April 1999
News Letter
A message from the President:
We had a fine turnout for the March meeting with 20 members and 3 guests. 2 speakers, Stephen Grate and Vic Thacker, spoke on the subject of THE INTERNET. 2 members renewed and 2 guests joined.
Back in February of 1998, I volunteered to become the Statistician for this group, hoping to be able to quantify the familiarity level of the members in several aspects of computers and compare that with the desired familiarity level of those same members in those aspects. The form I devised is not very simple and less than half of our members have responded. The summary of statistics form also is complicated and hard to read.
My original thoughts were: if the club shows an overall average below 40% of familiarity compared to desired familiarity, then we have an appreciable amount of need for knowledge to transfer to those wanting it. If the overall percentage rises much above 60% then either most of the members have most of the familiarity they want OR they don’t want much more that they already have. Our NEED to exist, as a group, rises as the percentage drops but our ABILITY to share knowledge grows as the percentage rises. The various summaries have run above 70% and the reason is that those who responded to the complicated questionnaire are the ones who stayed in the club, and largely are the ones who attend the meetings.
We need to address the beginners and newcomers to our group. Each of the old-timers has something to contribute. I’m scheduled to give a presentation on spreadsheets, in April. This should be a very interesting presentation because while I have quite a bit of experience with spreadsheets, there will be other members with more and/or different experience who will contribute heavily to this presentation. If you’re not up on spreadsheets, this will be an excellent opportunity to see what they can do for you and if you already know about spreadsheets, come and help with this session. It’s a win-win situation so let’s all be there. I’m calling it SPREADSHEETS 101.
Sufficient time has elapsed since we announced our intention of voting on changing the Constitution and By-Laws. MARK PENDERGAST spent quite a bit of time simplifying and condensing those documents and the Officers have approved them and are recommending that you vote to adopt them. Copies were included in the January Newsletter and we’ll have copies available at the April 8, meeting. Be there and let’s vote to adopt.
If your due date is highlighted on your address label, your dues are overdue. You may either pay them at the next meeting or mail a check for $10 to Mr. Richard Coop Sr. at 2645 North Apperson Way, 46901. Paying your dues helps keep our membership up, but if you don’t attend meetings, where is your benefit ? We have over a dozen members whose dues are due in April. Please come to the meeting and pay them !
If you need another reason to attend, either bring your old 3.5" floppy with the ‘93-’97 Newsletter Archives on it, to exchange for the new one that includes ‘98 or pay $1 for the new updated version.
We will be in room 132 again and I’m looking forward to a great meeting. Bring your friends !
Let’s remember to patronize and
recommend STAPES for all office and
computer supplies.
KOKOMO IBM PC USERS GROUP
PRESIDENT
LARRY L. THOMPSON, ATM
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THE CASE OF THE MISSING MAP
If the Character Map is not installed in your Windows 98 computer, you can usually install it as follows: Open the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Program, click the Windows Setup tab, double-click System
Tools, check Character Map, and click OK. However, I recently came across a computer (with Windows 98 already installed) on which this technique did not work. Then, according to Microsoft, you'll need to
follow these steps:
With the Windows 98 installation CD in your CD-ROM drive, select Start, Run, type
sfc
(to open the System File Checker) and click OK. Select Extract One File From Installation Disk, type
charmap.exe
and click Start. Next to Restore From, type
X:\Win98
where X is your CD-ROM drive. Next to Save File In, type
C:\Windows
and click OK.
Charmap.exe is now in your Windows folder. Locate this file in an Explorer window, and place a shortcut to it on the desktop or in your Start menu.
Ed Danley
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OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND (YOU HOPE) FILES
Do you have some top-secret files you'd like to keep out of sight? Mark them hidden, and they'll magically disappear, along with the rest of your system's hidden files. (That is, assuming you keep your hidden files hidden.)
Right-click a file you'd like to hide and select Properties. On the General tab of the resulting Properties dialog box, select Hidden, then click OK. Now be sure that your hidden files are actually hidden: In any Explorer window, select View,Options, click the View tab, select Hide Files Of These Types, and click OK. (If you have the IE 4.0 Desktop Update installed, select View, Folder Options, click the View tab, select Do Not Show Hidden Files, and click OK.) Now, any files marked hidden will disappear from Explorer windows, your desktop, and so on.
If and when you need to access a hidden file, you have two choices. One, opt to display hidden files using the options described above. Or two, type the file's exact name (and navigate your way to its exact location) in the Open dialog box of its native application.
(Note: Marking a file hidden isn't a true security measure since anyone who knows the name and location of a file can open it. It's really just a deterrent--out of sight, out of mind.)
Ed Danley
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TO CHECK OR TO NOT CHECK
Here's a question about Word's automatic grammar checker:
"Just last week, Office 97 was installed on my computer. I've generally been able to do everything I need to do, but I can't turn off those pesky green lines that indicate Word doesn't like my grammar. I think I remember seeing a tip on how to do this, but it was
before I had a snowball's chance of getting Office 97. Can you help?
"Also, Word automatically extends the underline backward through the tab and to the number when Bullets & Numbering is on. Is there any way
to stop it?"
Automatic grammar checking places squiggly green lines under any text that it considers incorrect--but it's optional. To turn it off, choose Tools, Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the Spelling
& Grammar tab. Locate the check box labeled Check Grammar As You Type and deselect it. Click OK to close the Options dialog box and save your changes. There you are--no more squiggly green lines.
Now, to get to the second question--when you use numbered lists, any underlining you add is extended to fit under the numbers as well as the text. However, if you use bullets, the underlining covers only the
text.
You could change each bullet in a list to a number, but this is a lot of work. It's probably best to just make up a numbered list without using automatic numbering. That is, just type in
1. My text
2. More text
3. And so on, and so on
Using the manual approach, you can select only the text you want to underline. To use the manual method, you'll need to turn off automatic numbering. Otherwise, as soon as you start entering a numbered list, AutoFormat kicks in and applies the Word numbering conventions that lead to underlined numbers. Choose Tools, AutoCorrect and click the
AutoFormat As You Type tab. Now deselect the check box labeled Automatic Numbered Lists, then click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes.
Ed Danley
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IT'S A WRAP
If you open Notepad--Start, Programs, Accessories, Notepad--and start typing, you'll notice that the text just keeps going (and going... and going...) to the right. Why? Because Notepad's Word Wrap option is
turned off by default. If you want Notepad to start your text at the beginning of the next line whenever you reach the right edge of the window, just select Edit, Word Wrap.
(Note: Once the Word Wrap option is on, feel free to size your Notepad window up or down. Notepad adjusts the text inside so that you can see
it all, regardless.
Ed Danley
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Hot Site
Over thirty years experience as a reference librarian has shown me that occasionally a question shows up that I haven’t a clue how to find the answer. This site is one of the best that I have found in this situation. Simply type in a short sentence that asks what you want to know. If no reasonable answers are found, it is a good idea to rephrase the question at least once before giving up. Quick example: what are the ten commandments of American Indians? I typed in "10 commandments of Native Americans?" The results come up as Jeeves Knows The Following and gives you a list of possibilities. This was a real reference question and Jeevesnailed it.
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If a meeting is cancelled due to inclement weather, radio station WIOU and WWKI will be notified by 5:00 P.M. on the day of the meeting.
Membershp Dues: $10
President Larry Thompson, 457-5622
Vice-President Ross Jordan 457-4894
Treasurer Richard Coop Sr., 459-8731
Member Services Rodney Malkoff, 453-1159
Director Paul Mays, 219-626-2689
Newsletter Editor Jerry Henry 453-4144
Newsletter Distribution Ed Danley, 453-7004
Group WWW site http://www.iquest.net/kokopc/
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