WSCC Latest News: CCN 845

CLUB CORROBOREE NET

Editor: Annette Stuckey westlake@bigpond.net.au No. 845

5 November 2017

Hi Silver Surfers,

If you a looking for a day out I highly recommend a visit to the Hunter Valley Zoo just outside Cessnock. It is a great place to visit for young and old. You may be surprised just how many animals reside there.

You can check the animals out at the site below:

https://www.huntervalleyzoo.com.au/meet-an-animal/animals-hvz/22-animals-at-hvz

CLUB NEWS

Information Day: Friday 10^th 1.00 pm

Guest Speaker: Ann Crump LMCC Library

Ann's talk is entitled " The best of Community History"

This could be a great talk to learn more about the history of Lake Macquarie as the greater percent of us have all moved to the area from elsewhere.

We will also have a look at video of the animals we saw at the Zoo last Tuesday.

I have had a few enquiries about the program "Drop Box" so we will have another look at that. It is a great program to share things with your P.C, laptop, smart phone and tablet. You can also put things in the cloud for family and friends to view.

DO DROP IN DAY

(Wangi RSL)

EVERY WEDNESDAY

"One on One" 1 hour Session 1pm –2pm - 3pm

Help available with anything- Computer –Tablet – Phone

You can bring your own equipment if you wish

Internet available

Phone:4975 3360 : Email: westlake@bigpond.net.au

to make a booking

$5.00 per session

The quickest way to the Task Manager in W7 & W10

All about speed, eh? Well, the quickest and easiest way to get to your Windows Task Manager is simply to right-click an empty area of your Task Bar and choose "Start Task Manager".

Ta-da! An instant view of what your system is doing!

Of course, there are some that would argue that Ctrl+Shift+Esc is even faster, but I'll leave that up to you to decide.

Following the item "A few Interesting Sites" last week, a friend of the CCN, Maxine Grey, sent in the following in relation to converting files. ~ Annette

CONVERTING PDF TO WORD.

1. The Best PDF to Word Convertor I've Seen and it's Free

It's quite common for someone to send you a PDF document and then discover that you need to change it. Unfortunately, that is not easy as PDF programs can only be edited with special programs like the Adobe Acrobat Suite and these programs are usually quite expensive.

A more economical approach is to use an online file conversion program like www.zamzar.com to convert the file to an editable format such as Microsoft Word. Once in that format they can be edited in Word just like any other document. Once you have edited the file in word you can save it it in PDF.

Most of these file format converters do a reasonable job converting PDF files to Word but the results are far from perfect. For example, some formatting may be lost, or some text sections may not be fully editable.

Recently I came across a new online file conversion service at a website called Small PDF that gave the best conversion results I've seen. In fact, the results with the test files I used, were essentially perfect. All formatting was retained, all images were correctly positioned and all the text was editable. Best of all, the service if free, provided you don't convert more than two documents in an hour.

All you do is go to the website at https://smallpdf.com/pdf-to-word upload your PDF file, wait a couple of minutes, and you'll be emailed a link to your download. Which, in my case, resulted in a perfect Word document that I could now edit and use as the basis for the new documents.

So, if you ever need to convert PDF and other files between document formats, keep a note of Small PDF as it's very impressive. And it handles loads of other formats besides those two, as well.

Thanks Monica. Much Appreciated.

PERMANENTLY DELETE EMAIL

There is a quick and easy way to delete an unwanted email in Live Mail. It completely by-passes the Deleted Item folder thus eliminating the possibility mistakenly causing trouble later on if left in the Deleted Item folder.

In the case of the email mentioned above you highlight the email then hold down the Shift key and click the Delete key on your key board.

The following window appears:

Click Yes and the offending email is gone forever.

This is a great way of getting completely getting rid of scam emails.

The following tips are from Cyn's Tech Tips and are used by permission

Understanding apps
If you're new to smartphones or tablets, you might find some of the terms a bit confusing. Let's take the term, App.
So just what is an App? We get this question a lot and the answer is very simple. App is short for Application. An application is a program, very much like software you purchase on disc or download for a traditional computer.
Some apps, like the phone app, camera app, and texting app come pre-installed on your phone. Others you'll have to get from the app store for your particular model of phone.
To Open an app, just give it a single tap. Navigating most apps is pretty straightforward. You tap where you want to go.
The controls for each app will vary. You'll find most apps don't come with instructions. You'll have to learn by doing. Let's use an email app as an example.

Just tap the icon to open and you see the inbox. To navigate the inbox, you swipe up or down. To open an e-mail, just give it a single tap. For this app, I can find options to forward, reply and delete at the top of the screen.

In apps where you type, you usually bring up the keyboard just starting a task that requires a keyboard... I'll select the reply arrow for this message by just tapping on it and the keyboard will open allowing me to type.
On most devices you'll see the standard QWERTY keyboard from a typewriter.

Now let's use the YouTube App as an example. To open it, I tap on the YouTube icon.

To select a video just tap on the YouTube Icon and choose a video by tapping once on it.

You can pull up the play controls by tapping the video. We can stop or play the video by tapping there or go full screen.

Most apps will have a menu icon that looks like three little lines or squares together. Tap it and you'll get a menu that offers settings options. This is similar to what you'd see if you clicked on the file or tools options in a program on your PC. What those options are will depend on the app.
The menu icon is very important. If you're wondering how to find or do something in an app, tapping that little menu icon is always a good starting point.
Tapping the menu button on the YouTube app will give you Settings options where you can control things like connected TVs and captions.

Tapping the menu icon in an app like the Chrome web browser gives you options like History and Bookmarks.

But don't be afraid. You really can't break an app. Even if you were to change the settings and couldn't get it back the way you wanted it, you can always uninstall the app and then download and reinstall.
Android, iPhone, and Windows phones are all what is known as a closed ecosystem or walled garden. That means that you can only use Android apps on an Android phone. These apps must be downloaded from the Google Play Store. iPhones can only use apps downloaded from Apple's App Store, and Windows Phones only work with apps downloaded from the Windows Store.
You can't install a favourite PC program on your phone or a Mac program that you love on your iPhone. But you can often find app versions of favourite PC programs. For example, you can load the same version of Word that's on your desktop on your iPhone. But you can find a mobile version of Word to use with your phone.
For some program/apps, you'll need to purchase a separate version of the app for each type of device. For other programs, one purchase will allow you to install on multiple devices. For example, some Norton Security subscriptions cover your PC and your phone. This will vary from program to program

Retrieving a lost email password

A reader is having a hard time retrieving a lost password for a Microsoft email account. Microsoft email addresses include those ending with outlook.com, hotmail.com, livemail.com, and msn.com.

When you set up your contact information with Microsoft in case you need to retrieve your password, you have four options. You can choose to receive a text, a phone call, use a smartphone app, or put in an alternate email address where they will email you a reset code. If you haven't put in an alternate address (or can't remember it or no longer have access to that address), try the following:

If you don't have or can't get to your security info (your alternate phone number or email address), click I didn't get a code when you're prompted for a code at sign-in, or I don't have access to these when you're resetting your password, then follow the instructions.

You may be asked to fill out a security questionnaire. You'll be asked for info, like the subject lines of email you recently sent from your account, your birthdate, credit card info, and other details only you would know. You don't have to know every answer, and it's ok to be close if you don't know the exact answer.

The best way to avoid this issue is to make sure your account security contact info is up-to-date before there's an issue. To make sure this doesn't happen to you'll want to check in every few months and make sure your information is up-to-date with Microsoft.

You'll need to confirm your password.

You'll be able to add or change the contact phone number for the account.

If you don't have a phone capable of receiving texts, you can ask to be called instead.

Anytime you change your phone number or perhaps switch ISPs, you'll want to make sure this information changes as well. As with everything in life, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Well folks that's it for another week.

Until next time this is your Secretary signing off

Annette

Australian Seniors Computer Club Assoc :

http://www.ascca.org.au/

"ASCCA is the national peak body for seniors and technology".

DISCLAIMER :The Corroboree Is Issued "As Is" Without Guarantee Of Any Kind. Any Use By The Reader Of The Tips, Suggestions, Or Advice Is At Your Own Risk.

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