Announcements

Wow! I was flooded with follow-up to some of last week's tips. It's great to have readers that are willing to interact! I wanted to pass these along to everyone...

3/11/03 Static (Kitten Inside) Many of you mentioned an oversite in this article: to properly ground yourself the computer must be plugged in. Pete C. gave this suggestion, "Most people run a protected power strip. I do. Whenever I work on my machine or anyone else's, I ground myself and shut the switch off to the power strip.I leave the power cord plugged in as the power is off but the ground is still connected."

3/13/03—Spyware "There is also a great program called Spybot Search & Destroy that finds files that Ad-Aware missed. It can be downloaded for free..."
http://spybot.safer-networking.de/

Many of you who tried Ad-Aware found spyware files on your system. The "winner" of the day was Virginia who found 208 spyware files with Ad-Aware! I tried out Spybot and it was faster and found more files than Ad-aware, but many of them were files needed to run Windows XP updates and other programs, so be careful! ~David

3/14/03—PDF Files "I use FinePrint pdfFactory to convert virtually any file into a pdf file. I've found it extremely valuable for sending things like Excel spreadsheets, etc. to people who don't have MS Office." ~Joe B.

I tried pdfFactory and it does a good job, although the graphics get a bit distorted. If you can print a document, you can make a pdf file from your print menu. Best of all, the trial version is free and the full version is 1/5 the price of Adobe Acrobat. ~David
http://www.fineprint.com/products/pdffactory/

Many of you were concerned with the weird symbols in Thursday's Computers 101 tip: "Once you’ve installed it...Then click the “Start” button."

This is how we signal the mothership to start the invasion! Mu-hahahaha! Just kidding. This was caused by a P.B.D.C error (problem between desk & chair). The original article was written in MS Word with curly apostrophes and quotation marks turned on. Our html editor translated these as special code that looked fine in a web browser, but turned into heiroglyphics when translated into email.

~ David

Computers 101

Q:
What's the difference between Save and Save As?

A:
I get this one often, so here you go:

When you use the Save command, you save your work under it's current file name. If you've never saved whatever it is you're working on before, then you'll get an opportunity to name it.

When you use Save As, you get a chance to save what you're working on as a new file.

Here's an example. Let's say you're working on a word processing document. It's a new document and you decide to save it. A box comes up that lets you give it a name. Now, let's say you add something to it. If you use the Save command again, it simply saves it with no questions asked under the existing file name.

OK, now let's say you make a modification to the file, but you want to keep the original version as well. This is where you use Save As. When you use the Save As command, it allows you to save your current file as a new file with a new name. Now when you go to open your files, you'll find you have both the original version and the new, Saved As version.

You didn't know computers could be so much fun, did you??

Have a question for the newsletter? Submit it at the link below:
http://www.worldstart.com/submitquestion.htm

Tip of the Day

HELP!

Did you know that just about every program out there has a help file?

Did you also know that the ones that don't usually have online support or message boards for users?

You would be amazed at how much you can find out with a simple click. Try it. Find "Help" up there in your toolbar and click (or you can just hit F1 on your keyboard).

Ever want to find out what version of a program you have? That's there too. Just choose "About..." to get all the info you need. Sometimes it will give you the developer's website where you can go for additional help and software updates.

So, next time you have a problem, just go to Help :-)

Have an original tip for the newsletter? Submit it below:
http://www.worldstart.com/writers-guidelines/index.htm

Amanda's Cool Site of the Day

Weather Satellites

Want to see satellite images of the weather here in the US? Here's a site that lets you. They have visible, infrared, and water vapor images available. You can view either still images or movies. Take a look.

http://www.goes.noaa.gov

Do you have a cool, non-commercial site that you want to share?
Send it to Amanda at amanda@worldstart.com