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http://www.saundersbusiness.com
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IN
THIS ISSUE |
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- BEGINNING
USERS - Passwords, passwords and more passwords - how
to keep up with them
- INTERMEDIATE USERS -
Free web site development tools you can use
- ADVANCED USERS - Look
at your GoldMine information using Excel
- CUSTOMER'S REAL WORLD
ISSUES - What you need to know about the BLASTER WORM
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a friend about this free resource
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1. BEGINNING USERS - Computer
facts that you should know
about to
make your computing easier.
For 13 years, we have been helping
companies and individual, small business computer users with their
computer needs. There is not a week that goes by that we do
not have a person ask us about the most basic computer
questions. Below we will mention and answer a few of the most
common questions.
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Every where I go, I
am having to enter a user name and password. I can not keep
up with all this, what can I do?
We recommend doing the
following - starting immediately. Decide on your standard
username and password and then use them as often as you can.
This way when a username and password are requested, you will not
have to search for the information. It is kind of like
walking in your house and setting your car keys in the same place
every time, you know where they are therefore you do not have to hunt for
them. Having a standard user name and password is very
helpful.
Username - Many
sites, including Microsoft Passport are using your e-mail address
as your username. There is only one person in the world that
has your e-mail address and that is you. When ever possible
I would use this for your username. There will be occasions
that the e-mail address will not work or you would prefer not to
use it. In those situations I would recommend that you have
a standard username that may or may not include your actual
name. The longer the better and if you can use a number or
two that would be good. By doing this, you have a better
chance of getting that username.
Password - I
have been working with the internet and computers for years and
the best thing would be to have a standard password or two that have
eight characters or letters and one capital letter. If you
have this as your password it should work in almost every
situation. The situations where it will not work are places
or sites that have their own special password requirements and
they will tell you when this is the case.
I am a big believer in
recording all your usernames and passwords. If you use a
planner, add a section that gives you a place to enter the web
site name, username and password. You could also use an
Excel spreadsheet to do this but there is a risk that the bad
people could find it and use the information. Whenever you
register into a new site that requires you to enter a username and
password, use one of your standard ones and then record the
information. This way you can remember where you have
registered and how to get into the site.
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2.
INTERMEDIATE USERS
- Whether you are creating your own web
site, paying someone to create a web site for you, or modifying your
site, there are many tools you can purchase, borrow or rent that
will make your web site better and easier to navigate for your
visitors. Here are some examples of the sites and tools we use
when developing our site or customer's sites:
Part
2 of a 3 part series
Tools and Resources to enhance your
web site
- Clipart
Gallery - You can access this site and
download free clip art for your use. It is fun to see
what is out there and it may enhance your site with a little
color. The use of clip art can distract from your site
and you want to be careful. Depending on the subject
of your site you will determine how much, if any, clipart you
will want. A site featuring medical issues would
have very little, if any clipart, but a site on fun things to
do for children would have a lot of clipart.
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- Any
Browser - If you have developed your web site
and want to test it in different browsers but do not have
all the different browsers loaded on your computer or you do
not have access to them, this can be an invaluable
service. This site has many tools to check your site
for broken links, screen size and viewer size to mention a
few. If you have hired someone to create a site for
you, this is a good site to go to to check things out.
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- Front
Page World - If you want to create a simple web
site and want to use a theme that has already been developed
there are a number of them inside of the Front Page product
or you can access various other web sites that will have
other looks and colors to choose from. On this site
you can see different themes and how they work, if you like
them, they can be purchased.
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- Net
Mechanic - This free resource will help you analyze
your web pages to see if they are ready to be submitted to
the search engines, how to make them load
quickly on the screen, fix HTML code and many other
features.
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- Dynamic
Drive - If you want to add interactive menus,
scrollers, browser windows, dynamic clocks and other effects
to your web site, this is a good resource. They have
already written the code and all you need to do is to copy
and paste the information into your HTML code. They
even tell you where to put it.
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Next month we will tell you about
additional free sites that we use to get free java scripts and other neat things
that can greatly enhance your web site.
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| 3.
ADVANCED USERS
- Look at your GoldMine
information using Excel.
Sometimes you might want to do
something different with your contact management information but you
do not know how to deal with the information within GoldMine. If
it is in Excel, you can print your labels, create the report or
other operations.
The first thing to do
is make a backup of your GoldMine Data. You are not really
going to deal with the actual data as it is used by GoldMine, but
this is a good time to be sure you have a backup. Next, browse
to your GoldMine data files which may be under your common file in
your GoldMine directory or somewhere else. To find where it is
click File | Open and look at the path for the database you want to
work with.
Now, make a copy of the Contact1.dbf
and the Contact1.mdx files and place them outside the GoldMine
directory. This file will not be moved back to GoldMine.
You do not want to make changes outside of GoldMine and then bring
it back in unless you use GoldBox - a GoldMine utility
program. Now open Excel, go to File | Open, select All files
at the bottom in the "Files of Type" box and then open the
Contact1.dbf file.
Now you can do anything you want with
the file - you are not going to move the information back to
GoldMine so you are safe doing anything you want with the
data. You could have also opened the information using
Microsoft Access, dBase, or any other similar program.
You can do the same with the other
Tables in GoldMine such as Contact2 and others but you would need to
link the information back to the Contact1 file to get the company
name information - if you need that information.
The reason you do not want to
change the information and then put the information back is
because of the synchronization features in GoldMine.
GoldMine will not know that the information has been changed and
can cause problems now and in the future. It is best not to
mess with this. If you need to, use GoldBox.
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| 4.
CUSTOMER'S REAL WORLD
ISSUES - What our customers have been asking for over
the last month.
Each month, we try to include a real
world issue that our customers have requested.
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Blaster Worm - If you haven't
already heard there is a virus (worm) that is going around
that you can get by just accessing the internet. You do
not need to download anything or open an e-mail, it finds you
and infects your computer. This worm has received the
highest alert status from most antivirus sites and is
something you need to deal with now.
I could get into all the
details of the problem and how to fix them but Microsoft has
already done that and I would recommend you look at their site
and get the information. If you are not inclined to
handle this type information yourself, please get you computer
professional to be sure you are secure. Click
here to go to the Microsoft Site
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| Thank you for your time.
We hope you've found our tips helpful!
Rob Saunders
Tell
a friend about this Web Site
Copyright
2003 by Saunders Business Solutions. All rights reserved |
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