Show/Hide Command in Microsoft Word

I'm sure everyone has experienced the frustration of hunting for something in the back of a dark cupboard or garage. After feeling around blindly, scaring the resident spiders, you get smart and reach for a flashlight to illuminate the search zone.

When you work with Microsoft Word, you may feel the same type of 'fumbling in the dark' frustration, especially if you are working on a document that has been created by someone else. Word appears to have a mind of its own and each change you make seems to create a new issue within the document. Let me share with you the secret of turning on the flashlight and illuminating what is going on.
The flashlight I am referring to is the SHOW/HIDE command found on the HOME ribbon. If you open a Word document and click on this command you will see a host of new marks added to your text. At first these symbols can seem daunting, but persevere with their presence and you will take the first step to making your relationship with Word a whole lot better. Many of you may be thinking, "I can't work with those on. They are too busy and confusing!" I was once the president of that club, but only because I hadn't been introduced to the benefits of having these marks turned on.
The SHOW/HIDE command allows you to see the keystrokes and content that has been added when the document was typed or edited. Every time you press SPACE, ENTER, or TAB a mark will be added. There are special marks for a whole raft of document content like TABLES and GRAPHICS. Did the author get a paragraph to go onto the next page by hitting ENTER numerous times, or did they add a PAGE or SECTION BREAK? The answer may make a big difference when you edit the document. Without the marks being visible, you won't be able to see where breaks have been added. This can be especially frustrating when it is a SECTION BREAK. If you accidentally delete it, the formatting of the preceding section will be deleted and you may find your document has taken on a totally new look.
Not convinced yet? Have you ever printed a document and found there is an empty page being printed at the end? This can be especially annoying if you are printing multiple copies and have to go through the entire stack to remove the offending pages. Why is Word being so difficult you scream? Word isn't actually being difficult; it is doing what it has been told to do. SHOW/HIDE marks are also known as NON-PRINTING Marks. Just as the name suggests, they will not print even if you have them turned on. If you were to look at the last page of the document with the marks are turned on, you would see at least one mark sitting on the page. Even though there is no text, Word assumes that you pressed RETURN or SPACE for a reason and therefore it sees that page as being part of the document. Delete the marks on the empty page and it will disappear.
For any keyboard shortcut lovers, the keystrokes to toggle the marks on and off is CTRL + *. I struggled to get this to work because I love to use my number pad. In this case the number pad is not the right choice. The keys that you need to use are CTRL + SHIFT + 8/*.
Understanding and utilizing the SHOW/HIDE marks is your first step in building a strong working relationship with Word. For anyone who is dubious about the advantage of using these marks, or who still feel they can't stand the way they look, I suggest you take the two week challenge. Leave the marks on at all times for a couple of weeks. That is generally all it takes for your vision to become desensitized to the busy look of the screen. I am will to bet that you may not even notice the marks are there - until you need them.

Reen Rose is an experienced Microsoft Certified Trainer and Microsoft Office Specialist Master.
She has been described as 'focused, fun and very effective'. Reen believes in guiding people to become empowered Microsoft Office users by giving them the skills they need to be successful, in an engaging and enjoyable environment.

Audio Transcription: What Skills Should You Have?

Audio transcription refers to the manual or automatic conversion of audio files into text format. Audio files are played and processed by a transcriber then the transcriber translates the audio speech into text format. Usually, audio files come in digital form such as mp3, wav, au, and also cassette format. Video file formats may also be transcribed into text format or transcripts.

In today's digital world, most organizations and businesses require some transcription services for profiling and recording. Audio transcription is a booming industry catering to all sorts of businesses and sectors. Because of the wide differences in each sector, transcription services are often classified into different groups depending on the industry they serve, such as legal transcription, medical transcription, and corporate transcription. There are also non-specialty transcription services that different industries usually require.
In order to transcribe audio files properly, a good transcriptionist must have the following traits:
Expert listening skills
A good transcriber must have a healthy pair of ears in order to get all details of the audio message. If a pilot requires keen vision, a transcriptionist needs more than that. It is important to catch all-important sounds. Audio recordings are usually very tricky, depending largely on the type and quality of recording. In addition, the differences in speech accents can make the job even more challenging. In the field of audio transcription, you are literally being paid for being a good listener.
Computer and internet savvy
It is essential for a transcriber to know how to navigate the computer and how to utilize the rich resources available online. Usually, the transcriber will use computer software to adjust the sound and speed of the audio file. Sometimes spoken words can be very confusing, but this does not give the transcriptionist an excuse to not input the right word. This is where the internet and its immense resources can be of huge help. You can browse the web for the closest words possible.
Great typing skills
You do not only need to type fast but also ensure accuracy. When doing audio transcription, time is definitely gold. Depending on the transcriptionists typing skills, a file can be completed in a matter of hours or a day or days. But while one of the objectives is to complete as many transcripts as possible in the shortest time, the ultimate goal should be to come up with quality and accurate transcripts. Rushing the work is definitely a no-no.
Technically equipped
As in any job, one needs to have all the necessary tools to more effectively convert audio files to text. Usually, audio transcription work would require a computer, a good headset, a pedal, and transcription software. The pedal is used to control the pace of the audio file. There may be some words that are very difficult to understand but when spoken slowly become more sensible and clear.
Transcribing audio files is a challenging task. You have to have these traits to cope up with the needs of the task.

For information on transcription skills and training go to: http://www.dailyvirtualassistant.co.uk where you will find services and employment opportunities.

Renewable Energy

Introduction

While our planet warms and the effects of climate change become more prolific and disruptive, the global demand for energy continues to grow. In combination with significant improvements in energy efficiency, new sources of clean and renewable energy must be exploited to support overburdened infrastructure that is supplied by aging conventional power systems.

Quadrogen Power Systems, Inc. of Vancouver, BC, Canada, is committed to the development and delivery of ultra-clean renewable energy systems. Its focus is on biogas fuelled combined heat and power (CHP) systems that offer class-leading efficiency, ultra-low emissions, and improved economics through increased asset utilisation.
Background

While biogas production and the cogeneration of power and heat is commonplace throughout Europe, North America’s abundance of cheap energy has so far limited this concept’s popularity to early-adopters. However, as we become more aware of the need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and of practical ways to do so, we can benefit from European experience with distributed generation and methane-emissions reduction. The sooner that innovative North American cogeneration projects demonstrate viable economic and environmental advantages, the earlier and more extensive the uptake will be. This will in turn lead to a more significant impact on greenhouse gas reduction and climate change.

Biogas is produced by the anaerobic (i.e. in the absence of oxygen) digestion of organic material and consists of approximately 60% methane and 40% carbon dioxide. Wastes such as municipal solid waste (MSW) in landfills, sewage sludge at waste water treatment plants (WWTP), and agricultural livestock manure are all materials that are commonly processed using anaerobic digestion.

In landfills the process is consequential since the buried material naturally decomposes in an oxygen-depleted environment, in turn releasing the biogas that either escapes to the atmosphere or is collected by a landfill-gas collection system for flaring or power generation. At WWTPs, the sewage sludge is digested to reduce its volume and its pathogen count, which reduces the associated disposal and disinfection costs of the treated sludge. Some larger agricultural operations also use anaerobic digestion as part of their manure management strategy for similar reasons as municipal WWTPs. Anaerobic digestion also controls odour and improves the nutrient uptake when the digested manure is applied on fields as fertiliser
The Opportunity

Since methane has twenty-one (21) times the global warming potential (GWP) as an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide, its release to the atmosphere should be avoided and by converting it to carbon dioxide its warming effect can be significantly reduced. While flaring biogas is commonplace (to oxidise the methane into carbon dioxide) it does no useful work. If the methane was instead used to substitute fossil fuels it would lead to indirect reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, contaminants in the biogas result in air pollution when raw biogas is simply flared. For example, a common biogas constituent is foul-smelling hydrogen sulphide (H2S) which generates acid-rain forming sulphur oxide (SOx) emissions when burnt.

Depending on the feedstock being digested, biogas contaminants vary in type and concentration and pose different challenges for the power equipment being fuelled. Using biogas as a fuel poses various challenges. For example, the above mentioned H2S also combines with water vapour in the combustion process to form sulphuric acid that attacks engine components and rapidly degrades engine oil. Furthermore, these sulphur compounds poison fuel cell catalysts as well as the emissions-control catalysts used with combustion engines.

Siloxane contaminants are usually present in biogas from landfills and WWTPs. These volatile organic compounds (VOCs) oxidize in power equipment, forming microcrystalline silica that is abrasive, causing engines to erode, and is thermally insulating, causing local hot-spots that lead to damaging pre-ignition conditions. Figure 1 below shows combustion engine components that required replacement due to siloxane contaminated fuel.
turbo junbacher

Quadrogen is developing its Integrated Biogas Pre-treatment System (IBPS) to address this issue directly. By efficiently cleaning the biogas of its contaminants the maintenance intervals and lifetime of power equipment can be extended. While this is a simple objective, it has remained a challenging task for system designers in the waste-to-energy sector – so much so that engine manufacturers have instead tried to mitigate the problem of fuel contaminants with costly design changes specific to their biogas engines. Unfortunately these counteractive measures fail to address the source of the problem and cannot account for varying contaminant species and their presence in unpredictable concentrations.

Existing biogas clean-up systems claim to remove the common biogas contaminants such as H2S, siloxanes, and water vapour, but have been found to be costly to operate and maintain or fail to adequately and reliably protect downstream equipment. Some of these incumbent “solutions” have evolved to provide mediocre performance yet still require purpose-built contaminant-tolerant engines and specialty lubricants that inflate project costs. Altogether, these designs have also been found incapable of meeting the stringent fuel quality standards of ultra-clean, high-efficiency fuel cell based power plants.
The Future of Biogas Power Generation Systems

A cleaner, higher-efficiency alternative to biogas combustion in engines is the direct electrochemical reaction of the methane into renewable electricity, heat, and hydrogen using a carbonate fuel cell. This mature technology not only offers the unmatched electrical efficiency of 47% (vs. approximately 36% for combustion engines), but also negligible NOx and SOx emissions since the fuel is consumed without burning it. This electrochemical process is described in Figure 2 below, whereby the methane fuel is not oxidized in air as in combustion engines or with flares, but rather reformed into hydrogen and then reacted to cleanly produce electricity, heat, water and carbon dioxide.
Direct FuelCell process using Anaerobic Digester Gas (ADG, or biogas)
The unique advantage of this Direct FuelCell process is that the carbon dioxide present in the biogas does not cause a performance or efficiency loss as it does with combustion engines, where the CO2 acts as a fuel diluent. Since the Direct FuelCell anode CO2 exhaust is returned to its cathode with the reactant air, the biogas-sourced carbon dioxide becomes an active participant in the electrochemical reaction and enhances the cathode reaction kinetics. It is this salient feature of the technology that sets it apart from other biogas-fuelled energy conversion systems.

FuelCell Energy, Inc., of Danbury Connecticut is the world leader in carbonate fuel cell technology with their Direct FuelCell (DFC) power plants. These systems have accrued over 340 million kW hours of power generation from over fifty installations globally. Shown in Figure 3 is a typical biogas-fuelled DFC installation at a waste water treatment plant.
250 kW Direct FuelCell
Figure 3: 250 kW Direct FuelCell at a waste water treatment plant (digesters in the background).


Quadrogen Power Systems, Inc. enjoys a close working relationship with FuelCell Energy (FCE) whereby it both develops renewable energy projects using DFC power plants, and also engineers fuel processing sub-systems for the DFC technology platform.

Due to their higher-efficiency technology, Quadrogen’s renewable power systems emit fewer greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per kW-hour of energy generated, and only produce greenhouse-quality CO2 exhaust as a result of their ultra-clean design.
250 kW Direct FuelCell
Figure 4: Quadrogen renewable energy system concept.
Key Technology Developments
Integrated Biogas Pre-treatment System (IBPS)

Quadrogen is developing its IBPS to meet the stringent specifications of its fuel cell customer / project collaborator. Its contaminant removal performance will far exceed that provided by commercially available technologies (ppm contaminant levels vs. IBPS’ ppb levels), and features efficient system designs intended to reduce operating and maintenance costs. Quadrogen is leveraging its extensive experience in fuel processing and systems integration to design an efficient and robust solution for any biogas supply.

IBPS-conditioned biogas with lower contaminant levels provides significant opportunity for improved reliability and maintenance costs for any type of power generating equipment. A cleaner fuel supply allows for longer maintenance intervals, higher thermal efficiency, and reduced emissions. Additionally, a robust and effective pre-treatment system will further increase the popular deployment of biogas power generating plants.
H2 Booster

Quadrogen has also developed its H2 Booster system to process the anode exhaust gases of a high temperature fuel cell into a conditioned, hydrogen-rich gas suitable for hydrogen recovery. This H2 Booster technology has been designed to meet aggressive cost and performance targets for the economical separation, and hence co-production of hydrogen from the fuel cell CHP unit. This high-value green hydrogen is produced on-demand for commercial sale and has many industrial uses. It can also be used for zero-emissions peak-power generation, and in the long term, for vehicle refuelling.

Quadrogen’s H2 Booster technology includes specific features that differentiate it from conventional industrial gas processing systems. The reactor vessels incorporate integrated heat exchangers for maximum heat recovery and overall system efficiency and were engineered without moving parts for simplicity in control and extended lifetime durability. They are fabricated by one of Canada’s leading automotive parts manufacturers to leverage that industry’s low-cost manufacturing know-how. Quadrogen’s H2 Booster technology increases the fuel cell asset utilisation and makes efficient and economical on-demand hydrogen separation possible.

A conceptual diagram of a Quadrogen renewable co-production system based on a Direct FuelCell is shown above in Figure 4. It describes the high-level process whereby renewable organic wastes are cleanly converted into valuable energy and fertilizer products.
Carbon Offset Potential

The renewable electricity, heat, and hydrogen generated have no directly-associated GHG emissions since the biogas fuel is derived from organic wastes and is part of the natural carbon cycle of these wastes. Instead of flaring the biogas produced by digesters or landfills, its energy is harnessed to directly offset the use of conventional fossil fuels and their associated emissions. This combination of GHG reduction (from eliminated methane emissions) and carbon-offsetting qualities have earned Quadrogen’s innovative renewable energy projects the interest and funding of prominent firms in the growing carbon trading industry for carbon-credit sales.
Distributed Generation

While Quadrogen’s ultra-clean and renewable energy solutions bring more baseload and peak-power capacity to firm-up the electrical grid, they are also typically close-coupled to the loads they serve. This distributed generation approach not only makes the grid more resilient to systemic faults, but also avoids the inefficiencies (and associated GHG emissions) of the conventional distribution network with its centralised generation architecture.

When hydrogen co-production is included with a DFC-based power plant, the hydrogen fuel can be stored and used on-demand for zero-emissions load levelling. Quadrogen’s biogas fuelled power plants can also store its ultra-clean biogas themselves to provide additional on-demand, low-emissions generating capacity with reciprocating engine generator sets. This capability is of significant value to both the energy networks of today and to the Smart Grids of the future.

Since electric utilities invariably rely on fossil fuel combustion engines to supply their peak loads, Quadrogen’s distributed power plants can alleviate the grid’s dependence on the inefficient, dirty, and costly peak-power generators of the utilities. Furthermore, as other renewable energy technologies such as photovoltaic, wind, and alternative-hydro based generation come online, their weather-dependant, and thus time-varying, generating profiles can be buffered by Quadrogen’s flexible and highly-responsive generating capabilities.
Conclusion

In order to adapt to the changing North American energy landscape, with the challenging co-requirements of increased capacity, reduced dependence on imported fossil fuels, and reduced GHG emissions, innovative and renewable generating concepts will be required. Other renewable sources such as solar and wind energy will undoubtedly play a role in building this capacity, but they rely on a grid that is flexible enough to react to their generating profiles. As a society, one measure of our progress is the level of efficiency in which we co-exist with our environment. Waste-to-energy projects can allow us to close the loop on our energy-production-consumption cycle, and can make our electric grid more resilient with a distributed generation approach. They increase our efficiency, and also help reduce additional methane-based GHG emissions from our past consumption (i.e. landfills) and our current production-consumption practices (e.g. from agricultural and WWTP sources).

Quadrogen believes that its flexible renewable energy systems will play an important role in sustaining our energy grids with electricity, heat, and hydrogen co-products, while also enabling more biogas power production to come online by eliminating the risks associated with contaminated fuel. As with any great challenge, great opportunity for innovation and progress exists, and the technologies and systems being developed by Quadrogen will be important components of a successfully restructured energy network.