|
Welcome to this week's edition of the Computer Kindergarten Newsletter.
Today is Sunday, January 25, 2009
In this Issue:
Special Feature: A Bad Economy is Good for Scammers: Bait-and-Switch Scams
Tips & Tricks: Twenty Five Most Important Rules of Email Etiquette: 6. Clean Up Emails Before Forwarding Them
Featured Computer Term: Bookmarks and Favorites
This Week's Topic: Copy or Move Files or Folders
Special Feature: Temporary E-mail Addresses
Websites of Interest: Braingle; Wise Geek; Behind the Names; Children’s Literature Web Guide
**************************************************************
Special Feature: A Bad Economy is Good for Scammers: Bait-and-Switch Scams
The following is from http://www.bottomlinesecrets.com. Reprinted with permission.
Rising unemployment rates, sky-high fuel prices, a plunging stock market and falling home values have landed many Americans in difficult financial straits. This makes people psychologically predisposed to jump at a potential solution -- without stopping to consider whether this solution is truly as appealing as it seems.
Here is a recently reported scam that is designed to take advantage of America's current economic problems...
This is a version of the mortgage scam described in last week’s edition. A financial professional claims that he can help you refinance your mortgage with affordable terms, rescuing your home from foreclosure. He might say that there is a special government refinancing program designed for home owners just like you.
This person will produce a stack of complex legal documents for you to sign and will warn you that you have to act fast because this special mortgage refinancing program is about to end.
The complex legal documents you sign will not solve your mortgage problem. Most likely, they will transfer ownership of your house to the scammer, yet leave you responsible for paying the mortgage.
Self-defense: Never sign legal documents related to your home without first having them reviewed by an attorney familiar with housing issues (ask friends and colleagues for recommendations).
Be extremely wary when someone says that you must act immediately to take advantage of a financial program.
In the next edition of this newsletter: A Bad Economy is Good for Scammers: Phantom Mortgage Scams
Visit our Newsletter Archives for previous articles on A Bad Economy is Good for Scammers
Unpaid Fuel Bill
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/111608.html
Technicians at your Home Scam
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/120708.html
Work-at-Home Scam
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/121408.html
Gas Saver Scam
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/011109.html
Mortgage Scams
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/011809.html
**************************************************************
Tips & Tricks: Twenty Five Most Important Rules of Email Etiquette: 6. Clean Up Emails Before Forwarding Them
This article is part of our ongoing series on Email Etiquette. With the help of Heinz Tschabitscher from about.com, we are taking an in depth look at email etiquette. To read previous editions of this series, please visit our newsletter archives:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/etiquette.html
The rules of email etiquette are not rules as much as they are guidelines that help avoid mistakes (like offending someone when you don't mean to) and misunderstandings (like being offended when you're not meant to).
These core rules of email etiquette help us communicate better via email.
Clean Up Emails Before Forwarding Them
Forwarding emails is a great way of sharing ideas. Good ideas will hopefully be shared a lot.
If you are at the end of such a sharing chain, you'll quickly see why cleaning up emails before forwarding them is essential: messages that have been forwarded multiple times often contain '>' and other quotation characters in all the wrong places, lines are broken in even worse places, and email addresses of people you don't want to know are everywhere.
Clean Up Emails Before Forwarding Them
Cleaning up such a mess can be cumbersome, but keeping an email clean that you forward initially is easy.
* First, make sure you're sharing the email, not the addresses in it by removing all addresses from the forwarded message. Of course, there are exceptions. In particular, when the list of who participated in a discussion is an important part of the information you are forwarding, it makes no sense to remove the addresses.
* Then, clean up the message itself if it contains unnecessary '>' characters or messed up line breaks. Email cleanup utilities can do this nasty work for you.
* Place any comments you have after or (preferably) before the forwarded message, but try to avoid mixing forwarded text and comments.
To read previous editions of this series, please visit our newsletter archives:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/etiquette.html
**************************************************************
Featured Computer Term: Bookmarks and Favorites
Question: What is a bookmark is and how is it accomplished?
Answer
Bookmark means to mark a document or a specific place in a document for later retrieval.
Nearly all Web browsers have a book marking feature that lets you save the address (URL) of a Web page so that you can easily re-visit the page at a later time. Bookmarks are also known as Favorites or Favorite Places.
Once you begin visiting many different websites, you will most certainly find sites you really like or you visit quite often. Given the length of some of the website addresses out there, the typing can get pretty long, and the longer the URL, the more likely you are to either forget it or mistype it. This is why the Favorites feature is included.
Favorites are just bookmarks you can create that will contain the entire address of the sites you want or need to remember. You can add, remove, and organize the Favorites however you choose.
To Add a Favorite
When you’re viewing a website that you would like to think you would like to return to in the future, click Favorites on the menu bar, then click Add to Favorites. This will bring up a window asking you what you would like to name it. You can name this anything you like, and the URL will remain the same. It's always safe to accept the default given and click OK.
Organizing Favorites into Folders
It’s a good idea is to index your favorites into different folders based upon subject, importance or however you want to organize. This will eliminate a long list of favorites that you would have to scroll through every time you’re looking for something.
In the Add Favorites dialog box, selecting the button Create in will display a new drop listing the available Favorite folders already present. To create a folder, select New Folder. Suppose you found a page on Classical French Cuisine, you might want to put that Favorite in a new folder named Cooking. You would need to click Add to Favorites, then name the book mark French Cuisine, then click Create in, which would give you the option to click New Folder, which you would name Cooking. After you have named the folder, be sure you are in the Cooking folder, and once again, click OK to finalize your addition of a new Favorite.
Supposing you decide a particular Favorite or even an entire Folder needs to be moved into a different Folder, you'll want to use the move button, from within the Organize Favorites windows. By selecting a one or a Folder of Favorites, this button is enabled. With your selection made, click the Move button. This will bring up a new window listing, once again, all your Folders. Select the one you want to move to, and click OK.
Removing Favorites If at some point you find that you no longer need a particular entry in your Favorites, or perhaps an entire Folder of Favorites, then you'll want to remove them. If you recall, when you clicked the Folder icon, there was an option to Organize Favorites. If you select this, a window appears listing all your Folders and the Favorites contained in them.
To remove a single entry, browse through the folders you have by double-clicking the folders one at a time. Each time you do this, you narrow down the list to only the Favorites contained in the Folder you selected. When you find the particular entry you want to remove, click once on it. As you do this, the option to delete the Bookmark is enabled. When this happens, click Delete, and you are all set.
Removing whole Folders follows the same steps. Browse through the folders, and find the one you want to remove. When you are in that folder you will see the contents of it and no other folder. Keep in mind though, there may be folders within folders. If you remove one, and there are folders within it, those folders will be removed. When you are sure you want to remove, click Delete.
Is there a computer term or phrase that you'd like to see an explanation of? Email it to info@computerkindergarten.com and we'll put the term and its definition in an upcoming newsletter.
**************************************************************
Today's Topic: Copy or Move Files or Folders
Open up Windows Explorer. You can find Explorer by clicking the Start button, then choose Programs, then choose Windows Explorer.
To move a file or folder, click the file or folder you want to move. From the Edit menu, click Cut. Click on the folder where you want to put the file or folder. From the Edit menu, click Paste.
To copy a file or folder, click the file or folder you want to move. From the Edit menu, click Copy. Click on the folder where you want to put the copied file or folder. From the Edit menu, click Paste.
To select more than one file or folder to move, hold down the Ctrl key, and then click the items you want.
To use drag and drop instead of menus, find the file or folder you want to work with. (Make sure the place you want to drag the file or folder to is visible on your screen). Drag the file or folder to the destination.
The result depends on the type of file and the destination you selected. For example, to print a file, drag it to the printer icon. If you use your right mouse button to drag, a menu will appear with the available options. If you drag a file to a folder on the same disk, it will be moved. If you drag it to a folder on another disk, it will be copied.
**************************************************************
Special Feature: Temporary E-mail Addresses
Shopping online and registering at websites can greatly contribute to the amount of junk email that you get. In most cases, you are asked for your email address. If the owner of that site decides to sell collected email addresses, you may soon be getting so much junk mail that your address will become unusable.
A temporary email address can be very helpful. If you shop for something, check your email immediately after you complete the purchase. Save the confirmation email and after that, you don’t need that address any longer. When you register on a site to get some information, give them the temporary address, and after you’re done at the site, you don’t need that address any longer.
Here are several sites that provide temporary email addresses. All are free.
http://www.mytrashmail.com/
http://www.explodemail.com/
http://www.mailinator.com/
http://www.temporaryinbox.com
http://www.maileater.com/
**************************************************************
Websites of Interest:
Braingle
Are you ready to test your wits with some brain teasers, puzzles and riddles? If you are, check out this website.
http://www.braingle.com/
Wise Geek
This website is dedicated to giving you clear answers to specific questions. You will find topics on finance, crafts, health, technology and many more.
http://www.wisegeek.com/
Behind the Names
Find out the history of your name.
http://www.behindthename.com/
Children’s Literature Web Guide
For the kids. Look for award-winning children’s books, stories online and much more.
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/index.html
|
|
