Return to Newsletters

 

TIME SAVING WEBSITES:
"BellSouth Yellow Pages"

Forget about all those weighty tomes of business yellow pages. Now the "Real Yellow Pages" are online at a BellSouth website.

http://yp.bellsouth.com

You can search by category or by business name. I find this invaluable for phone numbers and often addresses and/or directions to a previously unknown business.

Best of all, the category system matches the existing yellow pages system of dividing up business types. This means that you need learn nothing new to be effective searching for a business.

The only problem... Now what do we do with the print version of the Yellow Pages?

I searched hard, but only found a few ideas:

Phonebook Christmas Tree
http://havasumagazine.com/craft3.htm#tree

Pressing Flowers
http://www.diynet.com/DIY/article/0,2058,408,00.html

Flattening Pasta Crafts
http://www.familyeducation.com/article/0,1120,22-24713,00.html

Distraction in Stressful Times
http://207.198.124.134/stopping/distractions.htm

If you have another use, please shoot me an email. I will share it with our other readers.

 

 

NEW FAQs:

"What is Flash? How do I get the latest Flash Plugin for my web browser?"

Installing this if you haven't already, is a true Internet right-of-passage. It enables your computer to provide animated and helpful programs that load quickly and are very user friendly.

Flash is required for the "Mother Goose Rocks" link at the end of this newsletter.

What is it? The Flash Plugin is a small program that will allow your web browser to behave as if it were more capable than it is. The "Plugin" reference relates to a small piece of software that can be added to the web browser; sort of like a cartridge or battery pack in the real world.

This program provides a way of handling small, quick loading multimedia programs.

How do you upgrade your computer? That ones even easier to understand. Go to their website at: http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/

Click on the "Macromedia Flash Player" link.

Click on the "Download Now" button.
(remember where you save the file.)

Then run the file. It will do all the work from there. Follow its instructions and then return to the website with all the fun and entertaining multimedia material.

If you encounter problems with it, please feel free to call or email me and I will gladly try to help out.

 

 

BUZZ WORDS: "MP3"

While known to millions this little TLA (three-letter-acronym) is one of the most popular on the internet. Search engines rank it above most keywords for adult content and yet is little understood by the people that use it.

Its mostly trivia, but I hope you enjoy the brief treatise.

If you go to the online Dictionary... http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=mp3

You learn that MP3 is short for "MPEG-1, layer 3" which while concise isn't very descriptive.

I also learned that MPEG was "Moving Picture Expert Group," or that the people that develop movies worked on it rather than the newspaper people (they worked on JPEG or JPG).

http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=Moving%20Picture%20Experts%20Group

All that is nice to know, but basically MP3 = Music. It's that simple. Overnight, a few software companies developed programs that remove/copy or "rip" the music from Music CDs and create the files that are MP3s. We say, overnight, because suddenly everyone's CD collection could suddenly be made into files and thereby shared with their friends.

The best "ripper" in my opinion is MusicMatch. Its website is http://www.musicmatch.com/

A likely more long lasting advantage was the fact that these files were 10% the size of the the original CD tracks, therefore 10 hours, rather than 1 hour could be stored on a CDROM.

I will leave the news folks to predict the outcome of all the legal battles, but MP3 is here to stay and used properly will make it easier for all of us to have a more broad selection of music everywhere we go.

If you would like to help learning about MP3s or would like to chat more on this topic, please feel free to send us an email.

 

 

HOME NETWORKING

To Be Wireless or Not To Be (Wireless)...

The chief question in setting up a new home network is whether or not to go wireless. While all home networks connect your various PCs to one another, a wireless one removes the largest barrier to most people; the wires.

Typically, computers would be spead in various places in the home affording each user an adequate amount of privacy. However, as running wires to each location is expensive if done properly, or messy if run along the halls of the house. The result is that computers to be connected are usually grouped closely together to minimize wiring and often productivity is compromised.

The key to success in network planning, is knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each.

A typical hardwire network allows up to 100 mbps (mega-bits-per-second) across the network. This is roughly around 7 times faster from PC to PC at your home than you can connect to the Internet over DSL (assuming 144 kbps).

If you are planning on moving a large number of files or backing up your system over the network on a regular basis this is crucial.

A typical wireless network includes the ability to hardwire PCs to the network, but also have the option of using a wireless protocol called "Wi-Fi".

Wi-Fi and other similiar protocols run at slower speeds than the hardwire network, and while these speeds are roughly the same as the DSL connection for Internet users, it makes large file transactions, that would otherwise run quickly grind to a slow crawl. Further, the wireless protocols are based on signal strength, so should there be a lot of interferance in your home, the transfer rate could be even slower.

In short, wireless networks are perfect to extend the reach of a system to the internet, but for solid network sharing of files on a regular basis, don't underestimate the value of the hardwire capabilities to do the job.

If you could use some help with your home network, please feel free to email or call us.

 

 

ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT:
"mothergooserocks.com"

http://www.mothergooserocks.com

This is the cutest little website I have seen in a long while. It loads a small music player program on the screen and the you may choose from the music selections.

When you go there, be sure to try the "Three Little Pigs". You will hear modern music put to nursery rhymes and its evidence of either some very clever or incredibly bored people. Either way, we have a website well worth a few of our idle moments.

Warning: It will cause, grins and chuckles!

I hope you enjoy the site.

 

 

--dedicated to the glory of God--
Romans 12:2

2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.