Getting  Along With Your Computer Column Archive

More Tips

By Cate Eales
Appeared November 1, 2007 on castanet.net

This week's column has more tips, including some from readers. Enjoy!


Email Tips
Last week's column suggested a couple of spell check options for Outlook Express users who don't also use Microsoft Word. I received a comment from someone who says he often uses Outlook Express to compose documents, rather than Word.

"Outlook Express already has a spell checker, it opens much faster than Word, and you can format text if you want to. For small, simple documents I almost always use OE."

Interesting approach. Thanks for the tip!

Here's something else that might come in handy. When you set up your email account information in Outlook Express, you're asked what name to use. This is not the same as your email address, rather, for most of us it's just our name, or the name of our business. If you change your name in real life, you can easily reflect that change in your email.

Here's how to do it in Outlook Express:

When I got married and changed my name, I made the change in my email program. Any email program will let you do this, but the steps might be slightly different. This will not change the name in the address books of the people you email, so you might need to remind them to update their email address books!


Real Alternative to RealPlayers
After last week's column in which I mentioned an important security update for RealPlayer, I receive an email from "Kris" who suggested Real Alternative as...well, as an ALTERNATIVE to RealPlayer.

According to the website, here, Real Alternative will play most of the files normally handled by RealPlayer and RealOnePlayer without actually having to install those players. There are also browser plugins available for Internet Explorer 7, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera. I haven't had a chance to try Real Alternative myself. If you try it, I would love to know what you think.


Wire Pilot photo retouching tool
I recently found a tool that really can help clean up your digital photos. Or at least MY digital photos. Have you ever taken a photo only to discover later that a telephone pole seems to be growing out of your subject's head? Wire Pilot makes it easy to remove poles, wires, antennae, and other unwanted objects from your digital photos.

You can download the free program, or a free plugin for many photo editing programs here. The free version of the program and the plugin are compatible with Windows 98 through XP. The paid version works with Vista and earlier, and includes another patching tool.  I know that many photo editing programs like Photoshop have filters that will do this, but I like wire pilot specifically because I don't have to thrash with filters. It's easy and it does the job.


Copy Plain Text in Firefox
Finally, a reader sent an email about a Firefox extension that really makes things easier for me. Copy Plain Text does just that. I often want to copy text from a website to my email or OpenOffice document, and all I want is the text. I don't want the bold, the big letters, or any formatting. I just want the text.

Copy Plain Text adds a choice to the right-click (context) menu in Firefox so all you get is the text. You can even set it to trim extra space in and around the copied text! (I just used the extension to copy that last sentence in plain text.) You can grab the extension here.



Thank you to everyone who wrote with suggestions, comments, and questions. I read every email, and I appreciate the time it takes you to write. Please keep them coming to cate@rlis.com. You can browse the column archives at any here. 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.

Enjoy that extra hour of sleep this weekend, and I'll see you next week.


Links
Real Alternative http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/codecs_and_filters/real_alternative.cfm
Wire Pilot http://www.colorpilot.com/wire.html
Copy Plain Text Firefox Extension https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/134
Getting Along With Your Computer Column Archives http://rlis.com/column.htm
Get Cate's column by email http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?Sub=20618
RSS Feed http://rlis.com/rlis.xml

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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.