What is SmartArt?
Microsoft describes a SmartArt graphic as "a visual representation of your information that you can quickly and easily create… to effectively communicate your message or ideas."

Why do I need that?
Visuals tend to help people comprehend concepts, data or ideas much better than reading a description. SmartArt provides defined templates and layouts to help you communicate your message in a more creative manner which captures the reader's attention. This is particularly important in presentations, sales pitches or for sending reports to stakeholders in a project.

How do I use SmartArt?
Word 2010 makes it quite easy to use its templates and layouts. Use the following steps to insert a SmartArt graphic:

1. In the ribbon, choose the Insert tab
2. Locate the Illustrations group
3. Click the SmartArt command
4. In the SmartArt dialogue box, you choose the graphic you want to use
   
5. Once you have chosen a graphic, click anywhere you see [Text] and enter the text you want to put in that spot.

Note: As you type, all text size will adjust automatically

Much like when working with an inserted picture, when clicking the SmartArt graphic, you see both a Design and Format tab. If you are unsure of your graphic choice, you can choose different layouts, styles and colors for your graphic under the Design tab. With the Format tab, you can add color fills, outlines and effects to your graphic or change its positions as you would with an image.

You can use images with your SmartArt graphics as well. To do so, insert an image as discussed in our previous blog post, Microsoft Word 2010 Image Options. In the Format tab, locate the Pictures Styles group and select the Picture Layout command for a dropdown of available SmartArt graphics. Choose a graphic and you can enter text along with your image.

The SmartArt feature is great for presentations and reports and we recommend taking advantage of these features to boost your communications in creative and effective ways.

Microsoft Outlook 2010 provides the ability to be notified when someone has read an email that you sent and returns an email informing you that the recipient has read it. This can be very useful when the email is urgent, but you can even configure Outlook to request a read notification for every email if you so choose. This system is not absolutely reliable because the recipient always has the option to not send the read receipt.

Below is an animated graphic depicting an email and a read receipt that would be received from the recipient (this may take a minute to load depending on your internet speed):

There are 2 options to enable this functionality:

1. Per email – you can request a read notification only for specific emails, as needed
2. All emails – you can request that each any every email you send has a read notification request

Per email
The above animated image runs through the process of requesting read notification on a specific message (per-email basis). The steps are:

1. In the ribbon, click the Home tab and locate the New group
2. In the New group, click the New E-mail command
3. In the email, click the Options tab and locate the Tracking group
4. In the Tracking group, check the box for Request a Read Receipt

This will send the read receipt request for only this email.

All emails
You have the ability to request a read receipt on each and every outgoing email you send. To set this up, you do the following:

1. In Outlook 2010, click the File tab and select Options
2. In the Outlook Options dialogue box, click the Mail section
3. Locate the Tracking group
4. Check the box for Read receipt confirming the recipient viewed the message

Note: This setup screen also allows you to customize the options for when you receive a receipt request. The choices are to:

• always send back a read receipt
• never send a read receipt
• have Outlook ask you whether to send a read receipt for each request (default)

This may sound like it could turn a document into a giant mess, but SharePoint does have a few tricks to keep it from becoming so. Some of these useful functions are described below:

See everyone who has this document open for editing right now
When a document is managed by Sharepoint, and is opened with Office 2010, an icon displays at the bottom of the screen informing you if any other authors are currently working on the same document. By clicking this icon, you are able to view the names of the users and send a message or email to them.

Lock editing at the paragraph level
To prevent two users from making changes to the same text, this SharePoint feature will lock down the document at the paragraph level in Word, or the cell level in Excel. This means the first person to make changes is the only one who can make changes and save them for that paragraph or cell. The application also marks and displays which author is working on which paragraph or cell.

Update your section only when it’s complete
With this feature other authors cannot see your changes, nor do you see theirs, as you work. When one author completes their current edits and saves the document, all the other authors are notified that those updates are available and then they have the option to see the updates in their own copy of the document right away or wait.

Version control
Perhaps best of all, each change saves as a version in the document's version history. This way the entire team can track all changes made and revert back to older versions if necessary.

So, in the case of a three person team working on a document in Word 2010, each team member can have a specific section they are responsible for, and with coauthoring, each team member can edit their specific section at the exact same time. This eliminates multiple versions being passed back and forth reducing the chance of errors. The additional work of taking all the sections and piecing them together is completely eliminated.

While previous editions of Office included version control, Microsoft Office 2010 with SharePoint is the only version that provides the coauthoring capability.

The TriQuest Technologies team recommends taking advantage of these capabilities to help your business save time and money through improved document collaboration.

On the flip side, being logged in as a system administrator with full access makes your computer more at risk to viruses and spyware. Additionally you are more vulnerable to accidental software corruption or files/folders deletion. If your visiting niece is using your computer, and is logged in with your account, which is also a system administrator, she could easily (though unintentionally) download harmful files or delete vital directories and files.

Therefore, the recommendation of the TriQuest Team is… You should have the ability to be an administrator on your computer only when you need it, and not be an administrator on your home computer for general daily use.

We recommend that you create two user accounts. Make one of the user accounts an administrator and give it a complex password. Make the second account a standard user account and set the password to anything you want. Use the second user account as your primary account to surf the web, check e-mail, play games, etc.... Only use the administrator account when you need to install software or add new hardware. This easy step will greatly mitigate the risks of being an administrator, while still providing all the benefits.

The TriQuest Team relies on 3rd party testing and reporting organizations like www.av-comparitives.org , which measures many antivirus products on multiple categories like performance, detection, false alarm, anti-phishing. We then weed down the top aggregate products and further screen based on functionality and price. Other vendors such as www.passmark.com provide different testing samples providing you with an even more rounded pool for evaluation.

Here are some examples of products that often appear at the top of the pack year after year based on performance:

• G Data
• Norton
• AVG
• Eset
• F-Secure
• Avast!

Whereas the following products appear at the top of the pack year after year based on prevention:

• BitDefender
• Symantec
• Kaspersky
• F-Secure
• G Data

However, for home use personal preference based on your own product familiarity is also important. Ease of use often weighs higher in the decision process because a complex product can actually prevent you from configuring the right prevention for your needs.

We recommend you do some homework as you consider anti-virus protection options. Review the 3rd party testing and reporting results to help make an informed decision on which product is best for you.