Today’s posting brought to you by Jason the Programmer — who needs a little more to do with his time!

In search of an answer to this age old question, I’ve consulted numerous sources and scoured the Web. Hopefully, you’ll find this tidbit of information as useful as I have. The difference between the forward slash and the backslash is as follows:

/ = the forward slash leans forward
\ = the backslash leans back

That’s it. Wow. That was complicated!

For Average Joes and Janes like myself, that’s all you really need to know — because we really only use slashes when typing in website URL’s. And, yes, I did casually say “slashes” because most of us regular users only know where one slash is, anyway. It shares a key with the question mark.

FREE Social Tech Tip #1 – When giving out a website address in conversation,  leave off the colon and forward slashes that happen before the dot-com. Mentioning them just sounds silly.

As an example, here’s something we’ve all heard before: Some know-it-all-type (trying to sound smarter than they actually are) wants to give you the address to a website that you’ve not yet graced with your presence. It sounds something like this: “Just go to http-colon-backslash-backslash www dot blah-blah-blah dot com…” Before you even hear the site address, you’re bored. What on earth would make you want to go there?

Don’t be this person.

FREE Social Tech Tip #2 – If you’re referring somebody to a website that has forward slashes AFTER the dot-com, just call them slashes. People are smart enough to know what you mean [and even if they aren't, they'll probably use the one under their pinky finger anyway.]

Q. So, if Average Joes really only use the forward slash, what’s the other one for?
A. Only Programmers, really. This is probably why Jason recommended this post in the first place.

Backslashes are mainly used in computing, and have a more limited and technical use than the slash:

• They can act as a path delimiter in Windows path names (C:\Program Files\Adobe Photoshop).
  - or -
• As escaping characters in most C-style languages, including C, C++, PHP, Perl, and also on most UNIX shells ().

More likely than not, if you’re reading this, you don’t use backslashes very often, either. It’s ok. We can’t all write code for a living ;) otherwise, there would be no one to write our UnCorporate Blog.

Well, there it is! The difference between Forward Slash and Backslash! Hope it helps. Blogging isn’t all wa do here at Dynamic Edge, Inc. Click Here to poke around our website.

Ok Folks, it’s time to dig deep and give big! There are only 14 short hours remaining to cast your vote for Dyanamic Edge’s Best Beard of 2008!

Statistics show that one in every eight adults lacks the literacy skills needed to be successful in society. If you are reading this post right now, you can make a difference in the life of one of these individuals. With every $1 vote, you make a donation to support literacy in our community! Click here for more details about our Holiday Beard Challenge.

Now, Onto the Tip!

Ever wish there was a quicker, simpler way to copy the formatting of objects in your Microsoft Office applications — like your Word text, Excel cells, or shapes in Publisher? There is! It’s called the Format Painter, and it might be the most helpful toolbar button you’ve never used. Instead of manually applying different font, font effects, alignment, and other formatting to every area of your project, you can save time and effort by quickly copying all of your formatting attributes at once!

Here’s how it works:

1. Select the text or graphic that you want to copy.
2. Click the Format Painter button on your toolbar — it’s the tiny square with a paintbrush in it. Your pointer will change to a paintbrush icon. (If you want to apply formatting to more than one block of text or graphic, double-click the Format Painter button and continue.)
3. Click the text or graphic that you want to format.
4. To apply formatting to more than one block of text or graphic, select each of them, one at a time.
5. When you are done formatting, hit the Esc key to turn off the Format Painter.

Format Painter is a great tool for putting together reports and presentations. Once you’ve developed the look and feel of any section, you can easily apply the style to your entire document. Give it a try on your next project — I promise it’ll save you time!

Do you ever ask yourself, “If I’ve got  iTunes set to shuffle all songs, why do I keep hearing these same songs over and over again?!?”  For some reason, the loop of tunes you’re hearing doesn’t really feel shuffled – much less random – at all. Wouldn’t it be nice if your iTunes played only the songs that you haven’t heard in a long time? Oh wait, it CAN! … Who knew?

Apple developed this tool called the Smart Playlist that allows you to set certain parameters to generate a playlist populated by only the tunes that you’ve got an inkling to hear. Like Christmas music, Songs about Love, or comedy bits by Adam Sandler that are more than 4 minutes long.

The Smart Playlist gives you ultimate control: letting you be as specific as you want to be, and then paring down your lists by more than a dozen variables. And, as a matter of fact, when I’m finished writing this post, I’m going to create a playlist Hip Hop, R&B and Rap songs with the word “Girl” in the title… just to find out how many I’ve got in my library :)
Here’s what to do:

1. Open iTunes.  In the File menu, choose New Smart Playlist.
2. Make sure to check the box next to “Match the following rule” if you’re going to have iTunes add songs that match specific criteria.
3. Make your selections from the pop-up menus provided.

Here’s My Christmas Smart Playlist!

* You can add extra criteria by clicking the Plus (+) button.

4. You can limit the size or duration of a playlist by choosing the “Limit to” option in the menu.
5. To include only songs that have a checkmark beside them in your library (and that match your conditions), select “Match only checked songs.”
6. iTunes will continually modify your Smart Playlist whenever songs are added to or removed from your library, as long as “Live updating” is selected.
7. To finalize your Smart Playlist, click OK, then give it a name in your source list.

Remember: iTunes will add any songs in your library that match the settings you chose are added to the playlist. If your list isn’t as refined as you’d like, you can always add extra qualifiers later.

Good luck! And have fun creating Smart Playlists to fit your every mood!

p.s. As of right now, my Library has 13 Hip Hop/Rap/R&B songs with “Girl” in the title.

Everyone knows that keyboard shortcuts can help you to get the most out of your software programs. They can speed up your work by letting you perform functions without searching for them on the menus and dialog boxes. If you can memorize these commands, your fingers will literally NEVER have to leave your keyboard.

Here’s the great part! The shortcut keys in Word 2007 are pretty much same as the shortcut keys in earlier versions of Word. But, there is one main difference: if there isn’t a command that works for you, you can customize shortcuts that are easier for you to remember! Maybe you may want to create a key command for a shortcut doesn’t exist, you can do that too.

And it’s SO EASY if you follow these steps:

1. Click the Office button
2. Select Word Options

3. Click Customize
4. In the bottom of the window, click the Customize button beside Keyboard shortcuts.

5. In the Customize Keyboard box, locate the command for which you would like to edit the keyboard shortcut. Start by selecting the category. For each category, the commands will appear at the right side of the window. When you select one, a brief description will appear at the bottom of the dialog box.

6. The current shortcut key, if there is one, will appear in the Current keys box.
7. Click inside the box labeled Press new shortcut key.
8. Press the shortcut key you would like to use. Include the Ctrl, Shift, or Ctrl + Shift keys.
9. If the shortcut key is currently assigned, Word will tell you what command currently uses the shortcut key.
10. You can reassign the shortcut key, or you can select a new one.
11. Choose whether you’d like to save the shortcut key in the Normal template (all documents) or only the current document.
12. Click Assign when you’re happy with your changes.

13. Click Close

That’s it. Now you can create shortcuts that truly make your life easier! I bet you’re already thinking about the possibilities…

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could activate Excel 2007’s Formula bar without using the mouse? You can… try this!

Press the F2 key. This will let Excel know that you want to edit the contents of a cell. The first time you do this, Excel will probably expand the information in the cell and let you to edit the information inside that cell… but you can tell Excel you want F2 to open your formula bar by doing thisi:

1. Click the Office button and then click Excel Options. Excel displays the Excel Options dialog box.
2. Click the Advanced option at the left of the dialog box.
3. Make sure the Allow Editing Directly In Cell check box is cleared.
4. Click on OK.

And that should do it… Now you should never have to take your hands off the keyboard while you’re putting together those worksheets!