Castellini on Computers Free Weekly Email Newsletter
March 26, 2008

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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

Last week's show ranks up there as one of our best ever in terms of listener participation. We will keep saying it until we see YOU at our Thursday night gig...the show works best when you are there live! Take an afternoon siesta, eat a good supper, then log in and listen and watch at 9:30pm Mountain Time on Thursday.

Heck, over the past few weeks, we have had visitors from England, New Zealand, and lots of east coasters who brave the late night/early morning hours to participate in the fun and information packed Castellini on Computers hour! 

Join us!


You can listen to - or download - any and all of our previous shows here.

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 and Adam

We have been posting a new how-to video every week since November 2007 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
Zoho Creator - Video Tip
Third and final installment of Rick's Zoho series

This my last installment in my Zoho.com tour, but far from the full capabilities of Zoho. So far I've introduced you to Zoho Writer (word processing application) and Zoho Sheet (spreadsheet application). For Part III in my series, I'm giving you a quick tour and demonstration/instruction on how to create a database with Zoho. Zoho has two database applications; one called Creator and the other called Database and Reports. I focused on the Creator application in my video tour.

Database programs offer the most flexibility and ease of use for collecting data on any subject from a book collection, to a club member address list, to tracking expenses for your home or business. Once you learn a few techniques with database design and creation, I'm willing to bet you will leave the lowly spreadsheet behind for gathering this type of data.

Zoho's database application provides, in my opinion, unparalleled ease of use AND power for both the beginner database user and the advanced user. I strongly encourage anyone ever remotely interested in database collection or anyone who hasn't been able to find the perfect data collection program to give Zoho Creator a try after watching my short video below.

Some of Zoho's database features include:

• Convert spreadsheet data to database
  
• Online, anywhere access
  
• Easily build powerful database collection forms with drag and drop
• Sophisticated form elements including drop down lists, radio buttons, check boxes, date pickers and more
  
• Embed collection forms in your web page or blog
  
• Query data
  
• Export data to multiple formats
• Use a powerful scripting language to enhance your database
  
• and much more.

Watch the short video below to see how far online applications from Zoho.com can take you.

Watch the video for this tip HERE.

Geek Speek

We think that this term has come up before, but it continues to show up in articles all over the web and in traditional media as well. SMARTPHONES are cellular phones that not only make phone calls, but can function as your calendar, to-do list, MP3 player, portable video player, searchable map, password keeper, email device, Internet browser, and much more. 

SMARTPHONE

Computer News...and comment

Bad Windows News: Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Released

Microsoft released the first major update to the highly criticized Windows Vista. Microsoft announced that there were nearly 600 fixes included in this update. 600?? Holy moly, we told you that Vista was a flawed product, and Microsoft confirmed it by fixing over 600 problems. The optimists among us will say, sure, but now they are fixed, right?

Wrong! The update has caused many a computer to crash and for the computers where the update finished without hanging up (the update takes an average of one hour to download with high speed Internet and about forty-five minutes to install). Worse yet, the update causes other programs to fail. ZoneAlarm, Adobe Acrobat Reader, and some Yahoo software are all casualties of the update.

Linux or Macintosh anyone?

Read our online article about Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) on our site.  

Good Windows News: Microsoft may NOT cancel XP in June

Reports are starting to surface indicating that Microsoft may extend the sell of Windows XP for the third time. Currently, they are saying that June will be the last time you can officially buy Windows XP and manufacturers can install XP on their new computers. Recent deals with ASUS and other manufacturers seem to point to a softening on that stance in Redmond. Let's all hope that Microsoft makes the correct decision and keeps XP in the pipeline for those of us who like fast, stable, responsive computers.

Cell Phone Internet Usage Increasing

With more and more smart phones (cell phones that can make phone calls, have calendar and sophisticated address books, can retrieve email and browse the web) entering the market, Google reported this week that they are seeing as much as a 40% increase in search requests from mobile phones just since last year. As cell phone companies offer higher speed mobile Internet access and cheaper data plans with it, they hope that the mobile market will continue to grow at a rapid pace. 

More mobile searches means more advertising revenue for Google. Growth is fueled by phones like the iPhone, new Blackberry phones, and of course the Palm Treo/Centro line of phones.

If you haven't had the opportunity to see how the web works on a phone, find a friend or relative who has a smart phone and ask them to demo it for you. Having the ability to look up phone numbers, maps, and other information while traveling is truly liberating and convenient.

Poll Results

How often do you change the picture on your desktop (wallpaper)?

Next week's poll:
Have you ever accessed the Internet with your cell phone?

Adam's Comments

I demonstrated Windows Vista to a small group of senior computer users this week. I did my best to make them say "Wow!"

I began my demonstration by giving a short history of Windows. I discussed how successful Microsoft had been at both standardizing and simplifying computers. Many of them had used computers in the DOS days and could appreciate what Microsoft had done.

I discussed how Windows 3.1 made it possible for people to use the computer without having to memorize commands. Windows 95 introduced stability and multimedia. Windows 98 Introduced new file structures and modern Internet capabilities. After a short misfire with Windows ME, Microsoft more than made up for it with the stable, self-healing Windows XP.

Which brought us to Windows Vista. I couldn't tell them that it was faster, or more stable than XP. I couldn't point out many tricks that would allow them to skip steps so I pretended to love Vista and sell it on it's prettiness and a few interesting features.

I began by opening up the Start menu. "Look," I explained, "Vista has simplified the Start menu by getting rid of the word 'My' before My Documents and My Computer!" They were unimpressed. I didn't show them the search feature at that point because that was part of my big finish.

"OK, then watch this," I demonstrated how I could hover over task bar buttons to bring up thumbnails of running programs. Their reply, "That's so small, how can you tell what they are?" I was shot down again.

"If those thumbnails are too small you can hold down the Windows button and press TAB and it will bring up this pretty large 3D view of all of your running programs." I couldn't get them to say "Wow!"
on that one but two of them said, "Hmm."

Then came the question, "Where is my Windows button?" The only person who had a Vista machine said,"I tried that on my system and it didn't work," it turns out that she was running Windows Vista Home Basic edition which does not have that feature.

"Here's something you'll really like!" I went into my desktop and changed my wallpaper to a video of a bear catching a salmon from a river. The video looped over and over behind my icons. I explained that this ability was only available in the $300+ version of Vista.
"Can you change that?" one student asked, "It s giving me a headache."

I could tell that they were less than impressed so I pulled out the last two big guns I had. I showed them how you could type in all or part of a file or program name in the Start search box. "That's nice," a few of them said. But still no "Wow!"

There was only one bullett left in my pocket, the Windows Sidebar. I had turned it off previously and it took me about five minutes to discover where to turn it back on in the Control Panel. "Watch this!"
I added the clock and calendar to the sidebar.

"Don't you have the time and date at the bottom?" someone asked.
"Yes," I admitted. "Why do you need it on your desktop then?" I tried to think what a Microsoft representative would say to that. "It's not just the time, you can also add slideshows, notes, stock tickers and resource monitors," I demonstrated.

"Hmm," came the reply.

I have decided that Microsoft chose the slogan, "The Wow is Now"
because they couldn't think of any clever phrases with words that rhymed with "Why?" or "Hmm."

Email of the week

Hello Rick,

----------------

Hi Paul,

I'm not entirely sure I understand your questions, but I'm going to take a stab at it from a practical sure fire approach to saving text from an email to your hard drive as a document and getting it to print properly.

1. Open the email
2. Select the text you want to save using your mouse
3. Click Edit --> Copy from the menus
4. Click start and open your word processor (Word, Works, WordPerfect, etc)
5. Click Edit --> Paste

Now you can save and print the text the way you intended.

Thanks for writing!

Rick

Castellini on Computers & HelpMeRick.com ©2008
Rick Castellini and Adam Cochran