GREATER BOSTON SENIOR COMPUTER GROUP NEWSLETTER
Issue No. 39,May 8, 2002
CHAIRPERSON:: Arline Ekman, AVE@alumni.unh.edu
EDITOR: Harriet Mandell, harrietd@ix.netcom.com
WEB PAGE: Garry Ziffer, http://www.ultranet.com/~gbscg
LIAISON: Eve Welts, ewelts@rcn.com
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WINDOWS XP USERS who miss the look of Windows 98 can get the old look back this way: Click Start/Control Panel/Display. Then, select the Themes tab. Find the drop down box under Theme, and select Windows Classic. Click Apply/OK and there you have it!!
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VIRUS PROTECTION...A package easy to install can be found at the following site: http://www.grisoft.com/html/us_index.htm . Earle Barcus picked this up from a users group in Florida. Need help installing it? Ask him . fbarcus@bu.edu
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MAC PROGRAMS DON'T WANT TO QUIT? Mac OS X has protected memory, which means that if a program freezes, the system continues to run. Therefore, if a program locks up, shut it down by Select Apple/Force Quit. Select the program to shut down... Click Force Quit. Click Force Quit again when asked if you want to quit. Click the left button in the top left of the Force Quit window. Sounds like what Ctrl Alt Del is to Windows.
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ICONS FROM ANYWHERE...to get to your desktop icons, no need to close open windows just Click Start/Run Enter a period Click enter. In Windows XP double click Desktop. There it is!!
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TRAVEL TO NEW ZEALAND for a website which offers beginners help on several topics as well as other items. No need to leave home just http://www.webs4u.co.nz thanks to Fred Hammond for this item. Fredandgrace@attbi.com
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ACTIONS CAN SPEAK LOUDER IN MICROSOFT WORDS...want to change the font? Just hold down the Shift and Ctrl key and use < or > to decrease or increase the size.
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TAP INTO THE MANY SHORTCUTS OF THE KEYBOARD...The Windows key on the keyboard (the one with the Windows logo) along with the F1 key will produce a space for you to enter " keyboard shortcuts" and you will find the many possibilities.
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SPIES ARE EVERYWHERE ...find free multi spyware removal utility that scans your memory, registry and hard drives for known spyware and scumware components and lets you remove them safely according to the company. It is updated frequently and will be found complete with a getting started tutorial. Check out http://www.lavasoft.nu
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DOT-US (.us) domain has been offered to the public. NeuStar Inc. a Washington based company was awarded the government contract to operate the dot-us addresses which had until now been generally available to state governments, libraries and some limited other groups. Within hours of the offering, individuals and companies had snapped up thousands of addresses. A dispute has arisen with various agencies that monitor such contracts concerning the NeuStar's handling of the distributions. It is felt by some that more addresses should have been reserved for public service types. Nations such as England dot-uk and Japan dot-jp are heavily used in their respective nations. Dot-us has long remained a relatively under-populated Internet neighborhood. We can expect to see this dot-us ending on many commercial sites from now on.
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START FROM SCRATCH.or download a template from the Template Gallery site which offers hundreds of professionally authored and formatted documents for Microsoft Office. Find it at http://office.microsoft.com/TemplateGallery/default.aspx At another site you will find clip art photos, web animations, and sounds. These are user friendly and you can search for specific items at http://dgl.microsoft.com
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CARE TO KNOW .whether a seal or label on a product meets a set of environmental or social standards which it states? Go to http://eco-labels.org/home.cfm a site where you can learn more about products that are eco-labeled compared to those that are conventionally farmed or produced. The site can produce a report card on the info.
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INTERACTIVE HEALTHY EATING INDEX (IHEI) is an online dietary assessment tool that includes nutrition messages. Provide a day's worth of dietary information and you will receive a "score." Each HEI score gives you an idea of the quality of your diet from what you ate for one day or for up to 20 days http://www.usda.gov/cnpp then http://147.208.9.133 If you are what you eat, you may be surprised for better or worse.
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TERMS OF THE COMPUTER.BIOS. an acronym for Basic/Input/Output System. In simple terms, it's a set of routines that tests your hardware and gets your operating system going when you start your computer. Without this running you won't either. PLUG-AND -PLAY .a set of specifications that allows your computer to automatically set itself up to work with hardware such as monitors, modems and printers.
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INTERNET EXPLORER saves Web pages that you look at on your hard drive. These may include those encrypted ones containing sensitive data from personal financial pages and credit card numbers you use on the net. If you share your computer and would rather not have these saved Click Tools...Internet Options/Advanced. Under Security, select "Do not save encrypted pages to disk" Click OK.
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WANTED: URL's of web sites; Helpful hints for Mac users, Win 95/98/ME/XP. Software reviews Desired topics for future meetings. Send these items via email to the editor. Please sign your email with your name. Other than your email address, we will not publish your name, phone number or address without your permission