Announcements

Happy October!

I hope everyone has enjoyed the first month of school (for those of you who are affected by the annual pilgrimage back). I'd have to say that this year hasn't been too bad and so far seems to be going quickly.

*Knock, Knock*

(Yes, that was me knocking on wood…)

"Watch" This!

Ohh, look at this!

Get a FREE Monopoly Collector's Watch when you buy Monopoly (CD ROM version of course). The price? Only $14.97! The retail on this without the watch is $49.95, this is one heck of a deal!

Isn't that cool? All for $14.97! (FREE US shipping too!)

OK, I know you've probably played the monopoly board game before, but this computer game makes it a lot more fun. It's full of lively animations, fun audio effects, commentary, and game play is much easier. And naturally the graphics are great!

As for opponents, you can choose to play against the computer, other people, or even over a network. You can use the standard board, select from 10 different city themes, or even create your own board with your own pictures!

My favorite part? I like the way it automatically keeps track of money, properties, and assets. No more misplacing that $500 bill ;-)

OK, what if you like to play by your own rules? You know, maybe you only let people have a certain number of hotels, perhaps your Free Parking Jackpot is $750, or maybe you would rather collect $400.00 when you pass GO (due to inflation and all). Well, this program lets you do it - plus a lot of other rule customizations. Very cool.

That's the overview. I am really impressed with this one and I've certainly had a lot of fun "testing" it over the past several days. Again, the price is only $14.97, US Shipping is FREE, plus you'll get a FREE Monopoly watch with your purchase. Everyone around here loves these watches, so be sure to order today!

http://www.worldstart.com/store/monopoly-create-board.htm

HINT! - Note that quantities are limited on this deal - especially with the watch. If you want in on this, I recommend you stop reading the newsletter and get there now. We can't get a lot of these with watches, and once they're gone, that's it. (Remember the optical mouse?).

MS Office 101

Here's a few words of wisdom sent to me by a reader, Jim, regarding last week's Find and Replace tip.

I think it's a great way to illustrate my point of making sure that you really want to replace all occurrences of a word when you choose to click the Replace All button. See if you don't agree…

There is an apocryphal story about the pastor who had two funerals for older women -- one named Mary and the other Edith. Rather than type a whole new bulletin for each service, the pastor instructed the secretary to simply use the "replace" function. Alas, at the later service, the congregation found themselves making reference to the Virgin Edith! :-)

(Thanks Jim)

Office Tip of the Day

To Group, Ungroup Or Regroup? That Is The Question

Have you ever used several drawn items or clip art together to create one item in a document, presentation or worksheet? Maybe you've got a picture and a text box that go together. Or maybe you have a couple of AutoShapes that belong together to make your point.

Here's an AutoShape and a Text Box that we certainly wouldn't want to split up!

Whatever the case, are you tired of moving and resizing each piece, item by item? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to resize and move the objects all at once - as one object instead of many?

Grouping is the solution to your problem.

When you group, you are telling the program to treat the separate objects as one. Once they're grouped you can resize, move, copy/paste and even change fill and line colors of all objects at once.

So let's get to the grouping.

The first thing you need to do is draw or insert the objects you're working with.

Once you have all the pieces in place you need to select all elements at once. To do this hold down the Shift key while you click on each piece. You should see the grabbers appear on each piece as you click on it.

Once all pieces are selected simultaneously, we're ready to group the items together.

You have a couple of choices as to how to get to the group command. One choice is to go to the Draw menu on the Drawing Toolbar and select Group from the list.

The other way to get there is to right-click over the selected objects while still holding the Shift key. From the pop-up menu that appears, select Grouping and then select Group from the submenu.

Viola! All of the objects that were previously selected are now one group. You should only see one set of grabbers, in a large rectangle, that encompasses all the selected objects.

See the difference?

Now you're free to move, resize, copy/paste and change many attributes of all members of the group (such as fill or line color).

OK - with that said, now how do you reverse the grouping so you can edit just one item?

Pretty simple - just go back to the Draw menu on the Drawing Toolbar and select Ungroup. Or you could right-click on the group, go to the Grouping choice and select Ungroup from the pop-up menu.

Poof - all the items are now separate again.

(However, you should notice that all items are still selected so to change just one click outside the group to deselect all items. Then click on just the item you wish to change. If you don't do the deselecting step then you will change all the items anyway because they were all selected.)

If you want to quickly group the object again you can bypass the step of selecting all the items and go back to the Draw menu on the Drawing Toolbar, Regroup choice. The other option is to right-click, select Grouping from the pop-up menu and then Regroup from the sub-menu.

That's it - you're on your way. Now the only question left is the first. "To Group, Ungroup or Regroup?"

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions…