Byte by Bite

Friday Freebie

by Marv Dealy

If that keyboard doesn’t strike your fancy, how about a heated one that will warm up your arthritic (well, my arthritic) fingers in the early morning hours. Again, from Cyberguys.com, look for item 138 0269.

But wait – there’s more! You know you’d like to have a puppy snoozing away on your desk at work, but just can’t convince the boss the mess would be worth it – here’s the answer. Cyberguys.com to the rescue yet again with the “Perfect Petzzz Breathing Dog,” a 10” long toy dog with a toy dog bed that, thanks to battery power, snoozes and snores the day away. Looks pretty darn lifeline – search for Petzzz and you’ll go right there.

Thumb Drives – More than just another storage device

Many folks now have an additional gadget on their key chains, a so-called thumb drive, actually a flash-memory USB storage unit. These devices are commonly used to store documents when moving between machines, or to make a backup.

You can use those little drives for so much more; for example, you can carry one that – properly set up, will allow you to check your email from any computer with Internet access by just plugging the little bugger into the USB slot.

OK, there is some work involved to get it going. First, you need to understand that you’ll need to load some applications or programs onto the thumb drive. If you don’t have a thumb drive yet, by the way, you’ll need to pick one up at your local computer supplier or office supply store. Expect them to run from $15 and up, and you’ll be able to choose from storage capacities from 1 GB to 16 GB (SupermediaStore.com, search for USB Flash Drive). The 16 GB model from that store will cost a cool $500, by the way, half the cost of the new iMac portable. There may be even bigger capacity thumb drives out there, I just haven’t run across one yet.

If you’re not already using a flash drive to backup your computer, there’s a nifty article outlining how to set this up at CNET.com (http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-11319_7-6276187-3.html?tag=nav)

Email junkies might like to know that if you use Outlook or some other POP or IMAP email account you can set up your USB drive to be able to take your email with you. Thunderbird also has a program you can load to your USB drive to enable non-Outlook email receiving and sending.

When it’s set up, plug your thumb drive into any computer with Internet access and you’ll be able to send and receive email and when you unplug your drive not a trace of the email or other activity will remain on the computer you used. Check out the how to at CNET.com (http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-11319_7-6276187-4.html?tag=next)

Is the cursor on your screen too small?

Windows PC users with less than perfect eyesight may enjoy changing the size and look of the pointer arrow. To change it from the default setting, Click Start, then Control Panel and double-click on the icon for the Mouse.

In the Mouse Properties window, click on the Pointers tab. Find the window labeled Scheme and click on the arrow to the right, revealing a whole list of other pointer types you can choose. Click on one, and you’ll see it previewed in the window just to the right.

For example, the one called Extra Large by Logitech makes a really big white pointer. I chose the 3D-Bronze scheme, and it’s fairly inoffensive. You might want to try some of the other choices.

While you’re in the Mouse Control Panel, you can change other settings, such as how fast the dang thing moves around your screen. If you like, you can slow its movement speed way down. Or up, depending on your personal choices.

New Yahoo home page

With not a little fanfare, Yahoo announced that they’re going to give their home page a new look, but not just yet. Apparently they want to slowly roll out the changes, all of which appear to be pretty good by the way.

The current design, untouched since September 2004, is looking a little dated and the redesigned page will include a lot of stuff that users can set to their own preferences. The new home page will allow for review of weather, check of your Yahoo email and other things without having to click through to other pages.

The facelift comes as Yahoo battles rivals such as Google, AOL and MSN for traffic, as well as upstarts like the social networking site MySpace.com. Officials at Yahoo say their goal is to have the best web page on the Internet, to which I say, well, duh – I want to meet the company who says its goal is to have a mediocre page on the Internet.

I know a few web sites for some of our local institutions’ web sites I could hand awards to as being down near the bottom of the ladder such as the Tuolumne Chamber of Commerce (www.tcchamber.com) web. If you haven’t seen this, check it out and realize that what you’re looking at is after a local ISP charged the Chamber a lot of money to “improve” the web page.

You’ll find text that runs far too far across the screens (boys and girls, there is a reason this newspaper is printed in columns of text rather than having the text stretch all the way across the page); hidden links (you have to hover over them to figure out they are a link, both stupid and unintuitive); clip art when actual photos or illustrations from the many talented local artisans could have easily been used and showcased; and last but not least a spinning @ sign by the Chamber’s email address. That last is a leftover from the very first days of the Internet and fledgling web sites designed mostly by engineers. Thank goodness most real web sites have left this trash in the bin the cleaning people empty at nights.

If you have a local “favorite” web site that you’d like to nominate for the “Well, That’s Ugly” award, please forward and I’ll do my best.