Are you dependant on your Smart-phone or other portable device which makes use of the 3G mobile internet? Do you long to have the same smooth Wi-Fi connection like you get at home but whilst on the move? Then this news will please you greatly.

The mobile phone operator 02 has announced plans to bring in a seamless, fast and FREE Internet Wi-Fi service for the general public, regardless of which mobile operator they are currently with.

Under the plans, 02 aims to create a Wi-Fi platform which in theory will create at least double the amount of Wi-Fi hotspots that are currently on offer through BT Openzone and the Cloud. Additionally, o2 says that it is increasing its investment in its mobile network by a quarter this year alone in order to offer users to access a whole new range of ‘smarter’ services and experiences.

According to 02’s New Business Development Director Tim Sefton, only 20% of people who have access to free public Wi-Fi currently actively use it due to barriers such as uncertainty of whether the Wi-Fi is free or not and the variable quality that is currently on offer.

Managing Director of Broadband.co.uk, Edd Dawson commented that what 02 are potentially doing is getting people off of the 3G mobile network and onto a Wi-Fi connection, which could be one of the reasons why they are bringing it in for free. It will be good for people the more Wi-Fi locations available, especially those using Smart-phones; it is much more desirable than using the 3G network.

Despite all these new Wi-Fi hotspots popping up, Mr Dawson still believes that fixed broadband services already in operation will not be affected due to the fact that people would still like to have the bandwidth to themselves whilst not on the move.

So which service would be more beneficial for you? Will you be sticking with 3G or hopping onto the Wi-Fi networks?

If you would like to look back over some of our previous articles, visit our Articles page.

 Welcome to another Microsoft Outlook Tip from us at Infero. In this tip, we will give you a run-down of several useful keyboard shortcuts whilst using Microsoft Outlook.

Ctrl + M or F9 – Send / Receive. Outlook will check all accounts for new messages and sends any that waiting in the Outbox.

CTRL + 1 – Wherever you are in Outlook, this returns you to the Mail folder. Other numbers used with the CTRL key take you to different primary folders including 2 – Calendar, 3 – Contacts, 4 – Tasks, 5 – Notes, 6 – Folder List, and 7 – Shortcuts.

CTRL + SHIFT + M – Opens a New Message window from anywhere in Outlook

CTRL + R – Reply to a message. Whether the message is opened in a separate window or just highlighted in the Mail view, this will create a reply to the message with the sender address now in the To: field.

CTRL + F – Forward a message. Whether the item is opened in a separate window or highlighted in Outlook, this will create a message ready to be addressed to a recipient.

F3 or Ctrl + E – Moves cursor to the Search Box ready to enter a search string to query the index.

Would you like more? Visit our Microsoft Outlook Tips Page.

Would you like to learn more about Outlook? Then you should book yourself on one of our Microsoft Outlook Training Courses.

With the rate of new technology being introduced increases, the so called ‘Technology divide’ between those who have access to a computer and those who don’t seems to get bigger. To try and combat this, the government has introduced a scheme called Race Online 2012.

This 12 month trial scheme aims to help the 9.2 million adults in the UK who currently have no access to the internet or a computer for one reason or another. One of the most common reasons, according to the government not to have a computer and/or an internet connection is the high prices which are associated with the technology.

This factor has led to several previous schemes to try and get people online with the last one being the ‘Home Access’ scheme which was aimed at giving pupils from poorer backgrounds free laptops. However, 8 months after it began, the government axed it.

Under the Race Online 2012 scheme, prices for a refurbished PC will start at £98 along with subsidised internet connections being made available for £9 a month. The computers will operate with open source software such as Linux and include a flat screen monitor, keyboard, mouse as well as a dedicated telephone help-line for those who need a hand with their new machine. The price will also include a warranty and delivery.

Remploy, the organisation specialising in helping disadvantaged and disabled people find work are also in charge of distributing these packages. According to research carried out by the scheme, it suggests that getting online can save people over £500 a year if they choose to pay bills and things online as well as giving them access to jobs which are only offered online.

If you are interested in our articles, please feel free to read any of our previous articles.

If you are a regular user of Microsoft Project, you will understand that each time you assign a resource to a task with a percentage below 100% Microsoft Project will show you the assigned percentage in addition to the resource name.

Seeing all this can be tiresome after a while so therefore why not hide it? That’s right, this Microsoft Project Tip will give you the steps you need to follow in order to hide the percentages, whether they are below 100% or not.

• View your Resource Sheet and type the names of each resource into the Resource Initials field.
• View the Gantt chart.
• Choose Format: Bar Styles from the Menu bar.
• Select Task.
• Click the Text tab.
• Click the drop-down arrow next to Resources and choose Resource Initials.

If you would like to read more, visit our Microsoft Project Tips page.

Want to learn more? You should book yourself on one of our Microsoft Project Training Courses.

Back in December, it was reported that a network of infected computers known as the Rustock botnet responsible for a large number of the spam emails had mysteriously halted operations after starting to wind down activity in August of last year.

However, according to security firm NetWitness, the network sprang back into operation in January of this year and doesn’t seem to have changed anything about the way it handles its spamming campaigns.

Rustock’s sudden reappearance has also been picked up by another security firm Symantec Hosted Services. According to their analysts, Rustock is responsible for 25% of all spam circulating world-wide and was expected the reach the 67 billion junk mail mark in just one day of operation after its restart.

It was also noted that before the drop in activity, Rustock was sending out spam mail relating to a group known as the Canadian Pharmacy whereas now, the spam seen now relates to a group known as Pharmacy Express. It is well known that spammers frequently attempt to lure buyers in with offers of cheap pharmaceutical products.

Whilst the 67 billion figures seems rather large, it is worthwhile to note that before Rustock started winding down its operations, it was sending out upwards of 200 billion spam messages a day worldwide.

So for now, only time will tell if the current figure will rise to similar levels and all our inboxes will be filled with spam.

Want to read previous articles? Then feel free to visit the articles section where an archive of our previous articles can be found.

Welcome to Infero’s latest Microsoft Word Tip. In this tip we will explain how you can save multiple documents all at once, saving time on saving each open document separately. This tip is designed for the 2003 version of Microsoft Office.

All you have to do in order to save all of your documents is to hold down the SHIFT key on your keyboard before going to the File menu where you will see that Word has added the ‘Save All’ command to the menu, just above the Save As command.

Click the Save All command and you will receive a message for each documents which you have open and have made changes to but haven’t saved yet. That’s all you need to do in order to give yourself the peace of mind that all of your documents are saved whilst saving you time in the long run.

Would you like more? Read more tips on our Microsoft Word Tips page.

Want to learn more about Microsoft Word? Then you should book yourself on one of our Microsoft Word Training Courses.

Do you skip a beat when you have no music to listen to? Feel cut off without a Mobile Phone?

Can you go without your daily fix of Facebook, Twitter or television? Some apparently not, at least not without experiencing withdrawal symptoms similar to those experienced by users of controlled substances or smokers trying to quit.

These findings are from an International experiment called Unplugged involving 12 universities from around the world in which volunteers couldn’t use any form of social networking website, send any texts or emails and even had to avoid television, radio and newspapers for 24 hours.

As the time progressed, the volunteers began to show symptoms which are often seen in smokers who are trying to quit and once the test was over, the volunteers likened their experience to going cold turkey on a drug addiction or going on a diet.

And the name for this condition…?

The condition has now been given the name IDD (Information Deprivation Disorder). Scientists in charge of the experiment saw both physical and psychological symptoms of withdrawal and found the factor which affected most people was the lack of music during the experiment.

If you would like to read our previous articles, visit our Articles page.

In our previous article, we showed you how you can receive a notification from Excel a number of days in advance of a task’s due date using Conditional Formatting.

In this tip, we will tell you how you can achieve the same notification; however this time it will be achieved by using the IF function in the next cell. Using this option, the cell will only display dates between the start date and 30 days after the start date.

Here are the steps to follow:

1)      Select cell next to date

2)      Insert IF function with following parameters:

(i)      in Logical_test field enter cell reference  to compare if date is greater than or equal to today’s date (C2>=TODAY());

(ii)    in Value_if_true field enter nested if to compare if date to be compared is less than today’s date plus 30 days;

(iii)   in Value_if_false enter “” or value of your choice.
Example.: =IF(C2>=TODAY(),IF(C2<=TODAY()+30,C2,”"),”")

3)      Click OK

4)      Copy formula to the rest of cells

If you would like to read some more Excel tips, visit our Microsoft Excel Tips page.

If you would like to learn more about Microsoft Excel, you should book yourself on one of our Microsoft Excel Training Courses.