Software Articles

Article / Updated 08-28-2023

In Excel 2013, you can insert and delete individual cells or even ranges that don’t neatly correspond to entire rows or columns. When you do so, the surrounding cells shift. In the case of an insertion, cells move down or to the right of the area where the new cells are being inserted. In the case of a deletion, cells move up or to the left to fill in the voided space. Deleting a cell is different from clearing a cell’s content, and this becomes apparent when you start working with individual cells and ranges. When you clear the content, the cell itself remains. When you delete the cell itself, the adjacent cells shift. When shifting cells, Excel is smart enough that it tries to guess which direction you want existing content to move when you insert or delete cells. If you have content immediately to the right of a deleted cell, for example, Excel shifts it left. If you have content immediately below the deleted cell, Excel shifts it up. You can still override that, though, as needed. In the following exercise, you insert and delete cells. In the Lesson 5 Mortgage file from the preceding exercise, select A1:A6 and then choose Home→Delete. Excel guesses that you want to move the existing content to the left, and it does so. Click cell A1, and choose Home→Insert. Excel guesses that you want to move the existing content down, which is incorrect. The content in column B is off by one row, as shown in this figure. Press Ctrl+Z to undo the insertion; then from the Home tab, click the down arrow to the right of the Insert button and choose Insert Cells. The Insert dialog box opens, as shown. Select Shift Cells Right and then click OK. A new cell A1 is inserted, and the previous A1 content moves into B1. Save the changes to the workbook.

Article / Updated 08-17-2023

Word 2016 permits you to use wildcard operators in searches. A wildcard operator is a character that represents characters in a search expression. Wildcards aren't for everybody. Using them requires a certain amount of expertise, but after you know how to use them, wildcards can be invaluable in searches and macros. The following table explains the wildcard operators that you can use in searches. Click the Use Wildcards check box if you want to search using wildcards. Wildcards for Searches Operator What It Finds Example ? Any single character b?t finds bat, bet, bit, and but. * Zero or more characters t*o finds to, two, and tattoo. [xyz] A specific character, x, y, or z t[aeiou]pper finds tapper, tipper, and topper. [x-z] A range of characters, x through z [1-4]000 finds 1000, 2000, 3000, and 4000, but not 5000. [!xy] Not the specific character or characters, xy p[!io]t finds pat and pet, but not pit or pot. < Characters at the beginning of words finds information, infomaniac, and infomercial. > Characters at the end of words ese> finds these, journalese, and legalese. @@ One or more instances of the previous character sho@@t finds shot and shoot. {n} Exactly n instances of the previous character sho{2}t finds shoot but not shot. {n,} At least n instances of the previous character ^p{3,} finds three or more paragraph breaks in a row, but not a single paragraph break or two paragraph breaks in a row. {n,m} From n to m instances of the previous character 10{2,4} finds 100, 1000, and 10000, but not 10 or 100000. You can't conduct a whole-word-only search with a wildcard. For example, a search for f*s not only finds fads and fits but also all text strings that begin with f and end with s, such as for the birds. Wildcard searches can yield many, many results and are sometimes useless. To search for an asterisk (*), question mark (?), or other character that serves as a wildcard search operator, place a backslash () before it in the text box.

Article / Updated 08-14-2023

The days of sending drawings are largely gone and, just as AutoCAD provides new tools for modern design, the web gives you options for sharing your drawings. Now remember, the web is changing so quickly that it’s almost impossible to spell out exactly how everything works and what’s best for you when it comes to sharing your AutoCAD files. The following features are ones that are widely used to transfer AutoCAD files to and fro. This is known as the CYA (Cover Your bAckside) paragraph. Here, you will find certain Internet features as they are known to exist at the time this content was created, but things are subject to change without notice. There is no warranty, expressed or implied, that everything will be the same when you try to use it. For example, one function changed names four times in six years. Sending AutoCAD files via email Email and the cloud have largely replaced blueline prints and overnight delivery as the standard means of exchanging drawings. Snail mail is dead for envelopes but is otherwise rapidly growing because of online shopping. Sending and receiving AutoCAD drawing files doesn’t differ much from sending and receiving other kinds of files, except that DWG files tend to be bigger than word processing documents and spreadsheets. Consequently, you may need to invest in a faster Internet connection, and you can easily run up against email attachment size limits. You can easily forget to include all dependent files. An AutoCAD file may not be an island unto itself, but it can also require other files to go with it. It’s often not completely obvious how to plot what you receive. Solving plotting puzzles is a frequent punchline among seasoned AutoCAD users. Whenever you send DWG files, ask the recipients to open the drawings you’ve sent as soon as they receive them so that you both have more time to respond if there’s a problem. Prepare it with AutoCAD’s eTransmit Many people naively assume that an AutoCAD drawing is always contained in a single DWG file, but that’s often not the case. Each drawing file created in AutoCAD can contain references to more than a dozen other kinds of files, the most important of which are described in the following table. Thus, before you start exchanging drawings via the Internet, you need to assemble the drawings with all their dependent files. Kinds of Files That DWG Files Commonly Reference Description File Types Consequence If Missing Custom font files SHX, TTF AutoCAD substitutes another font Other drawings (xrefs) DWG, DGN, DWF, DWFx, PDF Stuff in the main drawing disappears Raster graphics files JPG, PCX, TIFF, and others Stuff in the drawing disappears Plot style tables CTB, STB Lineweights and other plotted effects don’t look right when the drawing is plotted The table above doesn’t exhaust the types of files that your DWG files might refer to. Custom plotter settings (such as custom paper sizes) may reside in PC3 or PMP files. If you use sheet sets, DST files contain information about the sheet structure. An FMP file controls some aspects of font mapping. Look up sheet sets and the FONTALT and FONTMAP system variables in the AutoCAD online help system for detailed information. Using AutoCAD’s rapid eTransmit Fortunately, AutoCAD’s ETRANSMIT command pulls together all files that the main DWG file depends on. Follow these steps to assemble a drawing with all its dependent files by using ETRANSMIT: Open the drawing on which you want to run ETRANSMIT. If the drawing is already open, save it. You have to save the file just before using ETRANSMIT. Click the Application button and choose Publish→eTransmit from the Application menu. The Create Transmittal dialog box appears. On the Files Tree tab or the Files Table tab, remove the check mark next to any file that you want ETRANSMIT not to copy with the main drawing. Unless you have assigned custom font mapping, you can omit the Acad.fmp file (in AutoCAD) or acadlt.fmp (in AutoCAD LT). Select a transmittal setup from the list. Transmittal setups contain settings that control how ETRANSMIT processes the drawings and creates the transmittal package. Click the Transmittal Setups button to create new setups or modify existing setups. The default Standard transmittal setup works fine for most purposes. In any case, you should view the settings (click the Modify button) just to see what options you can change if you need to later. If you want AutoCAD to include SHX and TTF font files, including any custom fonts that you’re using, you must turn on the Include Fonts setting in the transmittal setup. However, many custom fonts work like licensed software. Sending them to others is just like sharing your AutoCAD program installation media with others: illegal and unethical. Don’t share licensed text fonts outside your organization. Click the View Report button. You see a report listing the files that ETRANSMIT will copy, along with warnings about any files that it can’t locate. Review the report and make sure that ETRANSMIT was able to find all the files. If files are missing, find them and move or copy them to the location where ETRANSMIT expects to find them. Click OK. Specify the name and location of the transmittal package. Click Save. ETRANSMIT creates the transmittal package (which is a ZIP file by default). Zipping creates a single, tidy, compact package of all your DWG, DGN, DWF, PDF, raster image, plot style table, and font files — all ready to be emailed. FTP for you and me: Sharing your AutoCAD files File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a system for sharing files over the Internet. A computer that’s connected to the Internet can act as an FTP server, which means that part of its hard drive is accessible over the Internet. The person who configures the FTP server can place restrictions so that only people who enter a particular logon name and password can see and download files. FTP overcomes the file size limitations that often occur with email. Because of all these FTP benefits, people at larger companies commonly place drawing files on their company’s FTP sites and tell you to get the files. This approach relieves them of having to email you the files, and it relieves you of having to wait for that 19.9MB email download when you least expected it. The person making the files available to you via FTP usually sends you a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) that looks like a web page address, except that it starts with ftp:// instead of http://. Simply enter the FTP URL into the address field of your web browser and follow any instructions regarding the login name, password, filename that may appear. Increasing cloudiness: Using cloud services to swap AutoCAD files The trend these days is away from private FTP sites due to the proliferation of free or inexpensive services such as Google Drive and Dropbox. These services work on pretty much the same principle. You upload a file or files and assign access rights. The intended recipient or recipients then receive an invitation email that grants access to the specified file or files. Okay, here’s a change already. Until recently, A360 was called Autodesk 360. Subject to change … … Oops, it changed again. Bad reception? If you are on the receiving end of incoming drawings, as soon as you receive them (zipped, hopefully), copy the file to a new folder on your hard drive or a network disk and then unzip the files. Check at least a few drawings in the package to make sure that all the xrefs and other reference files, fonts, and raster image files are included. Open each main drawing in the folder, press F2 to view the AutoCAD text window, and look for missing font and xref error messages, like this example: Substituting [simplex.shx] for [helv.shx]. Resolve Xref “GRID”: C:\Here\There\Nowhere\grid.dwg Can’t find C:\Here\There\Nowhere\grid.dwg Write down each missing file and then tell the sender to get on the ball (in a nice way, of course) and send you the missing pieces. If you receive drawings with custom TrueType font files (files whose extensions are TTF), you must install those files in Windows\Fonts folder (not in one of AutoCAD’s support folders) before Windows and AutoCAD will recognize them. All you need to do is to right-click the TTF file name, and then choose Install. If you move project folders around or transfer drawings to or from somewhere else, AutoCAD may not be able to locate any raster image files and DWF/DWFx, DGN, PDF underlays and font files. The ETRANSMIT command does a good job of gathering dependent reference files, raster files, and font files, but it can’t gather what AutoCAD can’t locate. The AutoCAD Reference Manager utility (not included with AutoCAD LT) is a real lifesaver if you’re suffering from file-path perils, whether they occur in your own company or when sending files to, or receiving them from, others. Reference Manager is a separate program, not a command inside AutoCAD. Follow these steps to launch the utility from the Windows desktop: Start Reference Manager. The process depends on your version of Windows and how you have set it up. The bottom line is that Reference Manager is a separate program, so it must be started accordingly. The Reference Manager program opens. Click the Add Drawings button to add one or more DWG files to the Drawings pane on the left. Navigate to the folder that contains the drawings you want to send, select them, and then click Open. In the Reference Manager – Add Xrefs dialog box, choose Add All Xrefs Automatically Regardless of Nesting Level. The Reference Manager processes the drawings and displays all referenced objects in its right pane. Click Export Report to create a text report listing all dependent files and their paths, or click Edit Selected Paths to modify the paths of selected reference files. If you choose to modify any selected paths, click Apply Changes. When you’re finished exporting reports and repathing reference files (or finding reference files that you may never have suspected you had if you hadn’t run the Reference Manager), close the Reference Manager window. Click the Help button in the Reference Manager to find out more about the utility’s capabilities. If you always store parent and child DWG files in the same folder, which is the simplest approach to dealing with xref paths, you probably don’t need to use the Reference Manager. AutoCAD can also save files in the ubiquitous PDF (Portable Document Format) from Adobe Systems. Files can be opened, viewed, and printed from virtually any type and model of computing or communicating device. This format can be particularly useful when you want to show drawing information to people who aren’t particularly CAD literate (that is, they aren’t fellow geeks).

Article / Updated 08-14-2023

Just like in real life, you won’t always host a Zoom meeting. Sometimes you’ll participate in meetings with people from external organizations. Zoom makes it remarkably simple to join an existing meeting, whether you know the host’s PMI or the meeting’s URL. Joining a meeting using the host’s PMI Walter invites you to a meeting via email. His message includes his PMI as well as the meeting’s password. You can join his meeting by following these instructions: Launch the Zoom desktop client. On the Home screen, click on the Join icon. From the prompt, enter the host’s PMI. (Optional) Enter the meeting password. By default, Zoom began enabling passwords for all meetings starting on April 5, 2020. (You can uncheck this box to disable this option, but I recommend leaving it enabled for security purposes.) Enter your name or what you want others in the meeting to call you. (Optional) Indicate whether you want to disable your audio by selecting the appropriate checkbox. Zoom’s default option connects you to the meeting with your computer’s audio enabled. (Optional) Indicate whether you want to disable your video by clicking the radio box on the left. Zoom’s default option connects you to the meeting with your computer’s video enabled. Click on the blue Join button. (Optional) If you chose to join with your video enabled, then Zoom presents you with prompt that allows you to preview what other attendees will see, as shown. If you like what you see, then click on the blue Join with Video button; if not, then click on the white Join without Video button. Assuming that the host hasn’t enabled meeting waiting rooms, you’ll join the meeting momentarily. You’ll also have to enter a password if the meeting host required it. You have now joined the Zoom meeting. Joining a meeting via a URL Donnie invites you to a meeting by emailing you a URL. You can join him on Zoom by following these steps: Copy and paste the meeting URL into the address bar of your web browser and press the Enter key. Assuming that you installed the Zoom desktop client, your browser prompts you to open it. Click on the Open or Allow button — or the equivalent button in your web browser. Click on the blue Join button. If you like the video preview, click on the blue Join with Video button; if not, then click on the white Join without Video button. Joining via a URL eliminates the need to enter the meeting’s password because Zoom embeds the password in the link. Waiting for hosts to begin their meetings. Say that you have arrived early for James’s meeting, or he is running late. If James has turned on waiting rooms for his meeting, then you can expect to see a waiting room screen.

Article / Updated 08-14-2023

The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked devastation throughout the world; in February, 2020, companies and individuals began turning to Zoom as a way to continue conducting business meetings (from individual home environments) and to stay connected with friends and family. Even many televisions shows have adopted a Zoom format for interviewing guests. A very brief history of coronavirus In late 2019, tens of thousands of Chinese citizens mysteriously contracted a severe respiratory illness and started dying. People with heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and generally weak immune systems were particularly susceptible to contracting it. Ultimately dubbed coronavirus, the outbreak quickly escalated to nightmarish proportions and every country in the world. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization did the inevitable and declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. Since that time and as of this writing, the numbers have been nothing short of grim: According to Johns Hopkins University, more than 400,000 people have died across the globe. Nearly three million others became infected but have since recovered. Epidemiologists almost unanimously agree that a second wave is coming in the fall of 2020. When coronavirus hit the United States in earnest, it evoked images of the 1918 Spanish flu. To minimize the carnage and stress on their healthcare systems, state governments — some far more reluctantly than others — issued stay-at-home orders. COVID-19 did not just leave more than 100,000 dead bodies in its wake. It wrought psychological, social, and economic devastation as well. With respect to the latter, tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs. U.S. unemployment spiked to nearly 15 percent in April 2020. Most workplaces, parks, restaurants, schools, retail stores, and places of worship closed. Musicians postponed concerts, comedians canceled shows, and professional sports as the world knows them ceased to exist. Against this backdrop, hundreds of millions people needed to find new, virtual ways to work and, more than that, recapture some semblance of normalcy. In each case, Zoom was the most popular choice. How COVID-19 changed Zoom’s trajectory Starting in early February 2020, the company’s floodgates began to blow open. In a matter of weeks, oodles of businesses from mom-and-pop stores to large enterprises started getting Zoom religion. Examples of rapid Zoom adoption abounded during this unprecedented time. Here’s one of them. On March 19, 2020, California governor Gavin Newsom issued a stay-at-home order for his state’s citizens. As a result, thousands of California-based businesses needed to adapt to a new world — and fast. One such shop was Reeder Music Academy based in Danville, California. Within a week, the 28-employee company migrated roughly 70 percent of its classes online using — you guessed it —Meetings & Chat. Thousands of small businesses in just one state would have immediately shuttered were it not for affordable videoconferencing tools such as Zoom. And Zoom adoption quickly spread to decidedly non-corporate environments. As but one example during the height of frenzy, teachers from more than 90,000 schools across 20 countries began educating their students from their homes via Meetings & Chat. Beyond professional reasons, people needed a way to connect with their family and friends. Again, Zoom answered the bell. To say that Zoom’s user numbers exploded over a three-month period would be acme of understatement. By the end of March 2020, more than 200 million people participated in both free and paid Zoom meetings every day (Industry types refer to this number as daily active users, or DAUs.) By way of comparison, just four months earlier, Zoom had averaged approximately 10 million DAUs. The 2,000 percent increase was downright stupefying. And Zoom’s user growth didn’t stop there. During its first fiscal quarter of 2020 (ending on April 30), Zoom reported that its DAUs had climbed to 300 million — a 50 percent jump from only a month earlier. Many of those users decided to become proper customers. Company revenue in that quarter grew by an eye-popping 169 percent. Analyst Richard Valera of the asset-management firm Needham called the results “incredible.” (Read more about Zoom’s most recent financial results.) Fast-forward a few weeks. As of June 2, 2020, Zoom’s market capitalization exceeded a staggering $58 billion. If you had bought Zoom stock just a few months earlier, you’d be ecstatic. It wasn’t all puppy dogs and ice cream for Zoom, though. On the flip side, its viral consumer growth has led to some unexpected issues and a slew of bad press. For now, however, rest assured: Zoom’s management has taken its unforeseen challenges very seriously. The double-edged sword of sudden, massive growth Consider Amazon, Facebook, Google, eBay, Reddit, Uber, Airbnb, Twitter, Netflix, Craigslist, Nextdoor, and Zoom. What do they all have in common? Many things. Most important here, though, one is that their founders weren’t following tried-and-true playbooks that guaranteed success. That is, it’s not like these folks were starting Subway or McDonald’s franchises circa 2012. As such, they understandably failed to think about every possible use — and misuse — of their products and services along the way. From the onset, it’s essential to understand two things. First, Zoom is a not fundamentally insecure set of communications tools. Second, it is not a repeat privacy offender à la Facebook, Google, and Uber. Still, Zoom’s unprecedented growth unearthed some fundamental issues that its management and software engineers hadn’t considered, much less fully appreciated. You may have even heard of the most severe problem that the company has encountered to date. Zoombombing I often draw analogies and use metaphors to drive home my points, especially between Zoom communications and their brick-and-mortar counterparts. Here’s another one. Gordon is meeting with a group of Japanese investors in his office. Young buck Bud has weaseled his way into Gordon’s waiting room. (In case you’re curious, I’m referencing the 1987 film Wall Street. What can I say? I’m a cinephile.) After a while, Bud becomes impatient and storms into Gordon’s office. He starts screaming at Gordon about a high-stakes deal involving his father’s airline gone bad. Think of Zoombombing as the digital equivalent of this scenario. Unknown and unwanted intruders entered countless Zoom meetings and started bothering participants and acting inappropriately. Think of it this way: For years, one of Zoom’s most valuable features was letting people quickly meet with others all across the globe. Within a few weeks, you could argue that that feature suddenly morphed into a bug. Prior to March 2020, the term Zoombombing effectively didn’t exist. (To be fair, though, trolls have long crashed many other videoconferencing tools.) Don’t take my word for it, though. The figure displays a Google Trends graph that proves my point: Play around with Google Trends yourself. General trends are certainly informative, but by definition they mask individual stories. Tales of rampant Zoombombing pervaded local and national media precisely because Zoom exploded. For example, on April 6, 2020, the New York City Department of Education cited Zoombombing in its decision to ban its schools from using Zoom for remote learning. A few days earlier, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had issued a formal warning about criminals who were effectively hijacking classrooms across the country. A few litigious folks even filed lawsuits against Zoom. In hindsight, the advent and rise of Zoombombing stemmed from several interrelated factors. By way of background, at the end of 2019, 10 million people regularly used Zoom’s suite of communication tools. As former Bloomberg Technology cohost Cory Johnson used to say on air, “That ain’t nothing.” The vast majority of these people qualified as enterprise customers. That is, they happily used Zoom to communicate with colleagues, partners, subordinates, vendors, job applicants, and other businessfolks. Then, in late 2019, coronavirus shook the world. Despite adequate time to get ready for the inevitable, relatively few American institutions and companies were prepared for the end of normal life as they knew it. On the business front, even retail behemoths Amazon and Walmart experienced significant problems meeting customer demand. For its part, Zoom suddenly had to deal with two interrelated issues: A flurry of new users Fundamentally different types of users than those from its existing customer base There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen. — Vladimir Lenin It’s impossible to overstate the enormity of Zoom’s challenge. One day, Zoom supported 10 million people, almost all of whom were enterprise customers. A few months later, it was providing critical services to 20 times as many folks across the globe from all walks of life. Very few companies have experienced anywhere near that type of exponential increase in such a compressed period of time. The qualitative shift in Zoom’s customers and users was just as important as the quantitative one, if not more so. Enterprise tech and consumer tech are two very different types of animals, a fact that many people failed to appreciate. Unfortunately, some of Zoom’s most vocal critics disregarded this critical distinction: The communication needs of large for-profit firms dramatically differ from those of school teachers, religious organizations, and the countless other decidedly nonbusiness groups that adopted Meetings & Chat in droves. Sadly, social media and outrage culture don’t lend themselves to nuance and facts. Before detailing the specific changes that Zoom has made to date, it’s instructive to think about them in a different context. Interestingly and as an aside, Zoom’s tools held up just fine as its user base mushroomed. That is, its suite of tools experienced only a few minor hiccups. This remarkable achievement is a testament to Zoom’s modern technological underpinnings.

Article / Updated 08-14-2023

Zoom calls its impromptu virtual get-togethers Instant Meetings or Meet Now. To start a meeting, launch the Zoom desktop client. Click on the Home icon and then on the New Meeting icon. You are now hosting a live, one-person Zoom meeting, as this figure displays. Astute observers may notice several things about this figure. First, I clearly haven’t put my face on yet. Second, I love the band Rush and the 1995 crime movie The Usual Suspects. Third, in Zoom, background images appear inverted to hosts but normal to other participants. Trust me. I didn’t buy backwards posters. Fourth and most important for the purposes of this article, Zoom displays a series of icons from left to right when meetings begin, whether anyone has joined your meeting or not. The following table displays the menu icons that hosts see during their meetings. Zoom In-Meeting Menu icons Control the audio output from your computer. The arrowhead lets you tweak your computer’s microphone and speaker settings for this meeting. Let meeting participants see your visage. The arrowhead tweaks your computer’s microphone and speaker settings for this meeting. Manage your meeting’s security and privacy settings. Zoom added this new icon in April 2020 to make these features more prominent and easier to access. Determine who can do what during a meeting. For example, click here to quickly invite people to an existing meeting. Minimize the main meeting window and share your screen with meeting participants. Stop sharing at any time by clicking on the red Stop Share button that appears. You can also momentarily stop sharing by — wait for it — clicking on the Pause Share button. The arrowhead lets you invoke additional screen-sharing options. Record your meeting. You can also stop or pause recording once you’ve started recording. Add simple emojis for all other meeting attendees to see. You can host only one meeting at a time per device. How to invite others to your current meeting Unless you’ve got split personalities or imaginary friends, you’ve probably never held a meeting with yourself. Rather, you need to talk with your boss or some colleagues about an issue. Maybe you want to catch up with your friends via a virtual happy hour. (You can use Zoom socially in some neat ways.) After starting your meeting, follow these directions to invite others: Click on the Participants icon at the bottom of the screen. Click on the Invite button in the right-hand corner. Click on the Email tab at the top of the screen. In total, Zoom displays five options. The first three email-based invitation methods are: Default Email: Launches your computer’s default email client. It may be Microsoft Outlook or Mail. Gmail: Launches a Gmail window or tab in your computer’s default web browser, as shown: Yahoo Mail: Clicking here will launch a Yahoo Mail window or tab in your computer’s default web browser. After sending your email, wait for others to join. Say, however, that you don’t want to use Outlook or Gmail to invite others to your little shindig. No worries. Zoom provides two options unrelated to email: Copy Invite Link: Copies the meeting’s URL to your computer’s clipboard. Copy Invitation: Copies the words Join Zoom Meeting, the meeting URL, and the meeting identification number. If you choose one of the last two options, then you can paste the copied text into a message in Slack, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, or just about any program or app that you could imagine. You could even write it down and fax it to someone if you like. Send the message and wait for others to join your Zoom meeting. Once they do and assuming that all folks have enabled video on their end, Zoom displays something like the following. Note a few things about this image. First, the folks in the lower left-hand corner of have joined via Zoom Rooms. Second, when three or more participants join a meeting, Zoom meetings default to what it calls its Active Speaker layout. (See the upper right-hand corner.) In this mode, Zoom automatically switches the large video window based upon who is speaking. Say that your meeting consists of just two people, though. Your friend Roger and you are just catching up. In this case, from your perspective, Zoom displays your video in a small screen at the top, while Roger’s video takes a more prominent position below yours. (From his perspective, the opposite is true.) It’s even easier to hold audio and video meetings people whom you’ve already added to your Zoom directory.

Article / Updated 08-14-2023

As former president Dwight D. Eisenhower once astutely observed, “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” In the context of Zoom, convoking a spontaneous meeting makes sense in certain circumstances, especially when text-based communication just isn’t working. Taken to the extreme, though, any given person’s work life would be unmanageable and even downright chaotic if she couldn’t at least try to plan her days. To this end, Zoom makes it easy to schedule future meetings with others and to track attendee registration. What’s more, by scheduling meetings, you unlock additional features that can make your meetings more valuable for all concerned. How to schedule a Zoom meeting To schedule a meeting with an individual or group of people in advance, follow these steps: Click on the Home icon at the top of the desktop client. Click on the blue Schedule button. Zoom displays the Schedule Meeting window shown. Customize your meeting’s settings. You can change its Topic and description Date Start and end time Meeting ID Audio and video options Integration with third-party calendar tools, such as Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar Advanced options, including whether you’ve assigned any alternative hosts Selecting Generate Automatically for the Meeting ID means that Zoom will produce and distribute a unique, disposable number. In other words, you won’t be using your PMI for this meeting. When you finish, click on the blue Schedule button. You have now scheduled your meeting. Zoom displays a meeting-confirmation message with all the relevant information, such as the one shown here. From the meeting confirmation, you can perform the following actions by clicking on the related buttons: Open: Opens the calendar in your computer’s default calendar program. Close: Closes the window. Copy the invitation: Sends the meeting’s information to your clipboard. From here, you can paste it into an email or wherever you like. View your scheduled meetings by clicking on the Meetings icon at the top of the Zoom desktop client. Although you can host only one meeting at a time per device, you can schedule as many as you like in advance. Zoom also lets users schedule meetings via the web portal and through different browser extensions. How to edit your scheduled meeting Say that you’ve successfully scheduled your meeting. After thinking about it, though, you decide that you’d like to make a few changes. Sure, you can junk your meeting and wreak havoc with others’ calendars. A better way, though, involves editing your existing meeting — something that Zoom allows you to easily do by following these steps: In the Zoom web portal, under the Personal header, click on Meetings. Click on the name of the meeting that you’d like to edit. Zoom presents basic information about your scheduled meeting. Click on the white Edit this Meeting button in the lower right-hand corner of the page. Make whatever changes you like. You can change the following: Topic Date and start and end time Meeting ID Audio and video options Advanced options, including whether you have assigned any alternative hosts Click on the blue Save button. Collect participant input through polls Bruce has scheduled an upcoming meeting with members of his E Street Band. During the call, he wants to solicit everyone’s feedback. Sure, attendees will be able to both chime in and enter text-based comments in the chat window. This type of unstructured data is often valuable, but collating it is typically messy and time-consuming, especially with larger groups. Structured data is far easier to collect and analyze. To this end, A better way in many cases is to conduct a poll — one that immediately displays results. Zoom reserves polls for customers on premium plans. Enabling polling at the account level To enable polling for all members in an organization, an admin or owner needs to follow these steps: In the Zoom web portal, under the Admin header, click on Account Management. Click on Account Settings. Underneath the Polling section, click on the toggle button on the right-hand side of the page. It turns blue. Zoom displays a new window asking you to confirm your choice. Click on the blue Turn On button. Zoom confirms that it has updated your settings. You need to enable polls only once at the account level. Creating a poll for your scheduled meeting After you activate polls, you can create one or more polls for an upcoming meeting: In the Zoom web portal, under the Personal header, click on Meetings. On the left-hand side of the page, under Upcoming Meetings, click on the meeting for which you want to schedule a poll. Scroll to down the bottom of the page and click on the white Add button next to the words You have not created any poll yet. In the window that appears, enter the title of your question. (Optional) Select the Anonymous if you want to hide attendees’ responses checkbox. Type the name of your question. Indicate whether the question is single or multiple choice by selected the related checkbox. Enter the possible responses in the text boxes. (Optional) To continue adding questions, click on + Add a Question and repeat Steps 4 through 8. When you finish setting up your poll, click on the blue Save button. You can now view the poll, as this figure displays. Note that Zoom ties polls to specific users’ PMIs, a minor but important point. Say that Hank needs to set up a meeting with the other DEA agents in his office. He is weighing his two options: Using his PMI: If he goes this route, then he can access all of the polls that he has created under his PMI. Allowing Zoom to automatically generate a disposable meeting ID number: If Hank selects this option, then his poll applies only to that specific meeting. As a result, he would not be able to recycle them or transfer them to another meeting. Either way, at some point during the meeting, hosts can launch their polls. Do what you like, but I wouldn’t let the transferability of polls drive your decision to use your PMI or not. How to handle meeting registration While optional, requiring participants to register for future meetings confers a number of obvious benefits, including counting the number of heads in advance. Beyond that, a company or your manager may mandate attendance at certain meetings. Requiring others to register for your meeting Brandt is holding an important department-wide meeting and wants to ensure that all employees attend. As such, he requires registration by following these steps: In the Zoom web portal, under the Personal header, click on Meetings. Click on the name of the meeting whose registration information you’d like to view. Click on the white Edit this Meeting button. Scroll down to the word Registration and select the Required checkbox. Click on the blue Save button. Zoom returns you to the main meeting page. (Optional) To the right of Registration Link, copy the unique URL or click on Copy Invitation to view more detailed information about the meeting. Distribute the link or meeting information to all meeting attendees however you choose. Registering for a future meeting Brandt manages a staff of ten. He has required those folks to register for his monthly meeting. Further, he has distributed the link to attendees, maybe even via Zoom Meetings & Chat. When others click on that URL, they will see a form similar to the one displayed here: Viewing registrant data After attendees fill out and submit a meeting registration form, Zoom stores their information. You can access it by following these steps: In the Zoom web portal, under the Personal header, click on Meetings. Click on the name of the meeting whose registration information you’d like to view. Scroll down to the Registration tab and to the right of Manage Attendees, click on View. Zoom displays a window similar to the one shown. Click on the Edit button to customize your registration options even more.

Article / Updated 08-14-2023

As I write these words in June 2020, the global pandemic is in full force. At some point, things will go back to normal — although most likely in dribbles. Zoom’s suite of tools, however, will remain vital work and educational staples for the foreseeable future. Make no mistake, though: Hundreds of millions of people are using Zoom in remarkable and innovative ways every day. Weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, birthday parties, dance parties, and poker games have all taken place on Zoom. Cooking and eating meals Restaurants typically run on slim profit margins — often along the lines of 5 percent. Operating at 25-percent capacity doesn’t cut it. To this end, many have begun holding Zoom cooking classes and online tastings. Visiting sick friends and family members Faced with travel restrictions, many people are “visiting” their loved ones confined to hospital beds in Zoom. No, it’s not the same as the real thing, but checking in on a dear friend or family member via Zoom beats a simple phone call. Dating With so many bars, restaurants, and coffee shops closed, where do two people safely meet? How about on Zoom? Sharing a few drinks over Happy Hour I’ll cop to doing this a few times with my college friends. Again, I’d prefer to talk trash with them in person but. Left with no other in-person alternative, though, Zoom more than serves this purpose. Playing brick-and-mortar games I asked few of my former students if they used Zoom for social gatherings. Here’s one particularly colorful response: I play trivia games with my family in England every Saturday via Zoom. Sure, some games translate better than others, but you’d be surprised at how many games work reasonably well on Zoom. Playing video games You may not be able to use Twitch to play your favorite video game. If not, then give Zoom a shot. Watching movies and TV shows As a kid, I would routinely watch Jeopardy! with my family. I’d sometimes go an entire show without answering a single question correctly. Although I live across the country from my family, I can now relive that experience with them via Zoom. (At least now I can answer about 40 percent of the questions correctly.) In fact, plenty of folks use Meetings & Chat to view movies and binge-watch series. Performing stand-up comedy Few things beat the feeling of laughing in unison with complete strangers as a comedian tears it up. In the midst of a pandemic, fans cannot see Gary Gulman or Neal Brennan live. Until then, however, I might watch some comedians perform via Zoom. Learn more. Staying fit Since the age of 18, I have religiously gone to the gym. Broken fingers, the cold, and work-related commitments haven’t stopped me from getting my sweat on. Yeah, I’m a gym rat—and plenty of people can relate. Left without physical gyms, many people began working out over Zoom. Holding miscellaneous parties A Zoomie told me that her in-laws held a weekly dance party on Zoom. Virtual graduations, birthday parties, and other formerly physical gatherings are taking place via the world’s most popular videoconferencing tool.

Article / Updated 08-14-2023

Zoom offers a bevy of robust features for meetings. (Short version: Thanks to Zoom, hosts and participants can perform many useful tasks.) There’s a chasm, though, between could and should. Put simply, just because Zoom lets you enable or disable a feature doesn’t mean that you should do it. With that in mind, here are some tips on minimizing the chance that someone Zoombombs your meeting. More generally, follow the advice here to protect the privacy and security of your Zoom communications as much as possible. Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could they didn’t stop to think if they should. — Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm, JURASSIC PARK Keep your PMI private You wouldn’t give a stranger a key to your home. The same principles apply to your Personal Meeting ID (PMI). Giving it to your spouse or mother is benign. Sharing it on social media is a recipe for disaster. Use waiting rooms Yes, Zoom lets users with sufficient permissions disable waiting rooms for their meetings — and possibly for others employees in the organization. I’d advise against it, however, especially on a permanent basis. Visit this Zoom Help Center article for directions on how to effectively make your meetings less secure. Prevent removed meeting participants from rejoining John is acting like a putz during the company Zoom meeting, a fact not lost on the other participants. You have warned him a few times to knock it off, but he’s incorrigible. As host, you finally boot him from the meeting. Everyone applauds. By default, Zoom prevents John from jumping back in, even if he retained the host’s PMI or the meeting’s ID and password. Again, depending on your formal Zoom role, you can change this setting. Still, I’d leave it as is. What’s more, if you’re a Zoom account owner or admin, then you may want to lock this setting such that non-administrative members cannot change it for themselves. To do so, follow these directions: In the Zoom web portal, under the Admin header, click on Account Management. Click on Account Settings. Click on In Meeting (Basic). Slide the Allow removed participants to rejoin toggle button to the left to turn it off. Click on the grey lock icon to the right of the toggle button. Zoom displays a message asking you to confirm your decision. Click on the blue Lock button. Zoom confirms that it has successfully updated your settings. Limit who can control the main meeting screen Meetings & Chat offers a bevy of powerful screen-sharing features. If you want to dial back those options a bit, you certainly can. For example, say that you’d like to prevent participants from sharing their screens. Just follow these directions: Launch the Zoom desktop client. Start your meeting. Mouse over the bottom of the screen so that Zoom displays a menu. Click the up arrowhead (^) next to Share Screen. Select Advanced Sharing Options from the pop-up menu. Underneath Who can share?, select the Only Host checkbox. Close the screen and return to your meeting by clicking on the red circle in the top left-hand corner of the screen. Use your brain The history of technology teaches its students many important lessons. Perhaps at the top of the list is that even the smartest cookies cannot predict every conceivable problem that a software product, feature, or version may cause. First, the law of unintended consequences is alive and well. Second and just as important, bad actors are a clever lot. They invariably employ sophisticated tactics to circumvent even the most thoughtful security and privacy controls. In this way, Zoom has had to confront some of the very same challenges that have plagued Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, and other firms of consequence. All of this is to say that managers and software engineers can do only so much to mitigate the problems that invariably arise with massive usage. At least you always take with you one of your most effective weapons to combat attendee mischief and malfeasance. I’m talking about the organ that lies between your ears. Think carefully and critically about what you’re doing in Zoom and with whom. Always be skeptical. Exhibit a healthy skepticism Say that your son is a sophomore at a small northeastern university in a different part of the country. You and your spouse eagerly await your weekly Zoom call with him every Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. You shared your PMI with him a year ago and thought nothing of it. On Saturday, you receive an email from an unrecognized sender who purports to be your son. Still, something about the situation just rubs you the wrong way. This individual asks you to provide your PMI because he lost it. What do you do? Maybe nothing untoward is really taking place here. Maybe not. In this case, I would call your son or send him a text message explaining the situation. Based upon his response, your next step should be clear: Provide the PMI or report the email as the phishing attack that it appears to be. Phishing perhaps represents bad actors’ most effective means of obtaining sensitive information from their targets. They are often able to acquire others’ credentials and other pieces of vital information by fraudulently posing as friends and loved ones. Always err on the side of safety. If that means making it a tad more time-consuming for participants to join your Zoom meetings, then so be it. To quote a famous Russian proverb, “Trust, but verify.” Keep privacy in mind during Zoom meetings Regularly using your brain doesn’t just make it harder for hackers to wreak havoc; it can protect you from putting your foot in your mouth in front of others. Remember that meeting hosts can easily generate chat logs, subject to a few disclaimers. They just need to follow a few simple steps: Launch the Zoom desktop client. Start your meeting. Mouse over the bottom of your screen to invoke Zoom’s in-meeting menu. Click on the Chat icon. In the lower right-hand corner, click the ellipsis icon. From the prompt, click on Save Chat. For example, Michael Bluth is hosting a meeting with his brothers Gob and Buster. During the meeting, at any point Michael can produce a chat log file because: He’s the meeting host. Michael has enabled participants’ ability to chat. About five minutes into the meeting, Michael does this very thing. Zoom dutifully saves a simple text file to the default location on his computer. This file includes the following data from the meeting: All participants’ public chat messages. Any private chat messages that Michael exchanged with Gob and Buster Any private chat messages that Gob and Buster exchanged with Michael. Michael’s log file looks something like the following. Note that Zoom omits from these log files all private messages that participants exchanged with each other during the meeting that excluded Michael. In other words, Michael won’t know that Gob sent Buster a message calling him a chicken and Buster agreed with his brother. Against this backdrop, keep the following privacy-related facts in mind as you use Meetings & Chat: Unless a host actively hits the Record button during a meeting, Zoom does not store video, audio, or chat content. That is, Zoom records nothing by default. When the host begins recording, Zoom provides both video and audio notifications to all meeting participants. If participating on a recorded meeting makes you uncomfortable, then you can always tell the host as much. You can also exit the meeting. Think of each Zoom meeting as a quasi-private forum. If you want to slam your boss and or mock your colleagues mid-meeting, then have at it. Zoom can’t stop you from exercising poor judgment. No tool can. Just remember that meeting participants are likely to notice inappropriate actions. When they do, prepare to suffer the consequences. In this way, Zoom is just like Slack, Microsoft Teams, email, and any other contemporary communications tool. Whether you’re the host or not, think carefully about what you disclose both publicly and privately. There’s no guarantee that those messages from Zoom meetings will ultimately stay private. Say that you privately chat with colleagues, partners, customers, or other meeting participants. Someone could easily take screenshots of those private messages with a third-party tool and release them after or even during the meeting.

Article / Updated 08-14-2023

No one forces you to enable video during your Zoom meetings. You can always join via audio only. Still, from time to time you’re going to want the world to see you. Looking your best in Zoom A seldom-used Zoom feature called Touch Up My Appearance purportedly helps smooth out the skin tone on your face. No, it won’t transform me into Brad Pitt or Idris Elba, but think of it as the equivalent of putting on some digital makeup. Follow these directions to enable this feature: Launch the Zoom desktop client. Click on the Settings icon in the upper-right hand corner. Zoom displays your settings. On the left-hand side, click on Video. To the right of My Video, select the Touch up my appearance checkbox. Refrain from looking at other devices and screens during your meeting, especially if you’ve enabled video. Others will quickly pick up on your lack of concentration. Presenting a professional appearance in Zoom Kerry Barrett runs a full-service, media-prep, training, consulting, and camera-readiness firm based in New Jersey. She is a 20-year veteran of the broadcast news industry and an Emmy-Award winning TV news anchor, reporter, and producer. People often ask me, “How can I make myself look as good as possible on my Zoom meetings?” Here are a few simple tips on improving your shot. By following them, you will subtlety encourage meeting participants to engage with you. Lighting: If you sit in front of a bright window or lamp, then you’ll be in silhouette. Likewise, don’t sit directly under a bright lamp. Always place light directly in front of you. Webcam: Place it at or slightly above eye-level. No one needs to see your nostrils, half of your face, or your kitchen ceiling. Framing: TV stations deliberately shoot anchors from the mid-chest or mid-torso. By doing this, viewers can see the anchors’ eyes and begin to establish trust with them. The same idea applies to your Zoom meetings. Also, remove the dead space around you. Place your head slightly below the top of the video box. Finally, sit front and center in front of your computer or tablet. Your body should fill up the video screen. Personal appearance: Avoid wearing red and white colors during your meetings. The first two notoriously cause lighting issues. Instead, consider a brighter hue that makes you pop against your background. Wear company-branded apparel if it fits into those parameters. Background: Viewers tend to find neutral backgrounds less off-putting than dark ones. What’s more, they provide invaluable contrast. (Gangster move: If possible, hold your meeting in a room with light gray walls.) If you take my advice, then you’ll look your best during your Zoom meetings. To enable video during on Zoom’s desktop client, you need to use your laptop’s internal webcam or an external one. Projecting a more professional visage isn’t hard — in other words, to avoid the nostril-cam previously mentioned. Just prop your laptop up on some books. If that doesn’t work for you, then consider purchasing a proper laptop stand. For years I’ve happily used an inexpensive AmazonBasics ventilated one. As for external webcams, arguably the hottest one on the market now is the Logitech BRIO. How to optimize sound quality in Zoom Of course, how you present yourself to others represents only part of the meeting experience. The other side is how you sound during your meetings — and, for that matter, how other participants sound to you. At a high level, a good deal hinges upon the quality of your computer’s audio components. Contrary to what you may think, newer computers don’t necessarily ship with better hardware in this regard than older ones did. Plenty of folks aren’t satisfied with the sound emanating from their computer’s native microphones and speakers. If you find yourself in this boat, you can tweak your computer’s audio settings. Still disgruntled? Then consider purchasing an external microphone. I’m a fan of the Yeti Blue. As for headphones and speakers, I have found tremendous variation among Bluetooth devices. Some models work seamlessly, while others cut in and out throughout meetings. Ask a trusted friend for honest feedback on A/V situation. Finally, don’t expect first-rate audio and video quality during Zoom meetings if your Internet connection is spotty. Zoom can only do so much. If you’re having a tough time hearing others and vice versa, consider disabling your video. Ask others in the meeting to do the same. Your overall audio and video quality during Zoom meetings stem from a number of factors. If you’re experiencing problems, use the process of elimination. For example, try to connect to a friend’s network when taking Zoom meetings. Does performance improve? Use a family member’s computer instead of yours. Eventually, you’ll figure out what’s causing your issue.