| Greetings! It's a warm, beautiful day here in Denver. The weather man is predicting a sunny 70 degrees. Ya gotta love it. Of course, he also predicted the possibility of snow by Wednesday. That's Colorado for you. I just keep remembering that March 21 is the first day of spring. Can summer be far behind? Do you know your heritage? I'm a blend of Irish, Danish and Norwegian (that I know of). There might even be a bit of Scottish background there, depending on where my Wiley ancestors came from. I mention this because I've been interested in genealogy for the past several years and on March 18 from 1-4 p.m. I will teach an Internet genealogy class called Find Granny on the Web at Colorado Free University here in Denver. It's a demonstration of methods and websites that will help you find your ancestors. If you're interested in attending, pick up a copy of CFU's catalog and flip to page 68. This weekend I will be attending the 2006 Computerized Genealogy Conference in Provo, Utah, to soak up even more information to share with you.
| Seniors Dating Service |  | | A recent article in the Rocky Mountain News discussed senior dating services. The author states: "Seniors -- many of whom are using online dating sites -- are the fastest-growing group of online users, according to Nielsen//Net Ratings, an Internet research firm. Nielsen says computer users 55 and older account for 16.7 percent of all traffic to online personal sites -- the equivalent of 4.2 million unique visitors. At Yahoo Personals, those over 50 account for 21 percent of visitors." The accompanying article discussed the success that many older adults have had with eHarmony.com. I have friends who have tried the service and they admit to meeting some "frogs," but one or two have also met Prince or Princess Charming. Click here to read the entire article. As in any dating situation, use caution and common sense. Don't reveal too much personal information before you get to "know" the other person a little better, whether through e-mails or telephone conversations. Understand that some folks tend to stretch the truth a bit when describing themselves. Some of them use photos that are several years old and describe themselves in glowing terms. Take this worth a grain of salt. When you are ready to meet in person, make it in a public place and let a friend or family member know where you are going and the name and contact information of the person you are meeting. I don't want to be an alarmist, but this is not a time to throw caution to the wind. There are many online dating services out there. Another that I learned about recently is Senior Sparks. Click here to go to their website. I paged through their site and didn't see any cost involved. I'd love to hear your feedback if you've tried any of the online dating services. What did you like or dislike? Did you find your Prince/Princess Charming? |
| What is Adware and Spyware? | | | Does your computer seem to be running slower and slower? There's a strong possibility that you have picked up adware or spyware while checking your e- mail. What are adware and spyware? Bill Husted, one of my favorite computer columnists in the Rocky Mountain News, gave explanations of both in a January column. "Adware is a program that tracks Web habits. It does not spy on you, at least according to the accepted definition. Instead, the information gathered is not specifically linked to your e-mail address. It's gathered en masse to help understand shopping patterns on the Web." "Spyware tracks where you go on the Web and connects that data to your e-mail address. It can be used by marketers to send customized spam e-mail to you. But there is some spyware that literally spies on your hard disk." You can (and should) check for this invasive "stuff" on a regular basis. I use Ad-aware and Spybot, two free programs that can be downloaded from the Internet. Click here to go to my website for a link to the programs. When you click on How to Use Adaware or How to Use Spybot, it will take you to the page of Free Sample Lessons. Then click on Adaware or Spybot to go to Download.com where you can download the programs free. Then go back to my website and click Open the Lesson under each of the programs to print step-by-step instructions on how to use the software. I can almost guarantee that you will find adware and/or spyware on your computer. It's a good idea to run both of these programs once a week, just to stay ahead of it. |
| Computer Smile of the Month | | | |
| Talk to a Real Person | | | Voice mail has its place in our world, but when you're trying to reach Customer Service at a company, and you have to dig through 75 levels of "Push 1 for blah, blah, blah," it's very annoying. A very tiny (almost miniscule) piece in AARP Magazine gave a link to a website where you can find a list of "secret" phone numbers to reach a real person from AAA to Xcel. Click here to go to the Get Human Database. As of Sunday, March 5, the list contained 433 companies, listed by type of business. You might not want to print the entire list, but you could add it to your Favorites in Internet Explorer. (See page 78 of my book, Taming Your Computer -- The Simple Basics to learn how to do this.) If you haven't already ordered your copy of my books, click here to go to my website. You save $4 when you order both books at the same time and an additional $2 when you order online. I am still working on the new book which combines both of the current books, but it won't be available for a couple of months. If you have one book but not the other, I would suggest you place your order now before they are all gone. |
| Make web text larger | | | | Do you have difficulty reading text on web pages? I recently learned about a program called Web Eyes that lets you adjust the size of text on the Internet. You can also do this by left clicking View on the Internet Explorer Menu Bar and then left clicking Text Size and clicking a larger size of text. Web Eyes, however, can make the text much larger and lets you view the text like pages in a book. Click the link below to go the Web Eyes website. Once there, you can click "View Our Interactive Demo" in the middle of the page to test-drive the program. You can even download it and try it free for 15 days. If you like it, you can download it for $24.95 Or, if you would rather have the program on a CD, it's $34.95 plus $5 shipping and handling. If you've given up trying to see the text on Web pages, this might be just what you're looking for. If you do try the demo, let me know what you think. P.S. I sent a copy of this newsletter to the sales rep for Web Eyes and he replied with the following information: Web Eyes is now carried at Office Depot, MicroCenters, Fry's Electronics, J&R Electronics, Amazon.com. Soon, these stores will carry Web Eyes: Office Max, Staples, Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. The retail stores are selling Web Eyes for under $20.00 Also, Web Eyes has been translated into French and will soon be available in Spanish, German and Japanese. Click here to visit Web Eyes' website |
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