Avoiding Explitives

If you have gray hair today, chances are you remember listening to music on a Garrard turntable, doing correspondence on a Smith-Corona typewriter, and running slide shows with a Kodak Carousel projector. Now there is only one machine that does all those things - and makes you mishugge in the process. As we all know, that machine is the computer. When it works, life is good. When it doesn't work, sepuko or a colonoscopy are joyous alternatives.

And generally, what turns the tide from "cool" to calamity is simple stuff...

• Can't get the mouse to select an item on a pull-down menu.
• Text selection in a document has run amok.
• Should have single clicked instead of double clicked and now everyone in your address book is being solicited to try non-narcotic sexual performance enhancement drugs from Lithuania.

Yes, the world of computing is full of exciting opportunities - many of which are learned by trial and error.

That said, it is not surprising that a lot of people in the workforce today did not have formal computer training. They learned from the school of hard knocks ("So you mean deleting that file is why the computer stopped working?") and with lots of sweat equity.

Many businesses provide extensive training in the software packages specific to their businesses, but presume that "the basics" are already known.

Words like cut, copy and paste - stuff every kid learned in school - now have "cyber" eye-hand coordination issues associated with their meaning.

Today's students are being taught at very early ages how to run the basic software packages like Word, Excel and PowerPoint that will get them the job some old fogey takes too long to do.

While many kids can be doing stuff on that computer for hours and hours - building the stamina to kick out the older workforce - most do not apply the age-old, time- honored concept:

The keyboard is faster than the mouse. . . always has been. . . always will be.

Control "A", Control "C", Control "N", Control "V", Control "P", runs the basics:
Select all, copy, new file, paste and print.

Works a lot faster than trying to move a mouse all over the screen! And best of all, the geeks who write software have an "agreement" to make everybody's life easier and not change those basic key commands. So if you learn them once, you'll be able to use them forever.

Although the mouse is an easy way to work, it is neither fast nor efficient. Selecting text in a document can sometimes be tricky and inaccurate. Instead, try holding the shift key and using the four arrow keys. That provides fast and to-the-letter accuracy in selecting.

Then:
Control "C", Control "N", Control "V", Control "P", runs the basics:
Copy, new file, paste and print.


Another "quick trick" is to hold the Alt key and press the Tab key. This will allow you to toggle through all of the files, folders and applications you have open.

There are several ways to learn what the people with propeller beanies call key commands:

• Start >> Help "keyboard shortcuts" will yield a grand list
• Every pull-down menu has the key commands next to the actual item
• Hovering over toolbar items gives the settings as well.
• Joining the Tech Republic web site (http://www.techrepublic.com) will allow you to get PDF downloads like, "Keyboard Shortcuts for Word".

The only key that needs to be added to the modern keyboard is the "Any" key. The instructions for many software installations includes, "Press any key to continue."

Yes, there are computer users who have searched for it. Scarey thought, but true.

DX

For my daughter's 7th birthday, my wife got her a Nintendo DX - known to all cool and hip children as simply a "DX". Despite my self-professed computer saaviness, I had no clue.

A DX is an electronic pocket toy with interchangeable modules like Prison Yard Gang Rumble, Lap Dancer and the more benign Pet Puppy and Mom The Cook.

Being our home's official pet maintenance person - though not by choice - I was very much in favor of an electronic critter; no kibble, no poop, no trips to the vet for shots. Seemed like a really good idea until the stoopid thing started making noise. . . LOTS of noise. . . OFTEN. . . and my kids started talking to it. . . INCESSANTLY. . . and my kids stopped hearing anything said to them by their parents - which seems to be a regular by-product of children affixed to electronic devices.

Then my kids tried to convince me that Spot was really smart and could be trained to listen to commands.

"Great!", I said. "Can you teach Spot to format himself? That way the hard drive that Spot lives on can be blanked, deleting Spot, and giving me some peace and quiet!"

For some reason my kids didn't consider that a good idea.

Into The Orafice

by Budly

Computer stuff is all interrelated. Hardware cannot work without software. Data files (like letters or spreadsheets) cannot divulge their information without their related applications – Microsoft Word or Excel – to either create or read them. Monitors cannot show images without CPU's and video cards and software. You get the idea. . .

The RAM bone is connected to the Mo' (mother) bone (board). The video bone is connected to the floppy bone. The see-dee bone is connected to the audio bone... and so on.

So to find isolated topics is almost a phenomenon. . .

Today's item of isolation: Microsoft's Orafice, sorry, Office. . . specifically, the default set-up.

This is yet another classic example of the compelling need to gather all of the fight-jock, hot-shot programmers into a single Ames-chair-filled conference room and pose the eternal question:

What were you thinking?

If you could just give the planet an inkling of the process you had in mind, maybe we could all embrace it.

Here's the deal. . . and yes, it is nit-picky. . .

When an Office application (PowerPoint, Word, Excel) launches for the first time on your computer, there are chevrons – "»" – (little double arrows) at the bottom of the pull-down menus. After a brief pause or a click on the chevrons, the rest of the pull-down menu appears.

Yes, this is a silly little thing, but mind you, this is business productivity software that (basically) DELAYS getting to work... and to compound the incomprehensibility of the situation, this particular set-up component is adjustable:

Tools » Customize » General – then uncheck, "Show menu after a short delay" and check, "Always show full menu".

Most businesses prefer getting to work rather than getting to work after a short delay.

But hey, this is Microsoft business productivity software, so why rush off to work?

Get a cup of coffee.

Butter your english muffin.

Check your voice mail.

Make a paper airplane.

Sharpen a pencil or two.

IM.

Let's see what else can get done instead of the job. . .

A O Hell

To err is human. Almost everyone knows that.

However, to REALLY gum-up the works, takes AOL.

The only thing that can truly bollix-up your email and address book (under the guise of "user friendliness") worse than AOL is Comp-U-Serve - and THAT evil entity is owned by (you guessed it) AOL.

So what can these people possibly do to screw-up something as mundane and benign as email?

'Cupla things:

• Attachment caps - Emails sometimes require or get enhanced with attachments. Grandma wants to see the the latest photos of the kids. A co-worker needs a document to edit. Stuff like that there. These items add size to an email - photos and videos being the primary offenders. While most ISP's (Internet Service Providers - the people who hook you up to the world) have email size limitations to maintain traffic flow, AOL's are smaller. This means your one email to Cousin Winifred with 6 photos could turn into 6 emails with 1 photo each. . . but only after it is bounced back to you with the computeresse proclamation, "Your email is too damn big.", message.

• Address book hording - Lord AOL happily taketh email addresses. That brings you into the fold. However, they do not easily giveth them back. In other words, to use AOL, the company has made the service very user friendly to access: put your contacts and their information into our system (import it from wherever it was) and start emailing away. When you "grow up" and AOL becomes a nuisance (and at some point, AOL will become a nuisance), you will need a crowbar to extricate you email addresses. There is no convenient "export your addresses" feature - like their convenient import / upload your contacts feature. This makes leaving AOL particularly difficult - especially if your address book grew while you were with AOL. now there is only the tedium of transposing. Compare this to Gmail, Yahoo mail or your ISP's webmail service which probably has both import and export capabilities. Hey, they're your contacts, you should be able to move them freely and easily.

• Software clogs - The only thing that puts more chazzerai (that's Yiddish for garbage) on a PC than AOL is the "recommended" software you get when you install a new HP printer (Did I really need 500 MB to print a piece of paper?).

So what precipitated the rise and fall of Aye Oh El? The short answer is the proliferation of the internet. In the very early 56k-modem-as-part-of-your-phone-bill days, AOL truly was a simple solution. "You got mail!", was a one stop shop and eliminated the need to set up IMAP, POP3 and SMTP servers in confusing email programs. And with the relatively low (and automatically billed) fee "softly" padded into the monthly credit card bill, AOL grew large enough to find "synergies" with media giant, Time Warner.

Then high speed internet and THAT additional monthly cost became the norm. Given the choice between ssslow AOL, and fast DSL, people started leaving AOL in droves. This lowered membership numbers and revenues. Lower membership meant that the advertising dollars being commanded to get in front of AOL's large captive audience were also dropping. So to stop the hemorrhaging, strong customer retention tactics were employed. . . until someone recorded their conversation and posted it on the internet.

AOL Phone Call

The embarrassment resulted in AOL becoming a free subscription service - provided you contacted AOL and requested the change. If you didn't call AOL, you continued to send AOL a monthly "premium" subscription service payment.

Also around this time, AOL and Time Warner "un-synergized" themselves and went separate ways. . . something worth considering for yourself and AOL as well.

Too Much Free Time

I don't know what everyone's soooo worried about.

Look at all the free time people have:

Dance Off

Oz

Flash

Progress

by Budly

If Barack Obama had been alive 60 years ago, he could have been lynched by white folk for drinking from the wrong water fountain.

Tomorrow he could be lynched by white folk for raising taxes.

NOW THAT'S PROGRESS!

Bat Mitzvah Agonites II

So friends are having their daughter's Bat Mitzvah a week - ONE WEEK - after ours.

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

. . . and they're using some of the same vendors as us!

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

. . . which they recommended to us!

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

So on top of everything else that needs to get done, our friends think we should compare notes on our respective events so they aren't the same.

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

The simple reality is:

We're serving a buffet brunch.
They're serving a sit-down dinner.

So unless they're having a waiter deliver flapjacks. . .

Am I missing something?

I Love Photoshop!