWebLog API and enter the blog post URL. Within ExpressionEngine the Blog Post URL can be found in the modules section under the MetaWebLog API. You should also specify the username and password used to gain access to your blog.

Following completion of your new account information and successful communication with your blog (including acceptance of your username and password) the following message should be presented to you: -

Step 3 - Manage Picture Options

Should you wish to add pictures, tables, clipart, shapes, smartart and charts to your blog entries within Word then you will need to setup the Picture Options in a manner that will allow the files to uploaded to an ftp server. The first step is to click the Picture Options button seen in the New Account screen shot above and then select my own server as illustrated below.

After selecting your own server you will need to specify the details of your Upload URL and Source URL as outlined in the example below (note that certain information has been blanked out for security reasons)

Having completed these steps you will now be ready to publish your blog entries using Word. Note that at the point of publishing pictures you will be asked to specify a username and password for the ftp server.

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January 16, 2008

Richard Byrom Consulting

Last year I left my permanent job and I am now going to be contracting as an Independent Oracle Applications Consultant and Solutions Architect. I’ve formed Richard Byrom consulting and the consulting tab on my site outlines the type of services I intend to provide which can broadly be categorised into the following areas: -

Bids and Proposals
Business Consulting and Analysis
Information Technology (IT) Strategy
Solutions Architecting
Enterprise Resource Plannning (ERP) Implementations
Writing and Presenting

I’m looking forward to this particular venture and am interested to see what its like working as an Independent contractor. I also see it as an opportunity to breath some life back into my blogs. If you’re interested in my services or want to talk to me about potentially working together then please don’t hesitate to contact me.

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May 22, 2007

Take Back Your Life (TBYL) Using Microsoft Outlook

I’m currently reading a really good book entitled Take Back your Life - using Microsoft Outlook to get Organized and Stay Organized by Sally McGhee. Like most people I get a lot of e-mail and I’m looking at ways to manage my time in such a manner that I can get the chance to deal with e-mail effectively. I’m hoping that by using the techniques in this book as well as the ClearContext Information Management System (IMS) I will be able to more productive.

The book synopsis reads as follows:

Take Back your Life using Microsoft Outlook by Sally McGhee

Unrelenting e-mail. Conflicting commitments. Endless interruptions. In Take Back Your Life!, productivity expert Sally McGhee shows you how to take control and reclaim something you thought you’d lost for ever your work-life balance. Now you can benefit from Sallys popular and highly regarded corporate education programs, learning simple but powerful techniques for rebalancing your personal and professional commitments using the productivity features in Microsoft Outlook.

Learn the proven methods that will empower you to:

Clear away distractions and loose ends and focus on what’s really important to you and your business.
Take charge of your productivity using techniques and processes designed by McGhee Productivity Solutions and implemented in numerous Fortune 500 companies.
Customize and exploit the productivity features in Microsoft Outlook to help you create balance at home and on the job.

When you change your approach, you can change your results. So learn what thousands of Sallys clients worldwide have discovered about taking control of their everyday productivity and start transforming your own life today!

About the Author

A recognized thought leader and innovator in the field of productivity management. Sally McGhee has trained thousands of people in the corporate environment. She has 25 years’ experience as a consultant and an executive coach, and is the founder and managing partner of McGhee Productivity Solutions

Book Contents at a Glance:

Part One: Laying the foundation

Chapter One: Change your Approach, Change your Results

Chapter Two: What is Personal Productivity?

Chapter Three: The Three Phases for Creating an Integrated Management System

Part Two: The collecting phase

Chapter Four: Setting up your approved collecting points

Chapter Five: Clearing the mind

Part Three: The Processing and Organizing phase

Chapter Six: Introducing the Planning and Action Categories

Chapter Seven: Processing and Organizing your Task List

Chapter Eight: Setting up your reference system

Chapter Nine: Processing and Organizing your e-mail

Part Four: The Prioritizing and Planning Phase

Chapter Ten: Prioritizing and Planning

The first concept I’ve learnt about is the 4 D’s for decision making, which outline 4 possible options you have when it comes to e-mails as listed below:

Do it
Delete it
Delegate it
Defer it

Will certainly be blogging about the key concepts I come across in the book as I continue to go through it.

Tags

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April 29, 2007

Microsoft Office Home and Student Edition 2007

In addition to my recent purchase of Microsoft Outlook 2007 I have also purchased the Home and Student Edition of Office 2007. It contains the following Microsoft Office Products:

According to Microsoft the Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 is the essential software suite for home computer users that enables you to quickly and easily create great-looking documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, and organize your notes and information in one place, making it easier and more enjoyable for you to get things done. The latest version features a new streamlined user interface that exposes commonly used commands, enhanced graphics, and formatting capabilities that enable you to create high-quality documents, plus a powerful note and information organization tool, and more reliability and security with the Document Inspector tool and improved automatic document recovery. With these enhancements, Office Home and Student 2007 makes it easier and more enjoyable for you to get tasks done at home.

I primarily purchased this edition of the Office Suite because I take most of my notes using OneNote and there are some really nice features in the new version. Key new features in OneNote 2007 according to Microsoft are:

On the back of the Microsoft Office Home and Student Edition box, the following table provides a useful comparison of what products there are in each of the different Microsoft Office Suites. When I first received the software I wondered how many PC’s I could install it on and was pleased to see at the bottom of the table that it can be installed on three, which is the exact number I have at home.

One of the new features available in Word 2007 is the ability to create blog entries from within Word and then post them to your blog. Certainly this makes publishing any form of content much easier and will provide bloggers with a wider variety of publishing options. I’ve managed to get this working with my blogging software, ExpressionEngine, so I’ll be sure to write a blog entry on this in the future.

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April 27, 2007

Microsoft Office - Outlook 2007

I recently purchased Microsoft Outlook 2007 for use at home. Although there have been a lot of negative comments about its poor performance (which I noticed in the Beta version) that didn’t deter me from going ahead with the purchase since I wanted it mainly for it’s enhanced search capability, information organisation features, calendar publishing ability and integration with Microsoft OneNote 2007 and Tablet PC support.

Outlook comes in a sleak, well designed box with a shiny CD and I’m pleased to say I didn’t have many problems with the install.

The cover of the box states that Outlook allows you to Communicate with anyone and organise your information, all in one place. The back of the box highlights the following features of Outlook:

Find what you need quickly - Locate any message or Outlook information using new Instant Search - even see results as you type
View daily priorities in one place - The new to do bar brings together tasks, appointments and e-mail flagged for follow up
Create and Share Personalised calendars - Share and update calendars for work, family or personal schedules, such as travel or team sports

Occassionally, I’ll write an e-mail using the pen of my Tablet PC. Sadly, my hand writing has deteriorated a lot since I started using computers and I can actually type a lot quicker than I can write. Anyhow, the screen shot below will give you an idea of how you can use Outlook 2007 with a Tablet PC.

The Microsoft web site has the following to say about the new features in Outlook 2007

Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 provides you with a comprehensive time and information manager. Using new features such as Instant Search and the To-Do Bar, you can organize and instantly locate the information that you need. New calendar sharing capabilities, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 technology, and improved access to Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 information enable you to safely share data that is stored in Office Outlook 2007 with coworkers, friends, and family, no matter where those people are located. Office Outlook 2007 makes it easier for you to prioritize and control your time, allowing you to focus on the things that matter most.

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April 16, 2007

How we register and retain information

I sat in on a workshop recently and one of the slides had some interesting points about how we use our senses to register and retain information. It stated:

How we register information

83% by sight
11% by sound
3.5% by smell
1.5% by touch
1% by taste

How we retain information

20% of what we HEAR
30% of what we SEE
50% of what we HEAR and SEE
70% of what we DISCUSS
90% of what we MAKE and MANAGE ourselves

I’m not sure what the source of the information was but it seems to make sense and helped me understand how I could potentially learn and retain stuff better. What really interested me was how we retain 70% of what we DISCUSS, this is one of the techniques I often use when trying to learn something. When learning something new I try to tell other people about what I’ve just learnt (which might include writing a blog entry on it) to see if I’ve effectively understood what I was trying to learn.

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April 13, 2007

Vodafone Mobile Connect - 3G Broadband data card

Having spent the day attending a business meeting in London, I had the opportunity to test out a recent purchase, namely a Vodaphone 3G Broadband Data Card. I have to say I’m really impressed with the speeds one can attain using this card - I wish I had bought it sooner! I managed to access the internet at a speed of 1.8mbps from London Victoria Train station and was able to happily surf all the way on the train home. Now I should be able to blog, check e-mails or surf from anywhere in the country. I’m off to France on holiday in a months time so will be interested to see how it works from there.

According to the Vodafone site you can achieve the following with 3G broadband:

Work faster, be more productive, with broadband speeds of up to 1.4Mbps
Rely on seamless coverage with access to Vodafone’s 3G broadband, 3G and GPRS networks
Work abroad as you do at home, with coverage in over 100 countries
Work safer with security options including our simple, highly-secure SSL VPN

The 3g card I’m using is the Huawei E620, according to their site:

Speed is the passport when entering into the 3G magic world. Brand-new HUAWEI E620 data card, not only supports HSDPA packet data service with a maximum transmission rate of 1.8MBPS, but also supports EDGE packet data service with a maximum transmission rate of 236.8kbps. The functions of wireless surfing, SMS, Voice service and Email can be instantly achieved as you wish. Meanwhile, supporting multi-band with HSDPA/WCDMA/EDGE/GPRS/GSM, HUAWEI E620 bridges the communications and enables the share of enjoyment

Vodafone offers three Pricing Plans as mentioned below. I’ve opted for the Data 250 plan at this stage and will obviously upgrade if I find that it doesn’t meet my requirements. Fortunately the local Vodafone dealer in Maidstone didn’t charge me anything for the card.

Vodafone Data 250
Card Cost - £84.26
Usage limit (UK) - 250MB
Usage limit (Abroad) - N/A
Additional charge per MB (UK) - £1.00
Monthly cost - £25.00
Vodafone Data Unlimited
Card cost - £41.70
Usage limit (UK) - None
Usage limit (Abroad) - N/A
Additional charge per MB (UK) - N/A
Monthly cost - £45.00
Vodafone Data Travel
Card cost - £41.70
Usage limit (UK) - None
Usage limit (Abroad) - 100MB
Additional charge per MB (UK) - N/A
Monthly cost - £95.00

Tags

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March 16, 2007

Daniel James Byrom @ 8 Months

It’s been 8 months since our son Daniel James Byrom was born so I thought it would be appropriate to put together a short blog entry to summarise in words, photos and videos his life and our experiences during the passed 8 months. Certainly it has been a wonderful experience for both Cindy and I but also a challenging one as I’m sure it is for most parents. A couple of days ago, he cracked crawling so now he’s exploring more than ever. In general he’s a very happy baby and fortunately he hasn’t been sick that much. He now weighs 11.10 kg so he’s helping us develop really strong arms - check out his weight chart below which shows him sitting in the 98th percentile for the last 4-5 months (the dots indicate the various intervals at which he was measured and his associated weight, click the diagram to see an enlarged picture).

I’ve created the following collage or life poster using Google Picasa

A summary of photos for the past 8 months

Here’s a video summary for the past 8 months

Daniel James Byrom Cracks Crawling, gets tickled, Learns to Crawl, Plays Ball, Drives, First Christmas, Laughs. My favourite video clip to date shows Daniel getting tickled and I’ve embedded this below, just click and play.

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March 3, 2007

Jubilee Scalextric Grand Prix

Jubilee Church in Maidstone recently held a Scalextric Grand Prix. I went along and managed to win the trophy for Best Driver shown below.

It was an afternoon of good fun for all the participants and hopefully it will become a regular event. I can’t remember the last time I won a trophy so I thought it would be worthwhile documenting this moment in history Scalextrics has certainly moved along since my teenage years with the advent of digital cars and trackside equipment.

I’ve also uploaded a short video clip of a race taking place on the track.

Other video clips:

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March 3, 2007

Polar S410 Heart Rate Monitor (HRM)

I’ve owned a Polar S410 for a couple of years but never blogged about it - it’s getting a bit old and I understand its now been replaced by the RS400. Since I’ve recently started a new exercise programme I’ve been using it to record my exercise timings and related heart rate information. Once I’ve built up some interesting statistical data I’ll probably blog on the polar precision performance (PPP) software used to download, store and analyse the exercise data.

According to the HeartRateMonitor site:

The Polar S410 heart rate monitor is a great performer. Polar has built upon the old Polar S210 with the addition of computer communication via SonicLink to transfer the training data from the monitor to PC and UpLink to load the settings from PC to monitor. This gives the user the added advantage that data can be analysed with the software (supplied). The Polar S410 HRM utilises one complete exercise storage file and five header files with 99 data points in the memory. The user may also note lap information.
The user enjoys easy storage and analysis of the exercises over a long period so progress is easy to check. Advanced technology also ensures there is enough memory for storing all your exercising information. The Polar S410 may also be attached to a bike.

BASIC FUNCTIONS of Polar S410

Water resistant to 50m

Backlight

Calendar

Stopwatch

Time of day / alarm

FITNESS FEATURES of Polar S410

OwnIndex(s)™ - provides automatic intensity guidance with blinking and sounding alarm

OwnCal(s)™ - automatically determines your calorie usage

Predicted maximum heart rate

Percentage of maximum heart rate

3 Hi/Low Target Zones with audible/visual alarm

Recovery function, Heart Rate or Time based

Lap times with heart rate

Max / average heart rate of each lap

Interval training function, 30 x Time based or Heart rate based intervals. For example; 5 x Interval of 3 minutes between 150 -160 bpm with a heart rate recovery down to 120 bpm. You can also add a preset warm up and cool down session either side of the interval segment.

RECORDING / MEMORY FUNCTIONS of Polar S410

Total Exerise Time

Time in target zone (above/below/in)

Average heart rate of total training

Max heart rate of total training

Recovery heart rate/time after exercise

Up to 99 split lap memory

Lap number indicator

Lap/intermediate times with heart rate

Maximum and average heart rate of laps

Number of intervals with average HR of intervals

Exercise set (5 settings)

Date and strating time of exercise session

1 complete file (120 HR samples) and 5 summary files

PLUS PC download / upload facility via Sonic link (transfer data via soundcard and microphone, no need for a special interface)

Software requirements. Win 95 or 98 or above. 20MB of free space. Sound Card and Microphone. CD Rom

Comes complete with new, more comfortable, Polar WearLink chest transmitter with self change batteries.

The Polar S410 is certainly a great watch and has lasted me a long time. However, it doesn’t have a GPS so I’m now looking for a heart rate monitor that also has this capability. So far, it looks like the Garmin Forerunner 305 is a good bet but by the time I get around to buying a watch of this nature there may be a few more competing models on the market.

Tags

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