Castellini on Computers FREE Weekly Email NEWSLETTER
August 8, 2007

TUNE IN EVERY THURSDAY NIGHT FROM 9:30-10:30PM at HelpMeRick.com OR:
Come to the web site and listen to the podcast of the show at any time you want OR:
Download the podcast and listen to it on your computer any time you want OR:
Download the podcast and burn it to a CD and listen to it any time you want OR:
Download the podcast and copy it to your MP3 player and listen to it any time you want!

We give you MORE choices than ever to listen, learn and laugh about technology!

Castellini on Computers is now on Thurday nights at 9:30pm MST.
Only on HelpMeRick.com.

Click here to download last week's show

In this week's issue. . .

*** TIP OF THE WEEK

*** GEEK SPEEK OF THE WEEK - (Simple definition of common computer terms)

*** COMPUTER NEWS...and comment

*** LAST WEEK'S POLL RESULTS

*** ADAM'S COMMENTS - Stuff from the digital world that is rolling around in Adam's head.

*** Email of the week

Q. Why is the HelpMeRick.com newsletter appearing in my mailbox on a Wednesday?

A. Now that we have moved our show to a Thursday night show broadcast on our website, we thought we should move the newsletter up as well so it could remind everyone to listen the following night.

We have had very positive feedback from the folks who tuned in to our new show last week. The new format gives us so much more freedom to interact with everyone. We hope to be able to post the whole show, video and all, up after this week's episode.

We also posted a video for iPod users on how to subscribe to the new podcasts. You can see it all at HelpMeRick.com

Email your questions to us and we will answer them live on the air or on our daily website updates!

CUSTOM COMPUTER HELP FROM RICK & ADAM

We have been posting a new how-to video every week since November and the feedback has been tremendous. Now YOU have the opportunity to get your own customized video tutorial about a topic that you are having trouble with or just want to learn.

To learn more, visit: www.HelpMeRick.com/videohelp

TIP OF THE WEEK
Make Microsoft Office 2007 Play Nice

The release of Microsoft Office 2007 introduced us to an entire new interface and file format (thanks Microsoft). If you upgraded to Office 2007, you are creating documents in Microsoft's new XML formats. Word documents now have the .docx extension, Excel documents have a .xlsx extension, PowerPoint has the .pptx extension...well, you get the picture. This is all fine and dandy if everyone you know also use the 2007 version of Office, but unfortunately that is not the case. If you want to email documents back and forth, you need to save those documents in the more compatible formats.

Today's video tip shows you how to do that.

If you are an Office 2003 version or earlier, you will need to download this massive 28 megabyte "Compatibility Pack" from Microsoft in order to be able to read documents created in 2007. Better yet, send this tip to those folks so they can make things easier on themselves and everyone else.

GEEK SPEEK

Personalize is a term that all Windows Vista users should know. You will find the word personalize under many right-click context menus in Windows.

Previous versions of windows used the word properties. The name is about all that has changed.

Right-click and choose personalize (or properties for XP and older versions of Windows) and you can change all kinds of customized options for whatever you right-clicked on.

Doing this on a blank part of your desktop will let you change the screensaver, wallpaper and resolution of your screen. Do it on a drive icon in My Computer and it will tell you how much space is left on that give drive. Try it on the My Computer icon itself and you will get a box telling you what processor and how much RAM you have installed.

PERSONALIZE
or
PROPERTIES

COMPUTER NEWS...and comment

IMAC NEWS
Apple released new iMacs this week and they are very pretty, but no major changes have been made.

The new systems feature a brushed metal finish in exchange for the classic glossy white the company has been using for the past five years. The iMac now matches the iPhone in color and design.

Other than being a different color, slightly thinner, the prices are slightly lowered, the keyboard was redesigned and a bigger effort was made to use recycleable parts, the iMac is an incremental upgrade from their predecessors.

OLYMPICS NEWS
The Olympics are a time where people gather from all over the world to demonstrate their very best efforts. To prove that they can rise higher under challenges that would break men of ordinary strength, athletes train for years to perfect their skill.

That said, Windows Vista sets the bar too high. The 2008 Olympics will be run on Windows XP and hard wire networks. Wirless networks are handy, but they are tougher to secure. As for Windows Vista, a spokesman said they are going to stick with "proven technology" in Windows XP.

VIRTUAL BABYSITTING NEWS
Many parents are following a trend of using technology to give their children under two an edge in their mental development. One of the most popular products marketed to these parents is the "Baby Einstein" series of videos. The popularity of this series of videos produced by Disney has spawned many copycat products.

The University of Washington announced the results of a study this week that demonstrated that children who watch Baby Einstein and similar videos actually were further behind in development children who didn't.

The study found that children who watched the videos knew 6-8 fewer words per hours of Baby Einstein watched than their baby friends who were brought up on real world parenting.

POLL Results

Did you watch the first YouTube-CNN debate?

Next week's poll:
Do you know what an RSS feed is?

Yes, and I liked the format. 6%

Yes, but I didn't like the format 2%

No. 86%

What is a YouTube? 6%

ADAM'S COMMENTS

Hopefully you haven't voted in the poll yet. After reading this article, you will be able to answer affirmatively.

RSS stands for really simple syndication. It is a system what web designers use to let people receive notifications anytime that a website is updated with new information. It is similar to a wire feed used in the olden days (20 years ago or more) used by radio and TV reporters to get up to the minute news.

Most major websites are now syndicated but you don't have to pay a subscription fee or even sign up with any major news service to take advantage of RSS feeds.

Here's how it works.

Watch for this icon on the sites you visit it may also be an orange rectangle with the letters "XML" or "RSS". This tells you that the site sends out a feed whenever it posts updates.

You will also need an RSS reader. There are several ways to do this. You can download a standalone RSS reader but make sure it's free. You can also sign up for a free home page site like MyYahoo or iGoogle. These services will let you sign up for feeds.

Once you learn how to use RSS, you will discover that the websites you visit most often will come to you as new content is posted. You can even subscribe to your favorite eBay searches, most newspaper websites, and even HelpMeRick.com.

By the way, we have posted a video tip on our site all about how to use RSS as a part of our tip on setting up a custom newspaper page.

EMAIL OF THE WEEK

----------------
Hello Wendy,

I'm glad you are already enjoying our new show format. We hope that it indeed provides more flexibility for all our listeners and web visitors.

We recommend the same anti-virus system for Vista that we do for all Windows' computers; AVG Anti-virus. We still haven't found an anti-virus system that can provide the same combination of effective virus protection and low profile (doesn't eat up your computer's power) as AVG. You can find the link to AVG on our web site in the Links & Resources section.

Have a great weekend!

Rick

Castellini on Computers & HelpMeRick.com ©2007
Rick Castellini and Adam Cochran