With airline "on time" percentages continuing to fall, few things are as irritating as going to the airport to pickup a friend or family member just to find out that flight has been delayed. Google makes it pretty easy to quickly get the status of any flight by simply putting in the name of the airline with the flight number into the Google search bar. Example: Southwest flight 2584
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RESIZE DIGITAL PICTURES QUICKLY. Half the fun of taking pictures is sharing them with family and friends.
While it's great that newer digital cameras can take beautiful 5-, 6-, or 7-megapixel pictures, e-mailing such large photo files can clog up your recipient's Inbox. Resizing pictures before you e-mail them—or even before you burn them to a CD—is made simpler using a free Windows XP download called the Image Resizer, which is one of the many handy tools that make up the Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP.
You can also use the Image Resizer to resize photos so they'll fit on a compatible cell phone, personal digital assistant (PDA), or Portable Media Center so you can enjoy your photos while on the go. Using the Image Resizer is easy, and it will preserve your original photos for other uses you may have in the future. Check out this download site: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
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An Internet Site to explore and learn more Tips and Tricks:
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/index/0,00.asp-----------------
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SAVE YOUR WORK/PICTURES TO A CD: These days, virtually every PC has a writable CD drive. Your drive probably came with software that allows you to create audio CDs and perform specialized functions. If you use Windows XP or Vista, you don't need third-party software to write files to a disk in your CD-R or CD-RW drive. Here's how to use Windows built-in burning utility to perform simple backup tasks.
1. Right-click a file or folder, or a selection of files or folders that you want to copy to a CD.
2. From the shortcut menu, choose Send To, CD Drive (writer drive).
3. Repeat these steps for all of the items that you want to copy.
When you're ready to create your new CD or add to an existing CD, insert CD into the drive Open your CD drive in My Computer and click "Write these files to CD" in the task pane, OR choose "File"in the menu bar, "Write these files to CD".
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As an alternative to using the Send To command, you can drag files
into the Windows Explorer folder for your CD drive. You can drop
files on the CD drive icon, or on a shortcut to that icon. Or you
can use the Copy and Paste commands. When you copy files and folders
into the CD drive's folder, by whatever means, Windows prepares them
for transfer to a writable CD. The CD folder becomes, in effect, a
staging area for the eventual CD burn. One word of caution: You're
limited to the contents of one CD (650-702 MB). If you put too many
files in this temporary folder, you'll get an error message when you
try to burn a CD, and you'll have to clear out some files before
continuing.
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Many VO Club members use a free virus software known as AVG. The old version will expire at the end of May 2008. There is a new version of this software available for download. First uninstall the existing versions on your machine and then go to the following web site to download the more current version.
http://free.grisoft.com/ww.download?prd=afe
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If you are considering buying a laptop this Wall Street Journel article has good advice.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120777238299202605.html?mod=djemAutos
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CREATE A WEB SITE OF YOUR OWN: Not everyone needs a website that looks like it was created on Madison Avenue and not everyone has a budget to hire even a low cost web developer to create a web presence for their company or organization. If all you need is a simple "brochure" or "business card" site, you may want to take a look at what Google is cooking up in their labs.
Google's Page Creator project is a free online tool (that's still in the testing phase) that makes it easy for anyone to create and publish simple websites in a matter of minutes. If you want to take it for a test drive, go to: pages.google.com
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The Quick Launch Toolbar install. Instead of having to click on the Start menu, then on Programs to launch applications, you can use the ever present Quick Launch Toolbar for your most commonly used programs. This bar will appear next to the START down in the left side of the Task Bar at the bottom of your screen. Without having the minimize any programs to see your Desktop, you can quickly launch your e-mail, Microsoft Word, your favorite web browser or any program that you frequently use. Simply drag the icon you use often to the Quick Launch Toolbar.
To activate this toolbar, simply right-click on any blank part of the Task Bar (the blue bar at the bottom of your screen), in Vista uncheck the "lock toolbar",float your mouse over the "Toolbars" option, then click on Quick Launch. The default icons will suddenly appear just to the right of the Start button. Repeat to recheck "lock toolbar".
BONUS: Windows Vista users can launch anything on the Quick Launch Toolbar by holding down the Windows key and pressing 1 through 0 for the corresponding icon!
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The Windows Security Center was added a while back to help keep us secure in various areas; anti-virus, firewall and automatic updates. Whenever the Security Center sees a potential problem, it pops up in the Systray (bottom right, next to the clock) to tell us that we might not be safe. While this can be helpful, sometimes it can be a real nucense!
An example would be for various anti-virus programs that take a while to get loaded, every time you boot the Security Center will warn you that you may be at risk because an anti-virus program is not installed. If you know for sure that you have an anti-virus program that is set to automatically update, you can tell the Windows Security Center to STOP BOTHERING ME!
Here's how: Open the Control Panel and then click on the Security Center icon. In the left hand column at the bottom is the option to "Change the way Security Center alerts me". Once you click that link, you can remove the checkmark for any of the three areas that you no longer want to be monitored.
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THE TASKBAR MOVED!!!???? The blue "Taskbar" that usually resides along the bottom of the Windows Desktop can sometimes get moved to the sides or top of the screen if someone happens to drag the mouse just right. The size of the Taskbar can also be increased or decreased by clicking on the top edge of the bar and dragging up or down.
But most folks that we encounter have had these changes occur accidentally (especially on systems that are shared by many users) and they want to keep it from happening in the future. Once you have the Taskbar in the location and size that you want, right-click on any blank part of the Taskbar and select the "Lock the Taskbar" option.
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SO YOU HAVE “VISTA”…PC Magazine has listed some solutions to some common problems. Go to the following site:
http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,1874,1786052,00.asp
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The best protection against outside harm to your computer is to stay updated on your Windows software and Virus protection. The second Tuesday of the month is usual date for Microsoft Updates. Better yet, set your machine to do auto updates. Find out more by going to this link. http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/update/msupdate_keep_current.mspx#EZB
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To save your mouse hand from over use and pain Use the left hand. Or use keyboard short cuts, such as,
To open a menu item use the ALT key and the underlined letter in the menu item. For other time-saving keyboard shortcuts, see Microsoft's website.
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If you use Microsoft Word at all, you have likely run into this scenario:
You accidentally left out a word in a sentence, so you place the cursor where you want to insert a word or two and start pressing the space bar to make room. To your dismay, instead of making space, it starts deleting a character every time you hit the space bar. The reason this happens is that you have changed the editing mode that Word is in from "insert" to "overwrite". Word will tell you if it is in "overwrite" mode at the bottom of the document (at the end of the line that tells you what Page, Sec, Ln and Col you are on) when the "OVR" is in black. If it is in "insert" mode, the "OVR" is grayed out. To toggle between these modes, simply press the "Insert" key, generally just to the right of your backspace key (you most likely pressed it by accident at some point.)
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Homeland Security has a newletter and web site informing of us of vuleralbities to our computers. This especially important to business and the US economy but we home computers users can use the
information to protect our own computers. To stay informed on how to keep your computer protected go to:
http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/
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EXPLORER 7 is now the browser being used on the VO computers. If you still need to see the tool bar so as to print a highlighted selection off an internet page~~~~~~~~~~~then tap the ALT key on the keyboard and the old tool bar appears along with the menu choice of FILE,PRINT,PRINT PREVIEW, PRINT SELECTION.
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One of the prime questions that everyone should be asking before they decide to upgrade to Vista is "Will my current programs work?". Go to:
http://www.datadoctors.com/help/kenscolumns/column.cfm?id=20503
Go to Microsoft's Vista Home page. Paste or type this address into
your browser's address field: www.microsoft.com/Windowsvista/
If you buy a new machine with Vista installed, you'll still need to
transfer your data. Use Microsoft's Easy Transfer to move files and
settings from our XP machines. go to the following link:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/
upgradepaths.mspx
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FOUND A GREAT INTERNET SITE???? Save the site in your "favorities" so that you can come back to that site next time you sign on to thecomputer. Learn how by going to
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie6/using/howto/share/favorites.
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From time to time we create documents that have just enough text to
run into a second page, but wouldn't it be nice to be able to
squeeze everything into one page without having to delete some of
the content? This tip reminds you that you can change the margins
in the document (sometimes, ever so slightly!) to get everything to
fit on a single page. You may also need to change the margins on a
single page of a multiple page document to accommodate a chart or
some other graphical image. In either case, click on the "File"
menu, then on "Page Setup" to reveal your Margin options. Word will
not let you reduce the margins below what your printer will allow
(usually .5") without warning you. If you are making a change in a
multi-page document, then select one of the options from the Apply
to: dropdown box - Whole document or from this point forward.
Another alternate is to 1) Go to File/Print Preview and then 2)
click on the icon that refers to "Shrink to Fit". A two page with
only a little bit of text on the second page will "wow" all fit on
one page. Try it also for multi-page documents.
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Mac related
Many people falsely believe that Apple computers aren't vulnerable
to attack. But as they become more popular, expect to see more
hackers targeting Macs. Be sure to check the internet site for
regular updates.
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