MIKE'S COMMENTARY THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE NEWS & NOTES BY SUE FOUST
MIKE'S COMMENTARY AND/OR BITS OF WISDOM:
Too many couples marry for better or for worse, but not for good.
When a man marries a woman, they become one; but the trouble starts when they try to decide which one.
KCNET CLASSES:
Beginner Windows 9x/XP 4 session course Topics include an introduction to all parts of the computer, learning about the desktop, mouse features and operation, and features and operation of the keyboard. Also creating shortcut icons, using recycle bin, wallpaper and screen savers, toolbars and taskbars, drag and drop, using window features (minimize, maximize, resize, etc), control panel, accessing the different drives, and more. There is always time for questions and general exploration.
Intermediate Windows 9x/XP 4 session course Topics include organization of windows programs, creating and organizing folders, file extensions, saving files from Internet, folder and file views, formatting floppy disks, installing programs, download programs from Internet, HTML email, uninstall vs delete, scandisk and defrag, email attachments, and more. There is always time for questions and general exploration.
Advanced Windows 9x/XP 4 session course Topics include a review of the management of folders and files, an introduction to photo manipulation, introduction to web page creation, using the sound recorder, attaching recordings to emails, introduction to eyeball cams and Internet transmission, and an introduction to burning your own CDs. There is always time for questions and general exploration.
KCnet Users Group: (formerly know as "Senior Net Learners" most recently called "Advanced Class"). I wanted to call this class "The Abusers Group", but Sue would not hear of that. Attendees are persistent in their search for computer knowledge. They ask great questions and present interesting challenges. The cost for this class is $0.00 for members of KCnet and $2.00 per session for non KCnet members. There is no set format for the sessions. Occasionally we will take a specific subject and do a detailed study over a period of successive weeks. Don't be afraid to ask questions. The folks that have been attending for awhile are always happy for a review and in most cases new or better ways to do things will surface. Questions stimulate in-depth exploration with the usual result being an understanding of how and why. We welcome new attendees from the Advanced sessions and our forever growing KCnet membership. This is an advanced group and we cover a lot of territory. We are kind of free flowing. You never know what will transpire. It is not necessary for attendees to have their own computers but it sure helps with the learning curve. KCnet Advanced Class computer knowledge and Advanced Class computer skills are necessary.
OTHER CLASSES: CLICK HERE FOR ORIENTATION - BEGINNERS - INTERMEDIATE - ADVANCED CLICK HERE FOR SCANNING - MAC- GENEALOGY - WEB PAGE - EXCEL - WORD - DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY - PHOTO MANIPULATION - OTHER SPECIALTIES
THIS WEEK'S CLASS SCHEDULE:
BEGINNER WEB PAGE CREATION Tuesday -- 9:00-11:00 Final Session -- May 03 Instructor: Mike Foust
KCnet Users Group: Every Wednesday The starting time is 9:00 AM on this Wednesday May 04. We meet in Computer Lab 1 (The Big Room). This past Wednesday we: Just bounced all over the place. Started with some PowerPoint pointers such that saving a PowerPoint creation with a .ppt (the default save) will have a program open with the first slide of the show and require the viewer to start the show manually. If the creator saves the presentation as a .pps the presentation will open to the show automatically. This is a nice tip. WE looked at some cute emails with fotos and movies. We saw some PowerPoint creations by Wayne Smith, John Laubscher, and Joe Marasco. Nice work to all the creators. Thanks to John Way for his PowerPoint assistance the past two weeks. We saw a little java script program from Worldstart that allows one to determine the latest update for URLs. A "how to" handout was provided. Speaking of Worldstart we downloaded Worldstart's Newsreader. It is a RSS reader. We subscribed to four newsletter to be delivered in the format that can be accessed via the newsreader rather than email. This is a very nice program and Worldstart has some very informative Newsletters. Register for the newsletters as an email or as an RSS feed at http://www.worldstart.com. You can download the Newsreader for this site too. Hey this is the way to go. We reviewed the ten most active malware for last week and discovered that 5 were spyware or adware. We agreed that keeping our computers bot free was as important as keeping them virus free. We looked at some documentation about Intel chips processor chips and the new method of naming the chips. More information is available at http://snipurl.com/eahg The room was buzzing with discussions and info sharing. I was amazed how fast the two hours went. What a group and we learned a bunch again.
This class often becomes idea swapping and we learn by sharing our many experiences and I'll tell you all again, that really happened this week. Thanks to all that brought in suggestions, asked questions, and helped with explanations.
OTHER KCNET CLASSES STARTING SOON Call KCnet 893-8111 to register
Music Creation Starting when four students register--call 893-8111 to register. Participants should be able to play a piano/keyboard by sight or ear. Instructors: Carsten "Jon" Ahrens & Mike Foust
Orientation to KCnet One-Session Class – No Charge for KCnet Members Third Wednesday of Every Month 6:00 – 8:00 pm Instructor: Bob Fenton
Genealogy Final session Apr 25 All sessions start at 5:30 PM Instructor: David Wallace
MAC User Group Meets 2nd Wednesday of each month Time is 4:30 PM Instructor: Clair Falls
For more class details and to register visit: http://www.kcnet.org/class/ Registration can be done online, simply click on the course you are interested in and enter the information requested. Registration can be done via phone 893-8111.
NEWS AND NOTES WITH SUE FOUST:
Cookies in a nutshell Cookies are small pieces of information that is stored on your computer. Each browser handles cookies differently, but most browsers, like Internet Explorer, FireFox and Netscape, simply store the information in a small text file. Internet Explorer has a special folder, which can be found in your C:\Windows or C:\Windows\System32 folder. You can delete all your cookies, by going to the Options and 'Clearing Cookies' or deleting them by hand.
Almost every website uses cookies. If you go to Amazon.com, you will get several cookies. The same goes for CNN.com. Even Google uses cookies! They are extremely useful for (temporarily) storing information. If you visit a trusted website often, you will probably want them to place a cookie on your computer. It will avoid filling in the same information each time you visit. You can choose settings to “always ask before placing a cookie” or never accept a cookie. Or, you can indiscriminately accept all cookies. If you choose to accept all cookies, I would recommend that you periodically clear cookies or delete the unwanted ones by hand.
Why does my computer run when I’m not using it? This was a question posted on CNET: I'm running a P4 2GHz PC Windows XP system with 256MB of RAM. Periodically while the system is not being used, I notice the hard drive light flashing and it sounds like some sort of intensive file read/write is going on. I open the Windows Task Manager Processes window to find out what is running, and the only service that is consuming the CPU is the system idle process, very high around 95 to 98 percent. Also, as soon as I open this window, the hard drive stops acting busy. I have Norton AntiVirus, Spybot, and the ZoneAlarm firewall installed and running, but these don't appear to be what's keeping my CPU busy. There are no open applications on my taskbar either. What else could it be?
Answer: What you are witnessing, if you have not scheduled any other background tasks to run while the system is idle, is the XP Indexer at work. The dead giveaway is the fact that your HDD stops the activity as soon as you start another activity. It kicks in periodically only when your processor is otherwise idle. The purpose of the Indexer is to speed up your file operations. If you have a large number of data files, say hundreds, having their location indexed by the system could be beneficial, at least in theory. If you don't have a large number of files in your My Documents folder or other data files, you might consider turning the indexing off.
Click the Start button. Select Run. Type in services.msc and click OK. Select Indexing Services. Change Startup Type to Disabled. Close the Services Window.
Interesting, right?
Until next week…
KCnet Board Of Directors Officers: President Judy Yoho, Vice President Bill Raco, Secretary Donna Lannan, and Treasurer Don Miller. Other members of the board: Carsten Jon Ahrens, Fred Bierly, R. Keith Kelly, Paul Korn, Amy Lapriola, Tom Livingston, Ray McGill, Bob Rolley, and Rich Wykoff.