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Columns : Computer Korner Last Updated: Feb 6, 2017 - 2:32:04 PM


Your Weekly Computer Tips by WorldStart
By WorldStart.com
Aug 21, 2009 - 11:24:57 AM

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The Bahamas Weekly is pleased to present weekly computer tips by WorldStart.com

Get the latest Technology news, helpful computer and software tips, discounts on new gizmos and gadgets that make life easier .





The Week in Technology



Apple will be releasing the newest version of their Mac OS X, OS X 10.6 named Snow Leopard. This new release will not be a complete overhaul, but instead update several different components of the latest version, OS X 10.5 which was named Leopard. The release is rumored to be August 28th.


Google is celebrating after moving up the ladder and becoming the third largest email service with 37 million unique visitors last month, beating out AOL's 36 million unique visitors. The first largest email service is Yahoo with roughly 104 million users; The second is Windows Live Hotmail which has 47 million unique visitors.


Sprint, the third largest wireless carrier, will be expanding its WiMax wireless Internet offering to 17 new cities by the end of this year. The company will also be expanding its 4G wireless coverage to Boston, Houston, New York City, San Francisco and Washington D.C. by 2010. Verizon Wireless plans to release it's 4G wireless coverage by 2010; ATT Wireless is looking of a release date in 2011.


Microsoft has announced that the Zune HD, the newest version of their popular portable media player, will be released in September. Pre-Orders for this device will be available at major electronic retailers. The device will have the ability to send 720P video to an HDTV using a separately sold docking station. This device may become a major competitor for Apple's iPod Touch.

Computers 101

Q:
For some reason my desktop looks like it's in safe mode or something. How do I fix it?

A:
Sounds like a bit quality issue. You might notice after you've been in Safe Mode or played a game on your PC that the desktop looks strange--the icons are bigger, the colors are off, etc.

If you have an icon for your monitor or graphics card down in your system tray (by the clock), you can right-click to see the settings and change it there. You'll probably find that it is set at 256 colors—change it to "High Color" (16 bit) or "True Color" (32 bit).

image

You can also right-click on a blank area of your desktop and choose " Properties". Look for the resolution slider and change the color settings to one of the specified depths above.

Why does this happen? The higher your bit quality, the more system resources being used. Some games change your settings to the lower quality so they'll run faster. Since Safe Mode runs only the essentials to allow trouble shooting it also uses the lower setting.

~ David

MS Office

Accidentally Zoom No More

So, here's the scenario… you're happily working in a MS Office 2007 program and things are progressing nicely.

Then suddenly it happens - the program window goes "wacky" and you find yourself looking at the file after a zoom in or zoom out.

What happened there?

To be quite honest it could be several things but the cause I'd like to discuss today is the Zoom Slider addition found the on the status bar of the Office 2007 programs.



The Zoom Slider is the little slide button located on the far right of the Status bar.

It can be a quick and easy way to slide the view around to suit your needs.

The problem comes in for those of us who rarely, if ever, choose to zoom in or out and yet find ourselves accidentally clicking on slider.

That accidental click can cause some chaos and wasted time as you return things to normal.

If this is you then my suggestion is to get rid of the Zoom Slider.

No Zoom Slider = fewer accidental zoom changes

Getting rid of the Zoom Slider is one of the easiest things you can do to make your work day go a little smoother so let's take a look.

The first step is to right-click on the Status Bar.



From the list of options you need to uncheck Zoom Slider.

And that's it… Zoom Slider is gone leaving you with a few less moments of that "What just happened?" feeling.

~ April


Today at WorldStart.com

Lost Bookmarks
You know what stinks? Losing all of your bookmarks for Firefox! If you've ever been in this unenviable position then you know what a pain in the butt it can be! Browse on over to Worldstart today and learn how to combat this problem!

RemindTRON
Need reminding of certain things? Are you forgetful as all get out? Try the RemindTRON today and see a difference! This is the featured site over at Worldstart today, so make waves and get over there!

Here's the link you need: http://www.worldstart.com/ Enjoy!

Tip of the Day

Google Chrome Beta 3.0 Updates

There's a brand new Beta for Google Chrome which comes with the following updates:

1.) The Beta release shows 30% improvement over the current stable channel release

2.)
Improvements in the most loved and most used features of Google Chrome:
New Tab page
Omnibox

3.)
Added style with colors, patterns and images

4.)
HTML 5 capabilities

We shall see an overview of the above features in the following section.

Customize the new Tab page:

We can rearrange the most visited website thumbnails on the New Tab page by clicking and dragging the thumbnails. These website thumbnails can be pinned to a particular spot so that they don't disappear even if our browsing habits change. The notable feature is that you can hide parts of the page if you don't want to see them using the layout buttons on the top right of the New Tab page. The following image shows you these features.


Rearrange website thumbnails


Pin website thumbnails to a spot

Omnibox

It is the most important part of Google Chrome that helps us to get to the websites we are looking for with few simple keystrokes. The presentation of the drop-down menu has been optimized and little icons are added to distinguish between suggested sites, searches, bookmarks and sites from our browsing history.



The address bar doubles as a search box, when you type the search term in the box and press Enter to see the results in the default search engine. The address bar can also be used to search sites that we have previously visited. You have to press the Tab key on your keyboard to convert the address bar in to a search box. The below two images show you these features in a glimpse.





Then type the search term and press enter to see immediately the search results on the page. In the above case we will see YouTube`s page for “dog on skates” as below.



Tweak the Chrome of Google Chrome

We can also change the theme of the browser by visiting the Themes Gallery.

The 2 images below show you a sneak peek at the "Woody Desktop“ theme and a “Grassy Field”.





We can see the website thumbnails clearly in the above images.

Experience HTML 5 capabilities:

HTML 5 capabilities including video tag and web workers are being built into the beta release.

Speed, Speed and more Speed:

Google Chrome has become more faster with prioritizing the requests for the new page including fetching text, images, and video content. The request for the new page is prioritized ahead of the older pages.



Today's Feature

Viruses: The Good and Bad

Today, I have some information about viruses, spyware and other malware. Listen up!

Did you know that the number of malware programs on the Web today is predicted to increase to one million this year? Yikes! The number of bad programs continues to grow at an alarming rate, but that's actually some good news! That's right, I said one million viruses is good news. Here's why!

It seems as if the numbers are growing so quickly because fewer malware programs actually get the chance to infect a user's PC. With antivirus, anti-malware and anti-rootkit software doing better and better as time goes by, the chance of a new threat ever reaching your computer is dwindling down. Because of that, people who write those nasty programs are being forced to write them faster and faster in order to keep up.

According to stats by Sophos, a leading threat researcher, 85 to 90 percent of malware families have a fix created almost immediately. Also, e-mails with viruses attached have less of a chance of getting through to your computer. In the past, one out of 40 attempts would successfully infect your computer. Now, that number is one out of 1,000. That is great news for all of us! That's even more of a reason to keep your protection up to date. It just shows that we're all doing much better at keeping viruses at bay. Let's keep up the good work and give those virus makers a run for their money!

Until next time, stay safe out there, my friends!


Amanda's Coolsite

Online Business Card

I love this site! Not only does it provide you with an excellent and useful free service, it also provides a demo account so you can try it out before you register – so you can see if it is something you will actually use.

Click the image on the left to start in the demo account or click the demo tab. Explore the different tabs that will be available to you: About, Socialize, Contact, and Stream. Click the link at the top of the page Open Theme Selection to see the many ways you can customize it!

About – this is where you will be able to put a greeting or personal information about yourself.

Socialize – this is where it will list the different social networks you are a member of. For example: Facebook, Twitter, Dig, your Blog, etc.

Contact – here you will place your contact information. For example: your e-mail address, Skype handle, web site, etc.

Stream – here you will place the streams you subscribe to, so people can check out what you check out online.

Are you ready to register and setup your own personal business card online? I know I am! Registration is easy! Click the Sign Up tab, then fill out the form with: a username, create a password, and provide and e-mail address. One word of warning, don’t pick something crazy for your username because it is going to be your profile’s URL. Check the box that you’re over 13, and then click the Create My Account Now button.

You will immediately be able to get started customizing your business card. I started with the third option of creating how it will look. Then I added my social networks, and contact information.

The important step in setting up your card is after you’ve filled out and saved all the information you want your card to have on it, is Step Five: Embed. This is the tab where you will find the information you need to embed your online business card onto a website. You can also use your URL and just make a link to it. Check mine out here.

This is a great option for making your contact, social networking, and business information easily known online!

http://card.ly/

~Amanda


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Your Weekly Computer Tips by WorldStart