MANATEE PC USERs' GROUP of Manatee County Florida
Pictured left to right: Dee Hanson - assistant, Shirley Shinham, Carol Davis - instructor, Joy Allen, Alice Meissner, Suman Rane, Norma Horton - assistant. Not pictured George Staudt.
I made a new friend today. It was there all along and I never noticed it on the right side of my keyboard between the
Window Key and the Control Key. I don't even know it's true name, so I'll call it the "Menu Key". Why? Because when you
press it, it opens up a drop-down menu for whatever program you're in. The menu includes all the information you would
see if you right clicked, so I guess you could also call it the "Right-Click" Key.
So, next time you're typing away and need an edit menu or some other feature that you normally right-click to get, just head down to the Menu Key. Pretty soon it'll be your friend too. Thanks to Worldstart.com
File extensions are the three- or four-character codes, such as .DOC, .TXT, and .JPG that follow a file name and
indicate what type of file it is. To make extensions visible, open Control Panel, double-click Folder Options, and select
the View tab. Remove the Hide Extensions For Known File Types checkbox and click Apply. (XP is similar)
Thanks to Smart Computing
One of our pet peeves about Windows’ file management is that it contains a Yes To All button but
not a No To All button. The Yes To All button lets you automatically overwrite all file duplicates when
you are copying files from one location to the next.
A No To All button would be nice so you could
automatically prevent any duplicates from being overwritten.
If you are copying an entire group of files from one folder to another and many of them are duplicates
you do not want to overwrite, the process can be a real pain.
Fortunately you can work around this
limitation. When you copy files from one place to another and Windows prompts you to overwrite the
first file, hold down the SHIFT key and click No. From that point on, No To All will be enabled for that
particular copy session and no duplicates will be overwritten.
Thanks to Smart Computing
IT's ALL GEEK to ME
Visit the Science Channel WEB site to find out what!
Are you signed up for automatic annual renewal of your
virus or firewall software, and did not know it?
Click on the link above to read what WindowsSecrets.com has to say.
For All Versions of Windows
What is it? A fun, free, Web photo editor (cloud computing)
Download size: No download required - you can download the pictures you create, email them, or share online.
Download times: Duh!
We've ranted against cloud computing and you're now scratching your collective heads wondering what we're doing recommending a cloud computing application. Well, let us explain. You see there's a vast difference when your sharing all your email accounts, passwords, mail messages, and other sensitive information in a cloud computing application like Windows Live Mail, where your entrusting a lot of really important data to Microsoft's ability to keep it safe and protected - and betting no one is going to get access to all your email, email passwords, account settings, and other data by guessing your password and a cloud computer application where the only personal data you're in danger of exposing are you photos and images. I mean if someone wants to rip off my photos then God bless them -they're not going to have access to my credit card information that happened to be in an email message, or passwords mailed to me from sites that require them, or my account settings or password/username combinations. Let's face it. Unless you're taking some very "sensitive" photos, their value to hackers isn't going to be high. I can't imagine a hacker drooling over my pictures of the Milan River in autumn, can you?
There is good and bad in everything and cloud computer has some good points too - for instance today's freeware pick. It's one of the good cloud computing applications, because you're not sharing any personal information with anyone. You don't even have to surrender your email address or choose a username or password to use it. You can simply visit the site, upload a photo and play around with all the editing tools.
So, just because we feature one cloud computing application doesn't mean they are all good - or just because we find fault with others doesn't mean they're all bad. There's no doubt in our minds that as years pass cloud computing will gain more and more popularity. There may come a day when nothing runs from your computer and everything runs from the Web including your operating system. However, security will remain key. When all the potential security risks of storing sensitive data online have been conquered, then perhaps things like Windows Live Mail will gain our favor. Or maybe that will never happen in our lifetime? Who knows?
All we know is that Picnik is one of the good guys in the cloud computing world and it's something you'll enjoy - especially if you have a broadband connection. We don't know what it's like on a dialup connection because we don't have a dialup connection anymore to test it on. All we can tell those of you still using dialup is to give it a whirl and see. Broadband users will find it fast and effortless to use. OK, not effortless, you have to use the mouse and keyboard. So, I hyperbolize from time to time.
Well, rather than ramble on and on as usual, just take a look at the little seasonal image we created. Might not look like much, but hey what can you do in two minutes? TC did this using Picnik. He has a short attention span, but Picnik's tools are easy to use, and the editing features are the kind you'd find in some high-end photo editors. Well, not all the stuff you'd have in Photoshop, but you don't have to pay $600 either. You're too hard on me!
Even aging old coots like TC who have no patience at all, will find Picnik a picnic to use. See TC's two-minute creation below:
Picnik has no advertising, popups or other nuisances that we could see. It has plenty of features and you don't even need to register to use it. They pay for all of this, we assume, by selling a premium version of the Picnik service - which, of course, offers a ton of additional features. So, if you're heavily into photo editing and don't want to fork over $600 for Photoshop or $100 for Paintshop Pro, you might want to consider the Premium version of Picnik. For most of you, you'll find the free version fun and entertaining - maybe even useful.
Without further yammering, we present to you our freeware pick of the week, Picnik, a Web-application that makes photo editing a snap! You can start using Picnik by doing nothing more than going to their Web site and uploading one of your own photos. It's pretty self-explanatory - and very user-friendly. Hey, maybe that's why we named it our freeware pick of the week.
The above article is copyright ©2008 by Cloudeight Internet http://thundercloud.net/infoave/index.htm
The above article is copyright ©2008 by Cloudeight Internet http://thundercloud.net/infoave/index.htm
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Pictured left to right - Dee Hansen - assistant, Ed Wallace, Carol Davis - instructor, Agatha Ludlam, Mary Ellen Cook, Mary Higgins, Norma Horton - assistant, Nino Granatiero.
Fill out your membership application and print it for mailing. click here to try it online.
Bill Sommer provides step by step instructions.
Click one of the above links to view your mail programs' PDF.
I want to thank you for everything you do and for your kindness in helping so many with learning computers and providing common sense, plain English answers to our computer questions.
Recently I was browsing the Web and clicked a link to go to another page when suddenly a window appeared saying
I was infected with something. But it wasn't my AVAST it was something else. I can't remember the name but I think
it said AV1 . I tried using the F4 key to close the window but it wouldn't let me, it said something about if I close
this window I might damage my computer. So, thanks to your newsletter I knew better than to click "Close" on that box.
I had no choice but to shut down my computer by turning it off using the power button. Luckily when I turned my computer
back on, everything was normal. Just to be sure I scanned my computer with Avast and SuperAntiSpyware but neither found
anything. What happened? Do you have any ideas? Thanks again for all you do.
Paul
We investigated you report and find this one particularly troublesome. Indeed you're right, you cannot F4 yourself out of this one. You can Alt-F4 out of this one though. But you did very well in not clicking any "Close" buttons or in trying to close these windows by clicking the "X" in the top-right corner. You would have ended up installing VirusDoctor - a rogue, malicious program most likely another AntiVirus2009 clone from the wonderful miscreant world of Virtumundo.
Here's a tip for you the next time you find yourself in a similar situation. If the ALT+F4 key combination does not work, don't panic.
Calmly right-click on an empty place on your taskbar and
right-click it. Select Task Manager.
When Task Manager opens, click the Processes tab and locate your browser's exe file. Internet Explorer is called iexplore.exe and Firefox is called firefox.exe.
Right-click on the browser's exe and choose "End process tree". Ignore the warning and proceed. This will close your browser immediately regardless of whatever tricks the site may be playing.
If you have more than one instance of your browser running you may have to individually close each instance.
For the benefit of others who've not had the misfortune to encounter these kinds of tricky scam by Virtumundo and others, here are some screen shots we created when we intentionally went out and tried find this little devil. We found it and we allowed it to being its attack on our computer. We're nuts, I know. But this will help you recognize a scam when you see it and this, friends, is a blatant scam and a violation of your computer.
Fig 1. "System Security" sounds like it's a Windows function. It is not. It's a deception. Do not click the "X" and
do not click "OK". Press ALT+F4. If ALT+F4 does not work, follow the steps outlined in this article.
Fig 2. Tricky, tricky, tricky. See how it looks like your own computer. It's not. We did this on Vista on a computer with
4 hard drives. This is just a clever reproduction that could be anyone's Windows XP computer. It couldn't be a Vista
computer. Look at the folders and look at the name "My Documents". On Vista "My Documents" are called "Documents".
Again, never click the "X" or "OK" or "Cancel" , if you do you're going the installation will start. Never click anything
on these kinds of pages. Use ALT+F4. If that fails to close the browser use Task Manager to end the process and terminate
your browsing session.
Fig 3. Kind of hard to see this? Click on the picture to see the full-size image. Note our computer is "infected". Why?
Every computer is infected because this is just an graphic, everyone who gets caught in this trap sees the same picture.
It's used to scare unwitting users into downloading malware. Not only that, they'll want you to pay to "clean" your computer.
Can you say "scam"? We were using Windows Vista when we took this screen shot. Notice the graphic shows a Windows XP
computer. They must think we're all fools?
So there you have it. These kinds of scummy tricks go on every day on the Web. If you haven't seen one yet, just wait, you probably will. But, now you know what to do. If ever the ALT+F4 key combination doesn't work, don't panic, don't turn your computer off at the switch, use Task Manager to shut down your browser.
The above article is copyright ©2008 by Cloudeight Internet http://thundercloud.net/infoave/index.htm
Blacklist, whitelist, and just plain shut out spam with this freebie.
Some spam filters assume that you want to see almost any message, and some assume you want to see almost none. ChoiceMail Free combines blacklist and whitelist technology to make sure that your POP e-mail program refuses e-mail from the addresses you block and lets the e-mail you ask to see through without a hitch. Use the built-in permission rules to block likely spam, and add your own touches to customize the blockade.
You can also activate unknown-sender registration, which sends e-mail back to senders whose addresses ChoiceMail doesn't recognize, asking them to identify themselves. Usually only people who really know you and (and like you enough to deal with this small irritation) will respond to such messages. Safe message previewing lets you look at those messages you're not sure about--but without letting potentially infected spam loose on your system.
choicemail is as free as its name indicates, but online support costs $20 per year. The more full-featured ChoiceMail One--which blocks spam to AOL, Hotmail, MSN, and Yahoo--includes the cost of a one-year support subscription. A 14-day trial can be downloaded from the vendor's site.
http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/media/dvd-formats.htm
Everything you always wanted to know about DVD and CD burning
© 2001-2009 digitalFAQ.com
Marilee's tip:
This is just basic info with people who use broadband. I work in Technical Support for an ISP and the top calls we receive are for people who say they cannot connect to the internet. 99% of the time, all that is needed is to unplug the modem for about 10 seconds and plug it back in - and that usually will take care of the issue.
If using a router, unplug the modem and router. There are many reasons why a system will lose sync, power surge, etc., but try this first before taking the time to call your ISP. Modems will have certain light patterns when you are connected. Getting familiar with those will save you time and a few headaches. Make sure the modem is getting power, if the PC light is off, check the Ethernet cord, if the cable light is out, check the coax cord to see if it securely in the modem.
These are very simple tips but regrettably, most ISP's will not tell you this until you have to call. Hope you can share this sometime. I find valuable information in each of your Newsletters and have passed that on to my customers and recommend Cloudeight to any customer who will listen. Thank you again for the knowledge you give each of us.
Thanks Marilee. Readers with broadband connections are sure to appreciate your advice. Many broadband ISPs make it an arduous task to call their support lines - either you can't understand the support people or you have to talk to a robot who can't understand you - either way it's a pain!
The above article is copyright ©2008 by Cloudeight Internet http://thundercloud.net/infoave/index.htm
