Working in the IT Field has been a very exciting time for me! I have interacted with people of different caltural and professional backgrounds. The common Factor in all my interactions has been that everyone wants to be able to use the computer to the best of what it can offer. However, the funny thing is that, they all behaved differently before the PC. Some where so afraid to make mistakes, some where constantly asking the question if they will ever get better at using the PC. Some always threw complicated words at me to illustrate what they had already done, such as Advanced Spreadsheets, Intermediate Level, Graduate level and so on. No matter the name of the course, one thing is clear it is just a syllabus designed to get more money out of the unsuspecting prospects. The bottom line is! Get the Skill
I dont boast that I know everything,
but I have always tried to make it plain simple ooooo, plain simple people.
Principle No.1 Tell yourself the computer is very simple to use and you can learn to use it better (if the computer is very complicated, then the one who designed it must be a fool, cause how can one make something that is designed to help people so complicated?)
Princple No.2 Do Not be afraid to use the computer because anything you do on the computer is reversible
Principle No.3 Do not pay attention to rhetoric of Advanced or Intermediate levels talk by selfish tutors, because if you do it will cause your brain to let you believe that it is not easy. Remember the designer used his brain to create the computer. therefore, it is not beyond comprehension
- Principle No.4 You do not need to have special attributes or intellectual capabilities for you to learn how to use the computer, all you need is to be available
- Lets stop there for now and do an exercise
EXCERCISE 1.My target in this exercise are those who have very basic knowledge in using a computer and its application packages (Microsoft Office 2003, Ms Word in particular).
Supposing you want the computer to create let us say 58 pages at once in a Microsoft Word Document without you type anything or create any pages. But you want to use a function that can do that for you! What do you do? Solution Use the RAND() fuction (Formulars can also be used in a word document. Remember that). How?
Open Microsft Word document. You will see a cursor blinking to tell you the start of the document
Click and Change the font to 72 points (before you type anything on the document)Now type straight onto your word document the following formula starting with the equal (=)(the same way it is done in Excel spreadsheet) like =RAND(1,100) (with no spaces in the formular please) In the formular the number 100 is not a magic number, you can use any number, it only illustrates how many times text will be repeated. The cursor should be at the end of the closing bracket and
Press the ENTER key on the keyboard
You should now see text repeating itself on about 50 plus pages. What you have done is create pages.
Try it now and let me know the results.
I believe it is simple. Every week, We will be dealing with one aspect of computer applications. The so called "Advanced" The next post is to illustrate further how you can do formulars in a word table.
The above exercise was based on Ms Office 2003. However, it works just fine even in Office 2010. Let me hear from you. Let us build skills together. I would like to see an expert out of you bye!!
Bright Mulenga-0966725830 Zambia National Blood Transfusion Service, UTH, Lusaka.
e-mail me @:
brightmulenga@gmail.com for information and a further Chart, visit me for the next post. Dont forget to checkout our African Proverbs
