Issue 204, October, 2009
Sponsored by FVTC
Email
Address: srnet@srnet-foxvalley.org
Calendar:
October Meeting :
Nancy Steinike writes: “I have been an
instructor for Fox Valley Technical College for the past 20 years. In that time
I have taught all of the Microsoft Office classes (Word, Excel, PowerPoint
& Access,) as well as Digital Camera Basics and Photoshop Elements Editing
Levels 1 & 2. I developed the camera and editing classes in June of 2005
and enjoy teaching and learning with my students every semester. My topic on
October 16th will be Digital Camera Basics focusing on “Getting out
of Green Auto Mode;” common, powerful features and where to find them on your
camera to take stunning photos.”
GROUP NEWS
Holiday Luncheon
Our annual Holiday Luncheon will again be held at the VFW, Thursday,
December 10. The social hour will be from 11:30AM, with the luncheon at noon.
Tickets are $13.00, and will be available at the Oct. and Nov. meetings.
Norm Pregler will handle the ticket sales.
Resource
Sharing and Internet Users Group
There
will be a special treat for this group at their next meeting on Oct 20. The group will be meeting at the Bordini
Center. The room numbers are 180-182, and the time
for Resource Sharing is 2:00 PM and Internet at 3:30 PM. Jerry has had a tour of these facilities and
is excited about the possibilities available there. Anyone is welcome to join us for this meeting
and find out what it is all about. Bring
or email your tough questions! [Parking is very easy!]
REPORTS FOR THE APPLETON MEETINGS
General Meeting: by Gladys Schwandt
10.22.09
is the date to remember for launch of Microsoft’s Windows 7. Paul Vernig, President of Samian Technologies
in Menasha, provided an overview of this newest version and said in the 3-4
months that he has used the beta edition he feels confident in recommending it.
Performance is faster than Vista, has backward software capability, streamlined
speed, and mainstream is 32-bit application.
Windows 7 cannot be loaded over Windows XP and user will need to
backup XP and then do a clean install, or buy an additional hard drive and
install on it. The task bar has changed
and there are many interesting “gadgets and media”. The search function is faster and more
versatile and “sticky notes” can be pinned to the screen for easy access and
discarded when the program closes. The
system boots faster and opens programs quicker. It appears “MS has done this
right.” (Paul Vernig can transfer
applications from XP to Windows 7 if such service is required.)
Scanner/Photo User Group by Linda Young
During
this session we continued working on our project using layers. We are utilizing
the various tools available in Adobe Photo Shop Elements.
We also had a discussion on computer maintenance at which time a member stated
the point that you should NOT do a defrag anymore than once a month. More often than that is not necessary and is
just extra wear and tear on your computer.
Genealogy User Group by Mary Klein
In
September used Google’s advanced search to build a query and looked at sites
for Norwegian genealogy.
Our October meeting will have two topics. We will look at how, when & why to use
genealogy mailing lists; and, we will look at other search engines to see what
they have to offer and why you might want to use them.
Resource Sharing User Group by Linda Young
A member
had the experience of an email or pop-up on their computer offering to sell them
virus protection saying that their computer may already be infected. These
people may just be trying to get your credit card information. Try to get out
of the program you are working in without clicking on their window.
Malwarebytes.com is a free program that will do an online scan of your
computer. This may be a good maintenance tool to take advantage of.
A member had the problem of a lost file. Methods of helping him correct this problem
were discussed.
The new Windows 7 operating program will be available from Microsoft on October
22, 2009. Not all the "extras" automatically come with this program. You can go to www.microsoft.com to check out the "extras" that are
available as free downloads. Some of these are Outlook for email, Windows Media
Center, and Windows Media Player. This
is explained in detail on the Microsoft website. We discussed in more detail
some of the features in Windows 7.
Check out
the October issue of PC Magazine to see who they rated as the three best FREE
antivirus programs.
Jerry Sobiesczyk was able to find copies of the new Windows Magazine that Marv
Schimmelpfenning brought in last month at Jerry's Pages & Pipes on College
Avenue. This is a really informative magazine that is published quarterly.
We are in need of someone who would be willing to be the Facilitator for the
Internet meetings. If there is anyone who would be interested in helping us out
your talent would be greatly appreciated.
Waushara User Group by Alice Waypa
During
Q&A, we shared helpful hints, such as using the F11 key in Internet Explorer
to toggle between full-screen (tool bars hidden) and regular views of the
browser window. We talked about the
jokes on the Reader’s Digest Web site www.rd.com
and about the daily vocabulary words on the www.wordsmith.org Web
site. For deleting multiple e-mails from
folders in MS Outlook, click on the first entry to highlight it, hold down the
Shift key, click on last entry, then tap Delete. When composing a message in Yahoo Mail, if the
formatting toolbar isn’t displayed, click on the link for Rich Text. This will display the toolbar and toggle the
link to Plain Text. In Yahoo Mail, if
you want to delete pictures out of My Photos (listed at the bottom of your
folders, under Trash), you click on My Photos ( not My Attachments),
then click on the words under the photo, then delete. Be careful you do not delete the ones you want
to save.
Waushara Genealogy User Group:
At the
Genealogy Users Group, we used www.ancestry.com and other Web sites for
research.
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
This month
we are asking someone to volunteer for Teaching or being a Teaching
Assistant. As such you would work with
the Steering Committee to establish guidelines and curriculum, arrange for your
one hour class format, and be reasonably certain that you could do this each
month. If you have an idea for a new
topic that you could teach, please present it to us for consideration. (e.g.-
Remember the General meeting we had where computerized sewing was discussed?)
Also
needed is a person to assist in writing reports for the General and User Group Meetings.
TECH TIPS
Have you tried any of these shortcuts?
Windows Key+E --The best part about shortcut keys is
letting your keyboard do half the work. This is a perfect example: This
shortcut allows you to open Windows Explorer with one quick keystroke.
Windows Key+M -- This is
the shortcut to keep in mind when you are at work doing anything but working—it
allows you to minimize all of your open windows, leaving just the desktop left
exposed. To restore the windows, hit Windows key+Shift+M. Another quick way to
do this is Windows key+D, which shows your desktop; to restore, just repeat the
same keystroke. This is a handy shortcut to have around the next time your boss
is wandering through the office.
Alt+Tab -- This
allows you to easily scroll through all the windows you have open. If you're
working in Word and referring to something in Explorer, for example, you can
toggle back and forth between the two programs. You can also use this to switch
between windows in the same program, making multi-tasking a breeze. Very
similar is Windows key+Tab: In XP, it lets you scroll the items on the taskbar,
and in Vista, it starts Flip 3D for a fun graphical spin on the same idea.
Inspirational thought for the day:
I would rather have it said,
“He lived usefully,” than, “He died rich.”
--Benjamin Franklin