Welcome
to this week's edition of the Computer Kindergarten Newsletter.
Today is Sunday, March 8, 2009
In this Issue:
Special Feature: Watch out for
Phony Donation Boxes
Tips & Tricks: Twenty Five Most
Important Rules of Email Etiquette: 11. Ask Before You
Send Huge Attachments
Featured Computer Term: The Windows
Sidebar in Windows Vista
This Week's Topic: Cleaning Up Your
Hard Disk: Delete Restore Points
Question: Open a Jammed CD/DVD
Drive
Websites of Interest: Zooborns; Still Tasty; Wordsmith; SketchUp
DAYLIGHT
SAVINGS TIME: Don’t
forget to change your clocks.
Spring springs ahead; fall falls back!
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Special Feature: Watch out
for Phony Donation Boxes
The
following is from scambusters.org
If
you have ever dropped your change or a dollar bill into a collection box at
your local convenience store or gas station, you may have been the victim of a
donation box or donation jar scam. Kind hearts are the scammers' favorite
target and when it comes to creative thinking they are simply the best at
coming up with tales of woe.
At
the end of last year, sympathetic shoppers and others poured thousands of
dollars into donation boxes in shops, offices and factories in Northern
California. The story: a poor family's young son had died from cancer and the
family needed money to pay medical bills.
Months
later, a donation box scam artist was arrested, with
scores of fake collection boxes and a ledger listing 150 victim outlets in his
car. He had $2,000 in his pocket and six bank accounts holding more than
$30,000.
Turned
out he had used pictures of his own grandchildren on the collection boxes,
coupled with a pitiful, pleading message in English and Spanish.
Unfortunately
-- and donation scam artists know this -- stories of
hardship pull the most heartstrings in poor areas. So
the people who can least afford it end up the real victims in this kind of evil
fraud.
Similarly,
convenience store owners in these areas tend to be more willing to take the
boxes without asking too many questions. Big names, like 7-11, usually are less
likely to be fooled.
There
are really only two ways to protect again collection box scams.
The first, as we suggest above, lies with the owner. It
really is their responsibility, on behalf of their customers, to ask for
information that they can verify independently.
Second,
if you are tempted to put money in a counter donation box, ask the store owner if they have confirmed the story. If they have
not, don't give. If you are really
moved by the story, check it out for yourself and send your donation
direct to the needy cause.
It
is sad and unfortunate that genuine victims may lose out because of fakes like
this donation box scam. But
there's no reason why you should become a victim of sorts too.
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Tips & Tricks: Twenty Five Most Important Rules of Email Etiquette: 11. Ask Before You
Send Huge Attachments
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 do not 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.
Ask
Before You Send Huge Attachments
How
did you feel when you got that funny 253 MB picture? Even if you enjoyed it,
not everybody will be as amused. Some want to "just quickly check my
mail" only to end up watching their email program downloading and choking
for 20 minutes.
If
a mailbox is not constantly emptied, overly large
attachments can clog it and prevent the owner from getting email.
Before
You Send Huge Attachments
* ask if it's okay to send a
larger file (>1 MB) via email,
* compress whenever it makes
sense
* send a small version of
any image before sending the full-resolution picture.
To
learn how to compress files, visit this website:
http://email.about.com/od/netiquettetips/qt/et_compression.htm
To
send a small version of an image:
http://email.about.com/od/netiquettetips/qt/et_resize_image.htm
To
read previous editions of this series, please visit our newsletter archives:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/etiquette.html
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Special
Feature: Disposing of Old
Computers
Before you dispose of an old computer, you must make sure the information on
the hard drive cannot be recovered. Deleting files,
and even formatting the hard drive, just removes the information the computer
uses to find the files, not the files themselves. Files that have been erased
can be found again by someone with a little computer know how.
To
make sure your information is permanently deleted, you
should either remove the hard drive from the computer before you dispose of it,
or use an erasing program, called a wiping or shredding utility.
Here
are two wiping utilities that can be used:
http://www.cyberscrub.com/products/cybercide/index.php
http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/hard-drive-software/ontrack-eraser.aspx
For
free wiping utilities, visit
http://www.download.com
Do
a search for a free wiping program.
Before downloading and installing a program that you find there, be sure
to take a look at the Editors’ and User ratings
– the more stars, the better!
Free
for Computer Kindergarten Newsletter Subscribers: Drop off your old laptop or tower to us, we
will remove all traces of your files so that they can never
be recovered, sweep the system and uninstall all programs that you have
installed, and dispose of the equipment in an environmentally friendly manner. For more information, please call us at
631-539-4978 (Monday to Friday, between 9 AM and 5 PM).
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Featured Computer Term: The
Windows Sidebar in Windows Vista
The
Sidebar, which is anchored to the side of your
desktop, is a very convenient way to get to things you use without having to
look through menus or flip through windows. The Sidebar gives you quick access to
small programs called Gadgets.
These mini-applications perform various tasks such as displaying a clock
or calendar, access to contacts or a notepad, a weather report and more.
Windows
Vista includes eleven Sidebar gadgets: Calendar, Clock, Contacts, CPU Meter,
Currency conversion, RSS Feed Headlines, Notes, Picture Puzzle, Slide Show,
Stocks, and Weather. Of these, the Clock, Slide Show and Feed Headlines are displayed by default on a new computer. And, anyone can
develop gadgets; there are many more available on the Microsoft website.
How
to Set Up the Windows Sidebar in Windows Vista
If
the sidebar is not already displayed, click the Start
Orb. Click All Programs and then
click Accessories. Click Windows
Sidebar. You will now see the
sidebar on the side of the desktop.
You
can make changes to the Sidebar. In
your system tray which is on the right side of the
taskbar, at the bottom of the screen, are several small icons. Rest the mouse pointer on each icon to
see the name of the icon. When you
find the Windows Sidebar icon, right click on it. A menu will open; left click on
Properties.
In
the Properties window, you can choose which side of the screen to display the
sidebar. You can keep it on top of
other windows and set it to automatically start when
you turn your computer on. When you
are done with the settings, click the OK button.
NEXT
WEEK: Add Gadgets to the Sidebar
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.
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Today's
Topic: Cleaning Up Your Hard
Disk: Delete Restore Points
Today's
computers come with hard drives that have amazing amounts of disk space. But no matter
how big, new programs, caches, and temporary files can use up this free space
pretty quickly and cause clutter on the drive and computer slowdowns.
You
will see many programs out there offering to help you free up hard disk space,
for a fee. Windows has built-in
tools that will do just as thorough a job in cleaning up your hard drive
– and, they are free!
This
is the fourth article in our Cleaning Up Your Hard
Disk series. Over the next several
editions of this newsletter, we are going to show you how to use the Windows
tools to clean up your hard drive.
Delete
Restore Points
Every
time you download or install a new program, you make changes to your computer.
Sometimes that change may make your system unstable. The easiest way to fix
that is to go back to the way the computer was before you made the
changes. With System Restore,
you can do this.
Windows
periodically saves a copy of your computer’s system. These copies are called restore points. If you have just installed a program
and the computer is not behaving correctly, all you have to do is open system
restore, choose the last restore point, and your computer will return to its
previous stable state.
A
lot like the Undo feature found in most Windows program, System Restore is a
great system. If something goes
wrong, you can just go back to when things were right with your computer.
However,
if you do a lot of installing and uninstalling, you'll
have many restore points taking up space on your C drive. You really only need the most recent
one, so let’s delete all those older, unneeded restore points that are
taking up room.
Double-click
the Computer or My Computer icon on your Desktop. A window will open, listing the drives
found on your computer. We are
going to clean up the C: drive, which is the primary hard disk on your
computer.
Right
click on the C: drive. A menu will
display, left click on Properties. This will open the C Properties window. You will see the amount of used space
(blue), the amount of free space (pink) and the total capacity of the hard
drive. Below that, you will see a
pie chart diagram showing you the amount of used and free space.
Click
the Disk Cleanup button, which is found right below
the pie chart. Windows will
calculate how much space can be freed up. This may take a few moments, depending
on the size of your hard drive.
When
Windows is done with the calculation, the Disk Cleanup
window will display. At the top of
this window, click the More Options tab.
If
you have Windows XP
In
the System Restore area, click the Clean up button. You will be asked
to confirm the command; click to continue.
Click the OK button. All but
the most recent restore point will be deleted.
If
you have Windows Vista
In
the System Restore and Shadow Copies area, click the Clean up button. You will be asked
to confirm the command; click the Delete button. All but the most recent restore point will be deleted.
In
our next newsletter: Empty the
Recycle Bin
To
read our previous articles in this series, visit our newsletter archives:
Windows
Disk Cleanup
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/020809.html
Remove
Unnecessary Windows Components
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/022209.html
Remove
Unused Applications
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/030109.html
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Question: Open a Jammed
CD/DVD Drive
My
CD drive seems to be jammed and I cannot open it. Do you have any suggestions?
Answer:
Yes. It is very easy to open a stuck drive
with a paper clip.
Take a look at the drive. You should see a very small hole to
either the left or right of the button.
That is the Reset. Take a
thin paper clip, straighten it out and gently push it into the hole. The drive should open for you.
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Websites of Interest:
Zooborns
The
new animal babies from zoos around the world. A very cute website!
http://www.zooborns.com/
Still
Tasty
Here
is a useful website that will give you the shelf life of many foods.
http://stilltasty.com/
Wordsmith
If
you like to always improve your vocabulary, this site will email you a new word
every day with its meaning, origin and more.
http://www.wordsmith.org/
SketchUp
New
from Google, plan out your home or garden and see it
in 3D.
http://sketchup.google.com/