One of the very handy things about creating organization charts in Visio is that you do not need to spend hours re-arranging shapes. Visio will take care of this for you. Using the Re-layout option, Visio will arrange the shapes in the best possible way while maintaining any of your layout preferences.

To arrange organization chart shapes:

1. From the Organization Chart menu, click Re-layout.
2. Visio will automatically arranged in the best way possible, while maintaining your layout preferences.

If you have a long list of favorites, you can configure Internet Explorer to only display those favorites that you have recently used instead of displaying all of them. This is also a good way of organizing your favorites list so it is more manageable. Those favorites that you use infrequently are still available by clicking a link. In other words, they are just hidden from view until you decide to make then unhidden.

To configure this feature in Internet Explorer:

1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. From the Tools menu, click Internet Options.
3. Select the Advanced tab.
4. Scroll through the available options and place a check beside the option to Enable Personalized Favorites Menu.
5. Click OK.

Now when you open Internet Explorer and click on your Favorites menu, only those Web sites that you have recently accessed will be displayed. The remaining favorites are accessible by clicking the down arrow.

An organization chart that contains many shapes may not display on the entire page. Some shapes may stray off the drawing page. You can easily fix this using the Best Fit to Page option in Visio. By selecting this option, Visio will attempt to fit the shapes on the drawing page.

To fit organization chart shapes on a drawing page:

1. From the Organization Chart menu, click Best Fit to Page.
2. Visio will identify the best layout and spacing and arrange the shapes accordingly.

If you find that the shapes still do not fit on the drawing page, click Options from the Organization Chart menu. From the Options tab, under Shape display, decrease the Width and Height values. Click OK.

Depending on the number of individuals that appear on an organization chart, you may need to re-arrange subordinate shapes. For example, if a manager has several individuals reporting to them, you may need to display the subordinate positions two by two, instead of in a single column.

You can easily arrange subordinate shapes in a Visio organization chart using the steps listed below:

1. Select the shape at the highest level of the section of the chart you want to rearrange.
2. From Organization Chart menu, click Arrange Subordinates.
3. Click the layout style you want.
4. Click OK.

Visio will automatically arrange the subordinates according to the layout style you chose.

One of the security features included with Windows XP that you have more than likely heard about is Internet Connection Firewall or ICF. It is a built in firewall component that is designed to protect your computer from unsolicited traffic. So if your computer is connected to the Internet, it is recommended that you enable it. If you are running Service Pack 2 for Windows XP, this component will now be enabled by default.

You may want to take this one step further and monitor the type of traffic that is being discarded by your firewall. This can be done by enabling security logging using the steps outlined below.

1. Open the Control Panel.
2. Double click the Network Connections applet.
3. Right click your local area connection that is connected to the Internet and select Properties.
4. Select the Advanced tab.
5. Click the Settings button.
6. Select the Security Logging tab.
7. Place a check beside Log dropped packets.
8. Click OK.

Once you enable security logging, information is written to the pfirewall.log file that is stored in the Windows directory.

Organization charts are created to show the reporting relationship between individuals within an organization. With that said, when you add a shape to an organization chart, you will want to add the individuals name and title to the shape.

To add a name and title to an organization chart shape:

1. Select an organization chart shape, and then type the name of the person holding the position that shape represents.
2. Press ENTER, and then type the person’s title.
3. Click anywhere outside the shape.

When you create an organization chart in Visio, you can choose what types of shapes to add based on individuals’ roles. For example, the ‘Manager’ shape can represent individuals at the management level or the ‘Contractors’ shape can represent individual working for the organization on a contract basis.

Once an organization chart is created, you can change the position type of a shape. Consider an example where a contractor is hired on to fill a management level role. Instead of adding a new shape, you can easily change the ‘Contractor’ shape to a ‘Manager’ shape.

To change the position type of a shape in Visio 2003:

1. Right-click the shape, and then click Change Position Type.
2. Select a new position type.
3. Click OK.

A single Visio file can consist of multiple organization charts. For example, if your company consists of multiple units or divisions, you may want to create a separate chart for each division but keep them in a single file. If so, you may want to include page numbers for reference.

To add the page numbers to an organization chart in Visio 2003:

• From the View menu, click Header and Footer.
• Under either Header or Footer, click an arrow beside Left, Center, or Right.
• From the menu that appears, click page numbers.
• Click the Choose Font button to customize the appearance of the date.
• Click OK.

In order to improve performance and reduce the amount of time spent waiting to view Web pages, Internet Explorer stores many of the Web pages and graphics you have viewed in a folder on your hard drive. Next time you revisit a Web site, Internet Explorer can use the content stored in the Temporary Internet Files folder to display the site content, instead of retrieving them from the Web.

You can manually clear the contents of this folder in Internet Explorer by selecting Internet Options for the Tools menu. From the General tab, simply click the Delete Files button. You can also configure Internet Explorer to empty the contents of this folder when you close your browser. To do so, select the Advanced tab from the Internet Options window. Under the Security section, select the option to Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed and click OK.

As individuals join or leave an organization, you will likely need to update your organization chart to reflect the changes. Aside from adding version numbers to the name of the Visio file, another way that you can keep track of when the last changes were made is by adding the date to the organization chart.

To add the date to an organization chart in Visio 2003:

1. From the View menu, click Header and Footer.
2. Under either Header or Footer, click an arrow beside Left, Center, or Right.
3. From the menu that appears, click one of the date options: current date (short) or current date (long).
4. Click the Choose Font button to customize the appearance of the date.
5. Click OK.

Vista includes an on-screen keyboard that is built-in with the operating system. You might find this feature handy if you have impairments or if your normal keyboard is under repair. You can easily access the on-screen keyboard by clicking Start, typing OSK, and pressing Enter. A nifty little keyboard will immediately appear on your screen.

You can access this more easily by creating a shortcut to the program on your desktop. Simply right click your desktop, point to New and select Shortcut. Type in osk and click Next. Click Finish.

The on-screen keyboard runs in three different modes: clicking mode, scanning mode, and hovering mode. In clicking mode you simply click the on-screen keys. In scanning mode, you use a hot key or a switch-input device to type highlighted characters. In hovering mode, you can simply use your mouse to point to a key which is then typed. You can change the mode by selecting the Settings tab, clicking Typing Mode and choosing the mode you want to use.

A single Visio file can consist of multiple organization charts. For example, if your company is made up of multiple units or divisions, you may want to create a separate chart for each division but keep them in a single file. If so, you will likely want to add titles to each organization chart so you can easily identify them.

To add a title to an organization chart in Visio 2003:

1. From the Organization Chart Shapes stencil, drag a Title/Date shape onto the drawing page.
2. Double-click the shape, select the text “Company Name,” and then type the name of the organization or area within the organization that you are charting.
3. The date text automatically displays the day, month, and year.

There are many benefits to using Visio to create and maintain organization charts. One such benefit is the ability to compare two charts and generate a report of changes. For example, if you have two versions of the same Visio organization chart and you need to know what is different between them, you can use Visio to generate a report of the differences. Instead of flipping between charts to find differences, you can review the report.

To compare different versions of organization charts in Visio 2003:

1. Open the newer version of the organization chart.
2. From the Organization Chart menu, click Compare Organization Data.
3. In the Drawing to compare it with box, select the name of the older version, or click Browse to locate it.
4. Under Compare type, click My drawing is newer.
5. Under Report type, choose whether you want a report that shows the changes made to the drawing, or one that shows positions that were added and/or deleted.

The results of the compare will be a report listing the differences between the two charts.

Normally when you have multiple Word documents open, a button or icon is displayed for each one on your taskbar. Switching between open documents is as easy as clicking the appropriate taskbar button.

Word can be configured to display a single icon on the taskbar. Only a single icon will be displayed on the taskbar representing the active document. The nice thing about this is that it de-clutters your taskbar. However, it does make it more difficult to switch between open Word documents (you can use the Alt + Tab keystrokes).

You can configure Word 2002 to display a single Word icon using these steps:

1. Open Word.
2. From the Tools menu, click Options.
3. Click the View tab from the Options window.
4. Clear the box beside the Windows in Taskbar option.
5. Click OK to apply your changes.

I spend a large portion of my day typing in Microsoft Word. One thing I have never figured out is how to add a note in the middle of a bulleted or numbered list. Normally I would turn of the list and waste some time messing around with it. Well here is a cool little tip that can make adding a break within a list so much easier.

Instead of turning off the list, simply press Shift + Enter. Normally after you have typed in a list item you would press Enter and another bullet or number will automatically appear. To insert the break, press Shift + Enter after typing in your list item. A break will appear where you can type in your note. Then press Enter again and the numbered or bulleted list will continue. How nifty is that?

If you are looking to create an organization, Microsoft Visio is a great tool to use. Although many people use PowerPoint to create organization charts, Visio offers much more flexibility.

There are a few different ways that you can create an organization chart. You can manually create the chart using different shapes and connectors, you can use the organization chart wizard, and you can generate a chart from another data source such as an Excel spreadsheet.

To manually create an organization chart in Visio 2003:

1. From the File menu within Visio, point to New, point to Organization Chart, and click Organization Chart.
2. From Organization Chart Shapes, drag the Executive shape onto the drawing page.
3. Add a name and title to the shape by selecting the shape and typing in the name of the person in the position represented by the shape. Click anywhere outside of the shape.
4. From Organization Chart Shapes, drag a Manager shape directly onto the Executive shape to establish a reporting relationship. Add a name and title to the shape.
5. Repeat step 4 until you have added all the managers you want.
6. From Organization Chart Shapes, drag a Position shape directly onto a Manager shape to establish a reporting relationship.
7. Repeat step 6 until you have added all the necessary positions under the managers.

You should now have an organization chart created that represents your specific reporting structure. In upcoming tips, I will show you how to manipulate and change an existing organization chart.

The clock in the Vista System Tray can be configured to display the time in different formats. Some individuals may prefer or may even be required to use military time. If so, switching the time format is very simple to do.

To switch to military time in Vista:

1. Open the Control Panel and open Regional and Language Options. You can also type intl.cpl in the Start Menu Search field.
2. From the Regional and Language Options window, click the Customize this format button.
3. Click the Time tab.
4. Use the drop down arrow to change the time format to :HH:mm:ss.
5. Click OK.

The Notification Area, located in the bottom corner of your desktop, displays several icons, some of which you may never use. You can clean up the Notification Area in Vista by removing such icons.

To remove an icon from the Notification Area in Vista:

1. Right click an empty area of the notification area and click Properties.
2. The dialog box that appears allows you to show or hide the system icons.
3. Click the Customize button to show or hide non-system icons.
4. Locate the program icon you want to remove from the notification area.
5. Use the drop down arrow beside the program and click Hide.
6. Click OK.

The icon for the particular program you selected in the above steps will no longer appear in the notification area.

Disk Quotas were introduced in Windows 2000 and carried through to Vista. Disk Quotas lets administrators to limit how much disk space users’ can use on a volume that is formatted with NTFS. Disk Quota limits are based on file ownership. This means that if a User A creates a 300 Kb file, their disk use is increased by that amount. If User B takes ownership of that file, their disk usage is increased and User A’s disk usage is decreased.

You can enable this feature on an NTFS volume using the steps listed below:

1. Open My Computer.
2. Right click the volume you want to enable disk quotas and click Properties.
3. Click the Quota tab.
4. Click the Enable Quota Management option.
5. To limit the amount of disk space for new users click the Limit disk space to option.
6. Set the appropriate values for the Limit disk space to and the Set warning level to options.
7. Click OK.

If you want users to receive an “insufficient disk space” error when they exceed the disk space limit, then you also need to select the Deny Disk Space to Users Exceeding Quota Limit option.

Word includes a function that lets you convert text into table format. For example, if you have a list of words you think would be better displayed in a table format, you can tell Word to put the text into a table for you.

You need to decide how to separate the text into columns. In other words, you need to tell Word where to separate the text. This can be done using paragraphs, commas, tabs or other characters. For example, if you select commas, Word will place text in a new column or row after each comma.

To convert text into table format:

1. Select the appropriate table.
2. On the Insert tab, in the Tables group, click Table, and the click Convert Text to Table.
3. Under Separate text at, click the option for the separator characters that is in your text.
4. In the Number of columns box, check the number of columns.
5. Select any additional table options you want to use.

Word will automatically put the text into table format using the criteria you specified.