Author Archives: Steve
Disable Overtype Mode In Microsoft Word Permanently!
By default in Microsoft Word, when you hit insert key, Word jumps into overtype mode, which writes over the text at the cursor instead of inserting new characters. This drives many people insane. The fact that it is a default behaviour remains to be seen.
How to fix overtype mode:
There are two options to remedy this:
1. Go to Tools > Options > Edit > Overtype Mode
And uncheck the Overtype mode box.
OR
2. Kill the Insert Key:
1. Start Word
2. Click on the Tools menu
3. Click Customize
4. Click the Options tab
5. Click Keyboard
6. Under the Categories dropdown box, select All Commands
7. Under the Commands dropdown box, select Overtype
8. Under the Current keys downdown box, select Insert
9. Click Remove
10. Click Close until the dialog windows close.
Thanks to the guys at tech-recipes.com, where I discovered this information after years of using method 1! this guy deserves a medal!… Read more
The Golden Rule of Design: KISS
A sincere thanks goes out to my borderline insane visual communication from my latter high school years – it all started when we had to build a scale house out of paper materials, architecturally acurate to the last detail. What I failed to see was that my fantastic H shaped house had a roof that was incredibly complex, nearly making me overshoot the project deadline trying to figure out how to build a roof for the thing!
My teacher told me something thing that really stuck, and it continues to be a good way of kick starting the creative process when I find myself staring aimlessly into space.
The rule is called KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid.
The “stupid” part is a reflection of how many of us tend to act out of instinct – so many ideas are floating around that we want to do everything and anything. When a designer sits down and scribbles down how the design will work, perhaps only one person can make sense of it – can you guess who? The user is not stupid, the designer is stupid for expecting others to realise their vision.
Can you think of a top site that does not follow the rule of KISS? Look at Google’s phenomenal growth; once upon a time there was no Google Tools, Google Maps or Google Earth. Despite these tools being generally easy to use, what could be easier than the original Google search design that has barely changed in years? One logo, one search box, one submit button, and a few links at the bottom.
What the other major search engines failed / fail to notice, was that this very simple idea worked. This very simple idea kept people coming back over and over again to something that delivered … Read more
How to Market a Website Using Google Tools
Google is kicking some serious butt with their range of free tools for webmasters. Google’s tools are so much more advanced than any offerings from Microsoft or Yahoo or any of the minor players, that there is no real need to mention them at all!
Google has cleverly devised this set of tools, knowing the high probability that the website owner / marketer is probably going to use Google Adwords which coincidentally links in beautifully with the rest of the software.
The cornerstone to understanding a websites success is to measure its performance on a goal based level. For an E-Commerce site, the most important goal is usually a sale. Other sites may consider new members, contact from the visitor, number of blog comments, or even whether certain pages are viewed or not.
Enter Google Analytics: The most comprehensive, free website reporting software I have ever seen. It gives you all the basics such as number of visits, where the traffic is coming from, and traffic over time which are all standard features in the majority of web statistic programs. But the real strength of Google Analytics is the comprehensiveness of information even on the very basic levels;
- How does my traffic changed over time?
- How much traffic do I get from a certain continent, country, state or even city? And more importantly how important is this target group to my campaign?
- How long do visitors spend on my site?
- How often do visitors return to my site after the first visit?
- Visually, how do people navigate my site?
- How often do people abandon the steps to my shopping cart, instead of completing the transaction?
And so it goes on, and on, and on. Even by answering these basic questions, Google Analytics lets you drill down, compare two different time … Read more
