THE SOUNDBOARD
KEEPING
PACE IN CYBERSPACE
DECEMBER 2003
Heritage Village Computer Club http://www.hvcomputerclub.org
JANUARY 14, 2004
Monthly Meeting
Villager Norval Rindfleisch will demo
"Online Publishing."
CLICK ON THIS LINK
FOR UP-TO-DATE MEETING INFO:
http://www.hvcomputerclub.org/news.html
EVERYONE
WELCOME, BRING A FRIEND
E-MAIL ADDRESSES AND PRIVACY, (“MUNGING YOUR ADDRESS”)
To avoid receiving unwanted messages (spam) in your
regular e-mail account, you may not want to include your regular e-mail address
when you post a question or reply to a post in a discussion group.
** Use a modified email address: Use a different version of your e-mail address that others will
understand, but that spam tools can't automatically pick up and add to their
mailing list
For example, if your actual e-mail address is
"emailname@account.com",
use "emailname(removethis)@account.com" as
your modified e-mail address.
In this case, the spam tools will send mail to an
invalid e-mail address, and others will know to exclude the
"(removethis)" when they send you e-mail. When you post a question or reply to a discussion group, just
enter your modified e-mail address in the appropriate box.
** Use a secondary e-mail account
Set up or use an e-mail account, such as a Yahoo account, that is separate from
your primary account for posting to discussion groups. When you post a question or reply to a
discussion group, use your secondary account as your e-mail address.
When you do this, you will see exactly how much spam
your email address receives just from posting to a newsgroup or by filling out
an application form online. I used this
method and now my secondary Yahoo account has been Bombarded with almost 140
pieces of spam mail daily. What is nice
about Yahoo, is #1 it is free, and #2 almost all spam goes into a Bulk Mail
Folder automatically & all you need to do is click on EMPTY daily (you
don’t want to exceed the server capacity) or wait 30 days and it will
automatically be deleted.
DO NOT EVER REPLY OR UNSUBSCRIBE TO A SPAM EMAIL. That guarantees to the spammer that your email address is a good one to keep using. Some say not to even open & read them, but I have received spam that appears to be from friends, using their same first name & a subject (or none) that they would have used. Upon opening the mail, I immediately realized that it was something I did not want to see and it was not from my friend at all.
NEED
COMPUTING QUESTIONS ANSWERED QUICKLY?
As an
enhancement to all of the Great Courses that The Web offers, sometimes when
it’s late at night and you don’t want to call someone on the phone for help,
there is a Newsgroup site that I often refer to for help at those times. It is a Microsoft site: http://support.microsoft.com/newsgroups/default.aspx
For just about any question you may have, there is an answer already up there somewhere. They cover all Operating Systems (there is a note that Windows 98 will no longer be supported after January 1, 2004, so this may be the only place you will find the help you need if you still run on one of the old systems, as I do).
I recently posted a reply to a question and answer and apparently it takes some time for the posting to appear. They may be supervising the responses for “cleanliness”, so you might have to wait a few moments and hopefully you will be able to find your way back if you should leave. I wrote down the page I was on and the title of the Subject matter so I could return. The time posted is not Eastern Time; it is Pacific Time.
NEED HELP COMPUTING WITH VISION PROBLEMS? I try to keep up with what’s new “out there”. Perhaps a couple of new ones that I recently heard of may help. These costs are quite high and may be out of some people’s range of spending but just in case you are interested here is what I found.· MAGic 8.02, by Freedom Scientific, magnifies the screen up to 16 times, and it reads aloud the items on the screen with a “mouse over”. Price starts at $545.
· JAWS, by Freedom Scientific, is a screen reader without magnification. Price starts at $1,095. http://www.freedomscientific.com/index.html
THE
CULMINATION OF A PRESIDENCY
It has been my pleasure to have served the Heritage Village Computer Club as President for the past three years. During this time there have been many changes for the betterment of the club.
· We have established a database for recording the membership and tracking the dues receipts as well as notifying members when their dues are to be renewed.
· A brochure has been developed to explain the benefits of the club to villagers.
· A new application form is now being used which allows the membership chairman to route the interests to board members who can utilize this information.
· The club’s computers are replaced every four years. This has resulted in virtually no repair charges and hardly any down time from class activities.
· Member demos have been initiated at general meetings and have been well received.
· Drawings at the general meeting have been increased in value and encompass guest coupons to area restaurants and retail stores. In addition when computer equipment is available it too is made part of the drawing prize.
· Cooperative programs are in place for sharing skills and facilities with other clubs. IE: Genealogy Club.
· We have held classes on subjects of primary interest to other clubs IE: Artistry on the computer, digital cameras and photo enhancement programs compatible with the photography, scanning of documents and images.
· The workings of the internet for e-mail and surfing; including attaching files of documents and pictures.
· We established a high speed, internet connection to demonstrate the value of broadband and to allow all the computers in The Web to be able to be on the internet simultaneously.
· Our help line has solved many problems of member and nonmembers over the years.
· The Soundboard has been a vary valuable resource to members and villagers alike. It contains articles of general interest and some that solve questions that people didn’t even thing to ask.
It is with some degree of sadness that I relinquish the Presidency to your new President John Denisevich. I am sure he will continue to advance the benefits of the club to all members and villagers. Remember it is your club. Take part in the functions, classes and meetings. No one is above learning something about the varied world of computers.
Thank you for your support and cooperation. I wish you and the officers of the club a most successful future.
Ken Pelletier
QUICK EMAIL TEXT
If you prefer to compose your email message in MS Word, there's no reason to copy and paste it into your email program. Just select FILE | SEND TO | MAIL RECIPIENT from your word document and it will do that for you, opening up your default email program and placing it there, either in the text window or as an attachment, depending upon the program you customarily use for email. Outlook Express allows both options. If you are not quite sure what is being sent, send it to yourself first, open your email, if you like it, forward it.
ORGANIZING FAVORITES
A useful tip shared on Neat Net Tricks Bulletin Board recently: You can organize your IE Explorer FAVORITES by browsing in Windows Explorer to C:\WINDOWS\FAVORITES and creating folders there in order to divide them into appropriate topics. Examples are News Sites, Shopping Sites, Help Sites, etc. Then, drag and drop Favorites to each appropriate folder and alphabetize if you wish by the "sort by name" feature.
OLD RADIO SHOWS ON THE INTERNET
Experience this amusing collection of old radio shows. The categorized and alphabetic list is long and growing as the site’s creators add more shows. The links are to the downloads to enable you to watch the MP3 media video, however I am using an internal 56k modem and personally have no desire to tie it up for the length of time it would take for a download. I am sure that if any of you are on a Cable Modem or DSL, (or have more patience than I) then it just may be something for you to try. I was interested in just reading the long list of shows available. At the bottom of the home page is this disclaimer and another link to read about copyright laws and their application here:
Copyright Notice: We do not own the copyrights to any of the shows available on this
site. We believe that any copyrights have expired, and that many of the shows
are in the public domain because they were never copyrighted. We do not sell
the recordings or charge for access to our site. We are trying to bring the
exciting world of Old Time Radio to a whole new generation of listeners using
the new technology of the Internet. We are not trying to deprive the original
creators of any money due to them, and we will remove any recording from our
site that is shown to violate a copyright. For more information about
copyrights for Old Time Radio shows, Click
Here.
http://www.radiolovers.com/allshows.html
JAVASCRIPT
Have you ever wondered, “What the heck is JavaScript?”
Of course there is a website that will tell you just about everything that you want to know about it, including how to write it yourself and how to copy it to your own website. As a subscriber to this newsletter for many years, I am amazed to find new forms for JavaScript at every visit to their pages. For example, on the page I just visited there is a link “Pop-up Date Picker”. Click on the link to go to the description page. On the description page is the name of the script, the date it was submitted, and the person who wrote it. There is a small description of what it does (“Another pop up calendar script that makes it easy to fill out date/time fields of a form”.) System requirements are listed. And my favorite: links to “run the code” and “see the code”. When you choose “run the code” you will see the script in “action” and when you choose “see the code” you see the actual JavaScript that was written to accomplish the task.
You
can find it all here: http://javascript.com/
WHY
DO THEY SAY THAT?
There is a website that lists and explains where all those little sayings come from, such as “back seat driver”, “brownie points”, “chip on his shoulder”, and much more. Listed alphabetically, it is amusing and I do not know if the explanations are all true but actually, who cares? It is fun and may just be good email material for a few interesting tidbits.
MEMBERS
OF THE BOARD: http://www.hvcomputerclub.org/officer.html
SOUNDBOARD CONTRIBUTIONS: theweb@snet.net
CLASSES, MEETINGS, EVENTS: http://www.supercalendar.com/view.php?a=893
AutoCAD.......... Ken Pelletier................. 264-2310 Digital Camera.......... Joe Franzino........... 264-2922
MS Word.......... Arnold Deutchman........ 267-7355 MS Word................ Joe Franzino........... 264-2922
MS Excel........... Diana Scott................... 264-2134 Paint Shop Pro......... Ken Pelletier........... 264-2310
Publishing........... Joe Franzino................. 264-2922 Quicken................... Arnold Sail.............. 264-2540
Scanning............. Joe Franzino................. 264-2922 WordPerfect............ Jean Van Loon 267-5397