ITConnect Technology made practical for home JUNE 2014 Choosing Safe Passwords Here s how to create a safe password. De-clutter Your Desktop Are you ready to restore order and clean up your desktop? Reminders in Outlook If you find it hard to remember special dates - this one s for you! MAKING PHOTO PRINTS ONLINE Learn how to get your photos professionally printed from the confort of your own home.
02 Making Photo Prints Online These days printed photos are a rare luxury and anyone who receives them will surely appreciate them. While sending photos by email is how most people share photos, you can wow your friends and family with real prints and you can arrange it all from the convenience of your own living room using your computer. There are many online photo printing sites that will print your photos as well as create fun photo gifts such as calendars, mugs, magnets and more. Better still you can get your prints and gifts sent to anyone, anywhere in the world. All you need to do is to order the prints and the online photo printing website does the printing, packaging and shipping for you. One of the most popular online photo printers world-wide is PhotoBox. You will find your local site in the UK at photobox. co.uk, in Australia at photobox.com.au and in New Zealand at photobox.co.nz. If you re in the US or Canada try Shutterfly. com or snapfish.com which are similar and also free to join. If you are buying prints for yourself sign up with an online printing site in your own country. If you are sending the prints overseas then find a site in that country so that you pay for postage at local rates. So, for example, if you re living in the UK and you want to send prints to family in Australia, sign up at an Australian online photo printing service. 2 Browse the site to find the type of item to print. In addition to traditional photo prints there are also a large range of items that your photos can be printed onto. Select the item you to buy, to create prints, choose Prints, click Standard Prints and then click the Buy Prints Now button. 3 So, if you have your photos on your computer and if you re ready to go, here s how to order your prints: 1 Click the Upload Photos now button to upload photos from your computer. In future if the photos have already been uploaded you can click Go to My Albums to print them. Then click the Computer icon to upload photos from your computer, then click Get photos from your computer. Start by visiting the online photo printing website of your choice using your web browser. Click the Join button to create your free account in most cases you only need to give your name and a password at this stage. Now you are ready to start shopping. 4 CONT D ON NEXT PAGE...
03 5 Browse your computer for the photos to print. To select multiple photos, click on the first photo and Shift + Click on the last photo in a sequence to select them all. If your photos aren t all arranged together, click on one photo and Ctrl + Click on the other photos to select them. Click Open and then click Start Upload. 6 9 Check your shopping basket and if all is correct click Proceed to Checkout to continue. You will be asked for your Billing Address and the Delivery Address and then you can click to continue to the payment screen. Once you have entered the payment details you will get a confirmation of your order, and it will be processed and delivered to the address you specified. Add a Favorite Website to your Desktop Add a favorite website as a desktop icon so you can visit it anytime by clicking the icon. Once the photos are uploaded, click the My Photos link. 7 To do this, visit the website using your favorite web browser. Reduce the browser window size so you can see the desktop behind it. Locate the small icon to the left of the website s address in the address bar. Click and drag this icon onto your desktop. In future you can visit this website by double clicking the new desktop icon and if your browser is not open it will be opened for you automatically. Your photos will be in a temporary album so click the Order button below the photo shown there. 8 Choose the print size, the print finish and the quantity of each. Click Check My Prints to make sure that the photos will print correctly. Then click Add to Basket to continue.
04 De-clutter Your Desktop Is your computer s desktop getting a little messy? Are your icons all higgledy piggledy? If you re ready to restore order and clean up your desktop you can do so. Before you start organizing desktop icons it is important you understand what they represent. Icons with a small arrow in the bottom left of the icon image are shortcut icons and they can be safely be removed. Other icons represent programs or files and should not be removed unless you want to permanently delete that program or file. Some special Windows icons such as My Network Places, My Computer and the Recycle Bin cannot be removed. 1 2 To delete unwanted shortcut icons (they have an arrow in their bottom left corner), drag and drop the icon into the Recycle Bin. Another way to remove one is to right click on it and choose Delete from the menu. If you remove a program s shortcut icon you can still launch it via the Start menu. Arrange icons yourself by dragging and dropping them into different positions on the screen. If the icons won t stay where you put them, right click the desktop and choose View and then click Auto arrange icons to disable this feature. 3 4 Restore order to your icons by right clicking an empty place on the desktop and choose View and then Auto arrange icons. As soon as you do this the icons will be arranged in columns starting at the top left corner of the screen. Right click the desktop and choose Sort by and you can sort icons in order, for example, by name. Some users prefer not to see icons on the desktop at all. If you d prefer they all remain hidden, right click the desktop and choose View and then click the Show desktop icons option to disable it. Your icons will be hidden until you reverse the process by right clicking the desktop, choose View, then click Show Desktop icons to display them again.
05 Manage Your Family Budget in Excel Proper financial planning is essential for keeping a handle on your finances. With a yearly budget you will see your anticipated expenses so you can ensure you will have the funds available to meet your needs. This month we have a handy Excel template you can download to use to track your family budget. Click here to download the budget for your version of Excel. For 2014 you can type in the actual amounts you have spent to date and then the estimated amounts for the remainder of the year or just start with the current month and work forwards. It will help if you gather up last year s bills and bank statements so you have them handy when it comes to entering the details into the budget. 1 2 Open the budget and see that there is a place to type the income you expect to receive each month and the expenses. The cells that are white are those will enter data into the colored cells contain formulas that you should leave untouched. Type the amount that you expect to receive as income in the cells in rows 9, 10 and 11. Then type the monthly expenses into rows 15 37. If you make a mistake, click in the cell that contains the wrong value and press the Delete key on the keyboard. If desired, you can type over any heading to change it to a category of expense or income more appropriate to your needs. CONT D ON NEXT PAGE...
06 3 4 If you need a line for an added expenses, click on the heading in column B where the new row should go and, from the Home tab on the ribbon click Insert and choose Insert Sheet Rows. Now click in the cell above the new blank cell in column O and, from the Home tab on the ribbon, click Copy. Click in the empty cell below and click Paste to add the formula which totals that expense item. If you type the amount you have in the bank at the beginning of the year into cell C4 the worksheet will keep track of how much you can expect to have in the bank each month during the year. The worksheet calculates what is left over once your expenses are subtracted from your income and it adds it (or removes it if you have had a loss that month) from the bank balance. Print your Budget To print your budget, choose the Page Layout tab and set the Orientation to Landscape. In the Scale to Fit options set it to 1 page wide and 1 page tall. Now select File > Print (Office button > Print in Excel 2007) and it should print neatly on a single sheet of paper. HANDY TIP! The formulas in column O and rows 6, 12 & 38 were created using the AutoSum feature in Excel. These formulas automatically total the values in the columns to the left (or the rows above). This is a good example of how useful the AutoSum feature in Excel can be. If you accidentally type over one of these formulas, or you want to use this feature in your own spreadsheets - here is how you do it. The Excel AutoSum feature can help you create totals for rows and columns of numbers in Excel. To see this at work select over the column or row of numbers that you want to add. Make sure that the cell immediately below the numbers (or to the right if you are adding a row of numbers) is empty it is where the total will be entered. With the cells selected click the Home tab on the Ribbon and locate the Editing group of options. Click the AutoSum button and Excel will automatically write a formula below the selected cells that will total the cells for you.
07 Reminders in Outlook If you use Outlook for email and organizing your schedule, why not use it to remind you of things you need to remember too. If you use Outlook for your email, chances are that you have it open as you work so you will see when new emails arrive. If Outlook is open then any reminders that are set in Outlook will be displayed as you work. This makes Outlook a handy tool for ensuring that you don t forget important tasks such as ordering medicines, paying bills and helping at Church or school events. You simply create these as appointments and Outlook reminds you when they fall due. To set a reminder for an appointment, go to the Outlook Calendar and click on the appointment to set a reminder for. If you haven t yet entered the appointment then click in the appropriate date and time in the Calendar and type the appointment details. Double click on the appointment and then from the Appointment tab on the ribbon locate the Options group and the Reminder time dropdown list. From this list select how long before the appointment time that you want to be reminded of it. Then, provided you have Outlook open you will be reminded of the appointment before it occurs. Any Appointment you create in Outlook can have a reminder attached to it. In this way you will be reminded that the appointment is due. By default this reminder is set to 15 minutes before the appointment time begins but you can change that setting if desired. You might change it, for example, if you need to allow time sufficient time to drive to the appointment. Recurring Reminders If you need a regular reminder such as to order medicines each month, click the Recurrence icon on the Appointment tab. In the Appointment Recurrence dialog you can set the frequency you need to be reminded, such as Monthly on the first day of the month. When you click OK, Outlook creates the regularly recurring appointment for you and you can preview it in your calendar. Each time the appointment occurs you will be reminded of it.
08 Your Little (Black) Computer Book From the day you first get your computer you will start to accumulate information about it. Everything from the purchase receipt to the computer s serial number, passwords and details of the warranty are important. Do you struggle to find the information about your computer when you need it? Do you keep the serial numbers for programs and hardware handy? If not, you might benefit from keeping a book of details about your computer. As you use the computer you will install programs on it. Many of these have special user codes or serial numbers which you will need if you have to reinstall the programs in future. You may also want to record the file names and locations of important files such as your family history and scans of important documents that you receive. Over time it is possible to amass a lot of paperwork relating to your computer so much that finding the information when you need it might be difficult. However, if you store all this information in a single notebook it will always be easy to find. The idea of a book for your computer is that you put in it everything that relates to your computer from the day that you purchase it. Any hard bound notebook or student s exercise book will do it just needs to be able to stand up to a few years of use. Put one piece of information on each page and write a descriptive heading on each page. If the information is on paper then tape it to the page otherwise write it down. Computer or software serial numbers can be peeled or cut from boxes and taped into the book. This book is also useful for information relating to websites that you visit. You will find that many websites require that you provide an ID and a password for you to be able to access them (for example, our website does!). This will be the case with your bank s website, online shopping sites and many others. So that you always have the required information handy it is a good idea to write this in your book too. Write the website address, your login ID and the password that you use for that site as well as any other relevant details. While we are suggesting you write these details down, be aware that it isn t generally recommended to write down passwords. However, our experience is that you ll probably have so many logins and passwords that it will be hard to remember them all if you don t record them somewhere. So, if you do need to write them down, they are probably better stored in your notebook than in a file on your computer. If they are stored on your computer and if the computer is stolen or if your computer s hard drive fails then they will be lost. Kept in a notebook they are more likely to be safe. It doesn t matter that the information is in the book is not well organized, and it s not really necessary that it is so. If you need a piece of information you will find it by quickly scanning the page headings. Store the book in a safe place it needs to be somewhere accessible so that you can easily find it to update it - but not so obvious that it could be stolen or found and used by someone without your permission or knowledge.
09 Get Your Photos Onto Your Computer Once you ve taken photos on your camera, your next challenge is to get them onto your computer where you can look at them and print them. Luckily you probably already have everything you need to get your photos onto your computer. Here s how to do it: 1 With clean hands, carefully remove the storage card from your camera and place it in the appropriate slot in your computer. Never force the card into a slot it should go in easily and if it does not, remove it and reinsert it. Take care not to touch the metal contacts on the card as this may damage the card. Instead of placing the storage card into the computer, some cameras come with a cable that attaches from the camera to the computer. If you have such a cable, then connect the camera to the computer and turn the camera on. 2 When the dialog AutoPlay dialog appears click the Import pictures and videos link. Then click Import Settings to set up the location to save your photos on your disk. Unless you have reasons to do otherwise, we suggest you select My Pictures as the location to save your files. From the Folder Name list choose Tag this lets you provide a special name for the folder in which the photos will be stored. Set the file name to Tag if you want to rename the files as they are imported or choose Original File Name to leave them unchanged. Disable the Always erase from device after importing checkbox (it is safer not to delete the photos this way). Check the Open Windows Explorer after Import checkbox and click OK to accept the changes. Click OK a second time to save these defaults and restart Import Pictures and Videos. When the Import Pictures and Videos dialog reappears, type a Tag this will be used as the folder name for storing the photos. It will also be used to rename the photos if you set the Filename to Tag in the previous step. Click Import and wait as your photos are copied from your camera card, or camera, onto your computer. When the process is complete a Windows Explorer window will open showing you the imported photos. You can find the photos at any time in future by navigating to your My Pictures folder and find and open the folder that has the same name as the Tag you typed. In our example, we typed the tag Cornwall and 5 our photos are all stored in a folder called Cornwall inside the My Pictures folder. Before removing the camera card you need to eject it correctly from the computer. In the System Tray in the bottom far right of the screen locate and click the Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media icon. When the dialog appears click the link to Eject your camera card (or camera) and wait as the card is removed. When the Safe to Remove indicator appears you can remove the camera card from the computer and return it to your camera. 4 6 3
10 Choosing Safe Passwords Many web sites require that you register to use them and, to do this, you need to provide a password to protect your access. Unfortunately it is often difficult to know how to choose strong passwords that you can actually remember. And the more sites you need to register with, the more difficult it all becomes. Most websites require you provide a combination of your email address (or personal id) and a password to get access to your account with that site. While your email address is public information your password should be a secret known only to you. So that it is difficult for someone to guess or to crack your password it is vital that you know how to choose good passwords and that you actually do so. It is also important to practice good habits when using your password and when recording it if you must write it down. To help you, we ve put together some savvy password advice. As shorter passwords are easier to crack than long ones make sure to choose a password that is eight characters or more the longer the better. However, length is not the only consideration and strong passwords include a mix of letters, numbers and punctuation. You should create different passwords for each website that requires one. This ensures that if anyone gets access your password for one website they will not have automatic access to your accounts on other sites. This is important because sometimes passwords aren t cracked but instead entire files of them are stolen. Do not share your passwords with anyone and if you ever do need to share one make sure to change it immediately afterwards. Otherwise it is not necessary to change your passwords regularly unless you are required to by the site or if the site security has been breached. Good Passwords: Include a mix of capital letters and lower case letters Include one or two punctuation symbols such as @,! ( } Include numbers Are 8 characters or longer Include random letters rather than words Bad passwords: Include common number sequences such as 123 Use personal dates such as birthdays Use personal data such as zip code Use words that are in the dictionary HANDY TIP! One way to create a strong password is to use a phase such as a line of poetry and take the first letter of each word as your password. If you make the first three characters lower case followed by three uppercase characters and include a group of numbers in the middle of it you will have password that is unique and yet still relatively easy to remember. Use characters whose keys are adjacent on a keyboard such as QWERTY Use popular phrases such as letmein and iloveyou