How To Add a Link In Your Email To A Popular Video

Whether you are visiting “YouTube.com” or “HuLu.com” or a local media stations, there may be times that you will see a video that you think someone you know would like to see. It is easy to copy that video location and paste it into your email. Here’s how:

If you have just watched a video on Youtube, look up at the address bar. You will see something that looks like this in the “address bar” of the internet browser (Internet Explorer, Chrome or Firefox) that you are u sing.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-6dQvOSYmI

• Highlight the letters in the address bar, by hovering your mouse over the highlighted area and right click.
• When the action list appears, choose “copy”
• If you email account isn’t open it, then by using your Tabbed Browsing, open another Internet connection and open your email account (Hotmail, Gmail, AOL…).
• Add the addressee and subject fields.
• Type your letter. (Something like “I thought you’d enjoy this.”) and once you have written what you’d like, be sure to come down to an empty line, then right click and when the action menu appears, Choose paste.
• The link will now be in your email. Notice it is normally a different color than your regular font because it is an active “hyperlink”
• Click send.
• Now, all the receiver has to do is “click on the link” and they will be taken to the website and see the video.

Why you can’t add or delete photo’s from you SD Memory card…

The number one reason – you’ve inadvertently locked your SD, Mini or Micro SD Memory Card. On the side of all memory cards, there is a small slider. Check to see if your SD card is locked. If the slider on the left side of the card is in the "locked" position, you will not be able to delete photos. Move the slider away from the "locked" position.
SD-Stands for Secure Digital...but is becoming the most common memory card used today
Now when you reinsert the Memory card into your Smartphone, camera or camcorder - you will be able to take photos. When you put the Memory card into your computer you will be able to copy all photos, music, and other data to and from the computer. You will also now be able to delete anything not wanted.

Remember, never delete or remove the DCIM folder that is on every memory card.
What is the DCIM Folder? DCIM (Digital Camera IMages) is the default directory structure for digital cameras and is there to keep your photos and or videos organized. When you put a memory card into a camera, camcorder or Smartphone, the camera device immediately looks for a ‘DCIM' folder. If it doesn't find such a folder, most cameras will create one.

CHANGE YOUR CLOCKS THIS WEEKEND

Set your clocks AHEAD ONE HOUR before going to bed THIS WEEKEND - TOMORROW EVENING, SATURDAY, March 10th, 2012. Spring's daylight saving time begins this Sunday, March 11th at 2 a.m. (Except Hawaii, Arizona, (American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands).

Yeah!!!! An extra hour of daylight when we "spring forward" each March and then lose it when we "fall back" on Sunday, November 4th, 2012 at 2am.


Almost all computers, cable boxes and other satellite services (including those for smart phones, cell phones, blackberry’s, dish & satellite TV services) will make this change automatically without our help..

Visit this website to learn what other parts of the world change their clocks:

www.timeanddate.com/time/dst/2012.html

For those of you who wonder how DST began, here are some tidbits about its origins and pros and cons of these time-changing events. According to lots of sources on the Internet, several events led to our modern-day DST:

Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers, suggested something akin to daylight saving time in a 1784 essay

During World War I in an effort to conserve fuel needed to produce electric power, Germany and Austria began saving daylight by advancing the hands of the clock one hour from April through October

A postal clerk from New Zealand was the first to propose modern DST

Congress first put America's clocks ahead one hour during World War I and (later for WWII)

Congress enacted the Uniform Time Act of 1966 to eliminate confusion about DST across the country-thanks to this act, DST in the United States now begins on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November

Windows 7 - turning the new style Taskbar off

The single most visible change in Windows 7 is the new “dock style” taskbar, which shows icons instead of buttons, with all application windows combined within a single button. To me it appears as though they’ve simply combined the Quick Launch and Applications Open Tasks into one area – personally once you get used to it, I think you’ll really like the new style… But many of you continue to email me to ask how to get it back to the “old look” so here is how you can “turn it off”:

 

Windows 7 Taskbar to XP/Vista Style:

• First, right-click on any open area of the taskbar
• Choose Properties from the menu
• From the Taskbar buttons drop-down menu, you’ll want to choose “Never combine”, which will make every window show up as a separate button on the taskbar, or you could choose “Combine when taskbar is full”, which does just like it says
• Now you should see the buttons show up with text labels like you are probably used to… but in the Windows 7 style
• If you chose the “Use small icons” checkbox in the properties screen, the taskbar will actually shrink down to look very similar to Vista
• The only problem is that the “pinned” icons are still sitting on the taskbar, which isn’t the same as Vista or XP, but you can easily remove all of them by right-clicking and choosing “Unpin this program from taskbar”. And now the taskbar looks and works very similarly to Windows Vista 

If you wanted to be really silly, you can choose the “Windows Classic” theme under the Desktop \ Personalize section… but that would be taking it a little too far, I think.

I would urge you to at least give the new Windows 7 taskbar a try… it takes a little getting used to, but it’s a great new change..

EXCEL: How to Turn the Heading Row “On” or “Off”

When we work in Excel (Spreadsheets) whether for numbers or data management, it's always best to be sure that we've typed in a heading row, so that when we sort a column - it will be easier to understand the meaning of the data. By default, the value in the heading is not included in the sort operation.

 

Occasionally, you may need to turn on or off the heading so that the value in the heading is or is not included in the sort operation. Do one of the following:

• To exclude the first row of data from the sort because it is a column heading, on the Home tab, in the Editing group, click Sort & Filter, click Custom Sort, and then select My data has headers.
• To include the first row of data in the sort because it is not a column heading, on the Home tab, in the Editing group, click Sort & Filter, click Custom Sort, and then clear My data has headers.

How to verify an emails accuracy - scam or hoax

It's always a good idea to verify email stories or warnings that you receive, no matter how accurate they may seem, before you forward them on to family and friends… Better to be safe – than to have to send a second email apologizing for a story that is urban legend, hoax or scam…

 

There are several different ways to do this and it only takes a minute - first you might want to check the accuracy on one of the following websites, such as:

 

www.hoax-slayer.com
www.truthorfiction.com
www.snopes.com

 

I’m sorry to say that one of my favorite websites to verify email stories has decided to get out of the business – that was: www.breakthechain.org

 

OR

 

Visit you favorite search engine and put the basics of the email story or warning into the “search bar” on your favorite search engine, such as

• google.com
• bing.com
• yahoo.com
• ask.com

or whichever one you use…

It's estimated that 99 out of 100 of these stories and warnings are false with little or no validity - but they certainly clog up email inboxes, mail servers, cause people to be spammed and damage to computers and waste so much time...

So be safe & check the story out for yourself before you forward it on...

Presidents Day or Washingtons Birthday or both

Well, it’s Monday – February 20th, 2012 – and many of us have the day off – celebrating “Presidents' Day”, which is also known as "Washington's Birthday".

Yes, some states – including Arizona & Massachusetts, do celebrate Presidents' Day as a state holiday BUT remember President’s Day has never been recognized at the federal level. On the national level, the third Monday of February is the official observance of Washington's Birthday.

And did you realize, that some states that don’t honor/celebrate Presidents Day or Washington’s Birthday - those states that don't (according to Wikipedia) are Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.

Washington's Birthday, February 22nd, was first declared a federal holiday by an 1879 act of Congress.. In 1968, legislation was enacted that affected several federal holidays celebrated at that time and one of the holidays, was Washington's Birthday this act was put in place in the hopes of simplifying the yearly calendar of holidays. President’s Day is now observed on the third Monday of February throughout the United States.

A common misconception is that Presidents' Day is the unification of Washington's Birthday and Lincoln's Birthday, or that it is a celebration of all U.S. Presidents, but neither of these are true..

And because we follow the school calendars - our computer classes are not held on Presidents Day - Washington's Birthday, so enjoy your day off.. I know we will...

What does “cloud” computing mean?

No the angels in heaven aren’t going to help store your work and photos when you use "cloud computing"..

Cloud computing simply means that whatever task you are performing is happening on the internet, instead of on your own PC.. So for anyone who uses many of the free email accounts, such as hotmail – yahoo – gmail, well they’ve been using “cloud” computing, because when they went to that companies website, and signed in with their user name & password, they were working on that companies computer, not their own… If you use Walgreens.com to store your photos for prints, and projects – such as a photo book or mug, then you were using “cloud” computing..

Cloud computing isn't new - far from it - it's been around since the early 1960's..50 years!!!

Some sources say cloud computing began with the beginning of the IT (Information Technology) Outsourcing industry by using idle/excess compute power (processing, storage, and connectivity) of one entity, to carry out the work of another. It's possible the first such use was when Mr. Ross Perot started the IT Outsourcing industry in 1962, and then rented idle computing power from one company (Southwestern Life) to carry out the processing needs of another (Collins Radio).

Facebook's New "Timeline" Design & Features

WHAT IS FACEBOOK’S NEW PRIVACY FEATURE CALLED “TIMELINE”..

If you don't have Facebook Timeline already, you will soon - during the next month or so, Facebook is introducing its updated “Timeline” design to all Facebook users.

Facebook Timeline is basically a cosmetic design change, but it will affect the layout of your profile and also has some functional changes intended to make it easier for others to see your Facebook history and parts of your profile and this is where you want to pay attention, because now others will be able to see those embarrassing photos, status updates when you didn’t know any better, and what your friends have posted on your wall since the day you joined Facebook.

Profile (Timeline) Review is a new privacy option that lets you approve or reject posts that you've been tagged in before they go on your profile (timeline). When you turn it on, posts may already be visible in other places on Facebook, but they won't appear on your profile (timeline) until you approve them. When you have a post to review, it will show up in the Pending Posts section of your profile or in your ACTIVITY LOG (if you you've upgraded to timeline).

• Note-Your ACTIVITY LOG is a list of your posts and activity, from today back to the very beginning. You’ll also see stories and photos you’ve been tagged in, as well as the connections you’ve made, like when you liked a Page or added someone as a friend.

Many articles and forums are saying the same thing – Facebook Timeline is a great new feature, but Everyone should take some time to review exactly what is available on our own profiles, especially reading those old, forgotten posts that we may have written a long time ago, because now they will be a lot more visible for people to read (same goes with pictures from those late night or weekend escapades!!).

You may want to start deleting what you don't want anyone to see and setting limits on "the audience" (such as friends, friends of friends, vs. everyone)  for the content you want only some people to see.

How to Use our Class Blog

We hope you find our “CLASS BLOG” helpful as you continue to learn your computer more effectively, because no doubt as soon as you learn something – it will change and there will be something new to learn. We hope our Class Blog helps with the ever changing technology… Feel free to become a follower, to comment, and to share this website with family and friends. And feel free to ask questions – your questions become the topics we cover on the blog and we continue to learn from each other.. ~ Cherie Houston - email me at: cherie_houston@hotmail.com

 

WHAT IS A BLOG AND HOW DO I USE IT?
All BLOGS are intended to be "informational" like any newsletter you might receive. But in addition to reading the "posts-otherwise called articles" that we publish on our BLOG, you can also copy any of the "post/articles" and save them to your word processing files so you can then print them and you can comment on what we've said in a specific "post/article" - The how to's are noted below..

 

TO COPY A POST/ARTICLE to save or print for yourself or to change the size and/or print: highlight any portion of the post/article - activate the paste command, now open or go to your word processing program and on a clean piece of paper - activate the paste command. What you highlighted is now on the page. Change the font size & style, and you may want to change the color of the entire post/article to BLACK because most blogs use a light gray print (even though it may look black)... To save it on your PC, go to File, Save As, Open or Create a folder you want it saved in - remember to give it a name that will make it easy for you to find in the future - Now print it...

 

TO COMMENT ON A "POST/ARTICLE" we’ve added, beneath each "post/article", left click on the word “comment” , which takes you to a dialog box, so you can type your comments about the "post" article that you have just read...

 

HOW & WHY TO FOLLOW A BLOG? For our blog or any blog you read often, become a follower, to easily keep track of the blogs via your Reading List on the Blogger dashboard - On our Blog, at the bottom of the right column, you will see a "Follow" button under the "Followers" widget, and when you left click on it, a popup window appears asking if you want to follow the blog publicly or privately

• EMAIL: Most blogs have an “email signup” so simply type in your email address and you will receive anemail whenever a new post is added
•  FOLLOWING PUBLICLY: Your profile image will appear in the blog's Followers widget. You will also be subscribed to updates for this blog which will appear in your Reading List on your Dashboard and following a blog creates a listing in your Google Reader account.
•  FOLLOWING PRIVATELY: Your profile image and will NOT be displayed in the blog's Followers widget, but you’ll be subscribed to updates for this blog which will appear in your Reading List on your Dashboard and following a blog creates a listing in your Google Reader account