What is the Slide Master?

The slide master controls all aspects of a slide’s appearance, including its background color, font style, and any recurring text or pictures. Any changes you make to the slide master automatically affect all the slides in the presentation; for example, changing the background color of the slide master changes the background for every single one of your slides. Slide layouts are sets of premade placeholders that coordinate with your chosen theme. The layouts available are determined by the theme you're using, but you can create and edit them using Slide Master view.

Bulgarian Food

Today I'm going to share with you one of my favorite Bulgarian foods banitsa. Banitsa is a delicious baked pastry dish made of rolled filo pastry, commonly assembled in a spiral formation, with a cheese, egg, and yogurt-based filling. The dish is an important symbol of Bulgarian cuisine and tradition and is always prepared on Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Often, lucky charms, similar to fortune cookies, are put into the dish before baking, which symbolizes good health and long life to those who find them.

Here's the ingredients: 4 large eggs, 2 cups (450 grams) Bulgarian yogurt or other thick yogurt such as Greek, 12 ounces (340 grams) Feta cheese, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1 pound (450 grams) phyllo sheets thawed, 3/4 cup (170 grams) unsalted butter melted (can be substituted with vegetable oil).

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375˚F (190˚C). Grease a 12-inch (30.5 centimeter) baking pan or springform pan with butter.

2. In a large bowl, beat together the eggs and yogurt until smooth.

3. Crumble in the Feta cheese, followed by the baking soda and whisk together.

4. Unroll the thawed phyllo sheets and cover with a towel. Place one sheet on work surface and gently brush with melted butter.

5. Add the cheese yogurt mixture in a thin line across the long side nearest you or gently brush across the buttered sheet.

6. Tightly roll up the phyllo sheet to the other long side. Place seam side down around the edge of the buttered baking dish.

7. Repeat with the remaining phyllo sheets, continuing to wrap them around the pan towards the center in a coiled pattern.

8. Brush the top of the Banitsa with butter.

9. Bake in the preheated oven until the top is golden brown, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

10. Cover the dish with a towel and allow to cool 10-20 minutes at room temperature before serving.

                                                             Here's what it should look like

Protecting your Excel data

You can protect Excel files with passwords and use other options to secure Excel worksheets and workbooks. Excel files are not secure by default. When you create a new Excel workbook based on a template, other users can freely edit the file if you share it. You can customize the template to suit your personal needs by changing formats, adjusting categories, and entering your own data. When you create templates to be shared with other users, you can use a variety of protection methods to prevent the template from experiencing unintentional damage, including applying passwords and other security options. Security can be applied to Excel files at the workbook, sheet, or cell level, including the use of password security. By protecting Excel workbooks, you can prevent other users from accidentally deleting important formulas or worksheets. Protecting a workbook is especially useful when working with templates, because this can help prevent accidental deletions or misuse. You can protect Excel workbooks at the file level or at the worksheet level. There are three levels of password protection in Excel: password protection to open a file, password protection to change data, or password protection for changing the file’s structure, such as adding, deleting, or hiding worksheets. There are three other levels of protection in Excel: workbook, worksheet, and specific cells. When you enable workbook protection, Excel greys out the menu items that are not available in protected mode. You can also assign a password that users would be required to enter in order to disable worksheet protection.

Catching up and some advice

All I remember about Spring Break was catching up everyday on my LabSim and catching up with friend I didn't speak with for a while. So all I can offer is some advice on catching up. If you're falling behind, let your professor know immediately. If you are enrolled in a self-paced program, speak with your academic advisor. Offer an explanation and ask what you can do to get back on track. If you fall behind toward the end of the semester, your professor may be willing to give you an "I," or an "Incomplete." This grade serves as a placeholder until you have turned in all your assignments. Your professor will probably assign a deadline for turning in your work. Whatever you work out, be sure you understand your professor's expectations before you end the conversation.

Prepare Properly

First of all I did pass the MOS-100 but since this is a late comment I will give you some advice. Tests from earlier in the quarter are the best source of information, so hold on to them or ask your teacher if they will give you a practice exam. The professor's hints in class like "The most important point is..." and "This will be on the test.". When a teacher notes that something will be important to remember, come up with a system to mark it in your notes i.e. stars, highlighting that section, or writing it in a specific section of your notes. This will help you find these hints when you're reviewing your notes for an exam. Also the way the professor presents material. Do they spend a lot of time comparing and contrasting political figures, theories, etc.? Expect a compare/contrast question on the test. Lastly don't give up hope just because you did bad on an exam or test. Use that test to prepare for the next. Professors usually give you some way to make up for your mistakes. Don't be so pessimistic things may turn around!  

3D models and their history in Microsoft Office

The idea of two-dimensional drafting was expanded upon in 3D modeling, which gained popularity in the early 2000s. The amount of information that can be included in the resulting model increases exponentially with the addition of a third dimension. In AEC (architectural, engineering and construction) design, three-dimensional models are typically used for structures and building systems, but they can also be used to fabricate individual fixtures and components as a structure gets closer to completion. Early on in a design project, models are built as the basis on which designers build detailed construction drawings, renderings, and other visual representations of their designs. Now for some Microsoft history: 

"Every year, The Garage organizes Microsoft’s annual Hackathon in locations around the world for employees, including in the Bay Area. In Summer 2016, the Silicon Valley campus cafeteria was turned into a Science Fair where employees from different teams could demo dozens of Hackathon projects to a curious audience and be inspired by the creativity of their peers." 

"From this culture of hacking grew projects small and large that became part of product, including 3D models in Office. It began as an idea first prototyped in December of 2015 as 3D in PowerPoint by Alexandre Gueniot in partnership with a team in London who were building a 3D viewer. Then, during the 2016 company-wide Hackathon, Gueniot built a fully functional prototype with Eric Gao and Onur Onder and showcased it to peers at the Science Fair. Employees visiting the Science Fair enjoyed playing with the project in new and creative ways to bring content to life. Some employees even brought their kids who enjoyed manipulating and animating 3D models of their favorite cartoon characters."

"Feedback on the prototype was so positive, organizers from the October 2016 Microsoft event in New York City to introduce Windows 10 Creator Update included a demo of 3D in PowerPoint at the event. Heather Alekson demo’d it on stage, along with Paint 3D and other apps that would become part of the new 3D ecosystem."

"Turning a hackathon project into a real feature can be a lot more work than it seems. The team needed to make further improvements and optimizations. They had to think through different scenarios and make sure they had the correct behavior, file formats, and UI. Gueniot shared the project code with the Office Graphics team in Redmond, and Stephanie Horn, Matt Kernek, Anca Zaharia and Jie Lie became the main drivers to help push it over the finish line and into the product as 3D models in Office."

Microsoft Ribbon

When Microsoft first introduced the ribbon to their Office Suite, it caused quite a bit of division amongst those who spend all day using productivity software. Some people loved it and others preferred the classic menu system that’s pretty much as old as the graphical user interface itself. In the end, the ribbon won the war and seems to be here to stay. Luckily, even if you’re not a fan, you can actually customize the Microsoft Office ribbon to better fit your workflow and needs. Ribbons are meant to organize software functions by their general type. So functions that are usually used in conjunction with each other all share the same ribbon. In an application like Microsoft Word you’ll see a ribbon for design, layout, academic referencing and so on. If you’re doing the same, highly-specific sets of tasks on a daily basis however, you can speed up your workflow by tuning exactly which Microsoft Office ribbons are at your fingertips.  Ribbons are further subdivided into groups of related commands. For example, the Home ribbon has a group named “Font”. This has the commands that relate to font formatting all in one place.

PC Hardware

Computer hardware can be defined as all the physical components that are a part of a computer system. This means that all the devices that you can see on your computer can be characterized as computer hardware. For example, the screen of a computer that you see the second you turn on the device is hardware. In other words, it can also be said that hardware simply refers to all the tangible and physical components of a computer. This includes all the components that can be seen or touched. There are also different types of hardware. For example input devices are the mouse and keyboard, output devices are monitors and printers, and of course all the internal components inside the computer (motherboard, RAM, CPU). Also people can upgrade their hardware a hardware upgrade can be defined as the replacement of old hardware with new hardware. It can also mean that additional hardware has been added. This helps in improving the performance of the existing hardware. For example, individuals usually get RAM upgrades to increase the total memory of their computers. Video card upgrades are also very common. In this upgrade, the old video card is removed and replaced with a new card.

RGB

The abbreviation RGB stands for "Red Green Blue," and as you might have guessed, it has to do with colors and how they are made up. You may wonder why red, green, and blue are used. The answer is that any other hue that the human eye can see from the visible spectrum can be created by mixing varied proportions of the main colors' red, green, and blue. An additive color model is RGB. In other words, you combine the main red, green, and blue hues to create new colors. White results from combining all three hues at their full (100%) intensity. However, if you combine them all at their lowest intensity (0%), you get black. 

The most popular color model in software is RGB. Each of the three numbers in the RGB color model, which each represent the intensity of red, green, and blue colors, can be used to specify a specific color. The three numbers' ranges can change depending on which reference you use, though. Standard RGB notations allow for the use of triplets of values ranging from 0 to 255, arithmetic values ranging from 0.0 to 1.0, and percentage values ranging from 0% to 100%. 

It's all quite interesting I never really looked into this before 1.1.12. I never knew the color system would be somewhat interesting.

Quantum Computing

First let's start off with what is quantum computing. It's computing that makes use of the quantum states of subatomic particles to store information. One scholar source states that "interest in the field grew in the 1990's with the introduction of Shor's algorithm which if implemented on a quantum computer would exponentially speed up an important class of cryptoanalysis and potentially threaten some of the cryptographic methods used to protect government and civilian communications and stored data". One primary source (IBM) states that "We are continuously scaling up and advancing our quantum technology across hardware, software and classical integration to meet the biggest challenges of our time, in conjunction with our partners and clients worldwide. This work will prove foundational for the coming era of quantum-centric supercomputing." One secondary states that "Quantum computing could eventually revolutionize the way medicines are developed, financial options are priced, and climate change is managed, experts say. It’s been lauded for its ability (or, at least, its potential) to complete complex calculations in a fraction of the time it would take even the fastest traditional computers today." One thing is certain quantum computing is a revolutionary piece of technology that has changed computing forever.

Scholar Reference:

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/25196/chapter/2

Primary Reference:

https://newsroom.ibm.com/2022-11-09-IBM-Unveils-400-Qubit-Plus-Quantum-Processor-and-Next-Generation-IBM-Quantum-System-Two

Secondary Source:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/14/tech/quantum-computing-cloud/index.html

New Year 2023

Happy 2023, I hope nothing disastrous happens this year or in the next coming decade. Since the 2008 financial crash, the world has witnessed an unprecedented outbreak of social protest in every major continent. Beginning with the birth of the Occupy movement in the US and Western Europe, and the Arab Spring, the eruption of civil unrest has continued to wreak havoc unpredictably from Greece to Ukraine, from China to Thailand, from Brazil to Turkey, and beyond. In some regions, civil unrest has coalesced into the collapse of incumbent governments or even the eruption of a prolonged state of internecine warfare, as is happening in Iraq-Syria and Ukraine-Russia. Increasing public dissatisfaction with government is correlated with continued government difficulties in meeting public expectations.