Committee: February Penrith Valley Seniors Computing Club Inc. 86 Station St Penrith NSW 2750

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1 Penrith Valley Seniors Computing Club Inc. 86 Station St Penrith NSW 2750 Committee: President: George Bell Vice President: Bryan Blake Secretary: Lorraine Brown Treasurer: Bert Foster Members: David Byrne Zillah Warner Robert Collins Alan Lees John Craft Webmaster: Tom Lehane Weekly Course Schedule: Monday Tutors: Zillah Warner, Lorraine Brown, Alan Lees & Bryan Blake. Tuesday Tutors: Bert Foster, David Byrne, Denis McAdam & Bryan Blake Tuesday Beginners Class Tutor: Bryan Blake Wednesday Tutor: Bryan Blake Thursday Tutor: Zillah Warner Friday Tutors: Zillah Warner, Alan Lees & Denis McAdam February 2014 Editor: Bryan Blake Club Website: Dear Members, Happy New Year and welcome back for another year of fun and learning at Penrith Valley Seniors Computer Club. Over the break we have cleaned up all of the Computers. So when you log on you should see a clean desktop. Thanks to Zillah, George, John and Bryan for the cleanup. We also held an Open Day on the 31st January. There were two sessions 10:00 am 12:00 noon and 1:00pm 3:00pm. We had 55 people turn up, 13 of who joined the Club that day. We presented to the attendees the following programs: Card Making, Paint Shop Pro, The Internet, , Movie Maker and The Clubs History. It was well accepted by all who attended. Thanks to Lorraine, Zillah, Alan, George, David, John and Bryan for your presentations and help on the day. All articles and comments in this newsletter are not associated with the Penrith Valley Seniors Computing Club Inc and are intended as opinions and items of debate only. Information gained over the Internet from many Web sites. 1

2 January Violet Roffe Bruce Soane Angella Bailey Les Bennett Ray Borg John Bounds Sheila Brazier Roemary Broz Mary Buhagiar Lorraine Brown Bryan Blake February Gary Brand Brenda Crain Beryl Caten Mavis Compton Dawn Eley Annete Higgings Ken McKenzie Betty Watkins Nothing we say here in any way in meant to encourage anyone to use Windows XP past its expiration date this April. We are NOT recommending that anyone use Windows XP beyond the end official end of Microsoft support. With that being said, we are also aware there are many who are not going to stop using XP because of financial or personal reasons. If you are one of those, it s very important that you read this and implement the changes we suggest. If you do not do so, you will exposing your computer, your personal data, and even other computers to security issues and worse. Stop using Internet Explorer and switch to the Google Chrome as your default browser Chrome is going to support XP for at least another year. Microsoft is not going to support IE on XP. Your browser is probably the most likely entry point for hacking and malware and exploits that can compromise your computer and your privacy. It is essential, then, that you stop using Internet Explorer and install and use Google Chrome before Microsoft ends support for Windows XP on April 8, If you re going to be using XP beyond this date, it may be wise for you to make this switch right now and start familiarizing yourself with Chrome. It s not a huge learning curve to move from IE to Chrome. You can get Chrome free from (Installing Chrome does not remove or affect Internet Explorer, but we strongly recommend you don t use IE after the end of MS support.) After installing Chrome, you can import all your I.E. Favorites it s very easy to do. Stop using Outlook Express and start using Gmail or other Web mail Outlook Express is a wonderful client but it s very old. After Microsoft stops providing security updates for XP, Outlook Express will be more and move vulnerable. We advise all of you who for financial or personal reasons are planning on keeping and using Windows XP beyond April 2014 to get a free Web mail account like Gmail ( and check it with the Google Chrome browser. if you are not a Gmail fan, you can get an Microsoft Outlook.com account, free, at We do not recommend Yahoo Mail due to numerous security breaches and hacks which Yahoo seems unable to control. If you do get a Gmail account you can set it up to check all of your addresses, including your ISP accounts. 2

3 Windows 7 Tips Clean up Live Essentials Installing Windows Live Essentials will get you the new versions of Mail, Movie Maker, Photo Gallery and others - great. Unfortunately it also includes other components that may be unnecessary, but if you like to keep a clean system then these can be quickly removed. If you left the default Set Your Search Provider option selected during installation, for instance, Windows Live will install Choice Guard, a tool to set your browser home page and search engine, and prevent other programs from changing them. If this causes problems later, or you just decide you don't need it, then Choice Guard may be removed by clicking Start, typing msiexec /x {F0E12BBA-AD A453-A1C8A0C4D570} and pressing [Enter]. Windows Live Essentials also adds an ActiveX Control to help upload your files to Windows Live SkyDrive, as well as the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant, which makes it easier to manage and switch between multiple Windows Live accounts. If you're sure you'll never need either then remove them with the Control Panel Uninstall a Program applet. Desktop slideshow Windows 7 comes with some very attractive new wallpapers, and it's not always easy to decide which one you like the best. So why not let choose a few, and let Windows display them all in a desktop slideshow? Right-click an empty part of the desktop, select Personalise > Desktop Background, then hold down Ctrl as you click on the images you like. Choose how often you'd like the images to be changed (anything from daily to once every 10 seconds), select Shuffle if you'd like the backgrounds to appear in a random order, then click Save Changes and enjoy the show. 3

4 Windows 8 Tips. Close an app Windows 8 apps don't have close buttons, but this isn't the issue you might think. Apps are suspended when you switch to something else so they're only a very minimal drain on your system, and if you need the system resources then they'll automatically be shut down. (Their context will be saved, of course, so on relaunching they'll carry on where you left off.) If you want to close down an app anyway, though, move the mouse cursor up to the top of the screen. When it turns from the regular mouse pointer to the icon of a hand, hold down the left mouse button and drag it down the screen. Your app should shrink to a thumbnail which you can drag off the screen to close it. If that's too much hassle, then simply pressing Alt+F4 still works. And when all else fails then press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to launch Task Manager, right-click something in the Apps list and select End Task. Beware, though, close something you shouldn't and it's easy to crash or lock up your PC. Boot to the desktop The Windows 8 Start screen hasn't been Microsoft's most successful innovation, and many Windows 8 users avoid it just as much as they can. But if that sounds like you, Windows 8.1 provides two new tweaks which just might help. To begin, right-click the taskbar, select Properties > Navigation, check 'Show the Apps view automatically when I go to Start', and click OK. Clicking the Start button then displays all your installed applications, rather than app tiles, perhaps making it easier to find whatever program you need. If that doesn't work for you, though, it's now possible to boot straight into the desktop and bypass the Start screen altogether. Right-click the taskbar, select Properties > Navigation, check 'When I sign in or close all applications on a screen, go to the desktop instead of Start', click OK, and you'll be seeing far less of those colourful tiles in future. 4

5 Course John Craft will conduct a structured class for Beginners commencing Tuesday, 4 th February, 2014 from p.m. John will prepare a Notice with all information required. The class will be advertised in the Penrith Press, The Star, The Western Weekender and the Blue Mountains Gazette. Windows 7 Movie Maker Course Tuesday 25 February 2014 Start: 1115 Finish: 1230 approx What to bring: 1 x USB Memory stick 4 GB min. Notebook and pen (course manual electronic format provided) a sense of humour. The course is eight weeks long followed by a two week introduction to Photo Gallery. Contact: Bryan Blake at doreen.blake@bigpond.com phone: