THE SOUNDBOARD KEEPING PACE IN
CYBERSPACE
|
Heritage Village Computer Club http://www.hvcomputerclub.org |
GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MONTHLY MEETING
IN HERITAGE HALL
Wednesday, March 12,
2003 Time: 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Program: Ken is doing a demo on buying a PC
on-line and he will demo: “Determining the Specs to Buy a PC."
PUBLIC
TELEVISION
I love Channels 12 and 13, the Public Television
Channels. Now I get to know what they
will be showing in advance by receiving regular emails on upcoming shows. If you are interested, this blurb was on the
bottom of a recent email:
You know what's on Thirteen, but do your friends? Tell them
to go to https://www.thirteen.org/membership/highlights.php and
sign up for THIRTEEN HIGHLIGHTS right now.
GOING
ON A TRIP?
I suggest that you check out some
of the many Internet sources for travel and flight deals. Just
PLEASE be sure to read the details and do some
investigating. I just received an email
from Cheaptickets.com offering one-way flights, saying that “we guarantee the
lowest prices for airline tickets ...period!* Recent
actual prices: all one way**
Here are some of their offers:
•
Acapulco $115; • Bangkok $125; • Cancun $104; • Puerto Vallarta $88;
• Singapore $50; • London $65; • Madrid $139; • Manila $100;
• Paris $134; • Hawaii $113; • NY/Ft. Lauderdale $44;
**One-Way fares based upon
the purchase of a round trip ticket. Prices quoted are recent actual fares. All
fares are subject to change based upon availability, departure and destination.
I do not know
the departure airport for the above fares nor do I know if this is a reliable
offer.
Other
sites to check: Travelocity.com Yahoo.com
Cheaptrip.com Check the
airlines websites too.
MICROSOFT OFFICE TIPS
Tip of the Month: Align Shapes in Word
Documents Using Gridlines -- This tip
comes from Diana Vázquez of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Microsoft Word features a drawing grid that you can use to align drawing
objects, such as AutoShapes. By default, gridlines are not visible on the
screen. To make them visible:
Now you are ready to add shapes to
your document. To see all of the shapes available, such as filing cabinets,
telephones, and computer monitors, click AutoShapes
on the Drawing toolbar and then click More
AutoShapes. Then make
your selections from the Insert Clip Art task pane.
NOTE: When adding graphics to your Office
document, be sure to turn on the View
-- Print Layout option
and not the View -- Normal option. After choosing the View--Print
Layout option, if you go to the “100%” icon in your menu bar, click on the
small “down” arrow for a menu. Then
choose “whole page” or “two pages” to see the page setup.
excerpt from a Wall Street Journal
article:
·
Compaq is considering changing the command "Press
Any Key" to "Press Return Key" because of the flood of calls
asking where the “Any Key” is.
·
A customer was asked to
send a copy of her defective diskettes back to the company. A few days later a
letter arrived from the customer along with photocopies of the floppies.
·
A Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his
computer to fax anything. After 40 minute’s of troubleshooting, the technician
discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of
the monitor screen and hitting the "send" key.
·
A confused caller to IBM was having troubles printing
documents. He told the technician that the computer had said it "couldn't
find printer." The user had also tried turning the computer screen to face
the printer but that his computer still couldn't "see" the
printer."
·
Another customer called Compaq tech support to say her
brand-new computer wouldn't work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in
and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked what
happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked "What power
switch?"
·
In a similar incident, a customer had followed the
instructions for installing software. The instructions said to remove the disk
from its cover and insert into the drive. The user had physically removed the
casing of the disk and wondered why there were problems.
·
A woman called the Canon help desk with a problem with
her printer. The tech asked her if she was running it under
"Windows." The woman responded, "No, my desk is next to the
door. But that is a good point. The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is
under a window and his printer is working fine."
Now don't you feel better about your skill level?
CHESS GAME
Did you hear that Chess Champion Garry Kasparov chose the
“draw” against a computer, Israeli-built “Deep Junior”? After playing for 3 hours, and a 3-3 tie, each with one win, one loss and four
draws in the 6-game match, the champion decided not to tempt fate by losing to
a computer, again, he lost against IBM's Deep Blue in 1997. Kasparov did win $500,000 (his
fee) plus $250,000 as his share of the jackpot. The creators of Deep Junior also received $250,000 as their
share of the jackpot.
SYSTEM
RESTORE -- WINDOWS XP
XP has a feature called System Restore that
hasn't been offered in any other version of Windows. If you're familiar with GoBack,
you might already have a good idea of what this new feature is all about.
Every time you start your computer XP will
automatically create restore points along the way. A restore point is a
snapshot of your entire system's settings. If something goes wrong with your
machine after a botched installation, you have a way out instead of having to
call for help or format your hard drive and start over.
You have the option to create the restores manually. Get in
the habit of restoring before you begin loading software that's not officially
specified by Microsoft to be compatible with XP.
System
Restore doesn't affect personal files like Word documents, browser favorites,
or pictures. So, you won't be losing anything of value should you find
yourself having to choose a point in time to restore.
CREATE A RESTORE POINT:
To manually set system restore
points, follow these directions:
Single-click Start and point to All Programs.
Mouse over Accessories, then System Tools, and select System Restore.
In the System Restore wizard,
select the box next to the text labeled "Create a restore point" and
click the Next button.
Type a description for your
new restore point. Something like "Before I installed some program that
may cause my system major grief" would do just fine, but you don't have to
be that descriptive. Click Create.
TO RESTORE: (system restore, continued)
Method 1
During the
boot process you just need to boot into safe
mode by pressing F8 during the post screen. Select the option
labeled "Last known good configuration (your most recent settings that
worked)" and press Enter. The one drawback to using this method is you
won't have the option to select which restore point you'd like to restore.
Method 2
Boot into basic safe
mode and access the System
Restore wizard located in the system tools again. This will let you restore
your computer based on a calendar of when actual restore points were created.
This method may give you more flexibility.
BLOCK SENDER” IN OUTLOOK
EXPRESS
I have been using this option for much of the spam that I
get in Outlook Express 2000. Perhaps
you should look into this option to eliminate spam. When Outlook Express lists all the incoming mail, click on the
email that you do not want, go to the menu item Message, click on
the option in the drop-down menu “Block
Sender”. A small window will
open and you will see the email address and it will ask you if you want to
block the sender. Choose either Yes or No. If you
believe you made a mistake and blocked an address that you wanted to keep, you
can fix this. Go to Tools, Message Rules, Blocked Sender List; on the next window are three tabs. Choose the Blocked Senders tab.
Scroll down to find any that you decide to keep, click on the item. Click the Remove
button.
SKEETERBITES
It's a little early this year, but remember this site: http://www.skeeterbites.com/.
You'll need it soon. By using local air
temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, and drought/soil conditions,
Skeeterbites.com forecasts mosquito activity throughout the U.S. The 3-week
forecast is updated weekly and predicts your probability of being bitten. The site covers the United States only.
TAX RETURN SOFTWARE
Two nearly identical tax software
packages are H&R Block's TaxCut and Intuit’s TurboTax. Both have features for retirees and
investors; TurboTax has a special edition for this group. Neither program is suitable for
involved tax returns and cannot substitute for a tax preparer or accountant.
Intuit is forcing buyers of TurboTax
to contact Intuit to activate the software, thus enforcing the installation on
a single PC while secretly installing third-party monitoring software on the
user’s PC.
Phone support is a pay service. Installation
is more involved due to the anti-piracy requirements.
H&R Block’s TaxCut is
adding a family license to its top-of-the-line version, allowing sharing on
multiple family PC’s (as long as they are not used simultaneously) for multiple
tax return preparation. There are no
activation requirements.
Phone support is free. Installation
is easy.
MEMBERS OF THE BOARD: http://hvcomputerclub.org/officers.html
SOUNDBOARD CONTRIBUTIONS:
scottie2@att.net theweb@snet.net
CLASSES, MARCH 2003 View HVCC Calendar
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