Computer and Web Articles

So I was sitting here at my office desk, furiously typing away, being my productive self when, out of absolutely nowhere, it hits me: her birthday was 3 days ago.

Of course I hadn’t forgotten my dear mother’s birthday. I’d learned a long time ago that to do such a thing was considered as wrong as . . . robbing a bank or . . . kicking a puppy dog.  It was something that I simply could not do.

However, though I’m fairly responsible when it comes to remembering my friends’ birthdays, during especially busy or hectic times I’ve been known to forget one or two as the years have gone by.

And that’s what I’d done. My dear friend Mona’s birthday had passed and I’d not sent her so much as a card.

I stopped typing for a moment. I had to bide some time while I shopped for a present and card, so I decided to immediately send her a Happy Belated Birthday note. And flowers.

Yes, flowers!  I went to my online “virtual florist” at http://tinyurl.com/2vdqn and sent her a gorgeous virtual arrangement of her favorite: pink roses.  For free!

I wanted to include something that would make her laugh in the note that accompanied the flowers.  So I told her to visit a website that held, um, “important significance” as it was dedicated to her year of birth (1974).

What I didn’t tell her was that the website, www.candyboots.com/wwcards.html, was nothing more than a visual collection of Weight Watchers recipe cards from 1974!  I KNOW she got a hoot when she took a look at that site!  I sure did.  There are hideous, HIDEOUS photographs of menu items such as Fluffy Mackerel Pudding, Caucasian Shashlik, and Frankfurter Spectacular–all accompanied by fantastic commentary.  I do not believe that it is humanly possible to view this site without cracking a grin.

After I sent my dear Mona her virtual flowers and silly link, I decided I no longer wanted to forget any of my friends’ birthdays.  So I did what I had to do:  I signed up for Birthday Alarm.

At www.birthdayalarm.com, members receive email reminders of friends’ and families’ birthdays (for free, of course).  From now on, I’ll always be given reminder emails one week in advance of all my good friends’ birthdays.  Phew.

Next I did some online shopping for Mona and, if you can believe it, ended up finding both of her birthday gifts on the same website!  In her emails to me, Mona often complains of her office desk clutter.  She sits in a sweltering hot, non-air-conditioned  office out in Southern California for 9 hours a day. . . and types for hours on end. By the end of the day she’s hot and cranky and her wrists and forearms ache.

So I decided to get her a MouseBungee and a CompuSooth Cooling Wrist Rest.  How perfect!  Both products, marketed as “comfort technology”, can be ordered online at the Soothsoft website, www.soothsoft.com.

The MouseBungee is going to apparently free her wrist and her desk from tangled cords as it offers her “effective and affordable ergonomic relief from mouse cord drag, snags, and tangles.”

Meanwhile, the CompSooth Cooling Wrist Rest is going to cool her wrists and comfort her Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and repetitive motion stress with fluid-cool cushion action that will support and contour her pressure points!  Alright!

Mona will be getting her treats in a few days.  She said she loved the virtual flowers and laughed herself silly while looking at the 1974 Weight Watchers website.  Maybe I’m not such a bad friend, after all, eh? And hopefully my birthday-forgetting experience taught you a thing or two as well.

I’m surprised that people continue to keep sending in such good questions these days–shouldn’t you all be outside in the sun?  I mean . . . think about it! All your computer problems would be solved if you simply turned your darned machines off and spent your days outside lounging in the sun. . . .

HA!  For those of us who don’t have the option of turning our computers off five days a week, let’s take a look at some good questions and answers for today.

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Question: Hello. I use AOL Search, MSN Search, and sometimes Google to look for things on the web.  I wanted to know, though, if there is a good way to actually search for pictures and images on the web as well.  Sometimes I use the Google image search, but I was curious if there is anything else.

Answer: Though I myself tend to be somewhat partial to Google’s image search, many people like using a site called “Ditto.”  Take a peek at www.ditto.com.  Here you can type in a search and all your results will be images!

Even better than ditto.com, in my opinion, is “picsearch.”  Picsearch (www.picsearch.com) seems to be a more accurate image search engine; I can usually find better pictures and photos when searching here than when I’m searching at ditto.com–but that’s just me.  Give them both a shot and see what you can find.

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Question: What is the difference between a “portal” and a “vortal” on the Internet?  Are they basically the same thing?

Answer: A portal is a website that offers a variety of services.  People usually use portals as starting points when looking for information on the Internet–thus, not surprisingly, portals often include search engines.  Examples of popular portals you may have visited yourself include AOL, Yahoo! and Lycos.

A vortal is simply a portal website that provides resources and information for a particular industry.  According to the Webopedia (www.webopedia.com), vortals are “the Internet’s way of catering to consumers’ focused-environment preferences.”  So that’s it; vortals are simply portals with narrower focus.

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Question: I don’t have Microsoft Word, and I do not want to pay for it.  Is there a cheap alternative? I need to be able to open the Word documents people send me and write my own documents as well. Thank you.

Answer: How about this: I know of an absolutely great Word Processing program . . . and it’s free!  TextShield Fusion is a fantastic piece of freeware that comes with all the bells and whistles you’d expect from a more-expensive program, including a search-and-replace function, spellcheck, and a hyperlink editor.

Open up those Word documents you’re getting and save them into rich text format (RTF).  You can even format your documents in a bunch of cool ways–cool 3D effects, anyone?

Go to http://tinyurl.com/ys2pn for more information on TextShield Fusion.

On today’s menu: Questions, with a healthy side of answers. Yum. And as always, the dessert will be your choice between ice cream cake and chocolate chip cookies.

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Question: I’m going to be setting up my first Web site, and there is a lot of terminology I don’t really understand. What exactly is a “host” and why do I need one?

Answer: A host is a company that owns the server your Web site will be stored on. Even if you’ve already registered your domain name, you still need “your little spot of land” on the Internet where you can put it. A host provides you with that space.

In simple terms: Your Web site needs a home on the Internet - a place where your domain name, Web page files and graphics can reside. You buy or rent Web space through a hosting company.

Hosting fees vary greatly depending on your needs and, conveniently, most hosting companies offer monthly, quarterly and yearly packages. Keep in mind that the hosting package you choose will need special features if you plan to have a storefront on your Web site, if you will be connected to a database, or if you have special programming requirements.

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Question: Google is my favorite search engine and I use it all the time. My only complaint is that it only shows me 10 results per page. I hate having to click to the next page, then the next page, then the next page to see all my results. Can I somehow fix how the results are displayed?

Answer: No. It’s impossible. OK, that was a joke. I was kidding. Of course you can! First, head over to www.google.com. Next to the “Search” button at the top of the page you’ll see a link that reads “Preferences.” Click this.

You’ll be taken to your Google Search preferences page where, if you scroll down a bit, you’ll see an option that reads “Number of Results.” Select how many results you’d like displayed per page - 10, 20, 30, 50 or 100 - but keep in mind that Google’s default (10) provides the fastest search results.

While you’re on the Google Search preferences page, take a look at the other four options you can play around with: Interface Language, Search Language, SafeSearch Filtering and Results Window. Remember, you can’t break anything here! If you change a preference and you’re not thrilled with it, you can return to this page at any time and set your preferences back the way they were.

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Question: Hi eRin. I’ve been a neat-freak my entire life, and this carries over into how I like to arrange the icons “just so” on my computer’s desktop. I like to have everything a very specific way, but every once in a while I’ll turn my computer on to find that everything been randomly re-arranged! Of course this agitates me to no end. Is there any way I can somehow save my desktop layout?

Answer: Sure thing. You need to download a little piece of software called EzDesk. According to the company’s Web site, (which can be found by visiting http://tinyurl.com/2sflh) EzDesk offers a large number of features that, among other things, allows you to save and restore your folder icons layout, hide or minimize all your desktop windows in one step, and create hot keys to frequent actions.

As usual, you can download a free evaluation copy, but you’ll have to pay $15.00 for a registered version. For severe neat freaks, it sounds like this might actually be a bargain!

Hope you enjoyed today’s tasty treats. Have a fabulous weekend, everyone!