In order to receive a voting password in USGenWeb national level elections and polls, beginning this year you must be Registered with the EC (Election Committee.) To receive a voting password in the USGenWeb National Election, you must be registered not later than 31 May, 2004. If you were a member of USGenWeb on 1 February 2004 and your name was submitted to the EC by your State or Project leadership, you were automatically registered. If you are not sure you were automatically registered, you may ask your area EC Representative, or you may submit a Registration form. Members joining USGenWeb or changing participation within the Project after 1 February 2004 will not be automatically registered, and must register themselves. Example: You were a CC in a particular state. You resigned that county, and now have a county in another state. To ensure you will receive a voting password, you must inform the EC that you have changed states. Do not depend on your SC or other project leadership to see that you are registered, or that appropriate changes are made. If you are currently Registered but do not wish to receive a voting password, or if you leave the Project entirely please contact an EC Representative to have your name removed from the Registered List. The EC has an online registration form, and will soon have a "change" form: http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgwelections/register.html To learn who to contact on the EC, go to: http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgwelections/current.html Please bookmark the EC website for the latest Election and Registration news: http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgwelections/ ***Registration information is confidential to the Election Committee, and will not be shared with Project leadership or other members. It is used only to send voting passwords. Thank you, The USGenWeb Election Committee ------------------------------------------------------via webmail---- Tim Stowell tstowell@chattanooga.net

If you get something along this line: "This e-mail has been sent to inform you that your web site URL has been submitted to our search engine database. This is the URL that will be included. URL : www.rootsweb.com/~ndgenweb/table.htm DATE : 03/26/2004 18:39:13 USER IP : Unknown IP. User had used an automated software for url submission In order to complete this request we require that you click on the web site link below. This will confirm that you wish to be included in our search engine database at no fee to you. http://www.mardox.com/confirm.cgi?T038094R179433 If you do not wish to be included in our Search Engine Network then click on the web site link below. http://www.mardox.com/clipout.cgi?T038094R179433" It is spam. The round file is a nice place for it. Tim

======================================== Lesson 5 - Getting rid of even more temp files For Windows (95, 98, 2000, XP) systems. ======================================== In Lessons 1 and 2 we reduced the space on your computer's hard drive taken up by default settings of the Recycle Bin and Internet browser. Most folks have heard of or know about files called temporary files. For those who haven't a very short explanation of them. Temporary files are created on your computer when you do certain things. They are created in a variety of ways among which are: installing programs, visiting web sites, using help programs. Each of these actions create temporary files on your computer. As each generation has tried to teach succeeding generations - clean up after yourself, so too, programmers have been taught to do the same. Unfortunately in this hurry up world a good number do not. For instance, if you run the 'help' portion of a program, to get assistance to run some feature of the program, and never use 'help' again, a temporary file is created on your hard drive that never goes away unless you delete it. It can be safely deleted, for if you run help again, the file is re-created. The result is that long after you've installed a program, visited a web site or run the help function of a program, these files are left behind littering up your hard drive. Now most folks think, well if I empty the temporary files under my Internet browser or a folder called 'Temp' under my C: drive I'll get rid of these files. While that may be true for a good number of files, it won't get them all, for there are many types of temporary files, that you may not be aware of that would be missed doing it manually. That said, I came across a neat, free program a few years ago that very nicely looks through your hard drive, identifies these files and deletes them for you. Even better, it also has a 'test mode', which allows the program first to analyze the hard drive and report to you just what files it would be getting rid of - and how much space you would save. The least I've seen it report was less than a megabyte of space to over a gigabyte of space. Typical savings of space usually free up several megabytes of space, which on hard drives where free space is a premium, it's like finding gold, a nice experience. The free program is called HDValet - hard drive valet. It is less than 1 megabyte in size. It can be found at: http://www.filelibrary.com/Contents/Multi-Platform/105/35.html Just look for the file hdvalet.zip in the listing on that page, click on it, you'll get a box asking you to open, save, cancel, more info buttons. - Select save, to save it to your hard drive and/or open to have it copy to a temp folder on your computer. ======================= IF this seems to be difficult for you to download and open, I will send the extracted files to you, if you ask. There are 8 files for a total of about 950K. I know this program works with Windows95, Windows98, Windows98 Second Edition and Windows XP. I believe it will also work with Windows 2000, Millenium and NT - but since I've no direct experience using it with the latter 3, I can't say for sure that it will. ======================= When one runs the program the first time - by clicking on the icon that looks like a man's tuxedo, the default is 'test mode'. Running it in 'test mode' does not free up space on your hard drive. It only allows you to see how much space would be freed up by the program were you to run it in 'real mode' or with the 'test mode' unchecked. I encourage you to run it first in 'test mode' so you can see for yourself just how much wasted space can be freed up on your computer. To run the program so it frees up space, uncheck the 'test mode' box when the program starts. For most hard drives it doesn't take too long of a time to run this - but depending on how much it finds, it could take a good little while the first time you run it. Running it after the first cleansing, should allow it to run faster as there should be less for the program to find. Having used this program for over 3 years, I have found this to be one of the easiest programs to rid hard drives of excess, unneeded files and so it is one of the programs I use every time I work on someone's machine to improve the performance of the machine. ======================================== For Advanced Users - as new types of temporary files come down the line or if there are certain types of files that you'd like to discard, the program allows itself to be tweaked by adding new file types to it. As long as you do not create files, that fall within the program's normal file types it seeks to get rid of, running this program should cause no ill effects. If you do, the program also allows you to not delete certain file types, which I find very versatile for such a simple but powerful program. ======================================== End of Lesson 5 ======================================== To see former Lessons - http://www.rootsweb.com/~nmahgp/pctips.htm Lesson 6 - Disk Health Tim

For all PCs, perhaps Macs as well: Pop-ups are those annoying ads that pop onto your screen as you browse various web sites. They offer free this or that, you've supposedly won a contest (which I'd bet most everyone does), other ads for the company's web site you are already visiting and plenty that have nothing to do with what you are looking for. In the past folks have had to drag these out of their way to see what they wanted to see, close them via the 'X' box in the corner of the ad and hope that they don't pop up again in the same time while on the same site. Once in a while you may hit a web site where the pop-ups seem to go crazy to the point that a multitude of ads or boxes open on your desktop and you cannot close them fast enough. Closing the browser and hoping it didn't freeze your computer beforehand sometimes was the only way to escape the onslaught. Fortunately some nice folks have come along with ways to keep these to a minimum or entirely eliminate them from your viewing experience. The best one I've found, for the best possible price - Free! - is located at Google. Please note the pop-up blocker requires Internet Explorer 5.5 or later. It does not appear to work with Netscape. This toolbar has the added feature of a little search area where you can input terms you are seeking information about, lets you know how many pop-ups it has blocked and various other options. >From Google's site for those who have Macs - The Google Toolbar is not currently available for the Mac. The good news though, is that Apple's Safari browser offers a Google search box, enabling you to perform Google searches directly from your address bar. Safari can be downloaded for free from http://www.apple.com/safari/ . Safari also can be configured to perform Google searches from its address bar. To learn how, visit http://www.google.com/options/defaults.html. Go to - http://toolbar.google.com/ and Download Google Toolbar. You will then be asked should you: Open the program and install it while you wait Save the program to your hard drive and install it later Cancel More Info Choose which option works best for you. Since this is a relatively tiny program, I save it to my downloads folder on my C drive. But if you choose to open the program it doesn't take long for it to install. Once you have it installed - you can type in pop-up blockers into Google search term area and find several more pop-up blockers that are available, some free and some not free. Since I've yet to see a pop-up come through since I installed the Google toolbar with the pop-up blocker - I've looked no further. Netscape has a built in pop up blocker. it can be activated by Edit > Preferences > Privacy and Security > Popup Windows and check the box. One can also selectively allow any site to bypass the pop up filter. ========================= End of lesson. ========================= Other: For those who've sent questions unless individual in nature, they will be included in lessons down the road. Please also be aware that I don't always download email every day during the work week. For those of you who have AOL, Compuserve and other domains owned by AOL - please be aware that you may/may not receive this and future letters at the time they are sent for AOL or a pretty consistant basis now blocks email from Rootsweb to its subscribers every few days. 554-(RLY:B1) The information presently available to AOL indicates this 554-server is generating high volumes of member complaints from AOL's 554-member base. Based on AOL's Unsolicited Bulk E-mail policy at 554-http://www.aol.com/info/bulkemail.html AOL may not accept further 554-e-mail transactions from this server or domain. For more information, 554 please visit http://postmaster.info.aol.com. ... while talking to mailin-03.mx.aol.com.: This apparently doesn't affect all AOL users but rather some with certain versions or settings on their AOL account. Should you not get your weekly lesson, please review the notices at http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/ to see if AOL is once again blocking mail. Apparently AOL just doesn't understand that folks who subscribe to mailing lists actually wish to receive email from them. Tim

For all (Macs and PCs): Since someone has asked - After you download and run AdAware to clean your machine of unwanted items clogging your machine, please consider downloading and installing another Free program - http://www.safer-networking.org - Spybot Search & Destroy 1.2 A donation is requested if you keep the program - but you don't have to if you don't want to. This is considered Free-ware, which means it is free. The advantage this program has over AdAware is that it will innoculate your machine from further downloading of some 150 spyware programs which are quite common. AdAware may complain about this, so if AdAware does, don't delete Spybot based on AdAware's suggestion. The advantage of having both programs is that AdAware catches things that Spybot does not and vice versa. Next topic (Pop-ups). Tim

For all (Macs and PCs): I've been challenged to write in a different style than I've previously done, so please bear with me as I try to adopt a new style. This lesson will attempt to explain what cookies are, the difference between good and bad cookies and how you may wish to handle cookies. When you visit web sites - a sort of electronic handshake takes place. Your computer and the server the web site is hosted on exchange greetings. The server asks your computer who are you and your computer replies. All this goes on behind the scene. In other words you don't see this happening. A cookie is created on your machine when the server hosting the web page you are visiting wishes to leave your computer with an electronic 'thank you for visiting their site' card. This does not happen with all sites. In fact when you turn off your machine some of these cookies disappear for they are good only for the time you are on-line. These are called session cookies. What does a cookie look like? Here is a sample from my cookie bin: flash - 6 - www.hallmark.com/ - 1600 - 3547110016 - 29692304 - 1530318816 - 29618879 - * I've added the dashes between the bits of information stored in the cookie. This basically says I visited the Hallmark site plus some other information that makes sense to the Hallmark server and a programmer somewhere. If you've ever visited a company site once and then returned, you might get a greeting from the server saying 'Hi, Bob' or 'Welcome back, Carol', depending on what your name is. Companies use cookies to identify repeat visitors or to build a portfolio about you and/or your Internet habits. As it is with most things there are good cookies and there are bad cookies. Examples of good cookies - One real example of this is book companies that welcome you back after you've purchased a book, saying 'welcome back, Bob. I see you've purchased a book on fly fishing, perhaps you'd also be interested in looking at books about camping.' or some such message as the web site's server 'learns about you' as you purchase more items from the company. Banks and other institutions with which you exchange financial or credit card numbers use cookies to determine if you are who you say you are when you visit their web sites and logon to your account. Example of bad cookies - As I said previously there are cookies that build a portfolio about you and your Internet habits. Sometimes when you visit a web site, cookies are added to your machine without your knowledge. These cookies then report back to a server somewhere, every site you visit on the Internet until you delete the cookie doing such. Not only are these bad cookies, they are often referred to as Spyware - servers spying on you without your knowledge or consent. I think of these cookies as being the crumbs of the Internet. Here's why. Results of having cookies - If you have a lot of cookies 'crumbs' doing this reporting when you visit your favorite news web site, sports page, genealogy site, whatever - with each cookie doing its own reporting as you move from page to page, you can in fact slow the speed of your machine because it takes bandwidth that you could be using, to send out these reports. On newer, faster machines with fast connections it will take a lot of cookies to create this muck, but on a slower older machine, the effects take hold much quicker. What to do about cookies? There are at least 4 different methods of dealing with cookies. 1 - Slash and Burn - you can open your cookies folder every once in a while by going to the Desktop opening My computer, C: directory, Windows directory, Show files, Cookies OR c:/windows/cookies folder opening it and delete every file there, except the index file (because it won't readily let you do so). The downside of this is that you may delete good cookies in doing so. 2 - A variation of Slash and Burn - where you open each cookie by double clicking on it and determine by what you see, if you want to keep it or delete it. Not too bad unless you have a flock of cookies. The downside of this is that you may not understand what you are looking at and may also delete good cookies. 3 - Change the settings in your browser as to how it handles cookies. Internet Explorer - Tools - Internet Options - Privacy Tab - move slide bar to the comfort level you desire (explanations there to tell you what each setting does). (Mine is set at Medium High) Under Web Sites you can further exclude particular web sites. Netscape Communicater 4.5 (my version) - Edit - Preferences - Advanced - Cookies - (4 choices) - accept all cookies is the default. You can also check the box that says 'warn me before accepting a cookie'. (Mine is set to the default). 4 - Use a program to select out the bad cookies from the good cookies for you. Such a program will ask you when it's finished reviewing your cookie folder if you want to delete said selections - most likely you do. Of the 4 methods described, I have used all 4. For the novice, I highly recommend methods 3 and 4. Method 3 is of course most likely a one time setting whereas method 4 is something one should practice on a regular time schedule. For method 4, I highly recommend that you go to http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ and download Ad-Aware, the free spyware and cookie removal program, for your home computer. This will NOT work for Windows 95 users. After you download and install the program - - Start it up, - click first on the 'check for updates now'. (You will have to be on-line to do this). If there are updates available, they will download and you can then go through a couple of steps to finish that process up. - next select Start. - Select Next. This process is rather fast. Most likely you'll be amazed, if you have any cookies at all, just how much junk it will find on your system. When the test is done a little spider looking creature starts blinking on your screen. My test lasted about 5 minutes while it checked 73,000 files. It found 13 instances. - Select Next - this shows the results of the scan. Who the vendor/company is that placed the cookie on your machine, what type, category it is, and the location of the cookie on your machine. - Sometimes the boxes to the left have check marks in them, indicating that they will be deleted when one selects 'Next' sometimes it doesn't. When it is the later you will have to click each box and put the check mark in the box on the far left. - Select Next - a box appears asking you if you wish to delete the objects found. - Select OK. - Close program. At this point it wouldn't hurt to reboot your machine for a good clean start after removing the muck. After you've run this a few times, you'll begin to recognize familiar places that create spyware / cookies on your machine. Unless you really restrict your machine with method 3, most likely it's best to continue to use such a program as AdAware to keep your machine clean or these bad cookies or spyware. For further reading on this subject I also recommend the following site which gives information for specific browsers and how to change their settings for cookies (under How to Control Cookies). This site goes into even more detail regarding cookies. It is a British site. http://www.aboutcookies.org/cookiefaq.html Feedback welcome. Tim

FYI: GENDEX -- WWW Genealogical Index NOTICE: After operating for eight years (since March, 1996) GENDEX will be terminating its genealogy operations on April 22, 2004. All genealogy data will be removed from the system at that time. Thanks for your support for the past eight years! -- Gene Stark

mannannan wrote: > > First, while the magazine that the clippings are from no longer > exists, it is possible that the corporate entity that PUBLISHED the > magazine does still exist. And the corporate entity would be the one > to actually own the copyright. Exactly. Or as I mentioned, that they were bought out by someone else, so that *another* paper now holds copyright. > > Second, has the copyright been renewed or is it otherwise owned by > anyone else? A copyright is tangible - it has value. > > You may find that the answer to your question is that the copyright > is still valid, however, there is no one with an interest in > enforcing that copyright. *sigh* I know. I hate to turn someone down who has something to offer for the website, but I don't want to run crosswise of copyright. And trying to find who might own it, if it is owned, and if they mind if we scan and post clippings of local interest on a county site is not necessarily an easy job. And I don't have the time to try to track down elusive copyright owners either -- if I had that sort of time, I wouldn't have some of my counties up for adoption. *double-sigh* Thanks for your responses. :-) ~Lee ---------- Original Message ----------- > From: "L. S. King" <GenealogyFreak@comcast.net> > To: NDGENWEB-L@rootsweb.com > Sent: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 18:39:28 -0500 > Subject: [NDGENWEB-L] defunct newspaper -- copyright? > >> Greetings all! >> >> I have a question and thought I'd ask here. >> A person has asked if they can give me clippings from an old >> newspaper that >> (as far as I've been able to find out) doesn't exist anymore. He >> doesn't have the means to scan them, sooooo he wants to just send >> them to me. The clippings are from 1927 to 1940. If the newspaper >> doesn't exist, is the copyright still in place? >> >> And -- if the newspaper doesn't exist, is there anyway to find out >> if they were bought out without writing to every newspaper in ND? I >> really don't want to take a chance on copyright infringement... >> >> ~Lee > ------- End of Original Message -------

You might try contacting the North Dakota Genealogical Society, who may know the answer to this question. I have the President's email address in my home directory, if you need it. > Lee, > > The answer to your question revolves on several different questions. > > First, while the magazine that the clippings are from no longer exists, it > is > possible that the corporate entity that PUBLISHED the magazine does still > exist. And the corporate entity would be the one to actually own the > copyright. > > Second, has the copyright been renewed or is it otherwise owned by anyone > else? A copyright is tangible - it has value. > > You may find that the answer to your question is that the copyright is > still > valid, however, there is no one with an interest in enforcing that > copyright. > > Richard > ---------- Original Message ----------- > From: "L. S. King" <GenealogyFreak@comcast.net> > To: NDGENWEB-L@rootsweb.com > Sent: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 18:39:28 -0500 > Subject: [NDGENWEB-L] defunct newspaper -- copyright? > >> Greetings all! >> >> I have a question and thought I'd ask here. >> A person has asked if they can give me clippings from an old >> newspaper that >> (as far as I've been able to find out) doesn't exist anymore. He >> doesn't have the means to scan them, sooooo he wants to just send >> them to me. The clippings are from 1927 to 1940. If the newspaper >> doesn't exist, is the copyright still in place? >> >> And -- if the newspaper doesn't exist, is there anyway to find out >> if they were bought out without writing to every newspaper in ND? I >> really don't want to take a chance on copyright infringement... ------------------------------------------------------via webmail---- Tim Stowell tstowell@chattanooga.net

Lee, The answer to your question revolves on several different questions. First, while the magazine that the clippings are from no longer exists, it is possible that the corporate entity that PUBLISHED the magazine does still exist. And the corporate entity would be the one to actually own the copyright. Second, has the copyright been renewed or is it otherwise owned by anyone else? A copyright is tangible - it has value. You may find that the answer to your question is that the copyright is still valid, however, there is no one with an interest in enforcing that copyright. Richard ---------- Original Message ----------- From: "L. S. King" <GenealogyFreak@comcast.net> To: NDGENWEB-L@rootsweb.com Sent: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 18:39:28 -0500 Subject: [NDGENWEB-L] defunct newspaper -- copyright? > Greetings all! > > I have a question and thought I'd ask here. > A person has asked if they can give me clippings from an old > newspaper that > (as far as I've been able to find out) doesn't exist anymore. He > doesn't have the means to scan them, sooooo he wants to just send > them to me. The clippings are from 1927 to 1940. If the newspaper > doesn't exist, is the copyright still in place? > > And -- if the newspaper doesn't exist, is there anyway to find out > if they were bought out without writing to every newspaper in ND? I > really don't want to take a chance on copyright infringement... > > ~Lee ------- End of Original Message -------

> Up for adoption: > > Emmons > Grant > Griggs > La Moure Whoops! Grant *is* up for adoption, but it isn't mine -- take one of mine first! <g> ~Lee

BTW, thought I'd remind everyone that several of my counties are up for adoption. ND isn't busy, so just one more county would be easy to absorb, right? <g> Up for adoption: Emmons Grant Griggs La Moure Thanks! ~Lee

Greetings all! I have a question and thought I'd ask here. A person has asked if they can give me clippings from an old newspaper that (as far as I've been able to find out) doesn't exist anymore. He doesn't have the means to scan them, sooooo he wants to just send them to me. The clippings are from 1927 to 1940. If the newspaper doesn't exist, is the copyright still in place? And -- if the newspaper doesn't exist, is there anyway to find out if they were bought out without writing to every newspaper in ND? I really don't want to take a chance on copyright infringement... ~Lee

Once again Microsoft and/or Netscape in this instance thought they knew what was best for every user, made assumptions and have plagued users with lots of wasted space on their hard drives - space that users would much rather use for data or operating space. The item I'm referencing here is the cache file on your browser. When you visit a site on the Internet, where graphics (pictures), banners, any non-text item is located, your browser makes a temporary copy of each of those items on the premise that you've visited this site once, you may visit it again. This is done so that the next time you visit the site, your computer can load from memory any graphics on the page, thus allowing the page to be viewable more quickly than the first time you visited the page/site for your computer won't have to download all the graphics again. But what, you might ask, if I never ever visit the page again? It doesn't matter, the computer still sits and holds all the graphics from the page. Now the cache on your browser, works a bit like your recycle bin (an item I forgot to mention in lesson 1), in that once it gets full, it will remove items that are the oldest in the stack of files. If however, like your recycle bin it is large - items could sit there a long time, never used again, occupying space you'd rather use elsewhere. In older computers and operating systems with smaller hard drives these caches were very small, only about 5 Megs. With newer systems such as those I'm currently setting up at work - with hard drives 40 Gigs in size, this cache is automatically set at 1.8 Gigs (just for these temporary files, I may never need!). At work I use a standard 15 megs for everyone, even heavy surfers, for most people either site hop, rarely viewing the same sites twice or visit just a few sites all the time. Either way there really is no practical need for a cache much bigger than that for in the case of the former - sites rarely visited twice, the cache would be in constant flux anyway and in the case of the latter even 15 Megs is probably too large, for that's a lot of files. I'll confess I haven't kept up with Netscape as much lately as Internet Explorer has dominated the market. However, as I write this, I'm also reminded that there are yet other browsers that folks use, which this will also apply to such as Opera and Mozilla. I'm only letting you how to change the size of the cache for Netscape/Communicator and Internet Explorer, leaving it to you to find this setting on any other browser you may use. In Netscape - Edit, Preferences, Advanced, Cache - there's memory cache and disk cache here. Mine were set at 1024k (1 Meg) and 7680k (7.6 Megs) respectively. Memory cache is how much of the computer's memory is used to capture pages on a very temporary setting. The disk cache is the one I've been referring to, so I'm lowering mine in this instance to 5000K since I so rarely use Netscape. For Internet Explorer - Tools, Internet Options, in the middle of the box displayed - Temporary Internet Files, Settings, Amount of Disk Space to use - if lower than 15 Megs, probably leave it as it is, if more than 15 Megs - set to 15 Megs or whatever you so desire - remembering that this space is reserved for the browser. Another setting here that will also affect performance, but not as much as the cache is concerned - history. How long do you want your computer to keep a record of your visit to a particular site? The default is about 30 days, some have less, some like myself much more. The limits are 0 days and 999 days. If you never wish to see where you've been, set it to zero otherwise leave it alone or make it larger as you wish. The more sites you visit and the more time you keep them, will increase the amount of space required to keep said history. It's not much but then, like dust bunnies under the bed, a little here and a little there and pretty soon.... ============== For those who are writing me with questions - these are going into a question box which I will address either individually or at large as I work through this series of lessons. Tim

Microsoft engineers in all their wisdom, or perhaps Bill Gates, have made some assumptions about the users of computers and have thus created their own set of standards as to what the original settings or default settings of a particular piece of software would have. In the past, they were extremely conservative and made some statements and decisions that have come to haunt them and plague us. In the here and now - starting with Windows 95 - and perhaps in Windows 3.0 or 3.11 - they went the other direction and have become very liberal with settings which can be tweaked by the end user, which will give their computer better performance with little downside effects. Several of these are rather simple and hopefully I can explain it so that you can understand how to do this. Such an item is one's Recycle Bin - the little trash can sitting on the desktop - screen one sees when Windows opens. The default setting for the size of the Recycle Bin is 10% of your hard drive. That means that if you have a hard drive that has a capacity of 1 Gigabyte - 100 megs is set aside, just for trash - that you 'may' toss there. By decreasing the size of the Recycle Bin to say 1% - 10 megs on a 1 Gigabyte hard drive, one frees up 9% of one's hard drive or 90 megs which are then available for you to either use to put other files on, or leave empty. Either way you win. If your hard drive is even larger and basic systems now come with 40 Gigs, then the Recycle Bin becomes huge (4 Gigs) and the wasted space enormous (3.6 Gigs)! To modify the size of your Recycle Bin, click on the Recycle Bin, right click and select properties from the selection menu. You may show more than one drive listed there - but you want to use the Global setting - ie a 1% setting for all drives - so make sure the selection you are moving the bar on, says 'Global', if you have more than one hard drive. You should see a bar graph in the middle of the part that opens - with a slide mechanism pointing to 10%. Grab the mechanism with your mouse and move it to the left until it reads 1%. Then select OK, and you are done. Feedback on the clarity or lack thereof appreciated. Tim

I think it only fair that I further introduce myself for some of you don't know that much about me, where I'm coming from with the PC Tips, and how I hope this develops. Some have asked what my charge is for doing this. There is not a charge in monetary terms. If you find these tips to be helpful, please feel free to pass them along to others, knowing that in doing so you've helped not only the ones you send them to, but have thanked me in the process, and have a nice feeling for yourselves as well in assisting others. Others may ask, so what's the catch? There is none - only taking the time to read and try the items presented. I'm not running for any office so I won't be back asking for your vote nor will I accept any monetary compensation for this service. In my life I've found that I receive great pleasure in assisting others whether it be through teaching, pointing them to another person that may be able to assist them or placing materials on-line that may be viewed at one's leisure that may assist them in their research. I've done the latter two now for the last 7 1/2 years. A sample of the web pages I've done, do or am working on - http://www.rootsweb.com/~gacoweta/sites/ Prior to that I taught fellow co-workers, for 10 years in a corporate setting in Atlanta, how to go from a paper environment of records keeping to a computerized one - solving problems, teaching new persons who had never seen the paper version of the work, to do the same work. Since coming to where I now live, having been caught in the company down sizing in 1989, I went back to school for a 2 year associate's degree in computer programming. While I did use that degree to some extent since graduation, my skills lie more in the analytical area of computers, in other words figuring out problems. To that end for the last 9 years I've worked at a private boys college prep school, grades 6-12, running the help desk. This entails working directly keeping 450 computers, associated printers, audio/visual items up and running and serving the needs of 1100 users. During that time I've acquired a fairly good scope of PC Tips which I'd like to share with you good folks. I'm constantly reading and learning. The tips/lessons I give will be things I've tried, know that they work, are free or mostly free. If items are not free - I'll indicate it as such. Back in September of last year, I did a test mailing to a list I host for genealogical researchers with ties to central New York state. I asked if folks might benefit from a few simple tips to keep their PCs in tip top shape - at the best possible price - free. I've been asked by several if this would cover Apple computers or Web TV. Since Web TV has no hard drive associated with it and the fact that I have near zero knowledge of that system, I don't know if any of these tips will help folks who have such a system to access the Internet. While I have used Macs and do have a few ideas on helping them as well, since they are nearly perfect as it is...this will be geared mostly to Windows 95, 98, 2000, ME, XP users since all these editions of Windows have several characteristics in common. However, since there are programs that both Apples and PCs run, some tips will apply to both. In giving my instructions, I'll try to write in clear enough language so that my Father, 79, who has had nearly zero computer time could understand and/or follow my directions. Since you are all obviously on the Internet to receive this message, I'm going to start with some basic assumptions, which I believe to be mostly true - that each of you know some of the basic commands of getting around on your computer, know what is meant when I speak of the desktop (the screen with the icons on it). In thinking this afternoon about this, since some have asked about Apples, I'll try to put a little blurb that will up front let you know if this applies to Apple or Windows or both. If you have questions about the tips / lessons please feel free to write me inquiring about them, please include the Tips Lesson number you are referencing, which will assist me in sorting the mail by lesson feedback. If you have questions not contained in the first few tips, please send them to me, which I will either answer directly to you or via another tips letter if it appears to be a general interest item. I do not claim to have every answer that concerns the inner workings of PCs or their software for each week in my job I find new challenges, things I've never seen before. Now on to the tips/lessons. Tim

At 04:50 PM 1/28/04 -0700, the NC wrote: >You will all soon receive a copy of a newsletter I have put together for >USGenWeb. The best way to distribute it would be via the Membership List >that the EC is preparing and which will be ready February 1. > >May I please hear a motion to authorize the use of the USGenWeb Project >Mailing List for distribution of the USGenWeb Project Newsletter. Is this now going to be the USGenWeb SPAM list? Suppose members after seeing this - decide they don't want to see it anymore - will they have the option of opting out or will this be force fed to them? How about instead - being 21st century and putting it on a web site where those who wish to see it can, and those that don't want to be bothered can ignore it? Tim Stowell

If you get any unexpected files with a .zip, .scr, .exe, .bat, .pif extension - delete them and their attachments for opening the attachments lets the virus loose. To read more on this - http://www.f-prot.com/news/vir_alert/mydoom_a.html http://www.internetwk.com/breakingNews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=17501264 The file is 30K in size. Compressed it is 23K, regular size a bit larger than 30K. ------------------------------------------------------via webmail---- Tim Stowell tstowell@chattanooga.net

The latest round of virii is out and about - It comes as a 30K file - with a .scr, .exe, .pif, .bat - etc. extension. Subject lines are Hi, Returned mail to user, test, etc. Sender may appear to be someone you know - If it shows a Rootsweb list name in the subject line - it didn't come from the list, for Rootsweb doesn't allow attachments. Please for the safety of your PC, make sure your virii definitions are up to date on your virus program - and/or prescreen you mail, if you can. You may get irate notes from folks saying you sent them the virus - but since this one spoofs the sender - point them to a site like Norton where they can read about it. My mailbox was rife with them this evening. Tim

A couple of months ago I gave a couple of PC lessons on a county list that I host. If there is no objection I'd like to do the same here - not that many - but some things folks may not know about their computers that will help them run better. Tim