Computer Tips [ Protect E-mail from Junk + Advanced Firewall Protection + Flash Drive ABCs ] 04/30/08

	The Progress Bar Here's the scenario: You just typed in the address of your favorite Web site and you've hit the button that will start the loading process. You then wait patiently in anticipation for the site to come up so that you can start using it. Now, while you're waiting, what do you usually look at to see how much of the site has been loaded? Perhaps you look at the little blue bar at the bottom of your Web browser to check on its progress. Am I right? Well, if you do, you're doing the right thing! You probably look at it everyday, but do you know what it's called or what it's there for? Well, keep reading for the full scoop! That little bar is called the "progress bar." (I know, a real original name, huh?!) But it's that bar that tells you everything you need to know about getting your favorite Web sites up and running. In case you're not sure what it looks like, here's a picture of one: . The bar will usually be a solid blue color, but depending on the browser you use, yours may be a green dotted line instead. You can turn to the progress bar to see how far a site has loaded or to see how much longer it has to go. The progress bar also comes in handy when there seems to be a problem with a Web site opening up all the way. If the bar seems to be stuck, you can close down your browser and try it again. Now, the term "progress bar" is also used for any downloads or file transfers you may do on your computer. It really does serve many purposes! ~ Erin Don't stop now! Make sure you keep reading to learn all about getting your flash drive set up and working properly, find out how you can do a clickless presentation in MS PowerPoint and learn what those spam verification e-mails are all about. Also, be sure to stay safe by reading this week's security article thanks to Gary and as always, don't miss out on Amanda's Cool Site of the Day! The Best Backup Program EVER! Makes Keeping Your Computer Backed Up SIMPLE! Incredibly Easy To Use! Automatically Takes Care Of Everything! Ya know, we hear it from people all the time, "I'm so upset - my computer crashed and I lost all of my stuff! My photos are gone! My work documents are history! Everything is trashed - I wish I would have backed up!" Here in the digital age, backing up isn't just important - it's absolutely CRITICAL! Truth is, most of us just don't do it enough - And sadly, I include myself in that category. It's just such a hassle to remember to backup, ya know? Well, I found a gem of a little program for you! It's called PC Backup and you're absolutely gonna LOVE this! It makes backing up effortless! Really! Just set it up and let it work in the background! How's it work? Couldn't be easier! Just tell it what files or folders you want to backup. For most people, just having it backup your My Documents folder is probably all you need, but you can add whatever you like! Keep just one file backed up, keep selected files backed up, or keep every file on your system backed up! It's easy, only takes a minute! Next, tell it where to backup to. I personally use an external hard drive, but a large memory card, flash drive, or even a separate internal hard drive will work. All depends on how much data you have to backup. Finally, have it do the first backup. That's it! You're already an expert! Nothin' to it! Oh, and talk about automatic backups! WOW! THAT'S the reason I LOVE this software! For your future backups, you can have it set to run when Windows starts and then run an automatic backup every so often. I have mine set for every hour, but you can have it do backups every minute, every 3 hours, once a day, once a week - Whatever! Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking- Having it backup all the time would make the poor computer work constantly, but it doesn't! Why? This can do Incremental Backups! That means that when it goes to do a backup, it ONLY backs up new or changed files! Saves IMMENSE amounts of time! My favorite feature!!!!! Here's an example! Say you have 100 files in a folder and between backups you change one file and add another. Rather than recopying ALL the files, it simply adds the new file and updates the changed one - two files written, 99 left alone! Smart eh? Instead of several minutes (or hours, depending on your file sizes / numbers), this is done in seconds! See why I love this one? PLUS this backups up the full files - it doesn't "hide" them in some kind of weird compressed archive that you HAVE to use the program to open - all your files are completely usable AS THEY ARE in your backup location! Why is this important? Think about this - What happens if your computer crashes and you can't find the disk for your backup software to reinstall it?? With software that uses a special only-works-with-our-backup-software kind of file, you MUST use that backup software to retrieve your files! Yikes! With this, you'll still have your files - all 100% usable and ready to go! I tell ya, this is the way backup programs SHOULD be! Easy to use, working in the background, and not taking up any resources! PERFECT! I don't know why this hasn't been done before! It's just GREAT!!!! Your cost? Just $10.97 and US shipping is FREE! Spectacular deal on what's possibly the easiest, most elegant backup solution I've come across! Take a look: http://store.worldstart.com/product.php?productid=4302 PS - It's not a matter of IF you're going to need a backup, it's WHEN (and we both know that's true!) This is an affordable, easy to use program that does the job without the hassle! Set it up once, and compute in blissful confidence that YOU are one of the few who are backing up! Isn't it worth $10.97 to make sure your files are safe? (Trust me, it will be worth 20X that amount to you if you don't backup and your data is lost !!!) WOW! - Check Out These Great Offers Too! OfficeSuite 2007 $12.97 Stereo Headphones! $10.97! Monitor & Screen Cleaning Kit - $14.97! Learn Windows Vista $10.97 Desktop Computer Mic $8.97 System Mechanic Pro 7 $15.97   Q: You've probably gone over this before, but I was wondering if you could do it again. I need some help getting my flash drive to work. Can you please give me some basic instructions? Thanks! A: I'd be more than happy to do that for you! We here at WorldStart have sold several flash drives in the past and because of that, it seems like I'm always being asked exactly how to use one. I've been told that our flash drives don't always come with the best of instructions, so I thought I'd take the matter into my own hands today and give you a brief overview on how to use a flash drive. They're very easy to use and I think once you're done reading this tip, you'll be well on your way to flash drive freedom. Let's check it out! The first thing you'll want to do is go to your desktop and double click on the My Computer icon. Leave that open and then continue on with the next step. Next, you need to actually plug the flash drive into your computer. If you use Windows XP or Vista, you don't need any drivers to get the flash drive up and running. Just plug it into one of your available USB ports and your computer will automatically recognize it. A "Found New Hardware" bubble will pop up in the bottom right hand corner of your desktop, so always look for that before you do anything else. On the other hand, if you use an older version of Windows, you'll need to install the driver CD that comes with your flash drive in order for it to work properly. Now, make sure you have your eye on the My Computer window and when you plug your flash drive in, look there to see where the flash drive goes. More than likely, it will bring up a new drive for you and it will be labeled as "Removable." On my computer, it comes up as "Removable Disk (L:)," but yours could be different, so just keep an eye on it. Once you find the correct drive letter, double click on it and you should see an empty window. (Don't worry, it's only empty, because you haven't put anything in it yet!) You can then go and find the files you want to put on your flash drive and just drag and drop them into the window. That's all there is to it! Once you have all the files you want saved on the drive, you can then go and put them on another computer or whatever you need to do. Flash drives really are awesome little devices and now you know that using them can be as easy as pie! ~ Erin Have a question for the newsletter? Submit it at the link below: http://www.worldstart.com/submitquestion.htm The Clickless Presentation Do you give a lot of presentations using MS PowerPoint? If so, do you use your mouse to click through your presentation or are you constantly reaching for a button on your keyboard? Even more, what do you do if you have to move backward in your presentation? If you're only trying to move a slide or two back, you either have to use your keyboard or you have to go through the hassle of maneuvering your mouse and so on. All in all, both of those methods can be quite frustrating and time consuming. So, how does a silent method sound to move from slide to slide and both forward and backward? Yeah, I liked the idea too when I happened upon the situation! All you need is a mouse with a scroll wheel and the realization that the scroll wheel will do all of the work for you. Yep, it will replace all the mouse clicking and the keyboard tapping! Simply scroll the wheel down to advance the presentation and scroll upwards to return to the previous slide. No clicking. No reaching for keys. It's just quick, smooth and easy advancement through your presentation! ~ April Special Note - We were finally able to get just a few more of these in stock. Last time we had them, we sold over 300 in less than a day. This time, we have just under 100 available, so you're gonna have to hurry to get in on this one! WOW!! $250 In Betty Crocker Cookbooks! Just $14.97!! 8 Amazing Cookbooks On CD ROM! 2,100 Fantastic Recipes! Oh, You Gotta Grab This! We just got an absolutely amazing deal on Cookin' With Betty Crocker Deluxe - and let me tell ya - this is going to BLOW - YOU - AWAY!!!! This has got to be, hands down, the best deal we've ever seen on a CD ROM cookbook! I mean, we're talking EIGHT fantastic cookbooks: Oh, and not only are you getting all these incredible cookbooks - you're getting a seriously powerful digital cooking assistant! This is just LOADED with great features and it's really going to make your kitchen life much easier! First off, don't you hate it when you have a recipe that serves five and you only have two to feed? Heck, you spend half your time just trying to divide up fractions! YUCK! Well, this can easily scale the recipes for however many people you're trying to feed! Need to feed just two? It can do that! Need the same recipe to feed 10? Yup, just a click of the mouse! To me this one feature ALONE is worth the price of the cookbook! Then it gets even better! Say you're on a diet and you really need nutritional information for the food that you're making. Wouldn't it be great if you could analyze a recipe and find out how much fat, cholesterol, how many calories etc. you were taking in? Well, with this you can! It can easily do a health analysis and in second you'll know the nutritional values for ANY recipe! What if you have a bunch of recipes that you want to add? No problem! Add as many as you like! Now, adding recipes is easy, but this takes it a step further! When you add a recipe, you get all the features mentioned above right at your fingertips! Need to scale your recipe for more or less people - it can still do it! Want nutritional values? YES! This can analyze YOUR recipes and give that to you as well! Oh, and you'll love this! What if you're not sure how to cook something? Maybe there's a technique that a recipe describes but you're not familiar with it - Sure wouldn't take much for that to happen to me! Well, this has tons of fantastic instructional videos! Yup, just pull up the video section then watch and learn! HA! Who needs the cooking channel? :-) Want more! Sure ya do! This can also create a shopping list for a recipe (print or send to a palm), e-mail recipes to friends and family, create weekly menus (and make those shopping lists from those menus), search recipes by keywords OR ingredients, and to top it all off, the interface is just fantastic! Whew, this is one amazing cookbook! Want one too? I don't blame ya! These are just great! Your cost is only $14.97 and US shipping is FREE! You and I both know you can't even get one good cookbook for that kind of money, let alone a set of EIGHT! Plus the fact that it's all on your computer makes it so much more useful / powerful than those old paper cookbooks! Go on, give this a try - I know you'll love it too! http://store.worldstart.com/product.php?productid=4287 PS - WARNING! This was a VERY limited quantity deal. PLEASE hurry to the site and grab yours while you can! Right now, we can't get any more and these are bound to be extremely popular today. See ya at the site! What's the Difference? Do you often wonder what the difference is between a virus, trojan and worm? I do all the time! I mean, are they all pretty much the same thing or are they all completely different? I classify all three of them as nasty, but they really do have their own characteristics. And if you'd like to find out what those are, I'd suggest checking out today's tip on our homepage. It explains everything! The Duct Tape Guys You all know that duct tape fixes everything, right? Whether it's a broken dish or a loose car door mirror or a mangled computer keyboard, duct tape can fix it! And that's exactly what the cool site on our homepage today is all about. It's called Duct Tape Guys and they show you easy ways to fix your "non-repairable" items with none other than duct tape! Check it out. If nothing else, it's good for a laugh! Here's the link you need: http://www.worldstart.com/ Enjoy! Spam Protected E-mails I have a quick question for you: When you send out e-mails, do you ever receive some sort of a spam verification e-mail in return? For example, it may ask you to verify the e-mail address of the person you're sending the e-mail to, etc. Ever wonder why you have to do that? Does it seem unnecessary to you? Well, it's all for a good cause and if you continue reading, I'll explain why! Spam verification e-mails are becoming more and more popular with e-mail users everyday. If you've never come across one or if you haven't signed up for one yet, you probably will in the near future. This is basically what happens: You find an e-mail you really want to send to some of your friends, co-workers, acquaintances or whoever. You do that and everything seems to go through just fine. Then five minutes later, you check your e-mail again and you see some sort of verification e-mail from one of the people you sent the e-mail to. Well, that just means the recipient has a spam protection program covering their e-mails and they want to verify that they really know you. They basically just want to cut down on the spam e-mail they receive and they're able to do that with the e-mail verification program. So, what does the e-mail look like? Well, they can come from various providers and they all look a little different, but they all pretty much say the same thing. There are tons of these types of programs available, but some of the more popular ones are ZoneAlarm, Spam Arrest and SpamCop. No matter which one you may use, they all work in a similar way. When you receive the e-mail, you will see something like "Thank you for sending me your e-mail" and it will probably list the subject heading you used. It will also list the date you sent the e-mail on. It will then go on to say something similar to "In an effort to eliminate junk mail, I am using (whichever program they're using) and it has placed your e-mail on hold." It will then ask you to click on the link they have provided to add your e-mail address to the recipient's "Allowed People" list, in order for the e-mail to go through successfully. Once you click on the link, you may have to enter in your e-mail address or it may just accept it immediately. It will then say something like "E-mail verification complete. Thank you." You will only have to do the verification once, so don't think you'll have to go through the process every time you send an e-mail to that person. When you're done with all of that, you will be able to send e-mails to that person in the future with absolutely no trouble whatsoever. So, do you think you're now interested in joining the forces to protect yourself against all the spam e-mail that pesters all of us everyday? If you are, you can sign yourself up for one of the programs too. Like I said earlier, there are several different options available, but they all pretty much do the same thing. Keep in mind though that some of them require a fee. A lot of them also have a trial period you can use beforehand to just check it out. You can then decide if you want to pay the money to keep it or not. If you're interested in signing up, you can find tons of them online. Just do a search with your favorite search engine and follow the directions. And even if you don't want to use one, you at least now know what these types of e-mails are when you get them in your Inbox. Isn't it good to know there are ways you can keep your e-mail just a little bit safer? I sure think so! ~ Erin If you enjoy our tips, tell your friends. That's what keeps this newsletter growing. http://www.worldstart.com/referafriend.htm Comodo I have mentioned before that having a good firewall is essential to computer security. I know some of you out there use the Windows firewall that comes along with your computer, but that may not always be the best choice. The Windows firewall does provide the minimum security needed to protect your files and system from unwanted access, but it also lacks many of the advanced features that are included with new firewalls. Some of those features include active file scanning and setting up trusted networks for communication. One of the main reasons why people choose to use the Windows firewall is because it's free and it comes with the computer. Those are good reasons, but what if there was a better firewall out there that was also free and offered the advanced features the Windows firewall is missing? Well, actually, there is! It's called the Comodo Firewall Pro, it's completely free and it offers a lot more of the advanced security features you need to stay 100 percent protected. The Comodo Firewall Pro is compatible with Windows XP and 2000 and you can get it right here for yourself. Enjoy! Until next time, stay safe out there, my friends! ~ Gary For stories, jokes, quotes and cartoons every day, sign up for our Just for Grins newsletter. Stay Safe Online security is more important than ever! With identity theft running rampant and online predators and viruses everywhere, it's important to be an active participant in keeping you and your personal information safe. Here at Stay Safe, you can learn how to protect yourself and the ones you love. The interesting thing is, this Web site is broken down by age, so no matter what age you are, you can learn how to stay safe! Teenagers – This section addresses issues teens will face online and it teaches them how to be a responsible Web surfer. Whether it's dealing with online bullying or downloading music responsibly, there's something here for every teenager. You can even watch videos made by teenagers who are helping to spread the message about safety! Parents – Here you will learn, as a parent, what you can teach your children about being safe online. It also discusses how you can make it safe for your children to browse the Internet. In addition, it teaches you how to create a system of security with an antivirus program, a firewall and spyware protection to keep your computer and personal information safe. 50+ - This section really focuses on how to keep your personal information safe. People over the age of 50 are often targeted by identity thieves. Educators – Are you ready to learn about the delicate balance of computer safety versus student access? It’s a fantastic thing to be able to let your students work on computers at school, but how can you keep them safe? You can start by teaching them about online safety and the differences between .com, .org and .net. You can also teach your students about online scams, phishing and viruses. There's also a section called The Toolbox, which teaches you how to use the tools at hand to keep yourself safe online. You'll learn about firewalls, antivirus, parental controls, networking and even external storage devices. It's important to be aware of your safety online and to do all you can to protect yourself. I think this site speaks to anyone who uses a computer and who’s ready and willing to protect themselves from online dangers! http://www.staysafe.org/ ~ Amanda Do you have a cool, non-commercial site that you want to share? Send it to Amanda at amanda@worldstart.com North American Birds - with Roger Tory Peterson - $9.97 Explore the authoritative text and detailed artwork of the renowned Peterson Field Guides, along with photographs, videos, bird songs, range maps and more. And the experience does not stop with the CD-ROM. Experience all the power and beauty of nature in a way that will capture your imagination again and again. http://store.worldstart.com/product.php?productid=4274 April Wallpaper Here's April's wallpaper. It's all free, so enjoy! Sun Goddesses - Photo Contest Winner! Mexican Gold Poppies strain to fill their petals with the warming sun rays. Gibbons Falls This fantastic waterfall is located right off the roadway in Yellowstone National Park. I went down the loose hillside to get a better view and came back with this shot. Prairie Dog Peeking In Flowers Badlands National Park in SD is loaded with great scenery and prairie dogs! This was taken last spring when the flowers were still blooming. All can be found here: http://www.worldstart.com/wallpaper/index.php Enjoy!
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