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Welcome to this week's edition of the Computer Kindergarten Newsletter.
Today is Sunday, March 26, 2006
In this Issue:
Special Feature: Minimize Junk Mail
Tips & Tricks: Microsoft Word – Reduce the Clutter
This Week's Topic: Find Specs for Your Computer
Question: Change Icon Names
Question: ROM Disks – Turn Off Auto Start
Websites of Interest: April Fools Day; Planning a Trip
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Special Feature: Minimize Junk Mail
Question: Lately, I get so much junk mail. I unsubscribe to the ones I get, but I keep getting more. How can I stop it?
Answer:
The following article is from worldstart.com (used with permission):
Q:
I keep getting e-mail from people with advertisements for sites I don't want any part of. How can I get my name off these lists?
A:
Well, it's tough. There's not really a good answer to that one. I don't think anyone has a sure fire way to keep them from sending that junk to you once they get your address. However, there are some things you can do to minimize it.
1. Don't ever reply or respond to those types of e-mail in any way. Just delete them immediately. Most of them use a fake e-mail address, so you can't reply to it anyhow. If you try to ask to be removed, it merely tells them they have a "real" e-mail address. After all, anyone who would send out junk e-mail like that probably doesn't really care if you're angry about being on the list. So, once again, just don't respond to the junk mail. Just delete it.
2. Be careful what you sign up for and tell your friends not to sign you up for anything. Often times, your friend will enter your e-mail address is some sort of advertisement, which opens the door to more junk mail for you. Your friend may not even tell you when they use your address, so if you happen to start getting those kinds of e-mails, ask around with your family and friends and make sure no one used your address without permission. If they did, maybe they would have information on how you can get off the list as well.
More on this, you don't want to accidentally sign up or get on a list that freely sells its subscribers to anyone who will buy (no, we do not do this, in case you were wondering) and your friends didn't inform you of this.
Unfortunately it works the same way online as it does in the real world of direct marketing. You purchase something and give your phone number away. The place you make your purchase from then sells your information and suddenly you start getting telemarketers calling constantly (especially at dinner).
So, maybe you signed up for or purchased something on the Web and the company sold your e-mail address. Now your address is on a CD with millions of others that's being sold for $150.00 to whoever wants to buy it. (And no, we take no part in that either).
My advice on this one is to make sure whoever you're giving your info to will respect your privacy and will not sell your information to a third party. If you're one of the thousands of people who have purchased software from us in the past, you probably noticed that we have privacy policy that promises we won't give your information away. Make sure any site you give your info to has a similar policy.
3. Another way that gets your e-mail address on these lists is by posting something somewhere on the Internet. Maybe you posted a classified ad or stuck a link on a "free for all" links page and your address is just sitting out there for the taking. There are little programs that "harvest" e-mail addresses from all over the net, so any time you post something, you risk getting added to on of the lists.
Keep in mind that chat rooms, especially on AOL, are good targets for these e-mail harvesters too.
Sometimes it's a good idea to maintain a free e-mail address for this kind of thing, so you can avoid getting lots of spam in your regular e-mail inbox. Check out Yahoo! or Hotmail mail for these.
4. And finally, tell people to use Bcc (Blind Carbon Copy) to forward you e-mail. Have you ever gotten something forwarded to you with hundreds of e-mail addresses in the header? If so, your e-mail address may be getting unintentionally passed all over the net. Tell people to make sure they Bcc forwarded messages to you so your address isn't exposed to the world.
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Tips & Tricks: Microsoft Word – Reduce the Clutter
if you would like to see more of your document and less menus and toolbars, you can switch to Full Screen mode. To do so, click View on the menu and then Full Screen. You will see all the menus, toolbars and the taskbar disappear. A very small window will display with Full Screen and Close Full Screen listed. (Look closely, it is very small and sometimes hard to find). If you need to give a command, click Close Full Screen and the program will return to normal.
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Today's Topic: Find Specs for Your Computer
How can I find out information about my computer like CPU speed, RAM, Hard Drive space, screen resolution, etc?
Answer:
You are going to have to look in some different areas for the information. Here is how:
For the version of Windows you are using, processor type, processor speed and memory, right click the My Computer icon on the desktop. From the resulting menu, left click on properties. This will open the System Properties window. Make sure the General tab is selected and you will see the info you want.
Older versions of Windows will not display processor speed in the System Properties window. To see this information, also known as CPU speed, you can watch the screen as the computer starts. Most computers will display the speed at some point in the startup; but watch closely, it goes by pretty quickly.
To see how much space the Hard Drive has and how much is being used, open My Computer and then right-click on the C: drive. From the resulting menu, left click on Properties. In the window you now see, there will be the size of your drive listed in bytes and gigabytes and displayed in a convenient pie chart. Blue is used space and pink is free space.
For Screen Resolution, right click on a blank area of the Desktop and then left click on Properties. In the Display Properties window, click the Settings tab at the top. You will see the screen resolution listed here.
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Question: Change Icon Names
Can I change the name on the desktop icons?
Answer:
Yes, you can. Point to the icon you want to change and click the right mouse button. A menu displays on the screen; click Rename. You will see that the icon name becomes highlighted. Begin typing the new name and the highlighted text will disappear, replaced by what you are typing. When you are done, press the Enter key. The new name will now appear.
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Question: ROM Disks – Turn Off Auto Start
Is it possible to put a CD into the drive and set something so it does not start playing? There are times I will put a CD in and want to use it later and it starts right up.
Answer:
Yes. When you put the CD in, hold down the Shift key on the keyboard. Then it will not start up. To use it later, open My Computer and double click the CD or go to Windows Explorer and open from there.
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Websites of Interest:
April Fools Day
Saturday is April Fools Day. What is April Fools Day and how did it begin? See what this website has to say:
http://www.web-holidays.com/aprilfools/articles/a1.htm
Want to play an April Fools practical joke on someone but cannot think of a good one? This site may help with the Web's biggest collection of April Fools Day freebies including practical jokes, gags, pranks, free gag software and more.
http://www.thefreesite.com/Seasonal_Freebies/April_Fools/
Send an April Fools e-card to your friends and family, free at:
http://freewebcards.com/cards/aprilfools/
Planning a Trip
If you are thinking about taking a road trip, visit the Rand McNally website for info on routes, hotels, activities, attractions and more.
http://www.randmcnally.com/rmc/road/rtgHome.jsp |
