Issue 206,
December 2009 Sponsored
by Fox Valley Technical College
Email
Address: srnet@srnet-foxvalley.org
The Holiday Party will be held at the VFW Hall on Dec. 10. As of now about 35 people have
signed up to attend.
Next General Meeting – January 15 [Topic to be announced.]
General
Meeting for November:
New Officers were elected: President Tom Wiegand
and Treasurer Millie Gray.
Joel Anger from Office Depot explained how to
use the touch screen computers. The
screen is covered by a film which protects it from scratches. Touching the screen’s display of Icons and
radio buttons, functions the same as if using a mouse and clicking. 2 gigs of RAM is the minimal amount needed
for the operating system.
Joel also answered some questions concerning the
Control Panel, compressed files, and Road Runner’s antivirus program. Scan for virus contamination often. Scan flash drives as well as your hard
drives. Full scans are better than the
abbreviated ones, but they take hours to do.
The Windows Update tool will help determine if
your computer may be updated to work with Windows 7.
Local Meetings
We had another great turnout in attendance for our second Resource Sharing Meeting at the Bordini Center. A few of our members are working hard at creating a membership list. You will all be asked to fill out a card with a little of your personal information at the next meeting you attend if you have not already done so.
Some of the members shared their Windows 7 download and installation
challenges and success stories. The general feeling is that Windows 7 seems
to be a success. Jerry Sobiesczyk downloaded Microsoft Essentials and was
pleased with the results. Kerm McGinnis said that the reviews he has read
have been good although some members found Avira, their antivirus,
complicated to download while others did not. The Windows startup time can
be longer if you use Avira. Members seemed to like the new Windows Firewall.
This comes with Windows 7, Visa, or XP and has both incoming and outgoing
protection.
Several companies including Microsoft are offering Portable Apps. Lupe 1 has
over 200 available. Some of these programs are very good. These Apps can be
downloaded to a Thumb Drive allowing you to work with your own programs on
any computer and any operating system. We discussed how to create folders
and subfolders on these Thumb Drives for installing these programs and
saving your information. If you should need more space on your monitor
screen, we were given directions on How to Hide Your Taskbar. We went over
directions for changing the volume on your computer.
Marv Schimmelpenning told us about www.worldstart.com/wallpaper/index.php.
This is a website that allows you to download screensavers and background or
wallpaper, although screensavers can slow down your computer. You really do
not need to use one. We were instructed on how to turn our screensavers off.
We talked about the importance of cleaning our printer inkjet cartridges if
you have not used your printer for a few days and how to do this.
Internet by Linda Young
We continued our discussion on Portable Apps. www.portableapps.com is a
website with many good software applications. Check it out. Kerm McGinnis
likes the Speed Dial feature available through Firefox. This handy feature
allows you to have all of your favorite and most frequently used apps in
front of you so you can just click on the ones you want to use.
You will need to download www.eraserportable.com onto your harddrive and
transfer it to your thumbdrive while it is already open. Save it to a folder
and run the program and then send it to your flashdrive.
www.gimpportable.com is a photo editing
program portable app. that can be
downloaded and installed to your thumbdrive. www.biwordportable.com is a
suite of programs that can be downloaded as a portable app. Instead of the
Full Suite, use the Suite Lite because it takes up less space. Marv handed
out a list of 7 interesting websites. We
checked them all out during the
meeting.
Scanner/Photo by Linda Young
During our November meeting, Jerry Sobiesczyk handed out copies of Photo Suite III, some older but good Photo Editing Software to all our members.
We then spent the rest of the session with Jerry instructing us on how to make our own Christmas cards. We went on the internet and using clipart chose a picture for the front of our card. We used Word to place the picture in the proper place and size it. We then chose the Font we wanted to use and using Text Wrap and Word Art positioned that on our card. The results made for some varied and interesting cards.
Genealogy
Regional Meetings
Waushara
Sig by Judy Williams
There is no regular meeting in December. The Holiday potluck is Thursday, December 3,
Noon-2:00pm, at FVTC-Wautoma. Everyone
is invited; bring a dish to pass. The next “regular” meeting will be Thursday,
January 28, 1:30-3:30pm, at FVTC-Wautoma.
Tip of the
Month:
Inside Windows XP/MS Explorer is a best-kept secret remedy
for some font sizing troubles. With MS
Explorer and a scrolling mouse (the little wheel between the buttons), hold
down the Control key (CTRL) and scroll the wheel to adjust to a more
comfortable font size. NOTE: this will
also enlarge the printed font when printing from your browser. So minimize the font size before printing
anything.
Still
Needed:
A
volunteer to serve as the Secretary for the General Meeting Reports.
Quote for the Month:
Anyone who stops learning -- is old,
whether at twenty or eighty.
---
Henry Ford