Computer and Web Articles

There’s a relatively new Summit County website worth taking a look at; it’s the site for the Summit Independent Business Alliance (SIBA) and can be found here: www.summitindependentbusiness.com. The site explains the importance of cultivating our county’s economy by, well, just being a local. And by being a local, they mean eating locally, shopping locally, and buying locally.

The SIBA website explains how patronizing local businesses can pack a triple punch by (1) boosting our local economy, (2) strengthening our local charities, and (3) protecting our environment. It’s amazing how easy it is to make a difference in our local vitality and sustainability, and SIBA is committed to educating us about the various ways in which we can do so.

Sign up and become a member, check out recommended readings that’ll open your eyes to the importance of buying local, or just browse through the useful information found throughout the site. Thanks to SIBA, I now understand just how important it truly is for me to be local, buy local, and support local.

Here’s an easy question: Do you have your own website? If you answered yes, here’s a more difficult follow-up question: How accessible is your website?

Web accessibility is what allows people with disabilities (as well as older people with changing abilities) to navigate, understand, and interact with websites. Disabilities that can affect users’ experiences on the web include visual disabilities, hearing impairments, motor disabilities, cognitive disabilities (such as dyslexia), and aging-related conditions. Visit http://tinyurl.com/552r7 to see different example scenarios of a variety of people with disabilities using the web.

When taking your website’s accessibility into consideration, make sure to ask yourself (or your web developer/web company) the following questions:

1. Have all image files in my site been given ‘alt’ text?
2. How compliant is the site with W3C coding standards?
3. Was the site built with valid HTML and CSS?
4. Is the site cross-browser compatible?
5. What does the site’s content sound like to people visiting with screen readers?

If you have (or if your company has) a website, I encourage you to learn more about web accessibility issues; a great place to start is at the W3C (Web Accessibility Initiative) website: www.w3.org.

• http://www.zirr.us — A free online service promoted as a “to do list for the rest of us.” After taking a quick peek, it looks extremely easy to use and helpful.
• http://tinyurl.com/32493a — A blog post sharing 11 tips on improving time management skills. Not that I’m insinuating you should improve your time management skills, but you know… just in case.
• http://tinyurl.com/3nupdr — It’s true. There are plenty of worthless and semi-worthless how-to videos and articles floating about the internet. I came across this one the other day, though, and feel confident that a wide variety of people will find it both relevant and helpful. It’s a part of Wired.com’s How-To series, and is entitled “How To Understand the Financial Crisis.”
• www.comingout101.com — “Offering insight and comfort to those mulling the decision about coming out to friends and family.” No judgment here. Just information, acceptance, and insight.
• www.fuelly.com — Track, share, and compare your gas mileage. Learn how much money you can save by making simple, small driving changes.

So you’ve had your Gmail account for a couple years now and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to locate specific e-mails when you need them. No worries; let’s review a few useful search tips that will help.

Let’s say you’re only interested in browsing through e-mails sent to you by Mary. In your Gmail search box, you’ll want to type in from:Mary.

If you’re looking for an e-mail in which you used a specific phrase (say, something like …. “and she was totally eating lots of glass grasshoppers”), then you’ll want to type “and she was totally eating lots of glass grasshoppers” into the search box — quotes included.

If you’re ever interested only in viewing e-mails that had attachments, type the following into your Gmail search box: has:attachment. And if you’re looking for an e-mail from Robert that came with an attachment, type in from:Robert has:attachment.

Perhaps you’d like to only look through e-mails sent to you after the first of September. In your search box, you’ll want to type in after:2008/09/01. And let’s take this tip one step further; if you were looking only for e-mails sent to you after the first of September and in which snowboarding was mentioned, you’d want to type in: snowboarding before:2008/09/01.

LetterPop allows the average joe to create “eye-popping newsletters, actionable presentations, irresistible invitations, beautiful product features, sizzling event summaries, informative club updates, lovely picture collages, and a whole lot more.” Wow. A statement like this makes me wonder if they’re secretly attempting to single-handedly bring about the demise of the graphic design industry.
LetterPop offers tons of beautiful templates as well as an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that will have you creating your first

letter/report/collage/invite/newsletter/presentation in no time. Upload your photos directly into your LetterPop account or add shots straight from your Flickr account.
I’ll admit; I was impressed while looking through LetterPop’s example page. I saw examples of school and company newsletters, a fun photo collage, a well-designed invitation. And many of the designs were actually really, really visually pleasing and quite well done. Their templates truly are top-notch.

LetterPop offers a free plan as well as five additional paid plans packed with extra features and capabilities. Learn more at www.letterpop.com.

• www.clip2net.com — Apparently, clip2net.com provides you with the new way to use your phones. Sounds interesting: you get one number that rings on all your phones and one voicemail box that keeps all your messages in one place.
• http://tipnut.com/how-to-wrap-meat/ — Now really. Is there *anything* you can’t learn on the internet? Apparently not. This link will whisk you off to a page where you’ll learn how to wrap meat like a professional.
• www.beliefenet.com — A website for people interested in exploring their spirituality online.
• http://tinyurl.com/5yw4d2 — Every feature you could possibly ever want in an alarm clock already exists within iTunes Alarm Clock for Macs.
• www.swimman.net — Technology continues to get fancier and fancier. And now it’s waterproof. Learn about the first and only completely waterproof iPod shuffle — no bulky case and a comprehensive warranty.

PhoneSpamFilter (www.phonespamfilter.com) is a “free service designed to assist the general public in determining which callers are annoying telemarketers.” The creators of the site have aimed to develop a comprehensive database of all the phone solicitors out there so that you can decrease the frequency with which you receive spammy phone calls.

PhoneSpamFilter.com allows you to lookup suspicious phone numbers, report telemarketers, and — for the slightly more techy people out there — actually autoblock telemarketers from your phone lines.

For a few grins, make sure to visit the site’s News page (http://www.phonespamfilter.com/news.php) and browse through their short list of telemarketing-related videos, which includes titles like How to Torment Telemarketers with One Word and Fight Back against Telemarketers!

In the past month, two of my friends turned on their computers only to discover that their Recycle Bins had mysteriously disappeared. Neither knew why their Recycle Bins were gone nor how to get them back.

Unfortunately, I really don’t have a good answer regarding why Recycle Bins occasionally decide to pull disappearing acts. However, I do have a trustworthy solution up my sleeve that can help put them back where they belong.

To return your Recycle Bin back to your Desktop, first head over to http://tinyurl.com/2meyw. Scroll down a bit and look over in the right-hand column of the page and locate the “Tweak UI” program — that’s what you need to download.

Tweak UI lets you select which icons you’d like to have displayed on your Desktop by default, meaning that with just a few clicks you’ll have your beloved Recycle Bin back on your Desktop.

www.shiptool.com — A neat site that collects all the pricing and timing info from different shipping carriers and displays it right on your computer screen. View and compare different shipment pricing and delivery options all on one page. Totally free.

http://tinyurl.com/2vvh7m — Learn how to create a secured and locked folder within Windows XP.

http://tinyurl.com/682oex — A great Lifehacker post that will teach you ten YouTube hacks.

www.spamato.com — A free spam-reducing add-on tool that plugs right into Thunderbird or Microsoft Outlook.

http://tinyurl.com/5qw5jq — Ten tips for smarter Google searches. Because, you know, you can never know enough or be too effective when it comes to search engines.