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The only Bug that's good for your computer! |
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A Publication of the Greater South Bay PC Users Group |
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Volume 21 Number 12 |
December 2003 |
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THE BUG REPORT
A monthly
publication of
GS-BUG Inc.
(c) copyright 1996.
Reproduction
of any material herein by any means is expressly prohibited unless written
permission is granted. Exception: Articles may be reprinted by other users
groups in unaltered form if credit is given to the author and the original
publication.
STAFF
Editor -
Sharon Grant
STOP
CERTAIN SITES FROM DROPPING COOKIES
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This is the 64th "Internet Talk"
article. The Internet and how we use it has changed a great deal during this
period of time.
Liz and I wish to thank Kay Burton for serving as editor for the past
nineteen issues of this newsletter.
We hope that someone else will volunteer for this important job.
We also hope you are having a wonderful holiday season.
TEMPORARY WEB-ONLY NEWSLETTER
Effective immediately, the Greater South
Bay PC Users Group (GSBUG) will be without a paper version of the monthly
newsletter for indeterminate period of time while our new editor takes
over. During this time, "The Bug Report", will become "Web
only". This is a temporary situation that will remain in place for
only a month or two. While the newsletter is in this Web-only state, you will probably want to
print all or part of any of the Web-based newsletter when it comes out each
month. Bob Hudak asked me to provide you with the
following step-by-step instructions:
NEWSLETTER PRINTING
INSTRUCTIONS:
Start Internet Explorer or your Web
browser of choice.
Go to
http://gsbug.apcug.org
Click on the "Current Issue"
link.
If you wish to print the entire
newsletter:
Using the keyboard, press "Control" + "a"
(or click on "Edit" on the menu bar and then click on "Select
All")
OR
If you wish to print just one portion of
the newsletter:
Using the keyboard, hold down a "Shift" key.
Then use your mouse to drag through and highlight just the portion of the
newsletter that you wish to print.
Then release the "Shift" key.
Using the keyboard, press
"Control" + "c"
(or click on "Edit" on the menu bar and then click on
"Copy")
Start "Microsoft Word", Wordpad, or Wordperfect.
After it opens up into a stable "Document" window:
Perform a single click anywhere in the
"Document" window.
Using the keyboard, press
"Control" + "v"
(or click on "Edit" on the menu bar and then click on
"Paste")
Remove as many blank lines as you wish.
Click on the "Print" icon on the
Standard toolbar
(or click on "File" on the menu bar and then click on "Print
Preview".
If it does
not look right, add or remove blank lines and modify the document, as desired.
Click on the "Print" icon on the
Standard toolbar
(or click on "File" on the menu bar and then click on the
"Okay" button.
SAVING OR PRINTING A GRAPHIC FROM THE NEWSLETTER:
Pictures and drawings from the newsletter
can be printed or saved as follows:
Start Internet Explorer or your Web
browser of choice.
Go to
http://gsbug.apcug.org
Click on the "Current Issue"
link.
Locate the picture or drawing that you
wish to save.
Use your RIGHT mouse button to perform a
click to perform a single click on the desired picture or drawing.
Use either mouse button (left or right) to
click on "Save Picture As..."
Select the location on a hard or removable
drive where you wish to store the file.
Provide a name for the file, if the
default name is unacceptible.
Click on the
"Save" button.
PRINTING A GRAPHIC FROM THE NEWSLETTER:
How you print a graphic file depends on
what graphical and printing software you have in your computer. If you have
Microsoft Office installed in your computer, you can print from "Microsoft
Photo Editor". Or you could use Adobe Photoshop
or Adobe Photoshop Elements or Corel Draw. Or you could insert the
graphic file into a Microsoft Word or Wordpad file
and then print it from within Microsoft Word or Wordpad.
The trick to printing a graphic file is to
move and resize it before printing it.
How you move and resize it depends on which of the above-mentioned software
programs you use. For example, if you use "Microsoft Photo Editor",
you can adjust the position and size that it prints on the page right after
clicking on the "Print" icon in the Standard tool bar. However, if
you are using Microsoft Word or Wordpad, you should
click on the graphic and adjust it's size and location
from within the basic text area of Microsoft Word or Wordpad,
prior to clicking on the "Print" icon on the Standard tool bar.
SOUTH BAY ADULT SCHOOL
Liz and I just finished a four-week course
on Digital Photography at the Torrance Adult School. We both learned to
use "Adobe Photoshop Elements 2" to do all sorts of magical tricks on
the pictures that I and Liz take in our travels. We highly recommend this
course. It is taught by Don Stouder, who is an
experienced digital photograper. To learn more
about this course and others that are offered go to:
http://www.torranceadultschool.com/
The informative course that we took was
held on four consecutive Wednesdays at the Levy School in south Torrance.
MATADOR SPAM BLOCKER
If you are
using Outlook Express, Outlook 2000, or Outlook 2003, and you are sick of
getting spam in your e-mail inbox, go to
http://www.mailfrontier.com/
Click on the "Individual E-mail
Protection" hyperlink and learn about their "Matador" system.
However, this system will not work for you
if you are using a Web-based e-mail system like Hotmail or Yahoo mail.
WHISPER-QUIET COMPUTERS
Super quiet computers are becoming more
and more popular:
See
http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~me/quiet_desktop.html
for a Web page of links and information that was created by Michael Elkins
who belongs to the Linux @ LAX User Group.
You have to pay extra for silent computers or for quiet components to reduce
the noise level of an existing computer. Lots of folks think that the
silence is worth paying for. Let me know what you think of the concept.
WAYS TO CONTACT ME:
If you have any questions or
problems, I can be contacted by the following methods:
1. Send me e-mail at: fchao@pacbell.net
2. Leave me a voice message at
(310)768-3896.
3. Send "snail" U.S. Postal Service mail to
Frank Chao
PO Box 6930
Torrance, CA 90504-0030.
Or sell your computer and take
up golf instead !!
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Great breaking news! I brought in a new
member who is willing to be our newsletter editor. Her name is Sharon Grant.
Her e-mail address is yeptune@netzero.com She was at the board meeting on Wednesday December
3rd and was confirmed as our Editor. She has a lot of ideas and will be a asset to the club. We want to get January articles to her
as soon as possible so she can put the first letter together before the holidays
take over her time.
I now have a copy of the presentation on
HDTV that we had at the general meeting on Nov 3 2003. It is about 70 pages
that you can read on screen or print. It fits on a 3 1/2" floppy that
sells for $3.00. It is in Power Point. You need Power Point to view it or a
Power Point viewer. I can put it on a CD along with a viewer program for $5.00.
There were a number of members that wanted a copy so here is your chance to
order what you want. Floppy or CD. Call me ( 323-0579 ) or email a request. Pickup at
Hardware SIG on Tue. This sure has a lot of information if you are in
the market to buy a new TV set.
I have been working on a few old computers
and needed some software help to clean up the Registry in Windows after
cleaning off some programs from the hard drive. The Add/Remove icon in Control
Panel does a pretty good job but some traces of some programs seem to remain in
the Registry. This slows down the startup process because each line needs to be
read and acted on. So if it is not need it helps to get rid of it. I used Regcleaner on disk # 4 to clean up the Registry. It works
great. You can run it from a floppy. Another good reason to
keep that 3 1/2" drive in your new machine. This is another utility
you should have and use after deleting a program.
The next program I need was Ram Idle on
disk # 72. I was having so problems on my machine with low memory. I loaded the
program and configured it. Stayed mostly with the default
settings. A number icon appears in the right side of the tray when you
minimize the program. This tells you how much memory is available in MB. You
can watch what happens to memory as you load several programs. You can set the
recovery rate and the min amount of memory you want to work with. It takes what
is not being used in Ram and transfers it to the Swap File. It also monitors
your CPU usage. Tells you how hard your computer is working while running some
task. It helped me see what was going on with my system. Give it a try.
A few issues ago I told you about Speed
Fan on disk #84. If your CMOS reports on the temperature of your CPU and the
speed of the CPU fan, this is a nice reporting program to let you know what is
going on. Emmett Ingram was having a heat problem on one of his computers and
he was watching what was going on by going into CMOS at startup. The problem
with that is you are not using the computer for anything except watching the
temp of the CPU go up. We installed the program and now while working he can
see what is going on with the heat problem. The temperature is displayed in the
tray. Works well.
I want to take this opportunity to wish
all a Happy Holiday season. Thank the members working to make the club a great
resource for all members. You know about the Board members and the SIG leaders
but some of the others need to be thanked at this time of the year. Bill Champlin who brings us copies of Computer User magazine
every month. He has been doing this for many years. Members
helping with the Christmas party, writing articles for our newsletter.
Etc. They are the oil that makes the club run. A big THANK YOU to them
STOP CERTAIN SITES FROM
DROPPING COOKIES
You can stop certain sites from planting cookies on your computer, if you
like. In Internet Explorer, click Tools>Internet Options. Select the Privacy
tab and click Edit. Enter the address of the Web site and click Block. In
Netscape, click File>Preferences. Under Privacy & Security, click
Cookies. Click Manage Stored Cookies. Scan the Stored Cookies list to find the
site you want to block. Click Remove Cookie and select "Don't allow
removed cookies to be accepted later."
DELETE ALL COOKIES IN IE, NETSCAPE & AOL
You can also delete all of your cookies. But
if you do that, many sites will no longer know you. You'll have to enter passwords,
where, before, you bypassed the password requirement. Other sites with which
you do business will no longer customize their site for you. In
Internet Explorer, click Tools>Internet Options. On the General tab, click
Delete Cookies. In Netscape, click Edit>Preferences. Under Privacy &
Security, click Cookies. Click Manage Stored Cookies. Select the Stored Cookies
tab and click Remove All Cookies. If you use America Online, click
Start>Control Panel (in Windows 98 and ME, click Start>Settings>Control
Panel). Double?click
Internet Options. On the General tab, click Delete Cookies.