Rob Roy Computer Help

DECEMBER 2011- ADDING GRAPHICS TO A WORD PROCESSING DOCUMENT

2011-12-15T07:12:00.003-06:00

ADDING GRAPHICS TO A WORD PROCESSING DOCUMENT
DECEMBER 2011
MICROSOFT WORKS 8.0 WORD PROCESSING
Add an existing picture or photo from a file on your computer:
1. In the document, click where you want to insert a picture.
2. On the Insert menu, point to Picture, and then click From File.
3. If the picture file you want is listed, double-click the file name to open it.
4. If the picture file isn’t listed, switch to the drive or folder where the file is located, and then double-click the name of the file you want to open.
Tip: You can also add an existing picture by clicking the Insert Picture icon on the toolbar.

Add a Microsoft clip art picture:
1. Click in the document where you want to insert a picture.
2. On the Insert menu, point to Picture, and then click Clip Art.
3. Click Browse.
4. Under Select a category, click the category you want.
5. You can refine your search by choosing a sub-category under Select a sub-category, or a type of clip under Select a media type.
6. Click the picture you want, and then click Insert.
Tip: You can also add an existing picture by clicking the Insert Clip Art icon on the toolbar.

If the picture you want to insert is on the Works compact disc, you will be prompted to insert the disc containing the clip into the CD-ROM drive of your computer. After you insert the compact disc, Works will find the picture you want and insert it into your document.

Add a picture or clip art from the Internet:
1. Locate the graphic on the Internet.
2. Right click on the picture and select Copy.
3. Click in the document where you want to insert the picture.
4. Right click and select Paste.

Resize a Photo or Clip Art Picture:
To resize clip art and maintain a picture's proportions:
1. In your document, click the picture that you want to resize. Selection handles appear around the picture.
2. Position the mouse pointer over one of the CORNER handles until it looks like a 2-pointed arrow.
3. While holding down the left mouse button, drag the corner into the center of the picture until it is the size you want, then release the mouse button.
Note:
To keep the same proportions, you MUST drag a corner handle. If you drag in a side or top handle, you will warp the picture.

Crop a picture
1. In your document, click the picture that you want to crop. Selection handles appear around the picture and a Picture toolbar will appear at the top of the page.
2. Click on the "Crop" tool on the Picture toolbar.
3. To crop a single side, use a side, top, or bottom handle. To crop two adjoining sides at once, use a corner handle.
4. To crop equally on two sides at once, hold down CTRL as you drag the center handle on either side inward. To crop equally on all four sides at once, hold down CTRL as you drag a corner handle inward.
6. Drag the handle until you have cropped the area you want to remove. Release the mouse button.
Notes:
a. Cropping does not make any change to the actual picture or graphic. You are simply telling the program how much of the original picture that you want displayed.
b. If you want to resize the picture, do this BEFORE cropping. Trying to resize after cropping will reverse the cropping and display the full picture.

Wrap text around an object:
You can wrap text around an object to highlight the shape, curves, and points of the object. It makes a document look interesting, and doesn't move the object.
1. Click to select the object (picture or clip art).
2. On the Format menu, click Object.
3. Click the Wrapping tab.
4. Under Style, click on one of the style choices:
a. The In Line With Text style insets the graphic in the text at the location of the insertion point. The graphic moves as you add or delete text. The text does not wrap around the graphic; white space extends to the margins on either side of the graphic.
b. The Square style wraps the text around all sides of a square bounding the graphic. The graphic moves as you add or delete text.
c. The Tight style wraps the text around the graphic in an irregular shape bounding the actual image. The graphic moves as you add or delete text.
In the Square and Tight styles, you will have available the Text Placement option boxes that will allow you to move the picture to the left or right margin.

CHRISTMAS FREEBIE:
Often we try to include information in documents that require aligning the text. Using tabs is the way any typist would use to do this and it works well if all the information is the same length and there are only a few items. However if some information is long and others are very short tabbing doesn't work. Using the table function is the answer. The table function wraps the text to fit and aligns everything. It offers controls to show borders, text breaks and many other features and is easy to use.

October 2011 - Organize Photos with Picasa

2011-10-15T16:31:00.000-05:00

The invention of the digital camera has made the statement “a picture is worth a thousand words” a reality. Small high quality cameras that make instant pictures and movies at no cost have led to billions of photos being taken and viewed daily. Facebook and YouTube have more photo and movies online today then were taken in the previous 50 years.

Once upon a time you loaded a 36-picture roll of film that cost $2.00 into a $200 camera and took the film to a store to develop the pictures for $10. Or bought a movie camera and a 50-foot roll of film and made a 5 minute movie that had to be developed and played on a special projector. Today a camera that fits in your pocket or a cell phone can take photos or movies that can be seen instantly or shared with friends on the internet at no cost. Suddenly that shoe box in the closet isn't able to store these memories. Photo album programs that allow you to store, edit and catalog all these images on your computer or create CD storage disks are the answer. Many are either expensive or don't work well. A free program, Picasa from Google is today’s best answer. Learning to use it requires some training, but it is worth the trouble.

Downloading Picasa

First you must go to the Google website at www.google.com. Near the top of the page about 3 lines from the top find the word “More”, click on it and then click on “Even more”. In the right hand column you will see Picasa. Click on it and follow the instructions for downloading it to your computer.

When you install Picasa, you have the option to allow it to scan your computer for folders containing photos and images, which will then be shown as folders in Picasa. Folders in Picasa represent actual folders on your computer, so changes you make to folders in Picasa also affect the folders on your computer. For example, deleting a photo from a folder in Picasa deletes the photo from your computer. At the same time, deleting a photo from a folder on your computer removes the photo from Picasa.

Albums are different from folders because albums only exist in Picasa. They don't represent real folders on your computer. Albums may also contain photos saved across multiple folders. For example, you might create an album called 'Pictures with Grandma,' and include photos of grandma saved in different folders. It's important to note when you delete or move photos from an album, the original files remain in their original locations on your computer.

SCANNING AND MONITORING YOUR PHOTOS

You can use the Folder Manager to control how Picasa scans and monitors the folders on your hard drive:

Click the Tools menu in Picasa.
Select Folder Manager.
Select a folder from the folder list on the left that you want to add or remove from Picasa's watch list.
Select one of the following monitoring options on the right

'Scan Always': Picasa views all compatible image types in these folders, and it automatically adds new photos. Picasa actively scans this folder for changes.
'Scan Once': Picasa accesses all compatible image types in these folders only once. It doesn't detect new photos added to folders with this setting.
'Remove from Picasa': Picasa doesn't look in folders that are marked with this status.

Click the OK button to save your changes.

The folders that you've set Picasa to continuously scan are listed in the 'Watched Folders' section.

FOLDER LIST ORGANIZATION

The Picasa folder list allows you to neatly display and sort the folders on your hard drive. You can change the way you view these folders without changing their actual location on your hard drive.

Click the View menu.
Select Folder View.
Select your folder view or your sort type. You can also change the Picasa folder view by using the buttons above the Folder List.
Flat folder view - this is the default view. This view displays all the folders that you've directed the Folder Manager to scan, regardless of the folder hierarchy on your computer's hard drive. Apart from your normal 'Folders' collection, you may notice other collections like 'Projects' and 'Downloaded Albums' which are designed to organize specific types of photos.
Tree view - with this view, all of your scanned folders and sub-folders are presented in a hierarchical view, reflecting the folder structure of your hard drive. You'll see your folders grouped under headings like 'My Pictures' and 'My Documents' (Windows) or 'Pictures' and 'iPhoto Library' (Mac). Other collections like 'Projects,' 'Exported Pictures,' and 'Hidden Folders' won't be visible in the Tree view.
Simplified tree view - all of your scanned folders and sub-folders are presented on the same level underneath the top-level directory. This is a good way to sort all of your folders within the same list. Within each view, you can sort the folders by creation date, size, name, or recent changes.

SORTING PHOTOS AND ALBUMS

You can sort both the order of folders and albums in your Picasa folder list, as well as the way your photos are sorted within a folder or album.

Sort photos: To adjust the way your photos are sorted within a folder or album, please take the following steps:

From the folder list, click on the folder or album that you'd like to re-order.
Click the Folder menu or the Album menu.
Select Sort by.
Choose to sort your photos by the following options: Name, Date, or Size. To reverse the sort order of name (Z to A), date (oldest to newest) or size (largest to smallest), just hold down the Shift key when you make your selection.

To change the order of your photos manually, you can also drag and drop photos to your desired location.

Sort folders and albums: To change the order of your folders and albums in the folder list, follow these steps:

Click the View menu.
Select Folder View.
Choose from the following sorting options:
Creation date: Newest to oldest.
Recent changes: Most recently updated first.
Size: Largest to smallest, by the amount of hard drive space taken up. Name: Alphabetically, A to Z.

You can also access the sorting options by clicking the pull-down arrow menu in the button bar above your folder list, next to the folder structure buttons.

MOVING FOLDERS You can move entire folders around on your hard drive from within Picasa. Follow these steps:

Right-click (Windows) or control-click (Mac) the folder you'd like to move in the Folder List.
Select Move folder.
Choose your desired destination.
Click OK.

Note: These moves are permanent on your hard drive!

CREATING AN ALBUM

You can combine photos from multiple folders into a single album in Picasa. Photos that you include in an album remain in their original folder locations on your computer, even if you reorganize or delete photos from the album. To create an album, you can follow these instructions:

Select the photos you wish to include in the album and put them in the Photo Tray in the lower-left corner of the window.
Once all your selections are in the Photo Tray, click the Add Selected Items to an Album button on the Photo Tray.
Select New album. You can also choose to add the photos to an existing album in the menu.
In the 'Album Properties' window, name the album.
Click the OK button.

EDITING FOLDER OR ALBUM PROPERTIES

You can edit the following properties of a folder or album:

Folder/Album name
Date
Place taken
Detailed description
Background music for slideshow and movie presentation modes

To edit an album or folder's properties, please use the following steps:

Select the folder or album you'd like to edit.
Click the Folder menu or the Album menu in Picasa.
Select Edit Description.
Make your edits. Please note the following:
Date: You can manually choose a date that should be associated with the folder. Alternatively, Picasa can analyze the timestamp of your photos in the folder or album and determine a date for you if you select the 'Automatic Date' checkbox.
Background music: Select the 'Use Music for Slideshow and Movie presentation' option if you want music to accompany the display of the photos in that particular folder or album, while in slideshow or movie mode. Click the Browse button and select the MP3 music file you'd like to use.

Click the OK button.

All above information from the Google Picasa Help site

Files and Folders

2011-08-09T22:29:00.001-05:00

Please see the January 2011 post for the write up. The only changes are the locations menus for Windows 7 which were shown at the meeting.

July 2011 - Skype

2011-07-13T11:51:00.000-05:00

VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services transmit voice traffic over an IP-based network, which, in layman’s terms, means you’re going to get phone service over the Internet. It’s similar to talking over a normal telephone, except it’s often much cheaper than regular phone service and doesn’t always have to involve a traditional telephone. People who are accustomed to using traditional phone services will encounter a significant learning curve when they decide on one of the many quality services out there, but that’s all a part of getting used to something new.

Skype is a VoIP software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chats over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee. Skype has also become popular for its additional features which include instant messaging, file transfer, and video conferencing.

Skype has 663 million registered users as of 2010. The network is operated by Skype Limited, which has its headquarters in Luxembourg. Most of the development team and 44% of the overall employees of Skype are situated in the offices of Tallinn and Tartu, Estonia. (Wikipedia)

Pros:

Calls to other Skype users are free

Video conferencing

Cheap rates to call landlines

Cheap international calling

Cons:

Variable voice quality

No 911 service

Computer must be on to make calls

No service during power outages

Scant technical support

Professional reviewers and users alike love Skype because it allows you to have free PC-to-PC VoIP calls or video calls. One drawback is sound quality that is decent at best, and poor in some reviews. If you want to call landline phones, you'll need to subscribe to Skype's pay service. Reviews recommend Skype for free international calls to other Skype users, as well as for very inexpensive international calls to landline and cell phones. Skype isn't designed, however, to be the sole telephone for the household, mainly because it can't make 911 calls.

(ConsumerSearch.com, October 2010)

Service Plan and Fees:

One of the advantages of dealing with Skype is the options they give you in terms of how you can pay. You can either pre-pay, pay as you go or pay monthly with PayPal, credit card, Moneybookers or prepaid cards you can buy at Wal-Mart.

This service offers three plans (Unlimited U.S. & Canada, Unlimited North America and Unlimited World) for $2.99, $6.99 and $13.99, respectively. The distinct difference between these plans is where you can call. The Unlimited U.S. & Canada plan gives you unlimited calls to the United States and Canada. Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey (landlines only, discounted rates to the rest of Mexico) are added to the Unlimited North America Plan. You’re able to call 40 other destinations with the Unlimited World Plan. The good thing is that even the most expensive plan doesn’t cost you very much.

Features:

Skype offers their customers a solid list of 17 features. The difference between what they and their VoIP services competitors have to offer is the fact they’re a video chat based VoIP service. As a result, you’re going to get several options like the ability to send files and screen sharing. You can also take advantage of the fact you can call other people who have this service for free. Other free features this service offers include video calls, Skype-to-Skype conference calls and instant messaging and group instant messages.

If you want to get in touch with someone who doesn’t have this service, it will only cost you about two cents a minute. The costs for receiving calls from landlines and mobiles, sending text messages and having voicemail are very low as well. Subscription plans have these features included at no cost to you or are discounted. Accessing this service via WiFi hotspots is another inexpensive option this service provides its customers.

Ease of Installation/Setup:

The process of setting up Skype is easier than what you would find with any of their competitors. You don’t have to deal with any equipment or the hassles that go along with it. All you have to do is download the program and install it on your computer. If you want to talk to another person, you need to have a headset or external microphone. They have Mac and Windows versions of their software, so there’s no need to worry about whether you’re compatible or not. The most important thing to have with this service is an internet connection. If you have a good internet connection, the rest takes care of itself.

Help/Support:

Skype provides their users with a list of popular answers to frequently asked questions and help topics that focus on particular aspects of their services, such as Payments & Billing, Products & Features, Skype for Business and Technical Issues & Using Skype. On the right side of the support menu, you can take advantage of their helpful step-by-step tutorials, glossary, information on how you could look for the information you need better, reports on whether parts of this service’s system are operational, user forums, data on their payment options, the ability to view purchase limits and how you can get more help. The get more help option is a little disappointing because all it does it is bring up a search box for the FAQs section.

Summary:

When you use this service, you will find that it’s one of the most flexible VoIP services out there. You can do a number of different things and pay them exactly how you want to pay them. There aren’t any rigid guidelines holding the customers back from truly enjoying the services Skype has to offer. For that reason alone, you should choose them over the VoIP services that have plans that are a lot more rigid.

(www.Voice-Service-Review.TopTenReviews.com (2011)

June 2011 - eReaders

2011-06-15T11:44:00.000-05:00

'eBook' is short for 'electronic book', a digital version of a print book that has been optimized for on-screen reading. eBooks are available in a variety of different formats that can be read on a personal computer or hand-held device designed specifically for this purpose.

eReaders are simple computers that are very portable and can be used to store and view many books. Even the lowest priced versions can store over 200 books. The purpose was to allow you to take many books with you on trips or have several books available in one small package. The arrival of tablets and netbooks on the market has cut into the potential market. eReaders had a severe drop in price, falling from $300 - $500 into the $150 - $170 price range. Tablets and netbooks can do everything that eReaders can and a lot more and are only slightly more expensive. Some of the early eReaders were linked to a book seller and used only a specific format that the seller controlled. Apple and Google joined Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders and others in selling eBooks.

When libraries started making eBooks available, they standardized into two basic formats EPUB and PDF format. Most books are available in these two formats.

Variety of eReaders:

eReaders come with many different features. Most are essentially the same size, about as big as a medium sized book. They are about as thin as your little finger and weigh less than a pound.

1. Some can only display black and white, while others display full color. It is claimed that the black & white format is easier to read in bright conditions than the color models.

2. Some come with automatic connection to the book seller to buy and download eBooks, while others need an open wireless connection (WiFi). Some of those with the automatic connection will allow you to surf the web, while others only allow the connection to the seller. Since the eBooks have slow processors, the connections are still slow compared to tablets and netbooks.

3. Most will allow you to play 'audiobooks' using internal speakers or using headphones.

4. Some will play slide shows of images you have loaded.

5. Some have the ability to play music, if you have loaded songs.

6. Video play back is included with some eReaders. These videos are more in the music video type, not full movies.

7. Some allow email and web surfing if a wireless source is available. It is slow but does work.

In other words, they are trying to be everything to everyone. Almost all eReaders come with preloaded free books from the public domain. These are books without copyright protection and include many of the classics. You won't find anything written after 1929 in the free books unless the publisher forgot to copyright it. Many of these have been scanned by students from college libraries and are very poor quality.

Do you need an eBook Reader?

The choice will be based on what you need and want to do with it.

1. Are eBooks cheaper then paper copies? NO, but they can be downloaded. Purchased copies can be saved on your computer for later usage.

2. Out of print books are often available as eBooks.

3. eBooks will never be sold for thousands of dollars at auction like rare paper books.

4. Are eReaders easier to carry than paper books? Yes, they are lighter than one hard cover or three paperbacks.

5. Can you pass them on to friends? No, copyright laws forbid printing or sharing of any eBooks except free ones without copyright protection.

6. Do you travel often with several books or want to check email at a hotel on the road? eReaders can do this.

7. The size and weight of an eReader can be helpful for those with disabilities that make holding a book a challenge.

8. Text size can be adjusted for those with vision problems and some eReaders even will read the text aloud to you.

9. The digital library is always open, whether you purchase an eBook or borrow one from the library. And you will never have a late fee for library eBooks as they return themselves.

eBook Sources:

There are many on line sources.

Amazon has a large list of available eBooks, as well as Borders and Barnes & Noble

Apple Store also sells eBooks.

Google has both free eBooks and eBooks for sale. They claim to have over 3000 free eBooks available.

Your Local library offers free eBooks for loan. I have never been able to get anything current and generally got a copy of the paper version faster. That may change as eBooks become more popular and libraries get more copies.

There are many other online sources, but these are the major sources.

Be sure to do your homework before buying an eReader. Items to consider include:

· Size and weight

· Controls, buttons, touchscreen

· Battery life

· Features

· Book formats handled

· Capacity

· Store Access

· Price

MAY 2011 - INTERNET BROWSERS

2011-05-10T17:18:00.002-05:00

An Internet browser is your window to the web, where you can find almost anything from the comfort of your own living room. Today, the Internet is widely used for media, research, communication, shopping and entertainment. The better your browser, the more you will see and experience.

Up–to–date web browsers are equipped with the latest features and technology to simplify, accelerate and enhance your Internet experience. The newest features include tabbed browsing, RSS feeds and voice interaction. Browsers are also more customizable and entertaining with skins, informative and fun widgets and additional add–ons.

Safety is a common concern among web surfers, and for good reasons. The number of hazards seems to grow every day. Viruses, spyware, phishing schemes and identity theft are some of the concerns. Other worries come from the threat of online predators and the appropriateness of material for children. Modern Internet browsers shield against all of these factors to keep you, your family and your PC safe.

What to Look for in Internet Browsers

Internet browsers should have three main objectives: simplicity, security and helping you get the most from the web. Because all of the browsers that are being considered are free, you may want to download and consider several of them. You might even decide to use more than one browser—for example, one for fun and one for research.

Criteria used to evaluate Internet browsers are:

Feature Set

Top–ranked Internet browsers offer many practical features that make surfing the web faster, easier and more convenient. A few of these features are tabbed browsing, thumbnail previews and an integrated search engine.

Ease of Use

Internet browsers ought to be simple to use so anyone, regardless of their knowledge of computers or the Internet, will feel comfortable using the web.

Security

Security is one of the most important aspects of browsing the web. Internet browsers should protect against pop–ups, viruses and phishing frauds and allow you to clear personal information so you can feel confident while online.

Speed & Compatibility

Your internet browser should help you surf fast and efficiently. While the speed of your computer and internet connection account for most of the speed, not all browsers are created equal in regards to how fast they startup, process HTML and JavaScript. Likewise, not all internet browsers will open all pages correctly. The best browsers will open websites quickly and properly.

Help/Support

Although most internet browsers are free, quality customer support helps if you run into problems. Developers provide support through email, phone, FAQs, manuals and tutorials.

PASSWORDS AND SECURITY

2011-02-10T07:19:00.000-06:00

PASSWORDS AND SECURITY

Security:
Security is a multi level program. It is like guarding a castle. You have a moat, tall walls and a strong gate. In a computer this is your firewall, anti-spyware and anti-virus. They keep most people out of your computer, some can slip through, usually because you let them in or are tricked into opening the door. That is where password security takes over protecting important files and personal information. Passwords are the combination lock on the vault or the key to the strong box.

Refresher – Password Usage:
These days we need a password or PIN everywhere. We have so many that we can’t keep track of them all. We forget to update them and when we do, it’s difficult to come up with effective ones that we can still remember, so we procrastinate changing them for months, even years. We all know this is bad, but the alternative – the painful, irritating password creation and memorization process – is sometimes more than we can tolerate. There is hope! Passwords don’t have to be complex cryptograms. A few simple methods can help make living with passwords a little easier.

While we may find them annoying, it is important to remember why passwords are important: passwords are often the last defense against intrusion. They protect personal information – information we don’t want anyone and everyone to know. In our personal lives, this means financial information, health data, and private documents. In a professional context, this may encompass anything considered crucial to the success of the organization: trade secrets, financial data, intellectual property, customer lists, etc.

Passwords are simpler and cheaper than other, more secure forms of authentication like special key cards, fingerprint ID machines, and retinal scanners. They provide a simple, direct means of protecting a system or account. We’ll define a ‘password’ as a word, a phrase, or combination of miscellaneous characters that authenticates the identity of the user. Passwords are generally used in combination with some form of identification, such as a username, account number, or e-mail address. While a username establishes the identity of the user for the computer or system, the password, which is known only to the authorized user, authenticates that the user is who he or she claims to be. This means that their function is to “prove to the system that you are who you say you are”.

Password Cracking:
While passwords are a vital component of system security, they can be cracked or broken relatively easily. It is much easier than most users would think. (The difference between cracking and hacking is that codes are cracked, machines are hacked.) Passwords can be cracked in a variety of different ways. The most simple is the use of a word list or dictionary program to break the password by brute force. These programs compare lists of words or character combinations against passwords until they find a match. There are also numerous password cracking tools available that any average person can use.

A more technical way of learning passwords is through sniffers, which look at the raw data transmitted across the net and decipher its contents. “A sniffer can read every keystroke sent out from your machine, including passwords” (University of Michigan). It’s possible that someone out there has at least one of your passwords right now.

How To Choose Good Passwords:
In creating strong, effective passwords it is often helpful to keep in mind some of the methods by which they may be cracked, so let’s begin with what NOT to do when choosing passwords.

1. No Dictionary Words, Proper Nouns, or Foreign Words
Since password cracking tools are very effective at processing large quantities of letter and number combinations until a match for the password is found, users should avoid using conventional words as passwords. You should also avoid regular words with numbers tacked onto the end and conventional words that are simply written backwards, such as ‘nimda’. While these may prove to be difficult for people to figure out, they are no match for the brute force attacks of password cracking tools.

2. No Personal Information
One of the frustrating things about passwords is that they need to be easy for users to remember. Naturally, this leads many users to incorporate personal information into their passwords. However, it is alarmingly easy for hackers to obtain personal information about prospective targets.

3. Length, Width and Depth
A strong, effective password requires a necessary degree of complexity. Three factors can help users to develop this complexity: length, width & depth.

Length means that longer is better. Probability dictates that the longer a password, the more difficult it will be to crack. It is generally recommended that passwords be between six and nine characters. Shorter passwords should be avoided.

Width is a way of describing the different types of characters that are used. Don’t just consider the alphabet. There are also numbers and special characters like ‘%’, and in most operating systems, upper and lower case letters are also known as different characters, particularly in passwords. As a general rule the following character sets should all be included in every password:

* uppercase letters such as A, B, C;
* lowercase letters such as a, b, c;
* numerals such as 1, 2, 3;
* special characters such as $, ?, &;
* alt characters such as µ, £, Æ.

Depth refers to choosing a password with a challenging meaning – something not easily guessable. Stop thinking in terms of passwords and start thinking in terms of phrases. “A good password is easy to remember, but hard to guess.” The purpose of a mnemonic phrase is the creation of a complex password that will not need to be written down. Examples of a mnemonic phrase may include a phrase spelled phonetically, such as ‘ImuKat!’ (instead of ‘I’m a cat!’) or the first letters of a memorable phrase such as ‘qbfjold*’ = “quick brown fox jumped over lazy dog.” What may be most effective is to convert some of those letters into other characters (substituting the number ‘3’ for the letter ‘e’ is a common example).

Extra Protection
All of the good password cracking programs include foreign words, backwards words, etc. And the easiest way to steal a password is by asking for it, so it’s simpler to never give it away. There are also certain behaviors that users should practice in order to maximize the effectiveness of their passwords. Users should avoid using the same password on multiple accounts. Doing this creates a single point of failure, which means that if an intruder gains access to one account, he or she will have access to all of the user’s accounts. Users should never disclose their passwords to anybody unless they are a known, trusted source, and then, passwords should only be disclosed in person (not over the phone or by e-mail).

Changing & Storing Passwords and PINs:
In order to ensure their ongoing effectiveness, passwords should be changed on a regular basis. Changing passwords securely is fairly simple. Windows passwords are changed through the Control Panel. If it’s an online account, don't use a public computer to change the password. If at all possible, the password should be changed over a secure connection. Don’t let anybody watch while typing the old and new passwords. Exercise extreme caution when writing down or storing passwords.
How often one should change passwords really depends on the account. Just use good judgment and don’t be lazy. Changing a password is relatively quick and painless compared to the irritating and expensive process of combating identity theft.
Much of this information is from http://www.symantec.com/connect/articles/simplest-security-guide-better-password-practices

2011-01-12T06:44:00.002-06:00

JANUARY, 2011 - FILES AND FOLDERS

Every item on your computer -- documents, photos, videos, music, email, programs, etc. -- is made up of one or more files. These files are always grouped in folders and make up your directory. Groups of folders, called sub-folders, are often filed together in another folder -- just like your filing cabinet. This "filing cabinet" on your computer is called a hard drive.

Think of your hard drive as one big file cabinet. You will stash your work in the file cabinet. But you can't just throw documents in willy-nilly. You have to have an organizational structure to your filing system.

Folders provide that organizational structure, just as they do in a file cabinet. First, you will put labeled folders into your cabinet/drive. Each folder will have a name. When you view the contents of a hard drive, folders are normally listed in alphabetical order.

Inside the folder, you will put your documents, which are called Files. In order to be able to find your documents later within an overstuffed folder, you will give each File or document a name.

A file name is made up of two parts: (1) the name of the document and (2) the file extension. You may name a file anything you wish, but it is preferable to name a file something you are likely to remember later.

The second part of a file name is the extension. In the file text.doc, the word text is the file name and the .doc is the extension. A period always separates the two. The extension identifies what kind of a document you have and is determined by the software program in which the file is created.

Some examples of file extensions are:

.doc - Microsoft Word Document

.htm - Web document

.gif - image

.jpg - image

.ppt - PowerPoint Presentation

You can see how this looks on your hard drive in several ways. One way is to use your mouse and right-click on the START button in the lower left corner of your screen and then left-click on "Explore".

What you will see is a tree-like diagram. The left side of Explorer (the folder tree) shows all the folders and the right side shows us the contents of the highlighted folder. The contents of a folder can contain even more sub-folders and individual files.

It is easy to get lost among the pile of folders on most hard disks unless you can actually see the ways the folders are related to each other. The folder tree, located in the left pane, is just such a helpful diagram. The folder tree shows all of the computer's drives and folders in a nested arrangement, plus some special areas like the Control Panel and Recycle Bin.

A small symbol - the plus (+) sign - marks drives and folders which contain other folders. Clicking this symbol expands this branch of the folder tree.

Another symbol - the minus (-) sign - marks something that is already expanded to show its contents. Clicking the symbol will collapse this branch of the folder tree.

DO NOT – EVER – MAKE ANY CHANGES IN THE PROGRAM FILES OR WINDOWS FILES!

THE ONLY FILE THAT IS SAFE TO WORK WITH IS THE "MY DOCUMENTS" FILE – OR ANY OTHER DOCUMENT FOLDER OR FILE THAT YOU CREATE YOURSELF.

CREATING FOLDERS

You can create new folders in the Explorer window. In the folder tree – the left pane - click on the existing folder in which you want to create a NEW folder. For example, click on My Documents (or Documents, if you’re using Vista). In the (My) Documents window, right-click in a blank area. Select New>>Folder.

A new folder will appear in the window. It is named New Folder, but the name is highlighted. You can (AND SHOULD) type a new name for it. To change the name later, right-click the folder and select Rename. Then, enter another name.

If you open (click on) this new folder, there will be nothing inside. You can put the other folders inside it. Technically, they're called subfolders. You can see the hierarchy in the left panel. Subfolders can also contain folders, however, it can be a hassle to navigate through many levels of folders. You can also delete folders by right-clicking on them and then clicking on Delete.

CREATING FILES

In Explorer, you can drag and drop files into the folders, if you’ve already created files. You can also delete files in Explorer. However, files are NEVER created in Explorer. You would do this in a software program by clicking on File>>Save, then navigating to the correct folder in the Save dialog box. When you find your folder, just click Save. Your file will be stored in the appropriate place.

Explorer is called Explorer for a reason. Don't be afraid to browse your hard disk. Look in all your folders, and try all the programs in the Start Menu. Explore! (But, REMEMBER – DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING EXCEPT DOCUMENT FILES!)

December 2010 Tax Software

2011-01-03T06:52:00.002-06:00

Tax Software December 2010

There are many software programs available to aid in preparing income tax forms. The three most popular programs are TurboTax, TaxACT and H & R Block at Home. Each offers a some what free version that can be tried online. Some can actually file your taxes on line and others required that you pay to file the tax return. All offer a state tax program that must be purchased.

TurboTax Review

Pros

Excellent on-screen guidance
Easy to navigate between sections
Maximum refund guarantee
Audit support available
Checks your likelihood of being audited
Helpful technical support
Downloadable products

Cons

Expensive professional tax support (20 mintues for $29.95)
Products are on the expensive end

TurboTax is an excellent choice for online tax software. Their products are typically more expensive than those of their competitors, but TurboTax's tax software provides outstanding guidance on a user-friendly interface. They have helpful on-screen tax guidance, in case you have any questions while preparing your taxes.

TurboTax offers technical support for all of their tax products via phone, live chat, email, and their knowledgebase. TurboTax has been in business for 26 years and offers a wide array of tax products, one of which is sure to fit your needs

H&R Block At Home Review

Pros

Audit support available
Double checks your return for errors
Maximum refund guarantee
Helpful technical support (via phone)
Automatically saves your return
Includes live tax support (with Premium, Premium & Business and Best of Both
Downloadable products available

Cons

Somewhat difficult to navigate between sections
No audit meter
No email support

H&R Block is one of the most well-known brands of tax preparation services. They offer helpful and prompt customer support, as well as live tax advice for an affordable price. Although their onine interface is a bit lacking in user-friendliness, they guarantee accurate calculations and a maximum refund. Overall, they offer reliable tax preparation products and superior support. They have been in business for 46 years and have tax preparation offices in many U.S. cities

TaxACT Review

Pros

Excellent on-screen guidance
Easy to navigate between sections
Double checks your return for errors
Maximum refund pledge
Helpful technical support
Cheap state add-on
Automatically saves your return
Downloadable products available

Cons

Live tax support is only available if you prepay
Does not look up your employer's ID for you
The FAQ sections is difficult to navigate

TaxACT is a great option for tax preparation software. TaxACT's line of products are easy to use and offer a well-designed interface, intuitive navigation, and in-depth guidance. These features help you to file your tax return quickly and accurately. TaxACT offers helpful live support through phone & email. The user-friendly system and great customer support, combined with ten years of quality service, make TaxACT a trusted and reliable choice for a tax preparation service.

User Rating:

TurboTax H & R Bloock TaxAct

Ease of Use: 5 Star 4 Star 4 Star

Tax Support: 3 Star 3 Star 3 Star

Tech Support: 4 Star 2 Star 4 Star

Reliability 5 Star 5 Star 5Star

USING SEARCH ENGINES

2010-11-10T08:05:00.000-06:00


A web search engine is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. The search results are generally presented in a list of results and are often called hits. The information may consist of web pages, images, information and other types of files.

Web search engines work by storing information about many web pages. These pages are retrieved by a Web crawler - an automated Web browser which follows every link on the site. The contents of each page are then analyzed to determine how it should be indexed. Data about web pages are stored in an index database for use in later queries. The purpose of an index is to allow information to be found as quickly as possible. There are two main types of search engine indexes that have evolved: one is a system of predefined and hierarchically ordered keywords that humans have programmed extensively. The other is a system that generates an "inverted index" by analyzing texts it locates. This second form relies much more heavily on the computer itself to do the bulk of the work.

Search engines first became popular in the early 1990's. Around 2000, the Google search engine rose to prominence. The company achieved better results for many searches with an innovation called PageRank. This iterative algorithm ranks web pages based on the number and PageRank of other web sites and pages that link there, on the premise that good or desirable pages are linked to more than others. Google also maintained a minimalist interface to its search engine.

Search engines are the largest advertising companies in the world. They provide a link between companies selling products and services and buyers looking for them. Some employ the practice of allowing advertisers to pay money to have their listings ranked higher in search results. The search engines get paid by the companies every time a buyer is directed to their page. It is only pennies per hit, but there are millions of hits per day. Unlike newspapers and magazines the hits are from buyers interested in their products and they only pay for those hits. In addition, the products and services can be kept current to the minute and orders can be taken on line.

Those search engines which do not accept money for their search engine results make money by running search related ads alongside the regular search engine results. The search engines make money every time someone clicks on one of these ads.

Using for Research
Chances are that you have used the Google search engine to access information from the World
Wide Web. Did you find what you needed? Too much or too little or a lot of "irrelevant hits?" Your results may vary from search to search depending on what words you type and how they are entered.

Google and other commercial search engines like Yahoo, Ask.com and Bing allow users to
search for the occurrence of words across billions of Web pages. Web search engines are not very "intelligent"; they don't understand the context of your search or the subtle nuances of human language and thought. Remember, computers don't think, they are literal – they simply process commands -- therefore, the "intelligence" must come from you. The following "Google Tips" are designed to help search the Web more effectively. Almost all search engines use the same method to improve your search query, so the Google tricks will work with almost any search engine.

Tip #1 - Use Google Help (click on "About Google", "Google Web Search Features", "Basics of
Search"). In Google Help, you will find all sorts of nifty tricks to improve your searching. Go to the site for more detailed information about the following:

Phrase search ("")
By putting double quotes around a set of words, you are telling Google to consider the exact words in that exact order without any change.
Search within a specific website (site:)
Google allows you to specify that your search results must come from a given website. For example, [ iraq site:nytimes.com ]
Terms you want to exclude (-)
Attaching a minus sign immediately before a word indicates that you do not want pages that contain this word to appear in your results. The minus sign should appear immediately before the word and should be preceded with a space. For example, [ anti-virus -software ]
Fill in the blanks (*)
If you include *, or wildcard within a query, it tells Google to try to treat the star as a placeholder for any unknown term(s) and then find the best matches. For example, [ Google * ] or [ Obama voted * on the * bill ]
Search exactly as is (+)
Google employs synonyms automatically, so that it finds pages that mention, for example, childcare for the query [ child care ] (with a space), or California history for the query [ ca history ]. But sometimes Google helps out a little too much and gives you a synonym when you don't really want it. By attaching a +immediately before a word (remember, don't add a space after the +), you are telling Google to match that word precisely as you typed it. Putting double quotes around a single word will do the same thing.
The OR operator
Google's default behavior is to consider all the words in a search. If you want to specifically allow either one of several words, you can use the OR operator (note that you have to type 'OR' in ALL CAPS). For example,[ San Francisco Giants 2004 OR 2005 ] will give you results about either one of these years, whereas [ San Francisco Giants 2004 2005 ] (without the OR) will show pages that include both years on the same page. The symbol |can be substituted for OR. (The AND operator, by the way, is the default, so it is not needed.)


Tip #2 - Use the Advanced Search
You might want to try Advanced Search, which offers numerous options for making your searches more precise and getting more useful results. You can reach this page by clicking the Advanced Search link next to the search box on the Google home page. For example, you can set the Advanced Search to:

contain ALL the search terms you type in
contain the exact phrase you type in
contain at least one of the words you type in
do NOT contain any of the words you type in
is written in a certain language
is created in a certain file format
was updated within a certain period of time
contain numbers within a certain range
within a certain domain, or website
don't contain "adult" material


Tip #3 - Understand Your Results
Remember, any bozo with access to a Web server and some time on his hands can create a Web
page. As you access Web pages and retrieve information, constantly ask yourself, "Who wrote this, for what purpose, and for what audience?" Websites of any repute will clearly identify the author. In an academic setting, you are expected to use authoritative and scholarly sources. If you have questions about a site's content or motives, that's probably good enough reason to just skip it and move on.

Face Book & Twitter Social Sites

2010-10-13T07:37:00.001-05:00

Social networking is conquering the Web, and the two leaders in this growing market are Facebook and Twitter. Each site has built communities of millions of users and developers in just a few short years, and they are fighting each other to become the top destination for Web users looking to share information with friends and colleagues.
Facebook, launched in February 2004, lured 135.4 million unique visitors to its site in April 2010 for a whopping 3.2 billion total visits, according to Compete, an analytics firm. Twitter, launched in March 2006, lured 21.5 million unique visitors in April 2010 for 147.4 million total visits.
Facebook is a social networking website where users can add people as friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Users can create profiles with photos, lists of personal interests, contact information and other personal information. Communicating with friends and other users can be done through private or public messages or a chat feature. Users can also create and join interest groups and "like pages" (formerly called "fan pages" until April 19, 2010), some of which are maintained by organizations as a means of advertising.
Twitter is both a social networking and microblogging service, enabling its users to send and read other users' messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the user's profile page. Tweets are publicly visible by default; however senders can restrict message delivery to their friends list. Users may subscribe to other author tweets—this is known as following and subscribers are known as followers.
Users can group posts together by topic or type by use of hashtags — words or phrases prefixed with a #. Similarly, the letter "d" followed by a username allows users to send messages privately. Finally, the @ sign followed by a username is used for mentioning or replying to other users.
Facebook is clearly the most popular social networking site, and it trails only Google as the Internet site with the most visitors. If you don't count YouTube, the video sharing service, as a social network, then Twitter is firmly in second place, well ahead of additional rival LinkedIn, a business networking site that had nearly 13 million monthly visitors in April 2010.
While Facebook has a huge lead by the numbers, a growing user backlash regarding privacy settings could threaten the site's dominance. Most significantly, Facebook has rolled out new privacy settings that make more user content public, and therefore more like Twitter, where content is public by default. However, this strategy has backfired on Facebook, with users complaining that privacy controls are too complicated to understand and actually make it harder to hide personal information from non-friends. Facebook responded in May 2010 with a new set of privacy controls.
Just in the last week, Facebook announced new features to make it easier for people to share their updates selectively and draw distinctions between friends, family members and co-workers on the Web's biggest social hub. The new feature is called "groups" and it will allow people to set up pages consisting of people who share the same interests or family affiliation. Group members can post information that only other members can see, and they will be able to convene in chat rooms. Members also will be able to plan events together. But the ability to “tag” anyone and add them to a group automatically is not winning the company much support. For some, this feature appears to be another example of Facebook’s preference for automatically opting people in to new services by default and forcing them to opt out,
Twitter hasn't had to deal with the same type of privacy backlash because the company has always made it clear that tweets are intended to be public. Twitter collects personally identifiable information about its users and shares it with third parties. The service reserves the right to sell this information as an asset if the company changes hands. While Twitter displays no advertising, advertisers can target users based on their history of tweets and may quote tweets in ads directed specifically to the user. Users have the option of "approving" followers, thus preventing most of the public from seeing their tweets, but this is the exception rather than the rule.
Twitter has its own problems. Downtime has frustrated users on many occasions, although this has become less common in 2010. Twitter also can be an effective medium for spreading viruses, particularly with shortened links that hide the original source.
In fact, many types of security threats have plagued both Facebook and Twitter, including stolen accounts, worm attacks, phishing, botnets and spam, leading employers to be wary of increasing employee use of the sites.
Despite these security and privacy risks, Facebook and Twitter are undeniably on the rise. These rival sites are attracting attention from competitors, as seen in Google's unveiling of Buzz, which brings Facebook- and Twitter-like status updates to Gmail.
Many Internet users log on to both Facebook and Twitter because of the sites' different strengths and because they want to separate one group of contacts from the other. But Facebook and Twitter executives know that many people simply don't have the time or patience for more than one social networking site, and the battle for market share will only grow more contentious as the financial stakes get higher.

BROWSERS

2010-08-11T07:40:00.002-05:00

A web browser is defined as a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) or Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content. The browser is able to read HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) or XML (Extensible Markup Language).

When the World Wide Web or the Information Highway was started it linked computers at colleges, research centers and military centers so information could be shared. All information was in the text format (no graphics) and was very much like today's text messaging. Several colleges opened the information to a set group of colleges and allowed each of them to see and share the text. You had to know where the information was and be accepted by the group to view it.

A group World Wide Web Consortium was formed to create a way of searching and a language that was uniform so all computers could share the information. The language developed was HTML. It was an open source language and changes in the language had to be approved by the group. The group also created a method for assigning addresses to computers (URL). Soon developments were made that allowed searching, graphics, video, interactive applications and security. The first successful browser developed was Mosaic developed at the University of Illinois. There were several commercial (pay per use) browsers, but Mosaic was free and open source and took over the WWW.

Browsers were (and still are) the gateway to the information on the WWW. They could be used to limit some information or to point users to particular sites. It became a profit center for AOL, Prodigy and several other internet service providers. It was a way to point users to the items in your store. These new modified browsers had search engines to help users find information and products.

Browsers:In addition to general browsers, special browsers with particular properties to suit engineering, science, law and other fields were developed. Today there are over 35 browsers in use. Today we will limit our talk to the top 4 used by PC's. Apple has their own browser called Safari and is designed specifically for MACs. Macs can use these PC browsers.

Internet Explorer: Known as I.E., it was developed by Microsoft and is supplied with Windows computers and is tied to the internal code of Windows and cannot be removed without damage to the operating system. Because it came with Windows it soon became the most popular browser in use, controlling over 90% of the market. Prior to I.E, Netscape - a browser developed by the the creators of Mosaic - held most of the market.

The current version of I.E. is 8.0. It was developed to work with Windows 7, the newest Windows version. Microsoft has been playing catch up on features and speed with several of the other PC browsers. I.E. 8 has caused problems with older PC's and given other browsers a boost. It also has several problems with reading web pages and requires that the code of these pages to be different.

Also, the entire IE line is plagued with security issues. Much of the spyware, adware, and computer viruses across the Internet are made possible by exploitable bugs and flaws in the security architecture of Internet Explorer, sometimes requiring nothing more than viewing of a malicious web page in order to install themselves. The market share for I.E. has dropped to 64%. Microsoft has announced it will soon introduce version 9 to solve some of these problems.

Firefox: Firefox started the current browser wars after its debut five years ago. It is a descendent of IE's old rival, Netscape. Like all other browsers, it's free. Firefox is an open source browser that has led the way in increasing the speed of browsing. For the last 4 years it has been the choice of the more experienced users and has 24% of the market.

Firefox is faster than IE and better conforms to Web standards. This means it displays most Web sites correctly. Firefox is also strong on security; security problems are fixed in a timely manner. It is highly customizable. You can download add-ons—themes, extensions and plug-ins. Themes are buttons, colors and layouts. Plug-ins are core programs that make Firefox work better. They are usually included in the Firefox download. Extensions are a particular strength. These are little programs, nearly always free, that add or enhance features. For instance, you can get an extension that pops up reminders. Another verifies the integrity of Web links. There are literally thousands of things you can add. Regular upgrades continually improve Firefox's speed and stability. New features are always being developed.

Opera: Opera has been around for several years and features unique controls for browsing. It has built in features that allow the use of text to speech and mouse moves for faster surfing. Other features include tabbed browsing, page zooming, and an integrated download manager. Its security features include built-in phishing and malware protection, strong encryption when browsing secure websites, and the ability to easily delete private data such as HTTP cookies. Opera is known for originating many features later adapted by other Web browsers. A list of the “Mouse gestures” can be found at http://www.opera.com/browser/tutorials/gestures/

Despite these factors, Opera has captured only a small fraction - 2% - of the worldwide personal computer browser market. It does, though, have a stronger market share on mobile devices such as mobile phones, smartphones, and personal digital assistants.

Chrome: Chrome was developed by Google and made a giant step in the market. Google's reputation for quality and the features of this browser have made it the choice of many users and it has a 6% share of the market. It is fast, doesn't crash the browser when coding errors occur and has the Google clean look. Most sources agree it is the fastest and safest browser around as of the writing.

Chrome is very secure. Like Firefox, it is responsive to security threats. It even implements security features Firefox doesn't have. This includes a sandbox feature that isolates Web pages from the system. Malicious code can't break out to infect your computer. That's scheduled for Firefox, but hasn't arrived yet.

Chrome's interface is a bit different. It has more screen area so the interface is minimal and streamlined, which might take some adjustment.

Where Chrome lags is extensions. Many useful extensions for Firefox aren't available for Chrome. Also, the extension database and installation procedures aren't user-friendly. This is improving, but it's still a consideration.

Browsers are becoming homogenized. As time passes, they incorporate similar features to compete. If nothing drastic happens, they'll all be the same within a couple years. So, choose a browser with short term benefits foremost in mind. And don’t be afraid to switch.

FREE STUFF JULY 2010

2010-07-17T20:59:00.002-05:00

FREE STUFF ONLINE
7/13/2010

Why is there Freeware (free software) available on the Internet and can it be trusted?
Why: The entire concept of the Internet was created as a free software idea. It was designed to share information between learning centers and benefit mankind. It linked them and allowed the transfer of ideas and data between these centers. The term freeware was coined in 1984 for software for which the author did not wish to use traditional methods of distribution because of their cost. Current use of the term freeware is used for software that is normally fully functional for an unlimited time with no cost, monetary or otherwise. It may sound strange, but there are many people who are more intrigued by solving problems then selling things. Their reward is recognition by their peers and having an improved tool.

TRUST: There are many sites that collect these programs and store them for easy download. These sites test the software and many have reviews not only by their staff, but by average users. They can generally be trusted and will report problems with the programs. Pop up ads that offer free software should NOT be trusted, they are probably spyware or viruses.

Trusted Site for Downloads:
http://downloadsquad.com/ Downloads with opinions on quality
http://softpedia.com/ List of free and share ware
http://www.tucows.com/downloads/Windows Old favorite for free stuff
http://www.download.com/ A good download site

These sites normally break down the lists by types of programs, (Utilities, Photo, Business, etc). Then it is up to you to select the software that fits your needs. Here are the web addresses that I've found useful.

Photo and Media:
http://picasa.google.com/intl/en/ A free photo album and photo editing program
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ The finest Music editing program available. Allows note by note editing and assembly. It allow multi-track editing and music creation.

Utilities:
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ Browser that is somewhat safer then i.e.
http://www.google.com/chrome?hl=en&brand=CHMI One of the fastest Browsers.
http://www.opera.com/download/ Opera has many unique browser features and is also fairly fast.
http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptdirprn.asp Print files with details and controls
http://m8software.com/clipboards/freeclip/freeclip.htm Allows many items in the clipboard at one time.
http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/downloads/mouse_recorder_software/ Allows you to record the computer screen moves as a movie. (AVI)

Business:
http://www.openoffice.org/ Complete Office Suite. Includes Word, Excel, Presentations, and Drawing
http://www.go2pdf.com/product.html A PDF Converter.

For information on free software online, check out this site (it may take a while to load):
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1864655,00.asp

FREE STUFF (NOT SOFTWARE) ONLINE
July, 2010

Not surprisingly, the Internet is the best place to find free stuff. Of course, the amount of scams is also high, and there is always the risk that ordering free stuff will also bring a lot of spam, or even identity theft, your way. So, where do you go to find the best free stuff on the Internet? There are two main categories: free stuff from the general public and free stuff from commercial companies.

FREE STUFF FROM THE GENERAL PUBLIC
People are giving away perfectly good things. Maybe they’re moving and need to offload heavy furniture. Maybe they’re just generous. Whatever the reason, if you’re fast, you can claim it.

Craigslist: http://chicago.craigslist.org
Under "For Sale", click on "Free". Just like when you purchase on craigslist, no membership is necessary, just reply to the poster to make arrangements to claim the merchandise.

Freecycle: www.freecycle.org
Click on "Browse Groups", then Illinois
The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,834 groups with 7,341,000 members across the globe. It's an entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer (them's good people). Membership is free. In order to view the offers – or post an offer – you must be a member and join a regional group. The default is for all new offers to be sent to your email address. You can change that so you only view the offers at the website. When you find an item of interest, reply to the post and wait for a response with information on how to obtain the merchandise.

FreeNapkin: www.freenapkin.com
Click on "Illinois"
You must you become a registered user (quick and free), then you can list any item around the house on your account. Then when your item is claimed, just ask the claimer to leave you a positive feedback. Once you are a registered member of freenapkin, your status is both a donator/claimer but you are not obligated to donate or to claim, though you can do either any time. You can arrange to pick up the merchandise or pay to have it shipped to you.

eBay: www.ebay.com
Sign in to your account, then click on "Classifieds" for local offers.

FREE STUFF FROM COMMERCIAL COMPANIES
Companies give out samples of their products all the time, it's a very effective marketing strategy. If you like their products there is a good chance you will buy from them in the future. You can spend your days browsing the websites of individual companies hoping for a freebie, or use one of the following sites that compile lists of free offers:

Hey It's Free: www.heyitsfree.net
Totally Free Stuff!: www.totallyfreestuff.com

FINALLY, there are many other items free online. For example:
Recipes Craft Patterns Books Newspapers
TV Programs Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, Maps, INFORMATION!
All you have to do is use a Search Engine like Google to find a wealth of STUFF!

Down Loading Book from the Library

2010-05-12T07:16:00.002-05:00

With downloadable media available 24/7, the Prospect Heights Public Library is always open! You can check out and download the following types of digital materials at the library website:
1. eBooks in the Adobe® Digital Editions EPUB format
2. eBooks in the Adobe® Digital Edition PDF Format
3. eBooks in the Mobipocket Reader format
4. WMA Audiobooks in the OverDrive Media Console™ format
5. MP3 Audiobooks in the OverDrive Media Console™ format
6. Video in the OverDrive Media Console™ format

To access these digital materials you need…
1. A valid Prospect Heights library card Internet access
2. A computer or device that meets the system requirements for the type(s) of digital materials you wish to check out
3. Free software for the computer or device on which you wish to use the materials available at this site

To get started, go to the Prospect Heights Public Library website at www.phpl.info and look for the “Catalog” tab on the left side. Click on the tab to open more tabs. Click on the “MyMediaMall” tab.

This will open a new window for the MyMediaMall website. For step-by-step assistance on using the site, click on “Digital Media Help” at the top of the screen, then “Quick Start Guide”. There are detailed instructions for each type of media.

What is an 'eBook'?
'eBook' is short for 'electronic book', a digital version of a print book that has been optimized for on-screen reading. eBooks are available in a variety of different formats that can be read on a personal computer or hand-held device designed specifically for this purpose

What is an OverDrive WMA Audiobook?
An OverDrive WMA Audiobook title is a digitally-protected audiobook that has been optimized for download. OverDrive WMA Audiobook titles are built using the Microsoft® Windows Media® Audio format, which greatly enhances the sound quality for desktop listening, play of CD copies (where permitted by the publisher), and portable device use.

What is an OverDrive MP3 Audiobook?
An OverDrive MP3 Audiobook title is an audiobook that has been optimized for download. OverDrive MP3 Audiobook titles are compatible with many different devices including most cell phones, PDAs, and MP3 players.

What is an OverDrive Video title?
An OverDrive Video title is a digitally-protected video file that has been optimized for download. OverDrive Video titles are built using the Microsoft Windows Media Video format, which greatly enhances the sound quality for desktop viewing and portable device use. Note that OverDrive Video is a high speed Internet-only product.

In order to borrow and use a specific format of digital media, you must download and install the appropriate software. These software programs are available on the MyMediaMall website. Simply choose which format you need and follow the steps for downloading and installing the software.

Then browse or search MyMediaMall for downloadable materials. When you locate a title of interest, add it to the cart and check out the title. Once you have checked out a title, a download page is displayed. Click the 'Download' link to start the download. Once the download is complete, open and enjoy the title. You will never accrue late fees with titles you download from MyMediaMall. At the end of the loan period, titles will expire and be automatically 'returned' to the library. At this time, you can delete the expired file(s) from your computer.

Additional Features of MyMediaMall:
Search for digital materials using a variety of criteria on the advanced search page. Take digital materials with you on-the-go. Many audio titles can be burned to CD, and most audio titles can be transferred to supported portable devices.
If you come across a title that you are interested in checking out, you can add it to your 'Wish List'.
If a desired title is not available, you can place it on hold.

Notes on Checking Out MyMediaMall Materials:

The system allows you to put up to 7 titles in your cart at the same time.
A title will be automatically removed from your cart 30 minutes after you have placed it there.
You can have up to 5 titles checked out at any given time.
Lending periods can vary from title to title.
Due to publisher licensing agreements, OverDrive media titles and Mobipocket titles cannot be returned early. They will automatically be returned at the end of the lending period. The items you have checked out cannot be renewed, but you can check them out again if they are available when the checkout expires.
Only Adobe® eBooks may be returned early.
Material not available can be placed on hold and reserved for you to check out once it becomes available. When the title is available for you, you will receive an email with instructions on checking the item out. The item will be held for you for 3 days (starting when you are emailed notice that the title is available).
You can place up to 7 titles on hold at any given time.

Why Do I Need a Computer

2010-05-12T07:13:00.001-05:00

The simple answer is no, but you don't need a TV, a Car or a Radio either. These are all tools that make it easier to do things faster or better.
More important a computer can keep you alive and active in today's world. It can help you keep your mind active and alert.

What can a computer do?
It can communicate, bring you information, store important information, create, edit and sort photos, keep track of budgets and money, and play games. That is a pretty long list and it is only the start. Most of these things can be done with a simple computer. The bigger the task the more powerful the computer must be. Just like a small car can be used for shopping and short trips, but if you want to travel across the country or bring along many friends you need a bigger car. And just like cars, the more complex the computer, the more you have to learn to use it.

Are there different types?
The two main types of computers are PC's and Apple/Mac's. This refers to the operating system interface that lets you use the computer. These operating systems tell the computer what each keystroke or mouse click means and are referred to as GUI's or Graphical User Inferfaces. About 15% of computers sold are Apple/Macs, and PC's represent 85%. Of that 85%, 95% of the PCs use Windows and 5% use a third system, Linux. Linux systems are more complex and usually used by experts and "Nerds”.

In addition to the Operating system there are different physical types of computers, desk top, lap-top and the net book.
Desktops are the largest with a tower, a monitor, a mouse and keyboard. Desktops are usually the most powerful and offer the most computer for the money. They can have features not available on the smaller computer types. They come with any of the GUI's.
Laptops or Notebooks are more portable and contain the keyboard, pointing device and monitor in one unit. They are not truly laptops and usually are used on a desk as they give off to much heat for your lap. They weigh from 4 to 8 pounds and operate on batteries or with a power cord. Again they can have any GUI.
Netbooks are the smallest and lightest computers designed for travel. They weigh from 1.8 to 3 pounds and are as small as a large paperback book. They are usually less powerful with less software and features. Netbooks run on batteries or a power cord. Netbooks use either the Window or Linux GUI.

Things a computer can do!

Communicate!
Send letters and even pictures anywhere in the world to another computer in seconds. If your friend is online at the same time, you can type messages back and forth instantly. With a little extra equipment, you can talk to each other and see each other. Video phoning is a reality with the Internet.

Finance!
Check bank balances and stock accounts instantly, with real time information. Buy stocks, pay bills and move money between accounts with a few keystrokes. Setup budgets and expense spreadsheets to keep track of your assets.

Travel!
Check airline schedules, ticket prices and book flights from your living room and save money while doing it. Book hotels, with pictures of the rooms, rent cars and book side trips all at once. In each case, you can print copies of the reservations for your safety..
Find things to see while you travel: parks, amusements and special events along with descriptions and photos.
See maps of any area in the country with overhead views of the area showing real photos of the buildings and structures in the area.
See real time live videos of road and traffic conditions on most Interstates and in major cities. Listen to your home radio stations while you're away on streaming radio over the Intern net.

Fun Things!
Games: Computers allow you to play games like bridge, poker, and thousands of others. There is always something to do.
Music: The computer can store and play any music you own. It can rearrange the music into personal play lists. You can buy hard to find songs and add them to your collection.
Television: Missed your favorite TV show? Most of them can be found on the web and viewed on your computer.
Photos: Your computer can store and edit all your photos. You can recover those faded prints and make them look like they did originally. It can also put them in order so they are easy to find and print. Making them into a slide show is a snap with titles and comments. Now you can bore your friends showing not just 4x6 pictures, but entire presentations of your vacations or grandkids.

Information!
Medical knowledge: Look up medicines and their side effects. See the most current treatments for any condition. Find support groups for special problems and share your concerns with others with the same problems and how they handled them.
General Knowledge: The Internet is an information source greater then any library. Whether it is a person, a product or an idea, you can find articles full of discussions.

It must seem like computers can do everything, but we have only scratched the surface. But remember, they are only a tool; you are the important part, the user. It allows you to use your mind and keep it active.

MARCH 2010 - BUYING ON EBAY

2010-03-15T10:59:00.001-05:00

BUYING ON eBay

At its base level, eBay works exactly like an electronic “flea market”:
• eBay sellers pay a small flat fee plus a 1.5% percentage fee to eBay in order to market their wares
• eBay buyers visit and use the marketplace without any surcharges
• Any parties that abuse the system or each other will be disciplined or ejected

When you first start out on eBay.com, the huge site with dozens of bulletin boards, chat areas, articles and over 27,000 categories can be intimidating and confusing. Fortunately, you don't have to know everything about eBay's site if you just want to do some simple buying. eBay can be very easy to use.

Registering is Painless
Registering on eBay currently asks for your mailing and email information. You'll also pick a personal eBay ID and password. After you register, eBay will send a confirmation note to the email address just registered. Clicking on the link in the confirmation email takes you to the page that completes the registration.

If eBay can't verify your email address, it’s usually for one of these reasons:
1. Your email address came from a free, Web-based account such as Yahoo! or Hotmail.
2. Messages to your email address are repeatedly bounced back to eBay.
If the email address you entered can’t be used to verify your identity, you will be asked to place your credit or debit card on file. eBay will use your card for identification only -- you will not be charged anything.

Buying on eBay - First You Have to Find It
• Go to main search box on eBay's home page and do a search for your item in all categories.
• After you do the preliminary search and look around, go back to the main search box and type in the item you are looking for, but spell it wrong! You'll be amazed at how many items come up with the wrong spelling.
• If your item is a bit unusual, always be sure to check Search Title and Description box.
• If there is more than one word in the title use the "+" between the words so that you only get results with that exact wording.
• Use the Advanced Search link at the top of the page (right hand side). There are more options than just the simple Search box. The Advanced Search link will also give the option to search by buyer, seller or store.

Don't Bid on the First One You See!
• When you find your item, the first tendency can be to bid immediately. DON'T! Do a bit of quick research. First continue searching on eBay, you could find it cheaper, maybe finding one that isn't drawing as much bidding interest.
• Go to the manufacturer's web site and see if they are offering it for sale at a better price.
• Do a general search on the Internet to see if another website is selling your item, or if a local store – such as Best Buy, etc. - has it on sale. eBay DOES NOT ALWAYS HAVE THE CHEAPEST PRICE AROUND!
When extensive searching does not turn up any better deal, you can go back to the original auction and get ready to bid. That is, after carefully reading the description.

Carefully Read The Description
If you're the winner, you're obligated to live up to the listing agreement. If you don't agree with the options available, negotiate before bidding not after you win! Review:
• If it says used, you can't complain when it doesn't look new.
• Does the seller ship to your part of the world and how much will it cost? If the shipping costs aren't stated, ask before you bid and the auction has ended.
• What are the payment options and can you abide by them? Does the seller say no personal checks, or PayPal only? Make sure you are prepared to pay in the manner required by the seller.
• Any return privileges?

Don't Forget to Check the Feedback
It's almost time to bid, but not quite yet. Not until you check out the seller's feedback. Feedback is a seller or buyer's eBay reputation in a nutshell. Every eBay auction that is completed gives the option for the buyer and seller to leave a (feedback) rating about each other. There are three choices - Positive, Neutral and Negative to choose from, along with 80 spaces to write a short blurb.
• If a seller has been around for a long time, chances are they might have a negative or two -- if it's just a very small percentage of their total feedback, it's usually nothing to worry about. Look and see how long ago it was and how many successful feedbacks have been posted since then. If a seller has more than a couple of negative feedbacks and some of them are recent, think twice about taking a chance with your money and do a little further checking.
• Look at the seller's other auctions. Are the items similar, does the seller know his stuff?
• Feedback is also a good place to read complaints about excessive shipping charges.

Time to BID
Everything checks out, you're logged in and ready to bid:
• Click the Place Bid Button
• Enter bid amount, then click Continue.
• Review your bid and then click the Submit button.
• Bid the maximum amount that you’re willing to pay. As the listing proceeds, eBay compares your bid to those of other bidders. When you’re outbid, eBay automatically bids for you up to your maximum bid. Your bid is increased by increments only as much as necessary to maintain your high bid position.
• As a general rule, you are not allowed to retract or cancel a bid on eBay
• Some sellers specify a reserve price, which is a hidden minimum price on their item. If the listing ends without any bids that meet the reserve price, the seller is not required to sell the item. In reserve price auctions, if your maximum bid is at least the reserve price, eBay automatically increases your bid to meet the reserve, and bidding will continue from there.
• If another bidder places the same maximum bid or higher, eBay will notify you so you can bid again.

What is Buy It Now?
When you see a Buy It Now icon and price next to the item, you can purchase the item right away at a set price without waiting for an auction to end. There are several variations:
• Auction-style listings with a Buy It Now option: You can choose to place a bid and compete in the auction or use Buy It Now to purchase the item immediately. For some listings the Buy It Now option is only available until the first bid is placed. The Buy It Now price is at least 10% higher than the starting auction price.
• Reserve price auctions with a Buy It Now option: The Buy It Now option is shown until the reserve price is met. This means that when you see that an item has both a Buy It Now price and one or more bids, you’ll need to act quickly.
• Buy It Now price only (no bidding): You can purchase the item right away at the Buy It Now price.
• Listings with variations: Some listings have variations to choose from, such as T-shirts that come in various sizes or colors. Specify the variations and quantity you want before you click the Buy It Now button.

You Won! Now Pay for your items:
Ebay will email you when you win an auction on which you are bidding. Once you receive this email,
or if you used the Buy it Now option, it is time to pay. After you win an auction or click the Buy It Now button, the Pay Now button appears in the following locations:
• In the listing
• In the Won section of My eBay
• In the confirmation email you receive from eBay
• On the invoice email you receive from eBay on behalf of the seller

How you pay for an item depends partly on what payment methods your seller accepts. Read the item description before you bid to find out what payment options you have. Most sellers accept PayPal because it transfers funds immediately and they can ship your item right away instead of waiting for funds to clear.
The fastest way to pay on eBay is by clicking the Pay Now button, which allows you to use PayPal, ProPay, Moneybookers, or Paymate. Learn more about how to pay.

When you’re choosing a payment method, look for options that are convenient for you, secure, and traceable, just in case there’s a problem. To compare payment methods, check this chart on eBay:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/pay/methods.html

To pay for an item:
• Click the Pay Now button.
• Check your shipping information, and confirm the order details, including shipping and taxes. Then, click the Continue button.
• You are obligated to pay the seller using one of the payment methods specified in the eBay listing. Select your payment method and enter your payment information. Then, click the Continue button.
• Click the Confirm Your Payment button to complete your purchase.
• Note: These steps assume that the seller is using checkout on eBay. Sellers have the option to use other checkout systems.

After you buy your item
• The amount of time that it takes for an item to arrive often depends on the shipping method that you selected when you bought the item. You can review the estimated delivery time on the Order Details page.
• It can take longer for your item to arrive if you paid with certain payment methods. Sellers usually wait to receive your payment or for the payment to clear before they ship your item.
• You may have received tracking or Delivery Confirmation information in an email. You can use this information to check the shipping status of your item on the shipping company's website. You can also check the shipping status of your item from My eBay.
• When you receive your item, inspect it right away to make sure it matches the description in the seller's listing. If you’re not happy with the item, please contact the seller to discuss it.
• Leave the seller Feedback about your experience and your satisfaction with the purchase. Remember that Feedback is permanent and public, so be accurate and factual when commenting on the item or seller.

Finally, if you run into problems with an item, eBay's buyer protection programs can help. eBay wants you to shop with confidence on their site, so they will help you resolve any problems. Check their website for information on their buyer protection assistance.

Backing Up flies

2010-02-09T22:17:00.002-06:00

Backing-Up your Computer:
February 2010

Computers are machines, and like all machines it isn't IF they will crash, but WHEN. In addition, they can be harmed by outside forces on the Internet and fail. They have become the major information storage device for most of us, so it is imperative that this data is stored in another place in case of a failure. The good news is that computers store data in a digital format that can be copied perfectly without loss of quality, unlike paper copies that degrade each time they are copied. There are several ways to make these digital copies and multiple places to store them. None of the choices are perfect and each has advantages and disadvantages.

1.Copying your data to DVD/CD disks is the simplest method and the necessary software is built in to your computer. It does require that you remember to do it and take the time on a regular basis to do it. It also requires that you store the disks in a safe place, away from your computer in case of a fire or other disaster. Many people store their disks in bank vaults for safe keeping.

2.Storing data on a different computer either at work or on a friend's computer is another way of safe guarding data. This has the same problem of remembering and taking the time to do it and relying on your friend to help. Some users have several computers and use another of their own computers. If you use another computer located in your home, you run the risk of losing your data if there is a fire or other damage to your home.

3.An external hard drive with backup software is a common and easy method for backing up your data. An external drive designed for data backup comes prepackaged with software for easily duplicating your files. Many drives come with a one-click solution, meaning all you need to do is press a button on the front of the drive or your computer to begin an automatic backup, or you can schedule an automatic backup. Prices on external drives have dropped and, with a little searching, you can find a one-terabyte (that's one thousand gigabytes) USB drive for under a hundred dollars. Again, if you keep the external hard drive in your home, you run the risk of losing your data if there is a fire or other damage to your home.

4.Using an online storage service. Companies have been formed that will store your data and back it up automatically. If your computer crashes you can download from their storage once you have fixed your problems. There are monthly fees for this service. It also means you must rely on the storage service staying in business and on their security keeping your data safe.

What to back up
Back up anything you cannot replace easily. Here are some suggestions to get you started:

Bank records and other financial information
Digital photographs
Software you purchased and downloaded from the Internet
Music you purchased and downloaded from the Internet
Personal projects
Your e-mail address book
Your Microsoft Outlook calendar
Your Internet Explorer bookmarks

ONLINE HELP FOR LOCAL SHOPPING

2010-01-13T19:50:00.002-06:00

Here’s a quiet little secret: Offline and online shopping are not mutually exclusive. The smart shopper will use the online world to help augment his or her real world shopping.

The Internet can help you get paper coupons to use in your local stores in several ways:

1. Sign up at store websites for their newsletters and announcements. Often the store emails include advance notice of sales, sales for Internet customers only and/or discount coupons. You usually will have to print out the coupon and bring it with you to the store. Some stores also will ask for your email address when you checkout, as the coupon is only good for one use by the email recipient.
Examples: Borders Books – www.borders.com
Hobby Lobby - www.hobbylobby.com
Walgreens – www.walgreens.com

2. Check the local store's website. There you will find information about sales and have access to coupons. You might need to sign up on the website and also may have to download a small software program that will allow you to print out their coupons. Some sites have games that let you win coupons.
Examples: Jewel-Osco – www.jewelosco.com – click on "Specials and Savings"
Old Navy – www.oldnavy.com; game site to win coupons: www.oldnavyweekly.com

3. Sign up at special websites that do the coupon searching and clipping for you – for a fee.
Example: The Coupon Clippers – www.thecouponclippers.com

4. Can't find what you did with that coupon magazine or envelope full of coupons that came in the mail? Just go to the websites and print out the coupons.
Examples: Smart Source – www.smartsource.com
Valpak – www.valpak.com
Coupon Clipper – www.couponclipper.com
Money Mailer – www.moneymailer.com

5. Check online for coupon websites that supply free coupons for you to print and carry into your local store. You can find these sites by searching Google for "printable coupons". By putting in a specific store name, you will get results specifically for that store.
Example: Smart Source – www.smartsource.com
Coupons.com – www.coupons.com

There are also many online resources that offer paper coupons for when you travel away from home. Always check local tourist office sites for your destination, as well as state tourist sites. There are also sites that specialize in travel coupons.
Examples: Midwest Travel Buddy - www.interstatetravelbuddy.com
Room Saver - www.roomsaver.com (Click on "View a Guide Online"
at the bottom of the page)

2009-11-11T07:45:00.001-06:00

INSERTING PHOTOS IN A CHRISTMAS LETTER
November 2009

Receiving letters from family and friends during the holiday season can be fun. Often it is the only news you receive from some of them throughout the year.

On the other hand, letters that drone on can be sleep-inducing. Keeping things short and to the point is definitely a fine art. Try to keep your letter to a page, if possible, a page and a half at the most. Hit on the major milestones that people would be interested in knowing about. The point is not to lose the reader's interest with too many pages to read.

It's also a good idea to let someone else read it before you send it out to make sure you got your facts straight. And make sure you keep copies of your holiday letters for yourself. Someday they will be a wonderful keepsake for children and grandchildren.

A very special way to personalize your holiday letters is to add your own photos or special graphics. You can then print on holiday paper or just on plain white paper, as the photos and graphics will add all the decoration. You can do this right in your word processor such as Microsoft Works. Just open a new document and type in your letter. It works best if you have all your text in place first, then add photos and graphics.

Add an existing picture or photo from a file on your computer (Microsoft Works 8.0):
1.In the document, click where you want to insert a picture.
2.On the Insert menu, point to Picture, and then click From File.
3.If the picture file you want is listed, double-click the file name to open it.
4.If the picture file isn’t listed, switch to the drive or folder where the file is located, and then double-click the name of the file you want to open.
Tip:
You can also add an existing picture by clicking Insert Picture on the toolbar.

Add a Microsoft clip art picture:
1.Click in the document where you want to insert a picture.
2.On the Insert menu, point to Picture, and then click Clip Art.
3.Click Browse.
4.Under Select a category, click the category you want.
5.You can refine your search by choosing a sub-category under Select a sub-category, or a type of clip under Select a media type.
6.Click the picture you want, and then click Insert.
Tip:
You can also add an existing picture by clicking Insert Clip Art on the toolbar.

Holiday Letters with Graphics
November 2009

Resize a Photo or Clip Art Picture:

To resize clip art and maintain a picture's proportions:
1.In your document, click the picture that you want to resize. Selection handles appear around the picture.
2.Position the mouse pointer over one of the CORNER handles until it looks like a 2-pointed arrow.
3.While holding down the left mouse button, drag the corner into the center of the picture until it is the size you want, then release the mouse button.
Note:
To keep the same proportions, you MUST drag a corner handle. If you drag in a side or top handle, you will warp the picture.

Crop a picture
1.In your document, click the picture that you want to crop. Selection handles appear around the picture.
2.Position the mouse pointer over one of the handles until it looks like a 2-pointed arrow.
3.To crop a single side, use a side, top, or bottom handle. To crop two adjoining sides at once, use a corner handle.
4.Click the appropriate picture handle and hold down the CTRL key as you drag until you have cropped the area you want to remove. Release the mouse button, and then release the CTRL key.
Notes:
If you release the CTRL key before you release the mouse button, you will resize the picture rather than crop it.
Cropping does not make any change to the actual picture or graphic. You are simply telling the program how much of the original picture that you want displayed.
If you want to resize the picture, do this BEFORE cropping. Trying to resize after cropping will reverse the cropping and display the full picture.

Wrap text around an object:

You can wrap text around an object to highlight the shape, curves, and points of the object. It makes a document look interesting, and doesn't move the object.
1.Click to select the object (picture or clip art).
2.On the Format menu, click Object.
3.Click the Wrapping tab.
4.Under Style, click on one of the style choices:
a.The In Line With Text style insets the graphic in the text at the location of the insertion point. The graphic moves as you add or delete text. The text does not wrap around the graphic; white space extends to the margins on either side of the graphic.
b.The Square style wraps the text around all sides of a square bounding the graphic. The graphic moves as you add or delete text.
c.The Tight style wraps the text around the graphic in an irregular shape bounding the actual image. The graphic moves as you add or delete text.
In the Square and Tight styles, you will have available the Text Placement option boxes that will allow you to move the picture to the left or right margin.

Handling Digital Photos

2009-08-11T21:27:00.001-05:00

Handling Digital Photos:
Digital cameras work very much like the older film cameras. The major differences are they use Flash Cards instead of Film and there is no moving shutter to control the exposure.

Flash Cards:
An electronic memory device that stores data. They are used in music players (Ipods, Zune), Video Movie cameras, and in computers for transferring data. There are at least 9 different types of flash cards. Each camera manufacturer uses a flash card that fits into his camera design. It seems that every week they are getting smaller and getting more memory storage. The most common types today are XD, SD and Compact Media. Original cards had 16 meg of memory, they are now selling 32 gig cards that store 2000 times more data. Some computers come with slots to attach several types of cards directly to your computer. If your computer doesn't have a card reader you can buy one for a few dollars that plugs into a USB port.

Most cameras also include software and cables to connect the camera to the computer using a USB port. The software usually also includes a program to edit and modify the photos. It allows you to Crop, Lighten, Change Contrast and fix Red Eye. Most also allow you to create albums of your photos to keep track of them.

Getting Photos into your Computer:
There are several ways of getting the photos into your computer.

Use the cable and software that came with the camera.

Install the software on your computer following the screen prompts. When you're done, use the cable to plug the camera into a USB port on your computer and turn it on. The computer will open the program and ask if you want to copy the photos to your hard drive and where you want to store them. Usually they are saved into a folder My Documents/My Pictures/Date. For example, My Documents/My Pictures/2009_0815images. I usually change the date to something I'll remember about the pictures like where they were taken, such as "Las Vegas 2009". It will take a few minutes for the pictures to load. Once they are loaded a screen will offer you a choice to look at the photos (large screen), edit photos or just save and close.

Plug the Flash Card into a memory card reader on the computer.

Remove the card from the camera and plug it into the reader slot. The computer will "bing" and say new hardware and install it automatically. A small icon will appear in the bottom right corner of the computer screen. With Windows XP or Vista, a pop-up will appear asking you what you want to do with the images. One of the choices is to save to your hard drive and like above you can select where you want to save them. My Documents/My Pictures/Las Vegas 2009 is an example. After the pictures are saved, you can use your own software to edit the photos and print them.

Using Photos:
Once the photos are on your computer you can send them to friends, use a printing service (Walmart, Ritz or Walgreens) and add them to your web sites (Face Book).
When working with your photos, always work on a copy and leave the original alone. Every time you change size or edit the photo, it degrades the quality.

Scanning Photos into Your computer:
If you have old prints you want to put into your computer, you must use a scanner. A scanner works like a copier and makes the photo into a digital format that can be stored on your computer or saved to a disk. If you have your own scanner attached to your computer follow the instructions for the scanner and save the photos to your My Documents/My Pictures/???, Always choose the highest quality scanning available with your scanner. Most of the newer “All in One” printers can be used to scan prints to your computer.

If you don't have a scanner, most photo printing services like Ritz and Walgreens will scan your prints to a disk for a charge. They will name the photos with any name you select. The disk images can then be transferred to your computer just like the digital camera images.

We can not show editing and scanning as each program or scanner has its own software and menu choices. Usually the default choices for the software will work well until you have become used to the using the program.

File Extensions

2009-07-17T07:29:00.002-05:00

File extensions are usually three or more letter codes or numbers at the end of computer file names that tell the operating system (Microsoft Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 95/98/ME/2000, MAC OS X, Linux/Unix operating systems etc.) what kind of data file they are dealing with.
When you use programs to write a letter, edit a photo or build a spreadsheet, the program must assign an extension so the computer knows what program it should use to open it. This is one of the big differences between Windows and Mac. A Mac can only use Apple programs so the computer knows which program to use, but Windows has many programs created by independent suppliers so it requires the extension to keep track. The 3 or 4 letters are for the humans and the computer has an instruction in the first line of code for the computer to understand.

Common Extensions: There are over 1800 extensions in use and more coming everyday, but here a few common types.
Programs Extensions that open programs or start tasks:
*.exe, *.bat, & *.com are program starting files. It is an executable file - that is, it tells the computer to start the program.
WARNING! Don't launch executable files that you receive from an unknown source (such as via an unsolicited e-mail), since the sender could have a malicious purpose. Also, many worms propagate via e-mail address books, so you may know the purported sender of an infected file. Don't open any executable file until you have confirmed by phone or e-mail that the file is legit.

Letter Extensions used to save documents:
*.doc, *.rtf, *.txt, *.docx, & *.wpd are files of documents like letters and text.

Photos Extensions:
*.jpg, *.tif. *.bmp, *.png & *.pic are files for photos and pictures.

Linking Extensions that attach a file to a program:
*.dll, are data linking libraries that contain functions for another software program.

Web Extensions are web pages for your browser:
*HTML, *.XML and *.SHTML contain the information need to display a web page.

To solve the problems with all the extensions, websites have been set up to keep track of the extensions in use. One file-extension organization is at http://www.file-extensions.org/. Programmers are asked to list any new extensions they create on this site. Another website is www.filext.com.
In addition many programs can open and save files with different extensions. They convert the file format to the new type. When you use the Save As button when saving a document, a little down pointing triangle to the right of the "Save As Type" box will show the possible variations you can use.
For example, Works word processor can save your document as:
*. wps – works version 2003,
*.wps - Works version 2000,
*.wps - Works version 4,
*.rtf - formated text ,
*.doc – Word 97 -2000,
*.csv - comma separated values,
*.HTML – web pages.

This allows you to save in a format that your reader can open if he doesn't have the same version as you and it also allows you to open earlier versions of Works documents.
Computer viruses sometimes masquerade as harmless e-mail attachments. The fastest way to spot the interlopers is by their file extension. Knowing a file's extension can also help you customize your system and clean out unused files and also help open email attachments.

Unfortunately, Microsoft started hiding file extensions in Windows 95. To make sure your file extensions are visible, open Windows Explorer or any folder window and choose View, Folder Options or Tools, Folder Options (depending on your version). Click the View tab, then make sure the option to 'Hide extensions for known file types' is unchecked (the exact wording will vary depending on your version of Windows; see FIGURE 1), and click Apply, then click OK. Now extensions will be visible for nearly every file on your desktop and in your Explorer and folder windows.
Being unable to open a certain file on a personal computer is a very typical situation for lots of users. You click on a file – or an email attachment - and a pop up comes up:
"Windows cannot open this file: "
To open this file, Windows needs to know what program you want to use to open it. Windows can go online to look it up automatically, or you can manually select from a list of programs that are installed on your computer.
In order to open the file, you will need the correct software installed on your PC. For example, if the file you are trying to open requires Microsoft Excel, you will either need to purchase Microsoft Excel, or download the free Microsoft Excel file viewing program from Microsoft's web site. Many software manufacturers offer free file-viewers for their software that allows you to view the file. If you want to edit or change the contents of the file, you will have to purchase the full software package.
Figure out what application was used to create your file.
Look at the file, then go online to www.filext.com and type the extension in their search box. This site will tell you what type of program will open this file.
It's possible that you already have the software that you need installed on your PC. If you have the correct software, but you still see the "Windows cannot open this file" error, you may have to re-associate the file type to that program.
How to create a file association in Windows XP
From the error message that appears, click "Select the program from a list" and click "OK".
In the window that appears, select the correct program to open the file, and click the "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" box.
Click OK
Windows XP will now always use the program you selected to open this kind of file.
If all this fails, contact the sender of the email and tell them you can't open their attachment and ask what type of program they used to create the file.

JUNE 2009 - UPDATING YOUR COMPUTER SOFTWARE

2009-06-10T21:50:00.002-05:00

Once your browser was the only entry point for attackers. But there are a number of other potential dangers today. For instance, Flash players, Java Runtime Environments and media players can also allow hackers in.

Flaws are can be discovered in all of these programs. Developers usually release new versions of software after improving features, removing some bugs or security weaknesses or for some other reasons. Sometimes software will have automatic updates that will go online, find and install the updates (such as Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer, Adobe Reader, Mozilla's Firefox, etc.); some will check for online for updates and then will give you that bright, friendly little window pop-up telling you that there are software updates available. In most cases, it's usually good to heed the message (most updates address and correct security issues) -- but, as with anything else, you'll want to verify the source and act accordingly. Other software leaves the work up to you to check online for updates, download and install them.

Whatever the source of the update, always be aware that things can go wrong and always consider making a backup before you do anything to change your system in a major way. If you're using Windows, you've got the System Restore safety net. Make sure that you set a Restore Point before installing new updates. Some software updates will ask whether you want to make a backup of whatever it is being updated, so be smart and click "yes."

The following software should ALWAYS be updated:

MICROSOFT WINDOWS and INTERNET EXPLORER:
The Windows Update service provides a single location for all the updates. And by turning on the Automatic Updates feature, you can make sure your PC has High-priority updates including security and reliability updates, drivers, service packs, and feature updates. Automatic Updates routinely checks for the latest High-priority updates for your PC and then downloads and installs them for you automatically.

Note: The Automatic Updates feature will only check for High-priority updates. Automatic Updates will not download and install Optional updates. You will need to return to the Windows Update site regularly to select and install Optional updates.

If you don't have Automatic Updates turned on, Microsoft recommends you turn it on when you visit the Windows Update site.

To turn on Automatic Updates in Windows XP (SP2)
1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2. Click Automatic Updates.
3. Choose Automatic (recommended).

To manually update Windows and Internet Explorer, open the Internet Explorer browser, click on "Tools" in the Menu Bar, then click on "Windows Update". Or, click on the "Start" button, then on "Control Panel", then in the left column click on ""Windows Update". You will be taken to the Windows website where you can check for and install new updates and review your update history.

Do you have other Microsoft products besides Windows? Turning on Microsoft Update helps you keep Windows and many other Microsoft programs, such as Microsoft Office, updated all in one place. You can do this at www.update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate

ALL ANTIVIRUS AND ANTI-SPYWARE SOFTWARE:
Any programs such as Spybot Search and Destroy, AVG Antivirus, McAfee and Norton Security software should ALWAYS be updated FREQUENTLY. The companies that develop these programs have large teams of programmers that are constantly writing new updates to keep up with the ever-changing world of viruses, Trojan horses and spyware. Your antivirus and anti-spyware software is not effective if it is out-of-date. These programs often have a choice of automatic updates. If you don't have this feature enabled, make sure that you open the program and manually update at least once a week.

FIREWALL SOFTWARE:
Firewall software such as Zone Alarm also should be updated on a regular basis, although not as often as antivirus software. Again, firewall software might have a choice of automatic updates. Or, some programs may check for updates and then put up a pop-up message to tell you that an update is available. The Microsoft Windows firewall will be updated along with any Windows updates.

If you do get a pop-up window reminding you to update, it is a good idea to close that pop-up and then open the corresponding software and run the update from within the program. Viruses and spyware on your computer could be the cause of those pop-up windows and clicking on them could increase your problems. Also, remember to make that back-up before updating.

Another reliable option for ensuring that your software is properly up to date is a software program called a Software Update Monitors (SUMs). A (sometimes) quick scan of your computer by one of these products will reveal which software is old and needs to be updated. Two free Software Update Monitors are:

FileHippo – download from http://www.filehippo.com/ (look for the link in the upper right hand corner for their "Free Update Checker").

Secunia Personal Software Inspector – download from www.secunia.com (click on the tab labeled "Vulnerability Scanning", then below that tab, click on "Personal (PSI)")

Creating a Web Site

2009-05-13T06:38:00.002-05:00

Building your own Web Site:
Many ISP's allow customers to have web space to post a private web site. Some even provide web building tools and up load programs to help you post to the site. If your provider does this, creating your own web page is easy, but even is your provider doesn't you can still create a site with free software. You might even have a program on your computer already. Windows Works has the ability to make simple web pages and save them in HTML (HyperText Mark-up Language), the language of the Web.
The first and most important rule when making a web page is PLAN, PLAN and PLAN ahead. Doing it right the first time saves messing up what you have done just to make one small change. HTML is very touchy about formatting. One good idea is to look at several web sites and see what you like and don't like. Which ones are easy to read. What colors work well together. A few examples are www.rowellmanagement.com/rowell/outside_home.asp, www.google.com and of course our own web page, www.robroyccv.com .
Draw a sketch of what you want on a piece of paper. Put in what you want to say and where you want to place it. Remember it is like painting an oil painting, start from the background and work forward. Web sites are made of layers like a painting, when you add things they cover up the background and if you add a new background item it covers the foreground. Plan space and a location for images. Once you've put down a hard copy on paper and like it, you are ready to work with your computer.
If you want to use a web builder there is a free one called WebDwarf that can be downloaded free and used for non-commercial website building. http://www.virtualmechanics.com/products/dwarf
Choose the free version and install it. It has a built in FTP loader. To upload to your web site you might need a FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client program. I have found that Core FTP Lite works really well and is free. You can download it and install it from http://www.coreftp.com/download.html. Choose the free version and download it and install.
Open your word processor, in my case Open Office, and create a master page. This will define the background color and Major heading for all your pages. Once you have completed this, save it as “your Master document” in a “new file folder”. This folder will store all files used for your web page. You can now use it to make your first page the “Index page”.
The first page of every web site is called Index.html. After you have typed in any text and images you want using the word processor, check it out by choosing “File/Preview" in Browser and make sure everything looks right. If it needs changes, make them. When you are happy, save it as an “index.doc” in your web folder. Then using the File/Save As menu save your page as a HTML format, “Index.HTML”. Any images you have used should also be copied to this folder. If you want to have additional pages on your site you can again open the “Master Document” and create them. This second page must be linked to the “Index” page using a specific name so the user can see all your pages. For this demo we will only have one page.
The next step is to upload all the files to your ISP (Internet Service Provider). Every ISP that provides web space has instructions for uploading
This is the WOW instructions:
To Utilize your web space at the WOW! Customer Home Page
Log in with the Primary account.
First you must initial Select Account Manager.
3. Select Account Settings.
4. Select Webspace Maintenance and initialize your web space.
5. Note: Once you have initialized your web space you will no longer be able to change your primary e-mail account username.
To upload content to your web space, follow the step by step instructions:Open your FTP client program of choice (WS_FTP, Cute FTP etc)
FTP to ftp-www.wowway.com (this is the host address) Password: (Same as Primary E-mail account) Username: (Same as Primary E-mail account)'
The main page (the front page of your website) on your web space must be named index.htm or index.html
To see your website go to www.wowway.com/~primaryusername (i.e. www.wideopenwest.com/~jdoe9251)
Open Core FTP from the icon on your desk top. Fill in the host address, for my site it is www.wideopenwest.com, and the password and email for the account. In the large left hand box choose “browse” and find the folder you created to hold all your web site files. Add the Index.HTML and all the graphic files you have used. Then choose upload. In seconds you're done. Depending on the size of your files and the speed of your ISP your Web site will be available in seconds. You can use Core FTP to change your page by reversing the download or overwriting the files with the same names.

Choosing the Correct Program for a Task

2008-10-17T21:20:00.000-05:00

WORD PROCESSING, SPREADSHEET & DATABASE – OH MY!
Different software applications can perform the same functions. A letter can be typed using a spreadsheet, database and or a word processor. If you have never used a database, you could use the spreadsheet to perform a simple sort. Or, if you're not familiar with a spreadsheet, you could put a chart inside a word processing document instead.
How do you Choose?
First decide what you want to create and how you will use it in the future. Is it a simple list of information that you want to save? Is it financial information, a catalog of items, a score sheet etc? Does your document require nice even columns? Will you need it to do calculations? Will others use and modify the document? Once you have answered these questions, the choice becomes easier.
Word processor
Word processing software is widely used for:
writing any type of documents
creating email messages
generating invoices, statements, referrals and other written material.
Word processing software is used because it’s easy and functional, allowing you to produce documents that include a range of fonts and font sizes, graphics (pictures), symbols and charts. A number of proofing tools such as spelling and grammar checkers are also available.
It’s easy to make changes to existing documents and produce multiple documents that have only slight differences such as an address or date. This hand out is created on a word processor.
Industry-standard word processing software packages include Microsoft Word and Corel WordPerfect.
Spreadsheets
Spreadsheet software is probably the second-most used software application on a computer behind word processing. Spreadsheets allow a user to quickly calculate numerical data. It can add, subtract, divide, multiply, and perform many complex calculations. It arranges information in neat even columns and stores the information as unique pieces of information. It is often called the “Poor Man's” database because it is very good at recording information neatly and can perform simple database functions such as Sort and Select. Because of the way it saves data (information), it is an ideal format for keeping inventories and other lists. They can be grouped in classes, types, costs or anyway you choose.
Spreadsheets can be used to
organise and analyse data
create documents and reports
provide data for mail merges and tables
create charts.
In fact, spreadsheets can be used for any numerical or text/graphic based documents. The most well-known spreadsheet program is Microsoft's Excel.
Databases
Databases have become very important in recent decades and are now seen as being one of the most important assets of a business. Large amounts of vital information can be accumulated, stored, modified, processed, retrieved and distributed to many people and organisations. Just think of our banking system, car registration system, airline reservations and welfare payments systems.
Any database management system allows you to
create a database of names, addresses, or any type of information
allows you to add, sort, modify and select particular data
create forms and reports using the data in the database
There are many database packages available but Microsoft Access is one of the most popular.
Identifying the most appropriate software to meet your needs.
Although word processor, database and spreadsheet software applications perform some functions common to all, there are mainly specific features in each that need to be understood in order to select the right software for a job.
Word Processors are best used to write letters, notes, family histories, labels, newsletters, pamphlets and novels.
Spreadsheets are best used for keeping lists, financial records (income and budgets), putting items into columns, tracking sports, game, or test scores and standings, and preparing reports and graphs.
Databases are best used for address books, mailing lists and any project which requires large amounts of information to be stored and easily found. It is often easier to use spreadsheets if the number of items is small or limited analysis is required. Databases are normally best used by corporations or governments.
Recognize that if you use the peripheral power of any application (e.g., using a spreadsheet to sort data or a word processor to perform math), you'll quickly reach the limit of its power. The moral is to evaluate your project and choose the best tool. In the long run, you may be better off learning the application that will best perform the operation.

Forwarding email

2008-08-02T07:59:00.000-05:00

HOW TO FORWARD E-MAIL APPROPRIATELY :
Do you really know how to forward e-mails? Most of us DO NOT know how.
Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do you hate it?
Every time you forward an e-mail, there is information left over from the people who got the message before you -- namely their e-mail addresses & names. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds, and builds, and builds, and all it takes is for some poor sap to get a virus, and his or her computer can send that virus to every email address that has come across his computer. Or, someone can take all of those addresses and sell them or send junk mail to them in the hopes that you will go to the site and he will make five cents for each hit. That's right, all of that inconvenience over a nickel!
How do you stop it? Well, there are several easy steps:
1. When you forward an e-mail, DELETE all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message (at the top). That's right, DELETE them. Highlight them and delete them, backspace them, cut them, whatever you know how to. It only takes a second. You MUST click the 'Forward' button first and then you will have full editing capabilities against the body and headers of the message. If you don't hit the forward button first you won't have full editing fun ctions . I particularly dislike having to scroll through 200 Email addresses before I get to the email.
2. Whenever you send an e-mail to more than one person, do NOT use the 'To:' or 'Cc:' fields for adding e-mail addresses.. Always use the BCC: (blind carbon copy) field for listing the e-mail addresses. This is the way the people you send to will only see their own e-mail address.
If you don't see your 'BCC:' option click on where it says To: and your address list will appear. Highlight the address and choose BCC: and that's it, it's that easy. When you send to BCC: your message will automatically say 'Undisclosed Recipients' in the 'TO:' field of the people who receive it. That way you aren't sharing all those addresses with every Tom, Dick or Harry.
3. Remove any 'FW:' in the subject line. You can re-name the subject if you wish or even fix spelling.
This one is very important please read and heed
4. ALWAYS hit your Forward button from the actual e-mail you are reading. Ever get those e-mails that you have to open 10 pages to read the one page with the information on it? By Forwarding from the actual page you wish someone to view, you stop them from having to open many e-mails just to see what you sent. These are the ones that often end up having picked up a virus from somebody. This is really important !
5. Have you ever gotten an email that is a petition? It states a position and asks you to add your name and address and to forward it to 10 or 15 people or your entire address book. The email can be forwarded on and on and can collect thousands of names and email addresses.
A FACT: The completed petition is actually worth a couple of bucks to a professional spammer because of the wealth of valid names and email addresses contained therein. If you want to support the petition, send it as your own personal letter to the intended recipient. Your position may carry more weight as a personal letter than a laundry list of names and email address on a petition. (Actually, if you think about it, who's supposed to send the petition in to whatever cause it supports? And don't believe the ones that say that the email is being traced, it just ain't so!)
6. One of the main ones I hate is the ones that say that something like, 'Send this email to 10 people and you'll see something great run across your screen.' Or, sometimes they'll just tease you by saying something really cute will happen.
IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN!!!!! (Trust me, I'm still seeing some of the same ones that I waited on 10 years ago!) I don't let the bad luck ones scare me either, they get trashed. (Could this be why I haven't won the lottery??)
7. Before you forward an Amber Alert, or a Virus Alert, or some of the other ones floating around nowadays, check them out before you forward them. Most of them are junk mail that's been circling the net for Years!
IS IT TRUTH OF FICTION ?
Just about everything you receive in an email that is in question can be checked out at Snopes. Just go to http://www.snopes. com/ Then type in the names of the items, it has probably been checked out.
It's really easy to find out if it's real or not. If it's not, please don't pass it on.
So please, in the future, let's stop the junk mail and the viruses.

Anti-virus and Spy ware Controls

2008-07-07T06:42:00.000-05:00

Surfing and Emailing Safely: 07/03/08
The Internet and the World Wide Web offer a world of information at your finger tips. Instant information and communication is available to any one, but it comes with a cost. In order to make the Web available to everyone, it is available to some who use it for bad purposes. There are people who steal personal information, spy on what you look at on the Web and use your link to the Web to get into your computer. It is like the doorway to your home, you need the door open to see the world, but the door that lets you out also lets others in. That is why you have a lock on your front door. Today we will show how to put a lock on your computer's front door.
There are three types of attacks to stop.
Viruses: Small programs that are put in your computer to damage it, collect and transmit information without your knowledge and use your computer to infect other computers.
Spy Ware: Small programs that monitor your usage and transmit the information to gather information for advertisers.
Direct Attack: Random searches for unprotected computers to see if a computer is open to attack or available to use for information using “Pinging”.
There are three types of protection available.
1. Anti – Virus: A program that checks your computer for infections and checks email for infections.
2. Anti – Spyware: A program that checks your computer for spyware programs that could be used to transmit information.
3: Fire Walls: A programs that acts as butler at your door and asks you if you want a program to run on your computer and shuts out those that you don't want to enter.
Free programs are available for home use to protect your computer. The companies that supply these programs are the same companies that protect Large Corporate networks and they have found that a great number of infections and problems come from employees home computers that are not protected. By protecting these home computers they save money fixing Corporate Networks.
There are two highly recommended Anti – virus programs, AVG and AVAST. Although they do not offer phone support like the paid programs, they do have excellent user support and regular updates to ward off new attacks.
AVG is available at: http://free.avg.com/
There is an excellent tutorial for using AVG at: http://www.top-windows-tutorials.com/free-avg.html
It shows a step by step video of how to run the program and the features.
Avast is available at: http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html
There are several Anti – Spyware programs and two of the best are Spybot and AdAware. Be aware there is a bad program called “Adware” which is spyware. Like the free anti – virus programs they have support groups and updates.
Spybot is available at:
http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-Destroy/3000-8022_4-10122137.html
AdAware is available at: http://lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php
A very good free fire wall is Zone Alarm. MicroSoft Windows XP includes a weaker version as part of the Windows XP program. If you are going to use Zone Alarm on a Windows XP computer you must turn off the Windows fire wall. You can only have one fire wall on a system. I recommend that you use Zone Alarm available at:
http://www.download.com/ZoneAlarm-Firewall-Windows-2000-XP-/3000-10435_4-10039884.html

USING GOOGLE FOR RESEARCH

2008-06-11T15:46:00.001-05:00

Chances are that you have used the Google search engine to access information from the World Wide Web. Did you find what you needed? Did you find too much? Did you find too little? Did you retrieve a lot of "irrelevant hits?" If you have used Google for any length of time, then you know that your results may vary from search to search depending on what words you type and also how the words are entered.

Google and other commercial search engines like Yahoo, MSN.com, and Teoma allow users to search for the occurrence of words across billions of Web pages and online documents. Web search engines are not very "intelligent"; they don't understand the context of your search or the subtle nuances of human language and thought. Remember, computers don't think, they're literal -- they simply process commands -- therefore, the "intelligence" must come from you. The following "Google Tips" are designed to help you understand how Google works and in turn search the Web more effectively.

Tip #1 - Use Google Help (click on "About Google", "Google Web Search Features", "Basics of Search")
In Google Help, you will find all sorts of nifty tricks to improve your searching:

** "phrase searching" - Search for complete phrases by enclosing them in quotation marks. Words enclosed in "double quotes" will appear together in all results exactly as you have entered them. Phrase searching is especially useful for specific topics. By the way, you needn't worry about capitalization in your search. All letters are understood as lower case.

** word variations / "stemming" - Google will often search for related word variations, including singular and plural forms of the same word and different suffixes on the root of a word. Google does this automatically, so keep this in mind when constructing your search. university ...may also find universities economy ...may also find economic diet ...may also find dietary

** plus sign ("+") searches - Google ignores common words that appear frequently such as "of," "the," "is," "who," "where," and "how." To include a word or character that Google typically ignores, use a plus sign ("+") before it (NO space between), such as:
godfather +ii (for the film "Godfather II" or "Godfather, Part II") +who tommy (for the rock opera "Tommy" as performed by "The Who")

** minus sign ("-") searches - Sometimes a word has more than one meaning depending on the context. That's were the minus sign comes in. The minus sign ("-") before a word can omit pages with an undesired word from your results list. For example:
You are searching for north carolina banks for a management class, but you keep retrieving hits about north carolina outer banks. You could use the minus sign like this:
north carolina banks -outer

** tilde ("~") searches - The tilde ("~") before a word looks for synonyms. For example:
highway safety ~elderly ...will also find highway safety and seniors, senior citizens, and older drivers

Google Tip #2 - Use the Advanced Search
Savvy Google users go straight for the Advanced Search to the right of the main search box.
Advanced Search allows you to control what Google retrieves and refine your search in ways that the basic search box cannot. For example, you can set the Advanced Search to:
 Find results with all the words or with an exact phrase
 Return pages written in a particular language
 Return results of a particular file format: Adobe Acrobat .pdf Microsoft Word .doc, PowerPoint .ppt., Excel .xls, etc.
 Return only recent pages updated in last three months, six months, past year, etc.
 return results from a particular site or domain, including educational (.edu) and governmental (.gov) Websites. The Google Domain Restrict feature allows you to limit your results to a specific site or type of domain. You can restrict your search to only ".edu" sites at universities and colleges or you can even limit your results to "duke.edu" and only retrieve pages from Duke University. (This might come in handy if you know about a particular research center or collection at Duke.) Likewise, you can search for documents at "epa.gov," the Environmental Protection Agency Website, or simply change it to ".gov." for all U.S. governmental agencies.

Google Tip #3 - Understand How Google Works
Although Google uses a simple search interface, there is some fairly complex software at work behind the scenes. As we have learned, a search in Google looks for the occurrence of a word or words in billions of Web pages. Depending on your search you may retrieve hundreds of thousands of "hits." This is where Google PageRank™, a system for ranking web pages, comes in. The PageRank system looks at the billions of pages and hyperlinks on the Web to see who is pointing to whom with the idea that "important" Web pages often point to other "important" Web pages.
According to Google:
Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."
This is placing a lot of faith in the computer program to return the best results for you, but many users swear by it and Google has gotten very popular because of it. It's up to you to be the judge. According to the company, Google "does not sell placements within the results themselves (i.e., no one can buy a higher PageRank)." Google does sell space for "Sponsored Links" (ads) but these appear in shaded boxes at the top and right side of your search results.

Google Tip #4 - Understand Your Results
Remember, any bozo with access to a Web server and some time on his hands can create a Web page. The Web presents an exciting electronic commons in which to share documents and ideas around the globe. But with the good must sometimes come the bad. As you access Web pages and retrieve information, constantly ask yourself, "Who wrote this, for what purpose, and for what audience?" Websites of any repute will clearly identify the author (or "corporate author" such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency). In an academic setting, you are expected to use authoritative and scholarly sources. If you have questions about a site's content or motives, that's probably good enough reason to just skip it and move on. Remember, you can always ask your instructor or a librarian for their advice as well.

SIMPLE COMPUTER BACKUPS

2008-05-16T22:10:00.000-05:00

Backing up is an essential part of computer maintenance. Unfortunately many people are unaware that hard disk failure is not an especially rare event. The reason most avoid this process is due in part to human inertia but also partly due to hesitancy about what is involved in the backup process.

There are some simple backup strategies which use resources that most people already have, and that any PC user can employ. These minimum procedures are not substitutes for the real thing but they will at least prevent total disaster.

Those who wish to do thorough and complete backups will find many “how-to” articles on the Internet. For around $100- $150, several manufacturers sell external USB hard drives that come with their own software for easy backups.

Before Backup
Before you waste a lot of time and space, CLEAN up your computer first. Empty your Recycle Bin, and delete your Internet Cookies and Temporary Files. All this can be done with Disk Cleanup – Start-All Programs-Accessories-System Tools-Disk Cleanup. Choose Drive C: and let Windows clean out the suggested files. Then organize all your data files into My Documents so that you don't need to search for the files you want to backup.

Where and How to Backup

CD-RW or DVD Drives
The whole point of these backups is to protect against hard drive failure, a virus infection, or other problem that either destroys vital data or makes it inaccessible from your present system. Thus, the backup medium must be external to the hard drive. Ideally, this means another hard drive but for a minimum procedure a CD-RW drive will serve. Almost all computers now come with CD burners (or better yet a DVD burner). Please note that GoBack, Windows System Restore, and similar programs provide no protection against disk failure since they back up on the main hard drive itself.

Although many people recommend the rewritable kind of CD (CD-RW) and the use of incremental backups, using the plain CDs (CD-R) that can be written to only once works fine. Actually, with the proper software and if don’t close the CD, you can keep writing in multiple sessions until the CD-R fills up.

A simple and easy plan is that once a week you burn to a CD-R whatever files you want to protect. Each week use a fresh CD blank. To be safe, keep a couple of week’s worth and throw away the rest. Since we are not talking about a full backup, one CD may be enough to hold everything that you wish to back up. Those with DVD burners have a lot more capacity but if you have a lot of photos or multimedia, you should probably be considering another hard drive. Almost any computer that comes with a CD burner will have the necessary software and the procedure isn’t much more involved than copying to a floppy. If you have Windows XP, you can use the minimal CD burning capability that is bundled with the operating system. A simple copy on a closed CD-R requires no special software to restore and can be read by any ordinary CD drive.

Thumb Drives as a backup
USB thumb drives (or flash or jumpdrives or whatever you call them) are large enough and cheap enough to be another perfectly feasible backup medium. They do have a limited number of possible rewrite but the number is large enough for practical purposes. Thumb drives act just like another drive and are very easy to use as you don't need any special "burning" software like you do with CD-RW or DVD drives. (Thumb drives are also easy to lose so be careful with them.) Copying can also be done from Windows Explorer or in some cases copies can be created directly from the file menu of the software involved, as in Word, Quicken or tax programs.

Whether you use a CD-RW drive and special "burning" software or just copy your documents to a thumb drive, the easiest procedure is to create a "Backup" folder on the hard drive and to make copies of documents in that folder whenever you work on them. Then periodically copy this "Backup" folder to the external medium.

What to backup
So what should be included in a minimum backup? Obviously, it will vary from person to person, but there are certain basic categories everyone should consider. Since we are addressing the needs of the prototypical average home PC user, these categories include:

· E-mail, address books, Internet bookmarks/favorites, passwords and logins
· Financial data: banking, tax, investment
· Other important personal data
· User-created documents such as correspondence and school reports
· Photos, important music files

Backing up Internet related items
Backing up Internet related items can be more complicated and the methods depend on what browser and which e-mail client you use. Most common browsers have an export function that will allow you to back up favorites (bookmarks) and cookies.

Bookmarks: In Internet Explorer open the "File" menu and select "Import and Export. Follow the instructions in the "wizard" that will open, which will allow you to create a file “Bookmarks.htm” containing all your Internet Favorites. Export it to your backup location. This file in turn can be imported by IE should you need to restore your favorites.

Email: Backing up email will vary among clients, so click on your software's "Help" in the toolbar.

Windows Address Book: The Windows address book is in a file with the extension WAB. The usual location is: C:\Documents and Settings\User Name\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book. You can copy this file to a backup location.

Installing Backup in Windows XP Home Edition

The backup utility – file name ntbackup.msi - is not included in the default installation of Windows XP Home Edition. However, it can be found on the full Windows XP installation disk where it is present on the CD in the folder \VALUEADD\MSFT\NTBACKUP. Unfortunately, many vendors no longer sell computers with a full installation CD. The necessary Windows file can be downloaded from this site:

http://www.onecomputerguy.com/software_download.htm

Once you have downloaded the file to your computer, click on it and Windows will automatically install it to your hard drive.

Once installed, the backup utility can be found in Start-All Programs-Accessories-System Tools. In thE dialog box, you have a choice between Microsoft's step-by-step "Wizard" or the "Advanced Mode".

The simplest choice is to use the Wizard. Click "Next". You have a choice of creating a new backup or restoring a previous backup. Make a selection and click "Next".

The next window appears if you are making a new backup. It gives you a choice of what to back up. You may wish to back up everything or just certain folders and/or files.

Now choose where you want to put the backup and what you want to call it. If you are backing up the entire system, make sure that the backup medium has enough space. When you have chosen the destination, click "Next".

NTBackup and CD-R / CD-RW Drives - This really should go under a "You Gotta Be Kidding" category, but NTBackup does not allow you to back up directly to a CD-R or CD-RW drive. I know; the supposedly best, most stable and advanced operating system Microsoft has offered and no CD burner support in backup. The only solution is to back up to a folder on your hard drive and then copy it to CD.

The next dialog box shows the settings that you have chosen. If they are correct, click "Finish" to create the backup. If you wish, there are also some advanced settings that can be used to modify the backup procedure. They can be accessed by clicking the "Advanced' button before proceeding to "Finish". These settings are considered below.

Set a Schedule—and Stick to It
If you're disciplined enough, you can repeat the above steps once each week. If you'd rather not count on remembering to perform this crucial task, however, set up an automatic backup schedule for Windows. When you get to the final page of the Backup Wizard, don't click Finish. Instead, click the Advanced button, and click Next to open the When to Back Up page. Choose Later, and then click Set Schedule to open the Schedule Job dialog box.
You can set almost any schedule you want by poking around in the extensive set of options available in this dialog box. After you click OK to save your changes, Windows XP runs the backup automatically. Just remember to leave your computer turned on.

All in all, you can count on backing up 5 GB of data in as little as 10 minutes. And you don't need to worry about shutting down running programs, either—thanks to a feature called volume shadow copy, the Backup utility can safely create a copy of any file, even if it's currently in use.

FILES AND FOLDERS

2008-04-16T22:00:00.000-05:00

HARD DRIVES
"Now Where Did I File That?"
Every item on your computer -- documents, photos, videos, music, email, programs, etc. -- is made up of one or more files. These files are always grouped in folders and make up your directory. Groups of folders, called sub-folders, are often filed together in another folder -- just like your filing cabinet. This "filing cabinet" on your computer is called a hard drive.

Think of your hard drive as one big file cabinet. You will stash your work in the file cabinet. But you can't just throw documents in willy-nilly. You have to have an organizational structure to your filing system.

Folders provide that organizational structure, just as they do in a file cabinet. First, you will put labeled folders into your cabinet/drive. Each folder will have a name. When you view the contents of a hard drive, folders are normally listed in alphabetical order.

Inside the folder, you will put your documents, which are called Files. In order to be able to find your documents later within an overstuffed folder, you will give each File or document a name.

A file name is made up of two parts:
(1) the name of the document
(2) the file extension.
You may name a file anything you wish, but it is preferable to name a file something you are likely to remember later.
The second part of a file name is the extension. In the file text.doc, the word text is the file name and the .doc is the extension. A period always separates the two. The extension identifies what kind of a document you have and is determined by the software program in which the file is created.

Some examples of file extensions are:
.doc - Microsoft Word Document
.htm - Web document
.gif - image
.jpg - image
.ppt - PowerPoint Presentation

You can see how this looks on your hard drive in several ways. One way is to use your mouse and right-click on the START button in the lower left corner of your screen and then left-click on "Explore".

What you will see is a tree-like diagram. The left side of Explorer (the folder tree) shows all the folders and the right side shows us the contents of the highlighted folder. The contents of the folder may contain even more sub-folders and individual files.

It is easy to get lost among the pile of folders on most hard disks unless you can actually see the ways the folders are related to each other. The folder tree, located in the left pane, is just such a helpful diagram.

The folder tree shows all of the computer's drives and folders in a nested arrangement, plus some special areas like the Control Panel and Recycle Bin.

A small symbol, +, marks drives and folders which contain other folders. Clicking this symbol expands this branch of the folder tree.

Another symbol, -, marks something that is already expanded to show its contents. Clicking the symbol will collapse this branch of the folder tree.

Windows Vista, by default, does not show the arrows unless the mouse pointer is over the folder tree.

CREATING FOLDERS

You can create new folders in the Explorer window. In the folder tree – the left pane - click on the existing folder in which you want to create a NEW folder. For example, click on My Documents (or Documents, if you’re using Vista). In the (My) Documents window, right-click in a blank area. Select New>>Folder.
A new folder will appear in the window. It is named New Folder, but the name is highlighted. You can (AND SHOULD) type a new name for it. To change the name later, right-click the folder and select Rename. Then, enter another name.

If you open (click on) this new folder, there will be nothing inside. You can put the other folders inside it. Technically, they're called subfolders. You can see the hierarchy in the left panel. Subfolders can also contain folders, however, it can be a hassle to navigate through many levels of folders. You can also delete folders by right-clicking on them and then clicking on Delete.

CREATING FILES

In Explorer, you can drag and drop files into the folders, if you’ve already created files. You can also delete files in Explorer. However, files are NEVER created in Explorer. You would do this in a software program by clicking on File>>Save, then navigating to the correct folder in the Save dialog box. When you find your folder, just click Save. Your file will be stored in the appropriate place.

Explorer is called Explorer for a reason. Don't be afraid to browse your hard disk. Look in all your folders, and try all the programs in the Start Menu. Explore!

EDITING PHOTOS WITH PICASA

2008-03-16T08:34:00.000-05:00

PICASA is free photo-editing software that is available from Google. It will allow you to edit and add effects to your photos with a few simple clicks. To download Picasa, go to Google.com's home page. On the top left, click on on "more", then at the bottom of the drop-down box, click on "even more". On the right side of the next screen, scroll down under "Communicate, show & share" until you find Picasa. Click on it and follow the instructions to download the program.

What types of editing features are available in Picasa?
Picasa lets you fix common problems and create great effects in your photos. There are three editing tabs filled with tools to help you improve your photos.
"Basic Fixes" tab - These are buttons that work in one to two clicks to remove red-eye, crop, auto color, auto contrast, straighten and fill light photos. (There's also a Google-inspired "I'm Feeling Lucky" button here that takes the guesswork out and enhances photos automatically. Try it and see what happens.)
"Effects tab" - Effects are designed to help you turn a grey sky blue, brighten colors, and add photographic filters. There are 12 effects to choose from in Picasa including "Sharpen", "Sepia", "Black and White" (B&W), "Warmify", "Film Grain", "Tint", "Saturation", "Soft Focus", "Glow", "Filtered B&W", "Focal B&W", and "Graduated Tint."
"Tuning" tab - Here you will find the most advanced editing features to fix contrast and remove color cast. Select from Fill Light, Highlight, Shadows, Color Temperature, and the Neutral Color Picker.
What is the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button for?
The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button enhances dark and bright colors in a photo and adjusts both color and contrast to optimal levels in one click.

How do I crop a photo in Picasa?
To crop a photo in Picasa, please do the following:
1. Double-click the photo in the folder or album that you wish to crop. This will open the photo in the "Edit Picture" window.
2. Click the "Basic Fixes" tab (top-left) if it's not already showing.
3. Click the "Crop" button on the left.
4. Select the crop size you want (4 x 6, 5 x 7, 8 x 10, or manual). The manual selection will allow you to perform custom crops.
5. Click and drag your mouse over the part of the image you wish to crop. Cropping always creates a rectangular form. It is recommended that you use a starting point in the upper left of the photo. Click the left mouse button, hold it down, and drag the mouse until you have cropped the photo appropriately.
6. If you make a mistake, click "Cancel." Just click the "Crop" button again to start over.
7. When you have cropped the photo the way you want it, click "Apply."If you want to create a cropped copy of your JPG, click "Export" to save the cropped image.

How do I rotate photos?
Picasa allows you to rotate photos to the correct position. To rotate a photo:
1. Double-click the thumbnail of the photo you wish to rotate. This will open the photo file in the "Edit Picture" screen.
2. Click the "Clockwise" or "Counter-clockwise" buttons to rotate the photo in 90 degree increments. These buttons are located to the right of the Photo Tray, next to the Star.

How do I use red-eye to remove yellow, white or green spots in eyes, such as in pet photos?
Red-eye reduction is only available for JPG files. If you are editing any of the other supported photo formats, such as TIF, BMP, or PSD, the button will be grayed out. Crop, rotate, and enhance are available for all photo file types.
It is important to note that Red-Eye will literally only remove red. Some eyes will appear yellow, white, or even green. This is very common when photographing pets. Picasa cannot fix these kinds of flash issues.
To access "Red-Eye removal", double-click the desired photo to bring it up in the "Edit" view. Click the "Basic Fixes" tab, then click "Red-Eye."
Click, hold, and drag the mouse around each eye to select it. A box will appear in the area you dragged through; try to draw as small an area as possible for better results.
Release the mouse to complete your selection. The photo is displayed with the red-eye removed.
To restore the original photo, click "Undo."
To exit "Red-Eye Repair" view and leave the photo unchanged, click "Cancel." The "Edit Photo" view appears. Click "OK" to apply your changes. Picasa preserves the original photo which enables you to undo the changes you make. The red-eye changes you make to the photo can be undone. If you are still in Red-Eye mode and want to undo, hit "Reset>Cancel." If you are out of Red-Eye mode you can use the "Undo" button. There is a Yes/No confirm dialog.

How do I adjust the lighting in my photos?
These editing tools let you manipulate the lighting of your photos.
"Fill Light": uses a slider that brightens a backlit or dark photo while preserving the details in lighter areas of the photo.
"Highlights": uses a slider that brightens the overall appearance of a photo, causing the light areas to become lighter. Use Highlights together with Shadows for best results.
"Shadows": uses a slider that darkens the overall appearance of a photo, causing dark areas to become more distinct. Use together with Highlights for best results.
"Magic Contrast": works like "Auto Contrast", but allows you to adjust the levels for precise control. Click the "Magic Contrast" wand button for suggested contrast levels, and then drag the sliders to get the best looking result.

How do I save changes I've made to an image?
To save changes to an image it is necessary to export the image:
1. Select the photos you want to export.
2. Click the "Export" button down at the bottom right corner of the screen.
3. In the "Export to Folder" screen, select the folder (location on your computer's hard drive) you wish to export the images to.
4. Now, just click "OK." Your images will be exported to the new folder. If you have Picasa's "Picture Manager" set to "Scan Always," the duplicated images will immediately appear in Picasa.

SINGLE LABELS IN MICROSOFT WORKS AND WORD

2007-11-14T22:28:00.000-06:00

HOW TO PRINT A SINGLE LABEL IN MICROSOFT WORKS:

1. Start Works: click Start, point to All Programs, and then click Microsoft Works Task Launcher.
a) In Works Task Launcher, click Programs.
b) In the Programs list, click Works Word Processor.
c) In the tasks list, click Blank Word Processor Document.
2. In the Menu Bar, click on Tools, Labels.
3. In the Labels Dialog Box, click on the button "Mailing Labels with entries from a data source", then OK.
4. Choose the Product Number for the style of labels that you are using, then click on New Document.
5. In the Open Data Source dialog box, click CANCEL.

You will now have a document set up for a full sheet of whatever style label that you chose in step 4.

6. Before you enter any information, SAVE this document. Then you can use it as a template anytime, rather than going through all these steps again.

7. To print just one label, simply type in the address information in the label space that corresponds with the location of the label that you want to use on the label sheet. Print the document by clicking on File, Print,OK, then exit the document without saving. This will leave a clean template for the next time you want to print a single label.

HOW TO PRINT A SINGLE LABEL IN MICROSOFT WORD:

1. Open Word.
2. In the Menu Bar, click on Tools, Letters and Mailings, then Envelopes and Labels.
3. In the Envelopes and Labels Dialog Box, click on the Labels tab.
4. On the right side, click on Options.
5. Choose the Product Number for the style of labels that you are using, then click OK.
6. Type the address in the Address box, then below in the Print box, click on the button marked Single.
7. Using the Row and Column boxes, choose the location of the label on your label sheet.
8. Click on the Print button on the top right side of the box. This will send the label to the printer without creating a new document.

September 2007 - Spreadsheet Basics

2007-09-13T07:32:00.000-05:00

MICROSOFT WORKS SPREADSHEET BASICS

Parts of the Microsoft Works Spreadsheet Screen

· Active Cell - In a spreadsheet, the cell with the black outline. Data is always entered into the active cell.
· Formula Bar- Located above the column header in the spreadsheet, this area displays the contents of the active cell. It can also be used for entering or editing data and formulas.
· Column Letter - Columns run vertically on a spreadsheet and each one is identified by a letter in the column header.
· Row Number - Rows run horizontally in a Works spreadsheet and are identified by a number in the row header.
· Zoom Control - The zoom control in the bottom right corner of the Works spreadsheet screen is used to increase (click on + sign) or decrease (click on - sign) the size of the work area.
· Toolbar - The icons or buttons on the toolbar are shortcuts to commonly performed tasks in a Microsoft Works spreadsheet. There are shortcuts for opening new files, saving the current spreadsheet, printing, and for common formatting options.

Planning a Works Spreadsheet

Entering data into a Microsoft Works spreadsheet is as easy as clicking on a cell, typing a number, a date, or some text and then pressing the ENTER key on the keyboard.
Even though it is easy to enter data, it is a good idea to do a bit of planning before you begin to type.
Points to consider:
1. What is the purpose of the spreadsheet?
2. What information needs to be included?
3. What headings are needed to explain the information in the Works spreadsheet?
4. What is the best layout for the information?

Cell References in Microsoft Works Spreadsheets

· Data is stored in cells in a Microsoft Works spreadsheet.
· Each small rectangle in a Works spreadsheet is a cell.
· A cell is the intersection point of a column and a row in a spreadsheet.

Spreadsheet Facts
Columns run vertically in a spreadsheet and are identified by a letter.
Rows run horizontally and are identified by a number.
There are 16,384 rows, over 200 columns, and almost 4 million cells in each Works spreadsheet.
Cell Reference Facts
To keep track of all these cells, each cell has a cell reference or address.
A cell reference is a combination of the column letter and the row number.
The active cell reference is shown in the name box above column A.

Microsoft Works Spreadsheets Data Types

There are three main types of data used in Microsoft Works Spreadsheets:
labels
values
dates/times
A label is an entry that is usually used for headings, names, and for identifying columns of data. Labels can contain letters and numbers.
A value contains numbers and can be used in calculations.
Date/time data is just that, a date or the time entered into a cell.

Widen Columns in Microsoft Works Spreadsheets

Sometimes data is too wide for the cell it is located in. When this happens, the data may or may not spill over into the cell beside it.
· If a label is too long for a cell but there is nothing in the cell to the right of it the label simply spills over into the space to the right.
· If a label is too long for the cell but there is data in the cell to the right, the label is cut off. The rest of label is still present, there just isn’t room to display it.
· If a label is cut off, you can widen the column to display it. In Microsoft Works spreadsheets, you can't widen individual cells, you must widen the entire column.

In Microsoft Works Spreadsheets, if a value is too long for a cell, it does not spill over to adjacent cells even if those cells are empty. The column needs to be widened before the value can be displayed. Number signs in a cell (####) indicate that there is a value (number) in that cell that can only be displayed if the column is widened.

To widen a column, place your mouse pointer on the line between columns in the column header. When the pointer changes to a double headed arrow, click with the mouse button and drag to the right.

Editing Cells in Microsoft Works Spreadsheets

In Microsoft Works spreadsheets to change the contents of a cell, click on the cell, type over the existing entry, and press the ENTER key on the keyboard.
Change Part of the Cell Contents
· Method 1
o Click on the cell to make it the active cell.
o Click on the data in the formula bar.
o Delete the part to be changed and type in the new data.
o Press the ENTER key.

· Method 2
o Double click on the cell.
o Edit the part of the cell you want to change.
o Press the ENTER key.

ON LINE BANKING by CHASE

2007-04-10T21:18:00.000-05:00

Features I: Safety Features

Features II: On Line Banking
A) View Account Activity on a daily basis - on all products
B) Account Transfers - Between Chase Accounts
- From Chase to other Institutions
C) Online Bill Payments - Allows customers to pay bills on line
- Safe and Secure way to pay online
- You choose "delivery date"
- Systems determines "send on" date
- Check status of payments
- Review bill payment activity by payee or date
D) View check images
E) Paperless Statements - view and print anytime
F) Personalized Alerts - Notified via phone, email on phone text message
- Security alerts on a daily basis
- Security alerts 24/7 for any transaction changes
- Daily alerts for large transactions and balance changes
G) Quicken and Microsoft Money compatible

JANUARY 2007 - SENDING PHOTOS BY EMAIL

2007-01-04T22:25:00.000-06:00

Sending photos by email is a relatively easy process once you learn the steps. It can be broken down into 2 segments: preparing the photo and sending the photo.
We will look at the best way to attach and insert Photos into Out Look Express, Yahoo, AOL, WOW and Comcast email. These services are referred to as email clients. Each ISP (Internet Service Provider) has its own email client as a part of the service. In addition, many companies provide free email client service to anyone, if you establish a free email account. In addition, all Windows computers come with Out Look Express, as part of the Internet Explorer, or Out Look, as part of the MS Office suite, which are email clients. This may sound confusing, but if you have a ISP and use their service you only have to learn how to use one. This web site is more detailed on sending Photos, http://www.geekgirls.com/windows_email_photos.htm .

PREPARING THE PHOTO

Often, the problem with emailing a photo is that it is too large for easy viewing. The size of the computer files generated by digital cameras can be unmanageable for email. Sometimes, email services reject large files outright or if they do make it through, the recipient struggles to view them.

When sharing photos, use the JPG format. JPG is almost universally supported and is usually the format that is produced by most digital cameras. It's a compressed format, which means the same photo in JPG format is smaller than in other formats.

Most photo-related email problems are eliminated by resizing a copy of your photo to a lower resolution. How low you should go depends on what will be done with the photo, as the greater the compression, the lower the image quality. Here are some guidelines for resizing:

Photos viewed on computer only: 640 pixels x 480 pixels
Photos printed at 4x6: 800 pixels x 600 pixels
Photos printed at 5x7: 1024 pixels x 768 pixels

Many graphics programs let you resize images. If you don't have one already, there's an excellent freeware program called IrfanView which does the trick beautifully, in conjunction with the IrfanView Plug-ins (make sure you install both, IrfanView first followed by the Plug-ins).

OTHER METHODS TO MAKE PHOTOS SMALLER

If you don't have any image editing software for your PC, there other methods for resizing images. One is to use MS Paint that is free on all Windows PCs.
This information is online at the following website: http://blogs.ebay.com/shipscript/entry/Web-size-your-Photos-using-MS-Paint/_W0QQcommentsyncidZ0QQidZ10120015

THE MS PAINT METHOD
1. Go to your "My Pictures" album on your computer.
Right-click on a photo and farther down the menu, select "Open With" and choose "Paint".

2. Within Paint, select "Stretch/Skew" from the "Image" menu.

That will open a dialog window, where you will change both vertical and horizontal stretch % values. They must both be the same number. A smaller value will make a smaller image. Try about 20% or 25% to see how it looks. If it doesn't look right, then click the UNDO option, and repeat step two using a different value.

3. When the image looks about the right size on your screen, save the image to a NEW name
(if you use the same name you will lose the full-size version of the photo), and be sure the "jpeg" option is selected in the dropdown list on the save screen. Save it to your desktop, or wherever you will REMEMBER where it is.

4. The new smaller photo can then be attached to your email.

SENDING PHOTOS BY YAHOO MAIL

Some programs allow photos to be put in the body of an email message. Basic Yahoo mail allows graphics to be pasted in the body of an email, but photos can be sent as attachments only. To attach a photo:

1. Click on "Compose" to open a new email. Write your email as usual, then to attach a photo, click on the "ATTACH FILES" button just below the subject line.
2. A new screen will open that will allow you to find your photo on your computer. Click on "BROWSE" button on the "FILE 1" line. Using the "Choose File" box that opens, locate your photo and click on it. Then click on the "OPEN" button on the bottom of the box. The "Choose File" box will close and the file name and location will be inserted in the "FILE 1" line on the Attach File screen. If you wish to attach more than one photo, continue the same process for each file line. When finished, click on the "ATTACH FILES" button on the top or bottom of the screen.
3. A message screen will come up confirming the attachment has been successful. Click on the "CONTINUE TO MESSAGE" button.
4. You will now be back on your message screen. Finish and send your email normally.

SENDING PHOTOS BY COMCAST MAIL

Comcast allows photos to be put in the body of an email message or to be sent as an attachment. When a photo is put in the body of a message, it is automatically downsized by Comcast, so if you want the recipient to have the photo full-size, send it as an attachment. In your Webmail box, click on "Compose" to open a new email and write your email as usual.

TO PUT A PHOTO IN THE BODY OF THE EMAIL:
1. Click on the "ADD PHOTO" button just above the body of the email. A new Add Photo screen will open.
2. Click on the first "Browse" button and locate your photo on your computer, click on it, then click on the "OPEN" button.
3. After you have chosen all your photos this way, click on the "ADD" button on the bottom right of the Add Photo screen.
4. When the process has finished, this screen will close and you will be back in your email. Send normally.

TO ATTACH A PHOTO:
1. Click on the "ATTACH FILES" button at the top of the email. A new Attach Files screen will open.
2. Click on the first "Browse" button and locate your photo on your computer, click on it, then click on the "OPEN" button.
3. After you have chosen all your photos this way, click on the "ATTACH" button on the bottom right of the Attach Files screen.
4. When the process has finished, this screen will close and you will be back in your email. Send normally.

Out Look Express:
Out Look Express is an email client program that is included in all versions of Windows. If your computer came with Micro-Soft Office Suite you have a more complete version call Out Look, that is more complex and has additional features. We will only deal with Out Look Express, since it is the simplest and easiest to use. When you open Out Look Express for the first time you must set it up with an email address and password. Usually these are the same as the name and password you use to log-in to your ISP. Once that is done, you can choose to make Out Look Express to be your "Default" email client. I don't recommend this. but the choice is yours.
The program then opens and a "Menu Bar" listing the options for mail. They include "Create Mail, Reply, Reply All, Forward, Print, Delete, Send/Receive, Address, and Find". Create Mail is the same as Compose used by other email programs. The other items are the same in most programs but, they may be part of another menu item. Once you choose "Create Mail" a new screen opens and you click on the "To:" to open your address book and choose the person to receive the mail. Add the Subject and go to the body of the message. "Insert" is an option in the new menu bar. It will allow you to " File Attachment, Text From a File, Picture, and Horizontal Line". If you want to attach a Photo choose "File Attachment" and a pop-up screen opens letting you find the photo on your computer. When you find it choose open and you will be returned to the message. Note that a file has been added to a new line under the address list called "Attach", and the name of the photo and its location have been added. That is all you need to do to send a photo as am attachment.
If you want to put a photo into your message choose "picture" from the "Insert" options and a similar pop-up will appear to let you find the photo. Once you select it you will be asked to place it at the "Baseline". This will insert it at the cursor. Photos for use in this way should be smaller then attached photos. They should be 640 by 480 pixels generally. They won't be suitable for normal printing but, will look good on the screen and be easy to view. They are also quicker to send, and won't take "forever" to download for dial up connections. See instructions of using Photo editing software. Remember to save the re-sized image with a different name.
In Outlook Express, there is also an icon icon the on the tool bar for inserting picture. It is on the far right side on the bar as a colored square.
WOW Photos:
WOW's E-mail client does not allow pasting or inserting photos into emails, they must be attached. After opening the Web Mail option and choosing Compose. Choose the address and topic. When you click in the body of the message you can choose the "Attach Option" to attach a photo. A menu will open allowing you to find the photo on your hard drive and select it.

2006-12-10T07:12:00.000-06:00

December 2006
Photo Editing Picasa:
There are many free photo album and editing software programs available, but one of the best is the new version of Picasa from goggle. Goggle bought the software company and then modified the program to make it one of the best. It is divided into two sections the organizer (album) and the editing area (image improvement).
As we discussed last month, to download Picasa go to the www.google.com and select the more then the Even More selection. Under the Create and Share area you will find Picasa. Download it and then install following the instructions. When you have finished the installation and start the program, you'll be asked if you want to search for photos on your hard drive. If you choose to it will search for every file with a photo format and bring them in to the album. Find the pictures you forgot you had. Picasa organizes your entire collection while you watch, scanning the images on your computer and automatically sorting them by date.

Album:
The album allows you to add your photos into section and to add sections of your own. Some of the available sections are Friends, Family, Travel etc. You can make sub groups to these sections or create new sections. Using this method will allow you to find photos easily. For example, you could have a photo in the Family/Grandchildren/Mary. That would allow you to find not only all pictures of your grandchildren, but those showing Mary. The neat feature of the method is that the photo is only store once on your hard drive and the Album keeps track of the links.
Move and re-name pictures from inside Picasa.
Want to clean up messy folders and move pictures around on your computers hard drive? Simply drag and drop pictures from one folder in Picasa to another. Picasa will make the change permanent after double-checking with you. Want to change a pictures filename from 671056398a.jpg to Lisa.jpg? In Picasa, it only takes seconds to re-name one picture or a group of pictures Make a label Use labels to tag your photos into quick groupings inside Picasa. Viewing and sharing the pictures you grouped under a label is easy and they make great slide shows and movies or you can email them to friends.
Keep one picture in multiple albums. Picasa creates a new reference of each photo you label without taking up more space on your computer, so you can put the same picture into multiple albums
Edit:
Turn a gray sky into a picture-perfect day.

Basic Fixes are back and better. Picasa's Basic Fixes are buttons that make it fast and easy to crop, remove red eye, fix the contrast and color, and enhance your digital pictures.
Although Picasa doesn't offer the all the features of a full photo editing program it does have excellent tools for correcting most common defects, which are all the home photographer needs. It also contain feature for send email photos and creating on-line albums

GOOGLE FEATURES NOV. 2006

2006-11-03T07:02:00.000-06:00

This is Google :
What is Google? No one knows because it is so many things. It is a Search engine, a programs source, a email provider, and the first English word learned in many countries. To reach the web page shown above you open your browser and type in http://www.google.com/ . This is the basic search page. It allows you to search the web for
information, images, videos, current news and maps. But, that's now all, the "More Tab"brings a list of Froogle (a price shopping search), Books (about the topic you entered) and Groups ( interested in the topic). And guess what, "Even More". That is where all the new and creative stuff is.

A little about how Google works:
Google started as a really fast and in depth search engine. Unlike many companies, they invited the geeks to help them and used the ideas given to them. When they were successful and went Public on the stock market, they used the money to buy small software companies that had programs that could be used on the Internet. They built a very large storage and allowed the public to store information and email in this storage place free of charge to the home user and for a small charge to companies. They created a reputation for honesty and quality in all their products with the Computer community. Their main source of income is advertising, but they made it clear what is a paid advertisement and what is pure search items. They have one strange policy, "All Programs are Beta". Their Beta programs are modified to correct problems very quickly if needed.
Internet Options:
The sections are divided into Search, Explore and Communicate & Share programs. The search section contains add ons that are put into your browser to improve it's function. They include a Toolbar, Desktop Search, Earth Google, and several special search functions. The Explore section is for programmers, and includes the codes use to develop new features. It also links to the Lab where new concepts are being developed. There are programs in the Lab area that are really "Beta" and just in development. Unlike the Google Beta they may have problems and should not be used unless you are experienced and willing to take the risk. Once they have been tested and checked out they will be moved to the other section. The last section is Communicate and Share. These are free programs that are loaded to your computer to and can be used like software you would purchase. They include a photo editor, an on line word processor and spreadsheet, a blog creator and several other specialized programs. (This handout was written using the word processor.) Next month we will show how to use the Picasa II photo editor and catalog program.
Search Section:
The Toolbar is an add on that put a new tool bar into your browser. It adds the complete Google search feature, a page ranking , a spell checker, a zip code look up, an autofill for forms on the web that you control and a list of options.
The Desktop Search is an improved search function for you computer and email. It catalogs all your files and allow you to search any document you created or received for a specific word or phrase. This can be extremely useful or bothersome. To function it must create a directory of your hard drives and the initial creation take some time. If you don't regularly update the directory it updates each time your search. This can take several minutes. If you use it regularly the time is short and you don't notice it, if you don't use it and have created or add a lot of files it can take several minutes. It is more through the the Windows search features, but some people find it to through for occasional usage.
The Earth Google is a neat and pretty feature that allows you to view 3D images of any area of the World from the most recent satellite or air images. The free version is limited, but still useful. They also offer the full version that is used by TV News to show those fancy zoom in effects you see on CNN and others. The free version allows for combinations of the photos, detail information (Street, City and State names) and tilting features. I have found it useful when traveling in areas with poor street sign. Landmarks help you keep track of where you are on the map when big building block your view. I have printed out the 3D version and attached it to the maps.
All the programs and add-ons from Google are free. In the past, several Google products required that you have a Google email account (called Gmail). As a Gmail account could only be obtained by referral, this blocked many people from accessing Google products. However, Google has now developed a Google "Account" feature that allows you to sign-up for these products if you don't have a Gmail account. You still cannot obtain a Gmail account unless you are referred by an existing Gmail user.

October 2006: Files and Folders

2006-09-21T21:46:00.000-05:00

Files and Folders:
The question I most often receive is, "Where is my file? It is the most basic question there is. Computers store files in folders just like you did when you saved paper documents in File Cabinets. Like file cabinets there were drawers and folders in the drawers. There could be folders in folders to further simplify find documents. Each drawer was labeled, each folder was labeled. See File Cabinet
It is the same with computers, only instead of printing and gluing labels on folders and drawers. You type the names in when you "Save As". See Files and Hard Drives. For example "Save As" C:/My Documents/Business Letters/John means that The cabinet is "C", the drawer is "My Documents", the folder is "Business Letters" and the inner folder is "John".In reality "C" is a hard drive in your computer. Instead of paper it stores the information digitally. "My Documents" is a portion of the hard drive as are the other sub folders. The computer creates a list of all the folders you create and remembers where it stored them. In addition to saving folders in folders you can save documents is each folder. For example if I wrote a letter to 3M company about masking tape I could "Save As", C:/My Documents/Business Letters/John/3m tape 6/20/06.doc. See Folders. I would use the title of the document to name the Company, subject and date so I could find it.
The ".doc" refers to the type of file it is, in this case a "Word" Microsoft document. This is so the computer knows to open it with Microsoft Word. It is called an extension.
Each program on your computer has extensions that refer to a specific type program. Some are very common and can be opened by several programs and others are very specific and can only be opened by specific programs. For example "jpg" is a standard image format and can be opened by most photo editing, photo cataloging and printing programs. But "psd" is a specific PhotoShop extension that can only be opened by the Photo Shop program. Normally the program will offer you the potion to save as the standard format for the program or as a more general format that could be used by other programs. For example "MS Word" lets you save with the extension "doc" its normal extension, "txt" a general Windows text document extension or as a "rtf"(rich text format) another text format.
Many programs set aside a particular folder to save their documents. For example "MS Works" creates a folder in its program folder called "My Documents". To find "Works" document they are stored in C:/programs/Works/My Documents by default.
Important Rules: When your start to create a new document go to "File" in the "Function Bar" at the top of the screen. Clink on it and choose "Save As". That will allow you to name the file and put it where you can find it later. Once it is "Saved As" you can then use the "Save" function for future saving of the file. When you do this you can see the name of the file in the Blue bar at the top of the screen.
Find Your Work: You wrote a letter a while ago to XYZ company and want to find a copy. If you used "Word" open Word and click on "File". All your recent documents(about 5) will be listed at the bottom. If it isn't there click on "Open" and a screen opens showing where your documents are normally stored. It should be there. If you were being tricky and put it in a special place, you still and find it. Close "Word" and left click on the "Start" icon on the bottom left. Click on "Search" and a screen asking what to search for appears. Choose "Files and Folders" and type "*.doc" in the search box. Because you know it was a "doc" file the computer will search for all files with the extension "doc". The "*" is a wild card symbol that means list all "doc" files. The computer will search all file and folders on you computer looking for "doc". and a list will appear at the right. Once you find the one you are looking for double click on it and "Word" will open it on the screen.
If you don't know what type of file it is but, remember the name you used to save it or even part of the file name, use search to find it. In my example above I could search for "3M Tape".
Can I Create a Folder?
Yes, you can and here is how to do it. The first step is to determine where you want to create the folder. For this example, we will create a folder in the C drive called "My Very Own Files". Right click on the "Start" button on the bottom left of the screen. Left click on the "Explore" choice. A new screen will open showing all the files and folders on the computer. You will be in the Folders called "Start Menu".Move the slider bar on the right up until you see "C:" to the left. Click on it and it will turn blue. (Only click once). Now move the cursor to the top of the screen to the "File" option and click once select "New" by left clicking and then "Folder" and left click. Now the tricky part, move the cursor to the far right of the screen and move down until you see a a folder "New Folder" in blue. Type in the name of the folder in this case "My Very Own Files" and enter. The name will change and the folder will sort itself into alphabetical order. You now have a new folder called "My Very Own Files" that you can use to store your work. There is only one important rule, the name can have only 32 characters. It can not have certain characters like ".,?" and most non letter or number symbols, so avoid them. The name is so you can find, it not to make it read like prose.

SEPTEMBER - CUT CLUTTER TO IMPROVE WINDOWS FUNCTION

2006-09-12T11:20:00.000-05:00

Has your computer slowed to a crawl? A big reason why Window slows down is the accumulation of programs that run in the background on your computer. None of this is spyware, adware, wormware, or viruses. Many programs installed from disk, programs downloaded from the Web, printer software and Microsoft applications contain computer code that inserts the programs into the startup menu. This is done so that the program icon will appear in the System Tray (right side of taskbar near time display), an inexpensive method of promoting the program. Non-essential programs in the startup menu gobble up system resources.

You can check what programs are running on your computer by looking in the Task List. You can bring up the Task List by:

In Windows 95/98/ME: press Ctrl+Alt+Del

In Windows NT4/2000/XP/2003: right-click on the Task Bar and choose "Task Manager"

If you see something you don't recognize, check out the online Process Library at
www.processlibrary.com
a site that lets users type in a listing and get an explanation. Or go to www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm
for an alphabetical listing with a full explanation of the process.

If you can't find any information at either of these sites, type the full listing into Google and search for more information on this process.

The simplest way to stop a program from running automatically is to disable this in the software program itself. Look for an option in the program (usually found in Preferences or Settings) such as Start (name of program) when I start my computer or similar option. If the option is found and is checked, simply remove the check.

Unfortunately, most software programs don't make it this easy. Fortunately, Windows has a method to select which programs you want to run at Startup called the Windows Configuration Utility or Msconfig.

Simply right-click on START, on the bottom left corner of your screen. Then click RUN, type msconfig in the box and press enter.

This will bring up a screen with numerous options. Go to the far right tab labeled STARTUP and click on it.

This brings up a list of all the programs your computer starts when loading windows. Go through them, and uncheck programs that do not need to be started with Windows. When you have made all your changes, click APPLY at the bottom, and then click OK. Now it will ask you to choose whether to restart your computer or to exit without a restart.

Click on "Restart". Upon restart, a message box will appear. You can accept the Msconfig changes by checking "Don't show this message," or click OK to launch System Configuration Utility and re-enter Msconfig to make further changes.

AIGUST INTERNET TRAVEL

2006-07-29T08:11:00.000-05:00

Traveling on the Internet:
The Internet is a great place to plan sight seeing trips. It can also give you more information for guided tours. On tours it will make you the hit of the bus, because you will know what's ahead.
The problem is the computer is at home when your traveling and it is hard to see the map on the screen from the car. Even if you have a laptop for travel and find a Wi-Fi signal and hold it while the car is moving the screen is hard to read. Also the map on the screen is a bit small and the town names are to small to read while driving.
The solution is the use of the 46 States and 4 Commonwealths for all the free stuff that our taxes provide. Each State site offers a current state map by mail. These are updated each year and list the most current roads and any changes in Inter-States or local roads. They also contain City maps of the major Cities in the State. Listings of travel times between major points is listed in addition to the mileage. This will aid you in finding Hotels and attractions along your route. Ending your days travel twenty miles either way on your trip can save you real dollars for accommodations and provide a better choice of restaurants and attractions.
The State will also send you a Free brochure listing the best the State has to offer by region. These are current unlike the Travel guides you can buy. Each year the Tour offices of each city via to get space in the brochure. They include photos and maps which will help you get there the by the easiest route. Some of the bigger States have separate brochures for each region, making for more detailed information on your route. In Illinois alone you will discover "The Cat sup Bottle , The Popeye Stature, The 100 foot Cross, and Superman's hometown. And you thought there wasn't anything to see in Illinois.
How Do I Get This Great Stuff?
Each State has a Web site, the problem is finding the official site and not some travel site hawking wares. This is one of the problems with searching on Google, it often lists the travel sites first because they have more links and are accessed more often. All official State sites have the extension GOV. i.e Wisconsin.gov. The travel site have extensions like COM or NET. i.e. Illinoistravel.com . There is nothing wrong with these sites, but they only list their customer listings, and you can miss some great thing. To make your life easier I have listed the official sites of the States at the end of this document,
Once you have found the official site, look for Tourism, Travel, or Visiting our state link on the home page. They all have one, but the they all call it something different. Again you will have to search for the link offering to mail you the information. Most allow you to print your own information, but save ink, paper, and don't miss attractions by ordering the mail versions. You will have to provide your address and sometimes your phone number. Some ask for an email address so use the junk address we created two months ago. With that done check mark your areas of interest. and submit.

Photoshop

2006-06-30T12:42:00.000-05:00

Photo Editing and Correcting:
With the advent of digital cameras that could rival film cameras in quality of image, it was essential to give the digital photographer a dark room to edit, enhance and publish his work. Several quality programs are available to serve this need. Adobe's "PhotoShop" and "PhotoShop Elements" are recognized as the best of the lot.

What is the difference between them? PhotoShop is a professional publishing program designed for the printing of commercial art work and magazine photos. Images can be saved in the CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) format needed for commercial printing. It also has a few very special editing tool needed for this level of work. PhotoShop Elements is for the home photographer. It has been designed for home use on personnel computers (MAC and PC).
If you take one or two photos a week, it is not the program for you. It is a very detailed, powerful, editing and archiving program and requires the user to understand the basic principles of both photography and painting. Simply changing the contrast, brightness, and size of a photo are easier with many low cost or free program included with your printer or scanner. Most printing services offer free software to preform these operations when ordering prints. PhotoShop is for saving that once in a lifetime picture that didn't come out or for the photographer who want prints for display.

The current version of PhotoShop Elements is version 4, however for this demonstration we will be working with Version 3. There is little if any difference in the two versions. Adobe has added new plug-ins for more cameras to download images directly and some new textures in version 4.
We will start with a video of the miracles of PhotoShop that comes with the program. . It will describe the addition of PhotoShop Organizer (Album) which was added to PhotoShop as an upgrade to Version 2. It allows you to sort and tag all your images in a orderly fashion for easy searches. Images can be found by date, subject, person or any tag you create. It then groups the images so you can easily find the one you need.

The video, then gets to the real meat of the editing of photos using the "Editor" It shows how to correct "red-eye", background lighting, under and over exposure, removal of objects, and fine tuning photos. Using PhotoShop tools to correct a photo is like using a jewelers tools and the simple editing programs offered by commercial printer is like using a sledge hammer.

PhotoShop offers several tools to correct each defect. It allows you to correct one color at a time. It allows for correction of highlight areas, shadows areas and mid-tone ranges separately.
After the video, we will demonstrate some of these features. The manual for PhotoShop is over 400 pages long and still doesn't cover all the features and tools.

JUNE 13TH Eprompter

2006-05-29T08:08:00.000-05:00

Controlling Your Email:
Email is one of the great developments made in the last 20 years. It is also one of the most troublesome. It makes for easy communication and providing a written record to avoid confusion. It is also the source of most computer viruses and spam messages. Many users have several address to allow them to register for services without filling their primary email address with spam and product alerts. This requires you to visit each mail service, logging in and remembering passwords to receive and read your mail. Opening mail on your computer opens your computer to viruses contained in some messages.
There is a Solution:
There are programs that gather mail from several email accounts and allow you to see them all in one place. Several of these are commercial programs and are available in stores for a price. The problem is as services change there method of displaying messages and logging in they require updates to keep working. The Open Source group came to the rescue with a free program "Eprompter"
It allow the gathering of mail from several accounts, logs in seamlessly to all accounts, gathers messages in a text only format(a safe mode), displays messages by account, sender and topic, and can be used to read and responded. It is almost a miracle, two clicks and all mail is available.
The first step is to download and install Eprompter from www.eprompter.com
After it is installed you must have a list of your email accounts, your email addresses and passwords. 1. Tell Eprompter how your computer connects to the Internet.
2. Tell Eprompter about the email accounts you want to retrieve.
Eprompter has a Wizard to make the first step easy. It is used to determine how you connect to the Internet. If you have a DSL or Cable connection The wizard recognizes it. If you use a dial up connection you must identify the server and password.
With the connection set up you can add accounts. First you type in the email address including the server. e.g. me@yahoo.com
Next you type in the password you use to login and confirm it. Eprompter recognizes the type of server (imap or POP3). It recognizes most common email services. If it doesn't recognize the server, you may have to fill is the type manually on a later screen. If your server is imap the next screen show this and your done.
If you have a POP3 server you have to know the mail address. e.g.pop3.mail.wideopenwest.com. This can be found by opening your email program and opening Tools/Accounts/Properties/Servers you will see incoming mail with a line similar to the example. You then repeat this for all of your accounts. (The only account that doesn't work with Eprompter presently is AIM accounts. This is due to a multi step login.)
Once you have completed the addition of account, you can open the program, Each mail address is in a separate box and color identified.. At the top of the screen is an E. There are three buttons next to this icon, Menu, Update and Help. The Menu allows you to add Update all accounts, Add Accounts, Add Addresses and Set Up. The UpDate button check for mail on all accounts.
There is a Options button in the box. Which allow you to Update that account, check the Setup and Compose a new message. If you have mail in the account you will also have an Inbox button This will allow you to see messages in a new screen. The messages are listed, showing the Sender, the Subject and the Date. If you highlight a message you can read it by clicking the Read button. The entire message will be displayed without graphics A Reply button will also appear at the bottom of the screen. Clicking that button will open a typical email screen showing your address as the sender, the To area will show the address of the original sender. The Message area will show the message you received and an area to type your reply. When you finish and click the send button you are returned to the messages screen. The reply will not be sent until you Update. You will have a green Send icon between the Inbox and Options in the account box.

MAY 2006 - YAHOO! Email Boxes

2006-05-09T22:39:00.000-05:00

YAHOO EMAIL BOXES

To sign-up for a free Yahoo email box, go to www.yahoo.com and click on the “EMAIL” button on the top of the screen. It’s immediately to the right of the big, red YAHOO! logo.

1. On the right side of the sign-in screen, below the sign-in boxes, click on the “Sign Up” button
2. Begin filling out the required information. Although anything with an asterisk is REQUIRED, it doesn’t mean that you must give your true info. However, WRITE DOWN whatever information you decide to use, so that you will remember it.

3. Choose a Yahoo ID, enter it in the box and click “Check Availability”. If the ID that you pick is already taken, a screen will pop up giving you 3 boxes to enter some ideas and a box to try a new ID. Once you have found an ID, WRITE IT DOWN! It doesn’t matter if you use capital or lower-case letters, your ID is NOT case-sensitive. When you type it in, either style will work.
4. Now continue with a password choice. It must be 6 characters and IT IS CASE SENSITIVE! If you enter it here all in capital letters, you must ALWAYS use capital letters. WRITE DOWN YOUR PASSWORD EXACTLY AS YOU HAVE CHOSEN IT!
5. Yahoo requires some additional information to help if you ever forget your password. Again, this information does not need to be TRUE, but you do need to REMEMBER it. So, write it down.
6. You may fill in the “Customizing Yahoo” section, or leave it alone.
7. Fill in the “Verify Registration” box.
8. It might be a good idea to print out the screen page before you agree to the Yahoo Terms of Service. This is a good way to keep a record of the choices that you made. Hand-write in any information that is not shown on the print-out.
9. Click on “I Agree”. Congratulations! You now have a Yahoo! Email box.

If you do NOT want to receive advertising mail from Yahoo, click on “My Account” on the very top left hand side of the screen, just under the “Welcome…”. A screen will open asking for your password. Fill this in to get to your account information page. Under “Member Information”, click on “Edit your marketing preferences”. UNCHECK all the boxes and click on the “Save Changes” button on the bottom.

For help on using your Yahoo Email box, sign-in to your box and then click on “Mail Tutorials” on the upper right corner of the page. Yahoo provides step-by-step directions for all the features provided with your email box.

MARCH 2006 - Hobbies on the Internet

2006-03-11T07:59:00.000-06:00

A good source for researching a hobby is About.com. About.com is a web portal that relies on paid human editors to cover a specific topic by writing articles and constructing a web directory. There are currently about 700 topic-sites, most of which are led by a guide (who acts as the editor). The website address is:

www.about.com

Either enter your hobby or topic in the search box at the top of the page, or use the “Channels” column on the left-hand side to browse the sites.

FORUMS AND GROUPS

Did you think you were alone in your obsession with a hobby? Chances are there's an Internet group for people like you, discussing every little detail of your obsession right now. Most forums or groups allow you to read and search their entries (called “posts”), but you must register if you want to post comments. About.com has forums on all of their topic-sites. Locate the site for your favorite hobby, then scroll down the list on the left side of the page. Click on the word “Forums”, then in the sign-in box that appears, click on “Guest Access”.

Another site that has groups is www.google.com. To search them for a specific topic, go to the main Google page at www.google.com and enter your hobby name in their search box and hit “Enter”. Then click on the “Groups” tab above the box.

Yahoo! is also a very popular site for groups. However, their messages are done via their email system and most of the groups require you to become a member. You will receive the posts as emails that are sent to all members of the group and you can respond via email. To find a group on Yahoo, go to their main page at www.yahoo.com and click on “Groups” in the left-hand column. Enter your hobby in the “Find a Group” box and press “Search”. Click on the group name to learn more about the group.

March 2006 Hobbies

2006-03-07T07:53:00.000-06:00

Hobbies and interests - March 2006
Hobbies and interests keep your mind alive and healthy. Some even help increase activity and keep your body in better shape. But, how do you find information and others with similar interests? The Internet is becoming the best place to solve this problem. Using search tools like "Google, Yahoo and MSN search you can find information on practically subject if you know how. The secret is knowing how the search works and using the right words and being specific. For example, if you want to find groups that are interested in making jewelry, you must use the terms "jewelry making hobby groups information" so that jewelry sellers and sellers of tool, equipment and materials are eliminated. Even with the best searching technique you will still get to many results and have to learn to read the results carefully. If you have specific information about the subject like a particular unique piece of information it can help you narrow your search by looking for related links.
Here are some site I found using these ideas for hobbies I like.
House plants
http://www.epfl.net/subjects/subjectguide.cfm?cid=537&sid=24&pid=534
African violets
http://www.gesneriads.ca/
Painting lessons
http://www.interactiveartschool.com/free-art-lessons.html
Photography Clubs
http://www.chicameraclubs.org/
Jewelry Making instructions
http://jewelrymaking.about.com/library/weekly/aa051799.htm
Jewelry Supplies and finished products
http://www.firemountaingems.com
Supplies and instructioms
http://www.jewelrysupply.com/index.php?main_page=1/diy_projects.html
Model building help
http://www.answers.com/topic/ship-model
Model ship instructions
http://www.sailingmodels.com/
Orchid groups and supplies
http://www.iosoc.com/

2006-02-15T06:45:00.000-06:00

Use only trusted sites. The following steps are based on the website www.download.com
Browse through the categories to find the one that covers what you want. This could take some browsing as the category names aren’t always descriptive of what software is included in the category.
Read the titles and descriptions of each program carefully to determine if the software is what you need. Click on each one to read the full description.
Check to make sure that the software is FREE. Some software programs are SHAREWARE - they have a limited time usage before you have to pay. On this website, there is a filter located at the bottom of the page that can eliminate all programs on the list that are not considered free. However, “free” software may include ads, additional software that you may not want, or have other catches.
Check that the software program is suitable for your version of Windows – 98, ME, or XP.
Note how many times the software program has been downloaded. The more popular a program, the more likely it is to be useful and a safe download.
Read the reviews written by Download.com and also those written by other users. The user reviews are sometimes more helpful and descriptive than the professional reviews and will include any glitches that the average user might run into.
Once you have decided on a program, click on “Download Now”. Follow the usual steps for downloading and installing a software program.

Some Favorite Free Software Downloads:

EPrompter – automatically and simultaneously checks and receives E-mail from up to 16 accounts.
AdAware – finds and removes adware and spyware.
Spybot Search & Destroy – detects and removes adware.
CutePDF Writer – enables Windows applications to create PDF documents.
Zip Reader – allows users to open files that have been compressed with ZIP software.
Legacy Family Tree – genealogy software.

FREE STUFF - FEDRUARY 2006

2006-02-14T07:51:00.000-06:00

F 2/14/2006
Why is there free Software available on the Internet and can it be trusted?
Why:The entire concept of the Internet was created as a free software idea. It was designed to share
information between learning centers and benefit mankind. It linked them and allowed the transfer of ideas
and data between these centers. It soon became apparent that a search tool was necessary to find specific
information and the University of Illinois students created a Browser that could search and display the
information is a universally usable manner. This was the creation of Mozilla an open source browser. That
meant anyone could use it and add features to it. The feature would be reviewed by the group and if they
found them useful they would be incorporated into the browser. Others decided to sell these modifications as
commercial products, and make the changes secret. ( Internet Explorer, AOL etc)
Along with the browser, other programs were created. Word Processors, Spread Sheet and Database
programs. Anyone could use and improve these program. It may sound strange but, there are many people
who are more intrigued by solving problems then selling things. Their reward was recognition by their peers
and having a improved tool.
TRUST:There are many sies that collect these programs and store them for easy download. These site test
the software and many have reviews not only by their staff, but by average users. They can generally be
trusted and will report problems with the programs. Pop up ads that offer free software are not to be
trusted, they are probably spy ware or viruses.
Trusted Site for Downloads:
http://downloadsquad.com/ Downloads with opinions on quality
http://softpedia.com/ List of free and share ware
http://www.tucows.com/downloads/Windows Old favorite for free stuff
http://www.download.com/ A good download site
The site normally break down the lists by types of programs ,(Utilities, Photo, Business, etc). Then it is up to
you to select the software that fits your needs. Here are the web addresses the I've found useful.
Photo and Media:
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pierre.g/xnview/enhome.html Lets you open and view 40 types of media files
http://www.debugmode.com/wink/ Create learning tool by creating a flash graphic of step by step process
http://www.brothersoft.com/Multimedia_Graphics_Screen_Capture_CamStudio_3944.html Allows you torecord the computer screen moves as a movie. (AVI)
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ The finest Music editing program available. Allow not by note editing and assembly
Utilities:
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ Browser that is somewhat safer then I.E.
http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptdirprn.asp Print files with details and controls
http://www.intelexual.com/products/ multi clip board. Allows several clips to be stored.. Select the YC3version.
Business:
http://www.openoffice.org/ Complete Office Suite for free- Includes Word, Excel, Presentations, and Drawing
http://www.go2pdf.com/product.html A PDF Converter.
Games:
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/ Penguinswing.html Penguin slapping to make up for "March of the Penguins"
http://www.download-free-games.com/war_game_download/americas_army.htm. A war game developed by the government several years ago for training, I guess, and made available free to anyone (kids).
For information on Free Stuff see: It may take a while to load.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1864655,00.asp

JANUARY MEETING

2006-01-03T08:20:00.000-06:00

12/30/05
Downloads :
What are downloads and how do I get them?
Downloads: They are files containing programs, photo, documents and music that are transmitted to your computer using the Internet.
This site is a very good step by step visual tutorial on downloading. www.asktcl.com/tutorials/download.html
Software Updates and Programs:
It is also a good idea to create a "Restore Point" before installing any software
Creating a Restore Point : Open programs and clicking on Accessories/System Tools/ Restore Point. Click on Create a restore point. Title it and create it. That way if something goes wrong with the software you can go back.
Anti-virus software and Windows require many updates and do the updates without offering you choices. If you want better control of downloads, turn off automatic up-dates. I have turned off automatic up-dating. I want to know what is being downloaded and control of when I up-date.
Most automatically save to a Temporary file and delete the file after it is installed. If you save them to another area they will remain and can be re-installed if you have a problem later..
To Find Up-Dates and Software:
While on the Internet go to the Software site and find the link to downloads and updates or open the program and under the help menu find "updates". After selecting update or download program, generally the program will then check your computer to see if there any updates available for your computer. If updates are found a list will appear and you are prompted to click on the updates you want. At times you are then asked to choose a location nearest you for the update. Many companies maintain multiple servers in different countries to allow faster service. Choose a location and you are offered the choice of where you want to save the update (see above). Please remember the name of the file and where you have chosen to save it. The download will began and once finished you are offered the option of running it or closing the window. Several phrases are used for this option "open file"and "run file" are two often used. Choose to run the file and the installation begins. At this point you will be asked to accept a legal agreement. If you trust the software manufacturer"accept" or "agree". This is important. You should read the agreement if you are un-certain. In some cases it allows the manufacture to monitor your computer and also installs software for spying.
Once you have agreed the installation will begin. There may be other questions about setting up the software, like where you want to install the program, links to file types, creating desktop icons and whether to accept the free or buy paid versions. Read these carefully. Agree to those you want by checking the correct selections. The installation will take several minutes. When it is finished you are often asked to re-start your computer. Click Re-Start and the installation will be finished
This may sound complex, but the choices are for your safety. Many companies have in the past have installed unwanted software without giving you the options and caused problems.
Sony Music and Films was a recent example of this practice. They installed software that disabled DVD writers and created an automatic links to Internet on your computer when you played a movie or music DVD. It also opened your computer to others and enabled the easy loading of virus and spy ware. This was under the guise of enabling more features and never mentioned the down side. They have been ordered by the courts to stop this practice. Other companies using this type of software include HP, Compaq, Intel, Micro Soft just to name a few all were using "Web Back" to collect data. Just be care full.
Downloading a Program:
For demonstration purposes we will download a useful free utility program from the Internet. The program allow you to print a list of the files in a directory of you computer, or any list of files on your computer. This is real great when you need a list of Photos or music on your computer.
The software is available from http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptdirprn.asp . Karen Ware is a well recognized site for utility software and is known for safe software.

BUYING A NEW COMPUTER

2005-12-10T07:21:00.000-06:00

SELECTING A COMPUTER:
Buying a computer should be based on what you plan to use the computer to do. The type of usage will determine the quality of computer you need. The space you have for the computer is also an important factor. The question you must ask yourself when choosing a computer are:
1: Do you plan to travel with the computer?
2: Do I have space to leave a computer permanently?
3: Is playing action games important?
4: How good is your eyesight?
5: How much will I use the computer?
6: Is this your first computer?
7: Is more then one person going to use the computer?
8: What kind of computer do your friends have?
9: How important is the work you are planning to do?
Answer these questions before you go to a computer store or call a computer company. Remember most sales people are young and on commission. High speed 3D action games require a much high priced computer then general usage. Video editing and photo editing require more memory and larger storage drives. Personnel records and stock trading information would require back-up equipment. All of these requirements must be balanced with what is available and what you are willing to spend.

Remember there are two types of computers, Out of Date and Prototype. There is nothing wrong with a less then newest computer for most computing and surfing needs. Most of the newer trends in computing are in the media and gaming area. An entire new type of computer is the media station designed to play, edit and compile movies and music. The idea is to use your computer as a media center, instead of a TV, VCR,DVD and stereo. Adding these functions doesn't improve surfing, compiling spreadsheets, or writing letters. It may help a little for still photo editing, but unless you plan to replace your current TV etc they may not be for you.
The other high end computer changes are in the gaming area, where 3D high speed graphics are essential. Again you will see no improvement in normal computing from these changes.
The good news is that for normal computing the prises have fallen. Here are the basic requirements for a good general purpose computer.

Processor (CPU)- For desk top 2.0 mghz. Whether it is Intel (Pentium 4, Celeron) or AMD (Athlon 64, Athlon or Semprom. ) is not very important as they both are fully compatible with all software. The Celerom and Semprom are not as fast for graphics and cheaper. The Athlon 64 is a dual processor very fast for graphics.

Memory (RAM)- Widows will run on 256 meg, but 512 is recommended for most applications. The good news is that memory is cheap and a 256 stick is about $50 and can be snapped easily.
Graphics Card - An built in or on board graphics card with 64 meg will suit most computing needs. If you plan to edit still photo a 128 meg card will be useful an speed editing. Unlike RAM you can't add memory to an on board graphics processor, so if this is important choose the 128 card graphics.

Hard Drive:- An 80 gig hard drive will suit most needs, but if the system comes with a larger drive it is a bonus.

CD/DVD Drives- This drive is used to install new software and to play movies and music. The prices of CD and DVD drives are about the same so if you can get a DVD take it. The DVD can play CD disk and DVD disks, where as the CD and only play CD disks.

DVD/CD Recorder- This is the drive that allows you to save your work to a disk. Normally a CD-R drive is sufficient for most tasks, however a DVD+/-R drive gives increases size of the storage disk from 700meg to 4.7 gig. This is 7 times the storage on one dusk. If you plan to edit movies it is essential to have a DVD recorder. A two hour movie takes up an entire 4.7 gig disk.
A DVD recorder can record on CD disks and DVD disks.

USB/FIRE Ports- Most devices, printers, scanners and etc are connected through USB or Fire Wire ports. I recommend that you have at least 2 and 4 is better. Most Digital Video Cameras use Fire Wire Ports to connect to computers, although you can at times they can be connected through USB ports. If you plan to do movies you should have Fire Wire.

Monitors - Desk space is a major consideration in choosing a Monitor. CRTs are big and cheap, Lcds are small and expensive. The other consideration is the Lcd monitors have limited resolution. They have a native resolution which gives the best picture. If you have a problems with small print they may not be for you, since if you lower at resolution it may be fuzzy on an Lcd. You should get at least a 17 inch monitor in either Lcd or CRT, bigger if you have the space.

Nov. 2005 Meeting- Music

2005-10-27T16:10:00.000-05:00

Making copies of Music:
Music is saved and created in many format on your computer. Some of the types are:
1: Audio CD ---- CDA normal audio of CD quality (Track 1.cda)
2: Program Computer -music-WAV music or sound file for the computer (tenderly.wav)
3: Windows Music- WMA is MicroSoft's private compressed music format (tenderly.wma)
4: IPOD---------------AAC is Apple's version of compressed music (tenderly.aac)
5: DVD/CD* players-----MP3 the most common compressed format (tenderly.mp3)
6: Portable players ---- Most can play MP3s, CDA and WMA (*.mp3, *.wma, and *.cda)
For general purposes CDA and WAV are the same with few exceptions. As you can see this makes for mass confusion when talking about coping music, since it will depend were you intend to play it after you copy it. There are least 7 more, less common formats for specific players. For this meeting we will only work with CDA and MP3 formats since they are the most common and will play on the most common play back units ( DVD, Portable and CD)
Equipment Needed:
To make copies of your music on a CD your computer must have a CD-R or DVD burner. (DVD burners can burn CD's). CD-R disks, a CD or tape of the music you want to copy. Software that converts from CDA to MP3 or MP3 to CDA. We will use Music Match JukeBox for this since it is free and handles most of the problems. You might have it on your computer or you can download it.
Converting from CDA to a compresed file (*.mp3) is called “ripping”. There are many ripping programs and as many adherents as programs. “Audio-philes” can never agree on what is quality and I won't get into that. Some still say vinyl (LPs) are the best quality. Music Match Jukebox even allows you to plug in that old “record” player and “oldies” rip them to mp3s.

Using Burner Software: Making a duplicate CD
1: The first and simplest is to use the software supplied with your CD Burner. Put the audio CD you want to copy into your CD or DVD player. Before your close the drawer, hold down the shift key and close the drawer. This will stop the CD from playing when the drawer closes. It also skips the copy write protection program on most disks. If you have a separate CD-R drive go to step two, If not you must first open explorer and open the Audio CD drive. You can then highlight and copy the files (Tracks) to a folder on your hard drive.
2: Insert a blank CD-R disk into your burner. The burning software will start and select audio CD.
3: This will open a screen like Explorer to select the drive to copy and the tracks you want to copy. This can be either a folder on your hard drive or a CD in the separate drive. There will be one box for the title and on for artist.
4: Select the tracks and burn the CD making sure that you click the finish box so it can be player on any CD player. The burner software will take over and make sure that the CD drive is fast enough to supply data to the burner, check space available, and start writing to the new disk. Depending on your burner speed it will take 2 to 12 minutes.
Don't do anything while this is going on. Don't run other programs or type, it will cause the compute to share the memory and could cause “Buffer under runs” and ruin the disk. Most modern burning software accounts for this problem, but it is still not a good idea.
5: When you see the message “Disk successful” your are done. You can eject the disk and it will play on almost all CD players.

Making MP3 or CDA disks with Music Match.
Open Music Match Juke box. The screen for Music Match varies with each version, but generally the playlist is in the upper right corner. The Library is centered across the screen. See figure 1. The upper left of the screen show the album art and functions of the program. Along the left side of the screen are additional options for viewing and playing. The audio CD is at the bottom of the screen. See figure 2.
When you then insert a music CD into the CD drive it will automatically recognize the disk and if you are connected to the internet look up the title of the album, the tracks titles and the artists. It will also provide the picture on the liner cover. This feature requires that you are online.
In the recorder box, you will see Music match has selected all the tracks. In the options menu you have the option of converting them to MP3 or CDA files. The newer versions offer other format conversions. You can also select the location for saving the file and whether you want them in your playlist. The quality of the conversion i.e. Biterate and file size can be specified.
Once you click the start button Music match controls everything. This can take anywhere from a few minutes to a half hour depending on the number of tracks and length of the tracks.
After the track are converted you select the tracks you want on your CD and burn them to a CD or MP3 CD. If you have the early free version you can make five free burns. Later version don't have this limitation. You can use you CDR software to burn the files to a CD MP3 format simply by burning a data CD and selecting the MP3 files you have created.

SEPTEMBER MEETING

2005-09-09T07:32:00.000-05:00

VOIP September 2005:
The use of VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) has started to grow in the nerd and business sector. Nerds are talking world wide to each other free using their internet connection. It grants some degree of privacy that is not available using IM (Instant Messaging). Businessmen are using their laptops on flights offering internet connection to phone around the world while in the air. The most important feature for people on the go is the ability to transfer files and data from computer to computers. They can connect to both computer users and regular phones, (paid version). The technology is not perfect, but it does work and sometimes there is no other way.
There is a free version available for computer to computer usage called SKYPE.. It is a free download and gets high marks for quality from several sources, there some question about potential spyware that have not been verified. Skype claims they are using the free computer to computer service to build a customer base for computer to regular phone, that has charges.
Skype requires that you download software, register and supply a phone number and an address. They claim that this information is private the same as AOL and other ISP services. Once registered you can add computer users to your phonebook. Computers users must also register and download software.
They have a very clear demo at their site www.skype.com . If you are interested in this type of service it is worth checking it out.
Skype opens a window like IM that shows your phonebook and which users are online. It also list the regular phone friends in the paid version. You click on a friend and try to connect. The program checks for audio quality and places the call. Once connected it can be used to talk and transfer files to your (computer) friend. The paid version allows only conversion to phone friends. Whether the security is better then IM is based on fewer users and Skype having better control of users with their software.

August Computer Meeting-Networks

2005-08-08T07:10:00.000-05:00

In the meeting on August 9, at 1:00 PM, Bill will show how to set up a home network to link three computers to share data and an internet connection. The network allows your laptop to be truly free to roam in your home without cables. It also make the sharing of information between your computers easy. All of the data on your old computer can be sent to your new computer quickly and without any mistakes.

MICROSOFT'S NEW NAME FOR WINDOWS

2005-07-25T21:16:00.000-05:00

Microsoft Corp. dropped the code name Longhorn on Friday, announcing the next version of its flagship Windows operating system will be called Windows Vista.
The world's largest software maker also said it will release the first of two test versions to developers and information technology professionals by Aug. 3.
The company did not say when it expects to release a second test version to a broader audience, but said it remains on target to ship the oft-delayed update to Windows XP sometime in the second half of next year.

Google Newest Search Tool

2005-07-14T07:31:00.000-05:00

Google has created a new way to search for locations. They have created a 3D version of finding a view of the world in 3D. You type in a City, or Zipcode and the program "flies you" to the location anywhere in the world. It does this by searching the internet for images of the area and shows the best available images.
It also allows for tilting the view for a 3D effect. Due to the lack on images of "out of the way places", some views are simple, but major cities and important tourist sites are very detailed. The program is free and requires a high speed internet connection and a fairly good graphics card for the full effect.
You can also see get driving directions in a visual format, including dining, hotels, and sightseeing attractions . You can download the free version at www.keyhole.com .
It has a fairly good view of Rob Roy Country Club Village.

Meeting Notes July

2005-06-29T08:08:00.000-05:00

Instant Messaging:
In addition to e-mail several ISP’s offer the abilities to search for your friends on line and send them instant messages. AOL calls their service AIM, (AOL Instant Messages). MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and several others. Allow to sign on for free and get a screen name and password to use their service.
These services became an instant hit with many young users, since they could be on the computer "working on homework" while chatting with their friends. Parent couldn’t hear them talking, like on the phone. Although most people will screen calls, most find it hard to resist an instant message that pops up on their screen.
How does it work:
First you must download an instant message software from the ISP. They will ask for your name address, email address and screen name and password. If your are using that ISP your email name and passwords are used as defaults. You can have other names and password if you wish. If you are an outsider you can request a screen name and password of your choice and if it is not in use, it will be accepted. Most new computers have AIM, and MSN Messenger already on the computer. When you agree to the service you grant then the right to find your IP address and use connect to it for this service. They do promise to keep this information secret.
When the software is loaded and opened the first order is to create a "Buddy List" These are the friend also on the service that you want to chat with. If they are users of that ISP, their email name is all you need to add them to the :Buddy List". Some services allow subscribers to search for screen names using real names of users. For example if your friend use that ISP and you don’t know their screen name you can search for their screen name. That service is only granted to subscribers. Now you are ready.
Start the program and if any of your "Buddies" are on line you will see them listed. If one of them comes on line while you are logged in, you will here a door opening and their name will show as available. You can then send them an Instant Message and wait for a reply. To do this click on the "People" menu and select "send a message". A new screen will appear and you must choose who you want to message. The pull down menu will show all the "Buddies" on line. Pick the one you want to write. You can add "smilies" and use most of the normal word processing tools to send the message. After you message looks right click the send button and you wait for a reply. Your buddy can either accept or block your message. Once the message is sent it appears in the upper window with your screen name and the message. If they answer their name and message appears.
Options:
You can create an "Icon" to identify yourself and that icon will appear on your screen and your buddies screen when you are chatting. You can se their Icon also if they have one. Icons can be very small photos or funny images. To add and Icon open and instant message window and click on "File/IM Preferences/ Expression". Find the image you want and select it. Once you and your buddy are chatting you can go to a private chat or if you both have microphones talk. Just click the talk button, your buddy will be asked if they will accept the call, if they "say hello".
If you both have camera’s you can chat face to face by using the video button.

Spamming and Invasions

2005-06-24T13:28:00.000-05:00

Plishing and Pharming are two terms you should know. Plishing is sending out random email with the option for you to be removed from their list. Usually it sound pornographic, when you reply you email address is added to a list for sale to other companies for spamming. Never reply to these messages. They are generated by a random address generators, with the hope you will respond and prove that the address is real.
Pharming is even more evil. It doesn't require you to respond, but instead routes you to a fake site that looks like the one you requested. Then it records your passwords and other information for a later invasion. It requires real tech skills, but several Pharming have occurred at eBay, google and Weather.com. The site you are routed to looks exactly like the one you request so most users don't know they have been Pharmed. Security measures are being added to browsers which double check the web address against the DNS (domain Name Server) list and if they don't agree you are warned.

June notes

2005-06-11T08:16:00.000-05:00

What Browsers are available ?
Internet Explorer 6.0
IE, Internet Explorer, is supplied with every copy of Windows operating system. It is built into the operating system and cannot be removed as it is also used to recognize file and programs on your computer. This has been the subject of the Federal case against Micro-Soft being a monopoly. Other browser manufacturers claimed that Micro-Soft exploited this and banned other browsers. When Bill Gates tried to show that there was no conflict in front of Congress, his computer crashed proving the validity of the case.
Since it is already installed on all Windows computers it is the most used browser. The basic computer code is copied from the original free, open source browser Mozilla. The code has been modified to suit MS needs and has many problems with security. MS has issued over one hundred fixes to repair these problems, but they still exist. Many expert recommend that you use IE when surfing the web only when there is a special need, like downloading Micro-Soft updates.
Several ISP’s like AOL use modified versions of IE and require that you start on their home page using their version of the browser. With all these problems, it still accounts for 80% of the surfing today. The program itself is very large and seems to run slower then some other browsers according to articles in PC Magazine.Several third party programs are available to fix some of the problems, like Google’s tool bar which blocks pop-up and verifies site address. It also lacks features like "Tab Browsing" offered by other browsers. It’s biggest feature is that it installed on every Windows PC . Micro-Soft is planning a newer version, but the early reviews point to problems with privacy.
Netscape 7.2
Netscape had an 90% share of the surfing market until Windows 98 was brought out. It blocked the use of Netscape and although the problem was fixed, the delay gave the market to Micro-Soft.
The early Netscape browser version 4 was a direct copy of Mozilla. At that time high speed connection were rare and Netscape offered disk copies of the software. Several ISPs used netscape as their browser of choice . (Ameritech, Earthlink). The early versions had excellent control of "cookies" and security.
AOL bought Netscape 2000 and the browser quality suffered. About 2 years ago AOL spun-off Netscape as a separate company and the quality has returned and the speed is greatly improved. It follows the code for Mozilla very closely and uses the same plug-ins and controls as Mozilla.
It offers skins (different color schemes), and pop-up blockers . Is it more secure, or are there less problems because there are fewer users? I do not know, but it seems that there are few reports of problems and no reports from "nerds" about flaws.
There are appearance problems with poorly written HTML web pages. IE is more tolerant of programing errors. There is a Beta version of Netscape 8.0 available which offers tab browsing.
Since Mozilla and Netscape are so similar we won’t review Mozilla.
Firefox 1.04
This is a slimed down version of Mozilla that is fast. I don’t know how fast, but magazines report as much as a 35 % increase in page loading. It is an open source browser and is the browser of choice for "Nerds".There was a security problem announced two weeks ago with FireFox, When you had some other software running on your computer there could be a problem. The fix (version 1.04) was posted one day later. It offers Skin, Pop-up blocking, and tab browsing.
All of these browser are free for downloading. It seems that Netscape and FireFox are more secure from all reports. Micro-Soft claims that is because less people use them and they offer less profit to people who load spam and gain control of computers. They are also open source and all of the code is open to the public. Therefore it would seem that if they could be exploited it would be easier then I.E.’s secret code. Some claim that Micro-Soft has built in back doors so they can ensure that no one is illegally using their software. I don’t know the answer.
There are other browsers available at a cost like OPERA. Opera is a fast and small browser, but it costs $39 to download. It has no reported problems and is used by some very security aware users.
Experts suggest that LINUX is the most secure operating system and is much like APPLES operating system. Linux is open source and free, but requires that users have computer knowledge and a awareness of how they work to use it. Both Linux and Apples code is based on UNIX which was developed for main frame computers by Bell Labs. It is still the major operating system for internet servers. It was made open source when Micro-Soft Windows system became the main operating system for Personnel Computers.

June Meeting June 13th

2005-06-06T07:41:00.000-05:00

The next meeting of the Computer Club is June 13 at 1:00 PM
The Internet is a dangerous place and how you access it effects the level of security control you have. This month we will discuss BROWSERS. A browser is the program that displays information on you screen when you are surfing, reading email and searching the web. In addition to Internet Explorer, there are several free choices that offer more security, speed and control. Fire Fox, Netscape and Opera all have advantages and draw back, you can decide.

Why Security is important.

2005-05-24T11:20:00.000-05:00

This story appeared in the AP releases Tuesday.
Hackers Holding Computer Files 'Hostage' Tuesday, May 24, 2005 10:58 AM EDTThe Associated PressBy TED BRIDIS
Computer users already anxious about viruses and identity theft have new reason to worry: Hackers have found a way to lock up the electronic documents on your computer and then demand $200 over the Internet to get them back.
Security researchers at San Diego-based Websense Inc. uncovered the unusual extortion plot when a corporate customer they would not identify fell victim to the infection, which encrypted files that included documents, photographs and spreadsheets.
A ransom note left behind included an e-mail address, and the attacker using the address later demanded $200 for the digital keys to unlock the files.

Rob Roy Computer Help

2005-05-07T08:10:00.000-05:00

May 7 2005
This blog is for the use of Roy Roy Residents to help keep their computers running and up to date.

Our next meeting is May 10th at 1:00 PM at the Clubhouse to discuss Newsgroups and Blogs. All residents are welcome. Please bring your questions and ideas to share with the group.