INDEX OF TOPICS on this blogsite
~ click on the blue links for each month in the ARCHIVES on the
right hand side of this page
March 2010
Using eBay to sell your antiques
Using Open Office to create text documents & PDFs
February 2010
Using Flickr ~ sharing your photos with others
Using Powerpoint
January 2010
Converting Word 2007 to earlier versions of Word
December 2009
Screen capture
Using Launchy to launch programs / favourite websites
Flash drives and file management
November 2009
Free online IT courses
Creating an e-card using Gimp (free photo-editing software)
October 2009
Buying things on eBay (and a look at PayPal)
August 2009
Using Picasa 3
Designing your own website
July 2009
Emailing
June 2009
Online supermarket shopping
May 2009
Desktop calendar for Windows XP users
Dodgy emails & spam
Emailing queries
Improving visibility of the mouse pointer & text on your screen.
Google Chrome
March 2009
Website addresses, incl. TinyUrl, Bit.ly and Multimap
.....plus a brief look at Google's Streetview, domain names & Webs.com.
The new AVG 8.0 anti-virus software
Looking at your photos with XnView and Flickr
Jan 2009
Backing up your stuff (onto CDs, etc.)
How to dispose of, or recycle, an old hard drive
Buying house insurance online
Dec 2008
Xmas e-cards
Moving photos & folders around (& tidying up)
Pre-Christmas bargains
(Moneysaving Expert site)
Nov 2008
Longevity of CD-Rs
Backing up your emails
Oct 2008
An update on how to use a flash drive
Researching your ancestors online (about 40 websites)
How to disable the Drawing Canvas in Word
Sep 2008
Click Online … the TV news programme for computer nerds
Two helpful websites for photography & photo-editing
Googlemail (yet again)
More on using a dongle
How safe is online banking?
Card readers (for photos)
Free capture (snipping) tool with Windows Home Premium Vista.
Premium rate phone numbers
Free webspace with Google sites
Jing
YouTube
Aug 2008
Taking over a second-hand computer.
How to dispose of the hard drive of a computer (prior to recycling it)
Free anti-virus cover (AVG & Avast)
Free spyware & firewall
Open Office ~ free stuff on this site
July 2008
moneysavingexpert ~ Martin Lewis' site
Yahoo email & Googlemail
June 2008
Using a dongle for Broadband internet
A look at Windows Vista
May 2008
Creating e-cards
Researching your ancestors online (part one of talk)
Using the PrintScreen key on your keyboard
April 2008
Organising your folders (& labelling them)
Taskbar shortcuts
Using Picasa to find all your photos
How to join and use Nottm Realcycle
Googlemail (JH thinks this is the best)
All about Shakespeare
Tin whiskers (leading to early demise of circuit boards in computers)
March 2008
Two money-saving websites
Creating a photo-montage for your Desktop
& a sketch from a photo
How to set up our audio-visual equipment
How to access the calculator on your PC
(& create a desktop shortcut for it)
Currency conversion (xe dot com)
Member's choices for digital cameras
Feb 2008
Zipping files
Using XnView & Flickr to see your photos
Creating a Restore Point (before downloading a program)
Choosing a digital camera
Using a flash drive
Multiple card readers
2 mouse tips
Residential courses at Higham Hall
"Listen again" to BBC radio programmes with RealPlayer
... please note that the BBC now uses I-Player (March 2010)
Jan 2008
The Left Lion
Diary of a dog portrait
Saving money when renewing home insurance
Building your own website
Hewlett Packard's free online IT courses
Dec 2007
Re-writable CD-Roms
A look at Wikipedia, PC Advisor, Silver Surfers, Yahoo Answers
Nov 2007
three money-saving ideas ~ Virgin Media, Alliance Leics., Sim card
tidying up your PC & "restore"
Oct 2007
Ordnance survey maps on Multimap
(now under "basic maps" on the Multimap site, & difficult to find)
Google Earth
How to create a restore point on your computer, before
downloading a program.
Introduction to blogging + link to separate site …
.........http://www.simplynot0007.blogspot.com/
Sep 2007
trainline dot com
PC Advisor website for any PC problems you have
Signing up to Hotmail or Googlemail
Local library service online
Local transport services
Cinemas, etc, in Nottm
Post-it notes & currency exchange
How to change a keyboard, set up for US users
Online ancestor research - long list of websites for this
(PS ~ the Mormons are a separate group from the LDS)
Aug 2007
"More on photos" ~ viewing, storing, printing, sharing (Flickr) & editing
Shopping online ~ sites, payment, keeping receipts,
Copying text from a web page (for your personal use only, as it's copyright)
July 2007
blogging
organising your internet pages, searches & websites
~ making Google your home page
~ how to alter print size
~ how to use your address box
~ adding sites to your Favourites list + making folders
~ how to improve your searches on Google
~ other search engines
~ Wikipedia
~ online maps
~ a selection of other interesting websites
~ how to listen to the radio online, & look at TV listings
Outlook Express ~ deleting emails & putting emails into folders
How to add an attachment to an email
How to send a photo by email
Beware of bogus emails (especially from "banks") - never reply.
Nottingham Freecycle (later to become Realcycle) & signing up
with Yahoo in order to use a forum such as Realcycle.
Online storage with Box dot net
June 2007
U3A photography sessions with Stuart McIntyre
of Photo Nottingham + slide show of photos
How about using Re-writable CD-Roms?
May 2007
Photo-editing topic + photos to practise on
Apr 2007
bypass recorded phone instructions to speak to someone
~ try this link (as gethuman site defunct),
... or try pressing 0 or # on your phone keypad
Online discount codes
How to set up a Screensaver slide-show in Windows XP
Mar 2007
free online storage with mozy dot com
Mozilla-Firefox
A selection of favourite websites from our members
What can you do if your computer is struck down
with a virus … quarantine the virus & re-install Windows.
Feb 2007
check out this website for film reviews …http://imdb.com/
Nov 2006
Avoid using expensive phone numbers
Oct 2006
two keyboard shortcuts (using the tab key)
creating the © symbol
Character maps (for more unusual symbols)
oneacross dot com
Sept 2006
Computer tips from the Silver Surfer's website
(using the mouse wheel, clearing temp. files & history
& making Google your home page)
August 2006
Photo-editing course + sample photos
July 2006
Reference books from Age Concern & Amazon
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Using EBAY to value your antiques
Here is an outline of how value your stuff... my thanks to our
Monday speaker and U3A member, Elaine Carter-Fox, for showing
me how to do this.
1. Put “ebay uk” into the Google search box > Google search
2. Select eBay from this, which must include this website address …
www.ebay.co.uk
3. On the eBay home page, click on Sign in / Register
4. If you’re a newcomer to eBay, you will need to register to be
able to do advanced searches on it.
Make up a name for yourself … eg superwoman1000 (& check the availability
of this name).
Make up a password for yourself … ideally 10 characters or more, and a
memorable mixture of letters and numbers .. eg ssmapgttf1066
(Simple Simon ...)
Check out what eBay says about security matters … eg NEVER reply to
unsolicited emails from eBay (you could be led off to bogus websites)
5. Having registered, you can now sign into eBay with your username and
password
6. Select “Advanced Search” (on the yellow strip near the top of the page)
7. Now enter your keywords to describe your object (eg Beano annual)
8. Lower down the page, tick the box next to “Completed listings”.
9. Click on the blue Search box.
If you’re searching for a Beano annual that’s been sold (or not sold)
in the past 14-15 days, you might now see a list of over 1,500 items
(which currently includes the Dandy Annual ~ I don’t know why!).
Some of the items are listed as “Buy It Now” … put on by sellers who
hope you’ll pay their full asking price. Other items have been put up
for auction to the highest bidder … some have been sold, others not
sold (zero bids).
Near the top of the page, you’ll see that you can “Sort by” various
means … have a look at sorting by highest price … some annuals sell
for over £100 (plus P&P).
Select one of the higher priced ones … the annual will briefly appear
on your screen, but then you’ll have to scroll down the page to find
it again.
Most items for sale will include one or more photos - you can enlarge
the photo(s) and check its condition. The seller’s description and
postal charges and other terms of sale will be listed below the photo.
Check out the seller too … click on the blue number of items sold
after the seller’s name. Lower down the next page, you will see the
range of items this seller has recently sold, and get an idea of
his / her expertise. (This is more applicable for someone selling
antiques). If you’re thinking of purchasing anything off eBay, then
buy from a seller with a high feedback rating. I also advise buying
stuff from sellers in the UK only, in case you have to return an item
if it’s shoddy.
If the keywords you've chosen don't produce many results, try some
other keywords.
Also do a Google search (eg for a Royal Doulton Blue Flow jug or for
hallmarks on gold / silver), and have a look through a few Google
pages to see if you can find out more information about your items.
Here is an outline of how value your stuff... my thanks to our
Monday speaker and U3A member, Elaine Carter-Fox, for showing
me how to do this.
1. Put “ebay uk” into the Google search box > Google search
2. Select eBay from this, which must include this website address …
www.ebay.co.uk
3. On the eBay home page, click on Sign in / Register
4. If you’re a newcomer to eBay, you will need to register to be
able to do advanced searches on it.
Make up a name for yourself … eg superwoman1000 (& check the availability
of this name).
Make up a password for yourself … ideally 10 characters or more, and a
memorable mixture of letters and numbers .. eg ssmapgttf1066
(Simple Simon ...)
Check out what eBay says about security matters … eg NEVER reply to
unsolicited emails from eBay (you could be led off to bogus websites)
5. Having registered, you can now sign into eBay with your username and
password
6. Select “Advanced Search” (on the yellow strip near the top of the page)
7. Now enter your keywords to describe your object (eg Beano annual)
8. Lower down the page, tick the box next to “Completed listings”.
9. Click on the blue Search box.
If you’re searching for a Beano annual that’s been sold (or not sold)
in the past 14-15 days, you might now see a list of over 1,500 items
(which currently includes the Dandy Annual ~ I don’t know why!).
Some of the items are listed as “Buy It Now” … put on by sellers who
hope you’ll pay their full asking price. Other items have been put up
for auction to the highest bidder … some have been sold, others not
sold (zero bids).
Near the top of the page, you’ll see that you can “Sort by” various
means … have a look at sorting by highest price … some annuals sell
for over £100 (plus P&P).
Select one of the higher priced ones … the annual will briefly appear
on your screen, but then you’ll have to scroll down the page to find
it again.
Most items for sale will include one or more photos - you can enlarge
the photo(s) and check its condition. The seller’s description and
postal charges and other terms of sale will be listed below the photo.
Check out the seller too … click on the blue number of items sold
after the seller’s name. Lower down the next page, you will see the
range of items this seller has recently sold, and get an idea of
his / her expertise. (This is more applicable for someone selling
antiques). If you’re thinking of purchasing anything off eBay, then
buy from a seller with a high feedback rating. I also advise buying
stuff from sellers in the UK only, in case you have to return an item
if it’s shoddy.
If the keywords you've chosen don't produce many results, try some
other keywords.
Also do a Google search (eg for a Royal Doulton Blue Flow jug or for
hallmarks on gold / silver), and have a look through a few Google
pages to see if you can find out more information about your items.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
CREATING TEXT DOCUMENTS AND PDFs IN OPEN OFFICE
(article updated by JH on 16 September 2010)
In last Thursday’s session, Graham and I showed members how to put together
and use our audio-visual equipment. I’ve updated our website page as regards
this, if you’d like more information.
In the second part of the session, I talked about Open Office (OO). This
can be downloaded free of charge from the following site …
http://www.openoffice.org/
You will be downloading a fairly large file size (128MB), so do this in
the morning rather than later in the day, to save yourself a lot of time.
Those of you who have Windows XP should create a Restore Point on your
computer before downloading any program, in case your computer were to
crash.
You can use OO to create text documents, newsletters, PDFs (portable
document files), slide shows and spreadsheets … all for free.
Why bother creating a PDF?
Well, businesses like to sent PDFs to each other, as the content (text and
photos) stays stable when opened ~ it doesn’t shift around the page). They
tend to be tamper-proof (the sender can set “permissions” to prevent them
being copied or printed, and can encrypt the contents also). This can be
over-rided by those in the know, however.
PDFs are also 100% virus-free, which was news to me, when I read this.
They are great for web-designers like myself – they can be incorporated
into websites as newsletters and timetables, and can save the webmaster
a lot of time.
Readers like yourself can easily download a PDF file onto say your Desktop
(File > Save As) ....or copy and paste it onto a Word document, or print
it off.
You can use the pale blue zoom tools on the top toolbar, to zoom in
or out of the PDF page.
To open up OO, click on your blue Desktop icon …
You will see the usual tools on the top toolbar, that you need to create a
text document, and you could now proceed to create such a document in OO.
What you could now do is to browse and then open up a Microsoft Word
document you’ve received / copied / created yourself, opening it up
into Open Office Writer.
File > Open … and then browse for the document you want, that’s filed
away on your computer.
Next up is the Word document, I wish to import into OO Writer. This was
created by our newsletter editor.
… and here is the same document now in OO Writer, which I have edited
in OO … adding a heading, and changing the font styles and colours.
At this point, you can now save your work
… save it as a .odt file first of all ...
File > Save As > an open document text file,
When saving your document, type in a title for it followed immediately by
the characters: .odt. This is very important!
Press the "Save" button.
This creates a .odt file, which you can now convert to a PDF file.
Select "File" > "Export as a PDF".
When you do the latter, you will be presented with a PDF Options window.
Under “General”, you could change the quality of the PDF.
Under “Security” you could set up encryption & permissions, if you so wish.
I just click on “Export”.
Choose a title for your PDF, and choose where you’d like to save it ... > Save.
Done!
A couple of tips for you when using OO Writer…
1. To insert a photo and to write some text alongside it, you could create
a table.
Select Table > create one with 2 columns
> untick box for Border
Insert your photo into one column & text in the other.
You can re-position the centre dividing column, if you so wish.
(If anyone finds a text box facility in OO Writer, please would you let me know?)
2. To change the size of the page you’re looking at in OO Writer ….
select View > Zoom > Variable (size) > say 80%
In the above list in my U3A folder, you'll see the icons for a Word
document, an open document text file, and then the Adobe Acrobat
document which is the PDF. The latter is a larger file size than the
odt file, which disproves the idea that files are reduced in size by
converting them to PDF.
To change the layout of the page from Portrait to Landscape format,
select "Format" on the top toolbar, and then "Page". Click on the circle for
Landscape > OK
To create a page with columns on it, select Format > Columns, and choose the layout you'd like (also look at the other options on offer, such as a
dividing line between the columns)
To include a column(s) in say the centre of your document, create a title for
your document. Press the Enter key to start a new line.
Select Insert > Section
Select Columns > choose the settings you like.
Select Insert ... you will then see grey lines separating the columns.
To revert back to a single column lower down in the document, you could
repeat the above but choose a single column setting.
(article updated by JH on 16 September 2010)
In last Thursday’s session, Graham and I showed members how to put together
and use our audio-visual equipment. I’ve updated our website page as regards
this, if you’d like more information.
In the second part of the session, I talked about Open Office (OO). This
can be downloaded free of charge from the following site …
http://www.openoffice.org/
You will be downloading a fairly large file size (128MB), so do this in
the morning rather than later in the day, to save yourself a lot of time.
Those of you who have Windows XP should create a Restore Point on your
computer before downloading any program, in case your computer were to
crash.
You can use OO to create text documents, newsletters, PDFs (portable
document files), slide shows and spreadsheets … all for free.
Why bother creating a PDF?
Well, businesses like to sent PDFs to each other, as the content (text and
photos) stays stable when opened ~ it doesn’t shift around the page). They
tend to be tamper-proof (the sender can set “permissions” to prevent them
being copied or printed, and can encrypt the contents also). This can be
over-rided by those in the know, however.
PDFs are also 100% virus-free, which was news to me, when I read this.
They are great for web-designers like myself – they can be incorporated
into websites as newsletters and timetables, and can save the webmaster
a lot of time.
Readers like yourself can easily download a PDF file onto say your Desktop
(File > Save As) ....or copy and paste it onto a Word document, or print
it off.
You can use the pale blue zoom tools on the top toolbar, to zoom in
or out of the PDF page.
To open up OO, click on your blue Desktop icon …
You will see the usual tools on the top toolbar, that you need to create a
text document, and you could now proceed to create such a document in OO.
What you could now do is to browse and then open up a Microsoft Word
document you’ve received / copied / created yourself, opening it up
into Open Office Writer.
File > Open … and then browse for the document you want, that’s filed
away on your computer.
Next up is the Word document, I wish to import into OO Writer. This was
created by our newsletter editor.
… and here is the same document now in OO Writer, which I have edited
in OO … adding a heading, and changing the font styles and colours.
At this point, you can now save your work
… save it as a .odt file first of all ...
File > Save As > an open document text file,
When saving your document, type in a title for it followed immediately by
the characters: .odt. This is very important!
Press the "Save" button.
This creates a .odt file, which you can now convert to a PDF file.
Select "File" > "Export as a PDF".
When you do the latter, you will be presented with a PDF Options window.
Under “General”, you could change the quality of the PDF.
Under “Security” you could set up encryption & permissions, if you so wish.
I just click on “Export”.
Choose a title for your PDF, and choose where you’d like to save it ... > Save.
Done!
A couple of tips for you when using OO Writer…
1. To insert a photo and to write some text alongside it, you could create
a table.
Select Table > create one with 2 columns
> untick box for Border
Insert your photo into one column & text in the other.
You can re-position the centre dividing column, if you so wish.
(If anyone finds a text box facility in OO Writer, please would you let me know?)
2. To change the size of the page you’re looking at in OO Writer ….
select View > Zoom > Variable (size) > say 80%
In the above list in my U3A folder, you'll see the icons for a Word
document, an open document text file, and then the Adobe Acrobat
document which is the PDF. The latter is a larger file size than the
odt file, which disproves the idea that files are reduced in size by
converting them to PDF.
To change the layout of the page from Portrait to Landscape format,
select "Format" on the top toolbar, and then "Page". Click on the circle for
Landscape > OK
To create a page with columns on it, select Format > Columns, and choose the layout you'd like (also look at the other options on offer, such as a
dividing line between the columns)
To include a column(s) in say the centre of your document, create a title for
your document. Press the Enter key to start a new line.
Select Insert > Section
Select Columns > choose the settings you like.
Select Insert ... you will then see grey lines separating the columns.
To revert back to a single column lower down in the document, you could
repeat the above but choose a single column setting.
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