GREATER BOSTON SENIOR COMPUTER GROUP NEWSLETTER
Issue No.51, October 8, 2003
CHAIRPERSON:: Arline Ekman, AVE@alumni.unh.edu
EDITOR: Harriet Mandell, harrietd@rcn.com
WEB PAGE: Garry Ziffer, http://users.rcn.com/gbscg
LIAISON: Eve Welts, ewelts@rcn.com
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THE MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF THE GREATER BOSTON SENIOR COMPUTER GROUP WISH TO DEDICATE THIS NEWSLETTER to EARLE BARCUS who died on October 4th. Earle served fruitfully on the Board of the Greater Boston Senior Computer Group, and was known as the Dean of the Newton Senior Center computer training program. Since the programs inception, a record breaking number of seniors have been introduced and trained to use computers through the untiring and patient efforts of Earle and the other members of the volunteer teaching staff. Earle Barcus was a gentle, loving and peace- keeping personality, a friend to all of us and a caring family man. It will be extremely difficult to go on without his guidance.
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MICROSOFT OFFICE SYSTEM SNEAK PREVIEW is coming to our Greater Boston Senior Computer Group December 10th meeting. We will have a firsthand look at the new system and how to maximize our productivity at home and at the office, reduce spam, customize email, and much more. Microsoft has developed a series of interactive pre-launch activities to demonstrate how the latest Microsoft Office System is loaded with features that make it better than ever, Members will receive an extra drawing ticket for the giveaways which will be brought to the meeting by the Microsoft presenter for every friend they bring to this upcoming meeting. Be on hand for this special event and bring a friend.
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RULE OF THUMB from the October Langa Newsletter concerning the problems people encounter with their Internet browser such as Internet Explorer. If you are having trouble opening sites, which require a password, try to simplify the options setup. Temporarily reduce or turn off security settings, and then re-enable them step by step to try to isolate the problem. Many anti-web-bug software programs prevent your ability to run scripts or save the Cookies, which may let you go to programs that require a password. Likewise, a web bug may be simply counting the number of viewers to their site. This is how they convince advertisers to pay for using their pages. For instance Google is supported by advertising. Safe computing does, however, require you not to put any sensitive information on a site that doesn’t have a good privacy policy, or that looks suspicious, so that site will not have any sensitive information about you to store in its cookie. The cookies residing on your browser generally know only what you tell them.
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POOR CLARES NUNS OF GALWAY TAKE TO CYBERSPACE…explore their website http://www.poorclares.ie among other views see the nuns baking altar bread at the monastery. It is their intention to bring comfort to those in need of spiritual guidance through their entrance into the superhighway.
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TO PAUSE OR CANCEL PRINTING after you have started the print command, an icon of a printer appears on the taskbar at the bottom of your screen. Click the Printer icon on the taskbar. The print status window opens showing the name of your printer on the title bar. Click the Document on the menu bar. A menu opens showing two options. Click Cancel Printing if you want to cancel the print job or click Pause Printing if you merely want to wait before completing the printing. Since there is a lag-time of a few pages, don’t be concerned if your document doesn’t stop printing immediately. This method may be a paper saver.
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NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART…http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content information is provided for PC users who are concerned about the poor performance of their PCs due to the number of programs that run at system start-up. This is also a site to find links to several very good newsletters. It is updated on a regular basis and includes a Mac site.
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STARTUP MONITOR…is a small utility that runs transparently and notifies you when any program registers itself to run at system startup. It prevents useless tray applications from registering themselves without your consent. Find it at http://www.mlin.net/startupMonitor.shtml Free, but would like donation.
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AMERICA ONLINE USERS can look forward to new spam filters, which will be delivered in the coming months to members using AOL versions 8,7 and 6 as well as AOL for Mac OS X. It is planned that users of AOL will see a noticeable difference in the number of spam emails they receive. Seeing is believing.
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LAUGHING IS GOOD FOR THE SPIRIT…head for the cartoons on the net go to http://www.cartoonstock.com find a searchable database of over 40,000 quality gag cartoons, political cartoons, cartoon pictures and illustrations.
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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. We will publish your email address, but not your name, phone number or address without your permission