Computer
Info –
This Week’s Program
Nell Franzel will demonstrate her
Palm Pilot and the software that you use on the computer. The remaining time will be used for our
usual question and answer session.
eBay.Com
eBay
is a public auction site. If you wish
to learn more about it – look for the LEARN MORE button near the top of the
page where it says Welcome New Users.
You can learn how to FIND items by name or category – learn how to BID
on an item (you must be REGISTERED first) – learn how to SELL (again you must
be registered and set up an account) – learn why eBay is SAFE to use (check a
seller’s business practices – it has an escrow service where your money can be
held until you inspect the merchandise).
But you do not have to be registered in order to browse the site to see
what is being auctioned.
Look
through a category or search for a particular item. When you find it, click on it to get more details. From here you can see what the latest bid
is, how long before the bidding will be completed, type of payment accepted,
how shipping charges are applied, a description of the item, sometimes a
picture of the item and many other details.
Look
for the BUY IT NOW icon. This indicates
that if you decide to buy it now, the bidding will stop as long as you meet the
BUY IT NOW price.
The
fee for using eBay is paid by the seller and it is based on the opening bid
plus one percent of the total bill.
Look for the padlock (which denotes security) when entering your credit
card information. PAYPAL is one of the
methods you can pay for your purchase – you can set up an account at http://www.paypal.com
PDA (Personal Digital Assistant)
Personal
digital assistants include the Palm Pilot.
These are devices that can be used for storing and editing an address
book – a calendar – a TO DO list. It
can also be used for playing games – editing Word or Excel documents –
connecting to the internet and retrieving your e-mail – and many other programs
that are available.
Information
is entered into the PDA from a stylus by means of a menu or alphabet icons or
graffiti (which is an abbreviated form of handwriting) – or with an attached
keyboard that can be purchased for PDA’s - or entered into the program that is
loaded onto your computer – or beamed (transferred via IR – infrared).
It
can be connected to a computer to transfer the information from the PDA to the
computer – or from the computer to the PDA – or both. It is connected to the computer via a USB cable. For those that do not have a USB port, a
serial cable can be purchased.
Transferring
the data between the PDA and your computer is done via the HOTSYNC button on
the PDA or the menu in the computer program.
Take for instance, the address list.
If you make changes to the record of JOHN SMITH on the PDA and then make
changes to the record of ROBERT JONES on the computer, when you perform a
HOTSYNC, the updated John Smith record will be moved to the computer and the
updated Robert Jones record will be moved to the PDA. So you can see that the information is in SYNC. If you were to make a change to the record
of PHIL BROWN on both the computer and the PDA – then both records for Phil
Brown would be placed on the computer and the PDA.
The
information in the address list can be EXPORTED as a Comma Delimited file. This type of file can be opened in EXCEL or
other types of databases (like the Personal Address List that we demonstrated a
couple of months ago) or Outlook Express.
Inoculate Anti-Virus
One
of our members informed us that Inoculate Anti-Virus was no longer going to
support (or update) their anti-virus program and their users would have to find
a new anti-virus program. You can read
about it at https://www1.my-etrust.com/services/ipe_support
Printing Web Pages That Contain Frames
Click
on the screen area of the frame that you wish to print. Then when you bring up your print menu, be
sure to choose PRINT THIS FRAME. This
should work the same in Internet Explorer and Netscape.
Copperfield.PPS
If
you were at last week’s meeting and saw John Watkins demonstrate the
Copperfield powerpoint show – you will find that you can download it from his
web site at http://www.hdprint.co.uk/ftp in the folder for FUN STUFF. This is a card trick by David Copperfield.
Steganography and Digital Watermarking
The
technique, known as steganography, is the practice of embedding secret messages
in other messages -- in a way that prevents an observer from learning that
anything unusual is taking place. Encryption, by contrast, relies on ciphers or codes to scramble a message.
Steganography
is being used to hide information in BMP and JPG pictures or MP3 music files or
in the white space at the end of a text file.
These are also potential places to hide viruses. This method of hiding information has also
been linked to Osama Bin Laden early in 2001.
This is
just a brief message about it just to inform you as to what can be done.
Cleaning Your Mouse
This
still seems to be a problem that people are not understanding. When your mouse begins to act erratically
(when you have a hard time moving your mouse to the position that you would
like) – then it is definitely time to clean it.
To clean your mouse – turn it upside
down. Rotate the circle around the ball
to loosen and remove it. The ball is
NOT to object that’s needs cleaning. Most
of the time, it is pretty clean. What
you need to clean are the little rollers inside the mouse where dust has
accumulated on (and wrapped around).
There should be three different rollers. Use a toothpick to try to dislodge it and then blow it out. You will find that your mouse behaves much
more smoothly.