Tuesday, September 26, 2006

GIMP

I finished the first tips and tricks article for the October issue of CompuQuickTips (due out the end of this month). It is going to be a fascinating ride. If you don't want to spend a lot of money on a graphics program, certainly get GIMP. It's free and, very competitive with the likes of PaintShop Pro and Photoshop.
Pick it up at http://www.gimp.org/windows/.
And make sure you save the next three issues of CompuQuickTips. They will help you cut to the chase and give you a good start.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Customize Your Toolbars


Your right mouse button is good for a lot of things. It gives you choices wherever you use it. Try right clicking on your Internet Explorer Toolbar (at the top of the main window) and choose Customize with a single left click. A new little window will open with extra buttons you may find handy. To add a button, left click on it in the left pane of the window and click the Add button. To remove a button, left click it on the right pane of the window and click the Remove button. You can also rearrange your tool buttons to suit your needs by clicking the button you want to move and clicking the up or down button. When you are finished, click the Close button and enjoy your new toolbar.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Want a nice Sidebar?

Here's a little video that will show you how you can create a nice little retractable toolbar (sidebar) for your screen. You can use it to store all those icons, shortcuts and files you have been gathering and not knowing what to do with. The only thing you want to leave on your desktop is your trash bin. If you have an Internet Explorer or Outlook icon with no shortcut arrow on it, you can't just move those anywhere. They need to be removed a different way, so leave them alone.
New Toolbar Video from Mrs. Wizard

Thursday, September 07, 2006

GEEZ!


I have spent the last two days managing updates and nursing a very sick ("Old Faithful") computer. Yesterday I had to remove it from our main office room to my little front office so it could be by itself and I could kick it if I need to. That meant, the laptop (little Trixie) was transferred to Old Faithful's place. Printer drivers had to be installed on little Trixie so we could still print via the network. In the meantime, Old Faithful will probably be hooked up tomorrow and I will see what I can do to ease it's misery. Poor thing has been stalling and freezing lately and I suspect more of a hardware (age related) problem than anything else. I could't even do a defrag on the thing yesterday when I finally gave up and decided to take it out of commission until I could figure out what is going on.

Sure is nice to have a large fambly of computers :)

Monday, September 04, 2006

Crocs Day

I am so tickled to have received a phone call from Charlie Neidner in Vero Beach today. He is a beloved reader and wanted to ask me about Crocs. I had recently put an Amazon Link to my favorite footwear on the September newsletter sidebar and Charlie wanted to know if I really liked them. Well I spent 20 minutes telling him how they were responsible for saving my feet. I really do love the way they feel. I have 4 pairs to date and can't count the number of miles I have put on them since my first pair. I do three miles a day around our neighborhood lake. I'll have to take the camera with me one day so I can share the beauty of this walk. At any rate, my crocs make my feet feel as though they are walking on sponges... Wonderful! And if the weather is wet, slogging through puddles is no problemo!

My FAVORITE Footwear!

Friday, September 01, 2006

Whew!

I'm sure my MSGTag STATUS will be talking to me all day, letting me know as soon as each person opens their newsletter. As for me, I'm going to be doing a little maintenance on the main machine today. It is overdue for a nice Defrag and Disk Cleanup.