Some of you may be wondering "What's that all about?" and I'd say that's a very good question.

To put it simply, this is a setting that allows you to pick and choose between lines, colors, locations and widths all within the same page border.

No more are you confined to the same four sides on your page—you can choose different borders on any number of sides.

OK, so now that you know what it is here's the "how to" part.

You can click the Custom button to start but it's not really necessary.

What you can actually do is go straight to the Preview. Once you click in the Preview picture Word will automatically switch to the custom setting.

Have you tried clicking in the preview (or the buttons located on its edges which also represent the different border locations)?

Basically, clicking on a shown border removes just that border.

Clicking on a border area that isn't displayed will put one in.

You get the idea...

Anyway, to make this truly custom you need to know how to put different lines into the same page. (I found no success with mixing the art borders—I could remove single sides of art borders but not have different pictures on different sides. For the mixing we'll have to stick with the lines.)

To mix them up use the center column to pick line style, color and width then click in the preview to select the side(s) to which it should be applied.

To create a different look for another side go back to the center to create the new line.

Once it's set, return to the Preview and click it into another side of the page border.

Continue building the border until you've got it exactly the way you want it.

Now that's what I call custom—completely built by you!

Paste Options?

You just completed a copy / paste in MS Word XP and you happen to notice this little button appear at the end of you pasted text.

What's that you ask? Hmmm...

Good question.

And here's a good answer.

The little button offers you the Paste Options.

(Now I know a few of you just had the Paste Special thing pop into your mind, but just keep going because this is not the same thing.)

To see your Paste Options click the button.

You'll be presented with a list of choices for your paste.

They're pretty self explanatory—it's all about letting Word know how you want this text brought into its new location.

The bottom choice, "Apply Style or Formatting", will open the Task Pane where you can select a style to apply to the pasted text.

Once you've made your choice you'll find that the paste is complete and the Paste Option button neatly puts itself away.

Yeah I hear you, if only everything I owned would put itself away when I'm done with it... in an ideal world...

~ April

The Word Font Window On Demand

OK, so when working in MS Word we all know about the usual toolbar buttons and lists that allow us quick access to things like font type, size, bold, Italics, underline, color, etc.

But did you know that there are even more aspects of your fonts that can be manipulated?

There are things like character spacing and text effects to be explored along with options like strikethrough text, superscripts, shadow, embossed text, engraved text, etc.

So the question becomes: "Where are all these things? After all, I certainly don't see them on the Formatting toolbar."

And, you're right, you don't see all the options on that toolbar—just the most frequently used items.

For more options you've got to go to the Font window.

One way to access the "extras" is to use the Format menu, Font choice.

A faster way would be to do a quick Ctrl + D.

(If you want to change text that's already in the document then highlight the text to be changed before doing Ctrl + D.)

Yep, that's right. With a simple Ctrl + D you're taken right to a complete source for text options.

Click, Click — Text Formatting Trick

Many of you may be aware of the Change Case text options in the Format menu of MS Word. This wonderful feature will allow you to take text and, in one quick swoop, change the case of every letter to match your needs.

From the Change Case options, you can make text all lower case, all upper case, sentence case, toggle case or title case.

Simply make your choice and click OK.

Nice feature, works perfectly, but wouldn't you like a quicker way?

Yeah, everybody always wants to get the job done a little bit faster—I know I do.

So, here's a quick keyboard version of the Change Case feature.

Highlight your text to be changed and click Shift + F3.

Don't like the case format you get?

No problem. Hit Shift + F3 again.

Poof! The text will change again. (Still don't like it? Then keep up with the Shift + F3—it will just keep rotating through the Change Case options.)

And yet there's more! Here's a bonus to the whole Change Case thing.

There's actually 2 different types of all caps, if you know how to tap into the other set known as small caps.

"See the" was done in regular caps, whereas "difference" was done with small caps.

Next question: How do we get the small caps?

Good question and fortunately easy to answer.

When you've got something that needs to be emphasized, but not screamed at the reader, then you've got something that's a good candidate for the small caps format.

To change text to small caps simply highlight the text to be changed and then press Shift+ Cntrl + K on your keyboard. This will take your lower case typing and turn it into small caps. And if you hit the key combination again it will return your text to lower case characters.

You can also combine this with the Shift + F3 options where the small caps replace lower case in the rotation of formats.

That's it! Just another way to get your point across without over emphasizing.

Keyboard Menu Magic

Here's one for those of you who prefer the keyboard to the mouse, but don't really know many of the "tricks of the keyboard trade".

Have you ever noticed the underlined letter in the title of each menu at the top of your screen? (You know - the F, E, V, etc..)

Ever wonder what that was all about? I mean, there has to be a reason, right? It's not like they're underlined because it just looks cool.

The underlined letter is the "magic key" to using your keyboard to access the menus.

To access a menu simply hit the Alt key then the letter for the menu you're trying to get to. (F for the File menu, E for the Edit menu, A for the Table menu, etc.) Get it?

This will open the corresponding menu.

One way to continue is to use the up and down arrows to navigate through the menu choices. (When you come to a sub-menu, hit the right arrow and the sub-menu will open where you can use the up and down arrows to navigate the sub-menu. To get out of the sub-menu simply use the left arrow.)

Another way to make your choice is to simply hit the underlined letter of your menu choice. If there's a submenu it will open automatically.

To move from menu to menu you can use the left and right arrow keys (when you're not on a choice with a sub-menu).

If you find what you're looking for then hit the Enter key—this acts like a mouse click and starts whatever choice you made.

If you decide that you just simply need out of the menus completely (or found that you've hit the Alt key accidentally) simply hit the Esc key. Poof—you're back on your way to creating the perfect masterpiece.

Text Highlighting Tips
Q:
I'm having a hard time with my word processor. When I go to highlight a large section of text with my mouse (more than what's currently shown on the screen), I zip right past the point where I want to stop. So, I keep my mouse button down and go back up - only to zip by my stopping point again. This can go on and on in a vicious cycle. How can I fix this?

A:
The best way I know of is to lay off the mouse a little (they can get kinda wild, ya know). First, put your cursor at the point where you want to start highlighting (selecting) the text.

OK, now (keep your hands off that mouse) hold down your SHIFT key and use your up / down arrows . You'll find when you hold down an arrow that the text scrolls (and highlights) by at a much more manageable rate.

Oh, if the section is really big, tap your Page Up and Page Down keys till you get close to where you need to stop.

Who knew it could be so easy?

~ Steve

Paragraphs, Pages And Now There's Sections?

OK, so we all have experience with paragraphs and pages in MS Word… but did you know you have further options for sub-dividing your documents?

No?

Well, let me fill you in.

According to Word's online help, Sections are "a portion of a document in which you set certain page formatting options. You create a new section when you want to change such properties as line numbering, number of columns, or headers and footers."

In other words, MS Word has the ability to let you break your document into different pieces, called sections, for purposes related to varying page layouts within the same documents.

Hmm... this one could be a very useful tool.

Think about it—you usually have one column of text but what if you need two columns in a certain area? What now?

The answer lies in sections, of course.

You'd create a section break just before and just after the text to be in a double column format then set the column change for whatever text is between the two breaks.

There are a lot of situations which could easily be resolved if you know how to break the document apart and format each piece as needed.

Interested in knowing how?

Good, I was too, so let's continue on to today's tip and discover how to create section breaks in MS Word.

Toobar Sizes
Ever find yourself squinting at the buttons on the toolbars? Wish they were bigger?

Your wish is my command... Relief is just a few clicks away.

To begin you need to go to the Tools menu, Customize choice. (Or right click over any toolbar and choose Customize from the toolbar list.)

On the Options tab you should see the Large Icons choice. Check this box. Instantly you should see the difference. The buttons should all be enlarged while the document itself was not.

If you like this solution then click on the Close button. The buttons will stay the new size.

If you don't like this solution then uncheck the box. This should return your buttons back to their original size. (Then click the Close button.)

One quick side note: When you change to Large Icons you've changed the buttons in all the MS Office Suite programs. (So don't be surprised if you change them in MS Word and find them large in MS Excel as well.)

Now if only I had a genie for a few other things.

White Space Be Gone In Word XP

If you're like me then you like to work in MS Word using the Print Layout view.

I simply like to be able to see my whole page—margins and all. I like to keep an eye on the layout of the document without always jumping to Print Preview.

Anyway, once in a while I find myself working on documents that have a lot of empty space at the bottom on several pages. At times it would be nice to keep the Print Layout and yet see the document without all the white space.

That is, to maximize the amount of text displayed on the screen at one time.

You can remove the white space from view—without deleting the white space—with a quick click.

Move your mouse pointer between two pages.

It should change to look something like this.

Click.

Voila! Pages are put together—white space and top/bottom margins no longer visible.

You can clearly see where each page ends. It's now represented by the dark horizontal line across the page.

Want to return to the usual Print Layout?

Once again, a single click does the trick.

Move your pointer to one of the divider lines. See how it changes?

Click on a divider line and Poof!

Your pages are separated again—white space, margins and all now visible.

Just "Cruising" Through The Day

Have you ever heard anyone refer to "cruising" when working in a program?

Were you wondering what in the world they were talking about? (I'm sure you figured it out that it had nothing to do with cars.)

Well, for many people, "cruising" on the computer means to slide through the menus in a program looking at the choices listed.

There are some people who can remember a million different key combinations to accomplish almost any task. Then there are people who use menus so much they can recite the locations of options to you as though they were reading directions—without ever seeing the monitor!

And then there are those of us who know that a program can do a particular thing but can't seem to remember how to get to it. These are the people we find "cruising" the menus most often. They simply move the mouse pointer back and forth through the menus looking for the right option or something to trigger their memory.

So there you have it—a new kind of cruising.

Ever find yourself thinking that exact question when you were trying to save your work? Is there a difference?

Yes, there is, but I think you knew that. I mean, why else would they both be listed in the File menu?

Well, to put it simply, Save will save the current file under the same name in the same location. (Meaning it saves the new changes over the original file you opened.) If a file is newly created then Save will open a window allowing you to name the file and choose a save location. Otherwise, it's a simple save of the current information over the old, in the same place with the same name.

On the other hand, Save As will always bring up the Save As window allowing you to change the file name and its save location. Assuming you make a change to name or location, the original file will still be intact in its original location after the Save As.

So, now that you know the difference let's go on to the Tip of the Day and throw another Save into the mix...

The "Save All"

Have you ever had several MS Word documents open at once and want to quickly save them all?

Maybe you're going to close the program and would like to avoid the continual pop-up boxes asking you to save each document.

Or, maybe, you're going to walk away from your computer for a few minutes and would like to quickly save everything "just in case". You know how those situations arise when you wish you would have saved before the machine "freaked out" or the power failed.

I'm sure that when you usually save your files you use either Ctrl+S, the Save button, or File menu, Save choice.

Any of those options are great, but remember, you have to continue repeating the process for each and every document.

Feeling a bit frustrated? After all, you only wanted to walk away for a quick minute and it's going to take you 5 minutes to shuffle through all those open files to get them saved.

Looking for a quicker option? Maybe one that allows you to save all the documents in one quick move instead of file by file?

Well, here's the good news, you can and it only takes one extra keystroke!

Next time give this a try.

Hold down the Shift key then go to the File menu.

Take a good look—see it?

Where the Save choice used to be there should now be Save All.

Choose Save All and Word will go through all open documents and save each one without closing the documents. (For new documents, it will bring up the Save As window to allow you to name your document just like individual Save As commands would have done.)

That's it—you're all set—multiple saves with one click.

Now if only we had something like this for around the house. You know, vacuum one room *poof* they're all vacuumed. Make one bed *poof* they're all made. You get the idea.

~April

Above The Table

Have you ever created a table in MS Word at the beginning of the document only to find that it was a mistake? Since you began this document you've re-thought the layout and some text just has to go above that table.

But, of course, you're learning the hard way that MS Word isn't going to easily cooperate.

Every time you try to get to the top of the document, that is, above the table, you end up in the first cell or with an entire column highlighted.

No matter what you do you're stuck in that table!

You can get the text below the table, but there's just no getting above it!

Or is there?

Don't give up on that table just yet, and by all means don't delete it to start over!

Try this quick little trick to get to the top.

Use the key combination Ctrl + Home then (after releasing the keys) hit the Enter key.

Voila!

There are many people who are new to the right click menus that my tips are always referring to.

These right clicks are great for everyone who's comfortable with the mouse. And many people aren't even remotely interested in trying to remember all the key combinations necessary to replace all the stuff the that right click can do.

But what about the rest of you? The ones who love to use the keyboard as much as possible, but still want to complete the same tasks the tips are covering.

Is there a mouse-less solution for you?

Yep. Just as the title suggested, there is.

Take a look at your keyboard, to the right of the space bar, just past the Alt and Windows keys...

See it?

Press this menu key and you've replaced the right-click.

From there you can use the arrow keys to navigate through the pop-up menu and the Enter key to select your choice.

Just in case: If you've hit this key accidentally or just plain need to get out of the pop-up menu, hit the Esc key.

Here's a quick note—when I checked my laptop keyboard I found the key in the top section of the keyboard. You may have to do some searching to find it.

Viola! Mouse-less right clicks :-)

Have you ever needed a symbol or some other special character like the degree symbol, the small square checkbox, the copyright symbol, etc.? Well, they're tucked away in a folder that, once you know where to look, is easy to get to and use.

Here's How:

Click the Start Button, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, then select Character Map.

You'll be presented with a screen that has lots of different symbols. When you click (and hold) a symbol, it gives you an enlarged preview of it.

To actually select the symbol:

1. Click the symbol you want.
2. Click the Select button, then the Copy button.

This will copy your symbol onto the clipboard where you can then paste it into any word processing program, email, etc.

If you find yourself using a particular symbol all the time, check out the lower right hand corner of the window. On the status bar, you can view the keystroke combo you can use to generate the current character.

Now, all you have to do is hit your keystroke combo (Alt+0169) whenever you need the beloved ©. Oh, and when you type in the numbers, be sure to use the keypad on the right-hand side of your keyboard, not the ones above your letter keys.

Some word processors give you direct access to the character map. In Word for example, click the Insert menu and select Symbol. You will be given a "customized" screen that can automatically insert a symbol directly into your current document. Go to the font you are using then select.

Again, if you find yourself using a particular symbol all the time, check out the lower right hand corner of the symbol window. On the status bar, you can view the keystroke combo you can use to generate the current character. Here you would hit your keystroke combo (Alt+c) whenever you need ©.

Isn't that special.

~ Steve

Q:
I have old disks laying around with important stuff on them but the software that created them is no longer around. Am I out of luck?

A:
In many cases, the info on the disk(s) seems like it's inaccessible with newer machines. Maybe the software that created it is no longer in existence, or it's just an odd ball format.

So, is there any way to transfer your files from old floppies to your new machine?

Well, maybe.

The first thing I try with an old, unknown file format is to open it with Notepad (assuming it's a document and not a picture or something). You'd be surprised how often that little trick works.

If that doesn't work, sometimes MS Word or Corel WordPerfect may have the ability to open the file.

Note that with both of the above document opening tricks, you'll need to select " All files " from the File of type drop box on the Open screen. If you don't, you probably won't be able to access the file you're trying to open at all.

If the file is a database, this can be harder. Your best bet, believe it or not, may be a spreadsheet program like Excel (or some similar program).

You see, most older (and many newer) databases are in a basic text separated format (the values between fields are separated by commas, spaces or tabs with one record per line). Excel and most other spreadsheet programs can handle these types of files with ease. Again, you'll need to select " All files " from the Open screen's Files of type drop box in order to try this.

Of course, if you have a good database program, it may be able to open the file for you. MS Access can open just about any database file, if you're lucky enough to have access to Access.

Note that if you are successful in getting your file to open, you will probably have to "clean" it up a bit before it's useful again (sometimes the formatting is not quite what it should be). Once it's set though, be sure to re-save it in a current format :-)

Finally, if all else fails, you may need to figure out exactly what type of program you'll need to find in order to open the file. Check out this site for a little help in that dept: http://filext.com/

~ Steve

So, how do you change it?

Easy...

With Internet Explorer:

1. Open Explorer, hit the Tools menu, Internet Options. You should be on the "General" tab.

2. Next, click the little "Colors" button. A settings screen will open up.

3. From this screen, click the little color boxes to reset the default colors. I left the blue link color alone, but changed the visited link color to a dark green.

Hit OK and you're all set.

To test your new settings, head to a site like Yahoo! since they use your computer's default color scheme for their links.

Note that if you are on a site like mine, WorldStart.com, that your new settings won't make any difference since we specify what colors the links and such should be in the web code.

Bonus Tip

When you were on the color settings screen described above, you may have noticed a checkbox labeled "Use hover color". If you check that box, you can set the color a link is when your mouse hovers over it. I like the default color - red - so that's where I left it. Black looks sharp too.

With Thunderbird:

Go to Tools/Options then under the "General" section hit the "Fonts & Colors" button..

Look over on the right-hand side where it says "Link Colors".

Just click the colored box and change it to anything you want. You also have the option to have the links underlined or not.

Keep in mind that if the sites developer specified certain colors for links, then it will over rule your default settings.

~Steve

Web Design
…my only friend, the end. Sorry – I slipped into a Doors song there for a moment. The end I mean is a footer.

A footer is separate from the main body of information and is located at the bottom of a page. Footers are commonly seen in printed material and word processing documents. They are usually the same from page to page, with only small differences in information, such as the page number changing.

Footers are also used on web pages. They are a great way to indicate to the viewer that they have reached the bottom of the page and to scroll no further.

What type of information should be included in a web page footer? Well, that's up to you, the web designer, to decide. However, since the footer is on every page, you want the information to be helpful and useful such as contact information or text links to other areas of the site.

For example, if your site is a business site and you want to give your contact info, it could look something like this:
123 Main Street - Your Town, USA - 1-800-555-5555 - Email Link

The content of this type of footer depends on how much contact information you want to give out. You can just provide an email link if you like. It's up to you.

Your footer could contain text links to the rest of the site. This type of footer is nice because once the viewer reaches the bottom of the page they can just click a link and go to another page on your site without having to scroll back up to the top of the page.

Next time you're surfing the web, check out the different type of footers on the web sites you frequent. I'm sure you'll find that they are as varied as the sites themselves.

- Kim

Web Design Workshop: Free Web Hosting

Yes, it's out there. If you want to put up a personal page you don't need to go through all the trouble of buying a domain name and paying for space. The only trade off is that your site will have banner ads, pop-ups, and/or ads on the side column ("free" is a relative term on the internet).

Some services allow you to upload an HTML page that you created on your computer, while others require that you put your pictures, music, and text into their format.

If you already have an email address or identity with MSN/Hotmail, Yahoo, or AOL you may want to consider going with what they have available for continuity sake.

What if you run out of space? You can always sign up at another free service and link the pages together. So pages 1-5 are on AOL while 6-10 are on Yahoo, your music files can be downloaded from Lycos, etc.

Be sure to read the licensing aggreement. Most free servers are for personal use, not for businesses. Besides, a business should have it's own domain name and what if your competitor's banner ad show up at the top of your page?

Here are some free web hosting services:

Geocities — If you have a Yahoo Identity/Address you might want to go with them since your web address will be linked to your email identity.
http://geocities.yahoo.com/

MSN Spaces — A good option if you have an MSN/Hotmail address. From what I could see you're limited to using their template. Still, it's a great place to share a Blog, Photo Album, list of favorite links, and more with the world.
http://spaces.msn.com/

AOL Hometown — Free web space is available for all AOL users. Just go to "Community" and select "Hometown" or use this link...
http://hometown.aol.com/_dyn/

Angelfire — this free service is from Lycos. The down side is that they dish out both banners and pop-ups. They choose these based on key words on your page which can cause strange results.
http://www.angelfire.lycos.com/

All of these services offer templates and wizards that easily walk you through the process of building your page. Even a novice can put up a web page.

See you in cyberspace.

~ David

So, you would like to design your own website, huh? Well good for you :-)

Whether it's a personal site or a business site that you are creating you will need a Domain Name

A Domain Name is a unique name that identifies an Internet Site. Without getting into a bunch of technical jargon it’s basically just the address for your site. For example, the Domain Name for WorldStart is www.worldstart.com. Type that Domain Name into the address bar of your Internet browser and the WorldStart site will appear.

Now that you know what a Domain Name is, let's choose one! This is the fun part. Pick a name that's reflective of your site, easy to remember and not too long. Let's say I'm building a web site in honor of my dog, Lily. I'll want a name that reflects that. I think she is the greatest but the domain name www.lilyisthebestdoginthewholewideworldtimesinfinity.com is too long—even though it's the truth. Something like www.lilydog.com or www.superlilydog.com is better. It's a good idea to have a couple of choices ready in case you find out that one of the names you want is already taken. That's right. The name you want could already be taken. I did a quick search on google.com and found a statistic, which stated that there are over 45,000,000 names already registered. That statistic is a few years old so I'm sure the number is a lot higher now.

You can find out if the domain name you want is available by going to the "Who Is" section of the InterNic website. http://www.internic.net/whois.html. InterNic stands for Internet Network Information Center and they have the info we need. Type the name you want into the Whois Search but leave out the www. So, still using my example, I'll type in lilydog.com and choose the Submit button.
And, the results.... dang, it's already taken!! If the name you want is already taken then you will be shown the registration information on it, which includes when the registration expires, in case you want to wait it out and buy the name then.

You can always try for a variation on the name you want such as lily-dog.com if your heart is set on it. But let's try the other name superlilydog.com. Type it in and choose submit. Woohoo, it's available. If the name you want is available you will see a message that says "No match for domain "SUPERLILYDOG.COM"”. Which means that no one else has registered it and it’s available. Now just choose the Registrars link to decide which one of the accredited companies to use to register your domain name.

Next step: Find a Host :-)

~ Kim

Okay, so you bought your domain name. You're happy, you're excited, you're…. wait, well now what do you do with it? Now that you have a domain name you need to put it some place. Let me tell you where ;-)

Buying a domain name does not automatically put your web site out there on the Internet. You can't build your website, leave it on your computer in your house and think that other Internet users can get to it. It doesn't work that way. Your website needs to be uploaded to a server that has special software on it and that is connected to the Internet. This is where a web server comes in.

A web server stores all the files that are necessary to display your website. These files include the pages of your site, graphic images, and any special scripts. You will create these files when you build your site—but don't worry about that yet. Right now, you need to find a web host.

A Web host is in the business of providing web server space and Internet connection services for web sites. You give them the information on the domain name you purchased, upload the web site you've built to their server and they will direct the world, really the whole world, to your site. Okay, well anyone in the whole world who is looking for your site, that is.

How do you find a Web host you ask? Well, a lot of times the same company that you purchased your domain name through will also host your site. Or, you can do a search on the web for "web host". You can ask a friend who their host is. You can look in the yellow pages in your local phonebook. Or, you can take hosting advice from a trusted website, ahem, for example we use Hard Hat Hosting.

If you are building a personal, hobby or a small business site then you will look for a Web Host that offers Virtual Hosting as opposed to a dedicated server.

Virtual Hosting means that your site will share the web services of that web host with a bunch of other small websites. A Dedicated server means that your site will be on a server all by itself.

Since Web Hosts charge a monthly fee, sharing a server with the Virtual Hosting option is a very cost-effective way to go. It's literally the difference between about $10 a month for Virtual Hosting to about a $250 or more (possibly much more) a month for a dedicated server. So, unless you're Daddy Warbucks, then look for the Virtual Hosting option. Besides, your little ole' website doesn't need a server all to itself anyway.

~ Kim

Basic Web Design Terms
Let's go over some basics—definitions that is.

I'm sure you've come across words and acronyms on the Internet that you don't know the meaning to. You may even see them every day but find your eyes glazing over with indifference to their definitions. If you plan on building your own website then it would be helpful to know what some of this stuff means. For example, do you know what the bold parts of the following web address stand for?
http:// www .worldstart. com

I'm not going to get technical with the explanations. You just need the gist of it, otherwise you may end up with the TMI Blues.

TMI = Too Much Information ;-)

Okay, here we go:

Internet – a networking infrastructure (a really humongous infrastructure) where any computer can communicate with any other computer as long as they are both connected to the Internet.

WWW – World Wide Web. Not the same as the Internet. It's the way to access the information on the Internet. It's like your secret password decoder ring that allows you to tap into the info on the Internet and interprets it into a format that you understand

HTTP – stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. It's an agreed upon method for formatting and transmitting messages on the WWW

HTML – Hyper Text Markup Language. It's the language used to build websites. Next time you are on a website go to your browsers menu and choose View, then Source. A window will open showing you the html that is used to put that site together. It's not very exciting to look at unless you're a programmer and like that kind of thing ;-)

FTP – stands for File Transfer Protocol. This is what you will use when your site is complete and you transfer your web pages to a server so they can be accessed by the Internet.

Domain Extensions that are available to the public:

.com = commercial
Worldstart uses a .com extension ( http://www.worldstart.com ) because we are a commercial business

.net = network

.org = organization

.info = information

.biz = business

.name = name

.pro = professional

If you remember from last week, I looked up the domain I wanted which was www.lilydog.com and it was already taken. I chose to alter the name a bit and see what else was available. However, I could have kept the ‘lilydog' and looked to see if a different extension such as ‘lilydog.biz' or ‘lilydog.name' was a possibility.

The following extensions are not available to the public. You have to be a part of that specific institution in order to use its particular domain extension.

.gov = government

.mil = military

.edu = education

.aero = aerospace

.coop = cooperatives

.museum = museums

Hope this clears some things up. Check out www.webopedia.com if you want more specifics. It's a great online dictionary that is geared specifically to computer and Internet definitions.

Until next week,

~ Kim

Design Your Web Site
Here are a few things to think about when designing your site.

The design is where you can express the personality of your site. It's your site and you can make it look however you want. Some people will try to tell you that your site has to look a certain way. For example, you may hear that the navigation bar has to be at the top of the page or to the left of the page. No it doesn't. You can put those navigation links right in the middle of the page if you want. There is only one hard rule and then a couple of suggestions for designing your site.

The hard rule is about resolution. Your monitor can only "see" or show you 72 pixels per inch, so you should build your graphics at that resolution. Open a new file in your graphic program and make sure the resolution is set for 72 pixels per inch. I'm using Adobe Photoshop so my options may look different than what is available in your program.

Consult the help file of the graphic program you are using if you have questions about where to adjust the resolution of a file.

Why should you care if you keep the resolution at 72 you ask? Because if you build your graphic images at, let's say, 300 pixels per inch then you are sending excess information through the Internet that will make your website take a lot longer to load. To better visualize this, picture that the Internet connection coming into your house is the width of an average drinking straw. Graphic files at the correct resolution of 72 pixels per inch will travel through that straw as easily as a spitball can travel through the straw. Okay, that is an icky example, but you know what I mean—it will move right through there with no problem. A graphic file with the resolution of 300 pixels per inch would be like trying to shove a ping-pong ball through the straw. The straw would have to be made of stretch fabric—of course it can get through, but it will take a while.

Okay, I know what you are thinking. If a file with the resolution of 72 pixels/inch will travel quickly through the Internet then a file with the resolution of 50 pixels/inch will travel even faster. Technically that's true, but don't go down that road. Your monitor is always going to see 72 pixels/inch so if it's pulling up a file that only has 50 pixels/inch then the monitor is going to make up the other 22 pixels to get it to 72. This will cause your pictures or graphics to look bad, blurry or just like there is something wrong with them. So are we straight? 72 is 72 is 72...

Now let's move on to a few design suggestions.

Keep it simple and to the point. A person viewing the main page of your site should know within 3 seconds what your site is about. This is especially important if you are building a business site. If a customer doesn't know what you are about or what you are selling then they will leave your site. They will also leave your site if they have to wait too long for the page to load.

Make the navigation obvious. As I stated at the beginning of this little rant, you can design your site any way you want, but you should make it easy to get around in. That means making the navigation logical and in plain site. Have you ever been looking around in a site and felt like you were lost? Well, I have and it just makes me mad at the site.

All right, let's move on. Just design the main page for now. Sketch out your design on a piece of paper first if that helps you. Consult the site diagram that we talked about earlier to make sure that you are including all the links to your pages correctly. Then get on with building it in your graphic program. Next time we meet I'll show you how to break apart that design so you can reassemble it into your web page building software.

See you next time,

~ Kim

XP Clock Trick

If you are running Windows XP, you'll never have to worry about manually setting your computer's clock again!

Just double-click the little clock in the System Tray and it will bring up the Time and Date Properties screen. Click the Internet Time tab and you'll see a button that lets you instantly synchronize your clock with one on the internet. Of course, you have to be online for this little trick to work.

Also, you'll notice that there's a check box on that screen that says "Automatically synchronize with an internet time server." If you uncheck that box, you won't be able to do a manual synchronization as described above. However with this feature enabled, not only can you do our little trick, but your computer will automatically update its time once a week - all by itself.

Of course, you need to be online when it's time for the synchronization in order for this to work.

Anyhow, no matter how it gets updated (manually or automatically), it's still a handy way to keep your computer's clock right on time.

~ Steve

By now I'm sure more than one of you have run into a problem with your page borders (from last Thursday's tip) that is when you print the page it's not a complete border.

No matter how thin you make the bottom line, it seems determined to be uncooperative!

In fact, I bet you've seen this lovely little message a few times

(You just know it's not good when something like this pops up!)

Before you get too frustrated let's take a quick look at a way to fight back when that stubborn page border just won't print.

To work on this dilemma you need to return to the Borders and Shading window, Page Border tab. (Format menu, Borders and Shading choice)

You're looking for the Options button just above the Cancel button in the bottom right corner.

Click it.

The Border and Shading Options window will open looking something like this.

You're looking for the Margin section at the very top.

There's two type of margin settings to work with, Measure from: "Edge of page" or "Text". (You choose which one to work with from the drop down list.)

Above the decision as to where to "Measure from" you'll find the four margins listed. Make any adjustments you feel may correct the situation.

I hate to say it, but I have no "magic formula" here.

It's one of those "give it a try and see how it all comes out" things.

Basically, you'll have to work with the measurements to see what you can get your printer to give you.

However, I can say that I found that when I worked with the "Measure from Edge of page" option I just couldn't get the bottom to print—even with the max 31 pt margin set.

So, I logically moved on to the Text margin settings.

Here I had success!

I set the margin from text to be 0 (zero) all the way around and Voila! I had a complete bottom page border!

It may not be an absolute answer to fighting the Page Border printing problems, and it all comes down to you finding what works for your particular setup, but it sure beats never having a bottom border!

~ April