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Vista SP1: What's New? Yes, you read that right! Today is the day you've all been waiting for. According to all the e-mails and phone calls I've gotten in the last couple of weeks about the new Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista, you all are getting a little anxious about its release. I won't lie, I'm excited about it too, but even though I've been checking up on it everyday, I haven't been able to find much information on it. That is, until now. I was able to find bits and pieces of new information about the Vista SP1, so if you're interested, keep reading for the latest scoop! Now, before I say anything else, I want to make it clear that all of the information I was able to find is, in a way, based on a rumor. Basically, Microsoft has not given the final word on when the SP1 will officially be released, so everyone else is starting to guess. What's being said gives the rest of us a little more hope though that it will be sooner than later! Several online publications are saying the Vista SP1 will be released on February 15, 2008. And while that date is not unlikely, Microsoft is still only saying it will be out during the first quarter of the year. Either way, that means the finished product should be released within the next month or so. As of right now, the SP1 RC (Release Candidate) is still making its rounds and there's word that Microsoft won't do anything else until they're sure there are no problems with that. It seems as if the RC is a strong release though, so there shouldn't be too many problems with it. Therefore, not much else should be holding the final release back. Several Microsoft partners have said they expect it to be out soon as well. So, while I can't give you an exact release date, at least you know it is getting closer. And as always, I will continue to keep you updated on any Vista SP1 news that comes my way. Hang in there, my Vista friends! ~ Erin Don't stop now! Make sure you keep reading to learn all about how you can easily back up your important data to a flash drive, find out how you can power up the arrow keys in MS Word and learn how to put your taskbar on top for easier and faster access. Also, be sure to stay safe by reading this week's security article thanks to Gary and of course, don't miss out on Amanda's Cool Site of the Day!
Real Power On The Road! Just Plug In! Turn Your Car's Lighter Into A 120V Household Plug! Really! WOW - We landed an incredible deal on an AWESOME 75 Watt Power Inverter! What the heck is a "power inverter" you ask? Basically, a power inverter is a device that plugs into your car's cigarette lighter and converts the 12V DC power supply into 110/120V AC power supply. In short, this unit gives you a household AC plug that you can use in your car! Basically, you can use this great little gadget to power all kinds of devices. Everyone I've talked to has come up with several uses for it (then promptly bought one :-) Think about the possibilities - you could use this for charging laptops, DVD players, small TVs, video game consoles, and cell phones! This power inverter is a valuable accessory for both long and short trips alike. Heck, it would even be handy for recharging batteries (been there, done that - camera, iPod, MP3, etc.) - I can't think of anything you wouldn't be able to use with this! I've had an inverter for several years, I can't imagine hitting the road without one! I've been on several cross country trips in over the last year and this is one accessory that's always plugged into my cigarette lighter! I use it constantly! This Power Inverter also features low-voltage thermal overload protection to protect against short circuiting, overheating, and overload and can be positioned several ways to better fit different car designs. I can't find one thing I don't just love about this item! It's absolutely fantastic! Oh ya - it's also really lightweight (about 1/2 lb.) and really compact so it's easy to store when not in use or to move from one vehicle to another! Your price on this is incredible - just $15.97 and US shipping is FREE! Power inverters are normally on the expensive side - most go for $50-$90, so this is an outstanding buy. http://store.worldstart.com/product.php?productid=4106 PS - These are soo great, I know they're going to go fast! So, get to the site and get yours order right away if you want in on this fabulous deal!! Fire Resistant Document Bag! AMAZING!!! Protect Your Valuable Documents! Can Withstand 1000 Degrees!! And Just Wait Till Ya Hear How We Tested It! I saw these at one of my suppliers and ordered a sample to use for some personal documents, not really thinking to put it in our newsletter. Well anyway, the sample came in today and when it got to my desk it was already open - hmmm! A few minutes later one of my shippers told me she opened it and already tested it (she got out a lighter and tried to start it on fire) because she was curious if it really worked! I'm happy to tell you, there are absolutely NO BURN markings of ANY KIND on the bag! I believed her, but I still had to try for it myself ;-) It's amazing - you can stand there all day with a lighter and it just won't catch on fire! (everyone here had to go and try it for themselves - good thing we didn't set off any smoke alarms ;-)! The Document Bag is constructed of fiberglass and it is designed to withstand temperatures of up to 1000°F! WOW!! Obviously, no one can predict when a fire might break out - one could happen to any of us at any time. This Fire Resistant Document Bag is like a fire safe for all your important documents that you can't afford to lose. Right off the top of my head I am thinking of all the documents I have in my desk at home - insurance papers, passports, birth certificates, property deeds, etc. Not to mention checks, cash, treasured family photos and more! If the worst were to happen and a fire broke out, all of these would be gone!!! I know what I'm doing tonight - going home and getting my desk cleaned out and securing all my documents in this bag! A fire would be bad enough, but to lose all of my families important documents and valuable items that could have been protected (my stomach hurts just thinking about it), that would be an unnecessary tragedy. I think these Fire Resistant Document Bags are a MUST-HAVE for everyone who has important or valuable documents they don't want to lose. To give you all the opportunity to get one (or two) and keep your documents safe from fire, we've got two great deals - check it out: http://store.worldstart.com/product.php?productid=4065 PS - Bags are approximately 9" x 14.5" and hold up to legal-size documents (deeds, passports, birth certificates, cash and more). As usual, quantities are limited so please don't wait to order! Need Earbuds? Get 'Em Cheap! OK, you have an awesome little MP3 player or iPod and life is great. Well, that is until your earbuds wear out, lose their little spongy covers, or just stop working. Don't fool yourself - if it's not happened to you yet, it will. What's a music junkie to do? Easy - Grab a set of these fantastic little earbuds for just $6.97, FREE US shipping! They sound great, work on any MP3 player or iPod and the price is fantastic! Grab a set or two: Hey - Don't get stuck paying $25 somewhere else for these - grab 'em before they sell out!
Q: A: So, if you own a flash drive, this tip is especially meant for you! If you have one, you probably already know what I'm talking about, but just in case some of you aren't sure, a flash drive is a tiny portable device you can use to save your files, etc. It goes into one of your computer's USB ports and it functions as a removable hard drive from there. It is versatile in that you can use it on any computer that has an available USB port. Most flash drives have at least 512 MB of space, but the more popular ones these days have either 1 or 2 GB, which is a lot of space. Now that we've gone over that, let's move on to the actual tip for today! If you're wanting to save one of your folders (the complete folder) with a USB flash drive, just follow the directions below and you'll be done in no time at all. 1.) Go ahead and insert your flash drive into one of your USB ports. The port will either be on the front, the side or the back of your computer, depending on which style you have. 2.) Once the flash drive is recognized by your computer, double click on the My Computer icon on your desktop. (You can also access this by going to Start, My Computer). 3.) Next, right click on the folder you want to save. It could be your Shared Documents or maybe just one of your individual folders. Either way, right click it and select the Send To option. From there, choose Removable Disk. You may have several options for this, but just pick the one your flash drive is listed under. It could be any letter between G and J. 4.) Now, you may receive a prompt that tells you to overwrite the files that are already on the flash drive. You'll want to check this out, because you don't want any old versions of the files to be saved and you don't want to lose anything else that may already be saved on the drive. If you don't receive the prompt, just go ahead and continue. 5.) This is the step where the files will transfer themselves over to your flash drive. Now, depending on the amount of files you have to transfer, this could take quite a long time. You may want to go grab something to eat or take a nap while you're waiting. When the transfer is finished, the File Transfer window will go away. 6.) Next, go back to your My Computer window and right click on the removable disk icon that your flash drive is listed under. Select Eject and everything will then disappear from your screen. You can then safely remove the flash drive from the USB port. Once you remove the flash drive, the backup is complete. Now, there are just a couple tips you'll want to follow before you start this process. For one, make sure you have enough room on your flash drive for all of the data you're saving. If you don't have enough space, the complete folder, etc. will not transfer over. Also, make sure you never remove the flash drive from the USB port before hitting Eject. If you do, you could do some damage to the flash drive or even worse, lose some of your data. Okay, I'm done preaching! Now, go and back up what you want and be content in knowing you did it with a safe and trustworthy device. Aren't flash drives just the greatest?! ~ Erin Have a question for the newsletter? Submit it at the link below:
Powered Up Arrow Keys in Word I'm sure you all know the basic ways of navigating through an MS Word document using the Page Up, Page Down, Home, End and arrow keys, right? Well, today, I thought we would take a look at turbo charging what the arrow keys can actually do for you! You all know the left and right arrow keys will move you one character in either direction. But, to give them a little oomph, try adding the Ctrl key.
Up and down keys? You all know they will move you one line up or one line down.
There you have it. Arrow keys partnered up with the Ctrl key will really help you zip through your documents! ~ April
FINALLY - An Easy Way To... Organize, Edit, Email, And Print Your Photos!! On Sale TODAY ONLY(01-30-2008) Just $8.97!! WOW!! A Must Read: OK, you have a digital camera. Let me guess - you have a ton of photos all over your hard drive, right? That's what I thought :-) Wouldn't it be great if there were a way to keep all those images organized, easy to work with, and simple to share? Great news - we found a new program every digital photographer is going to want. It's called Personal ImageManger Express and it's just awesome! I can tell you it's going to make my digital life a lot easier - read on!
First off, it's really easy (dare I say even fun) to use. It can acquire photos from your hard drive, digital camera, scanner, whatever. From there, you can quickly organize all your photos into easy to manage categories. You can even create categories across numerous folders. In fact, you can even put the same photo in multiple categories if you like (very handy). However, image management is just the beginning with this one! It also features an excellent photo editor that includes all the major tools you need. This thing just blew me away! It can easily do stuff like color balance, contrast, brightness, hue, cropping, red-eye removal, even special effects! Plus, it has an awesome "one-button enhance" tool that does a great job at automatically making your images look their very best! You may never use your old imaging software again!
And then it gets even better! This program also has an awesome captioning feature. You can add a regular caption at the bottom (or top, side etc) to a photo or you can place a caption in the image itself (see site for a screen shot). And get this - these captions are searchable by the program! Excellent tool!
As if all that weren't enough, you can also add "picture frames" to photos with the click of a button, as well as photographer info, dates, shapes, clipart and more! Even rate your own photos and search by rating! And there's still more to tell! This also makes it really easy to share photos by e-mail! One of the biggest problems people run into when they want to e-mail a photo is the photos are just too big - usually way too big. They take forever to send, forever to download, and are hard for the recipient to see. This little gem will resize any image for e-mail with the click of a button (the original image stays intact, of course). In fact, if you use an e-mail client on your computer (like Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Eudora, etc), it will resize your image and automatically put it in a new message for you! Just put in the address, fill in a subject, and send - it couldn't be easier. Even if you already know how to resize for e-mail, this will do it with a lot more speed and a lot less hassle. OK, I gotta tell you about the printing and I'll stop :-) If you print your images you know that getting them to the proper size for 4x6, 5x7, or 8x10 can be a pain. Well, this does it automatically for you! Cool huh? Alright, I think you get the idea - this is one program every digital photographer should be using and I've only touched on a portion of what it can do! It's easy to work with, loaded with tons of useful features, and the price is right - it's on sale TODAY ONLY (01-30-2008) for just $8.97 and US shipping is FREE! It's an amazing deal, check it out: http://store.worldstart.com/product.php?productid=2050 PS - If you take digital photos, you owe it to yourself to try this. It'll make your photos fun to work with, keep you organized, and it makes printing something you'll actually want to do! This will jump back up to $12.97 when the sale is over - HURRY - get to the site today! Over 30 Free E-mail Newsletters! Have you checked out our NewslettersForFree.com site? It's basically a listing of various free newsletters of all types (including ours of course). No matter what your interest, there's a free newsletter on this site for ya! Sooooo, I wanted to invite everyone to stop by the site and check it out. It's almost a guarantee you'll see some newsletters you'll want to pick up! So, check it out. In a time when everyone want to charge for online stuff, it's nice to know there's good stuff that doesn't cost ya a cent: http://www.newslettersforfree.com
Put the Taskbar on Top Have you ever needed to browse through any windows you currently have open on your computer? But, when you go to do so, you have to close out all your other programs just to access them? Well, more than likely, you probably don’t have your taskbar set to be on top. What exactly does that mean, you ask? Well, a taskbar is the bar at the bottom of your desktop that organizes any programs, folders or documents you have open at one time. The easiest and quickest way to access those applications is by keeping your taskbar on top of any programs you have open. By doing that, the taskbar will always be on top of your programs, even when everything else is covering up the rest of your screen. So, if that sounds like something you need, here's how you can do it! 1.) First, right click any open area on the taskbar next to your Start menu. 2.) Choose Properties. Once there, you will see this window. The most important setting is the middle one.
3.) You can go ahead and check the box that says "Keep the taskbar on top of other windows." From now on, the taskbar will always be visible at the bottom of your screen, regardless of any other windows you have open. Keeping your taskbar on top is very beneficial, but before I go into any more detail, I want to show you how the programs you use can pile up on your taskbar. Most tasks should look like this:
On the other hand, when you have a lot of windows open, they pile up on your desktop. So, you can use the taskbar to "shuffle" things around so that you're in control of what is and isn't visible at any given time. Keeping your taskbar on top of the other programs can make your life a lot easier! Here are some more things you can do with the taskbar:
Without your taskbar on top, you wouldn’t be able to use these little time saving techniques. Adjusting this feature on your computer may help you enjoy working with Windows a whole lot more. Give it a try today! ~ Mike Pettinato If you enjoy our tips, tell your friends. That's what keeps this newsletter growing.
Open ID Another reader asks: As an extension to your Secure Passwords article, would you discuss the Open ID concept? Some examples would really be helpful. (In order to see how they work, I have gone to several Open ID enabled Web sites and navigated through their sign up processes. I didn’t see anything special, but then again, I also backed out before I actually created an account). The general idea of the Open ID system is to allow people to use one username and password for several Web sites. This allows for customers to have access to the different sites without the need of creating a separate username, profile and password for each site individually. Currently, there are 471 Web sites that support the Open ID system. So, there is a chance you may already have an Open ID and not even know it! When you visit one of the sites that supports Open ID and create a username and password, you have automatically created an Open ID for yourself. You can visit this Web site to see a list of sites that currently support the Open ID system. Now, this does relate very closely to last week's article about secure passwords. With systems such as the Open ID network, it is very important to have a strong password. Since your ID can be used on several different Web sites, if someone got ahold of your password, they would have access to all of those sites, including all of your personal profile information. Making sure you use strong passwords should always be a priority, but with the Open ID system, it's even more important. If you're interested in getting an Open ID or finding out even more information about it, you can visit the official Open ID Web site right here. Until next time, stay safe out there, my friends! ~ Gary P.S. - Do you have a computer or network security question? If so, send it to gary@worldstart.com and you may just find an answer for it in the next newsletter. I will not be able to answer every single question I receive, but I will choose a few to feature in future editions! For stories, jokes, quotes and cartoons every day, sign up for our Just for Grins newsletter.
Welcome to Story Online, a Web site where interesting children’s books are read by SAG (Screen Actor’s Guild) members. On the main page, you’ll find some featured stories. While I was there, those stories were: Enemy Pie – read by Camryn Manheim To find more stories, click the More Stories button and the stories will switch out to different ones. There are 20 stories in total right now! To get started, simply choose a story. On the story’s page, you will have several navigation options. You can select the Read By button and learn all about the actor reading the story or you can click the Let’s Read It button and choose your connection speed to see the video. The video will be of the actor reading the story with the story captioned as well. The video will show both the actor reading and the illustrations from the pages of the book. I thought that was very cool! On the Video page, you have the options of full screen, turning the captions on/off or changing the video's size. As if the stories weren’t cool enough on their own, they’ve even added downloadable activity guides. There are also Related Activities, which will pop up and suggest things you can do with the book. There's even a More Activities section you can check out! I think this is a great site for kids and from reading the Viewer Comments, so do a lot of other people. Enjoy! http://www.storylineonline.net/ ~ Amanda Do you have a cool, non-commercial site that you want to share?
Have you checked out our NewslettersForFree.com site? It's basically a listing of various free newsletters of all types (including ours since about the time they started). No matter what your interest, there's a free newsletter on this site for ya! Sooooo, I wanted to invite everyone to stop by the site and check it out. It's almost a guarantee you'll see some newsletters you'll want to pick up! So, check it out. In a time when everyone want to charge for online stuff, it's nice to know there's good stuff that doesn't cost ya a cent: http://www.newslettersforfree.com Photo Contest Voting! OK, it's here! Time to vote for this month's contest entries. The theme was " Winter Wonderland". Vote here: http://www.worldstart.com/photo-contest/vote1.php
January Wallpaper Here's January'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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Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Computer Tips [ New ID Security System + Backups In a Flash + Start At The Top ] 01/30/08
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