Pamala's blog

Surge protectors vs UPS’s

They’re the same, aren’t they? No, they are vastly different. While both will protect your computer from a power surge a UPS (Universal Power Supply) will give you time to shut down your computer in the event of a power interruption or shut it down properly for you if you aren’t around.

After the recent winter’s storms many people discovered that they are still susceptible to power failures “in this day and age”. A UPS gives you anywhere from a few minutes to hours of battery time. The length of time is determined by the amount of wattage and the number of items plugged into the UPS. Newer models also have an additional feature that will shut down your computer properly when it detects a power interruption – this is a handy feature in the event you lose the power and you aren’t around to turn off the computer.

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A task most people don’t think about very often is cleaning the inside of their computers. Computers are amazing dust collectors and very nice, warm homes to a variety of creatures. While I’ve never seen it personally, I have heard of people finding mice in their computers; I have seen spiders and all manner of insects.

A major cleaning job should be done once a year or every couple of years at least. However, in between those majors cleanings, you can do some basic cleaning yourself. This will help insure that your computer doesn’t overheat. You can freeze a computer without any major lasting damage, but an overheated computer significantly reduces the lifespan of your computer.

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Computers brought about their own language and every year they contribute significantly to the 10,000 plus words that are officially added to the English language.

Understanding some of the terminology can greatly increase your chances of getting what you want when looking to upgrade or buy a computer.

Anything ending in byte or bite refers to size, ie a 400 Gigabyte (GB) hard drive refers to the amount of storage space on your computer, or a 4 megabyte (MB) file refers to the size of a particular document or picture etc. Files can also be kilobyte (kb) size.

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Frequent Flyer, Savings & Accomodations Reward Programs, Frequent Shopper Programs. It seems as if every store, hotel, airline, every business clamouring for our dollars is offering some kind of reward. But, if you only fly once a year, or stay in a hotel once in a blue moon, those points expire long before being used for anything fun.

On a recent flight in October my hubby came to the conclusion that he is never flying a certain airline again. Something about mechanical failures, planes catching on fire and emergency landings have him spooked. He has several thousand points with this airline that will expire if he never flies them again. Wondering what to do with those points, I was surfing the airline’s site to see if I could purchase merchandise with the points (as is possible with Airmiles.) At one point I found myself on Points.com which proved to be a very interesting site.

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Firefox
A lot of people are finding Internet Explorer annoying with all the pop ups and security issues designed to specifically attack IE. A solution to these issues is Mozilla Firefox.

Firefox has been around for a few years and at the beginning only attracted fringe users. In recent months, however, many website designers have jumped on the Firefox bandwagon and some sites run better using Firefox ie Trendmicro (free on-line virus scan).

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Technology, especially where it applies to the Internet, is great for coming up with new terms that are often in a constant state of evolution … like “podcasting"? The term "podcasting" is used by many people in many different contexts.

Last year, according to Wikipedia the New Oxford American Dictionary named “podcasting"? the word of the year, defining it as “a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player.? The Wikipedia article on podcasting notes that a “subscription feed of automatically delivered new content is what distinguishes a podcast from a simple download or real-time streaming.?

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If you hold down the Ctrl key on your key board and then turn the small wheel in the middle of your mouse away from you or towards you, the print size will change - it will either get larger or smaller - depending on which way you turn the wheel. This works in most programs, ie email, Word, Excel etc.

Can’t figure out why your tabs aren’t working in Word? Turn on “reveal codes�?. Look for the ¶ (paragraph sign) in your tool bar, left click on it and you will be able to see all your paragraphs, tabs and spaces. When you’re done, just left click on it and all the extra details go away. The “revealed codes�? will not print if you have them displayed.

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Tracking down formulas in Excel can be a hair pulling experience. Fortunately, there is an easy way to find out which cells are in a formula and which cells make up a formula. Trace Precedents points to all cells contained within the formula, Trace Dependants points to the formula the cell is part of.

Trace Precedents:

Select the cell containing the formula. Left Click “Tools‿ in the toolbar. Select “Auditing‿, select “Trace Precedents‿. Blue arrows will appear showing the cells that make up the formula. If you see a little box with lines in it, this means the formula contains a link to another file or worksheet.

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It is a common mistake to assume that spelling in emails "doesn’t count". In fact, with the increase in email over regular (snail)mail it is more important than ever to send emails without spelling errors. If you have Microsoft (MS) Word and Outlook Express, Outlook 97, 98 or 2000 installed then your computer will automatically spell check your emails. Newer versions of Outlook do not require MS Word.

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I like email, I like receiving email and sending email. However, I don't like receiving spam and I don't like paging through page after page after page of other people's addresses to get to the heart of the email.

It takes two seconds to click forward, add the addresses then quickly delete all the extraneous information that precedes the email. All those headers from the umpteen people that have forwarded the message.

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