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Documents written by two or more authors are often stronger than single-writer works. Each team member brings different assets and the finished product can be more comprehensive and detailed.

Collaborative authoring with someone down the hall can be difficult enough. Collaborating on a project with someone in another office or even another country can seem impossible! Using today's online collaboration tools, many of the difficulties of collaboration can be eliminated no matter where your partners are located.

Use Collaboration Features in Word

Microsoft Word has a number of features designed specifically for writing collaboratively. The basic word processing tools have become so effortless that they barely need explaining. Spelling and grammar correction aid, although don't replace, manual proofreading. Document layout, automatic generation of tables of contents and indexes, and easy footnotes make the creation of professional-looking documents a snap.

Many people well-versed in Word's features haven't explored the collaboration tools. Tracking changes, creating new versions, adding editing notes and more allow multiple authors to not only modify the document but to understand other people's changes.

Most people think that group authoring or versioning with Word means emailing the document to all authors with every change. Everyone's inboxes get clogged with multiple versions of the document and it is easy to lose track of which version is the most current. People on slow connections have to wait while the document is downloaded even if they don't plan to make any edits. However, there is a far easier way that most of today's progressive companies are using to implement document sharing.

Upload To an Online File Sharing Service

By putting the current master document onto a central server, access is streamlined. Authors or editors who need the document can get it and multiple versions can be stored online. Furthermore, users can make notes and add comments about their versions for the rest of the members to see. Online file sharing can be made even more powerful by using online project workspaces.

Online task management simplifies team collaboration no matter where in the world team members are located. As long as each member has an internet connection, all activities can be coordinated through a central source.

These tools go beyond simple online file sharing. All communication can be carried out through the online workspace, making it easy for all members to see changes in the project. Task assignments and calendars mean each team member has a clear idea of duties and deadlines. As members are added or removed from the project, no one needs to update email lists since communications are coordinated through the project workspace.

Learning to use a full-featured online collaboration tool doesn't have to be hard for team members. Look for an application with an intuitive interface so your team members can get up to speed quickly. Encourage everyone to use the workspace so that the entire team remains fully apprised of important changes to the document. Team collaboration through an online tool is easy to implement and makes any project with multiple contributors easier to manage!

Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information on Online File Sharing, please visit http://www.projectspaces.com.

AP - Oil prices hit four-year lows Friday as employers cut the highest number of jobs in 34 years. The continuing decline in prices is so dramatic and so sudden that it is raising the prospect that gas prices could soon fall below $1 a gallon.

There are a number of different Chess moves which exist that have all been popularized with special names to clarify exactly what they stand for. Sometimes these moves are named after the person who frequented them, being called a special form of offense or defense. Occasionally, these moves are named after an abstract theory about the game itself. An En Passant, however, is named for exactly what it stands for. Taken from the French for, "in passing," the term describes exactly what is happening on the board with the move.

Chess used to play by somewhat different rules, with castling never formerly being allowed, Queens and Bishops were limited in how far they could move in any one direction, and Pawns were never allowed to move more than one space at a time. In the 14th and 15th Centuries, however, the rules of Chess began to slowly change and all of the above mentioned examples now became permissible. This did pose a problem, though, with some of the Pawns. When Pawns were allowed to move up to two spaces on their first move, they could sometimes land in a position which would place them directly next to a Pawn of an opposite color. Being directly next to that Pawn of the opposite color, the original Pawn became unable to be captured. This would often result in an excess of Pawns on the board and became problematic to many of the strategies of the game.

To avoid the complications that this issue started to arise, another rule was added to the specifics of Chess. Rather than remove the rule which allowed Pawns to be removed two spaces, a special rule was customized to make up for the problem that Pawns which landed next to each other could pose. If a Pawn takes its initial move of two spaces and lands directly next to another Pawn of the opposite color, thus preventing the Pawn from being captured by normal rules, En Passant can come into play. The player of the opposite Pawn is allowed to move their Pawn one space diagonally, so that it is now directly behind the original Pawn. The original Pawn is then captured, as if it had never been allowed to move the original two spaces and only could move one instead. This places the Pawn of the opposite color into the space that the original Pawn would have occupied and the original Pawn is considered a captured piece.

En Passant is helpful in the fact that it helps to clear the chessboard a bit before heavy strategic decisions begin to come into play. Having too many pawns on the board can clutter a space and begin to hinder some of the more brilliant Chess strategies that players could enact. Space is sometimes needed on a board to play out a battle and the removal of pawns can be a very important part of a player's strategy. The beauty of the En Passant move is that it allows a player on the offense to not be thwarted by special Pawn movements, allowing them to strike while they have an opportunity.

Victor Epand is an expert consultant for board games, chess boards, and dungeons and dragons miniatures. You will find all these things and more if you visit used board games, chess moves en passant.

AP - Conservation groups filed formal protests Thursday against what they call a "fire sale" of oil-and-gas drilling leases in Utah being conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.