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Passwords Should Be... Do you often have trouble coming up with the perfect password? Whether you're purchasing something online or you're signing up for some kind of newsletter, etc., a password is usually required. Plus, we all know (well, we should) that it's best to use a different password for each thing we do online. And with more and more services being added everyday, it can sometimes be hard to come up with new passwords to use. So, I thought I would take some time today and try to help you out. What do you say we create some passwords?! According to security experts, there are six rules you should follow when making up your passwords. First of all, they should be random. By that, I mean you should choose a series of characters that are completely random to everyone else, but make complete sense to you. The second rule follows up with that by saying passwords should be unique. Again, just try to create a password that no one else will be able to easily guess. The third rule states that a password should be, at the very least, eight characters long, but the longer it is, the better. If you can come up with a password that's 14 characters or more, go for it! The next rule says that a password should be a combination of upper and lowercase letters and there should be at least one number or symbol included in there somewhere. The more variety you add to your password, the better it will be. The fifth rule simply states that you should change your password regularly and frequently. The longer you leave the same password in place, the easier it will be for a hacker to grab it. And lastly, you should type your password out manually each and every time you're asked for it. Yes, the "Remember Password" feature is nice, but it's really best to enter it in each time. If you follow these six simple rules, you will have the most secure and perfect passwords in town. That's something to be proud of! ~ Erin Don't stop now! Keep reading to learn how you can find out if you have a CD burner on your computer or not, find out how to easily call on other worksheets in MS Excel and learn how you can speed up your drives in Windows Vista. Also, find out a better way to print out Web pages with today's video tip and as always, don't miss out on Amanda's Cool Site of the Day. Enjoy! Merry Christmas Eve!
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Q: A: There are a couple things you can do. For starters, you can open up your CD/DVD ROM drive and look on the front of the tray. There should be some sort of logo written on the very front of the tray telling you if it's a burner or not. If it just says something like "CD Drive," there probably isn't a burner there. If it says CD/DVD R-RW, you do have a burner. That's the easiest way to tell. The other thing you can do is look in the Device Manager. To get there, right click on the My Computer icon on your desktop, choose Properties and then click on the Hardware tab. Once in there, click on the Device Manager button and you will be taken to a list of all the hardware you have on your system. Double click on DVD/CD ROM Drive to expand it. If an extension comes up that says something like CD-RW or DVD-RW, you have a burner. Basically, if anything comes up at all, you more than likely already have a burner in your computer. Once you figure out if you have one or not, you just need some burning software and you can go to town, burning CDs and DVDs as you wish. Some burners are external, so you may have that option as well. Most newer computers automatically come with a burner, but otherwise, you have to request one to be installed on your computer. If you don't remember requesting one, you probably don't have one, but use the above guidelines to find out for sure! ~ Erin Have a question for the newsletter? Submit it at the link below:
Calling On Other Worksheets I'm sure you've all used cell references in your MS Excel formulas, right? You know, let's say you want to add cells A2 and A3 and write a formula to do this in another location. Maybe even something as simple as =A2 + A3. These formulas are great and pretty easy to use, but let's say there's a piece of data from one worksheet that you need to bring to another. What do you do then? If there's a chance the number from the other worksheet could change, you don't want to simply copy the number into the new worksheet. A move like that would only cause you grief. Every time you make a change that altered the value, you'd have to remember to retype the new number on the second worksheet as well. Forget it! That method isn't worth the trouble. Let's face it, if you can't set your workbook up to run smoothly and keep updates you have to make to a minimum, you're just looking for some trouble. You'll inevitably overlook one of those repetitive updates and the data will be meaningless. So, now what? The solution I suggest is to use the cell locations from the other worksheets in the formula, just like you would if the cells were located all on the same sheet. Okay, so it isn't exactly the same. There is a slight difference in the way you reference the cells, but once you understand the new references, it's smooth sailing from there. Now that we know why we want to use references for cells from different worksheets, let's get busy with the how to! We all know about the basic formula to add two cells from within the same worksheet where the formula will be used. Let's use the one from above as our example: =A2 + A3 Now, let's just say that instead of A2 and A3 from the current worksheet, you want to use A2 from Sheet2 and A3 from Sheet3 in the workbook. The new formula (with the different sheet references) would look like this: =Sheet2!A2+Sheet3!A3 Your formula has to somehow tell Excel where to find the cells in the workbook and do it before the cell location with the sheet name and the exclamation point. (Without the extra clarification, the program simply uses the sheet with the formula). After using a formula like that, you're relieved from any extra updating! If you change a number in either of those cells, the formula will automatically update using the new values. This type of referencing works in any formula, but you have to be sure not to have any typos in the sheet name. Excel will not guess what you mean, because it only works very literally. What's that? You don't like all the extra typing? You're more of a "clicker" when it comes to building your formulas? No problem! You already know you can click to a cell location to insert it into a formula and well, it works the same way here.
You'll be returned to the sheet you started with and your formula will be in place and hopefully, working correctly. Now that you know how, feel free to call on all the worksheets in the book! ~ April
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Speed Up Those Drives If you didn't know, Windows Vista operates external hard drives that are connected via USB differently than internal drives. Write caching is disabled so that you can safely remove the drive at almost any time. This is a great feature for USB flash drives that are frequently inserted and removed from your computer. But, if you have a large hard drive in an external enclosure that you never disconnect from your computer, write caching is also disabled, which can decrease performance. So, let's change that around a little, shall we?! Today, I'm going to show you a tweak that will increase the performance of your external hard drive by turning the write cache back on, as well as, activating an advanced performance. Let’s get started! 1.) First, in Vista, right click on the Computer icon on your desktop and select Manage. 2.) Click on Device Manager from the side menu. 3.) Next, expand the Disk Drives option and locate your external drive from the list. 4.) Once you've found it, right click on the drive and select Properties. 5.) Under the Policies tab, select Optimize for Performance. 6.) Next, checkmark both the options of "Enable write caching on the disk" and "Enable advanced performance," as shown below:
7.) Hit OK and then restart your computer. That's all you have to do. Now, go on and enjoy your increased performance! ~ Ramachandran Kumaraswami If you enjoy our tips, tell your friends. That's what keeps this newsletter growing.
Web Page Printing - Video Tip Do you like to print Web pages? For example, maybe you view WorldStart's newsletter in your Web browser and you would like to print it. Well, when you do that, do you ever get annoyed by the information that prints at the bottom of each and every page? You know, information like the Web address, the title, the date, the time, etc.? Well, if you would like to learn how to set up your print preferences so that it won't do that the next time you print from a Web page, check out today's video tip. Just click on the link below to watch the video! http://imgsrv.worldstart.com/videotips/index.htm Or, if you would just like to read today's tip, you can do that as well, here: For stories, jokes, quotes and cartoons every day, sign up for our Just for Grins newsletter.
As you can tell from the title, this Web site is all things Christmas! And while it does have recipes and crafts, like the other sites I’ve shown you, it also has some lovely computer treats for Christmas too. This site is easily navigated in two ways. One, you can use the red Christmas menu at the top center of the page, which has a listing of links to a lot of Christmas goodness. Or, you can scroll down the page past that to the Navigation section, where you will find everything neatly arranged into categories. I noticed as I was scrolling down the navigation that below the red menu, there was a free e-card you can send to all your friends and family. You can decorate a gingerbread cookie with icing and then send it off! I thought that was a lovely way to send some holiday cheer to my family. I made you all a card too! To see it, just type in "8174" (without the quotes). I hope you like it! Another thing I really loved about this site is the little Christmas facts just nestled away in each section. I noticed this first when I checked out the Christmas Downloads section, where I learned about screensavers and gifs. If that wasn’t cool enough, you can listen to Christmas music while you browse the site as well! Just click the speaker button on the side menu and enjoy streaming Christmas music all through your visit. It is great quality music too. I heard a lovely version of Silent Night and Joy to the World while I was there. The side menu is devoted to fun things to do and is broken down into fun things for kids to do as well. Cheers to more activities for kids to do while they’re home on break! I hope you enjoy All Things Christmas as much as I did! http://www.allthingschristmas.com/ ~ Amanda Do you have a cool, non-commercial site that you want to share?
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December Wallpaper Here's December's wallpaper. It's all free, so enjoy!
All can be found here: http://www.worldstart.com/wallpaper/index.php Enjoy!
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Sunday, December 23, 2007
Computer Tips [ Speed Up Your Drives + Six Critical Password Rules + Can You Burn? ] 12-24-2007
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