multifarious mushrooms

Let’s face it. Most of us do not make money on the internet. Maybe a bit of pocket money. So why do we blog and design websites and learn photoshop, paintshop pro, css, java, xhtml? In my case, it’s an intellectual exercise for my retirement years. I love learning about computers and web design. However, I have never done a course in computers or IT. There are big gaps in my knowledge and sometimes you discover a really simple function that everyone else has learned years ago.

Not working in the IT industry has its drawbacks too. You can’t keep up, despite all the reading one might do of the daily papers and the IT blogs around.

Well, I found out about utorrent and bittorrent last month. My son had had bittorrent on my computer for years and I never knew what it was. I’d ask and get a rather vague response. Aren’t they little buggers?

So I had a look. I didn’t want music though. I wanted software. I tried it out I must admit, but the time it took to download was too long and wasted pretty well all of my broadband allocation for the month. I can’t afford unlimited broadband. So much for that idea. Maybe I should go for DSL. One of the results was that I didn’t want to write too many posts here.

Last month too my monitor expired. My so called new computer was now becoming obsolete. I bought a new one and this month my mouse died too. It was impossible to use. So I got another one and at least they don’t cost as much as the monitors do. My digital camera too is completely obsolete. Why did I get the first ones that came out at astronomical prices? Now you can buy mobile phones which have a higher pixel count than the camera I have.

I was needing some ink too for the printer. Guess what? For this printer which had one of the first photo printing capabilities and which cost a lot, the ink is becoming more and more difficult to source.

I feel left behind. I feel obsolete. I feel annoyed. No longer can I afford such things as Ipods, mobiles, Xboxes, laptops. And now I need an ipod. I see them all the time at my local gym, which I joined last month. At least I’m getting a bit fitter while my blogging has suffered.

And you don’t know how to plan for the future either. Especially during this economic depression. I dare not look at my superannuation account. But one can’t plan for the future technologically either. I hear vague mutterings about the desktop computer being a thing of the past. Is everyone designing for mobiles alone and blackberries (or whatever they are)

Perhaps it’s time to go on ebay and sell all my heirlooms so I can get that plasma TV. But even then, my generation doesn’t really have them. I use my mobile as an alarm clock and for emergencies. We really don’t want or need plasma TVs. We will have to go digital TV shortly however. God, I hope the local nursing home has computers. I couldn’t go back to cards and knitting now.

Hopefully, now that my mouse works I’ll have some more tutorials soon. It was impossible to use photoshop with such a dud mouse.

Computers, gadgets, cameras, printers?  How capitalists make millions building in obsolescence.

I came across this site when I wanted a web site screen shot utility.

Here’s what else Nirsoft has.

* Password Recovery Utilities
o MessenPass - Recover the passwords of instant messenger programs: Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, Trillian, and more…
o Mail PassView - Recover the passwords of popular email clients: Outlook Express, MS Outlook, Eudora, Mozilla Thunderbird , and more…
o Protected Storage PassView - Displays all passwords and AutoComplete strings stored in your Protected Storage.
o Dialupass: Dialup Password Recovery - Recovers the passwords of dialup entries (VPN and Internet connections). Works also under Windows 2000/XP.
o Asterisk Logger - Reveal the passwords hidden behind asterisk (’****’) characters in standard password text-boxes.
o SniffPass - Password Sniffer - Listen to your network, and capture POP3, IMAP4, SMTP, FTP, and HTTP (basic authentication) passwords
o Network Password Recovery - Freeware utility that recovers the network passwords stored by Windows XP.
o PstPassword - Recover the password of Outlook PST file.
* Network Monitoring Tools
o SmartSniff: TCP/IP Sniffer - Capture TCP/IP packets on your network adapter and view the captured data as sequence of conversations between clients and servers.
o CurrPorts: TCP/IP Connections Viewer - Freeware tool that displays the list of all currently opened TCP and UDP ports on your local computer.
o AdapterWatch - displays useful information about your network adapters: IP addresses, Hardware address, WINS servers, DNS servers, MTU value, Number of bytes received or sent, The current transfer speed, and more…
* Internet Related Utilities
o IPNetInfo - Find all available information about an IP address: The owner of the IP address, the country/state name, IP addresses range, contact information (address, phone, fax, and email), and more.
o IECookiesView: Cookies Viewer/Manager for IE - View/Delete/Modify the cookies that Internet Explorer stores on your computer.
o IEHistoryView - View/Delete the URLs that you visited in the last few days.
o HTMLAsText (HTML To Text Converter) - Freeware utility that converts HTML files to text files.
o WhoisThisDomain - Get information about a registered domain.
o SiteShoter - Take a screenshot of a Web site.
o WebVideoCap - Capture Flash video (.flv) and RTSP/MMS streams from Video Web sites.
* Command-Line Utilities
o NirCmd: Freeware Command-Line Tool - Do some useful tasks from command-line: turn off your monitor, turn off the computer, open/close the door of your cd-rom drive, dial to VPN/Internet connection, change your display settings, and much more !!
* Desktop Utilities
o Volumouse - Control the sound volume with your wheel mouse !!
o MyUninstaller - Alternative to the standard Add/Remove applet of Windows operating system.
o NirExt - Change the icon of any folder in your file system, Easily create shortcuts on your start-menu/desktop.
* Freeware System Tools
o ProduKey - Recover Office/Windows CD-Key
o RegScanner (Registry Scanner) - Scan and find values in the Registry.
o ShellExView - Displays the details of shell extensions installed on your computer, and allows you to easily disable and enable each shell extension.
o SysExporter - Grab the data stored in standard list-views, list boxes, and combo boxes from almost any application running on your system, and export it to text, HTML or XML file.
o OpenedFilesView - View opened/locked files in your system.
o ActiveXHelper - View essential information about ActiveX components installed on your computer, and allows you to disable/enable specific ActiveX components.
o OfficeIns - Microsoft Office Add-Ins Manager
o WinUpdatesList - Displays the list of all Windows updates (Service Packs and Hotfixes) installed on your local computer.

Here is what SiteShoter can do:

Not a terrific job in my view.

Putting Pictures in your document

Note - you should put pictures into a document that has some text (writing) in it - then you can arrange the text and pictures in an attractive way.

This is easy in Word, and lots of fun!

1. Go to Insert, Picture, then Clip Art

2. Scroll down through the pictures to look at them, or

3. Choose a category (Animals, Buildings, Food, Sport etc) then look at the pictures in that category

4. When you see one that you like, click on it, and choose Insert ” When you insert, the Picture toolbar appears automatically in your document. ” This lets you make changes to your picture, and also decide how to position it in your document (’text wrap’). I’ll show you how this works. ” You can highlight a picture by clicking on it once - then you’ll see little squares appear around it. Use the squares at the corners to make your picture bigger or smaller. Make sure that you can ” use the categories (Animals, Food, People etc) to find the type of picture you want ” use Find … to find the exact picture you want ” move your picture around ” make your picture bigger or smaller ” place it within your text ” copy it multiple times!

The Desktop & File Management

* This is a big topic and is sometimes called GUI (Graphic User Interface).
* The Desktop is the green screen that you see when you first sit down at the computer.
* The Desktop shows in graphic terms the main types of programs installed on your computer.
* ‘My Computer’ and the ‘Windows Explorer’ are the 2 main devices for
1. looking at the programs installed
2. looking at your files
3. moving, renaming, and deleting your files
Do this:
1. Minimise Word, so that you can see the Desktop
2. Double-click on ‘My Computer’
3. Double-click on ‘3 ½ Floppy A:’ or any disk, and you’ll see the files contained on your diskette
4. Go to View and choose how you want the information presented
5. Go to File and look at what you can do with your files
6. Click with your Right Mouse Button anywhere inside the window, and click on Properties to see how much space is left on your disk!

Templates - General

* Templates are ready-made documents of various kinds - letters, CVs, fax coversheets, memos etc
* Word has already pre-formatted and set up these document types, so that you don’t have to re-invent the wheel every time
* The normal blank document that you choose when you want a new document is in fact a template, with its margins, font and point size already set up
* You can accept Word’s design for these various documents, alter it slightly to suit yourself, or create your own template for commonly-used documents, eg a business letterhead, fax cover etc

Looking at Word’s ready-made templates

1. Go to File, New …
2. In the dialogue box, you’ll see tabs with various types (and styles) of common documents
3. Spend a few moments looking through the templates provided
4. Just for fun, add some of your personal details in the places indicated, but don’t save any changes that you’ve made

Creating your own template
This could be a
* business letterhead of your own design, with your company logo
* fax cover sheet
* inter-office memo
* or any other document that you often use.

1.Click on File New, then choose General, then blank Document

Type what you wish

2. Go to File, Save As…
3. In the Save as Type box, choose Document Template(*.dot) - this brings up the Templates folder
4. Double-click on the Memos folder
5. Call your document companymemo
6. Click on Save, and then close.

Now your new template will be listed along with all the other memo templates. You could construct a company letterhead in the same way, saving it alongside the other letter templates.