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The
Tellico Village Computer Users Club's monthly meeting will be held on
December 4th at 7pm on the top floor of the Yacht Club.
Registration is on the Mezzanine Level - 4th floor.
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December General Meeting Topic
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The meeting will be in two parts. First will be: "Computer Ergonomic's"
by Karen Brown
Followed by: "Cyber Crime, Identity Theft and other Nasties" by Vince Alline.
If you have any specific question or issue you would like discussed,
please send your question ahead of time by email to Vince at
vinceal@gmail.com.
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SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!
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NO JANUARY GENERAL MEETING OR BOARD MEETING
You
may not have noticed it yet but in 2008 January 1st falls on our
meeting day. Therefore, your board has made a decision to cancel
our meetings for January.
Mark your calendars and make a note that our next general meeting will be on February 5th.
We will have a January newsletter so if you have any items of interest, please send them in.
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| Board Meeting |
The
next board meeting will be held on Tuesday, December 11th, at 3 pm
at the Rec. Center. All interested parties are invited to attend.
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| Quick Links |
Most of you know our website
includes a Flea Market? Up to this time it has been used mostly to list
items for sale. This month, I want to suggest that you also think of this
site as a place where you can list items you wish to PURCHASE!
For example, if you want to purchase a good used digital camera as a Christmas
present for a grandchild - why not list your need there and see if any of your
fellow club members has a camera not being used because they upgraded to a
newer model? This is a good time of year for us to have a "garage
sale" on the Web using our site.
Our Webmaster, Victor de Groote, has modified the Website to enable
you to request items you want to buy. Go to www.tvcuc.org, select "Resources", then "Flea
Market" and follow the instructions. The word Webmaster is a link at the Website.
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Computer Education
by Bill Peterson
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There are no classes scheduled for the month of December.
If
you have a subject or interest to you or one you would like to teach,
please contact me by email or see me at the general meeting.
We need your assistance to continue our Education classes. Here is how you can help - answer these questions!
1, What subjects do you recommend we teach?
2. Are You willing to teach a class on a computer subject?
3. Do you know of someone who would teach a class?
4. Overall do you have suggestions for improving our Computer Club educational programs?
Send your answers to Bill Peterson at - lapete@chartertn.net |
Membership
by Bob Kutschera
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Last
month we added nine new members to our club. Their names are
listed below so you can look for each of them at our next meeting and
welcome them.
Tony and Cathy Cirone
Jack and Diane Hensley
Nils Johannesen
Carol and Mike Moehrke
Perce and Dottie Ness
Every October we began accepting payment of dues for the next year and will continue that practice this month.
In
an effort to ease congestion at the reception desk at the monthly
general meetings, we are requesting you send your renewal dues to
Robert Kutschera, 203 Ootsima Way, Loudon, TN 37774-2820.
Please
make your check to TVCUC and include your email address so we can email
confirmation of your renewal. Of course, if you wish to have a hard
copy receipt, we can send that to you as well.
We hope you will
take advantage of this method of payment and we look forward to seeing
you in 2008 which should be an exciting year for TVCUC.
Thank you for your participation and support of the Tellico Village Computer Users Club.
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Special Interest Groups
by Don Stieghan
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Two
SIGs are now meeting each month at the Chota Rec Center, with two others on vacation. The meetings last for about an hour and half.
Genealogy-first
Thursday at 3:00 PM
(contact Don Stieghan at 458-2142)
Digital
Photography-second Thursday at 3:00
PM (contact Jim Noonan at 458-9940)
Computer
Hardware-on vacation
Music
on the Computer-on vacation
Do
you want to be a part of these exciting programs or just ask questions about
SIGs? You can receive meeting
announcements and organization information.
Just send me an e-mail address at tvdon@chartertn.net,
or call 458-2142 or see me at the TVCUC
general meeting. Also, help is available
to start additional SIGs by expressing your special interest. You do not
have to be the expert to lead a SIG to propose the organization of one, just
have an interest in the subject matter.
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First Level Support
by Dennis Malcolm
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You will remember that at last month's general meeting we
had a panel of "experts" who answered many questions. As a
result of that meeting, I thought we should review some of the advice which
resulted from these questions. Hightlights are as follows: ----------------------- 1)
Do backups on the important files on your machines, be it pictures, tax
information, personal documents, etc. Whatever it is make sure it is backed up
on CD's, DVD's, external disk drives or flash drives. You can even back up your
entire disk drive including the operating system using the proper
software program and an
external disc drive. 2)
Run an updated copy of antivirus protection. This could be McAfee or Norton,
which require a yearly paid subscription, Charter High Speed Security
Suite,(free with cable
Internet), AVGAS Free is a antivirus available found on the Internet or
there are others that are free and others requiring annual fees. The important
thing is to make sure YOUR program is updated in a timely fashion. 3)
Regularly Run antispyware, such as Spybot or Ad-Aware, free downloads (these
have
to be run manually), Microsoft Defender, which can be scheduled to run at any
convenient time.
There are also several similar programs requiring onetime or annual payments. 4)
Find and put in a convenient spot to store the disks of the Windows Operating
System that is currently running on your computer. You should have received
disks that say recovery or operating systems or reinstallation CD. This also
applies to any other disks that came with your computer, such as drivers,
application disks for peripheral equipment, etc. This will help if your
computer crashes and everything has to be reloaded. If you did not receive
recovery disks with your new computer, check the users manual or the
manufactures' web site for instructions on how to create them and then keep
them in a safe place where you can find them. 5)
Clean out the temporary Internet files stored on your computer. Either use the
TOOLS menu on your Internet Explore or do START> PROGRAMS>
ACCESSORIES> SYSTEM TOOLS> DISK CLEANUP. Run DISK CLEANUP weekly and it
will save space on your computer. If you do not do this the computer will run
out of space and run slower.
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Free Stuff and Helpful Sites
by Frank Fritchman
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For
those of you who work with recording and editing music, below is a link
to a program by the name of Audacity which is free and sounds like it
might be helpful. Go to -
http://download-audacity.org/?gclid=CO-XqI_88o4CFQGnPAodaUROEw -------------------------
Click on any icon on the map for text update
information. It's not just about Terrorism - it's about everything
happening every minute some place in the world of terrorism threats,
explosions, airline incidents, etc.
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Here is an article from Smart Computing about Outlook Express which is recommended reading by Dennis Malcolm and Bob Foster.
Q. I don't have an
Outlook Express email account, but I opened Outlook Express recently and saw
email messages in the Outlook Express inbox. Where did they come from?
A. This is a question that we hear a
lot at the tech support desk. The confusion lies in the difference between an
email account and an email client. Your email account is the email address you
have, such as johndoe@genericaddress.com. This is the address people type when
they want to send an email message to you. Most email accounts provide an
option to use a Web mail system. These Web-based systems let you visit a Web
page, such as webmail.roadrunner.com,
to sign in, read, and send email messages from your email account. Another
example of a site you might visit to check Web mail is www.gmail.com. One important
thing to remember about Web mail is that it is specific to your email account.
You cannot log in to Roadrunner's Web mail system and check your Yahoo!, AOL,
or Gmail accounts. You can only view your Roadrunner email from Roadrunner's
Web mail system, and when you log in to your Gmail account at www.gmail.com, you can only
view your Gmail messages.
Now that we have a firm understanding of individual email accounts and the
basics of Web mail, let's take a look at email clients. An email client is a
program, such as Microsoft Outlook Express or Windows Mail, that you can
install on your computer and configure to download copies of your email
messages from your email account. In order to download messages with an email
client, your email account must support a technology such as POP (Post Office
Protocol) or IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol). Your ISP (Internet
service provider) can tell you if your email account supports one of these
protocols.
When you use an email client to check your email, the software contacts your
ISP's server where your email messages are stored and downloads copies of the
messages to your computer's hard drive. Thus, you can read your email messages
later, even if your computer is not connected to the Internet.
You can also use an email client to compose email messages. One reason many
people like to use an email client to compose email messages is because you can
type the message while you're offline and then send the message when it's
complete. If you use a modem, this means you don't have to tie up the phone
line while you write your messages. Just connect to the Internet when you're
done writing your messages so that your email client can send the messages you
wrote. Also, you don't have to worry about losing the work on a message if your
Internet connection is interrupted. In contrast, when using Web mail to type a
message, you may lose your work if your Internet connection is dropped.
Finally, an email client can collect email messages from several email
accounts. Your email client's inbox may contain messages downloaded from your
Roadrunner, Gmail, and work accounts.
As you can see, Outlook Express is not an email account but a program that you
can use to check your email. When you see messages in Outlook Express, it is
because your copy of Outlook Express is configured to download email from at
least one of your email accounts.
Want to support our troops? Here is a great opportunity provided by the people at Xerox.
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Want
to support our troops at Christmas! Here is a great opportunity
provided by the people at Xerox. Go to this web site, www.LetsSayThanks.com and there you can you can pick out a thank you card, Xerox will print it and it will be sent
to a soldier that is currently serving in Iraq . You can't pick out who gets
it, but it will go to some member of the armed services.
How AMAZING it would be if we could get everyone we know to send one!!!
This is a great site. Please send a card - send several! It is FREE and it
only takes a second.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if the soldiers received thousands of these?
Whether
you are for or against the war, our guys and gals over there need
to know we are behind them. I only wish there were some way for
Xerox to send these to all our troops. You and I will be enjoying
our holidays in peace this year because of what these and others (many
of you) have done to protect us.
Reprinted from Smart
Computer magazine, December, 2007 | |
Smart Computing
by Ron Uncapher & Frank Fritchman
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Subscribe or Renew
Your Smart Computing subscription and help TVCUC get credit towards free
subscriptions.
Many of you subscribe to the computing magazine, Smart
Computing. Do you know that your club
can earn and has earned free subscription to the magazine? You may have been at a meeting when a
subscription was given away as door prizes.
Well, you can help earn more of those free subscriptions. When subscribe or renew and let the
publisher know you want the Tellico Village Computer Users Club to give credit to the club.
To do this, go to www.smartcomputing.com. In the blue panel on the left side of the
homepage, go down to User Groups.
Click on User Groups and you will link to the User Group Program
page. The text on that page will tell
you about the free subscription program.
In the Orange (yellow) panel at the
left, click on Subscribe or Renew Today!
This will link you to the page where you can renew you
subscription. Fill out your data. Then, as you scroll about half way down the
screen, you will come to Give Your Group Credit For Your Order. Select Tellico Village Computer Users
Group, Loudon, TN and the group will be credited when
you complete your order.
You may also renew or subscribe by phone at (800)
424-7900. Just tell the phone person
that you want your group to get free subscription credit.
Thanks for your support.
Ron
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Photography & Cartoons
by Frank Fritchman
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At
a time of year when gift giving is on everyone's mind, I thought this
was an appropriate photo. It seems all of God's creatures like
giving gifts and work hard at doing just that!
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Here we are at the end of another year. What a great place to live!
Your
Board of Directors have worked very hard this year to bring you
activities which have improved your ability to use and enjoy your
computer. We plan for even better things in 2008. We want
to wish each of you the best holiday of your life and a very happy,
healthy and prosperous New Year!
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