Computer Info – December 20, 2000

This Week’s Program

        John Watkins will again host the meeting. He will start with the items that he did not have time for last week -- how to create CHRISTMAS STAMPS -- a USB hub with lots of extra ports for everyone to see -- setting up multiple phone numbers or accounts in your dial-up networking – and any other miscellaneous topics that arise.

Correspondence Cards

        Another Christmas idea that you can create in Word. Correspondence Cards are something that the English use – it would be equivalent to our postcards. You can insert them into an envelope or mail them just like a postcard.
        You would purchase card stock paper (and print four to a page) – or you can buy packages of perforated postcards. If you were going to give these as a gift, you would probably give them in a packet of twelve (12).
        You can use the template that you saved when you created your notelets. You will again have to remember that you can not print to the edge of your paper – because your printer will not print that far.
        As for the design of these cards, that is up to your imagination. A formal one that you would insert in an envelope might just contain the name of the person you are giving them to; and, possibly, their address and a line to separate that information from the area where a person would be writing on it. Or you may wish to add clipart or photos on it and use the backside for writing your correspondence.
        Here is a handy tip ----- if you need to hide a portion of a line or picture ---- you can insert a rectangle (found on the Drawing toolbar) to cover the area that you wish. When you insert it, it will be a white box with a black border. To remove the black border, right click on your rectangle and choose FORMAT AUTOSHAPE. Change the line color to NO LINE. You can also use the LINE COLOR icon on the DRAWING toolbar to do the same thing.

Easy Keystrokes to Fancy Lines

        While you are in WORD, you can easily create a line across your paper by entering only three characters. Try it.

        Type three dashes and hit the ENTER key – and it will create a solid line across your page.

        Type three pound signs and hit the ENTER key – and it will create a wide center line and a narrow line on each side of it across your page.

        Type three periods and hit the ENTER key – and it will create a dotted line.

Holiday Lights

        John demonstrated a cute little program that might delight you during the holidays. It is called Holiday Lights. It allows you to have control over various features of your string of lights – like Missing Lights – Burned Out Lights – Shape of the Lights, etc.
        You can get this program from John’s ftp server in the Out-Going folder – then the FunStuff folder. It is called Lights95.
        When you run it, it will place an icon next to your clock on the taskbar. To turn off the lights, double click on this icon and you will be given the choice of quitting.
 
 

A Tidy Desktop

        Keep your desktop tidy. Put your icons in folders. To do this, right click on the desktop and choose NEW from the menu – then FOLDER. This will place a folder on your desktop – and the words NEW FOLDER will be highlighted in blue and the cursor will be flashing. This means that you can then just put your fingers on the keyboard and start typing a name for your new folder.
        To move your icons into your folder, right click on the icon and drag it to your folder. When you release the button, you will be given a menu that will allow you to MOVE HERE – COPY HERE – PLACE SHORTCUT HERE. You want to MOVE the icon. This will place the icon in the folder.
        You can even drag this folder (with the right mouse button) to the TASKBAR (the Quick Launch area) and choose MOVE HERE. This will remove it from your desktop and you will be able to open with one mouse click.

Rotate Text

        Since normal text can not be rotated in Word – you have to use Word Art. You will find the icon for it on your Drawing toolbar – or from the main menu, choose INSERT – PICTURE – WORDART – or turn on your WordArt toolbar by choosing VIEW – TOOLBARS – WORDART. Type your text – choose the font and the font size. When you have placed your text (WordArt) in your document, you can then rotate it. On the WordArt toolbar, one of the icon will be for FREE ROTATE.

Create a Page of Special Things

        Once you have created something like the WordArt text – or a special saying – or an edited piece of clipart – that you think you might like to use again ----- why not save it to a special document perhaps called Special Items.
        Your document might contain a page of clipart – a page of photos – a page of greeting card verses. This will give you one place to find the items that you use repeatedly.

Security Holes in Internet Explorer

        A security hole in the older versions of Internet Explorer could expose your identity if you use Web-based services like Hotmail. This problem exists in versions 4.x through 5.01.
        The danger – A mischievous surfer with nothing better to do could steal the cookie that identifies you, at sites such as Hotmail, and masquerade as you. That means someone could send and receive e-mail through your account.
        The vulnerability only affects sites that use cookies as a way to immediately identify users, saving them the hassle of entering a user name and password each time they log on. Fortunately, most sites – in particular most e-commerce sites – don’t use cookies to authenticate users like Hotmail and Yahoo Mail do. So, you don’t have to worry about this vulnerability at any site that requires you to type in a user name and passwarod to enter secure portions of the site.
        Microsoft says it has fixed its browser to stop an intruder from stealing cookies. To get the fix, download Internet Explorer 5.5 (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/download/ie55.htm) or you can install Internet Explorer 5.1 Service Pack 1 (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/download/ie501sp1.htm)