Seminars for July 2008
Face-to-Face with a Computer Tech
Tuesday, July 8, at 10:30 am, in the
Classroom
Presenter: Chuck Strickland
Members who subscribe to HelpingHandsOnline will recognize the name
of the presenter of this seminar. He frequently takes the time to answer many
of the questions posed by those who use our Q&A club Email help line. Others
will recognize him as a professional technical support person who services
computers and makes “house calls” to residents of Sun City. By attending this
seminar, you will be able to get your computer questions answered free in a
“face-to-face” meeting with a computing professional. Bring your notepad to the
session so that you can make a record of his advice.
Chuck will give priority to all questions that are submitted in advance of the seminar. Once he addresses those questions, then he will open the floor to a question and answer segment. Therefore, to guarantee that you will get an answer to your question(s), just send an Email message to: chuck@chuckstr89134.com.
Internet and the Movies
Thursday, July 10, at 9 am, in the
Classroom
Presenter: Harvey Lawrence
Here is a quiz for all you film buffs. See how you do. What movie
were Groucho Marx and Marilyn Monroe in? What does King Kong have in
common with Gone With The Wind? Where was High Noon filmed? What
did it cost to produce and how much money has it made? Can you see any
"goofs"
in this cinema classic? Why did the fight scene between Gary Cooper and Lloyd
Bridges have to be filmed twice? What is an “Apple Box”, a “Wrap” or a “Best
Boy”? Where is Humphrey Bogart buried and what was his real, not “REEL”, name?
What was the name of Frankenstein’s monster? Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff
shared top billing in this film with Lugosi playing the ‘good guy’. Can you name
the film? This seminar will deal only with MOVIES and how the Internet can help
us gather information about our favorite (and not so favorite) works of the
cinema.
Harvey has amassed an interesting array of Websites that he will investigate with seminar attendees. He will make his seminar notes available to members in attendance.
When Your Hard Drive Fails—are you ready for the
fall?
Thursday, July 10, at 1:00 pm, in the
Classroom
Presenter: Bill Wilkinson
Viruses, power surges, and hard drive failures—each of these
calamities can spell disaster for your PC’s data. According to a report from a
prominent digital data recovery service, 94% of surveyed PC users have
experienced at least one significant data loss, so if you are lucky enough never
to have experienced a data loss due to these or other mishaps, consider yourself
extremely lucky. The issue is not IF your computer will fail, but WHEN! The
easiest way to recover quickly from data loss is to have a recent backup or
clone of your entire system. However, backups and clones can be time-consuming,
the terminology is often confusing, and many users do not know which files
should be backed up. For these and other reasons, most PC users (estimates are
as high as 85%) do not conduct regular, thorough backups and are unprepared when
disaster strikes. Fortunately, a simple copy and paste plan is not
difficult to create and understand. The plan that will be demonstrated in this
seminar is easy to execute and requires no knowledge of a sophisticated backup
or cloning utility. If you know the basics of copying and pasting from one
location to another and are willing to follow the step-by-step instructions that
will be presented during the seminar, you will be able to implement this plan
and be ready when your hard drive dies. You will only need to decide what
backup medium is suitable for your needs and what personal data files are truly
critical. We will provide you with recommendations as you answer both of these
questions.
Sending Music from a CD to Your Hard Drive
Monday, July 14, at 10:30 am, in the
Classroom
Presenter: Bill Wilkinson
There may be times when you will want to copy the music files from a
commercial CD to your hard drive. That way you can play the songs from your
computer and avoid having to insert the CD each time. In six easy steps, we will
show you how to “rip” your favorite songs from your commercial music CDs and
store them on your hard drive. If you want, you will then be able to be
selective in your choice of song titles and “burn” them to your own CD creation.
Going Beyond the Basics with Windows XP
Monday, July 21, at 1:00 pm, in the Classroom
Presenter: Ken Bentley
This seminar is intended to serve as an extension of learning for those
members who wish to move beyond the basics in their understanding of the Windows
XP operating system. Four areas that will enhance the novice user’s
understanding, enjoyment, and efficiency in working with Windows XP will be
covered in detail: Taskbar.
Discuss changing the location, size, and how to hide the taskbar. Demonstrate
how to add a quick launch bar, how to add items to it, and how to use the open
windows buttons. How to access a web address from the taskbar and how to place a
web favorite on the taskbar, will be presented. You will learn how to manage the
notification area (system tray) and how to remove unwanted items. Keyboard
Commands. Use of common keyboard commands to use in place of mouse
maneuvering will be presented and demonstrated. Start Menu. We
will show you how to personalize your personal computer by customizing
the Start Menu in Windows XP, including, start menu style, selecting the options
available from the start menu, adding Internet Explorer and Outlook Express to
the start menu, change the size of the icons on the start menu’s primary list,
and “pin” a program to the start menu. We will also demonstrate how, to change
the way all programs opens from the start menu, change the view of the
All Programs menu, and how to view the most recently opened documents in
Windows XP. Learn how to organize the start menu to suit your needs,
start a program each time windows
starts,
search for a file or folder, delete a folder or file
from the start menu, rename a folder or file from the start menu, move items
from the desktop directly to the start menu.
Home Networking—Wired and Wireless
Thursday, July 24, at 9:00 am, in the
Classroom
Presenter: Tom Burt
Many households now have two (or more) PCs. How do you take
advantage of the power of networking to get the most out of your multiple
systems? This 2 1/2 hour seminar describes all aspects of setting up and
securing a mixed wired and wireless home network. We will survey both wired and
wireless networking equipment and software. We'll demonstrate how to set up
your wireless network equipment to create a mixed wired and wireless LAN and how
to secure it from undesired outside access. We'll also briefly review how to
share files, printers and your cable or DSL Internet connection between two or
more PCs. And we'll keep some time open to answer your networking questions.
This new edition of the seminar will include wired and wireless networking
on both Windows XP and Vista. This seminar's target audience is users who are
pretty comfortable with their PC and Windows and want to move up to taking
better advantage of having multiple PCs.
Going Beyond the Basics with Windows Explorer 7
Thursday, July 24, at 1:00 pm, in the Classroom
Presenter: Ken Bentley
This seminar is intended to serve as an extension of learning for those
members who wish to move beyond the basics in their understanding of the
Internet Explorer 7 browser. Four areas that will enhance the novice user’s
understanding, enjoyment, and efficiency in working with IE7 will be covered in
detail: Develop Some Strategies to Optimize Web Surfing Skills, including
selecting a good portal page as a home
page, customizing the browser’s toolbar, saving favorite Web
pages, viewing Web pages that have been recently visited, and many others.
Personalize a Home Page. Create a Secondary Email Account to Protect
One’s Privacy. Harness the
Power Of Google.
Microsoft Office 2007, Featuring Word
Wednesday, July 30, at 9:00 am, in the
Classroom
Presenter: Howard Verne
Microsoft Office 2007 is the
most recent version of the Microsoft Office system, aka Microsoft's productivity
suite. It was made available to retail customers on January 30, 2007, the same
day that Vista was released. Office 2007 contains a number of new features, the
most notable of which is the entirely new graphical user interface called the
Fluent User Interface, replacing the menus and toolbars that have been the
cornerstone of Office since its inception with a tabbed toolbar. The new suite
requires Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or 3, Windows Server 2003 with Service
Pack 1 or higher, or Windows Vista. The Office 2007 Home and Student Edition
is available for slightly less than $100 from Costco. This edition includes
Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and OneNote. This presentation will provide an overview
of the four components, with an emphasis on Word 2007.
What Programs Are Running at Startup—Why you
need to know
Thursday, July 30, at 1:00 pm, in the Classroom
Presenter: Bill Wilkinson
A computer’s poor performance could be due to the number of programs that run
automatically at system start-up. Virtually all program applications that you
install using the default installation decide that they should start-up when
Windows starts. If you allow these to take control, you can end up with a
situation where every program slows down to the point of being unusable. The
reason for this is that all of these programs use a portion of the system memory
and resources which leaves a smaller percentage for other programs once they're
opened. The major problem with getting rid of startup items is that they can be
hidden in one of several places on your PC. This presentation will show you
where to find these pesky problem programs and how to manage them.
Backing Up Elements of Outlook
Express (Email)
Thursday, July 31, at 10:30 am,
in the Classroom
Presenter: Edith Einhorn
This presentation will emphasize backing up your
Outlook Express accounts, address books, and email messages for safe keeping.