Add Movie Magic to Your PowerPoint Presentations

Anybody who has used - or sat through - a PowerPoint presentation knows how easy it is to get carried away with the program's many bells and whistles. Nobody wants to look at a presentation that's packed to the gills with extraneous whooshing sounds, animated stick figures, and garishly colored charts. However, PowerPoint offers one capability you might want to take advantage of: video. Let's say you're doing a presentation for a prospective client. Along with your slides about the services you offer, you might want to include a collection of video testimonials from satisfied customers. Here's how you do it.

1. Make the video and save it in a commonly used video format such as AVI, MPEG, or WMV. This will ensure that the presentation will play successfully regardless of what kind of computer you're using to access it.
2. Save the video in the same folder as your PowerPoint presentation.
3. In the PowerPoint presentation, go to the slide where you want the video to play. If you're on PowerPoint 2003, go to the Insert menu, select Movies and Sounds, select From File, and choose the movie you want. If you're using PowerPoint 2007, you have two options. If the slide layout includes a content placeholder, click the Insert Movie button in the placeholder. Or you can also click the Movie button in the Media Clips group on the Insert tab, pictured here:

4. Whether you're using the 2003 or the 2007 version, you'll be prompted to specify whether you want the video the play automatically or only when you've manually clicked it.

And that's it!

One important thing to remember: unlike pictures or drawings, videos are not actually embedded in presentations. They're linked files. The presentation has to know where to "look" when you ask it to play the video, and if you move the video after you set up the link in the presentation, PowerPoint won't know where to find the original video. So make sure the video is stored in a logical place before you link it. The most logical place, of course, is in the same folder as the presentation itself - thus Step #2 above. Keeping all the relevant files in the same place also makes for easy copying if you need to save the presentation to CD or other media.

The fact that videos are linked, not embedded, also presents some challenges if you want to send somebody a presentation by email. The easiest thing to do is use the Package for CD feature, which can bundle up all linked files and your presentation into a single ZIP file. You can then email the ZIP file.

The Scoop on Headers and Footers in Word 2007

Many people have finally made the switch to the Vista or Windows 7 operating system, and the accompanying Office 2007 suite of popular programs like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. For those who have upgraded, one of the most frustrating things about going to Office 2007 is figuring out where all those tools that used to live under menus now live on the new toolbar named the "Office Ribbon." Take, for example, the insertion of headers and footers. You used to be able to simply go to the View menu, select Header and Footer, and instantly start working with the header and footer text. With Word 2007, header and footer editing now falls under the Insert tab, under the Header and Footer group (see image below).

You can either select from a series of pre-designed headers and footers, or you can custom design your own. To use the pre-designed ones, just click the header or footer design you want and it will be inserted on every page of your document. To customize a header or footer, click Edit Header or Edit Footer. Go to the Insert group on the Design tab, under the Header & Footer Tools tab, in order to insert text or graphics.
To make a unique header or footer for your first page, go to the first page of your document and double click the header or footer. Then, under Header & Footer Tools on the Design tab, in the Options group, select the Different First Page check box. If you don't want any header or footer on your first page, go to the first page of your document and double click the header or footer. Then, under Header & Footer Tools on the Design tab, in the Options group, select the Different First Page check box. Delete the contents of the header or footer from the First Page Header or First Page Footer area. Reminder! CMIT Solutions is holding a webinar on email archiving -- what it is, why it's important, and how it works -- this Friday, January 22, at noon Central Time. Learn how your business can structure its email services so that you can locate, recover, and ensure continuous access to email from anywhere. Go to http://cmitsolutions.com/archiving to sign up.

Email Archiving 101

In the past few years, we've seen tremendous advances that allow people to communicate more effectively -- from smartphones to collaborative workspaces to content management systems, it's easier than ever for people to record and share ideas. And yet still, if you ask someone what communication technology is absolutely essential to their business, chances are they'll say email.

Email not only serves as many companies' preferred communication tool, but also as an informal repository of institutional knowledge. And that in turn makes it vital not only to the regular flow of business, but also as a component in the legal discovery process.
Email serves as evidence in many business-related legal proceedings nowadays and can be subject to subpoena just like paper files. If your business ended up in a legal dispute, would you be able to easily access and search several years' worth of archives in order to produce evidence requested by a lawyer or judge?

That's the idea behind email archiving -- making sure that all the content contained in email communications is readily accessible and searchable. You don't need to be involved in a lawsuit to recognize what a benefit that can be. An email archive can help you track down years-old communications and documents. It can also help you start operating again, quickly, in the event of a disaster.
Learn how your business can structure its email services so that you can locate, recover, and ensure continuous access to email from anywhere. Go to http://cmitsolutions.com/archiving to sign up.

Stay Alert to the Newest Tax-Related Email Scams

Phishers and Internet scammers are always coming up with innovative new ways to separate victims from their money. One of their favorite tactics is to prey on victims' fears about taxes by posing as the IRS. It's natural to worry if you get an email from somebody purporting to be the IRS, particularly in the month of January when you're probably receiving a lot of legitimate communications from your employer and the IRS about filing. Here are a couple of tax scams that at first glance might seem official. Don't be fooled!

The "underreported income" threat. This scam features an email accusing the recipient of having underreported their income. The sender attaches what they say is a copy of their relevant page of their tax return. The "attachment" is actually an executable file that downloads a malicious file to the user's machine.

The "Making Work Pay" scam. This phishing email uses the Making Work Pay provision of last year's stimulus package to entice people into giving up their personal information. The email asks the recipient to go to a website and fill out a form so that the IRS can deposit money into their bank account. In reality, the Making Work Pay provision does not directly provide funds to taxpayers; instead, it gives wage earners a tax credit in the form of reduced withholding. This is nothing but an attempt by identity thieves to get your personal information.

The "refund" scam. This oldie but goodie promises the recipient a quick and easy tax refund if they provide their personal information and details about their financial institution. Instead of getting a tax refund, the victim risks serious damage to their credit by identity thieves.

Note that all of these scams arrive by email. Many of them will direct the victim to a web page or form that looks official and credible. Don't fall for it! The IRS never discusses official tax matters over the Internet - they use the good old-fashioned US Postal Service if they want to reach you. If you get an email that purports to be from the IRS, do not open any attachments or click on any links. Forward it to phishing@irs.gov, then delete the email from your inbox. And if you have any doubt about an email's legitimacy, you can always send it on to us at adaccordo@cmitsolutions.com to get our expert opinion.