Kokomo PC Us

Kokomo PC Users Group

Volume 20 Issue 3...March 2002

Presidents Message:

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow .... Well, here we are, almost at the end of prime PC Computing season before we get any appropriate weather. What a disappointing year. At least I get to write one Presidents Message in the snow.

I have roughed out a budget for the year. In light of the recent recession I have opted for deficit spending to encourage new membership. Our current 39 members will generate $390 of income (if everyone renews their membership). It will cost $344.40 to send each member twelve newsletters and send copies to the Kokomo and Tipton library archives. If we print 25 extra newsletters a month to entice new members this leaves us with a $62.40 deficit. We basically have no other major expenses. (At this rate, with our current balance, we will be broke in about ten years.)

If you have any ideas for increasing the membership of the Group, please let one of the officers know. We have discussed staffing a table at the next Ivy Tech Tech-Know-Fest. This is an annual event that draws quite a crowd. Perhaps we could attract some new friends if we had a table and passed out newsletters and answered questions.

The February meeting was a big success. We had a good turnout and a wonderful presentation by Tim Kling. He talked about a utility program called msconfig that comes free with Windows (even if it is hidden from most users). The program can be used to free up RAM memory by disabling pesky memory resident utilities that you do not need to have running all the time.

I apologize to anyone who did not receive their February newsletter. I am not sure what I did, but it seems some people were left off the distribution. I have compared the mailing label list against my receipt book and believe I have everything fixed.

Mark Pendergast

Da Prez

[email protected]

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An idea

I found a way to find out if a virus has invaded your address book. Add 000_000worm@worm alert.com and it will be first on your list. Thus, when a virus attacks it will start with this entry and Daemon will return it to you. You can then advise all in your address book so they can do a virus check and destroy the virus.

This will only work on e-mail designed to attack your address book but that is a large majority of viruses.

John Haynes

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Problems solved, mostly

At the last meeting, I threw out two problems that I was having. I called some people about the problems too. My daughter-in-law solved one of them. I could not get on line with the scanner icon on the task bar. Solution--She put the icon on the desktop. Now I click on it and it appears in the task bar. No more problem getting on line.

I also had a problem with AOL showing up all over the place. It seemed to show up willy nilly. Five experts? couldn't solve the problem. You know the old saying, if all else fails, READ. I was reading my ME manual anyway and read something about dial up networking. It sounded like a place to go to solve my problem. I went there. Changed some things. Lo and behold! No more problem. Now, I believe I am the expert. Ho! Ho!

Ken Berryman

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RAM

If you are troubled with a lot of computer crashes and error messages it is probably caused by to many programs running at the same time. Check the running programs by doing a "alt+ctrl+delete". There are probably about a 1/2 dozen programs that you do not need, disable these programs to save RAM space. Check the tray, this will give you some more clues about the programs which are running on your computer but are not really used by you. Sometimes you can right-click on the little icon and there is a option that will let you turn the program off.

I have used 2 programs to help me control the RAM space on my computer and they are briefly discussed below.

RAM BOOSTER --- Download RAM Booster. This will give you a good idea of how much RAM you have available. If it is close to 3Meg watch out you are close to a crash.

CASHE MASTER --- Download Cache Master. This will allow you to tweak the cache and other functions. I increased the cache and decreased the packet size, for the CPU to run better.

You will have to study the help and read-me text files for both programs to understand what it is about.

RAM Booster

http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/stories/info/0,10615,57371,00.html

Cache Master

http://www.easycoolsoftware.com/

I hope these ideas will help your computer to run better.

From: Rodney Malkoff

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Time to renew .....

I have noticed that some people have not figured out our system of putting the membership renewal date on the mailing label of the newsletter. Right above your name you will see the year and month that your dues expire. Although we do continue to send the newsletter for a few months after your dues expire, we would like to be as prompt as possible with your renewal. We are happy to accept early renewals and multi-year renewals.

Below I have included a report of members who are currently past their renewal date. If you are on the list, please mail me your dues or bring them to the next meeting. If you know someone on the list, please encourage them to renew their membership.

NAME DUES

ROGER BERRY 2001-07 - Dropped

KEN BERRYMAN 2001-07 - Dropped

LEE DUFFINS 2001-07 - Dropped

RONALD HARPER 2001-07 - Dropped

BOYD MOZINGO 2001-07 - Dropped

JIM SHOTWELL 2001-07 - Dropped

CAROLYN WOOD 2001-07 - Dropped

MARCY YOUNG 2001-09 - Dropped

JOHN B.ANDERSON 2001-10

LINDA J. COLE 2001-10

JAMES H. COLE 2001-11

STEVE K.HART 2001-11

JERRY HENRY 2002-01

LEO McDERMOTT 2002-01

ELLEN MILLER 2002-02

Mark Pendergast

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Stupid Spreadsheet Tricks

We had a good program on spreadsheets in January. I’ve talked about things you can do with your spreadsheet in a previous article. Now I would like to talk about some of the tricks we looked at in the January program.

Trick #1 - Universal Undo - Control-Z

This is actually a Windows trick. Most windows applications support this as a ‘universal’ undo. When you do something stupid, just hold down the Ctrl key and press z. The error will be undone. I probably use this 20 times a day at work. Many programs will let you undo several levels.

Trick #2 - Easy area select - Shift-Click

I always have trouble with large area selects in my spreadsheets. Since computers have gotten faster it is almost impossible to click and drag to select an area that is bigger than the screen. (For example I click on A1 and begin to drag to the lower right. As soon as I get off the screen the scroll accelerates to cell zz9999 before I can stop it. If I try to back up it either goes very slow or zooms back to A1 - whichever I don’t want it to do.)

The answer to this problem is the easy area select. Just click the first cell in your selection. Then scroll normally with the scroll bars to the end cell of the selection. Hold down the shift key and click in the last cell. The entire area will be selected.

Trick #3 - Fill down automatically - Drag the lower right cell handle

When you want to fill a range of cells with a value, you don’t have to use the two step process of selection and then using the edit > fill > down menu to do it. When you select a cell you will notice that the outline of the cell thickens. You will also notice a small square in the lower right hand corner of the cell outline. If you click this small square and drag it down, the cells will fill with the value of the selected cell. This will also fill right if you drag to the right.

Trick #4 - Fill Series automatically

If you want to number a long list of cells sequentially, you can use the fill series command. Set a starting value in the first cell. Select it and drag the selection you wish to fill. Use the Edit > Fill > Series command to bring up the fill menu. Set the appropriate options and press OK. The series is filled.

A shortcut to fill series is to type in the first two values in the series and then select both cells. Then use tip number 3 to grab the square at the lower right of the selection and drag it to fill the selection. Because the two cells were selected and had a logical sequence the spreadsheet will default the drag operation to fill series.

Trick #5 - Fill down without series - Control-D

Sometimes when numbers or dates are involved, the drag and fill from trick number 3 will use fill series and not fill with static values. To override this behavior, just leave the cells selected after the drag and hold down the Ctrl key and press the d key. The series fill will turn unto a static fill. This can save all sorts of aggravation.

Trick #6 - Auto column width

Sometimes the text or number in a cell is larger than the width of the cell. Sometimes all your values are very small and you want to adjust the cell width to save space. You can manually adjust the cell until you get it just right or you can let the spreadsheet do it automatically for you.

Just move the cursor up to the cell header area and over the column separator to the right of the column you want to adjust. Then instead of clicking and dragging, double-click. The column should automatically change to the correct size. (You may need to try this a few times to get the hang of it.)

Trick #7 - Uniform column width

Sometimes you want to have all the cells in a table be the same width. It is almost impossible to eyeball them and a waste of time to adjust them all individually.

Just use click and drag to select all the column headers. Then use the Format > Columns > Column width or right click menu > Column Width and enter a value. All the selected columns will take on the new width.

Another related tip is to combine tricks 6 and 7. Enter the biggest number you expect to see in a column. Use tip 6 to size the column to the appropriate width. Then use the column width command and look at the current value. Select all the cells in your table and set the width to the correct value with trick number 7.

Trick #8 - Vertical Text

Sometimes you have a ton of columns and rows with long labels that make the spreadsheet table very wide, but the data values are actually reasonably small. You can turn the column labels 90 degrees and shrink the width of the table. (I know this works in Excel, but is not available in Works)

Just select the row with the column label text. From the menu bar select: Format > Cells ... Alignment. Use the selector to change the text orientation to 90 degrees. Then use trick number 6 to snug up the columns.

Trick #9 - Paste Special Values

Many times you will want to copy some values from one spreadsheet to another for a summary report. The problem comes in when the original values are the result of a formula. Most spreadsheets then copy the formula, which does not work in the new spreadsheet, and all you get is junk.

Just copy the values as normal, but then select Edit > Paste Special ... From the Paste Special menu select ‘Values’. The numeric values will be pasted into the new spreadsheet without the formulas.

If you like to learn tips and tricks be sure to attend our next meeting. We always have a great presentation where you can learn a lot. We also get a large number of good ideas from the question and answer session at the start of each meeting.

Mark Pendergast

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