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Thursday, October 26, 2000 By David Radin
The Pittsburgh Tech 50 was a grand event, as always -- one in which the technology elite of the city gathered to pay tribute to 50 of the top growth companies in the region.
Of course, we were impressed by $100 million companies with 500 percent growth rates. But we've come to expect great performances from the Tech 50 companies. This year the Pittsburgh Technology Council gave us more -- the chance to dream with the visions of Daniel Goldin, head of NASA, who gave the keynote address.
It was more than black holes, gravity waves and biological computers, all of which he featured prominently. It was the dream of the next wave of innovation. Goldin painted pictures of computers based on biology instead of silicon -- to achieve quantum leaps in processing speed.
He strategized about computers with only tens of thousands of lines of code that could be smarter than current (common) computers with millions of lines of code -- and the ability of these systems to correct flaws as they run.
Goldin stressed that our priority should be on quality of product -- not time to market. That would reduce the number of technology products released before they're ready for prime time, and increase the confidence level of users who, for instance, might actually expect their computers not to crash for no apparent reason.
On the surface, Goldin might have seemed like a science fiction writer. In actuality, he was planting seeds for entrepreneurial ideas. And he was handing out road maps for the next generation of technology companies.
Q: I hate that paper clip that keeps popping up when I use Excel. How do I get rid of it?
Have a question for David Radin? Contact him at his Web site
A: That paper clip is called "Clippit," and he's one of the characters of Microsoft's Office Assistant. The idea behind the Office Assistant is to give you help in your daily tasks with Microsoft Office, sometimes going as far as to offer help based on what it thinks you need -- even before you ask for help.
It also offers a search mechanism that is supposed to give you the correct information even if you don't phrase your question with all the proper keywords. Unfortunately, it still doesn't always give you the answers you need. If you like the Office Assistant well enough to use it occasionally, but want it hidden until you ask for it, right click on it; then click on [Hide]. This will keep it active, but not let it get in your way constantly.
If you want to turn it off on a more permanent basis, right click on it; then click on [Options...]. When the Office Assistant dialogue box comes up, you can turn it off completely by unchecking the box labeled "Use the Office Assistant," or you can selectively turn off parts of the assistant so that it doesn't pop up at inconvenient times. (If you miss the Office Assistant, you can turn it back on again by clicking on the [Help] menu, then selecting [Show the Office Assistant].)
If it's the Clippit character you can't stand, but really want to keep the functionality of the Office Assistant, you can change to one of the other characters that Microsoft provides for the Office Assistant, including Rocky the dog, Links the cat, a robot called F1, a bouncing dot, or The Genius (a caricature of Albert Einstein).
If the standard set of characters doesn't suit your fancy, you can find new characters at the Microsoft Office Web site. Whenever you make a change to your Office Assistant options in Excel, your change also will be reflected in Word, PowerPoint and Access applications.
David Radin is host of the nationally syndicated radio show "Internet Insider," a local version of which is aired on KDKA AM 1020 at noon Saturdays.
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