Please Note : - ) All highlighted text in quotation marks such as "Ask" are shortcut links to more info. When your mouse pointer changes to pointed finger, click on it.

Great meeting today - those present showed they really wanted to learn and were serious. We will get the Dining Room for future meetings. The following is a summary of the information we covered today. 

Fifteen members attended.

An overview was presented of the Tutorial list from the Beckett Adult Learning Centre's Computer Club. The list has been revised and divided up into sections. Outlook Express appears most active with approximately 70 tutorials requested by the Beckett members. 

The group is encouraged to access SEARCH ENGINES, mainly "Google", "Vivisimo", "Ask", "Answers", & "Wikipedia" among others, and don't be afraid to use HELP when needed. Create a Search Engines folder in your Favorites/Bookmarks and save each one in it for fast access. 

Click "here" for rules to use when Searching to narrow down the number of web sites listed.

Mozilla Fire Fox and Internet Explorer #7 were briefly discussed to show their zooming features. For those who have difficulty reading some web sites, it is recommended you test them out. Remember, a mouse with a scroll wheel is a must to use with the Ctrl key to Zoom.

Click "here" for info on how to use a mouse with scroll button/wheel.

If you're interested in a third party Zoom tool you can try http://magnifier.sourceforge.net/ 

It is advised to all who access this Newsletter for updates to save the address under Favorites/Bookmarks. 

All additional web site addresses of any interest to you, should have their addresses added under Favorites/ Bookmarks. If you believe we should be aware of a particular web site, please feel free to submit it for our next session

E-MAIL - Much discussion developed over the sending and receiving of E-mails. Your E-mail application MUST be installed correctly or else you will have an abundance of SPAM, PORNOGRAPHY, UNWANTED ADVERTISING AND MORE TROUBLE THAN YOU CAN THINK OF.

Do not use Outlook Express unless you have an "ANTIVIRUS APPLICATION" protection supplied by your ISP (Internet Service Provider), or third party suppliers such as Norton, McAfee or AVG 7.5 (freebie). Keep your virus definitions up-to-date. 

Click "here" to follow procedures on how to use e-mail and the proper setup/cleanup for a trouble free application.

Under OUTLOOK EXPRESS when Forwarding E-mails, we should delete all previous addresses and erase all unnecessary text as well as all the >>>>>>>>> digits appearing. When sending to more than one person, list additional people under BCC. This ensures only the E-mail address of the receiver is displayed.

If in doubt as to what your E-mail will look like - send it to yourself first. 

PYRAMID E-MAIL bogs down the Internet, be selective, reduce or delete especially when they say IT WILL BRING BAD LUCK if you break the chain. Many of this type of mail ask you to forward to all of your contacts to make them aware of some unusual set of circumstances threatening to their lives. 99.999% are hoaxes. Check them out at "Snopes"  and/or "TruthorFiction" or you can do a Google search for "hoax" and get another 12 million web sites to verify whether your e-mail is for real or not.

Composing or Creating an E-mail and you lose it before it gets sent - check your buttons on the Taskbar, it might be hiding behind the open Application displayed on your Desktop.

IN BOX - This list of E-mails is best sorted by Date (the most recent one at the bottom or top, it's your preference).
Signs to the left of any item: Paperclip sign, meaning attachment, Flag, meaning some action required and !, meaning Priority and needs attention ASAP. 

To file multiple E-mails, open a new document with any Word Processor, copy each E-mail page and paste into the new document one at a time being careful not to overwrite previous info. Save the new document with a name and place you can remember, you may want to open it at a later date to add more E-mail pages to it.

Can't afford M$ Office for a Word Processor? Download "OpenOffice.org", it's a freebie and it has a Word Processor, Spreadsheet, a Presenter (similar to M$ PowerPoint) and a couple of other goodies.

Do you always have trash sitting in your "Deleted Items" folder? Click on Tools on the Outlook Express Menu Bar, select Options, select the Maintenance tab, place a check mark in the box for Empty Messages from the "Deleted Items" folder on exit. Click on Apply and OK. Sorry, there is no Blue Box.

A REBOOT question was asked and for the best answer, use Help on your Start Menu. Note the precaution re loss of data.

DEFRAGGING AND DISK CLEANUP programs - should be run weekly. 

SKYPE - This is a free program downloaded from the Internet. If you choose to use this program to call from your computer to someone on the telephone anywhere in North America, there is a charge - approximately $18 per year. A  microphone is required and a Webcam if the video portion is used. Calls can be made from computer to computer anywhere in the world for free.

SCANNING - Newsprint can be scanned using the article the same as for a picture. Name and Save the picture somewhere you can find it such as in My Documents/My Pictures. If you wish to edit the Newsprint, an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) Application is required. Again, give it a name and save it in a location you can remember where to find it. 

TUTORIALS - Professor Teaches Windows XP is a package of 5 programs ($30) available at Staples. It includes XP Home, XP Professional, Internet Explorer, Media and Networking.

The following E-mail was received within a few hours of our last meeting.

Thank you for the meeting information yesterday. When I got home, I received a phone call from a contact who wondered if I had an e-mail from her. Since I hadn't one on my regular e-mail I used the info you gave us about looking at MSN mail - junk file. There it was! Why it was there neither the sender nor I know. However I was able to retrieve it, take her name off the junk-mail list, send it to my regular e-mail and feel proud that I was able to use the information I'd got at the group within two hours of learning how to do it.

I thought the meeting went well, with useful information being exchanged and more participation from more members. I'm sure it will continue to develop into a vibrant group. Thanks for spearheading it. I'm looking forward to the next meeting.

Thanks to Joan for being such a good sport.

Maggie Carr

On-line Tutorials

Please take the time to search the Internet for a tutorial on your favourite subject. Any good subject will be added to our list of "On-line Tutorials"

Mouse -

Click "here" for info on how to use a mouse with scroll button/wheel. Need a new mouse, see Don at My Computer Store on King Street, a non-wireless, 3 button, optical mouse - $9.95. This weeks' Staples Flyer, page 7, also has a mouse at Half Price $9.95 and a webcam for $19.51

Open "Google" and search for "mouse tutorial", you should get at least 20,000. Try them, and get to know your mouse inside and out. 

E-mail -

http://www.actden.com/ 

http://ca.geocities.com/bpaling@rogers.com/index.htm 

http://www.learnthenet.com/english/section/email.html 

http://www.hispeed.rogers.com/yahoo/spotlight/tech_mate.jsp?id=20070112 Handle bulk e-mail.

Sincere thanks to the following who have joined our pioneers for establishing the ISAC Computer Support Group. 

Jeanette Antonides 
Chris Boehm 
Alice Greer
 Joan MacLeod
Rosemary McCurdy
Marilyn McFarland
Helen Talbot

If you have a friend or know of someone who would be interested in joining our group, please pass on the good word and invite them to join us.

Any computer topic near and dear to your heart you would like to know more about, please send me an e-mail.

bpaling"AT"rogers.com (Remove "AT" and replace with @)

Special thanks to Karen for taking notes, attendance, etc. I wouldn't have remembered half of what was covered and I know all of it was very important to our group.

I hope to see you again Tuesday afternoon, February  13, 2007 in the Dining Room at 13:00 hours. 

This message is also being sent to Wendy, Sherry and Rachel to make sure we're all on the same track.

NEXT MEETING - TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2007 @ 1:00 P.M. IN THE DINING ROOM

Ingersoll Senior Citizens
Revised: September 14, 2008 .