What fun to cheer on our own friend as she breezed through the tryouts for Dancing with the Stars: At Sea with her signature favorite, the Waltz. Paired with the professional dancer aboard I had just watched on Noordam in the Caribbean in March, I knew she had a good shot to make the finals. Since the TV finals just finished, we were all enjoying hearing about her practice routines and we turned out to support her bid to go on in the competition between the ships of the fleet’s contestants. A real addition for HAL to satisfy those who enjoy dancing. Meanwhile, our gang enjoyed the disco, live music and watching the pros at different times during the voyage.

And let me not forget the Dutch couple pictured working the Samba on stage. Her parents had enjoyed HAL so much that they were taking the family to Alaska all the way from The Netherlands to celebrate their 40th anniversary. And so I rest my case. Let HAL do all the work to keep everyone in your family or group happy and just enjoy. So many choices, so little time.

On Saturday June 8 we were in Dover. I woke up early to see Ryndam coming in. These are some of the pictures I took. Enjoy …

Today I wanted to share some hints about searching in Windows 8. I loved searching in Windows 7. It was a fast and easy way to find anything I needed. Searching in Windows 8 is a little different, but just as fast and, I think, even easier.

One of the ways to search in Windows 8 (and this will always work, regardless of the app you have open at the moment), is to bring up the charms, and tap or click the search charm.

What are the charms?

That bar on the right side of the screen, those are the charms. And the top one is search. No matter where you are on the computer you can always bring up the charms and select search.

How do I bring up the charms and/or search?
Touch: Swipe from the right edge of the screen. Tap search.
Mouse: Place your mouse in one of the right corners of the screen, the charms appear, move your mouse onto search, and left click.
Keyboard: Hold down the Windows Key and press the letter C to bring up the charms.
If you want to go straight to the search charm, then hold down the windows key and press the letter Q.
(If you’re wondering how to remember that it’s the letter Q, notice how a Q kind of looks like a magnifying glass, the universal symbol for search!)

REMEMBER!  No matter WHAT you’re doing on the computer, you can ALWAYS bring up the charms and search using one of the methods above.  That’s one of the things I love about Windows 8; no matter what I’m doing, I can always search the same way.

All of that being said, if you are using a keyboard with Windows 8, an even easier way to search for something, be it a file, app, or setting, is to just start typing on the start screen. That’s right, if you’re on your start screen you don’t even have to select anything. Just start typing!

Here’s what happened when I typed “word” on my start screen.

So it immediately searched for “word” in all my apps on the PC. Now here’s where it’s a bit different from Windows 7. If you typed “word” in the Windows 7 search, it would bring up a list of apps (like Word and WordPad), but it would also bring up a list of all your word documents or any file on the computer that had the word “word” in it, plus any settings that were associated with “word.” Depending on what you search for, this list of search results can be quite overwhelming to sift through.

In Windows 8 it only brings up the apps at first, but don’t worry, it has actually searched through the whole computer.

In the screenshot above, I’ve zoomed in so you can see the different sections of search results that Windows 8 has for you: Apps, Settings, and Files.  As you can see, it has found items associated with “word” in all three sections.  The numbers next to each section tell you how many results there are (ie, there are 192 files that somehow include “word” in them). With so many results I’m glad they’ve separated them by type of item, this makes it easier for me to find what I need.

If you type in your search term it will bring the corresponding apps up first on your results list.  But simply tap or click “Settings” to see the results that are settings, like I’ve done above.

And if you’re looking instead for files, then tap or click files and it will show you those. Notice in the above screenshot that I have 192 files in my search results list, but it also divides them by type (ie, 136 documents, two music files, and 54 other types of files), that way I can narrow my search even further.

If I realize I wanted to search for “word” in a specific app, I can scroll down and see a list of ALL my apps and choose the one I want to search in.

To read the full post, click HERE.

Holland America Line is a proud partner of Microsoft on the Digital Workshop powered by Windows program.

Joanne Gardner is Nieuw Amsterdam’s future cruise consultant. 

No one who took the Dog Sledding on the Mendenhall Glacier by Helicopter tour wanted to leave the ice field … There is taking a ride behind sled dogs, calling to mind Capt. Preston of the Yukon on B&W tv, then there was this … Starting with suiting up at the helicopter hanger for glacier trekking, we then watched a safety briefing about the helicopter before climbing aboard (4 plus the pilot – all with good viewing and earphones). We were piloted directly above the Mendenhall Glacier and followed it up the valley below the rim of the sidewalls, it was breathtaking. Our pilot described many glacial and geologic features and we took pictures like mad. Later we strained to spot the camp, all in white, and the 200 dogs summering on the ice field for their continued Ididarod training pulling dead weight like us!

It was a magnificent day to spend time with the animals, take a 4-mile sled run standing on the back brake, playing with the puppies and experience standing on 200 feet of moving ice. If you hear a report about a missing pup, please don’t tell anyone he left with me. I’ve been to Antarctica on the Amsterdam and I’ve met Felicity Aston, the great Antarctic solo explorer, but this was so personal, experiencing the animals living in their own glorious environment that I can appreciate the Call of the Wild for myself. They were so passionate to run. It made you wish there were more people in the world that happy. Unforgettable.

Jonathan M. Bailey is Rotterdam’s safety, environmental and health officer.

We had a wonderful time a board of the Westerdam cruising to Alaska this past month. As a photographer enthusiast I was pleasantly surprised by the beauty and diversity of Alaska but mostly the high quality cruise experience my husband and I had. Please enjoy some of my best shots….from Juneau and
Sitka.

Amy Kreft is Eurodam’s human resource manager.