Computer and Web Articles

Some readers will surely consider me mad for sharing this competitor’s website with you, but I’m willing to face this possible incredulity if only this site will help a few worthy individuals and businesses here in Summit County.

Water. That’s it. The site I’d like to share with you sells Water. Not water with a lowercase w, but Water with an uppercase W.

Water is a “click-and-publish website system” that allows businesses and nonprofits to easily create and manage “professionally designed, custom made websites through its premium, easy-to-use tools.”

Water website designs are attractive, costs are far from outrageous, there are no setup fees or contracts whatsoever, and turnaround time is great; in other words, it’s quite possible that this just might be the solution you’ve been looking for. (But if not, we here at timeforcake creative media are always happy to help.)
Learn more at www.embracewater.com.

You use it every day, so why not learn a few shortcuts that’ll be sure to save you time when using Outlook? Here are some Outlook shortcuts I picked up from various articles on the web this week:

• Ctrl + Q — It doesn’t matter what folder you’re in — Inbox or otherwise — hitting this key combination will mark your highlighted message as either read or unread.
• Ctrl + Shift + C — The quick and easy way to add a new contact to your address book.
• Ctrl + F — A very much underutilized shortcut, Ctrl +F will forward whatever message you have highlighted.
• Ctrl + Shift + B — The mouseless way to display your Address Book.
• Ctrl + Enter — Be veeeeeery careful with this one!! Some people love it, others hate it so much they disable it completely. I’ll let you choose how you feel about; this is the shortcut that instantly sends out the message you’re typing. (So if you’ve ever been writing an e-mail and it suddenly seemed to “send itself,” now you know what may have happened …)
• Ctrl + N — If you take away anything at all today, try to remember this fundamental shortcut, which simply opens up a fresh new e-mail for you.

• http://mashable.com/2007/07/21/job-hunt — Holy cow. A list of SEVENTY online tools people can use while job hunting.
• www.numbr.com — A free, auto-expiring, anonymous phone number that forwards incoming calls to your home or cell phone. In other words, callers never see your home or cell number. Perfect for people who like to list items on Craigslist.
• www.ssa.gov/top10.html — Here you’ll find the top 10 most requested services on the U.S. Social Security website, including the most popular given names by gender and birth year and 2007 cost of living information.
• https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2558 — My favorite new Firefox extension. I have absolutely no idea how I went without it for so long.

If you subscribe to a magazine or if you’re considering subscribing to a magazine, check eBay first. Yep, that’s right. eBay. I recently learned that eBay is an absolute goldmine of amazing subscription deals just waiting to be purchased.

For example, a one-year subscription to Men’s Journal magazine normally costs $9.95. A quick search on eBay reveals a listing for a three-year subscription for $4.94.Or, let’s say you’re looking to subscribe to Cosmopolitan magazine. A one-year subscription would normally run you $18. On eBay I found a listing for a one-year subscription for $5 and another listing offering a two-year subscription for $14.48.

Nice.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve not only experienced firsthand how frustrating it can be when you aren’t allowed to uninstall a program from your Control Panel’s Add/Remove Programs area, I’ve had two friends and one client express frustration about the issue as well. It was time I figured out how to circumnavigate the issue once and for all.

Surprisingly, it took quite a bit of searching, researching and testing before I came across a freeware program that was receiving great reviews: Revo Uninstaller. Not surprisingly, I ended up stumbling across this program via the fantastic site Lifehacker (www.lifehacker.com).

Not only can you scan through the many Revo recommendations on this Lifehacker post, you can follow the discussion in the page’s comments to learn more about other programs, what hasn’t worked for people, etc.

Here’s to never being frustrated with the Add/Remove Programs part of our control panels ever again! To learn more about Revo, visit http://tinyurl.com/3d5c4l.

• http://tinyurl.com/2re2g4 — Learn how to block your cell phone number from showing up on other people’s caller IDs — both temporarily and permanently.
• https://www.paypal.com/securitykey — Add an extra level of security when doing business via PayPal with the PayPal security key.
• http://marcogomes.com/wallpapr — Bet you didn’t know there was a search engine out there containing wallpapers and ONLY wallpapers.
• http://facesinplaces.blogspot.com — Even after the toughest of workdays, the photo of the day showcased on this blog usually has the ability to make me grin.
• http://tinyurl.com/28rp6t — A seller’s guide to Craigslist, courtesy of Lifehacker.com.

During my travels across the Internet I’ve collected bits of wisdom on extending the life-cycle of my laptop’s battery. Here are four of my favorites I’d like to share with you:

1. Keep your battery clean. Apparently, cleaning the metal contacts of your battery with a alcohol-moistened cloth every few months helps improve the transfer efficiency of power from your battery to your laptop.
2. Clean out your air vents with a cloth (or keyboard cleaner). This allows your laptop to run cooler, meaning it’ll run more efficiently and require less battery power.
3. Use Hibernate, not Standby. Standby mode doesn’t save nearly as much power as Hibernate mode. Not even close. (A PC going into hibernation will actually save the state it’s is in — which programs are open, etc. — before shutting itself down.)
4. Defrag! That’s right A regularly-defragged laptop means a more efficient laptop that makes less demands on both your hard drive and battery.

I’ll admit it. I’ve self-diagnosed myself with a mild-to-moderate case of hypochondria.

Being able to browse the Internet and look at X-rays, MRIs, and the like hasn’t really freed me from my concerns, either. So when I was introduced to the Mayo Clinic’s Symptom Checker at http://tinyurl.com/j9sqz a few weeks ago, I bookmarked it before I even tried it.

After the Symptom Checker runs you through a series of questions about the symptoms you’re experiencing, it provides you with a list of possible causes for your symptoms and lets you know whether or not you need to seek medical advice.

Unfortunately, the final list of possible causes can sometimes be a bit overwhelming. And when I find myself scanning down such a list, reading that my knee pain could be caused by gout, osteoarthritis, a broken leg, stress fractures, or metatarsalgia … well, in the end, it really doesn’t really do much to help my hypochondria.

• http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper — Free high-resolution wallpaper for your computer.
• www.floorplanner.com — Create and share interactive home floorplans. Great for homeowners and real estate professionals alike.
• http://www.mutopiaproject.org — If you read and play music, check this site out; it’s a great little music database. Search for and download music sheets for baroque, classical, romantic, folk, hymn, or jazz music. All free.
• www.thinkature.com — Real-time collaboration for the web. Chat, draw, create cards, add content from around the internet — all in real-time. What a great business tool for long-distance meetings!