Newsletter: 25
Family History for the Older and Wiser
I have just finished reading Sue Fifer’s book on researching your family history in the Older and Wiser series. I can strongly recommend this book to those of you who are interested in the subject. She has adopted an interesting approach to the subject by researching a Victorian marriage certificate she bought at an antiques fair. She explains how much the use of the internet can help in establishing a family history – even without information gathered from older members of the family.
Wireless networks for laptops
You can find out what wireless networks are available in any new location by clicking on the wireless icon in the notification area at the right end of the task bar. Select the strongest signal from the list but beware that you may have to pay for access to some commercial networks. Bud Smith has written an invaluable guide to the use of laptops – Laptops for the Older & Wiser – which taught me several things that I did not know about the use of laptop machines.
Changing the desktop background
Are you getting tired of your desktop background picture? It is a simple procedure to change it. Right click on the desktop and choose Properties or Personalise. You can then change the picture to any image that you have stored on your computer. There are several Windows themes but if you want to use one of your own pictures click on Browse and navigate your way to the image and choose Open. You may have to click on Stretch to get the image to fill the screen. You can even get the desktop to show a slide show of images by selecting multiple images.
Viewing pages side-by-side
Several pupils have asked whether there is a simple way of displaying two pages side by side on the screen. This can be useful if you need to compare two documents or web pages and avoids the need to switch back and forth between the pages. If you have got Windows 7 or Vista simply open both pages then right click on the task bar at the bottom of the screen and select Show pages side by side or, with XP, select choose Tile pages vertically. There are other ways of doing this but this is probably the simplest.
Inland Revenue scam
I thought I had a pleasant surprise last week when I got an email from HM Customs & Excise informing me of a tax refund. Unfortunately this proved to be a nasty scam which managed to slip past my email filtering systems. The message invited me to go to a web page to confirm my identity and it was then that alarm bells started to ring because one of the requests was for my bank account password. I never give out my bank details over the internet and further research on Google proved that this was a recognised email scam. Just remember that organisations such as HM Customs or banks will NEVER convey sensitive information by email.
Passwords
A recent survey showed that more than 50% of computer users employed easily guessed passwords such as ‘12345’, ‘qwerty’ or even ‘password’ to protect their personal details. Any computer thief worth half a teaspoon of salt would quickly guess many of these passwords. In many instances password security is hardly essential. For instance, if you have to register to view a shopping site but have no intention of buying anything from that site then a basic password will do but, if you are invited to enter your credit card details or those of your bank account, secure passwords are essential. Passwords are always case-sensitive so a simple way of making them more secure is to include the occasional upper case character or number.
Browsing with tabs
Many people are content to use a single page in their web browser replacing it whenever they wish to view another site. They seem to be unaware of the advantages of the tabs feature offered by most browsers. The tabs bar usually lies immediately above the main part of the browser window and allows you to have several web pages open to view at any one time. There are several different ways of opening a web site in a new tab but I am just going to mention three. Possibly the easiest method is to click on the vacant tab at the right end of the tabs bar and enter the new web address in the address bar. To open a link in a new tab you can either hold down the Ctrl key while clicking on the link or you can click on the link clicking the mouse wheel. Using tabs makes it so much easier to compare items for sale on different sites; view the particulars of a hotel in one tab while checking a route map of how to get there in another or even keep a YouTube video in one tab to show your partner when they get back from shopping while you continue to keep abreast of the news in another.
Finding photos with Picasa
After a year or two of taking digital photos and loading them into your computer you will have accumulated a large number of images which can make it difficult to find a particular one you are looking for. The answer to this problem is re-naming of the files. Digital cameras allocate fairly useless alphanumeric names to image files – such as DSC126845 or pic97586. Fortunately these names are easily changed using Picasa. Simply select the image that you want to rename, click on File, choose Rename and enter a more descriptive file name. There is even a keyboard shortcut using the F2 key. It could take some time and patience to rename each file individually but the process can be shortened by renaming multiple files. Let us assume that you have number of photos of Windsor Castle interspersed with images of Auntie Lil who joined you on the trip. Select the castle images – using Shift+click for consecutive files or Ctrl+click for randon files – the rename them all at once. The result will be that the first photo of Winsor Castle will be named Windsor Castle while the subsequect files will e named Windsor Castle 1, Windsor Castle 2 etc.. Once the files have been renamed it is a simple process to enter part of the filename into the search box when all files which fit the search term will be displayed. Thus, entering “Wind” into the box will bring up all photos with those characters in the file name such as Windsor Castle and Wind in the Willows.
Useful websites
Learn a new skill by using the word “tutorial” in the www.youtube.com search box.
Use www.kayak.com for a comprehensive listing of cheap flights.
Catch up with your favourite BBC TV programs at www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer
Explore the magnificence of the Vatican at www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_giovanni/vr_tour/index-en.html and make sure you have the sound turned on to hear the beautiful music.
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