Welcome to this week's edition of the Computer Kindergarten
Newsletter.
Today is Sunday, April 26, 2009
In this Issue:
Special Feature:
Secure Passwords
Tips & Tricks: Twenty Five Most Important Rules of Email Etiquette: 17. Be Careful with Irony in Emails
This Week's Topic:
Speed Up a Slow Computer – Turn Off Auto Start Programs
Question: Stop Slow
WebPages
Websites of Interest:
Wildlife Conservation Society; Great Backyard Landscaping Ideas; How to
Use a Sewing Machine; ZipSkinny; Fifteen Ways to Save
Money Online 4. Organize your Travel
Plans
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Special Feature:
Secure Passwords
If you work with any accounts online that need to be secure,
for example, a bank or brokerage account, or paypal,
it is very important to have a good password to protect your personal
information.
With a password cracking tool, a
hacker can crack an insecure password in a fraction of a second. Security experts recommend following these
six rules when making up a password:
1. Choose random characters.
The dog’s name or the name of the street you grew up on are not good passwords.
Try this: FiaBaWSD125MS. That stands for ‘Fluffy is a Black and White
Small Dog’ and you live at ‘125 Main Street’.
Easy to remember, hard to hack into.
2. Passwords should be unique. Try to create a password that is not easy to
guess. See Rule One.
3. Use at least eight characters. The longer, the better.
4. Use a combination of upper and
lowercase letters and numbers. If
the website allows symbols in passwords, put one or two of those in, too.
5. Change your password frequently. Some websites will require a change
periodically. Change it, even if the
site you are using does not.
6. Type in your password when you are
asked for it. The Remember
Password feature is convenient, but it is more secure if you type it yourself.
And remember, no business will ever
send you an email asking you for your account information and password. If you do receive an email like that, delete
it and call the business (do not use a phone number that was in the email).
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Tips & Tricks: Twenty Five Most Important Rules of Email Etiquette: 17. Be Careful with Irony in Emails
This article is part of our ongoing series on Email
Etiquette. With the help of Heinz Tschabitscher from about.com, we are taking an in depth
look at email etiquette. To read
previous editions of this series, please visit our newsletter archives:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/etiquette.html
The rules of email etiquette are not rules as much as they
are guidelines that help avoid mistakes (like offending someone when you don't mean to) and misunderstandings (like being offended
when you're not meant to).
These core rules of email etiquette help us communicate
better via email.
Be Careful with Irony in Emails
Be careful with irony in emails. Irony is wonderful. You can
say something without quite saying it. And irony is
funny, too.
An ironic tone is only wonderful and funny if it is understood, however. When the recipient of your message
can see you, or when they know you well, this usually works.
But with email irony can spark
disaster. Because it is so difficult to convey via email that something was
meant ironically, misunderstandings are common and can lead to major fights.
To read previous editions of this series, please visit our
newsletter archives:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/etiquette.html
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Today's Topic: Speed
Up a Slow Computer – Turn Off Auto Start Programs
As your Windows computer ages, its speed can decrease. You will notice an increase in response time
when you give commands to open programs, files or folders, use the Internet and
other tasks. There are
several things you can do to speed up your computer.
Over the next several editions of this newsletter, we will
present articles discussing some of the steps you can take to speed up your
slow computer.
Important: Before
making any changes to your system, always create a Restore Point. If anything goes wrong with the changes you
make, this will allow you to revert back to a point
when the computer was operating correctly.
Please visit our Newsletter Archives to read our article, All About Restore Points:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/040509.html
Turn Off Auto Start Programs
Windows will automatically open programs that are in your
Startup folder. You will find the startup folder in the Start button menus.
Click the Start button or orb, point to Programs, and then point to Startup.
Everything you see in there automatically opens when you
turn your computer on. (If you do not recognize everything in there, note that
some programs run behind the scenes and you will never see them on your
desktop).
While it may be convenient for programs to be open when you
are ready to use them, this process usually significantly increases the time it
takes to start the computer.
Some programs, in the installation process, are designed to put a shortcut in the Startup folder; you
may not necessarily want that program to open every time you use your
computer. These programs can be removed from Auto Startup.
To do so, click the Start button, point to Programs, point
to Startup. Right click the Program that
you want to remove. Left click Delete
from the resulting menu.
You will be asked to confirm the
deletion; click Yes, OK or Delete Shortcut (depending on your version of
Windows).
Note: When you delete
a program from the Start menu, you are not uninstalling the program from the
computer. You are deleting the Shortcut,
which is the command that tells Windows to open the program. The program will still exist on the computer,
and, more than likely, another shortcut to the program will be elsewhere in the
Start menu.
In our next edition, learn how to speed up your computer by
turning off programs that start up automatically.
Please visit our Newsletter Archives for previous articles
in our Speed Up a Slow Computer series:
Speed Up a Slow Computer - Clean the Desktop
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/040509.html
Speed Up a Slow Computer - Uninstall Unused Programs
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/041909.html
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Question: Stop Slow
WebPages
Sometimes a website will take a very long time to appear on
the screen. is
there anything I can do to just cancel that and go to a different website?
Answer:
Yes, there is.
Sometimes web pages do not load very fast. You can click the Reload or Refresh button to
try it again. If it still takes so long,
press the Esc (Escape) key on the keyboard or click the Stop button on the
browser.
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Websites of Interest:
Wildlife Conservation Society
Led by the Bronx Zoo, The Wildlife Conservation Society
provides wildlife conservation and education.
http://www.wcs.org/
Great Backyard Landscaping Ideas
This site will get you started with everything you ever
needed to know about gardening and landscaping.
http://www.great-backyard-landscaping-ideas.com/
How to Use a Sewing Machine
Using a sewing machine is not as difficult as it seems. Take a look at this
website for tips.
http://www.wikihow.com/Use-a-Sewing-Machine
ZipSkinny
Enter your zip code and learn all sorts of interesting facts
about your neighborhood.
http://www.zipskinny.com/
Fifteen Ways to Save Money Online 4. Organize your Travel Plans
From Wendy Boswell of about.com
No matter what your financial situation may be, it is always
a good idea to learn new ways to save money. Find out how you can utilize the
power of the Web to save money, find good deals, and improve your financial
status.
4. Organize your Travel Plans with TripIt
* Make a travel
itinerary on any travel site or service you normally use: airline, a travel
agency, etc.
* Forward your
confirmation email to plans@tripit.com.
* TripIt takes your travel plans and turns them into one
master itinerary, with added information such as local attractions, weather, maps,and much more.
TripIt is extremely easy to use
and you can save all your TripIt itineraries to share
with other people or just for your own personal use. It's
a great way to make that road trip a lot more interesting!
http://www.tripit.com/
Tip: Some websites
may require you to register to use their features. When you register at websites, you may be
signing up for spam (junk mail) if the recipient sells email addresses to
spammers. There is a way to avoid this
and still be able to take advantage of the great things that site has to
offer. Read our article, Minimizing Spam
– Registering Online, at our newsletter archives, to learn how use websites
without getting junk mail.
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/111608.html
Next Edition: The
Best Sites for Cheap Flights
Please visit our newsletter archives for previous articles
in our Fifteen Ways to Save Money Online series:
http://computerkindergarten.com/html/savemoney.html