Safely Viewing Suspect Email in Outlook Express

After the BPCA General meeting, I was asked how to view an email safely in Outlook Express, to determine if it should be opened. This is due to the topic of internet security at the meeting and the admonition to never open email, unless the sender is known or you had requested the specific email.

The following should give you some information to make the determination:

• Right-click the message, select Properties, and click Details to read the message's header.


• Highlight the email in question and click Message Source to read the message itself in a nonrunning mode (you'll see HTML code, but can scroll down and view the message's text).

In the first case, you should be able to make a decision based on message origin and in the second by a perusal of the actual text.

This only applies to Outlook Express, but other email programs should have similar functions.

I do not use Outlook Express as a general rule, but I did check to make sure the above instructions work.

Note: This posting is a day late due to severe thunderstorms leaving me without computer access. I do apologize but, this will happen from time to time this time of year. Also, with next Tuesday being July 4th, I will probably post either Monday or Wednesday instead.

XP - Reset Default Printer

This is for those who have more than one printer attached to their computer or who are accessing multiple printers through a network.

The following instructions will show you how to set or reset one of them as the default.

1. Left click on Start.


2. Left click on Printers and Faxes.


3. Right click the printer you want to make the default.


4. Left click on Set as Default Printer in the drop down menu.

That is all there is to it.

You should now see a little black circle with a check mark next to the printer icon of the printer you selected as the default printer.

If you now have the correct printer set as the default, you can now close the Printers and Faxes window.

Now any time you want to change the default printer just follow the same process.

This applies to all accessible printer drivers including Adobe Acrobat Distiller, FinePrint, etc.

Microsoft Excel and OpenOffice CALC - Association and Saving

I was recently asked two questions regarding Microsoft Excel files and OpenOffice.

"Why can't I open an Microsoft Excel file, sent via e-mail, even though I have OpenOffice 2.0 installed?"

The person asking the question does not have Excel installed on their computer.

The most likely reason is that OpenOffice is not set up as the default for opening Excel files.

The easiest way to associate the .xls extension with OpenOffice in Windows XP, assuming that you have saved the file to your computer is:

• Locate the appropriate file in My Documents or whateverelse it was you saved it.


• Right-click the file you want to open in a different program, and then click Properties.


• On the General tab, click Change.


• Click the name of the program in which you want the file to open.

This will make it so that any files with an .xls extension will not automatically be opened by OpenOffice CALC.

Note: The same procedure is used to change the association with other extensions and the programs you want to have them automatically open in.

"How do I save an OpenOffice spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel format, to send via e-mail?

This is much easier to answer.

When you are finished creating or editing the OpenOffice spreadsheet use the Save As and select the appropriate format from the drop down menu.

Internet - Selecting Text For Copying

Have you ever had the problem of using the mouse to highlight text on a site and getting portions of other text you did not want? This is usually because the site is using tables or columns you can not see to display its content.

Instead of using the mouse to drag across the text to be selected, position the cursor at the beginning of the first word, hold down the Shift key and position the cursor at the end of the last word. All the text between these positions will now be selected and can then be copied and pasted wherever it is you want to place the text, without any of the items you do not want.

I know this is really a basic thing but, I see a lot of my co-workers having trouble selecting only the text they intend.

By the way, the same technique works in most instances of Windows selection, providing more control over selection.

XP On Screen Keyboard?

Do you want to use an on screen keyboard?

Honestly, I don't know why I would use it but, Microsoft includes a utility in XP, that displays a virtual keyboard on the computer screen as an accessibility tool.

To turn on the On-Screen Keyboard click on Start, All Programs, Accessories, Accessibility, On-Screen Keyboard. Or even easier, click on Start, select Run, type osk and click on OK

For more detailed information on this and other XP accessibility options see Windows
XP Accessibility Tutorials.

Some of these accessibility options, might be useful, for those who can not see or hear well and those who have trouble using a keyboard or a mouse; give them a try before looking for expensive ways to do the same type of thing.

XP Renaming a Series of Files

I recently downloaded pictures taken with my digital camera and as usual they had names which made no sense to me like imag0051.jpg, imag0050.jpg, etc.

In the past I would rename each one according to the event and date taken. This task was very tedious, as I would have to go into thumbnail view and determine what the name was going to be each time, not very efficient.

I decided to do a Google search with the phrase "rename a series of files". The first page of 10 entries, out of about 5,840,000 entries, all referred to a built in XP function to accomplish just what I was looking for. My original thought was that I would have to use some type of freeware or shareware to do what I wanted but, as I am using XP, this suits my purposes.

To use this function in XP:

• Locate the series of files to be renamed.


• Select the files to be renamed. (Any type of file, not limited to images, but they must be all the same extension.)


• On the File menu, click Rename. (You can also right click the first selected file and then click Rename.)


• Type the new name, with appropriate extension, and press Enter.

The selected files will now be sequentially named, that is newname.ext, newname1.ext,newname2.ext, etc.

If you want to specify the start of the numbering sequence, so that all files are numbered, just type the starting number in parenthesis after the new file name and before the extension. e.g. newname(01).ext

Now, by using the tactic described above, I have much more descriptive files with names like July05_HiltonHead_Vacation(10).jpg, Katlynn_Birthday_05(12).jpg, bpcablog(12).txt, etc. I think these are much easier to find and categorize. Try it for yourself, it should be easier to keep track of your files this way.

NoteTab Light

I was unable to access the internet while I was on vacation June 6th and 8th, so this post will be a little longer than most.

I have been using NotePad Light, a free Windows Notepad replacement, for a little while now. I like it because it enables me to create my blog posts in HTML, by using the included library of HTML codings.

The version I am using is the freeware NoteTab Light 4.95,available at http://www.notetab.com. NoteTab Standard and NoteTab Pro are also available at the ame site.

Though most people think that a Notepad replacement would be as relatively simple as what it is replacing, that is definitely not the case. NoteTab is much more than just another plain text editor. NoteTab has all the following and more:

• Open and edit many documents at once, even huge files (only limited by system resources.
• Text drag-and-drop editing.
• AutoCorrect/Auto-replace mode similar to Microsoft® WinWord.
• Programmable. Add your own custom features using an easy script language.
• Web enabled: can open links and HTML documents in browser.
• Supports third-party Web tools: HTML Tidy, TopStyle, and CSE HTML Validator.
• Each document can have different settings such as font, tab widths, word wrap.
• Supports outline-type documents
  that help you organize your notes or any kind of information.
• Supports document templates.
• Covers all essential features available in Notepad (including LOG).

I particularly like the ability to have multiple documents open in a tabbed interface, similar to the way I work in my Firefox browser. I can have a text only document in one tab from which I am copying information, an outline document in another tab to keep everything in a logical order, and be creating an HTML version in another tab, all at the same time. This results in a much more efficient use of my time and keeps me orderly in the way I work from print to desktop publishing to web page development; I just keep my basic formatting consistent by only utilizing 3 sets of headings, an unordered list, an ordered list, and very basic body text setup.

I currently take the plain text into one of my full fledged word processors for spell check but, in the future plan to see if I can find a freeware or open source spell checker for use with NoteTab to eliminate the crossing back and forth. One of the third party products recommended with the installation of NoteTab is WordWeb but, I can not tell from what they show if it can be used for spell check or, just as a thesaurus.

I can take a plain text file and convert it to HTML easily using the options under the Modify menu in NoteTab as well as stripping the HTML tags if necessary from an HTML email for example; both of these come in quite handy for the various formats I receive information for the Newsletter.

There is a lot more functionality available within NoteTab. As I become more familiar with specific functions, I will post my thoughts on them here.

On a personal note, my hurricane shutters were installed today. We feel a lot better now about this year's hurricane season and being prepared but, hope that they won't be needed.

---

Anonymouser

I have found an extension for Firefox that I like a lot.

It is called Anonymouser 0.3.1.

Once installed, just right click a link (must be an http:// type link, does not work with ftp, https, etc.), select "Open with Anonymouser" or "Open with Anonymouser in New Tab", to open anonymously through anonymouse.org.

You can also go directly to anonymouse.org, if you would rather not install the extension or if you do not use Firefox.

Either way anonymouse is great to use if don't want the sites you are using to have access to your personal information.

I used to use another anonymising site, but got annoyed with all the hoops I had to jump through to use it.

Anonymouser does have advertisements but, as I also use the Adblock v5 extension in Firefox so I don't see them.

As with any unfamiliar software, don't just take my word for it, check it out, Google it, check it out in Usenet groups, etc.