April 2008
Volume 4 Issue 7
This month we are going to have our very own
club advisor, Aaron Robertson,
Robertson Presenting for
the club. It looks likes Vista is here to stay, so
he will be talking about that and Office 2007.
The really exciting thing is, Aaron
will be answering questions.
That is, if you ask questions.
I would like you to submit a question (or 2) by e-mail to me before
the club meeting. I will see that
you get an extra door prize ticket if
you do.
Our board meeting went well. We will be having
a pizza party after the May 21st meeting in C
204. We will also have an election of Officers,
so please consider volunteering to help. We are
all volunteers, so I can’t tackle anyone and insist
you take a position, but I can plead—and bargain. A couple could occupy one position.
If someone would step forward and take over
the office of President for just one year, I will
continue with the newsletter and will run for the
position the next year if (and only if) you wanted
me to. It will be a wonderful opportunity for
someone—
will it be you???
someone—
I will make the same offer with putting together
this newsletter. I would be happy to assist anyone interested in learning how, if need be. I had
0, zilch experience with any kind of publishing
before I started this, so if I can do it, you can
too!
Only one member,, Bill Frick,
Frick joined us. Starting
next month we will be hearing from Bill once again
with ‘Bill’s Interesting Web Sites’. They will be replacing ‘Mary’s Fun Sites” Speaking of Mary—she
Mary
has come up with some great Tips for the newsletter. Be sure to check out pages 3-5 for tips on
Vista, XP and how to get a good photo of that moving subject.
jan
Next meeting is
April 16, 2008
Building C Room 212
1:00—
1:00—-3:00
A
s you will see from the following message from Aaron,
Aaron he not only has been
busier than usual, but like a lot of us, he
is having computer problems. I’ll let him tell you
about that…..
Once again I am experiencing some, hopefully,
minor problems with my computer. When I built
my computer I did not get the fastest processor I
could get or the latest video card available. I
chose to save some money up front and upgrade
my system at a later date when the prices become more reasonable for the newer parts.
I decided the price was right to upgrade so I put
in a new processor and video card and I have ordered some more memory. Last week when I
woke up I had a black screen and a message saying boot disk failure insert system disk. I was not
too concerned about the message since I am running a dual boot system – XP and Vista – I expect
to have a few glitches now and again.
Continued on page 2
2
PRIME TIME COMPUTER CLUB
Computer
Club
Officers
President
Jan Tatro
[email protected]
Vice President
Estelle Felgenhauer
[email protected]
Treasurer
Marilyn Ostrominski
Minutes Prime Time Computer
March 19, 2008
The meeting began at 1:00 p.m.
President Jan Tatro welcomed all
members and thanked them for
coming on such a stormy day.
The Treasurer, Marilyn Ostrominski
presented the Treasurers Report.
There is $228.00 in the college
account and $107.56 in the petty
cash account.
Secretary
Vacant
Jan spoke of some of the Monitor’s having mis-prints on page 2.
Membership Chairman Also e-mails were not all being reMary Bayer
ceived by everyone.
Activities Chairman
Dot Burroughs
Club Advisor
Aaron Robertson
[email protected]
Faculty Advisor
Amanda Barker
Newsletter
Jan Tatro
Mary Bayer
Monitor on line:
www.owc.edu
Academics
Departments
(Scroll down to)
OWC General
Prime Time
Prime Time CC
Learn
Share
Enjoy
Aaron gave us both of his e-mail
addresses. He spoke of a new service for Vista.
Bill Frick announced a Vista Windows update.
Jan introduced Jackie Youngblood
who gave a brief bio of herself
then presented a great program
using Adobe Photoshop
(Element6). She showed editing,
layers, removing red eye, etc.
Jan announced an open board
meeting on Mon. Mar. 31 at 10
a.m. She invited any interested
members to attend.
The door prizes were won by
Marilyn Ostrominski, Bill Frick and
Sylvia Lucas.
The meeting adjourned at 3:05 p.m
Respectfully submitted by
Estelle Felgenhauer
Usually this indicates a file system problem with a hard drive – in my case I have
six hard drives attached to my computer –
I just needed to test the drives and make
sure they are all OK and then do a file system check and fix any errors that may
have occurred.
The drive tests took the better part of a
day to complete. I am taking OWC college
class from 8 AM to 7 PM Saturday and
Sunday. Needless to say this was not the
most convenient time for a computer melt
down. After I tested all my drives I started
the Windows repair process. I have to do
both XP and Vista repairs. Windows XP
did find and fixed file errors on my XP
drive. Next I will be doing the same check
using Vista and see if that fixes my problems. I may be having a hardware compatibility issue with my new video card or
there may have been a windows update
that came through and crashed my system. I will be reinstalling drivers and turning off automatic updates to my video
card.
I am trying to avoid the wipe and reload of
both XP and Vista if at all possible. My
next steps will be to do a Windows XP repair install of the operating system. I will
not lose any applications but I will have to
reinstall all the windows updates – there
are over 100 updates to be downloaded
and installed – my antivirus software will
have to be reloaded etc ..
Once I have XP reloaded I will have to repeat the process with Vista .. so I am looking at another 1-2 days before I will be
done ..
If I am still having issues I will be wiping
out my computer and if this happens I will
probably just load Vista back on my computer and keep XP on my laptop.
Aaron
3 PRIME TIME COMPUTER
#2
Windows Vista has a new feature in the Windows
Explorer area that is very useful: checkboxes! Instead of holding down the Ctrl key and clicking a
bunch of different files to select them, you can
now just click the checkboxes. That means no
more accidentally copying the files or getting to the
bottom and losing your selection. The only thing is,
it's not turned on by default.
To enable this feature, go to the Organize menu
and choose Folder and Search Options from the
menu. From there, click the View tab and you
should see this near the bottom:
Well as you can see from the title above we’re
going to cover a lot of different topics this
month. So get a glass of tea or a cup of coffee, sit in your favorite chair and let’s learn
together.
I think first we should tackle the elephant in
the room. VISTA. So here goes!
V
Just checkmark the "Use
Use checkboxes to select
items"
items option and you will now be able to use the
checkboxes!
ista Tips
#1
Today we’re going to show you how to turn off
that annoying click you hear in IE7 any time
you click on a link to a web site. After a while
that simple little click can drive you crazy. So
here’s the answer.
Click on START and then CONTROL BUTTON.
From there click on the HARDWARE and
SOUND link. Next click on the SOUND link,
followed by the SOUNDS tab. Under the PROGRAMS section, scroll down to the WINDOWS
EXPLORER area and then double click on the
START NAVIGATION option. From there you
will see all the different sound choices you
have. To turn the sound off completely, scroll
up and select (NONE). Click OK and you’ll be
free from that awful “click,click,click” from
now on.
Note: You can click the checkbox next to Name to
select all of the files at once or you can use Ctrl +
A to do the same.
Have fun!
***********************************
4 PRIME TIME COMPUTER CLUB
#3
ClearType smoothes the edges of fonts and
makes them more legible on LCD monitors. To
enable and adjust ClearType, open Control Panel
and double-click ClearType Tuning. Select the
Turn On ClearType checkbox and click Start Wizard. Click each sample that looks best on your
display, clicking Next after each selection. Click
Finish when you are done. Repeat this process to
fine-tune things if text does not look quite right
after you make changes.
*********************************
#4
And this is our last VISTA TIP for this month!!!!
Kill A Stalled Program In Vista
If a program refuses to close, right-click its icon in
the Taskbar and click Close. If that doesn't work,
simultaneously press CTRL-ALT-DELETE and click
Start Task Manager. Next, select the Applications
tab, click the name of the program, and click the
End Task button. You may need to repeat this
process several times before the program finally
shuts down. Be aware that you also may lose
data that was open in the program at the time it
stalled out.
***********************************
XP TIPS
you have digital images stored locally on the
Windows drive.
Open My Computer, right-click the folder you
want to customize, and select Properties from
the context menu. Choose the Customize tab,
click the Choose Picture button, and browse
your PC for the image you want to use to represent the folder. After you locate the image, highlight it and click the Open button. A Preview
area shows you how the image will look on the
folder. Click OK to activate the change.
At this point, the folder may still appear as a
plain yellow folder icon in the My Computer window. To view the folder with its accompanying
image, open the View menu and select the
Thumbnails option.
*********************************#
2
F12 Finesse
Here's a quick tip for any readers who love to
use the function keys! It turns out the F12 key
is very versatile in MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Interested in its abilities? Was that a "yes" I
heard? Then let's take a look and see what it
does!
• F12 (alone) is the Save As command.
#1
•
Transform Folder Icons
A lot can be said about the hierarchical filing
structure in Windows XP. It's intuitively designed,
neatly organized, and ingeniously flexible. It's
also boring, consisting of one yellow folder after
the other. Fortunately, WinXP lets you customize
the yellow folders with your collection of digital
images, including GIF, JPEG (Joint Photographic
Experts Group) and BMP (bit map) graphics. In
most cases, the process is fairly easy, provided
Shift + F12 is the Save command.
Ctrl + F12 is the Open command.
Now, I realize there are other key combinations
that will accomplish these same things, but for
those of you who learn better when it all revolves around a single key, this one's for you!
*********************************#
3
Get Sticky
Not all of us are ambidextrous. So how about a
way to type one key at a time rather than all at
once?
5
PRIME TIME COMPUTER CLUB
This feature is called “Sticky Keys’ and gives you
a delay between key strokes when doing a keyboard shortcut.
Let's say you want to copy something—rather
than hold down Ctrl + C you can type Ctrl then C.
Ready to get sticky? Here's what to do...
Head over to the Control Panel (Click Start / Settings / Control Panel ) and select "Accessibility
Options".
On the "Keyboard" Tab, place a check in the
checkbox next to "Use Sticky Keys".
How Stuff Works
Have you ever wondered how a dog sled works?
How about Internet Censorship? At How Stuff
Works (www.howstuffworks.com), you can learn
about those things and much more. Choose from
categories such as Computers, Business &
Money, Home & Garden, and Health, to find out
about things youinterested in. The How Stuff
Works staff puts the explanations in simple language. Thus, regardless of how complicated the
subject may seem, you'll be able to understand it.
**********
Click OK to close the Accessibility Options window.
Now you can do combos a key at a time. Yeah!
*********************************
———————-And lastly a photo tip: ———————-Photography In Motion
Achieving sharp focus is one of the hardest parts
of taking stop-action shots with your digital camera because auto-focus mechanisms are often
too slow to keep up with high-speed subjects.
Switch to manual focus and then lock onto an
object near the area where you anticipate your
moving subject will be. Then you can simply snap
the shot as your subject comes into view. To increase your chances of getting an extraordinary
shot, take more pictures. Use your camera's highspeed (or burst) shooting mode, so you can capture an entire series of images.
Oddity Central
This world has many oddities in it, if you are willing to search for them. This is exactly what the
publisher of Oddity Central
(www.odditycentral.com) has been doing. Everything from the world's tallest snowman to Star
Wars origami, this Web site sure has some weird
things. Each oddity is of course coupled with a
story, so in addition to having seen pictures of the
world's tallest snowman, you can also tell friends
you know that it's in Bethel, Maine.
**********
City Creator
Most of us at some time in our lives have imagined what it would be like to be an architect. Who
among us hasn't played with Lincoln Logs or Lego
blocks? For those who would like to recreate that
same experience but don't want to mess with a
lot of little plastic pieces, there is City Creator
(www.citycreator.com). Here you get a chance to
create your own city based on three layouts. After
you select from either Medieville (a medieval city),
Snoland (a city in winter), or Blankton (just a regular city),
Bye for now,
see y’all next month!
6 PRIME TIME COMPUTER
Office 2007 file extensions.
If you use Office 2007 any document you create and save is stored using a new file format based on XML.
If you would like to find out more about the MS Office 2007 Open XML formats and why you should use
them see the article http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA100069351033.aspx#2).
You can set the default file format for any of the MS Office 2007 applications that you use. You just need
to decide which format you want to use as your default file format. Office 2003 is probably the most compatible file format you can use right now or you can send a link in your email for the recipient to download
the MS Office 2007 compatibility pack http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?
FamilyId=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=en which will allow them to open
your documents if they use and earlier versions of office.
To change the default file format open your Office 2007
application click on Office Button and at the bottom of
the menu, click on the program options then click on the
Save Options. Then you can select the default format
from the Save files in this format: drop down list.
Once you have set this option whenever you save a document you will not have to remember to do a save
as and change then select the 2003 format.
There are other formats you can choose from when you save a document such as rich text format (RTF)
which is the most universal format for a text document it will open using WordPad which goes back to
Windows 95.
MS recommends you use the new formats for a number of reasons visit the web site http://
office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA100069351033.aspx#2 for more details.
Aaron