The Refresh Orlando Heirs

If you haven’t backed up your important data at least to a CD, you should do so IMMEDIATELY! A computer, any computer, can crash at any time, whether it’s a new computer, an old computer, a really expensive computer, or a cheapy.

This article will teach you how to back up your My Documents folder on a CD, since the My Documents folder is where people usually keep most of their important stuff. I only discuss the method for Windows XP here, because methods for other operating systems tend to vary.

(By the way, you need a CD burner (or CD-RW) to do this. If you’re not sure if you have one, look at your CD drive(s) and see if you see “rewritable” written in tiny tiny letters. If so, you can burn CDs. If not, well you might want to think about getting a CD burner installed in your computer.

1. Open your CD burner. There’s usually a button on the outside you can press to open it. Place the CD in the burner. The side you will burn onto should be face down. Close the burner, again using the same button you used to open it.

2. Wait a minute. A box should pop up on your screen with a variety of choices. Click once on the choice that says “Open Writable CD Folder Using Windows Explorer.” (There’s a picture of a manilla folder next to it.) Your choice should turn blue. Click OK.

3. A box opens up representing the empty CD you want to burn. Now take your mouse pointer and place it on the top blue border of this box. Press and hold (don’t click) with your left mouse button, and drag the box down into the lower righthand corner of your screen.

4. Locate your My Documents folder on the desktop. If this folder isn’t on the desktop, you should put it there for convenience sake. See the tip How to Put a Shortcut on your Desktop.

5. Now simply press on the folder with your left mouse button and drag the folder onto the empty box representing your CD in the lower right corner. You should see the contents of your folder being copied over. If you get a box asking if you want to copy “Thumbs” files, you can say “Yes” or “Skip.” It’s your choice. These files aren’t important, trust me. You can also check the box to repeat your answer for each of these files to save time.

6. When the folder is completely copied to your CD box, clik on “Write these Files to CD” on the lefthand side of the box. A “wizard” pops up.

7. Click Next in the wizard (ignore the CD name and date underneath) Wait for the CD to burn. You’ll see a green line progress across the screen.

8. When the CD is done, it should pop out of its drive, and you can click on Finish in the wizard. Label your CD with a Sharpie or other felt-tip pen, and you’re all backed up!

About The Author

©2005 by Kara Glover

Kara Glover is a Computer Tutor and Troubleshooter. You can find her online articles and tutorials on topics such as Microsoft Word®, Excel®, and PowerPoint® at her website: http://www.karathecomputertutor.com

kara3334@yahoo.com

I am being allowed time out to raise a subject that is dear to my heart (I normally market web sites!).

Is there life out there? Are we alone? How did we get here?

These are the big questions. For what it is worth, I believe there are big bangs happening all the time. The virtually random result from each big bang would produce many universes (I know, a contradiction in terms). The only common factor would be that each started from a burst of energy. In our case, some of that energy was converted to matter, and we are the result. Surely there is no reason why the energy could not have been converted into another phenomenon that our language and our vision cannot comprehend. This may perhaps be a form that is way off the scale of our electromagnetic spectrum, or using a different spectrum altogether.

Should such universes exist we could not observe them as our senses and instruments are tuned to our own universe and not to an alien one. An example of the problem of recording the existence of these aliens is this: what if the aliens did not have the dimension of space in their tool kit? In other words they didn’t exist as physical entities at all? You may speculate therefore that perhaps they are made up of protons, or electrical waves? No, even these phenomena would take up some space, and my aliens have no space in which to accommodate anything. Of course it is impossible to describe how they would exist, but perhaps an analogy would be the best thing. Just think about thought and, for a minute, please forget that thought waves themselves take up space. Perhaps our aliens are simply made up of thoughts or notions that whisk around us but have no physical form or a physical home. These thoughts will simply exist around us. The problem is that I have already run into trouble with language. The word “around” suggests space and as I said earlier, a thought in our universe takes up some space. You see, aliens probably do exist, but we cannot record them nor, with the limitations of our language, we cannot describe them. A good example of falling into the trap of our own language is the term “Aliens from outer space”. The example I offered would not work, as the words “from”, “outer” and “space” would not apply! As we are limited by language, all we have is our imagination.

So, back to the day job. If you are wondering why we are so obsessed about aliens but still can’t keep house flies out of our kitchens, help is at hand, below, with our fly killer buy on line web site.

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There seems to be a file size disconnect between pictures
routinely snapped by most digital cameras, and the desire of
many amateur photographers to share their pics as email
attachments or online.

Photographically, most of us are using an elephant gun to shoot
a flea. We respond like addicts when each camera ad offers to
place yet more megapixels at our disposal, and we brag at
cocktail parties that ours has more than yours. But such are
actions of the uninformed.

In the real world, unless you are a pro, all those pixels are
unnecessary and can bring trouble.

A very average digital camera will take a snapshot which is
composed of 2048 x 1536 pixels (dots). This is called the image
resolution. If you multiply the two numbers, you get 3,146,000
pixels, or dots, which comprise your picture. This is the number
(3.1 megapixels) the camera companies tout as being more
wonderful than sex and drugs taken in unison.

Photos are saved in JPG format, in medium-high compression. The
file size for one photo will be about 2/3 of one megabyte. For
math fans, that works out to 1 kilobyte of storage memory
controlling 2/3 of one square inch of picture.

“So whazza problem? Got my camera, it gots the mega-whatevers,
my chick digs it, evateeng’s cool, man. No?”

Not quite, cool dude. Because when you try to email your chick
pics of her fine accoutrements, your email gonna choke after
just a few hot shots. And if you try to upload some of the
better images to www.neighbors-in-labor.com or some such amateur
site, she might look a little diseased after the website
downsizes her.

Why? Because even the biggest typical screen (17″), with one big
picture filling the screen would only use about .8 megapixels
(800,000 dots). If you wanted her picture to display on the
screen the size of a 5×7 photo, that would only use 1/10th of a
megapixel. You shot 3 megapixels too many, sucker!

That’s not the only problem. Your mega pictures will choke her
email system and possibly not deliver if you send too many at
once. When you hit “Send”, it will take a while and possibly
forever.

If your photo were optimized for screen viewing, your 5×7 photo
would use only about 40 kilobytes (4% of one megapixel!) of
storage memory and would look every bit as good. You could send
a bunch to her and all your friends.

Thus we arrive at the crux. You could share and send 16 pictures
using the amount of memory you used to store a single photo from
your fancy-shmancy camera. But don’t feel bad. You are
definitely not the only one bragging at the party.

The solution, by the way, is to find a camera which allows you
to take lower resolution pictures. If you see an art shot you
might want to print out at 8×10, crank the resolution for that
shot only.

For the bloated pictures you already own, get photo editing
software which allows you to downsize the photos while
monitoring quality and file size.

Adobe Photoshop is the big name in this field. When you get good
at it, you can even create a “droplet”, a small icon which sits
on your desktop. With Windows Explorer running next to it, drag
the folder containing your fat photos over the droplet icon. The
entire batch will be immediately downsized according to your
instructions.

Now that is something to brag about!

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When I was a kid, dog adoption meant buying a puppy from a store in the mall. I’d never even heard of such a thing as an animal rescue shelter. It’s something I truly regret every day now that I’m all grown up and dogs are such a central part of my life. I wouldn’t even consider dog adoption from any place other than an animal rescue organization or the local pound now.

My enlightenment about ethical dog adoption is a sad tale. Sparing the details, I met people involved in animal rescue when I picked up a stray running along the highway by my home. The poor thing was just about dead from starvation. When I took her to the local humane society location, I was informed that she would almost certainly be put down within a few days. Incredulous, I asked why. Their response: ‘She’s black and big, and large breed black dogs are a dime a dozen, so they rarely get adopted.’

Needless to say, I took the stray with me. No way was I going to give up on getting a dog adoption success story out of the mess. After doing a little research, I discovered that animal rescue shelters are all over, in every state.

That’s how I learned about a local group that not only worked on dog adoption for strays, but they also operated under a “no kill” philosophy. This type of animal rescue organization, surviving primarily on donations from the public, provides puppies and dogs with a good place to live while they await a loving family to take them home. And if they’re never adopted, then they live out their natural lives in comfort and with human companionship, albeit from volunteers at the shelter.

I learned that dog adoption of strays from these animal rescue facilities saves thousands of lives every year, nationwide. And most of the groups are overwhelmed with the numbers of stray dogs and people wanting to dump them for whatever reason (usually for their own convenience). The ultimate fault lies with so-called puppy mills, which crank out litter after litter to sell in your local pet store. And of course, the fault also lies with people not getting their dogs spayed or neutered. Bob Barker was right all along! If even 50% of owners got their animals fixed, the situation would improve dramatically.

So began my own journey to the good side of dog adoption. I ended up marrying a woman who owns an animal rescue organization that uses the “no kill” philosophy. We share our lives with many dogs, all mixed breeds, and all of whom we love completely.

Oh, and that stray I mentioned earlier who started my dog adoption odyssey? Her name’s Cookie, and when I first found her she was skin and bones. That was before a loving family that lives near a large park adopted her from that animal rescue group. The last time I saw her, she was almost fat from all the food and having the time of her life playing in the park. I cried. Happy tears.

Next time dog adoption is on your agenda, please consider looking at an animal rescue shelter near you. Or go to the local pound. Save a life!

About the Author

John Schwartz is the owner and webmaster of http://puppies-dogs-supplies.com. He lives in East Texas with his wife, Shannon, who owns a dog rescue ‘no kill’ shelter.

The importance of a bar code reader in this day and age cannot be denied. A lot of practical and pragmatic applications for a bar code reader have been rendered essential by the changing times. Whether you’re running a commercial establishment, a public or private library, a company that employs a lot of people, or a school that is attended by numerous students, a bar code reader would do wonders for your daily operations.

A bar code reader would greatly help you in organizing your database, maintaining a good record of your inventory, monitoring and tracking the movement of items and people, and ensuring the security of your premises. These far-reaching benefits of using a bar code reader and simply fantastic!

But not all barcode readers are built alike. A bar code reader may come in many forms, and some are just better than others. Well, at least for particular needs, that is. Much care and deliberation should be invested in the choice of the right bar code reader for your enterprise.

Here is a guide that would hopefully help you in choosing the perfect bar code reader for your needs:

* Know the reason why you need a barcode reader. Is it to keep watch of the items used for your trade? Is it to reduce staff time in automating certain processes? Is it to monitor the entry and exit of people to and from your premises? It is to track the movement of items to and from your storage facility? The choice of a bar code reader greatly depends on the purpose for its usage.

* Check the numerous features of various barcode readers in the market today. A bar code reader is available in three forms. First, we have the laser-based bar code reader which makes use of light emitted from the bar code reader itself to identify and verify the barcodes of a particular item. Second, we have a charged coupled device (CCD) bar code reader which makes use of light emitted from the numerous light sensors in the barcodes which the bar code reader would gather and decode for identification and verification. Third, we have a camera-based bar code reader which takes a picture, literally speaking, of the barcodes, and identifies and verifies the same through the varying hues and contrasts of the bars of the latter. Each kind of bar code reader is good for particular industries. A laser-based bar code reader is perfect for monitoring the entry and exit of people to and from your premises, for example. A CCD bar code reader is perfect for tracking the movement of your company’s supplies and tools, as well as permanent identification tags for employees and students. And a camera-based bar code reader is perfect for monitoring and regulating the movement of more sensitive items in your inventory.

* Canvass. A better price for a bar code reader would always save you some cash for other investments. There will be barcode readers offered at lower prices from some sources, so it would be best to seek these out first and foremost.

* Choose a credible and reliable company. A bar code reader company with an established track record of excellence would be a safer bet. A bar code reader would be a longtime investment, so might as well get things right the first time around.

A bar code reader would serve your business for a long, long time. Choosing the right one, therefore, would be the essential first step for a rewarding partnership that would render the processes in your enterprise more convenient.

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Borrowing the words from the famous French chemist Marie Curie,
“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.”
And how true it is. Fear is a very tricky subject to address.
Often, fear hinder people from becoming what they are destined
to be and from achieving the success they most definitely
deserve.

Foremost, there is belief and it is one of the keys to attaining
success - belief in what you do, belief in the people
surrounding you, and above all, belief in yourself. Belief is
like life purpose, and there are only two things, it is either
you have it or you don’t.

The number one enemy of empowering belief is none other than
fear. Fear paralyzes people in their pursuit of personal purpose
and greatness. Fear of what? Well, it could be anything - fear
of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of losing or being beaten,
fear of poverty, fear of criticism, and even fear of success,
even if it sounds a bit crazy it does exist.

Choosing fear over empowering belief is nothing different from
choosing to lead a life of unrealized dreams and unfulfilled
goals. And in order to reach one’s goals, it is important to
learn to conquer one’s fears.

No fear is the elusive key to success.

The Fear of the Unknown

Man’s history dictates that before people get into anything,
they had to know what would happen. Some sort of a subconscious
“Safety First” check. Eventually, this evolved into the fear of
the unknown.

The fear of the unknown is the result of people’s desire to
avoid risks. Risks mean anxiety. To reduce anxiety, people
simply avoid the unknown.

Confronting the unknown means that you are accepting the
challenge that the unknown holds. With self-discipline and
genuine belief in oneself, this challenge of facing one’s fear
of the unknown is indeed conquerable.

The Fear of Failure

In this day and age in human society when tremendous stress is
given on success, successful people are taken as winners while
people feel sorry for losers who cannot get ahead in their life.

The surest way to conquer one’s fear of failure is to overhaul
your perspective and understanding of the value of what people
usually call as “failure.”

Failure and success are just two of those things people make up
- a simple matter of perspective. So, instead of looking at you
failures and shortcomings, try backwards motivation. Acknowledge
your successes and not dwell on your losses.

Get into the habit of defining each of your actions and their
results as successful. Success is a habit that is learned by
repetition. It is something that you do over and over and over
until you do it without thinking.

Failing is something that people need to learn. Everyone gets
his or her fair share of failures. The major problem sets in
when the person lets this failure mark him and scar him from
attempting and pursuing new ventures.

How do you intend to conquer this fears that have paralyzed you
from realizing your real worth? These might help you.

1. Avoid setting unrealistic expectations. Every now and then,
people aspire to be unique in some way, or get ahead over
others. Accept that it is very unlikely for one person to be
better than all the rest of the world’s billions of population.
If you feel strongly that you have to be better than someone
else over bettering and improving your own, you are doomed to be
a constant failure. Having someone better than you come along is
inevitable.

3. Overcome pressure. When people start to feel pressured, they
get nervous and anxious then tighten up. This will not do you
any good. The best thing to do is to shake off the pressure, and
put your gears on to prove that you are above any pressure and
is all set and ready to claim that success you so deserve.

4. Do not blow up problems out of proportion. Learn to cope. Not
giving up is of a vital importance. Learn to fail well. Don’t
let one rejection disappointment or failure stop you from going
after that goal.

It is all up to you. You can take fear as a foe and let it
overpower you. Or you can treat it as a friend and as an ally to
achieve success.

Mobile computing technology is ever changing and the latest evolutionary step is the development of dual core processor laptops.

New CPU’s for notebooks.

The recent introduction of the NAPA Platform has shown some significant enhancements on the older Somona technology. The new NAPA platform offers a lot of significant advantages for a dual core laptop such as a 60% performance increase with its physically smaller dual core processor which can utilise memory more effectively whilst using less power as well.

What are the enhancements for laptops?

Performance Increases:

- Dual core processing with 667Mhz Front Side Bus
- Latest Intel 945 Chipset
- Generation 3.5 Intel Integrated Graphics
- DDR2/667 Dual Channel Memory
- Lower power consumption = Increased battery life
- Latest IEEE 802.11 Standards

We’ve been playing with a couple of the latest Toshibas to see exactly what these developments have to offer a real world user.

Fingerprint Reader Technology.

New fingerprint technology will allow users to bypass multiple password entry with one swipe of the finger.

Bundled with some awesome software Toshiba owners can now utilise this technology to logon to Windows, access secure websites, secure files and folders and even logon to a laptop secured with a Bios password.

Laptops that have the fingerprint reader hardware have now got the software to match and utilise what the fingerprint reader hardware can do.

Toshiba’s new OmniPass and Protector Suite QL software gives the user all of the following features and functions.

- Data encryption
- Individual fingerprint application assignment
- Multiple print storage
- Fingerprint website access
- Bios fingerprint authentication
- Single touch boot feature

In addition to this sort of technology, Toshiba’s new Wireless Authentication logon feature is impressive to say the least. This technology coupled with the Toshiba Wireless Key Logon utility enables a user to setup their BT (Bluetooth) enabled mobile phone to act as a key, with similar password entry free logon from Bios to Windows simply by activating the BT function on your phone when in range of your laptop.

There’s been a bit of misinformation floating around regarding these new dual core notebooks so we’d like to clear up a couple of points.

1. If a machine has a stated processor speed of 1.66GHz then that’s across both cores, not 1.66GHz on each core, the advantage over a 1.66GHz single core processor would be improvements in performance and data handling.

2. The new dual core processors don’t require software written specifically for the CPU, you would still see an improvement running all your exisiting software.

3. A dual core notebook will actually run cooler than it’s single core counterpart, this is due to the fact that the processor is more efficient and uses less power. This is a welcome development in the world of mobile computing where overheating machines are a constant bugbear for users.

The evolution of dual core processors is big news in the laptop world, as they become more common in the marketplace it will be interesting to see how they cope with the multitude of applications that will be thrown at them.

About The Author

Laurie Vella is a professional laptop technician with 10 years experience in the service field. He has accreditation for and has worked extensively with Toshiba notebooks. He also has accreditation for HP and BenQ machines.

You can find more info on laptop repair and other related issues at his site http://www.laptop-repair.info