Computer Help & Tips:

[Cathy C]

Since I use Internet Explorer 7.0, each of these threads opens from my email into a new tab. At times I will have too many tabs open and it will begin to wear thin on my patience.

I can chase down all the little Xes to close the tabs, or much easier, I can Ctrl+W and keep closing them one after another.

If you want to stop a whole program, that is close IE down completely, Alt+F4 does that. Any program, including IE or Word or Excel or pop up windows that are annoying you.

Patti

[Cathy C]

Hi,
I may have missed these in the earlier posts, so apologies if this is a double.

I've had horizontal shifting problems with touchpads too. I think it happens because in certain areas of the touchpad, it allows you to scroll like you would with a mouse. On my touchpad, the right side scrolls up and down and the very bottom scrolls left to right. I have to be careful and always make sure I look at the touchpad when I'm using it so I don't accidentally use the scroll stuff. It can be a bit of a pain in the neck once in a while but it really doesn't bother me that much; when you don't have a mouse it's actually very helpful.

This next one is part computer tip, part manuscript tip. Has anyone ever tried to use master documents to organize their manuscripts? It's not fun, and a lot of times, the information gets corrupted. I have a system I use for editing that seems to work really well. I put each of my chapters in a separate file, so I can get to each of them with one click. In those individual files, I highlight and colorize and note whatever I want, so I remember important things later. In my main manuscript file, I have a macro that "cleans up" all that extra stuff and formats the manuscript the way I want. I use fields to include every chapter in the file, and separate them with static page breaks, so even if one chapter ends up shrinking by a page or growing by however many pages, new chapters always stay on a new page, and they appear in their updated versions when you update the fields. The only drawback is that in order to prevent accidental modification of your original files, you have to lock the field result, and that makes it so every time the field is updated, if you want to see it in "manuscript format" you have to run your macro again. It's a pretty good system overall though; there are some good places online where you can learn how to write macro code.

Hope that helps,
Jezzica85

[Cathy C]

That is just awesome, thanks! I missed the memo.

(that was for your previous post)

I did okay on the second one 'til I reached: UNIX... but it does sound cool.   

Nadine

PS, do you mind if I add this link to my January 08 newsletter? (Sorry, December is put to bed.) http://www.phpbb88.com/folding/viewtopic.php?t=258&mforum=folding

Unix isn't hard, it just turns everything backwards from DOS and uses a few different directs.  LOL   only geeks need to know that stuff. Tim was showing off his stuff there.

However Nadine, I would truly like to visit your blog. The above link goes to Folding @ Home, which is something else Tim got me into. I've followed the You Tube link, too. Do you have a link for your blog?

Tip for the day:

If you are a horrible person and use Wikipedia for any research and need to cite your source, Wiki makes it abundantly easy for you. Along the left side there are boxes of links: Navigation, Interaction, Search, and Toolbox. Finally there are a list of languages. In the Toolbox, at the bottom of the section, there is a handy-dandy link called "Cite this article" (although it isn't on the main page as it is unneeded there). You are offered nine different types of citation formats to copy and paste. I cannot tell you how much time it saves.

Patti, just a baby geek

[Cathy C]

Something really strange happened yesterday, and it's carried over to today. When I start a new page on Word there aren't top and bottom margins, if that's the right way to say this. It's stating right at the top of the page until the very bottom. Does anyone know how this happens? And how to get it back to normal?


Thatollie.

[Cathy C]

Perhaps you've gone into the so-called 'Normal' view? Generally I prefer to use 'Print Layout' myself, as this looks more like a printed page (as you would expect from the name, of course).

Try clicking on View in the main menu, then click on Print Layout. If that's what has happened, the view of the page you are more accustomed to should be restored.

If that's not it, of course, my apologies!

Nick 

[Cathy C]

Nope that isn't it, thanks for trying Nick.

Thatollie.

[Cathy C]

I went into MS WORD HELP and searched for "missing margins".
I clicked on the "Restore headers, footers, and margins" result, and this is what it said:



When you open a document, is the insertion point at the top left corner of the page, as if there were no top margin or header (header and footer: A header, which can consist of text or graphics, appears at the top of every page in a section. A footer appears at the bottom of every page. Headers and footers often contain page numbers, chapter titles, dates, and author names.)? Or is the header or footer missing from the first page of your document?

Missing white space

The setting for showing white space between pages may have been turned off. To show white space between pages, do the following:

On the View menu, click Print Layout.
On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the View tab.
Under Print and Web Layout options, select the White space between pages (Print view only) check box.


good luck

Rewh2oman.

[Cathy C]

Cheers Russ. I have no idea how that happened but you've come up trumps.

Thatollie.

[Cathy C]

Question for Tim. What is the best tip on stopping spam you can share with us?

DGSquared.

[Cathy C]

I've decided to answer this with my KISS method (Keep it Simple, Stupid).  Trust me, I could write a book on this subject.  The problem is, it would be out of date before it ever got to print.

I think the best tip I could give anyone right now is to realize spam is not just an annoyance anymore, it has transformed into a threat.  Just clicking on a link in a Google search could infect your computer and make it part of a criminal botnet.

I know what you're thinking, "But Tim, Google is safe!"

Go to http://www.siteadvisor.com and look for the download button.  Click it, and you'll be prompted to install a plug-in that will tell you if Google's search results are really safe.  Do that, then go to Google and search for "music downloads". 

See the yellow ! next to target's result?  Target will send you spam by default if you sign up.  Now scroll down a bit (5th in the list I got) to the kazza site.  See that red x?  Put your mouse over that and you'd see their one download is bad news for your computer.

It's not a perfect system as not every site has been or ever could be rated, but it's a reasonable start at protecting ourselves from those that will wish to do us harm for their own gain.

Red_Barren (Tim)

[Cathy C]

How to remove the McAfee Software from your PC. - by rewh2oman.

Go to Start -> Control Panel
double-click on "Add/Remove Programs"
Find "McAfee" from the list, select it with your mouse and click the "remove" button on that line.
There may be more than one "McAfee" program listed, remove all of them.
Reboot your PC

[Cathy C]

Anti-virus software:

I've used AVG free for several years now, with complete satisfaction, but it is currently in the throes of changing to a new version.  I have seen no reports on the new version yet, so know nothing about it.  But I am getting a message every time I start up.  This tells me the old version will not be updated for much longer.

AVG used to be a very 'lean and mean' product but I can't help getting the feeling it has become much more complicated.

My youngest daughter and her geeky little friends swear by Avast, so I may be tempted to change my allegiance.

Both AVG8 (the free version) and Avast are available by download from www.filehippo.com

Gyppo
 

[Cathy C]

Computer Security:

Hi Cathy,

I've got Vista, so here goes...

The built in firewall seems to work OK, and it's activated by default, so it should be working on yours unless you've been in to the 'security centre' and switched it off. I bet you haven't! 

A firewall isn't anti-virus, it's to stop unwanted nasty little geeks (hackers) getting in to your computer from the internet and using it to do all sorts of things with without you knowing.

Anti virus. What I'd do is get one of the freebies, AVG is popular, I use Avira, it's good, and updates itself every day when I switch on. I'd download it to your desktop, but don't install it yet.

Once it's downloaded, disconnect from the web. Then get rid of MacAfee; probably going to Start/all programs is best, if you find MacAfee on that list, right click on it and you should find the 'uninstall' option.

Once you've uninstalled it (you will probably have to re-boot, make sure your comp doesn't connect to the net when you do), then you can install the new anti virus you've just down loaded. Then reconnect to the net.

I'd also get 'Spybot-Search and Destroy'. That checks for unwanted nasties, and some not-so-nasty-but-still-unecessary stuff on your comp. If you don't schedule it to run, then run it manually once week.

One word about this. The latest version also keeps a real-time check on your registry (it doesn't matter what your registry is, but it is important to your comp). As a result, occasionally when you download new stuff, or you get an automatic update, or even remove stuff, Spybot will pop up a window to warn you something is trying to alter the registry. If you're doing something intentional, or you know it's an automatic update, just click 'Accept'

I've had Avira and Spybot for several years now, and not had any problems. And both run on Vista.

Cheers,

Dave.
 
 

[Cathy C]

More on Avast:


Cathy,

I work in the IT industry. I didn't see this thread as I rarely go to the coffee shop. So I do not know if this is still an issue for you. What "DC" advised is pretty much how you should go about it for the Antivirus.

McAfee is installed i a lot of new machines, but has a limited subscription. An Antivirus needs to update on a regular basis for new definition files, kind of like a dictionary looking for new words every day.

I personally would recommend AVAST for a beginner. Once installed it will pretty much do everything for you and you will never have to worry about it. go to his link http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html and reguister for a years free subscription they will email you a license key. Then go back to  that page and download the program to your computer. If it's not on your desktop check your documents where there is a download folder. Or else do a search for it.

Install the program and copy paste the registration key when it asks for it. If you forgot it, or can't do this then just click demo. We can enter in the key later.

Once the program is installed have a play with it. Get used to the terminology, it might save you from a virus one day. Spend 15 minutes reading over the icons and clicking on a few buttons. Do the same later in the day or tomorrow. It might be boring and make no sense but it will standby you in the future. I am sure I made a video on this somewhere for a class. I also should have a very old lecture paper I used to give on the subject.

Once you are comfortable with all that, let me know and I can give you a run down on firewalls and spybot type stuff. And we can see if your Vista machine is updated.

Dave
 

[Cathy C]

(Quote from Nick.)

Returning to Cathy's original question, my partner, Jayne, had exactly this happen on her laptop as well. It came with a six-month free trial of McAfee, and at the end of this time she decided to uninstall it and get the free AVG instead. Even though McAfee was no longer on her computer, however, for months after she got irritating pop-up 'nag' messages trying to get her to buy the full version of McAfee. She never did work out how to get rid of them (and she's an IT lecturer) but eventually they did stop. So possibly it's just something you're going to have to live with for a while.

That's actually pretty easy to get rid of, but I don't know if Vista comes with msconfig.  You can find out by clicking Start -> Run, typing "msconfig" in the box (without the quotes), and clicking OK.  There should be a line of tabs across the top, click the one that says "Startup".  Uncheck anything that says "McAfee", "Dell", or "Roxio", then click OK.  Reboot, and msconfig will start again.  Uncheck the box that says run on startup and click OK, and you should be all set. 

Red_Barren