Computer and Web Articles

Griffin Technology specializes in just about every iPod accessory one could ever imagine.

Take a scroll down their products page and you’ll see firewire connections, wireless remote controls, home media centers, headphone splitters, cassette adapters, battery backups, and even gadgets that turn your iPod into laser pointers and flashlights.

It’s easy to spend far too much time browsing about through Griffin’s website, so don’t say I didn’t warn you: www.griffintechnology.com.

It’s inevitable. Over time your beautiful, shiny iPod is going to get scratched. Perhaps you’ll drop it, perhaps just setting it down on the counter each day will do it - regardless; it’s nearly impossible to keep those pretty little things in the pristine shape they first arrive in.

Enter iDrops. Marketed as “Liquid Health” for your iPod, iDrops clean, polish, protect and remove scratches and blemishes from the surface of your iPod. They’re a one-step solution that arrive in pretty blue packaging and cost $11.95 per bottle (shipping is free, woopee!).

There’s a pretty neat before-and-after shot on the main iDrops website, as well as instructions and a lengthy list of other uses. Interested? Hop over to http://podshop.com/idrops.

Sure, emailing your Microsoft Word documents is easy.  Sure, you do it all the time.  Sure, you didn’t know about the many problems related to the emailing of Word documents.

Though emailing Word documents to your friends and colleagues is usually a perfectly appropriate thing to do, it’s best to use caution and not assume that everyone will be able to read (or even open) your files.  Why use caution?  Because. . .

• The message will be larger than it needs to be; Word documents are B-I-G.  Why do you care? Because you’re essentially forcing your recipients to receive and open oversized documents.  Also, emails with larger attachments take longer to send and longer to download.
• Your recipient might not have Word.  For example, many people read their emails on their Treos, Blackberries, or cell phones-none of which have Word.
• Many mail programs won’t allow Word documents to be opened directly or even saved to disk on account of the rampant virus-spreading via Word documents.
• Emails with Word attachments are more likely to be filtered as spam or potential viruses; this means it’s entirely possible your email won’t even make it through to your recipient.

If you’re sending important information via email in a Word document, it’s usually best to either paste your Word document’s text directly into the body of your email.  If this isn’t realistic, consider following up with a separate email or phone call to determine if your recipient received the Word document you sent.

Attention all concert fans: A single visit to Pollstar will make you a user.  Pollstar  (www.pollstar.com) is an easy-to-search site that provides you with all the information you could ever ask for related to concert tours.

Want to know who’s playing Red Rocks this summer?  Visit Pollstar and search their Venue schedules.  Want to know where Nine Inch Nails are playing in July?  Search by Artist.  Just curious as to who’s playing Denver during the weekends you’ll be down there in August?  Search by City.

You can set up email alerts for yourself so you always know when your favorite bands are coming to town, purchase music merchandise, and view photos from recent shows.  Pollstar is absolutely, positively a “must-have” bookmark for people who enjoy live music.

Recently, a client of mine notified me that a local website had listed him incorrectly as a Frisco Real Estate agent when he was, in fact, a Dillon Real Estate agent-and the search engines were  thus incorrectly categorizing him as well.

His scenario is similar to one of my friend’s dilemmas; she had signed her name and email address on many a website’s guestbook, and search engines were listing those sites as results when her name was searched for.

Both my client and friend wanted to know if anything that could be done to correct or delete their personal information–either directly from these websites or from the search engines themselves.

Unfortunately, other than asking a webmaster to change the information on his/her site, nothing can be done.  In the end, you never have the last say over what is printed on someone else’s website.  IF the search engines decide to remove content per someone’s request, they will only remove *entire pages* from their results listings-and that removal request must be placed directly by the site’s webmaster.

Keep these things in mind when signing online guestbooks or asking for your information to be listed on someone else’s personal or company website.

If you’re an Excel user, chances are you’ve encountered times when you’ve thought something along the lines of “Geez, I wish I could just hide some of these rows that I don’t need to see very often!” And I’m here to tell you that, of course, you can do this!

Here are the three simple steps you need to take to hide rows in Excel:

1. Select the row header right below where you want to start hiding your rows.
2. Drag your mouse down until you’ve come to the last item you’d like to hide.
3. Click on the Format menu at the top of your screen, choose Row, then Hide.

These same steps can be used to hide columns as well; you’ll just need to replace the word “row” with the word “column” in the 3-step instructions above.

I love the Network for Good website. In a nutshell, it allows you to browse about and donate to thousands of charities, quickly and easily. You can search for specific types of charities (for example: cancer-related), search for charities by name, or look for charities in specific states.

Donating through the Network for Good website is quicker and easier than writing checks, and as an added bonus your records are automatically stored for tax time.

For those who may have more time than money to give, the Network for Good website also allows you to search for volunteer opportunities.

To learn more, visit http://www.networkforgood.com.

I learned a tip from About.com the other day I’d like to share with all you Hotmail users out there. This tip will teach you how to make your Hotmail bookmark bypass the sign-in screen and take you directly to your Inbox. It should go without saying, but I’ll make sure this is clear: Do NOT try this out if other people use your computer, else you’re simply providing people direct access to your personal email account.

Step 1: Type this address into your browser: http://tinyurl.com/zjbru and, after it’s fully loaded, bookmark the page (call it something along the lines of “Hotmail login”). It takes a moment for the page to load, so be patient.

Step 2: Login to Hotmail, making sure “Keep me signed in” is selected.

Step 3: Click on “Sign in” to access your account.

That’s it! Next time you select your newly-made bookmark, you’ll be whisked directly to your Hotmail inbox Z - no login necessary. This bookmark will continue to work until you click the “Sign out” from within Hotmail.