Mark Your Calendar

COMING EVENTS

General Membership Meeting
	When:		Wednesday, August 8, 2001
	Where:		Heritage Hall
	Time:		10:00 A.M
	Topic:		John Stroiney - OfficeXP

Computer Courses July & August

Review of Comp. I	9:00 to 10:30 a.m.	July 9, 11, 13, 16, 18, 20
Prerequisite: Completion of Comp. Basics I
Picture It! Publishing 2001	3:00 to 5:00 p.m	July 13, 16- M W F, 18, 20
Prerequisite & Software Purchase necessary--SEE FLYER
Backing Up Your Data	9:00 to 10:30 a.m	July 23, 25, 27 - M W F
Prerequisite--Computing Basic I & Win 95, 98, or ME
Computer Basics I	3:00 to 5:00 p.m	July 23, 25, 27, 30, Aug. 1, 3 - M W F
Prerequisite--Computer with Win 95 or newer.
Introduction to Quicken	6:30 to 8:00 p.m.	July 23, 25, 26 - M W Th
Prerequisite--Computing Basic I & Win 95, 98, or ME
Learn Paint Shop Pro!	3:00 to 5:00 p.m.	August 6, 8, 10, 13, 15, 20 - M W F
Prerequisite & Software Purchase necessary--SEE FLYER

Sign up for these courses at the Front Desk in the Activities Building.

What is a PDF file?

An Adobe Systems, Inc. file extension to designate its "Portable Document Format". These files are created in format that gives the ability to read, but not alter or edit, and so providing an original document (often with signatures) to be viewed only.

Copying text from a .pdf file into your own document:

On the Adobe toolbar, find an icon with either ABC or T (text), click it, select the text in the document that you want to copy, and then paste it into another document. search engines.

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Club Member suggestion:

Go to this link http://www.wunderground.com/or type in keyword WEATHERUNDERGROUND and click on FLIGHT TRACKER in the menu from the left column (frame). You can track a random flight or a specific flight. The website will show you the plane in flight as it slowly moves across the map, and virtual gauges show the speed, altitude and direction of the flight. This is great if you want to find out if a loved one will be landing on time or if he or she will be delayed.

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In case you haven't heard, some hacker convinced VeriSign to give them two Microsoft digital certificates. MS has come up with a patch to Windows (every version since Windows 95 running any version of IE no earlier than 4.01 Service Pack 2) that will warn you if you try to accept one of these bogus certificates. http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/407/tr.cgi?news2

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What is AVIedit ?

Digital video processing."It is a great tool to work with .AVI files. Regardless of small executable size, this avi editor offers you unlimited power of digital video processing. Some high-tech tricks included into AVIedit allows you to perform with ease and fun the many interesting things, like video warping, color restore, noise reduction and so on...." (above blurb is from their website!) http://www.am-softhome.com/aviedit.html

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INTERACTIVE VIRTUAL STRESS RELIEF

The idea of dropping large objects onto a cartoon character's head isn't exactly new, but it is a good way to let out your frustrations. These interactive animations are pretty straightforward: you click on Bill Gates, Clippy, Mulder, (and others) and they get squished, zapped, and generally turned into a pile of mush. Some of these are quite graphic and so are generally intended for mature adult viewers. http://www.idleworm.com/index.shtml

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You Know It's Time To Turn Your Computer Off When...

• You sign off and your screen says you were on for 3 days and 45 minutes.
• Tech support calls YOU for help.
• You get up in the morning and go online before getting your coffee.
• You've gone to an unstaffed AOL room to give tech support.
• You get a second phone line just to call out for pizza.
• You talk on the phone with the same person you are sending an instant message to.

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Still Wanted

Contributing Writers

Typists

Graphic Artists

The Club needs your help to continue to report all of those things that interest its members. Many hands make light work.

How about sending in your questions, problems, or solutions (about your computer), and we can print them in the next Newsletter for all to learn something new together. You can send email with (if they are virus free), or without, attachments to Diana Scott : scottie2@att.net or telephone (264-2134 , leave a message) or drop off stuff at 289C.

Be sure your current E-mail address is sent to Gerry Schnutt: gerrysc@aol.com or telephone him (264-0423) and tell him you will volunteer for the telephone tree, which means making several calls a month.

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WELCOME TO OUR NEW MEMBERS

Louis S. Alongi
Fred J. Crimi
Ruth Mongello
Rita Meeks
Jeremiah O'Brien
Elena Saliani

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Auction do's and don'ts
(online or otherwise)

Do:

• Get it appraised
• Be patient
• Check out the seller
• Research your item
• Compare prices
• Set a spending limit:

Don't:

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PC Pitstop is for Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000, and XP Operating Systems.

Currently, it is able to report somewhat more information and issue more tips for Windows 95, 98, and Me than for Windows NT, 2000, or XP. Browser required is Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 or higher. PC Pitstop uses signed ActiveX controls and JavaScript. They have tried supporting Netscape, but so far have found it technically difficult to redesign the PC Pitstop tests to run without the ActiveX controls they currently require. There is consideration for offering other versions of the tests in the future that will work with Netscape. PC Pitstop can help you get your PC in top form -- running fast, stable and secure. PC Pitstop runs diagnostics on your PC to identify things that might help improve performance. The process is fully automated, private and safe. After the diagnostics run, tips are given for improving all kinds of things. Best of all, the service is free! Diagnostic tests are safe, passive evaluations of your system. The test will not change any settings on your PC. As reported by PC Pitstop at http://www.pcpitstop.com/ DISCLAIMER: Please note that the decision to use this is yours alone. Just because this worked well on my computer doesn't mean it will work well on your computer.

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AOL Reorganization to Cost $965 Million
by BLOOMBERG NEWS

AOL Time Warner estimates that the cost of reorganizing its merged businesses will be about $965 million, with more than half from job cuts, a Securities and Exchange Commission filing says. About $565 million is for eliminating jobs, and about $400 million is for canceling leases and other contracts, the company said. AOL Time Warner, formed by America Online's acquisition of Time Warner, is reducing its work force and closing businesses to meet its goal of $11 billion in cash flow this year. Since the merger, the company has eliminated 2,400 jobs, or 2.8 percent of its work force. AOL "plans to consolidate certain operations and exit other under-performing operations," the company said. The CNN cable network, America Online's Internet service, the New Line film distributor and the Warner Music Group have all been affected by the job cuts. AOL also plans to shut down or sell its Warner Brothers Stores. The chief executive, Gerald M. Levin, said at the company's annual meeting in New York City, that AOL Time Warner would meet its target of more than $40 billion in sales and $11 billion in cash flow this year. The company defines cash flow as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and other items.

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2 Companies and F.T.C. Settle Internet-Cost Case
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Two computer companies have agreed to change policies and reimburse buyers who paid hidden charges for Internet access, officials at the Federal Trade Commission said today. "These so-called "free" Internet access offers were anything but," said Jodie Bernstein, director of the F.T.C.'s consumer protection bureau. "Information about fees was hidden in the fine print." The F.T.C. said one company, Juno Online Services, made it unreasonably difficult for customers to cancel premium service before a free trial period ended. The other company, Gateway Inc., charged $3.95 an hour for rural customers to dial into its Gateway.net service with a supposedly toll-free phone number, the F.T.C. contended. A Juno spokesman, Gary Baker, said his company had changed its practices, which were not out of the ordinary. "The policies and practices here at Juno have always been highly comparable to those of our major competitors," he said, adding, "Everybody in the industry made these types of disclosures the same way." The F.T.C. said Juno failed to disclose that phone numbers used to reach its service carried long- distance charges for certain customers, and similarly failed to tell customers that they had only one month to use their 150 free hours. Mr. Baker said customer service had improved, adding that customers could cancel their accounts by e-mail as well as phone.continued on next column The F.T.C. said Gateway ran ads stating that its computers included a free year of Internet access through Gateway.net, but in "minuscule" type disclosed a per-hour cost for rural customers and the limit on free hours. Other ads had no disclosure, regulators said. A Gateway spokeswoman, Donna Kather, said that the ads in question ran in 1999 and that newer ads disclosed the costs.

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The University of North Carolina had a network server that went missing for four years. Seems that during some construction work the server closet where the machine resided was "lost" behind some new drywall that was put up. Following a cable that mysteriously led into a wall, IT ("Information Technology") staff found the missing server still humming right along. courtesy of http://www.thenakedpc.com/newsworthy/

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Interested in computers AND golf?

Then try this link: http://www.golfsociety.com/golf/bloomberg/cgi/default.asp

OR

Play for a cool $1 million on the Bloomberg Fantasy Golf Game here: http://www.golfsociety.com/golf/bloomberg/cgi/blfgdefault.asp

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Make Your Excel 97/2000 Printouts
Fit the Page Width:

When you print a worksheet, do you want it to fit the width of the paper, and take as many sheets of paper as required to print all the data? When you click Page Setup on the File menu, click the Page tab under Scaling, click Fit to, and select 1 page wide. In the second Fit to box for how tall you want the data, delete the number so the box is blank.If this doesn't work, let me know. -Diana

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EXCEL

Press		To
PAGE DOWN		Move down one screen
PAGE UP		Move up one screen
ALT+PAGE DOWN		Move one screen to the right
ALT+PAGE UP		Move one screen to the left
CTRL+HOME		Move to the beginning of the worksheet
CTRL+PAGE DOWN		Move to the next sheet in the workbook
CTRL+PAGE UP		Move to the previous sheet in the workbook
CTRL+F6 or CTRL+TAB		Move to the next workbook or window

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Do you need to know the statistics of a MS WORD document? OPEN the document - then choose from the menu = FILE, PROPERTIES, STATISTICS. This is great when entering contests or writing essays that require a predetermined amount of words, etc. These were my statistics for a .doc ("document") file saved in MS WORD 2000

1 page
31 paragraphs
52 lines
147 words
1138 characters
1271 characters with spaces

I then saved it with the file extensions of .txt ("text") and .rtf ("rich text file") to see how much space it would occupy on my hard drive.

• The file size with .doc extension is 26 KB ("kilobytes"). It allows all formatting, including hyperlinks, but it takes up a lot of space in comparison to .rtf and .txt files.
• The file size with .rtf extension is 11 KB. It has all the formatting, including hyperlinks, but it takes up half the space of the .doc.
• The file size with .txt extension is 3 KB. It has NO formatting, and NO links, but it takes up a fraction of the space.

Need more space on your hard drive? Consider saving in a format that takes up less space, or zip it, or save it to floppy disk or CD.

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Officers

Monthly Calendar

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SOS - HVCC Help Line

For Help

Call Ken Pelletier 264-2310 or Bob Greene 264-9747.
For Web-TV Help call Bob Young 264-6999

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Interested in making your own icons?

Here's a link that might be of interest. There are links to download what they have available on the web site for free. For a reasonably small fee you can order the software program to make your own and this link will take you there: http://www.aha-soft.com/articons/reg.htm

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Note:

A Classified Section has been added to the Club page, only computer club members may list - computers, hardware and software. Visit the club's page and select the menu item - Classified Section. Click here to go there now!

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