Getting  Along With Your Computer Column Archive

More Reader Feedback
By Cate Eales
Appeared July 19, 2007 on castanet.net

These past few weeks have brought lots of reader email. Why aren't we all outside enjoying the Okanagan summer weather? In any case, I am grateful to everyone who wrote in with questions, comments, and suggestions. Here are some great ones.


More Firefox Add-ons
"Jen" found two Firefox Add-ons not mentioned in last week's column. She wrote:

http://www.siteadvisor.com/. You can download it for Firefox and for IE. I like it when I am looking for something in Google and the Site advisor lets you know by putting a coloured tick mark if it is a safe site to download from or if that site will send you unrequested e-mails or send you to bad websites etc. If you hover your mouse over the tick mark it will give you the info on that site and then you can click it if you want to check it out further. Even if you go to a website without going to Google first a bar will show up in the status bar to let you know if it is a safe site or not ( green or red ) or if they haven't checked it out yet it shows a grey bar.

One other one that I like is Form filler found here. It is the simplest one that I have found that doesn't entail too much work setting it up.

Alternate Characters
"Mike" found an interesting article on Gordon Watts genealogy site, here, which shows one way to insert characters like the copyright sign, French cedille, and so on into documents composed on the computer. You can also do this with the character map utility built into Windows. More on that here.
 

Outlook Express Toolbars
I promise I don't know how this happens, but it seems to happen a lot. I received mail from several people whose Outlook Express toolbar buttons had wandered off on their own. It's so easy to click on "Reply to sender" and "Send and receive all" that we forget how to accomplish those tasks without a button to push.

If your toolbar has vanished, you can easily bring it back. Right-click anywhere in the area where the buttons used to be, and make sure there is a check mark next to "Toolbar." If there isn't, click once to put it there.

Once you know there's a check mark, choose "Customize" from the context menu. You'll see the "Current Toolbar Buttons" box. Just click on the "Reset" button to bring back the default buttons.

Now if you want to make your toolbar even better than it was, just select what you want from the "Available buttons" list and add it to your "Current" list. If you have something there you don't want, you can just delete it from the "Current" list.


Once again, thank you for writing with comments, questions, and suggestions; please keep them coming. Remember that you can browse the column archives at any time here. We're open 24/7/365!  If you'd like to subscribe to this column by email, please visit this link.  It's easy, and free. If you'd prefer the RSS Feed, click here.


Links
Browse Around column104.htm
Site Advisor http://www.siteadvisor.com/
Form Filler https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1882
Gordon Watts Reports http://globalgenealogy.com/globalgazette/gazgw/gazgw-0101.htm
Windows Character Map http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/accents/charmap.html
Get Cate's column by email http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=20618
RSS Feed: http://rlis.com/rlis.xml
Cate's list of good, free software http://rlis.com/columns/column75list.htm

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Cate Eales has been helping people make online computing safe, accessible and fun for over 20 years. She lives in Kelowna with her husband, Eric, and her dog, Sandy. Cate is a partner in Real Life Internet Solutions, helping individuals and small businesses with virus, spyware and malware eradication; personal computer training and management; digital image management; music transfer; and website design, hosting and management. Email Cate at cate@rlis.com with your comments, suggestions, or questions. To browse the column archives, visit the Real Life Internet Solutions website at www.rlis.com.