"Nothing is too small to know, and nothing is too big to attempt." William Van Horne

Here at PPL we are and have been making the dreaded 2007 Office switcheroo. For some it has been a nonissue and for others it has been a real pain. One example is the size of the icons and how small they can be but for others it has been the size of the text in Outlook. In Excel and Word there are easy to find Zoom tools at the bottom right. In Outlook it is there but is several clicks away and there isn’t a default setting for this so it won’t be the same the next time you go to it. One quick fix for this came up while we were trying to fix it. If you hold CTRL and use the scroll wheel on your mouse you can zoom into the text. This is of course assuming you have a scroll wheel on your mouse. You do have one right? If not a new mouse that has one is priced around 10-15 dollars. By using both the button and mouse you can increase or reduce the text quite quickly. This is a lot easier than guessing the zoom percentage. The nice thing is that it seems to work in many programs. Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer both have it. Firefox has it as well but with a nice added feature. After you zoomed in and then go about your business to some other website when you return to that site it will be the zoomed size for that page only. You can go into the view menu of Firefox and then to reset to change it back. Sometimes you never know what little extras you will find until you look for something else. As for the Outlook issue of it being too small and being changed automatically that is a non starter. There does not seem to be anything that will correct that all the time.

“Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it.”

We’ve all been there. You’re in the middle of a conversation and you are trying to describe something and you realize the word you were just about to say with such eloquence has just evaporated. No matter what you cannot think of it but you know it is just on the tip of your tongue. This website chir.ag has a project called Tip of your Tongue that is there to help. Let’s say you know the beginning of the word. All you do is type in the letters you know and on the right side of the screen it displays the possibilities. You can further filter out words by using the other options. As an example I typed in “AG” in the begins with section however I knew it also had a letter “T” somewhere in it so I added it to the filter. The word is less than 8 letters so I put that in. Finally I saw my word “Aglet”. Yes it is a real word. Look it up. I like the addition of the definitions. I find it really helps to clear up misunderstandings. I would except that this site would be perfect for the cheating…err…um…person having trouble with a crossword puzzle. The tip of the tongue thing can be so frustrating. I will be happy when they create a mobile version for the iPhone but until then I will keep using their site. Give it a try.

Note: Anonymous quotes are a pain to match an image to so you get something random. This image is from Worth1000.com

“Is it weird in here, or is it just me?” Stephen Wright

Last night I tried to get to a website and found my browser just blank. Eventually it finishes and tells me that the server was not found. I clicked again all throughout the day waiting for the link to work but still nothing. The problem is that I start wondering is it just me or is the site actually down. I could have some strange setting or have done something to upset the internet gods. I normally would have gotten hold of a friend and had them try the same site and see if it comes up for them. Instead I tried a really straight forward site. Down for everyone or just me allows you to type in or copy and paste an address like YouTube.com. It then tells you if it is down for you or everyone. I love this site for its no frills. It has one function and it accomplishes it. Once I found the site was down for everyone I can try to accomplish the task some other way and I do not have to spend more time looking at setting that have nothing to do with the issue. So if a site does not pop up double check your spelling and if that fails try DFEOJM.

“It is still an unending source of surprise for me how a few scribbles on a blackboard or on a piece of paper can change the course of human affairs.”

A while back I was attempting to explain a new construction project to my father over the phone and failing. My father has been to my house many times but getting him to understand exactly what we had done was just too hard to visualize. A new web app, Dabbleboard, has just come on the scene to help. At its core it is an online whiteboard. Drawing on this whiteboard is fast and intuitive.
So I could have headed to the site to draw a quick floor plan of the house and the new house project. Then when I thought I was set I would share it with my dad and he can make changes to the drawing while I look on or continue to make alterations of my own. Also the fact that you do not need to install anything makes this already a winner. All you need is a web browser like Firefox or IE. I see this new app as having some real potential to speed up things like meeting, classes and such. I won’t go on at length because the video below explains the ins and outs of the free service. It is pretty neat. Give it a try or at least watch the video.

“I have a tip that can take 5 strokes off anyone's golf game. It's called an eraser.” Arnold Palmer

Teaching computers and answering questions can be easy and straightforward as long as you don’t make assumptions about what others know or don’t. The problem I have is not so much with students but with friends or family that I know have been using the computer for years. You immediately make assumptions that they know what you know or use the computer the same way you do. The small extras like double clicking and triple clicking seem obvious. Because of this I was so happy to read David Pogue’s newest column. He explains that he will be writing a new book that is all basics of the computer. The part I wanted to share with you is the lengthy list he gives you to begin. Most of them I was very familiar with but I did pick up a couple of things I did not know like the useful shortcut of hitting the space bar to page down on a website. The second part that makes this a great read is the readers that have commented on the page leaving their own basic tips. If you have five minutes stop and take a peek at the article and the comments. As I always say in class you have to slow down and read to truly speed up. The time you spend checking these tips out will pay off almost instantly. Give it a try.

“Don't expect the typewriter to ever completely disappear.” Hal Fair

I have received this question a few times and decided to share it.
People using Microsoft Office 2007 have reported that all their buttons have disappeared. This is easy to fix but annoying that you have to do it in the first place. Essentially the person has double clicked on the tabs like home row and others. I do this when it the program is slow or I am not paying attention. All the buttons like bold and font size collapse leaving just the tabs. To bring them back it is just a matter of double clicking on any of the tabs again. I understand why this is here but it just gets in the way. So when you are staring at Microsoft Word wondering what happened give this a try.

“Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?” Jay Leno

For what seems like a thousand years IT departments have been telling coworkers not to open email from addresses that they do not know. Now I understand this can be difficult sometimes but for the curious the game has gotten far worse. A while back I posted about the virus ladened emails hitting Europe with subject lines like “Dangerous Storm” and the damage they did. As of a couple of days ago the emails have changed to try to trap people with sensational headlines like “Eiffel tower crash” or “Donald Trump Kidnapped”. Be very wary of these. They have a link inside that leads you to a porn site that will give you a bunch of nasty spyware and other baddies. So here is the simple answer if you receive an email that is just too intriguing head to a news site and look it up there. If not you will be spending a lot of time trying to fix your computer. A second of common sense will save you hours of frustration later.

“You have to block everything out and be extremely focused and be relaxed and mellow too.” Jennifer Capriati

As I explore the net I am inundated with advertising and it is driving me insane. Now I understand that sites need to make a living and I really don’t mind text ads but the ones with animation and flashing nonsense are just too much. So I use Flashblock which is an add-on to the browser Firefox. This is one of those great extras that make the web so much more enjoyable. Once installed, anytime it sees flash, it will block it and put a big f in the center of where the animation should be. However if you realize you would like to see it, like in the case of YouTube, give it a click and it will start up instantly. Two reasons I love this. The less to load per page the faster everything moves. The second is that I am no longer bothered by flashing dancing ads. I have only run into one issue that is CNN’s video page would not load because it knew I had a flash blocker installed. To get around this I just opened up another browser. So if you are annoyed by just a bit too much stuff give this one a try.

“I get mail; therefore I am.” Scott Adams

How much junk mail do you get in your post box in an average day? I usually get a couple of offers for credit cards and refinance letter of some sort. Then I get some other random pieces of junk. Americans spend more than $245 million annually to dispose of this junk mail. This is a crime as far as I am concerned for several reasons. That material is coming from somewhere, most likely not a recycled source, and on the other end is all the money to get rid of this paper spam. That money could be spent on so many other important things. Plus the one that concerns all of us because it is so close to home is the amount of time you spend wading through and filtering what makes it into your house. Well it is time to take some action. The World Privacy Forum put together a wonderful list of opt outs. These are ways out of getting spam in one from or another whether is email, post, or phone. Now I have seen many of these lists but they usually just give it to you without much thought. This site describes why, what you have to do, and anything else you need to know. They have done a fantastic job with this site and it should be mandatory reading. Even their introduction is nicely done with a well thought out explanations of why they did this. Give this one a try for at least one of the reasons above.

“Avoid flatterers, for they are thieves in disguise”

Recently I have been told by readers that something strange is happening with the blog. Many people who use Google alerts to keep track of this blog have noticed that the same info I write are also on other sites. The names of these sites range from something innocuous like one about statistics to a supposed porn site. The problem is a new phenomenon called sploging. Essentially a blog site is created by a person or a bot (software that is automated) and then these bots go about scraping (stealing) posts. They then use advertisers like Adsense to make it profitable. I have found my posts mixed in with hundreds of other bloggers. Sploging is becoming a similar problem to blogging in the way email has a problem with spam. Unfortunately there is only so much to be done about this so we just have to lump it and ignore those sites. So from now on if you see something suspicious I would say leave it alone. I do not want anyone going to a Malware site (site devoted to infecting your computer) because of a blog post of mine. All the info I produce whether it is the computer sheets to blog posts are open to all who would like to use them barring of course those who would use it as bait.

A thank you to all those that have alerted me to this problem.

“Genius is the ability to see things invisible, to manipulate things intangible, to paint things that have no features” Joseph Joubert

Many times people come in to the labs here at Providence Public Library and they will ask for help on a resume they had created before. One of the first buttons I press is the Show/Hide button. This usually freaks people out the first time they are seeing it. Essentially it shows all the markers that are normally invisible on a page. The reason this is so helpful is because it lets us in on how and why text is where it is. An example is a page that has a whole bunch of indented information. A person will try to add more info but it keeps moving in an odd way maybe keeping all the spaces. By pressing Show/Hide it shows us an arrow and that means the tab key was pressed here. A little dot represents a space and strange symbol that looks like a top heavy T is a paragraph marker or that the enter key was pressed. Knowing this info allows us to pinpoint the problem and usually erase it. The Show/hide button is on the standard toolbar at the top. However if it is not showing up it could be that the button is hidden. Look at the toolbar and you will probably see in the middle a double arrow. If you are not sure just point to one button after another for its name. The one you are looking for is called toolbar options. Once found click it and then choose show buttons on two rows. This will separate the toolbars so you can see most of the tools. The Show/Hide button should be right next to the percentage of Zoom meaning it will say something like 100%. Finally click the button and see all the markers. To get rid of them click the button again. Give it a try.

“I worked with a wild leopard, who bit me. But I kept on working with him, because I have a wild side." Bai Ling

Recently a new operating system came out for Macintosh computers and it is entitled Leopard. I have heard great things about the new features like spaces and time machine and how long it takes to install However I will say what I said when Vista came out. WAIT! Give it several months to a year to let someone with multiple computers work out the bugs. No matter who puts out a new OS there are always glitches that need to be addressed right away. I know the desire is there for a whole new OS because it has new features and abilities but it is not worth losing your data because someone forgot to correct a small bug. This is one I have to say give it a try…um….eventually.

“An envelope is not just an envelope, it's a letter. We still will go to the mailbox … hoping today it won't be just junk mail.” Daniel Stein

In my Internet 3 Class we sign up for a student’s first email. The one I prefer to use with student is Gmail because it is very easy to use and it does not have any flashing ads to distract them. The last time I taught this one student asked why it was necessary to hit the report spam button instead of just deleting it. I answered that Gmail is a community and if you mark it such then other members will not get the same junk either. The student seemed satisfied but I wished there was an example of this. Thankfully Google came to my rescue when they released their video about spam just recently. Check the video out and see if I gave an OK answer.

"Mutation: it is the key to our evolution." Professor Xavier founder of the X-Men

I wanted to add to yesterdays post. I posted about changing the format of the document type when you save you r documents. I started wondering if there is another way. What I mean is that I will forget to change the format and do it haphazardly. So there must be a way to make this easier and there is. Open up Word 2007 and go to the save as area. Once there click on the Tools button at the bottom and click on saving options. Once there you can change the preferences for saving all the time. Change from Word Document to saving in Word 97-2003 document. The click OK and from now on it will always do this. I am unsure if I would recommend this a year and half later but for today I want to make my word processing experience easier. Give it a try.

“Always be aware of any helpful item that weighs less than it's operating manual.” Terry Pratchett

The other day I bought a TV from a yard sale and I needed a code for the remote control. The problem is that it did not come with a manual. So I did some searching and I found a fantastic site that has tons and tons of manuals. Essentially you just find the type of product you need to know about. Once there you choose the maker and the product code. It should display all the information. This site really allows you to feel comfortable about buying electronics at places like yard sales without having to worry about missing information. Give it a try.

Note: I use a lot of quotes but this one is special. He is one of my favorite authors.

“Sometimes you can tell a large story with a tiny subject.” Eliot Porter

Ok you are sending out invitations to a party and you need to send a website that has the directions. The problem is that the URL (Web Address) is way too long to use. This is where TinyURL comes in handy. Essentially you type in or copy and past a URL in to the blank box on their site and then hit the make tiny URL button. It will take something like this:

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?ovi=1&mqmap.x=300&mqmap.y=75&mapdata=%252bKZmeiIh6N%252bIgpXRP3bylMaN0O4z8OOUkZWYe7NRH6ldDN96YFTIUmSH3Q6OzE5XVqcuc5zb%252fY5wy1MZwTnT2pu%252bNMjOjsHjvNlygTRMzqazPStrN%252f1YzA0oWEWLwkHdhVHeG9sG6cMrfXNJKHY6fML4o6Nb0SeQm75ET9jAjKelrmqBCNta%252bsKC9n8jslz%252fo188N4g3BvAJYuzx8J8r%252f1fPFWkPYg%252bT9Su5KoQ9YpNSj%252bmo0h0aEK%252bofj3f6vCP

1&mqmap.x=300&mqmap.y=75&mapdata=%252

bKZmeiIh6N%252bIgpXRP3bylMaN0O4z8OOUk

ZWYe7NRH6ldDN96YFTIUmSH3Q6OzE5XVqcuc5

zb%252fY5wy1MZwTnT2pu%252bNMjOjsHjvNlygT

RMzqazPStrN%252f1YzA0oWEWLwkHdhVHeG9sG

6cMrfXNJKHY6fML4o6Nb0SeQm75ET9jAjKelrmqB

CNta%252bsKC9n8jslz%252fo188N4g3BvAJYuzx8J8r

%252f1fPFWkPYg%252bT9Su5KoQ9YpNSj%252bmo0h

0aEK%252bofj3f6vCP

to http://tinyurl.com/6

If you need to shorten a web address give this try.

“Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.” Keri Russell

So I was using Internet Explorer 7 the other day and I was annoyed that it was not setup the way I am used to. Now I understand change is good but not when it is slowing me up. First to bring up the Menubar that has all the choices we have been using for the past 15 years. On the right side you will find the Tools button and choose Menubar. Really this is all you have to do bring some sort of normalcy to this browser. Unfortunately you cannot move the Menubar to the top where it belongs. If you are uncomfortable with the current look give this a try.

“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” Walt Disney

Recently I was asked why when you click on an icon does it open with a specific application and not another? For instance, let’s say that I use Photoshop Elements for editing my photos but every time I click a photo it opens in Microsoft photo Editor. The way many of us might deal with this is go to Photoshop first and open the file that way. However I want to make this easier. Now there are two ways of doing this, one is permanent (not really) and the other is one time. All you do is right click on the file. Now this file does not have to be a photo. It could be anything giving you trouble. Once you right click a menu pops up and you can choose open with and if you want to just try it this way choose a program from the list. However I would like to make this a bit more permanent so I choose choose program from the open with menu. This brings up a lengthy list of every program you have. Choose the application that fits your needs like Photoshop for a photo. Now the semi permanent part, click the box next to Always use the selected program to open this kind of file. This means that when your computer reads that extension at the end of your file, .jpg, .doc, .xls, .wav, .mp3….,it will open with your chosen program every time. I used this not long ago on a friend’s computer to stop all her documents opening in Microsoft Word. Instead it now opens in NeoOffice. Give it a try.

Note: you may have to experiment a few times with different programs to get a file to open. I got a .swf and tried to open it with everything I had and it turned out Firefox was the only thing I had installed that would work.

"It's a trap!" Admiral Ackbar

Recently I had an unusual question concerning a check. The person had received a check for a company that said she had won $5000 dollars from some sort of lottery. All she had to do was call this number and they would tell her how to collect. This all sounds great but the question is is it true and is it safe to pursue? So I did some searching and came across this gem of a website called Ripoff Report. Like so many websites now, this is a user generated information site. Essentially, if you know of a scam or have received a letter, phone call, etc....,you can come to this site and check to see what others have found about the information you have received. It is easy to search or just browse through the listings. Much of the posts are well thought out but there are a few that are useless. If you are not sure of something you may want to give this a try.
Note:If you are not geeky enough to know Admiral Akbar then please click here

“Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done.” Andy Rooney

Is there an easier way to do labels that to use mail merge? I have been asked this repeatedly from students. The answer is yes and no. First what is mail merge? When you want to print a bunch of labels at once you can create a database of names and addressees in Excel. Once you have completed this then you go to Microsoft Word and use their mail merge feature to import all the data. The problem is that this can be a hassle and seriously confusing. Also each version of Word is very different from the last. Now if you want a list that you can use for all your projects , different size labels or envelopes, then mail merge is the best way to do it. However if you want a list that is on one type of labels than there is an easy answer. Avery is the maker behind many labels that you buy. Even if you buy the generic brand it will still come with the Avery SKU number. This is usually a four digit number like 5160, common mailing labels. Avery has a set of templates that you can download and the open in word. They have all the lines laid out on the page so all you have to do is type in the boxes and your information should print perfectly on the label sheet. I use this all the time. I bought some small round labels for some spice jars. I got sick of using Cayenne instead of Cinnamon. So I downloaded the template filled them in and printed them off. Give it a try.