Here's A Microsoft Word Tip

Creating a Template


It's easy to create a Word template. You just create the document as you would normally and then use a special procedure to save the document as a template. You can include any of the following in a template: any text that all documents should include (company name, document title, address, date code, and so on); any graphic image that all documents should include (company logo, for example); formatting for the existing text and other elements such as the page margins, layout, border, and so on; styles; macros; and other customized options.

To create a template, follow these steps:

Open a new, blank document.

Type the text you want and format the template document as you want.

Click File, Save As.

Display the "Save as type" drop-down list and click Document Template as the type.

Select the folder where you want to place this template.

Type a name for the template and click the Save button.
 

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SPCUG July Volunteer of the Month

CAROLYN CLARK

Who Says There's No Place For Humor In Computing?

Those who know me are very aware that I am not fond of receiving jokes via email. There are a few reasons but the most annoying ones are getting a joke .....

1. That has been around the world at least 100 times
2. That's not even a bit humorous
3. When it's pages and pages long and not worth the "punch line" putting unnecessary wear and tear on my scroll mouse
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY .....
4. Sent to all recipients along the way using TO: and not BCC:

So, occasionally I'll include the ones that I think are are worth the time without clogging your INBOX.
Dave

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Comdex is History

Comdex was inflated, owners were arrogant, and since 1998, it was clear the show was destined to fall into the bit bucket.

by Steve Bass, PC World; Author, PC Annoyances.  

In a downward spiral for the last five years, Comdex is finally kaput. The show owners declared it dead when they cancelled the November, 2004 event. Many of you have been attending Comdex since close to forever, and most of you knew the show was destined to fall into the bit bucket.

Good riddance. In the last few years, the show’s become an empty shell of its previous life. So much so that room prices on the Strip were as low as $50 a night during Comdex week in 2003.

The problem was I couldn’t not attend.  Even though I didn’t enjoy myself and couldn’t find lots of really nifty products to write about, I still drove in from Pasadena and stayed for two nights. Call it nostalgia. Or maybe I was just hoping there would be one more chance that Comdex would get back on its feet.

But nope, it’s really over.

Dig Into the Files

I dug around and found some of Comdex the missives I sent in the last few years.

December, 1998: Comdex is toast. It's fading rapidly and while it'll always be with us, it's never going to be "bigger than ever."

I polled lots of people and all agreed. The attendance was dismally low. Softbank's claim of 250K attendees was a lie. It was based on registrations--not attendees--something made lots easier because the normal $100 "Exhibits Only" fee was waived when you registered on Softbank's Internet site.

My best sources are the cabbies, and all emphatically said 60- to 90K tops. And it was easy to see. I never had to wait more than five minutes for a cab. Ever. Even at 5:00pm. Parties weren't well attended. In fact, for the first time ever, there was actually walking-around room at the exclusive Spencer party.

Iomega was back promoting their Clik gizmo. But wait, weren't they doing that last year? And Castlewood was pushing their 2.2GB ultra SCSI removable storage disk that wouldn't ship until next summer.

The quality of the show was also disappointing. The Sands was filled mostly with OEM stuff—lots of system boards, drives, memory checking devices, and other boring equipment. Joe Bohannon nailed the entire Sands Convention Center in five hours, something that ordinarily takes a day and a half.

I couldn't even find anything very inspirational.

For instance, Creative Labs had a second generation Live sound card. Wow. Sure, there were some booths with interesting things--wireless networking was cool, as was HP's Jornada, their oddly named sub-notebook--and I found a few products to write about. But overall, I could've done just as well surfing the web.

Why has Comdex slowed down? Simple: Games went to E3, anything about the Web went to Internet World, and e-commerce apps also needed their own specialized trade shows.

Worse, it appears Softbank's jacked up the price on everything. That's happened before, but my hunch is vendors aren't going to take it much longer. (That happened to the Food Show when Pepsi and Coke pulled out, literally destroying the event. And Deere, the largest exhibitor of the Machinery Show, left the show high and dry when told they'd be charged double--the new policy put them into both agriculture and machinery.)

At Comdex, the newly remodeled Las Vegas Convention center was missing Intel, IBM, and other big vendors. The Lotus exhibit consisted of a bus in the parking lot with a box of Winchell’s donuts on the table. One of the Lotus reps said this is their last Comdex.

On the exhibit floor, the Japanese companies were slugging it out, with Sony and Samsung making lots of noise, each trying to impress the other. Phillips created a small, loud city, and Microsoft was in their corner with more vendors than spectators.

Me? At $329 a day for the hotel room and the five days lost...I dunno. It may also be my last Comdex.

October, 2000: Comdex is struggling. That's because most other trade shows specialize while Comdex tried to cater to everyone. Funny, in the past Comdex charged an outrageous $100 for admission just to the exhibit floor. This year they're offering a free exhibits pass. (Too bad the hotels haven't caught on to this trick...) This is my last Comdex, for sure.

December, 2001: The Comdex mood this year was all business, with somber overtones. Journalists clustered around in small groups, talking about layoffs, and concerned with the dozens of freelancers gone missing. Lots of PR people didn't make it to Comdex; many of those who did were kvetching about having to share sleeping rooms with colleagues.

I don’t know that I’ll be back next year. While the exhibit floor didn't have the sizzling array of products I saw at previous Comdexes, like last year, the place to be was the evening press events: Showstoppers, Digital/mobile Focus, and Silicon Northwest.

December, 2003: Sleeping rooms are under $60. The show floor at the Convention center has lots of curtains and barriers to make it look as if there are lots of vendors. The aisles are narrow so it feels crowded. There are practically no big vendors, except for Microsoft, and even their exhibit is small.

I've said it every year, but this time I really mean it. This is definitely the last Comdex I’m going to attend. (And I’ll see some of you at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, 2005!)

Pause For Thought

I've learned that you cannot make someone love you.
All you can do is stalk them and hope they panic and give in.

Don't Be an Invisible Member Get Involved To inquire about volunteer opportunities Click Here  Remember.. "The more you put in.... the more you'll take out"

Dave's Cool Downloads

Eraser - Secure Data Removal

Most people have some data that they would rather not share with others - passwords, personal information, classified documents from work, financial records, self-written poems, the list can be continued forever.

Perhaps you have saved some of this information on your computer where it is conveniently at your reach, but when the time comes to remove the data from your hard disk, things get a bit more complicated and maintaining your privacy is not as simple as it may have seemed at first.

Your first thought may be that when you delete the file, the data is gone. Not quite, when you delete a file, the operating system does not really remove the file from the disk; it only removes the reference of the file from the file system table. The file remains on the disk until another file is created over it, and even after that, it might be possible to recover data by studying the magnetic fields on the disk platter surface.

Before the file is overwritten, anyone can easily retrieve it with a disk maintenance or an undelete utility.

There are several problems in secure file removal, mostly caused by the use of write cache, construction of the hard disk and the use of data encoding. These problems have been taken into consideration when Eraser was designed, and because of this intuitive design and a simple user interface, you can safely and easily erase private data from your hard drive.

Eraser is an advanced security tool (for Windows), which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. Works with Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP and DOS.

Eraser is FREE software

The patterns used for overwriting are based on Peter Gutmann's paper "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory" and they are selected to effectively remove magnetic remnants from the hard drive.

Other methods include the one defined in the National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual of the US Department of Defense and overwriting with pseudorandom data. You can also define your own overwriting methods.

Top reviews from the most popular software sites and magazines confirm that Eraser is one of the best security tools available for Windows.

Eraser has over 2.5 Million Users Per Year!

Zondulux                   

I need you to do me a favor and win this game! I have been trying and I just can't seem to do it. In my defense, I have also been doing work, so I haven't been able to devote my full attention to the game...  

The game field is randomly filled with "crosses" and "zeros".  
Your goal is to fill the whole field with "crosses" using your mouse. Here's the catch - when you click on one of symbols, horizontal and vertical line inverts. That means when you click on a zero, it becomes a cross, but all the other crosses become zeros. Very challenging indeed!  

This game is freeware, so you can play as much as you want and improve your results in Halls Of Fame.

SpoofStick for Internet Explorer is a simple browser extension that helps users detect spoofed (fake) websites. A spoofed website is typically made to look like a well known, branded site (like ebay.com or citibank.com) with a slightly different or confusing URL. The attacker then tries to trick people into going to the spoofed site by sending out fake email messages or posting links in public places - hoping that some percentage of users won't notice the incorrect URL and give away important information. This practice is sometimes known as “phishing".

SpoofStick makes it easier to spot a spoofed website by prominently displaying only the most relevant domain information.

You can customize the color and size of the SpoofStick display to suit your tastes and make it harder for a fake site to try to “spoof” SpoofStick with a static graphic.

SpoofStick contains no adware, spyware, nagware or other unhealthy additives.

SpywareBlaster 3.2

SpywareBlaster doesn't scan and clean for spyware - it prevents it from ever being installed.

Spyware, adware, browser hijackers, and dialers are some of the fastest-growing threats on the Internet today. By simply browsing to a web page, you could find your computer to be the brand-new host of one of these unwanted fiends!

The most important step you can take is to secure your system and SpywareBlaster is the most powerful protection program available.

It's main features include: - Prevent the installation of ActiveX-based spyware, adware, browser hijackers, dialers, and other potentially unwanted pests. - Block spyware/tracking cookies in Internet Explorer and Mozilla/Firefox. - Restrict the actions of potentially dangerous sites in Internet Explorer.

SpywareBlaster can help keep your system spyware-free and secure, without interfering with the "good side" of the web. And unlike other programs, SpywareBlaster does not have to remain running in the background.

SpywareBlaster is freeware for personal and educational use.

The version adds Firefox 0.9 support and fixes several bugs.

Size: 2.2 Mb
License: Freeware