  |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
  |
|
|
|
|
TECH TIPS This Edition's Categories: Web Browsing / Email | E-commerce | MS Office Power Tips | Computers & Hardware Preview Pane = SPAM Pain When you open a SPAM message, you may be telling the spammer that your email address is valid, and increase your SPAM woes. In Outlook, turn off the Preview Pane to delete SPAM messages without opening them (View > Preview Pane). Now you can simply click and delete messages without opening them. Michael Miller, CorpNote Online Greeting Cards, Invitations and Surveys — www.corpnote.com Reduce Spam and Email Solicitations If your web/email provider allows you to create multiple email addresses, create a special "holiday" account, which you use as the confirmation address for your on-line purchases. When the holidays are over, delete the email account, and you won't be solicited again! George Ascione, Lighthouse Hosting — www.lighthousehosting.com Free Email Reader, Browser and Anti-Virus Want an email reader alternative to Outlook? Download the free email reader Thunderbird at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/. Thunderbird includes a free spam filter which is one of the best on the market. Want an alternate (and more secure) web browser option to MS Internet Explorer? Try Mozilla Firefox, PC Magazine's Editors Choice, Oct 2006, CNET Editors Choice, Oct 2006. You can download Firefox for free at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/. If you are using Firefox, you can customize your browser by using 'add-ons', such as extensions and themes. Download them at https://addons.mozilla.org/. Antivirus alternative…if you are a home user, download the free version of AVG anti-virus software for home use only at http://free.grisoft.com. AVG also includes free anti-spyware for home use only. If you are using Internet Explorer 7, press Control-Q to see all the tabs that you have open on one page in a thumbnail format. Sam Giraffe, Giraffe Tech LLC — www.giraffetech.biz E-commerce Credit protection for online purchases A while ago I took advantage of a checking account "special" offered by my bank, and I opened up a second account. I use this as an 'online purchase account', and only transfer funds into it when I make an online purchase, to cover the purchase amount. (I keep $50.00 in this account to avoid the fees.) When I am 'checking out' of an online purchase, and know the full transaction amount, I open a second browser window and electronically transfer the funds into the 'online purchase account'. The vendor cannot "accidentally" double-charge me, and if the credit card number is stolen I have limited liability. George Ascione, Lighthouse Hosting — www.lighthousehosting.com Protect your privacy Almost 50% of all on-line advertisement and 'snail mail' junk mail comes from personal information obtained through Domain Name registries. Domain name registration information is public, and anyone with a browser can lookup your domain name information which usually contains the registered owners information. But DON'T TRY TO BEAT THE SYSTEM BY PROVIDING FALSE CONTACT INFORMATION! You may one day be a victim of a random registration validity check and could loose your domain name. Also, providing a false email address on your registration could prevent you from making future changes to your domain name. Solution: tell your registration authority or the company you registered your domain name with to "unlist" your domain. That's right, you can transfer your domain registry information to a private registry so nobody can look it up. It is the same as un-listing your phone number. Good email/domain name providers offer this as a free option. George Ascione, Lighthouse Hosting — www.lighthousehosting.com Make a Map In Microsoft Outlook you can quickly create a map to your contacts address. Open a contact, select the appropriate address (Business, Home, Other), then on the Actions menu, click DISPLAY MAP of ADDRESS. Michael DeCamillis, Dolvin Consulting, Inc — www.dolvin.com MS Office Power Tips Windows Shortcuts Quickly close any active window by pressing Alt+F4 key combination. Quickly switch between all open programs by pressing Alt+TAB. Michael DeCamillis, Dolvin Consulting, Inc — www.dolvin.com Getting around in Word If you keep a number of Word documents or Excel spreadsheets open while you are working it can be annoying to close them one at a time. You can speed up the process by holding the SHIFT key and then clicking FILE/CLOSE on the menu. Word or Excel will prompt you, file by file, to save any files you haven't saved and then will close them. Renee Altman, Personal Computer Training, Inc. — www.pctraininginc.com Quickly look up words in the Word dictionary…From the Tools menu, click Research, then click Encarta Dictionary. To look up a single word press Alt and click the word. To look up a phrase, select the words you want and then press the Alt key and click the selection. Type a word or phrase in the Search box, then click Start Searching. Michael DeCamillis, Dolvin Consulting, Inc — www.dolvin.com Getting around in Excel You have set up several worksheets with the same column headings. You want to change the font or bold them, etc. A quick way to accomplish this is to select all the worksheets by clicking on the first worksheet tab and holding the shift key down while clicking on the last tab. Make the formatting changes in the first worksheet. All the worksheets will change. This applies to all formatting, not just headings, but the worksheets should be set up the same way for good results. Renee Altman, Personal Computer Training, Inc. — www.pctraininginc.com In Excel, to start a new line in the same cell: Press Alt+ENTER.
Michael DeCamillis, Dolvin Consulting, Inc — www.dolvin.com Computers & Hardware Sniff out problems Ever work on your computer and all of a sudden everything slows down and your cable modem lights are so bright they could light up outer space? Perhaps your computer has a virus and is doing something behind the scenes that you don't know about. What do you do? Typically the infection doesn't advertise itself and is difficult to eliminate. But first you must be able to tell you're infected... There are many simple tools available to find out what is happening. The most useful is a 'packet sniffer' which literally looks at the individual packets being sent out to the network and analyzes them. I like to use "Wireshark" which is free and in the public domain, at www.wireshark.org. You can spot suspicious traffic on your network instantly and then take action. Let your computer Run! Leave your computer running all the time. That's what it does best, run. You won't wear it out any faster. Why do that? I have my computers set to run virus, OS and program updates and scans every night, with auto reboots. While I sleep, my computer stays up to date all the time. IMPORTANT - You should still use the Log Off feature! Logging off of any modern operating system is just as effective as shutting off the computer; it allows auto-updates to run in the background, but prevents unauthorized users from accessing your data. George Ascione, Lighthouse Hosting — www.lighthousehosting.com
|
|
 |
 Home | Site Map | Terms of Use |
 |
|
|
|||
